Off-the-Cuff Smörgåsbord

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Hello and welcome to Learn Make Learn where we share qualitative and quantitative perspectives on products to help you make better.
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My name is Ernest Kim, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Joachim Groeger.
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Hey, Joachim.
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How's it going?
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I am.
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Well, I think we're both guilty of having hit record in what, I dunno, three, four months now.
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I feel, I feel bad, but I also feel good that we're back.
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So mixed mixture of feelings.
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Yeah.
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Yep, I think you're right.
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Uh, well, this is episode 27, our second episode of 2025.
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Uh, and, uh, given that we're recording this on June 15th, it tells you just how.
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Un prolific we've been this year and our sincere apologies for that.
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But, uh, we are back and we're gonna do our best to exceed our current rate of production, of about an episode per quarter.
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on that, with just about three months having passed since our last episode, we thought it might be best to ease back into the swing of things with an off the cuff conversation.
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Uh, and um, as Joachim and I were, uh, talking through sort of the mix of topics we were interested in talking about today, Joachim offered up the title of Off the Cuff Smorgasbord, which seemed quite fitting.
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It, it just rolls off the tongue, that's why.
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So I think we're gonna run with that and, uh, just kind of talk about a, a mix of things.
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But first, I guess, how have you been?
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Ooh.
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It's been a busy time, I have to say, and the world has been getting crazier.
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So I feel, I feel like we've always been able to have a, I don't wanna call it a partitioning, like we've allowed the influences of the outside world and reality of the state of the world to, to bleed into things that we talk about.
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But we always focus very much on things.
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But I feel like it's gonna get harder to those things out,
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All right.
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So I feel like there are little things that are happening in, in industry, in products, and they reflect a bigger thing and an even bigger thing.
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What about you, Ernest?
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I mean, yeah.
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What about you?
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How is it or everything?
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Oh, you know, uh, I guess I'd say I can't complain.
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Um, I think absolutely I feel the same.
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It's, it's very, it's, um, to the point now where it's impossible to separate things that are happening in the world with the sorts of things that we, um, usually talk about.
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And I think that's gonna come across as we, um, kind of continue on with our topics.
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This episode.
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Uh, one thing I've done started, that's helped me I guess, a bit with managing some of this, is that I've, um, taken up running again after a very long hiatus from the sport.
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And that's, um, been very helpful for me.
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Uh, and there's a, a few reasons why I stopped running for, gosh, it's been almost 20 years.
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Whoa.
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Okay.
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Like that's a real absence.
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My
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Yeah.
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Uh, and then a few reasons why I've come back to it, but, um, uh, it's, it's been great and it's part of the reason why it's been, um, challenging to, to find time to record as well, because it can be pretty time consuming.
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Running is one of those things that I guess you only really get the full benefit of.
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That run's high when you start hitting those longer times, right?
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Like it has to, you have to get past at least 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 15 minutes to really get where people get into the runner's side.
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Right?
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runner's high once, and that's like 15 years ago or something like that, and I never got it back again.
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It was such a rare, it was the one time I was running, I ran an hour and then I thought, oh my God, I could go another 30 minutes.
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And so I did and, and then never again.
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Never again.
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That was it one time.
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Once was enough.
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Yeah, I think that was it.
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My body said, you've, you've experienced it now.
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Now get on with your life.
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Um, well in terms of our discussion, how about we start with watches?
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Uh, in our last episode, uh, in which we discussed AI nonsense as we titled it, uh, amongst a few other topics, we promised that we would devote a future episode to the annual Watches and Wonders trade show that took place in Geneva in early May.
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And so this seemed like, uh, as good a time as any to deliver on that promise.
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Um, Joachim, did any of the news outta Geneva catch your interest?
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Yeah, I was, we, we discussed the last episode.
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We said, oh, why don't we do a, a whole episode about watches and wonders?
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so I started thinking about.
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The whole thing in general, like watches luxury items.
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and I tried to formulate a big thesis about is, what does the current state of watches and wonders tell us about the state of the world., And I really couldn't, I couldn't figure anything out, to be honest.
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I kept coming back this book called Cosmos by Don Dlo, um, which is from the early two thousands.
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Um, so the book is interesting because it's about this incredibly wealthy, we think quantitative trader who's made billions of dollars.
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the, the setup of the story is that he's riding in his limo to get to a haircut.
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That's what he wants to do, and he has to cut through Manhattan to do that.
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Um, but along the way, you know, people from his world and his company hop into the car and have conversations with him, He has a, I think it's his philosopher in residence that he calls his chief of theory, which I just, number one, the, to me, that's the job I want.
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I just want chief of theory, you know, that's so good.
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But, um, she's basically his philosopher in residence and challenges him in all kinds of things and.
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this section in it that just sticks in my head every time I think about watches and wonder.
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I'll read a little bit of it.
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It's, it's quite a little bit of an extended sequence, but basically she hops into the car and she starts challenging the main character, Eric, about his consumption habits.
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Um, and so she starts off with all wealth has become wealth for its own sake.
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There is no other kind of enormous wealth.
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Money has lost its narrative quality the way painting did once upon a time.
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Money is talking to itself.
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And property follows.
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Of course, the concept of property is changing day by day.
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The enormous expenditures that people make for land and houses and boats and planes.
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This has nothing to do with traditional self assurances.
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Okay?
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Property is no longer about power, personality, and command.
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It's not about vulgar display or tasteful display because it no longer has weight or shape.
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The only thing that matters is the price you pay.
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So I, that just always stuck with you.
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She starts challenging him, the main character about like, you bought these things, not because they're good or because they're bad, but because of the price tag.
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And I feel like that is, as I was looking at stuff from watches and wonders, I was really having trouble getting excited about stuff, you know?
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So we all know that watches are already ridiculous anyway, but it feels like the, the distribution of the price points has shifted up again and.
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The section of the, uh, the watch market that is more mid-tier.
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And now mid-tier is like over 10 K, right?
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There's nothing, there's nothing below 10 K anymore.
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Everything starts at 10 K
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Right.
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and then the, the next tier is like 19 K.
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got very hard for me to get excited, I think.
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Um, yes, there were some technical innovations.
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Rolex released the land dweller.
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Is that the name?
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Is
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Yes.
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I forgot.
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Yeah, so Rolex released the land dweller, which has a new escapement in it.
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Very fancy, very nice.
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I mean, truly does it matter?
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Like we don't wear these things for the quality of the timekeeping.
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We wear them for some other reason.
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we also got new IWCs, engineers, which I was so excited to see.
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I was so excited to see all black watches and they had these ceramic all black engineers that were on display.
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It looked incredible.
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starting price.
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I mean, I don't get it.
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Like what is going on?
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So I, I come back to that piece, which is like, we're just, the watch world is compressing its price distributions to be higher and higher catering to an ever more elite clientele.
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uh, you know what comes of it?
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I don't know.
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The one positive side that I see though, and I've been trying to like, about these things, about wealth distributions being very skewed and very unequal.
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Inequality per se is not a problem.
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But it's the extent and the extreme, this degree of inequality that's so crazy now.
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I had a conversation with, my wife, we were talking about, I always love saying this because it's very controversial.
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I say, well, you should tax the wealth away.
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Compress the income distribution so that things get a little less crazy.
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then you take the money that has been taxed and you just burn it.
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Just set fire to it, you know, because it's too tempting for governments to have that money because they'll do dodgy things.
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It's just, just too much temptation in the system.
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And then my wife counted with, well, you know, buying watches is kind of like that, isn't it?
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And I thought, yeah, actually it really is.
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Like, it's such a stupid expense.
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And when you see the UR meals that cost, you know, a million dollars, you go, that's actually, yes.
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Buy more of those, burn your money on that because the negative consequences for the rest of the world are very, very limited.
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But they does, it does erode your wealth, you know, quite quickly if you buy a few million of those, you'll be done.
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So, from that perspective, maybe the watch industry unwittingly is providing us with a wealth tax of some kind and maybe things will be better.
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I don't know.
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But kind of where I was coming.
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So I, I know we would, normally, we talk about the specific watches, but I was finding it very difficult to get excited and, maybe that is part of like the reality of the world creeping in to something that is so, um, you know, watches and wonders appearing in the middle of 2025 when so many terrible things are happening.
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It's quite interest.
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Interesting.
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It was a interesting to see the influences go on about.
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Watches as if nothing else was really going on in the world, you know?
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So, yeah.
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What's your take on this?
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Is yours more focused on the specific launches that got you motivated or were you seeing a kind of dissonance with, with what they were doing and where the world was at?
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I had a similar reaction and I actually think, um, the show was affected in that, if I remember right, the tariffs, the.
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Trump terrorists were announced either the day before or the day that the show started.
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Yeah.
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So, um, it cast the pall on the, the show as a whole.
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It was, you know, certainly a, a huge topic of conversation there from what I've heard.
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And then obviously, uh, amongst those, watching it from, um, the outside as well.
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But one quick thing, the, um, that kind of excerpt from Cosmopolis that you mentioned and kind of your follow up, uh, thought about just burning the ex excess capital, it, it brought to mind, uh, this amazing.
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Interview I read a while back, uh, it was of, uh, the interview was of, uh, an academic and author named W David Marks, and it was conducted by Derek Guy.
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Marks is an American academic and author who's been based in Tokyo for over a decade now.
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His primary focus is the intersection of fashion and culture and with a particular focus on men's wear.
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And Derek Guy is a Canadian American writer who also focuses on men's wear and is probably better known as his online norm de plume, which is die work wear.
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He's, uh, uses that same handle on, uh, x and, uh, threads and, um, you know, all over.
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And so, um, this interview was published in 2023 on a menswear focused website called, put This on.
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And we'll, we'll share a link to the interview as well, but I, I'll just share one quick excerpt, which is related to what you were just talking about.
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So, uh, uh, Derek Guy asks this question, he says.
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Work wear was historically associated with low status groups such as day laborers, not old money elites.
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Why would people in the professional class try to adopt the cultural aesthetic of day laborers, which in your rubric are labeled as having low status?
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And so Marx replies with the following.
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This is one of the reasons why we have to be careful with how we think about status.
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200 years ago, high status just meant wealth.
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The 20th century is interesting because we started to romanticize low status groups that didn't have much material wealth, but seemed to be authentic.
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Quote unquote, elites used the styles from and knowledge about marginalized groups to elevate their own status position in society.
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This also happened with work wear, but it's important to recognize that the aesthetic is always based in the wardrobe of an idealized laborer from a previous economic era.
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People are rarely copying the actual work clothes used today in society.
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Fashion, fetishizes, industrial labor at a time when service jobs are ascendant and industrial labor is in decline, end of quote.
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So I thought that was a really interesting observation.
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Um, and kind of offers a little bit of a framework on how to interpret some of these things we're seeing where, you know, um, this, uh, kind of reemergence of watches, um, as being maybe, uh, an expression of this fetishization of this previous era, this sort of idealized era.
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Right.
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which I think is just such an interesting thing because this whole work war thing is so interesting to me as well.
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Like, why are
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yeah.
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rich people adopting work wear?
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Just seems so.
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Yeah,
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And we, and also like military garb, all these things kind of persist in this funny way.
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right.
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Uh, but you know, as he observes, it's always of this previous time, you know, they're not celebrating the workers of today,
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that's right.
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right?
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It's always of this previous kind of rosier time, I guess.
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Um, and, and it just, it, it made me think about is that the same role that watches are playing,
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Hmm.
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in this time?
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Um, and you know, it does tally with the fact that the most popular watches are tool watches,
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Yes.
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right?
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Quote unquote tool watches, which, you know,
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Yeah,
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how much can a$10,000 watch be a tool watch?
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Um, so that's a bit, bit of a tangent, but I, I, overall, I came away with a very similar sort of feeling of, um.
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You know, not, not being able to be particularly excited about anything that came out of the show with one exception.
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Um, and that was from Nomos, my, probably my favorite brand.
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Um, and it's because it, they really do go against what you talked about, this trend towards everything just getting so expensive, you know, you know, mid-market being now$10,000, but they introduced a watch called the, uh, Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer.
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And, um, you know, this is insane to say that this is an, a reasonably priced watch, but it retails for, uh,$4,720 us.
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But that is, you know, in this world actually a pretty reasonable offering for what it's doing.
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So, um, again, and also here too, a lot of people argue that it's not truly a worldtimer and, you know, whatever.
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What is it about World Timer watches?
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There's something about World timer watches where everyone has an opinion about how this is not really a world timer watch,
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Yeah,
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keep track of two time zones, blah, blah, blah.
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Anyway,
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yeah.
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about this complication that gets people very motivated, and I don't very, is a beautiful watch though, but, sorry.
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You should continue on this.
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no, no.
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But so, you know, it's great is that it's, it's a watch that, uh, enables you to track time across multiple time zones very easily.
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Uh, nomos has offered world time and multi-time zone watches for many years now.
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Yeah.
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But what's different about this one is that it does come in a much more sporty form factor.
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Historically, their world time watches have been a little bit more dressy.
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Their, uh, Zurich, uh, Weltzeit has been kind of the best known of their world timers when it's a very dressy sort of watch.
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Beautiful, but very dressy.
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So this one is much more sport sporty.
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Uh, the, the new, uh, club sport is, as the name suggests, their sport is model line.
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And what's really interesting is that one of the.
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Uh, most common critiques of nomos is that this measurement that watch geeks called lug to lug, which is to say just the distance between the top end of the lugs.
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Uh, you know, if you're looking at your watch, the very top of the, you know, the arms of the watch and then to the very bottom of the arms of the watch, um, that total length measurement, nomos watches tend to be quite long in that measurement.
00:17:55.640 --> 00:18:01.220
Uh, but in this case, they, um, significantly reduced that lu to lug.
00:18:01.220 --> 00:18:09.336
So the, the, diameter is 40 millimeters, which is quite small for this sort of, uh, a complication, the world timer.
00:18:09.695 --> 00:18:20.346
And then that lug to lug measurement is 48 millimeters, which is very reasonable for the size of the watch and actually quite a bit shorter than all of the other incarnations of the.
00:18:20.736 --> 00:18:22.506
Club sport in this size.
00:18:22.955 --> 00:18:26.465
So they seem to have taken that critique to heart, uh, Nomos.
00:18:26.796 --> 00:18:31.326
And it's also only 9.9 millimeters thick, which is very, very thin
00:18:31.517 --> 00:18:31.636
Yeah.
00:18:31.746 --> 00:18:33.096
for this complication.
00:18:33.096 --> 00:18:39.276
So, um, I just, it, well, and then beyond all the numbers, it's also just really fun.
00:18:39.276 --> 00:18:42.155
The way it's executed is very fun and playful.
00:18:42.516 --> 00:18:44.615
It's, uh, offered in two.
00:18:45.260 --> 00:18:50.391
Colorways, I guess you might call it, um, that are part of the kind of permanent collection.
00:18:50.871 --> 00:18:52.401
Uh, and they're both very nice.
00:18:52.401 --> 00:18:59.570
But in addition to those two, um, standard colorways, nomos offered six limited edition colorways.
00:19:00.080 --> 00:19:08.480
What's great is that they're not, uh, upcharged, they're the same price and there're these just really fun combinations of colors.
00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:14.721
There's this really vibrant yellow, an orange, a red, um, a very nice subdued blue.
00:19:14.721 --> 00:19:23.300
So, um, really having fun and offering something that's really fun and at, you know, again, in this world, an accessible price point.
00:19:23.300 --> 00:19:34.941
So that's the one watch that really stood out to me as, um, kind of standing apart from, you know, a lot of the other things that you mentioned, which were all very much, uh, in this higher price point.
00:19:35.368 --> 00:19:46.409
I don't know if I mentioned this, but, um, nomos has it, it can be a little bit difficult to find in person in the US in, in Germany, the, the top selling watch brand.
00:19:46.409 --> 00:19:50.098
But, um, in the US they're not quite as widely distributed.
00:19:50.128 --> 00:19:54.989
Uh, but they recently opened up, um, a showroom in New York.
00:19:55.709 --> 00:20:02.939
And, uh, when I was, it, it just, I think they had opened it up like just a week or two before I was in New York, late last year.
00:20:03.598 --> 00:20:11.489
And, um, you have to make an appointment, but, uh, it's, it's very straightforward and I was able to visit and it was just such a great experience.
00:20:11.489 --> 00:20:13.469
Like, to your point of knowing who they are,
00:20:13.849 --> 00:20:14.140
Yeah.
00:20:15.058 --> 00:20:17.788
everything about the experience was true to the brand.
00:20:17.788 --> 00:20:19.288
It was very accessible.
00:20:19.709 --> 00:20:21.689
The staff were so friendly.
00:20:21.749 --> 00:20:25.679
They, you know, really encouraged me to try everything on, you know,
00:20:26.109 --> 00:20:26.400
Nice.
00:20:26.578 --> 00:20:31.469
there was no sense of, um, you know, needing to buy anything.
00:20:32.098 --> 00:20:36.388
Uh, and this was just before the Christmas holidays and.
00:20:37.003 --> 00:20:44.443
They, um, uh, sent me home with like a bunch of really cool little, little knickknacks gifts.
00:20:44.503 --> 00:20:48.044
Uh, you know, there was a catalog and their catalogs are really beautiful.
00:20:48.269 --> 00:20:48.559
Yeah.
00:20:48.824 --> 00:20:52.993
uh, there was this really fantastic little like, um, what do you call it?
00:20:52.993 --> 00:20:53.354
I forget.
00:20:53.354 --> 00:21:03.374
It's like those old classic toys where you would look in into a, uh, a device and you'd see an image, you know, you'd have to put it up against the light,
00:21:03.505 --> 00:21:03.835
Mm-hmm.
00:21:03.854 --> 00:21:07.364
and then you could kind of hit a button and it would switch between a bunch of different images.
00:21:07.615 --> 00:21:08.275
Oh, I know what you mean.
00:21:08.368 --> 00:21:09.719
Yeah, I forgot what that's called.
00:21:09.719 --> 00:21:20.249
But, uh, it, it was in the form of an old fashioned tv and the images were all images of, uh, the nomos, um, manufacture in, uh, Glashutte.
00:21:20.724 --> 00:21:21.265
Oh, very
00:21:21.659 --> 00:21:21.959
yeah.
00:21:21.959 --> 00:21:23.818
And, you know, little things like that.
00:21:23.818 --> 00:21:26.038
It was just such a awesome experience.
00:21:26.068 --> 00:21:33.269
Um, so yeah, I, I absolutely agree that I feel like they're, they're a brand who really understands who they are, but also understands the moment.
00:21:33.898 --> 00:21:36.269
Um, one last thing I'll mention.
00:21:36.269 --> 00:21:46.499
I think a brand that really missed the moment, I think too is Tag Heuer, they, uh, re-released their F1 collection of watches.
00:21:46.555 --> 00:21:47.005
that's right.
00:21:47.005 --> 00:21:47.275
Yeah.
00:21:47.429 --> 00:21:57.419
And, uh, for people who aren't necessarily watch nerds, like, I don't remember when this, the original F1 collection came to market, but it was like, you know, decades ago,
00:21:57.664 --> 00:21:57.904
Yeah.
00:21:58.199 --> 00:22:04.769
they were really cheap and cheerful watches, you know, like kind of like the equivalent of a GShock back then.
00:22:04.769 --> 00:22:05.669
There were analog.
00:22:06.128 --> 00:22:14.858
But, uh, quartz based plastic cases, really fun, super colorful watches, and, you know, very, very affordable.
00:22:14.888 --> 00:22:18.909
Um, you know, even back then would've been very affordable.
00:22:18.909 --> 00:22:23.229
I forget, you know, off the top of my head what the prices were, but they were meant to be cheap and cheerful.
00:22:23.414 --> 00:22:23.704
Yeah.
00:22:23.709 --> 00:22:30.308
And, you know, there, you know, has been this sort of cult following for them, uh, that's built over the years.
00:22:30.308 --> 00:22:35.709
And so a lot of people were very excited that TAG was bringing them back and so they introduced them.
00:22:35.709 --> 00:22:50.528
But I think when people saw the price tag, which is I think, uh, 1900 US for Quartz powered watches, it just, all the air went out of the room, you know, because it was just like, man, you guys totally missed the moment here.
00:22:51.144 --> 00:22:51.775
Exactly.
00:22:52.075 --> 00:22:52.525
Well.
00:22:52.839 --> 00:23:05.289
So let's go from watches to something that I think you're a lot more excited about, Joachim, which was the surprise reveal of a new American car maker called Slate Auto, that happened just about a month ago.
00:23:05.380 --> 00:23:08.109
Um, can you talk about Slate and what has you so excited about it?
00:23:09.020 --> 00:23:12.500
Yeah, I mean, they just snuck out of nowhere.
00:23:12.500 --> 00:23:15.141
They've been operating in stealth mode for a while it feels like.
00:23:15.141 --> 00:23:28.161
But I guess if you had, maybe if you were attention to automotive, uh, trends and industry news, I mean, maybe you would've realized to these people, the people who've made this company are known, they've been in the industry before.
00:23:28.161 --> 00:23:32.090
Some have been like head of designs at Volvo, so there's pedigree at this company.
00:23:32.391 --> 00:23:36.080
It's Bezos backed, which made me kind of not so happy.
00:23:36.080 --> 00:23:41.300
But anyway, the point is these, the product is something quite interesting.
00:23:41.300 --> 00:23:41.510
So.
00:23:42.486 --> 00:23:54.155
If the federal incentives for electric cars remain in place, this will be an electric car that will cost under$20,000, is, you know, unbelievable nowadays.
00:23:54.155 --> 00:23:56.766
Like everything is just going crazy price wise.
00:23:57.395 --> 00:24:05.346
And so, they've managed to do a lot of, make, made a lot of clever choices here to get the price point to be that level.
00:24:06.306 --> 00:24:07.895
So it is just a pickup truck.
00:24:08.316 --> 00:24:09.455
It's not super big.
00:24:10.326 --> 00:24:13.925
Um, and it has a couple of tricks up its sleeve.
00:24:14.105 --> 00:24:19.986
It's so you can change the shape of this little pickup truck.
00:24:21.066 --> 00:24:31.385
it can be turned into a small SUV, or just a, like a, like a Range Rover style, SUV with like a hatchback feel to it.
00:24:31.385 --> 00:24:32.945
Or it can look like an old fashioned jeep.
00:24:32.945 --> 00:24:36.756
It's, it has this very retro feel to it very clever.
00:24:38.675 --> 00:24:38.945
but.
00:24:39.260 --> 00:24:42.800
Then there are a couple of other choices that I thought were really, really interesting.
00:24:42.861 --> 00:24:49.371
So no electric windows, again, you're going to bring back the little turn down the window thing.
00:24:50.721 --> 00:24:53.480
built in screens, entertainment system.
00:24:54.471 --> 00:24:58.611
All that they have is a dock and a built in speaker system, of course.
00:24:58.611 --> 00:25:02.000
But you put your device on this dock and it.
00:25:02.181 --> 00:25:02.901
That's your screen.
00:25:02.931 --> 00:25:04.250
You wanna put an old iPad in there?
00:25:04.250 --> 00:25:05.090
That's your new screen.
00:25:07.340 --> 00:25:08.480
It makes sense.
00:25:08.540 --> 00:25:09.891
We use our phones for everything.
00:25:09.891 --> 00:25:11.090
I mean, what is Apple CarPlay?
00:25:11.090 --> 00:25:12.141
What is Android car?
00:25:12.351 --> 00:25:13.401
Uh, what is, sorry?
00:25:13.509 --> 00:25:13.779
Yeah.
00:25:13.779 --> 00:25:14.529
Android Auto.
00:25:14.619 --> 00:25:15.009
Yeah.
00:25:15.351 --> 00:25:15.800
Auto.
00:25:15.951 --> 00:25:18.800
I mean, they're just screen mirroring essentially.
00:25:18.800 --> 00:25:27.141
So why not just put the damn thing on the, on there and be done with the job, which I think I might have asked for in a previous episode.
00:25:27.500 --> 00:25:29.810
So they stripped out that they stripped out the screens.
00:25:30.357 --> 00:25:33.718
And then they started doing other things as well that I thought was really interesting.
00:25:33.718 --> 00:25:41.067
The car only comes in one color and they've, um, built it out of this material that is been treated.
00:25:41.067 --> 00:25:44.218
So it's as if it has been painted, but they don't paint it.
00:25:44.218 --> 00:25:49.647
It's just been fabricated from scratch to be, uh, resistant to all of the elements.
00:25:50.127 --> 00:25:57.657
So as a result of that, they don't have a paint shop in their assembly line, which is a huge, huge expense and, uh, a huge pollutant.
00:25:57.778 --> 00:25:58.827
So they got rid of that.
00:25:59.458 --> 00:26:02.698
Um, so if you want to change the color of your car, no problem.
00:26:02.788 --> 00:26:04.978
They've optimized it to be reputable.
00:26:05.458 --> 00:26:14.337
So you can go to a dealer when they have their dealer network and they'll wrap the car for you in any color that you want, you buy the wrapping kit and you do it yourself.
00:26:14.367 --> 00:26:17.667
It's supposed to be relatively straightforward for, uh, a person to do it themselves.
00:26:17.938 --> 00:26:22.407
And then similarly, you can change the shape of the car yourself with some tools.
00:26:23.593 --> 00:26:33.613
It's just a lot of clever little choices that I think, are just what we need right now in this moment of over the top everything.
00:26:33.613 --> 00:26:46.663
So they have core things that you'd always want in a car, like safety features, a, b, s, all the stuff that you'd want NAC, then all of the other things that feel superfluous are just taken out.
00:26:48.613 --> 00:26:58.512
this thing is a hardy little truck and it has, know, the same, um, truck Bay area as some of the bigger trucks.
00:26:58.512 --> 00:27:10.333
So Maverick, uh, Chevy Silverado, all of those things which are like twice the size, bigger monstrosities, they get the same damn si size and everything in a smaller truck.
00:27:10.962 --> 00:27:18.492
Um, so I think there's just been a lot of, what I've always asked for from cars is like, strip stuff out.
00:27:19.242 --> 00:27:21.823
don't, you know, most people don't want this stuff, but of course.
00:27:22.182 --> 00:27:23.563
That's where the margin comes from.
00:27:23.563 --> 00:27:26.803
Like you put in these things and then you can charge a bigger margin on a car.
00:27:27.462 --> 00:27:30.282
Slate is such a counterpoint to this.
00:27:30.313 --> 00:27:32.113
It's they're doing exactly what I want.
00:27:32.113 --> 00:27:32.893
So that's what it is.
00:27:32.893 --> 00:27:49.393
I'm just very happy that it feels like I've been heard and someone has said, you know, it is possible to strip down a car and it is possible to actually make it economical, to produce, environmentally friendly to produce, because you're getting rid of a lot of crap that you don't need, like paint shops.
00:27:50.442 --> 00:27:58.032
and you're making it modular so people feel a connection to their car again, that they own it, and then they can control it and they can do things.
00:27:58.032 --> 00:28:02.353
So very, it's very nice to see someone trying to do that.
00:28:02.357 --> 00:28:05.083
It don't know how many people are gonna get excited about this.
00:28:05.133 --> 00:28:12.752
I do think from a broader perspective, we do need to move back into that world because we are wasting so many resources on very, very foolish things.
00:28:13.202 --> 00:28:16.563
And um, that excess is costing us something.
00:28:16.563 --> 00:28:19.442
It's just not, we're not internalizing it, but it will come back.
00:28:19.442 --> 00:28:26.492
We're wasting computer chips, we're wasting plastics and batteries and all of this stuff, LCD screens for nonsense.
00:28:26.553 --> 00:28:32.252
So nice to see that least there is a model of an alternative that could be built.
00:28:32.353 --> 00:28:36.823
So that's, that's what got me excited about this compared to everything else that's, you know, on the road.
00:28:36.833 --> 00:28:44.512
So have you seen, did you follow along what the, when they announced their stuff or were you just catching up recently?
00:28:44.666 --> 00:28:49.886
No, no, I did catch it, uh, when it was announced, and it does seem like, um, it caught everyone by surprise.
00:28:49.886 --> 00:28:55.527
Even the automotive press, it seemed like most people were, were hadn't, you know, had no idea what was happening.
00:28:55.527 --> 00:29:04.826
So it was pretty impressive that they were able to get to the level of development that they've, um, attained, uh, completely in secret, which is pretty remarkable.
00:29:05.123 --> 00:29:05.393
yeah.
00:29:05.817 --> 00:29:07.106
and I, I think.
00:29:07.886 --> 00:29:11.576
I have high hopes for their success because of the price point, because of
00:29:11.603 --> 00:29:11.873
Yeah.
00:29:11.936 --> 00:29:12.957
this time we're in.
00:29:13.346 --> 00:29:27.326
I do think that, um, there's a big, uh, market and, you know, growing market of people who, you know, are willing to forego some of those, uh, bells and whistles for, um, el more affordable price point.
00:29:27.326 --> 00:29:35.487
And those things like eliminating the paint, but making it, um, easy to wrap, I think is so clever because that's just building on existing behaviors.
00:29:36.116 --> 00:29:55.826
Um, you know, one thing that struck me, I, uh, I've been kind of a fan of Rivian and it's not, I don't think that well known, but they, the, the current versions of the R one T truck and R one SSUV externally, they look the same as the original versions, but.
00:29:56.352 --> 00:30:01.332
They've, uh, uh, I think it was late last year, they introduced it like a second gen update,
00:30:01.528 --> 00:30:01.948
mm-hmm.
00:30:02.082 --> 00:30:06.551
uh, where the, a lot of the guts have been updated even though they, externally they look the same.
00:30:07.001 --> 00:30:16.632
But one of the things they Rivian mentioned was that as part of this update, they were able to reduce the amount of cabling in the cars by 1.6 miles.
00:30:17.167 --> 00:30:17.617
Whoa.
00:30:17.682 --> 00:30:22.811
So, you know, there's still quite a bit of cabling, but you know, to imagine how much cabling there was total.
00:30:23.442 --> 00:30:31.061
When they're able to cut it down by 1.6 miles and, uh, 44 pounds just of, of cabling, of electrical cabling.
00:30:31.692 --> 00:30:38.501
So, you know, really speaks the, to the amount of complexity and, you know, not only is it wasteful, those are all things that can go wrong,
00:30:38.978 --> 00:30:39.397
Yes.
00:30:39.491 --> 00:30:41.051
which is why so many.
00:30:41.112 --> 00:30:47.291
Um, I think I, I heard recently that, uh, EVs generally have the lowest, uh, customer satisfaction because
00:30:47.317 --> 00:30:47.708
Hmm.
00:30:47.771 --> 00:30:53.321
there's all these little bells and whistles that have a tendency to, to break.
00:30:53.771 --> 00:31:00.162
So I think that, um, there's just a lot of, uh, of wisdom in this approach they're taking.
00:31:00.551 --> 00:31:08.622
I, and I think there's some other interesting things, um, in similar, along similar lines that are coming out that I'm really excited about.
00:31:08.730 --> 00:31:15.000
we might have talked about this, but Kia a couple years ago unveiled this new, um, highly modular.
00:31:15.615 --> 00:31:21.045
Um, EV platform for commercial vehicles like commercial vans and trucks.
00:31:21.734 --> 00:31:27.765
Uh, and so, you know, they could take the same exact platform very easily, turn it into a truck or a van.
00:31:28.275 --> 00:31:32.924
Um, but la late last year, they also showed an rv.
00:31:33.315 --> 00:31:36.855
A consumer, uh, focused RV built on that same platform.
00:31:36.884 --> 00:31:39.674
And I, I think it looks fantastic.
00:31:39.674 --> 00:31:49.755
We'll include a link in the show notes to it, but, um, it's said to be, uh, because of its modular nature, very, um, uh, pretty affordable.
00:31:49.785 --> 00:31:58.845
I mean, I guess we'll see the first versions, the commercial, uh, versions of the vehicles are supposedly gonna come out this year in Korea and Europe.
00:31:59.171 --> 00:31:59.290
Oh
00:31:59.384 --> 00:32:03.464
Um, so it's not just a concept now, it's, it's gonna be real pretty soon.
00:32:03.884 --> 00:32:05.384
So that one's pretty interesting.
00:32:05.414 --> 00:32:11.390
Um, the, uh, RV concept they showed is called the weak weekender, but with no vowels, which is kinda lame, but.
00:32:12.280 --> 00:32:12.820
incredible.
00:32:12.881 --> 00:32:13.270
Wow.
00:32:13.661 --> 00:32:15.796
Talk about like being a little bit late to the party,
00:32:15.809 --> 00:32:16.890
Yeah, exactly.
00:32:17.430 --> 00:32:19.259
But I think the car itself was pretty cool.
00:32:19.259 --> 00:32:28.380
Not just, uh, aesthetically, but they, they had some really interesting ideas around functionality, uh, and modularity within the car itself, uh, to make it much more useful.
00:32:28.710 --> 00:32:47.220
Um, and then, uh, we may have talked about this, uh, in a previous episode as well, but Toyota, a few years back also unveiled this modular commercial vehicle platform, um, based on the Hilux, which is kind of this legendary pickup truck that's not available in the US but is available, um, in a lot of markets outside the us.
00:32:47.700 --> 00:32:51.150
Uh, there was, there's for top gear fans, there's that, uh.
00:32:52.095 --> 00:32:56.894
You know, amazing episode where they tried to break a Hilux and they couldn't do it.
00:32:57.914 --> 00:33:03.105
But, um, so it's cool to see that, uh, this seems to be in the water.
00:33:03.105 --> 00:33:15.434
This idea of trying to deliver something that is a little bit more affordable, that is a little bit more, more modular to, um, work for some a, a wider spectrum of needs, uh, and is a little bit more bare bones.
00:33:15.464 --> 00:33:18.105
'cause all these concepts are a little bit more bare bones as well.
00:33:18.704 --> 00:33:22.305
So, um, hopefully this is a sign of more things to come.
00:33:22.305 --> 00:33:28.424
And, uh, do you did, um, uh, they mentioned a release dates late auto
00:33:29.260 --> 00:33:33.191
I think they said, uh, last quarter of next year
00:33:33.430 --> 00:33:33.650
Wow.
00:33:34.060 --> 00:33:35.050
that was the goal.
00:33:35.500 --> 00:33:44.411
Um, so see if, uh, if all of the optimizations to make this as straightforward to put together hold true.
00:33:44.651 --> 00:33:45.191
I hope so.
00:33:45.450 --> 00:33:45.960
Yeah.
00:33:46.049 --> 00:33:47.700
Oh, that'd still be really exciting.
00:33:47.730 --> 00:33:54.900
Um, I don't know if you want to talk at all about, uh, apple's, uh, developer, uh, event that happened last week.
00:33:55.410 --> 00:33:55.440
I,
00:33:55.901 --> 00:33:57.090
Yeah, yeah, let's go there.
00:33:57.151 --> 00:33:58.590
Let's get, let's get Apple into the room.
00:33:58.840 --> 00:34:06.971
I do feel like this was a good example of just typical business opposed to product innovation.
00:34:07.391 --> 00:34:16.240
Um, uh, one, one of the big things, um, the thing, one of the things that caught my eye was liquid glass, which is the new visual language for interfaces.
00:34:16.851 --> 00:34:25.681
So I stumbled on a substack post on, uh, hacker News, which is why Combinators, like read it, clone for specifically technology news.
00:34:25.681 --> 00:34:32.041
And this one was placed quite high, I just read through it and I'm not even sure who this person is.
00:34:32.041 --> 00:34:34.681
The substack was only put together like 16 days ago.
00:34:34.681 --> 00:34:39.990
But, um, here a couple of tidbits that they put together about liquid glass.
00:34:41.130 --> 00:34:44.221
so they said Apple doesn't just change design for aesthetic reasons.
00:34:44.221 --> 00:34:49.021
Each major visual overhaul has proceeded a fundamental shift in how we interact with technology.
00:34:49.411 --> 00:34:52.141
Skew morphic design made sense when touchscreens were new.
00:34:53.130 --> 00:34:58.621
design emerged when users had internalized touch interactions and no longer needed heavy visual scaffolding.
00:34:59.581 --> 00:35:01.920
Um, and then they continue.
00:35:03.331 --> 00:35:03.931
So I.
00:35:05.146 --> 00:35:08.416
They talk about liquid glasses, technological complexity.
00:35:08.416 --> 00:35:16.275
So the real time blurs, dynamic transparency effects and contextual lighting requires serious GPU horsepower and optimized rendering pipelines.
00:35:16.606 --> 00:35:21.856
It's the kind of feature that runs silky smooth on an iPhone with apple silicon, but might start on competing hardware.
00:35:22.606 --> 00:35:25.155
creates what economists call a complimentary good effect.
00:35:25.215 --> 00:35:30.916
The new design language makes apple's hardware more valuable by showcasing capabilities that other competitors can't easily match.
00:35:31.695 --> 00:35:34.215
similar to how retina displays created a virtuous cycle.
00:35:34.215 --> 00:35:41.206
High resolution screens made iOS look better, which drove demand for Apple devices, which justified the cost of those expensive displays on and on and on and on.
00:35:41.655 --> 00:35:43.726
So this person's very much like, Ooh, isn't this amazing?
00:35:45.045 --> 00:35:49.096
I was, this is another moment of like, where I look at this and go like, this is just excess.
00:35:49.876 --> 00:35:50.056
this.
00:35:50.056 --> 00:35:51.045
This is why.
00:35:51.166 --> 00:35:56.505
Why do I need to have GPU horsepower to render an interface?
00:35:58.496 --> 00:36:04.826
Then now moving to this new level of design with reflections and refractions and lights interacting with these surfaces as if they're real.
00:36:05.096 --> 00:36:08.425
We all understand that this is in preparation for augmented reality, et cetera.
00:36:08.905 --> 00:36:09.235
Great.
00:36:09.235 --> 00:36:11.815
But this is using computational power for something that.
00:36:12.190 --> 00:36:16.811
It's fundamentally not really adding very much to the actual experience in my view.
00:36:16.811 --> 00:36:19.451
So we have GPUs everywhere.
00:36:19.630 --> 00:36:21.610
The phones are so expensive now.
00:36:21.610 --> 00:36:25.300
You need to have a justification for that thing to exist and to run.
00:36:25.661 --> 00:36:32.740
And, and this idea that this somehow highlights Apple's hardware, like surely the whole point of having it in there is that it should be self-evident.
00:36:32.740 --> 00:36:38.110
Why it's better to have that, why do you have to now ex, you know, use more of it in a visual way?
00:36:38.110 --> 00:36:41.440
It just sounds foolish and, and very excessive, you know?
00:36:41.860 --> 00:36:44.081
You just have to burn through GPUs to prove something.
00:36:44.130 --> 00:36:44.670
I don't get it.
00:36:45.570 --> 00:36:51.240
it reminded me also actually of early discussions about GUIs graph user interfaces back in the day.
00:36:52.891 --> 00:37:05.641
And, um, there's a really interesting little bit from Spectrum from which is IEE, the Institute of Electrical Engineering or something that, that's like a academic organization for electrical engineers, computer scientists that's been around forever.
00:37:05.701 --> 00:37:15.990
And they have a little blog about graphical user interfaces and they were discussing, um, something as simple as windows overlapping each other, which we now take for granted.
00:37:15.990 --> 00:37:20.521
So I can drag a window across, and then it's kind of covering the other window.
00:37:21.210 --> 00:37:23.490
back in the day, that wasn't obviously true.
00:37:23.490 --> 00:37:25.471
When they would do it, they would just kind of tile them back.
00:37:25.471 --> 00:37:33.001
So it would look like a stack of windows, and then you would kind of see the, the headings of the windows, and you could just like, get into that window, say, okay, that's the window I wanted.
00:37:33.840 --> 00:37:44.851
But when you started like overlapping them and and obscuring, uh, components from the previous window, you would then have to have full awareness of where this new window on top of it sits.
00:37:45.001 --> 00:37:49.201
What the, what's behind the behind it, what's being displayed on there, and how it gets obscured.
00:37:49.621 --> 00:37:51.210
It's a ton of computational power.
00:37:52.081 --> 00:37:55.650
And really the question is, is that really useful?
00:37:55.710 --> 00:38:03.780
Like, is that I, I don't, when I thought about it for a second, I was like, actually I just need to know what is in the window.
00:38:03.780 --> 00:38:04.650
I don't need to know that.
00:38:04.650 --> 00:38:10.771
Like half the text is cut off and the cut, you know, we've taken that for granted and we then again believe that was, that is necessary.
00:38:10.771 --> 00:38:11.760
That is the normal state.
00:38:11.760 --> 00:38:22.471
And I don't, I don't know if that's necessarily true, especially when you think about how Apple does the iOS thing, the double click to home button or whatever motion you
00:38:22.574 --> 00:38:22.655
Hmm.
00:38:22.800 --> 00:38:24.510
you see all the windows tiled, right?
00:38:24.751 --> 00:38:27.300
There's no need for the stacking'cause they know it's a waste of time, but,
00:38:27.679 --> 00:38:27.710
Hm.
00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:30.121
but now liquid is glass is the new thing we have to do.
00:38:30.121 --> 00:38:32.940
So feel like it's another one of those excess things.
00:38:32.940 --> 00:38:36.300
And Apple, you know, they make mistakes.
00:38:36.331 --> 00:38:40.320
I think the idea that we have to always rationalize their choices is these super clever things.
00:38:40.650 --> 00:38:42.300
It's also getting tired, you know?
00:38:42.300 --> 00:38:42.871
Come on,
00:38:43.159 --> 00:38:43.460
Right.
00:38:43.710 --> 00:38:44.340
keyboards.
00:38:45.331 --> 00:38:46.561
Butterfly keyboards.
00:38:46.621 --> 00:38:49.351
The worst, worst keyboards ever.
00:38:49.451 --> 00:38:49.931
So.
00:38:49.931 --> 00:38:51.856
What about you and what were you thinking?
00:38:52.889 --> 00:38:58.530
Uh, there were two things that came to mind and one of them, uh, intersects with what you just talked about.
00:38:58.559 --> 00:39:23.309
So this first one, it was really more about, um, uh, it's a little bit of inside baseball, but for the last, I think 10 years now, uh, as part of the overall Worldwide Developers conference, series of events, Apple's executives have participated in, in an interview with, uh, a Apple journalist called John Gruber.
00:39:23.639 --> 00:39:28.260
He's a long time, I guess blogger, uh, focused on Apple.
00:39:28.320 --> 00:39:32.429
Um, and you know, back in the day, Steve Jobs was an avid reader of his blog.
00:39:32.519 --> 00:39:41.099
Um, and so for the last 10 years, uh, Gruber was able to get Apple Executives to, um, you know, sit for an interview with him.
00:39:41.909 --> 00:39:47.070
And, uh, this was an event that was, um, open to, to, um, uh, attendees as well.
00:39:47.400 --> 00:39:50.250
And it was for a lot of, uh, developers who attended the conference.
00:39:50.250 --> 00:40:02.699
It was a kind of a highlight of the week, but, uh, a few, maybe two months ago or so, Gruber wrote the scathing post criticizing Apple Intelligence.
00:40:03.329 --> 00:40:11.159
Uh, and the fact that they showed off these features at last year's W-D-C-W-W-D-C,
00:40:11.411 --> 00:40:11.501
mm-hmm.
00:40:11.670 --> 00:40:17.519
that it turned out weren't anywhere near ready to be brought to market.
00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:21.329
And so Apple had to come out and explicitly say, actually, these features aren't ready.
00:40:21.989 --> 00:40:30.780
The crazy thing though is that they had created advertising promoting these specific features, and they aired these ads, you know, for months.
00:40:30.780 --> 00:40:35.610
And yet they knew internally that these features were not gonna be ready anytime soon.
00:40:35.699 --> 00:40:40.289
And, uh, uh, couple months ago they came out and said, actually, these features aren't gonna be ready.
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:41.190
Um.
00:40:41.340 --> 00:40:43.320
Uh, for like a year.
00:40:43.380 --> 00:40:46.230
Uh, the, the language they used at the time was ambiguous.
00:40:46.349 --> 00:40:51.750
And then finally in ww DC this year, they said, oh, it's not gonna, they aren't gonna come out till next year,
00:40:52.106 --> 00:40:52.525
Wow.
00:40:52.619 --> 00:40:53.159
spring.
00:40:53.519 --> 00:41:02.250
And so Gruber, um, he actually started the post criticizing himself saying, I shouldn't have taken them at face value.
00:41:02.670 --> 00:41:07.590
You know, I, I, which is kind of to this point of your post that you're making that Oh, yeah.
00:41:07.590 --> 00:41:08.400
Liquid gloss.
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:11.280
It's like obviously a setup to some genius thing down the road.
00:41:11.820 --> 00:41:14.550
Like, you know, he kind of said, I, I did the same thing.
00:41:14.550 --> 00:41:24.570
Apple had just such a good track record of delivering on the things they promised that he just, uh, took it at face value that oh yeah, these features are gonna launch and, and do what they said they were gonna do.
00:41:24.570 --> 00:41:31.170
But, you know, clearly they weren't anywhere near ready to go and he really excoriated them for that.
00:41:31.170 --> 00:41:38.639
And kind of talked about the fact that it was a sign to him of, of some, you know, a rot at the core of Apple, essentially.
00:41:39.041 --> 00:41:39.260
Wow.
00:41:40.005 --> 00:41:48.795
And I, I, I think it was a very fair piece because for Apple to have done that, to have shared these very specific features,
00:41:48.811 --> 00:41:49.101
Yeah,
00:41:49.485 --> 00:41:58.485
you know, and make these very specific promises and then, and, you know, and have now be like a year and a half late or two years late to deliver them.
00:41:58.485 --> 00:41:59.414
That's,
00:41:59.425 --> 00:41:59.815
crazy.
00:41:59.894 --> 00:42:00.704
yeah, that's
00:42:00.985 --> 00:42:01.916
Everything app.
00:42:01.976 --> 00:42:03.596
That was the Jobsian thing, right?
00:42:03.596 --> 00:42:06.056
Everything Apple announces will be available.
00:42:06.315 --> 00:42:06.735
right.
00:42:07.195 --> 00:42:11.635
now, it was always, that was kind of like, and this will be available, you know, now just put your orders in.
00:42:11.635 --> 00:42:15.865
I, I mean, that, that was their whole thing, so I think they abused that trust
00:42:15.914 --> 00:42:16.364
Right.
00:42:16.615 --> 00:42:17.905
keep that thing going.
00:42:18.014 --> 00:42:23.175
And so I think Gruber very rightfully, um, articulated that and highlighted that.
00:42:23.175 --> 00:42:31.635
But, uh, in the aftermath of that, Apple's executive declined to participate in a, you know, that kind of annual event of, uh, sitting with Gruber,
00:42:32.065 --> 00:42:32.485
Yeah.
00:42:32.625 --> 00:42:37.215
I think was very, uh, disappointingly thin skinned, I guess I'd say.
00:42:37.275 --> 00:42:37.724
Um.
00:42:38.655 --> 00:42:57.795
And to me it, it, it reminded me of Worldwide Developers Conference from 1997, which was the year that, uh, Steve Jobs returned to Apple at the time, still as a consultant to the CEO, but he participated in a q and a session with developers.
00:42:58.514 --> 00:43:03.164
Um, and fortunately, a recording of this session still exists.
00:43:03.164 --> 00:43:05.625
We'll provide a link to it in the show notes.
00:43:05.710 --> 00:43:07.090
this is, this one's legendary.
00:43:07.364 --> 00:43:08.474
it's incredible.
00:43:08.534 --> 00:43:11.655
Uh, and so I highly recommend that people watch it.
00:43:11.954 --> 00:43:14.505
It's, it's remarkable for a bunch of different reasons.
00:43:14.804 --> 00:43:18.434
There's, there's some great questions, uh, from the audience of developers.
00:43:18.945 --> 00:43:22.695
Uh, but in particular there's this, uh, exchange.
00:43:23.219 --> 00:43:31.260
With someone who, um, starts off his quote unquote question by saying, you don't know what you're talking about to Steve Jobs.
00:43:31.326 --> 00:43:31.746
Mm-hmm.
00:43:31.800 --> 00:43:38.909
And then he asks a question about this thing called Open Doc, which was a technology that Jobs killed when he came back to Apple.
00:43:39.269 --> 00:43:45.929
And then, uh, this person ends his question with, uh, and what personally have you been doing for the past seven years?
00:43:46.380 --> 00:43:49.800
Basically saying, you know, you're, you, you're not, you don't really amount to anything.
00:43:50.369 --> 00:43:56.789
And I think it was a remarkable one that that sort of exchange was possible.
00:43:57.030 --> 00:44:01.110
And Steve Jobs's response to it, I think was remarkable as well.
00:44:01.139 --> 00:44:03.989
'cause he didn't say, you know, get out
00:44:04.326 --> 00:44:04.615
Yeah.
00:44:04.769 --> 00:44:05.369
security.
00:44:05.369 --> 00:44:06.570
Take this guy outta here.
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:08.309
He answered his question.
00:44:08.730 --> 00:44:16.110
Um, and in that exchange was something that I think is really powerful that again connects back to the point you made about liquid glass.
00:44:16.110 --> 00:44:17.610
So he.
00:44:17.940 --> 00:44:28.889
I think it was in, in the, his answer to that question or that comment was he said, you've gotta start with the customer, customer experience and work backwards to the technology.
00:44:29.460 --> 00:44:33.119
You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it.
00:44:33.599 --> 00:44:36.599
And I've made this mistake probably more than anyone else in this room.
00:44:36.599 --> 00:44:38.159
And I've got the scar tissue to prove it.
00:44:38.610 --> 00:44:40.380
Uh, and I know that it's the case.
00:44:40.769 --> 00:44:48.449
And as we've tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with what incredible benefits can we give to the customer?
00:44:48.809 --> 00:44:50.280
Where can we take the customer?
00:44:50.730 --> 00:44:56.429
Not starting with, let's sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and how are we gonna market that?
00:44:57.253 --> 00:45:02.173
unquote, so where I think that connects to your point about liquid glasses, I think you could.
00:45:03.134 --> 00:45:04.664
Replace in that sentence.
00:45:04.664 --> 00:45:12.494
Engineers with designers, you know, I feel like Liquid Glass was, let's sit down with the designers and out what awesome design we can come up with and how we're gonna market that.
00:45:13.003 --> 00:45:21.112
Versus starting with that, you know, customer experience and working back to the technology it, struck me for a couple reasons there.
00:45:21.112 --> 00:45:27.318
One, how thin skinned Apple's become, uh, and the where they've just seemed to have lost their way of.
00:45:28.418 --> 00:45:39.188
I think there, I think the Vision Pro is a great example of starting with the technology versus starting with the customer experience and then liquid glasses starting with the design instead of the customer experience.
00:45:39.818 --> 00:45:41.978
So, um, that was one thing.
00:45:41.978 --> 00:45:49.867
You know, one other thing I'll mention is that there was a really remarkably prescient question from one of the developers asking about agent software,
00:45:50.324 --> 00:45:50.543
Oh.
00:45:50.768 --> 00:45:55.177
you know, is now very relevant as everyone's talking about agent ticket, ai, blah, blah, blah.
00:45:55.237 --> 00:45:57.998
And I think Steve Jobs answer is also really, really interesting.
00:45:57.998 --> 00:46:00.398
So again, we'll provide a link to this video.
00:46:00.398 --> 00:46:01.898
It's an amazing watch.
00:46:01.898 --> 00:46:03.068
It's over an hour long.
00:46:03.068 --> 00:46:05.648
It's uh, uh, an amazing session.
00:46:05.648 --> 00:46:18.998
So the second thing that I was really surprised by and as a fan of Apple worries me is, uh, someone mentioned this, but he said, this is Apple playing small ball.
00:46:19.568 --> 00:46:24.248
And I'd say it's Apple playing small ball in the midst of a seismic shift in the industry, right?
00:46:24.248 --> 00:46:26.378
I mean, there is this seismic, whatever you think of ai.
00:46:26.764 --> 00:46:27.003
Hmm.
00:46:27.023 --> 00:46:28.253
It's a huge change.
00:46:28.353 --> 00:46:28.594
Yeah.
00:46:28.643 --> 00:46:31.432
It's gonna impact the industry in big ways and lasting ways.
00:46:31.463 --> 00:46:41.782
And you know, in the middle of that Apple's talking about your icon colors and, you know, the refraction of fake glass, uh, in an interface.
00:46:41.842 --> 00:46:45.532
Um, and, and I think that's really worrisome.
00:46:45.532 --> 00:46:47.873
You know, o obviously they're doing it because they have to, right?
00:46:47.873 --> 00:46:52.463
That's, they, they didn't have anything more substantive that they could actually
00:46:52.469 --> 00:46:52.759
yeah.
00:46:52.972 --> 00:46:53.572
talk about.
00:46:53.572 --> 00:47:01.612
But this here again, reminded me of something from the past, which was Bill Gates' legendary internet tidal Wave memo.
00:47:02.032 --> 00:47:04.313
Uh, I don't know if you're familiar with this, but this was, um.
00:47:04.733 --> 00:47:08.663
From 1995, uh, just for context, I'll share a quote from Fast Company.
00:47:09.202 --> 00:47:20.992
So they're saying, explaining here in the spring of 1995, thanks to the rapid commercialization of the worldwide web, the world was on the cusp of the internet era, a shift with profound implications from Microsoft.
00:47:21.293 --> 00:47:38.842
The company that dominated PC software, its co-founder and CEO Bill Gates, responded with a five alarm internal memo, quote unquote the internal title, uh, the internet tidal wave that gave the highest level of importance to responding to this challenge in the most sweeping, ambitious manner possible.
00:47:38.992 --> 00:47:50.273
And just three months after this memo, uh, the MSN or Microsoft Network was launched, which was, uh, you know, it turned out to be ill faded, but it was at least the, the beginnings of a response.
00:47:50.842 --> 00:48:01.538
Um, but I, I don't, I don't, so one, I, this came to mind because it feels like we're in a similar sort of period of, of huge change.
00:48:02.677 --> 00:48:11.288
But what's striking to me is that, you know, whereas Bill Gates back then recognized the change, uh, we'll provide a link to the memo.
00:48:11.318 --> 00:48:12.248
'cause it's remarkable.
00:48:12.248 --> 00:48:18.217
He was, he saw it all, he got, he really understood what was happening in the challenge.
00:48:18.248 --> 00:48:27.367
And so it was so impressive to me to see that, uh, someone at that level who, you know, I think some, sometimes CEOs can be kind of outta touch, but he, he got it.
00:48:27.938 --> 00:48:43.927
Um, so compare that to Tim Cook at the Sears, WWDC, where the only media that Tim Cook did around the event was to promote this upcoming F1 movie, which is, is striking.
00:48:43.927 --> 00:48:52.117
Like, so if you look at all of the interviews, it's all, um, anything that has to do with actual features and products.
00:48:52.597 --> 00:48:54.277
We're, we're all Craig Federighi.
00:48:54.338 --> 00:49:01.117
Um, and their, uh, head of product marketing, I forget his name, the legendary guy with an Apple's been around, but it's not as well known.
00:49:01.597 --> 00:49:12.338
So it's just the two of them that did all those kind of product focus interviews, whereas the only interviews that, uh, Tim Cook did were about this F1 movie, which, uh, you know, whatever the movie might be.
00:49:12.338 --> 00:49:13.117
Interesting, but.
00:49:13.838 --> 00:49:15.697
Man, talk about, uh,
00:49:16.813 --> 00:49:17.103
Yeah.
00:49:17.378 --> 00:49:42.307
you know, in the middle of this seismic shift in the industry, you've got your, the CEO of the company talking about a movie that's coming up and hanging out with, uh, Louis Hamilton, the F1 driver, instead of talking about this incredible shift that's happening, you know, and maybe, hey, wouldn't it be great if Tim Cook talked about why they missed, you know, this promise they made last year, um, and what they're gonna do to kind of improve on this, this huge, uh, gaff.
00:49:42.907 --> 00:49:50.617
So that's, that was the second thing that struck me was, man, it just seemed like a really weird, uh, misplaced priorities.
00:49:51.668 --> 00:50:05.498
And also, are they even understanding the magnitude of what's happening, um, as they kind of are like, you know, basically the interface, the product equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
00:50:07.998 --> 00:50:10.128
I think that what's, you know what's really interesting?
00:50:10.248 --> 00:50:11.268
We've been crapping on Apple.
00:50:11.268 --> 00:50:16.699
It's very easy now, but, um, um, a couple of days ago, we're recording on June 15th.
00:50:16.699 --> 00:50:35.778
So last week, Apple's AI research group released a paper where they kind of went through some of the agentic AI and the latest reasoning, sorry, not agentic, higher level reasoning, uh, chatbots um, damning damning results there.
00:50:36.498 --> 00:50:36.978
Um.
00:50:37.893 --> 00:50:45.123
These LLMs failing on basic puzzles that children can eventually do and also stumbling on exactly the same spots as humans would do.
00:50:45.784 --> 00:50:50.494
is so funny because I think most of the defenses were, well, humans can't do it, so why would you expect an LM to do?
00:50:50.494 --> 00:50:52.594
It's like, that's a fricking point of the LLM, you idiot.
00:50:52.594 --> 00:50:53.614
That's the whole point.
00:50:53.614 --> 00:50:55.833
It's supposed to be better than us.
00:50:56.764 --> 00:51:08.943
Um, so I, all of that to say that as with everything out of touch, CEO does not know what the product is, does not understand where they are, does not have a vision for where they want to go.
00:51:08.943 --> 00:51:12.063
Like even if he just said like, we're not doing this AI crap, or We're not gonna
00:51:12.233 --> 00:51:12.682
Right,
00:51:12.753 --> 00:51:12.994
we're gonna do
00:51:13.137 --> 00:51:13.487
right.
00:51:13.833 --> 00:51:30.813
just take a freaking position and talk about the technology that your job, we think in the traditional sense, and you have the people that are able to pause the complexity of the, the current moment and evaluate it, it seems like reasonably dispassionately.
00:51:30.813 --> 00:51:44.403
But again, I think it would require the CEO to engage with the technology, engage with some of these details, be in a learning position as opposed to a position of just like what feels right.
00:51:44.403 --> 00:51:49.293
And that's why I feel like, yeah, talking about the F1 movie is way, way easier.
00:51:49.293 --> 00:51:49.534
Right?
00:51:49.534 --> 00:51:50.673
It's just hell we got.
00:51:51.708 --> 00:51:57.438
It does look good though, and, and IWC is a big feature on this sponsorship.
00:51:57.438 --> 00:51:59.298
Their name is plastered in all of the cars as
00:51:59.373 --> 00:51:59.947
Right, right.
00:52:00.648 --> 00:52:02.838
um, and there's a whole lot of watch stuff going on.
00:52:02.838 --> 00:52:04.579
We'll, we'll talk about that in another time, maybe.
00:52:04.579 --> 00:52:15.708
But yeah, it's, um, pretty interesting that is the thing that he chose to, to, to talk about, you know, uh, as opposed to the stuff that there are people in the company thinking about these things deeply.
00:52:15.998 --> 00:52:16.268
Oh,
00:52:16.309 --> 00:52:16.639
so
00:52:16.867 --> 00:52:21.518
one last thing, you know, to your point about, hey, he, he could as a CEO say, Hey, we're not gonna do this.
00:52:21.518 --> 00:52:21.818
Right?
00:52:21.907 --> 00:52:29.378
And that's one of the things that I, I thought was so awesome about that 1997 WDC video with jobs.
00:52:29.407 --> 00:52:32.918
'cause he talks about why they're not, why they killed Open Dock.
00:52:32.918 --> 00:52:33.188
And,
00:52:33.409 --> 00:52:33.648
Yeah.
00:52:33.818 --> 00:52:40.237
uh, I won't go into it, but basically Opend doc is exactly the sort of technology that technologists love.
00:52:40.268 --> 00:52:45.847
I remember I was a big, uh, apple fan at the time and, and I thought, thought Opend doc was so cool.
00:52:46.327 --> 00:52:51.217
But there was, there was, there was no consumer facing side to it.
00:52:51.217 --> 00:52:53.228
It was just the technology that was cool.
00:52:53.554 --> 00:52:53.914
Yeah.
00:52:54.188 --> 00:52:57.487
he Jobs had the wisdom to understand that even though.
00:52:57.833 --> 00:53:03.023
As you'll see if you watch that video, a lot of developers loved it because it was just this kind of cool idea.
00:53:03.773 --> 00:53:08.813
But he said, you know, no, there's not, there's no there, there when it comes to the consumer benefit.
00:53:08.813 --> 00:53:18.112
So, you know, as a company that's like 90 days away from being insolvent, we need to focus on the things that are gonna matter to our customers and potential customers.
00:53:18.112 --> 00:53:43.222
And so, you know, that's, I think that's what I, this is gonna sound like Steve Jobs worship, but that was what was so impressive about him is that he wasn't a programmer, but he had the ability to understand enough and then the willingness to make these very big decisions, um, and say no, you know, I think that's probably the most important thing someone at that level can do, is to say no to the right things.
00:53:43.766 --> 00:53:44.186
And,
00:53:44.257 --> 00:53:45.938
enough evidence now that it feels like.
00:53:47.963 --> 00:53:50.992
We are, we are living in an era where CEOs don't wanna say yes or no.
00:53:51.181 --> 00:53:51.262
Hmm.
00:53:51.322 --> 00:53:53.512
wanna be on both sides, and they wanna play both things.
00:53:53.512 --> 00:53:59.632
And they want to have plausible deniability about they should have said no earlier about, oh no, we were looking at the metrics.
00:53:59.873 --> 00:54:01.552
It reminds me again, sorry, apple.
00:54:01.943 --> 00:54:03.233
The, the electric car thing.
00:54:03.521 --> 00:54:03.972
Hmm.
00:54:04.043 --> 00:54:07.672
I think you've mentioned that there's a lot of discussion about every round with Tim Cook was
00:54:07.842 --> 00:54:08.141
Right.
00:54:08.273 --> 00:54:10.072
if we just got some more metrics, or if we got some
00:54:10.077 --> 00:54:10.157
Hmm.
00:54:10.193 --> 00:54:12.592
measurements and just say, no, dude.
00:54:12.592 --> 00:54:13.672
Like take a stand.
00:54:14.123 --> 00:54:19.643
But no, it's easier to keep it rolling and then you can, and then eventually it dies when it's so obvious it needs to die.
00:54:21.023 --> 00:54:21.443
Yeah.
00:54:21.503 --> 00:54:22.432
What a, what a waste.
00:54:22.876 --> 00:54:23.382
Right, right.
00:54:24.101 --> 00:54:24.552
All right.
00:54:24.641 --> 00:54:26.291
But enough about Apple.
00:54:26.291 --> 00:54:28.547
I think you've mentioned there was something else you wanted to talk about too.
00:54:29.563 --> 00:54:38.862
I stumbled on this Discord blog, discord, of course, the developer of a huge, hugely popular chat platform equivalent to Slack.
00:54:38.922 --> 00:54:42.463
I mean, essentially the same thing, but very much geared towards gamers.
00:54:42.913 --> 00:54:45.972
Um, you have the same notion of, um, you know.
00:54:46.588 --> 00:54:47.458
Company spaces.
00:54:47.458 --> 00:54:51.597
Well instead you have a Discord server, which a person controls and there's moderators.
00:54:51.597 --> 00:54:59.847
So it's very much, like mini Reddits, mini chat rooms, things like that with a little bit more, um, structure around how people interact with each other.
00:54:59.847 --> 00:55:05.967
There are moderators, of course, that are there to keep things clean and Discord provides moderators with extra tooling so they can do those things.
00:55:06.237 --> 00:55:08.367
So that's the thing that differentiates it from Slack.
00:55:08.518 --> 00:55:16.318
So Discord is a hugely popular platform and, as everyone does in these technology companies, they write blogs about all the cool engineering that happens.
00:55:16.527 --> 00:55:20.398
And the title of this blog was How Discord indexes Trillions of Messages.
00:55:21.027 --> 00:55:22.858
Why do you need to index trillions of messages?
00:55:22.858 --> 00:55:31.858
Well, because every time I'm searching for a message in my Discord server, it has to go into the database and it's got a pull information about the message I care about.
00:55:32.697 --> 00:55:33.297
Um.
00:55:34.617 --> 00:55:41.818
And so this is actually a sequel to a 2017 blog post, which is called How Discord Indexes Billions of Messages.
00:55:41.878 --> 00:55:48.327
So, uh, and so, know, I mean, here's like a representative paragraph, maybe.
00:55:48.327 --> 00:55:52.527
They said, we designed our such infrastructure to be performant, cost-effective, scalable, and easy use.
00:55:52.858 --> 00:55:59.668
We chose to use elastic search with discord messages, chartered over indices, the logical namespace for elastic search messages on two elastic search closets.
00:55:59.878 --> 00:56:03.057
Messages were charted either by discord server or direct message.
00:56:03.057 --> 00:56:06.418
This allowed us to store all Gil's messages together for Facebook, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:56:06.447 --> 00:56:07.378
I mean, who cares?
00:56:08.577 --> 00:56:09.717
I really was very stressed out.
00:56:09.717 --> 00:56:11.878
I was thinking, is this really necessary?
00:56:11.878 --> 00:56:16.197
Because if I wanted to make an alternative app wasn't discord.
00:56:17.487 --> 00:56:21.418
And didn't do, do I really need to do this work?
00:56:22.318 --> 00:56:28.918
It's something that I, I struggle with in all of the technology companies because I always see the degree of complexity that emerges.
00:56:28.918 --> 00:56:36.177
I think I've alluded to this in the past, the over reliance on the cloud, the idea that everything should sit in the cloud and the cloud does all the work.
00:56:37.648 --> 00:56:44.697
So it's kind of weird, like, why do I have to index all of these messages as a central entity?
00:56:44.697 --> 00:56:50.847
Well, I am the Oracle Discord cloud is the Oracle for all discord servers.
00:56:52.228 --> 00:57:00.777
what the engineers are doing is they have to make this infrastructure scale be performant, resilient, they have to do this for everyone.
00:57:02.697 --> 00:57:08.188
Um, and so I was just thinking to myself, it has to be some sort of alternative.
00:57:08.188 --> 00:57:08.998
And so I was, again, I.
00:57:09.148 --> 00:57:13.827
I talking to my wife as I was ranting about this, I said, look at this nonsense.
00:57:15.568 --> 00:57:25.018
and I said, you know, I don't understand what happened to the old internet peer to peer back in the day when I wanted to connect with you, I would connect with you directly.
00:57:25.168 --> 00:57:31.347
You know, I would just send you a message or I would, um, send a file just to you.
00:57:32.367 --> 00:57:35.637
being of course the most famous example of a peer-to-peer protocol.
00:57:35.938 --> 00:57:41.307
But then later on, uh, later on, Limewire was part of that bit torrent, which still exists.
00:57:41.338 --> 00:57:44.518
Another highly optimized, um, protocol for peer-to-peer sharing.
00:57:45.507 --> 00:57:51.838
I mean, these services, that's how we used to do stuff before cloud, before centralized servers.
00:57:51.898 --> 00:57:55.288
And I was thinking, why aren't we doing that?
00:57:55.288 --> 00:57:57.237
That is, we have powerful computers.
00:57:58.032 --> 00:57:59.893
have powerful internet.
00:58:00.492 --> 00:58:03.193
Why do I need a central Oracle to handle everything?
00:58:03.552 --> 00:58:11.802
At the end of the day, if I'm only a member on five discord servers or one Discord server, I should only care about the messages in my Discord server.
00:58:12.643 --> 00:58:24.492
What happens now is when I hit the cloud, there's an efficient routing mechanism for my request, but it still has to pull from everything that's in out there that within that sub, um, sub, um, domain that they've parceled off for me.
00:58:25.302 --> 00:58:28.722
But it's still through everything almost, you know?
00:58:30.867 --> 00:58:37.378
So, but if I just have like five friends in my Discord group and we've just been online for one month, that should just sit on my laptop.
00:58:37.438 --> 00:58:39.088
You know, I, why is that not a thing?
00:58:39.478 --> 00:58:42.447
And so that got me thinking like, what is the problem with peer-to-peer messaging?
00:58:42.447 --> 00:58:46.588
Why can't I have a slack that is peer-to-peer where I just message you when I message you?
00:58:46.918 --> 00:58:48.387
And then you start thinking through the problem.
00:58:48.387 --> 00:58:49.527
You go like, oh, okay, I get it.
00:58:49.737 --> 00:58:55.498
Like, um, if I'm online and you're offline, well, all I can do is I can send my message.
00:58:55.887 --> 00:58:57.987
And then if you're not there, you're not there to receive it.
00:58:57.987 --> 00:59:01.407
There's no central oracle that will receive the message and then pass it on to you.
00:59:02.128 --> 00:59:06.447
the only way you'll get that message is if I come online and you're online, and then the message gets sent to you.
00:59:06.568 --> 00:59:06.927
Okay?
00:59:06.958 --> 00:59:08.188
That's the weakness in the system.
00:59:09.313 --> 00:59:10.632
What if someone else is online?
00:59:10.632 --> 00:59:11.623
That's part of our server.
00:59:11.802 --> 00:59:16.572
So I want to send, you know, node A, a message, but node B is online.
00:59:16.572 --> 00:59:24.913
Well, when I send the message, shouldn't I just send the parcel and the archive of new messages to node B and then when node A comes back online, B can pass that to them.
00:59:25.543 --> 00:59:28.992
So we could just have the archive be moved around all the time.
00:59:28.992 --> 00:59:33.643
And the only way we could have total failure of the system is no one is online.
00:59:33.876 --> 00:59:33.996
Hmm.
00:59:34.693 --> 00:59:38.262
if someone just leaves their laptop on, they would be online all the time or whatever.
00:59:38.262 --> 00:59:41.472
Like there's a way to do this and okay, it's a small cost.
00:59:41.472 --> 00:59:43.393
There's a risk that we might miss a message.
00:59:44.293 --> 00:59:46.753
But in that sense, it's not bad.
00:59:46.753 --> 00:59:50.713
Like we could have the full archive and such and, and like this is, this seems straightforward.
00:59:50.713 --> 00:59:52.632
This is very kind of old fashioned technology.
00:59:52.632 --> 00:59:54.432
There's no cloud, it's decentralized.
00:59:54.913 --> 00:59:56.472
Surely this must exist.
00:59:56.893 --> 01:00:01.452
And I just Googled it and there is, there's a service called Quiet and they run a peer to peer.
01:00:01.842 --> 01:00:08.233
Um, slack messaging service, and they basically pass the archive of messages, the database of messages to each user,
01:00:08.686 --> 01:00:08.766
Hmm.
01:00:08.802 --> 01:00:14.353
they do it in an efficient way so that they only turn, move packets across or bytes that across that are different.
01:00:14.353 --> 01:00:19.572
So when someone logs on, get they ping or everyone and say, Hey, I've got this archive.
01:00:19.572 --> 01:00:21.253
What's the newest database?
01:00:21.282 --> 01:00:24.943
And then it kind of merges it together using a combination of technologies.
01:00:24.943 --> 01:00:28.123
And they use like a, a database service that was developed for blockchain
01:00:28.467 --> 01:00:28.686
Ah.
01:00:28.693 --> 01:00:33.702
blockchains have to be distributed and it's a mashup of blockchain databases and Git.
01:00:33.733 --> 01:00:40.902
So if you're a software person, Git is built into Linux and built into Unix as a way to manage, uh, code changes.
01:00:40.902 --> 01:00:47.083
And basically it's a very efficient system that only takes on, passes, changes through the system.
01:00:47.143 --> 01:00:52.873
So if nothing has changed, nothing moves, and it can check files one by one, bite by bite to figure out what needs to be changed.
01:00:52.873 --> 01:00:53.623
So they did that.
01:00:54.313 --> 01:00:54.822
it works.
01:00:54.972 --> 01:00:59.143
And again, they say highlight the same problems if one, if everyone's off, nothing gets moved.
01:00:59.443 --> 01:01:02.952
If one person's online, they will be able to pass messages around.
01:01:04.152 --> 01:01:05.503
Problem solved to a certain extent.
01:01:05.503 --> 01:01:07.242
I don't have to index a trillion messages.
01:01:07.242 --> 01:01:11.233
And so then that got me down this whole rabbit hole of local first software engineering.
01:01:11.262 --> 01:01:13.963
Turns out there's a small movement of people that are trying to work on this.
01:01:14.382 --> 01:01:20.862
I come back to this because this is another version of when we do everything in a cloud, it feels so easy.
01:01:20.862 --> 01:01:23.143
And the engineers who work on, it's like, oh, this is very easy.
01:01:23.143 --> 01:01:27.282
We just need more compute, more compute, more compute, and more databases and a little bit more logical.
01:01:27.282 --> 01:01:27.672
And that's it.
01:01:28.422 --> 01:01:32.023
But that complexity, it's high, it's high complexity.
01:01:32.023 --> 01:01:38.893
For something as dumb as a messaging service, like, why don't we just pass, like literally, I just ping you and you ping me.
01:01:39.733 --> 01:01:40.362
End of story.
01:01:40.512 --> 01:01:48.088
And then, uh, have like some clever way of moving the archives around and that logic of things are stored on my computer.
01:01:48.088 --> 01:01:52.092
That also means that that archive is searchable, even if your internet is down.
01:01:52.481 --> 01:01:52.601
Hmm.
01:01:52.617 --> 01:01:52.918
Right.
01:01:52.918 --> 01:01:56.188
That means that you have a way to access the data, and the data is yours.
01:01:56.907 --> 01:02:02.458
always, if, if Discord shuts down your entire message history is gone, you will, you will be done.
01:02:02.547 --> 01:02:03.688
Slack is gone.
01:02:03.838 --> 01:02:04.648
You know, that's it.
01:02:04.648 --> 01:02:07.677
And that's what, you know, we have many slack outages that's it.
01:02:07.677 --> 01:02:09.838
Nothing, not a damn thing works.
01:02:10.617 --> 01:02:14.788
So it really got me thinking about that and it's like, yeah, it's a little bit more complex.
01:02:14.788 --> 01:02:24.927
It's like brings back software engineering as a way to write self-contained pieces of software that you install on your computer and you use the hard drive space on your computer that you have.
01:02:26.307 --> 01:02:30.148
yes, it sounds old fashioned, but I actually think it's way, way more resilient.
01:02:30.148 --> 01:02:39.418
So that was something that was on my mind as I was, and, and you know, hearing about all of these technologies, how much stuff gets offloaded into the cloud, the LLMs are all in the cloud.
01:02:39.447 --> 01:02:39.507
I
01:02:39.572 --> 01:02:39.931
Right.
01:02:40.137 --> 01:02:40.588
and on and on.
01:02:40.648 --> 01:02:41.398
The list grows on.
01:02:41.398 --> 01:02:46.768
So small tidbit that got me upset, but then relieved that people are thinking about this as well.
01:02:47.552 --> 01:02:48.032
That's awesome.
01:02:48.032 --> 01:02:53.277
Would, uh, quiet, uh, qualify as a recommendation for the week on your.
01:02:53.382 --> 01:02:56.052
so, I think it's a recommendation to read the technology.
01:02:56.052 --> 01:03:03.132
I, I don't, I was then started getting very excited about doing a version of this, and I'm like, I'm not gonna invest in learning all this stuff.
01:03:03.132 --> 01:03:10.242
But I think reading their documentation, their motivation, the, the use, it's, it's a, it's a solution to a problem, you know?
01:03:10.242 --> 01:03:17.143
And it's a way of actually having all of the convenience of these, one of these programs without the reliance on, on a cloud service.
01:03:17.202 --> 01:03:24.163
So that means that as long as you all have the software and it runs, you will have your messaging service.
01:03:24.373 --> 01:03:27.643
I mean, that's, that's really the, the thing that comes out of all of this,
01:03:31.021 --> 01:03:35.626
actually, so if you, if you wanna segue into recommendations, do you have any others for this week?
01:03:35.706 --> 01:03:43.597
So I've been alluding to this recommendation throughout the whole thing, and it's a very, very long essay by Ed Zirin.
01:03:44.016 --> 01:03:46.177
It's about 13,000 words.
01:03:46.387 --> 01:03:53.347
If you can't handle it, he's broken it down into a three episode podcast where he basically reads in the bridged version of it, which is very fun.
01:03:53.916 --> 01:03:57.396
The title of this piece is called The Era of the Business Idiot.
01:03:58.086 --> 01:04:02.797
So it's, it's, um, he's been building up to this point for many, many years.
01:04:03.067 --> 01:04:06.306
His newsletter has covered, um, many topics.
01:04:06.306 --> 01:04:07.896
AI has been his big one this year.
01:04:08.286 --> 01:04:16.356
Before that, he was talking a lot about the growth at all cost, uh, mindset, rot economy was the phrase that he was using.
01:04:16.567 --> 01:04:19.027
Very similar to ification that Corey, Dr.
01:04:19.027 --> 01:04:19.507
Row coined.
01:04:19.536 --> 01:04:23.706
But rot economy is something that he wants to say is very far reaching.
01:04:23.706 --> 01:04:32.407
It's not just about platforms degrading the quality of something, it's actually just platforms and companies existing that don't actually care about what they do.
01:04:32.407 --> 01:04:37.117
They just are these financial entities that grow and generate stock market returns.
01:04:37.387 --> 01:04:48.637
And so this piece, um, lays out more of that thinking um, I feel like he's touched on something very, very real that has affected every aspect of modern life.
01:04:48.637 --> 01:04:50.677
And I do think, um.
01:04:51.081 --> 01:04:51.981
It's important.
01:04:52.222 --> 01:04:59.692
I know we don't get political, but many people should know that our current president was a CEO of a company and a business leader.
01:04:59.811 --> 01:05:06.172
And people think that was a good thing, that a business leader is someone that you should have to lead a country because it should be run like a business.
01:05:06.382 --> 01:05:18.052
Well, he runs it exactly like a CEO would all the terrible things, like doesn't care how things work, doesn't care how rules work, what are the, does this thing move over here?
01:05:18.442 --> 01:05:20.152
It's just that number looks like that.
01:05:20.152 --> 01:05:21.652
I want the number to look like this.
01:05:22.041 --> 01:05:29.931
So make that number like that, you know, that type of thinking is CEO thinking I, I strongly on average.
01:05:29.931 --> 01:05:31.672
Like, I think everyone's kind of subject to this.
01:05:32.061 --> 01:05:35.782
So, it comes back to the Tim Cook discussion, right?
01:05:35.782 --> 01:05:41.902
There's this, this idea of want to really, I don't want to get in the weeds with what the customer wants or cares about.
01:05:41.902 --> 01:05:43.132
And, you know, none of this matters.
01:05:43.552 --> 01:05:45.952
So this piece is just very, very long.
01:05:46.402 --> 01:05:47.032
Um.
01:05:48.141 --> 01:06:04.672
But there's a lot of great tidbits here about managers, CEOs, and he even really refers to this notion that we live in a symbolic economy, that so much of business leadership has become more about the aesthetic of engaging in a conversation as opposed to actually making a product.
01:06:05.751 --> 01:06:07.902
Um, and so what does the CEO do?
01:06:07.902 --> 01:06:08.112
He does.
01:06:08.112 --> 01:06:09.161
He's not gonna talk about users.
01:06:09.161 --> 01:06:13.001
He's gonna tell you how you are all gonna lose your jobs because his technology is so amazing.
01:06:13.001 --> 01:06:13.722
You have to get ready.
01:06:13.722 --> 01:06:18.132
So this is Dario Amide, like he just, talk that kind of crap.
01:06:18.851 --> 01:06:19.211
Sorry.
01:06:19.751 --> 01:06:21.461
Um, so I would say.
01:06:22.947 --> 01:06:36.146
It's quite interesting because I feel like we've seen many examples of CEOs who've reached the tops of corporate power structures, and they just don't really know what it is that they do and what it is that they're supposed to do for customers.
01:06:36.177 --> 01:06:38.577
And I, I just don't think they care about customers anymore.
01:06:39.476 --> 01:06:41.456
Not to do more Steve Jobs worship.
01:06:41.637 --> 01:06:43.947
He's a, he's a terrible man in many ways.
01:06:43.947 --> 01:06:54.206
He was a terrible man, this dumb thing that they did where they charged the devices a little bit before they put them in the boxes, it's a total waste of money, right?
01:06:54.206 --> 01:06:57.146
Your bean counter and accountants will tell you, why are you doing this?
01:06:57.146 --> 01:06:58.166
This is electricity.
01:06:58.376 --> 01:07:00.297
You do this millions of times we're wasting money.
01:07:00.896 --> 01:07:02.217
And he's like, no, of course.
01:07:02.217 --> 01:07:04.617
Like when the customer gets the item, they're excited.
01:07:04.617 --> 01:07:07.347
This is the moment to blow them away.
01:07:07.706 --> 01:07:08.427
Hook them.
01:07:09.327 --> 01:07:11.306
That damn thing powers on.
01:07:12.387 --> 01:07:15.836
And it's because I am solving the customer problem.
01:07:15.956 --> 01:07:17.637
I'm not solving something else.
01:07:17.637 --> 01:07:19.047
I care about the customer.
01:07:20.382 --> 01:07:23.351
And I feel like when you look at Apple now, it's like it's gone the other way.
01:07:23.351 --> 01:07:27.731
It doesn't care about the cost, cares about the shareholder, the number of share, uh, buybacks is incredible.
01:07:27.972 --> 01:07:28.931
They're off the charts.
01:07:29.771 --> 01:07:39.612
Interestingly enough, Steve Jobs found the same problem when he arrived at Apple, which was they were doing huge numbers of stock buybacks put an immediate stop to it
01:07:39.721 --> 01:07:40.081
Hmm.
01:07:40.512 --> 01:07:43.512
that's how you discipline the company in many ways.
01:07:43.871 --> 01:07:46.211
You stop it from being this financialized entity
01:07:46.320 --> 01:07:46.621
Right.
01:07:46.902 --> 01:07:48.282
make it a product company again.
01:07:48.342 --> 01:07:54.762
But now it's kind of returned to be this financialized entity, hence services, movies, aesthetic things are very exciting.
01:07:55.021 --> 01:07:55.326
All right.
01:07:55.541 --> 01:07:55.931
long.
01:07:56.262 --> 01:07:58.092
I think you should, everyone should read this.
01:07:58.452 --> 01:08:04.121
You might feel it's terrible and really mean to managers, and you, anyone who's a manager will feel, oh, well, I'm a very good man.
01:08:04.121 --> 01:08:05.172
I'm sure you are.
01:08:05.501 --> 01:08:10.452
But it's good to hear this thing because there are many people that are terrible at it and there are many leaders that are terrible.
01:08:10.452 --> 01:08:11.891
And so this was a very nice.
01:08:12.717 --> 01:08:14.067
Distillation of all those things.
01:08:14.067 --> 01:08:19.976
So Ed Zirin, the age of the business idiot, or the era of the business idiot I should say.
01:08:20.606 --> 01:08:26.277
Um, yeah I think it touches on a lot of stuff and like I said, I don't, I think it's inescapable.
01:08:26.277 --> 01:08:40.197
We all swim in this water around leadership that doesn't, generally not naming names or anyone that we are working with, of course, but I'm just saying in general, when you look around, especially like Apple and things like that, where is the customer in that discussion?
01:08:40.527 --> 01:08:41.546
You know, very little.
01:08:41.697 --> 01:08:42.237
Very little.
01:08:43.136 --> 01:08:46.856
no voice of the customer, hence Tim Cook will talk about F1 movies.
01:08:48.716 --> 01:08:49.436
That's something else.
01:08:49.436 --> 01:08:51.537
Hanging out with Louis Hamilton again, you know?
01:08:51.596 --> 01:08:51.837
Yeah,
01:08:53.836 --> 01:08:54.586
Oh, that sounds great.
01:08:54.586 --> 01:09:00.735
And, and as with all these things we're, we'll provide a link in the show notes to the piece, but also the podcast,
01:09:01.136 --> 01:09:01.466
yeah.
01:09:01.576 --> 01:09:01.996
yeah.
01:09:02.086 --> 01:09:02.475
Great.
01:09:03.676 --> 01:09:08.746
Uh, well, I have, um, recommendations I have, I'm gonna cheat.
01:09:08.746 --> 01:09:14.836
I have two that are perhaps more lighthearted on the surface, but I think are, are pretty substantive as well.
01:09:15.376 --> 01:09:26.536
But, um, the first one, and they're both media, uh, it's kind of funny speaking of, uh, Tim Cook, talking about F1, but, uh, the first one is, and or season two, have you watched it at all?
01:09:26.900 --> 01:09:27.190
Yohi.
01:09:27.476 --> 01:09:29.247
We started and or season one.
01:09:30.027 --> 01:09:42.537
And it's funny you say lighthearted, we've, we've started going back into it because people have been saying that it is very, very relevant, um, and quite meaningful at this moment.
01:09:42.537 --> 01:09:47.037
So yeah, we're still at the beginning, but season two you're saying is worth it.
01:09:47.220 --> 01:09:48.180
Oh my goodness.
01:09:48.180 --> 01:09:52.980
Yeah, I think, um, I mean a lot of, I'm certainly not alone in this.
01:09:52.980 --> 01:09:58.890
A lot of people have been saying it's the best Star Wars since the original, uh, star Wars.
01:09:58.890 --> 01:10:02.671
I think to put it in that context is limiting.
01:10:02.671 --> 01:10:15.240
'cause I just think it's just an incredible piece of art that is incredibly relevant and timely, but is also just remarkable in, in, in pretty much every aspect.
01:10:15.270 --> 01:10:17.791
I think the writing is just phenomenal.
01:10:18.511 --> 01:10:21.600
The acting is across the board.
01:10:21.600 --> 01:10:22.440
Incredible.
01:10:23.070 --> 01:10:31.890
Um, and then all the crafts, you know, the costuming, the production design, it's just everyone was on their A game and.
01:10:32.746 --> 01:10:36.645
Uh, it, the end result is something really, really special.
01:10:37.246 --> 01:10:41.985
The sort of thing that people talk about, you know, for years and years to come.
01:10:41.985 --> 01:10:45.076
So I would highly, highly recommend it.
01:10:45.586 --> 01:11:00.735
What's I think pretty impressive is, you know, like a lot of, like you mentioned, every, a lot of people say how timely it feels, but it was filmed in 2022, going on 2023, so it was written well before that.
01:11:00.971 --> 01:11:01.421
Hmm.
01:11:01.426 --> 01:11:10.155
Uh, and, uh, the showrunner, Tony Gilroy has talked about that, the fact that it's really about these things that consistently come back, you know?
01:11:10.155 --> 01:11:18.555
Um, so he didn't know Trump was gonna win the election, but it's, it's sadly these, um.
01:11:18.586 --> 01:11:23.536
Uh, behaviors, uh, that cycle through time
01:11:23.926 --> 01:11:24.216
Yeah.
01:11:24.615 --> 01:11:29.265
are surprisingly predictable in the way they come to life.
01:11:29.296 --> 01:11:36.466
I think maybe what we're surprised by is that they're happening here in the us but the playbook is the same.
01:11:36.496 --> 01:11:43.756
Um, and if you're a student of that, then you know, you can, you can tap into that and, and he's absolutely done that.
01:11:43.756 --> 01:11:48.046
And, uh, man, it's, I think, uh, amazing.
01:11:48.435 --> 01:11:48.945
So yeah.
01:11:48.945 --> 01:11:52.546
And or season two absolutely would, uh, highly recommend.
01:11:52.966 --> 01:12:10.515
And, uh, one other related note here is, you know, we talked about the review industrial complex in our last episode and how terrible it is, and a similar sort of thing exists around media and this kind of review industrial complex of media, uh, on YouTube, which is generally terrible.
01:12:10.935 --> 01:12:16.695
But I came across one podcast and it's also available on YouTube that I think is actually.
01:12:17.610 --> 01:12:28.921
Worth listening to and watching, which is the Yukon Pop, which is, uh, hosted by two, uh, political science professors out of the University of Connecticut.
01:12:28.921 --> 01:12:29.940
Thus the name Yukon.
01:12:30.421 --> 01:12:36.631
Uh, it's Steven Dyson and Jeffrey RDAs dos, and they actually talk about.
01:12:37.291 --> 01:12:37.890
The show.
01:12:37.890 --> 01:12:45.480
Uh, so they talk about pop culture in general, but so they, they, they did a, uh, recaps of every batch of episodes of, and or this season.
01:12:45.570 --> 01:13:01.020
And they provide cultural context and political context around these episodes so that maybe, you know, if you're not as much of a student of history, you can kind of understand, uh, where these things are coming from.
01:13:01.020 --> 01:13:08.520
And they're not, you know, things that are being made up that they're actually rooted in things that have happened in the past.
01:13:08.970 --> 01:13:23.251
Uh, and so that's the one kind of piece of, um, commentary about, and or that I felt was actually, that actually added to the experience that was worthwhile versus all these other, uh, useless, uh, recap podcasts and YouTube channels.
01:13:23.681 --> 01:13:26.921
Yeah, I, I know exactly what you mean, that it reminds me.
01:13:26.921 --> 01:13:28.841
I know I've done lots of talking, but, uh,
01:13:28.980 --> 01:13:29.400
No.
01:13:29.712 --> 01:13:29.981
um.
01:13:30.686 --> 01:13:39.537
We were, mentioned this, cycle through these things and things repeat, or it's always variations on the theme.
01:13:39.627 --> 01:13:45.087
Maybe that's the way, like classical music and music and or like cover versions of old songs.
01:13:45.146 --> 01:13:48.207
There's a kind of variation and an underlying theme in history.
01:13:48.926 --> 01:13:58.436
Um, and I found it always very helpful for myself always have that long view to remember that there is a lineage to these things.
01:13:58.886 --> 01:14:04.407
Um, and things happen because of what's come before in the past.
01:14:04.407 --> 01:14:07.646
And also things change for the better because of things that have happened in the past.
01:14:08.096 --> 01:14:12.476
Uh, but on that note, there's a book that I just started reading and I'm quite fond of it.
01:14:12.476 --> 01:14:19.436
It's um, by Rebecca Sonet who wrote, uh, a pretty famous collection of essays called Men Explain Things to Me.
01:14:19.436 --> 01:14:22.737
I think it captured the moment of, I think it was very Me Too
01:14:22.940 --> 01:14:23.020
Hmm.
01:14:23.037 --> 01:14:24.056
Feminist and so on.
01:14:24.056 --> 01:14:26.846
And, I was.
01:14:27.641 --> 01:14:29.292
To be honest, I was very dismissive of Rebecca.
01:14:29.292 --> 01:14:37.811
So, but my very good, one of my very good friends is a big fan I would, you know, I was like, I will keep an open mind, but I never picked up a book.
01:14:37.872 --> 01:14:45.341
And then, um, the other week my wife picked up this book and said, just read the first paragraph of this essay.
01:14:45.822 --> 01:14:48.221
Um, and it's from the books collection.
01:14:48.221 --> 01:14:53.351
It's called No Straight Road Takes You There and it is very, very good.
01:14:53.652 --> 01:15:07.662
It's about this moment in time and understanding the lineage and how long it takes for things to change and how important it is to express what should be as opposed to accepting things the way they are.
01:15:09.282 --> 01:15:16.122
stop thinking things are inevitable believe that things are inevitable, that they can be changed and avoided.
01:15:16.601 --> 01:15:23.712
And they start with very small things and they start with futile attempts at just doing something, you know?
01:15:23.712 --> 01:15:24.462
And I feel like.
01:15:25.737 --> 01:15:28.737
There's some bits of that in the, in the Star Wars universe.
01:15:28.737 --> 01:15:33.056
And I feel like Ando also has that feeling, you know, of what is the point.
01:15:33.146 --> 01:15:35.006
It's such an insurmountable thing.
01:15:35.096 --> 01:15:53.756
And it reminds me all the way back to the beginning of this podcast, that Ur Lagu quotation that you shared where she was taking her book prize where she said, know, the power of the absolute, divine power of kings was taken as truth that need not apply to capitalism, for example, but in truth, nothing, you know, but it takes time.
01:15:54.476 --> 01:16:12.896
Um, and so I found this book was very, very helpful to, you know, just not even as a manual, but just a daily meditation on how important it's that just represent an alternative to something and things need not be inevitable and need not be at, you know, the end of things feels like a part of the resistance.
01:16:12.896 --> 01:16:14.907
You know, it's just one of those things that you add to it.
01:16:14.907 --> 01:16:17.787
So, uh, yeah, no Straight Road takes you there by
01:16:17.831 --> 01:16:17.911
Hmm.
01:16:18.237 --> 01:16:21.447
Sa that, um, it's, it's a pretty, it's pretty great.
01:16:21.661 --> 01:16:22.600
Oh, that's fantastic.
01:16:22.900 --> 01:16:27.121
Uh, one last 10 chili related thing I'll, I'll note here.
01:16:28.081 --> 01:16:39.091
I think this is a great example of, um, good, great art, is it, it elicits all these connections and makes you want to talk about other things, but there's this ama fantastic interview of Tony Gilroy, the showrunner for and Android.
01:16:39.451 --> 01:16:41.070
And or, uh, in the New York Times.
01:16:41.070 --> 01:16:50.220
And, uh, the interviewer, it's, I, my feel of it is like the interviewer is trying to pin him down and trying to get him to say that it's a liberal show.
01:16:50.671 --> 01:17:00.180
Uh, and Gilroy gives this phenomenal answer as to why he believes all creative works, lean, progressive by th nature.
01:17:00.480 --> 01:17:06.180
So I'll provide a link to that interview and, uh, yeah, it's a fantastic, uh, he's, man, he's great.
01:17:06.180 --> 01:17:09.121
I think, uh, he's an amazing writer.
01:17:09.211 --> 01:17:15.900
But, uh, so my last recommendation for this week is also a piece of media, uh, and I'm very late to this, but.
01:17:16.150 --> 01:17:18.100
Are you familiar with Nathan Fielder?
01:17:18.190 --> 01:17:19.211
He's a comedian.
01:17:20.127 --> 01:17:20.346
Yes.
01:17:20.711 --> 01:17:21.100
Yeah.
01:17:21.820 --> 01:17:23.591
So I'm very late to him.
01:17:23.591 --> 01:17:25.690
I've never seen anything else he'd done.
01:17:25.690 --> 01:17:30.041
But, uh, my wife and I, we watched the second season of the rehearsal,
01:17:30.327 --> 01:17:30.777
Yes,
01:17:30.970 --> 01:17:36.011
is on, uh, HBO Max, formerly known as Max, formerly known as HBO.
01:17:36.430 --> 01:17:44.201
Um, but, uh, oh my goodness, uh, we, we, I think we ended up watching the whole season in one night.
01:17:44.230 --> 01:17:52.091
'cause it just was so mind blowing it, I'd never seen anything like it, it was, I, it's like inexplicable.
01:17:52.091 --> 01:17:58.871
You can't explain it'cause it's just so, uh, uh, enigmatic so weird.
01:17:59.470 --> 01:18:04.841
But, but it, it, I feel like it's just really deeply human.
01:18:05.277 --> 01:18:05.726
Hmm.
01:18:06.730 --> 01:18:13.600
and it's remark, much like, and or it's remarkable that Disney funded and or,
01:18:14.006 --> 01:18:14.306
Yeah.
01:18:14.320 --> 01:18:15.310
know, uh.
01:18:15.496 --> 01:18:22.336
Uh, and HBO Discovery, whatever funded the rehearsal.
01:18:22.725 --> 01:18:27.796
It's just incredible to me that this exists and I just am so happy that it exists.
01:18:27.796 --> 01:18:32.716
And, uh, and so after watching season two, we went back and watched season one.
01:18:32.716 --> 01:18:38.445
And, um, I, I actually would recommend if you've never seen the rehearsal to start with season two.
01:18:38.606 --> 01:18:38.896
Yeah.
01:18:38.985 --> 01:18:45.315
'cause I think it's, it's a more accessible entry point, but then we really enjoyed season one as well.
01:18:45.315 --> 01:18:54.796
It's actually, I think, more, even more thought provoking, um, uh, and challenging, uh, and happened to be set in Oregon.
01:18:55.515 --> 01:19:02.836
But, uh, man, what a amazing piece of, I don't even what, know what to call it.
01:19:03.076 --> 01:19:04.815
Uh, performance art.
01:19:05.351 --> 01:19:06.792
Yeah, it's very strange.
01:19:07.122 --> 01:19:13.752
Other stuff is also really weird, um, that he did on Comedy Central, which is, uh, Nathan, for you,
01:19:13.926 --> 01:19:14.145
Uh.
01:19:14.322 --> 01:19:30.981
this is, this stuff is way more out loud, silly, but he had this premise in mind'cause he, he was thinking about post Credit Crisis America 2008 and he was asking himself like, how did we get to that point?
01:19:30.981 --> 01:19:36.261
How did people allow themselves to be played and, and join the game?
01:19:36.261 --> 01:19:43.521
And when something obviously sounded stupid, they still went along with it with, if you just gave it the right framing and the right thing.
01:19:44.271 --> 01:19:48.832
And so Nathan for you is really just him saying, what can I get people to do?
01:19:48.952 --> 01:19:50.631
Which is, it sounds very cruel,
01:19:50.676 --> 01:19:50.895
Hmm.
01:19:51.351 --> 01:20:04.072
but the things that he suggests are so ridiculous that anyone should say this is a terrible, he go, his, the first episode I think is where he goes to a frozen yogurt company and says, Hey, you know what will really shock people into coming to the store?
01:20:04.792 --> 01:20:09.622
Let's make a shit flavored frozen yogurt and.
01:20:10.042 --> 01:20:15.442
They go, he chemically synthesizes the taste of excrement, human excrement.
01:20:15.442 --> 01:20:15.532
And,
01:20:16.355 --> 01:20:16.780
Oh my gosh.
01:20:17.032 --> 01:20:20.061
and, and the guy is not saying, this is a terrible idea.
01:20:20.061 --> 01:20:20.931
We shouldn't do this.
01:20:21.171 --> 01:20:22.582
They go all the way.
01:20:23.362 --> 01:20:26.782
start serving this, they, they interview the guests.
01:20:27.921 --> 01:20:29.242
says this taste like shit.
01:20:31.386 --> 01:20:36.891
And, you know, and then the guy, the guy, the managers, I, I should have told him to stop.
01:20:36.891 --> 01:20:37.792
And he is like, yes.
01:20:37.912 --> 01:20:39.442
As soon as he uttered the words.
01:20:39.742 --> 01:20:41.002
Why did you let him go down this?
01:20:41.601 --> 01:20:51.771
There are so many episodes that are so ridiculous, but it, it was clear that he always had a deeper, that show was very laugh out loud, ridiculous.
01:20:52.131 --> 01:20:59.032
But at its core was this question of what could you, why is it that human beings are willing to go down this path and
01:20:59.280 --> 01:20:59.360
Hmm.
01:21:00.051 --> 01:21:00.412
in this way?
01:21:00.412 --> 01:21:04.761
Just because there's a camera on them and a guy who says, I'm an expert and
01:21:04.820 --> 01:21:04.940
Hmm.
01:21:04.942 --> 01:21:06.292
is the nature of the show.
01:21:06.681 --> 01:21:08.122
It was really interesting in that.
01:21:08.122 --> 01:21:14.002
And so I think the rehearsal is a, a much more mature and, and deeper version
01:21:14.081 --> 01:21:14.161
Hmm.
01:21:14.572 --> 01:21:17.212
You know, of course Comedy Central versus something that's on HBO Max.
01:21:17.212 --> 01:21:23.721
Now you can get away with different things, but yeah, I think he's quite a compelling, strange character.
01:21:23.951 --> 01:21:24.341
Yeah,
01:21:24.532 --> 01:21:29.752
very strange and his, yeah, his, uh, delivery of.
01:21:30.141 --> 01:21:34.671
Sentences, his voice, the tambo of his voice, they're just all so specific to him.
01:21:34.671 --> 01:21:35.271
It's very strange.
01:21:35.452 --> 01:21:38.721
And he has that laptop stand that is so weird.
01:21:38.902 --> 01:21:40.221
That's hanging around his neck.
01:21:41.362 --> 01:21:42.171
it's strange.
01:21:42.202 --> 01:21:42.832
Yeah, it's right.
01:21:42.832 --> 01:21:43.671
It's like performance
01:21:44.051 --> 01:21:44.621
yeah,
01:21:44.811 --> 01:21:45.801
reality tv.
01:21:45.801 --> 01:21:47.752
It's confusing as hell, but
01:21:47.770 --> 01:21:48.220
yeah.
01:21:48.322 --> 01:21:49.671
yeah, that's why it's challenging.
01:21:49.671 --> 01:21:51.351
I have to, I can only do it in small doses.
01:21:51.412 --> 01:21:52.521
Yeah, it's very weird.
01:21:54.551 --> 01:21:54.895
All right.
01:21:54.895 --> 01:21:58.060
So, um, that's our recommendation.
01:21:58.060 --> 01:21:59.740
That's something very unique for you all.
01:21:59.740 --> 01:22:02.020
Uh, and I think that does it for us, for this.
01:22:02.091 --> 01:22:03.231
Yes,
01:22:03.296 --> 01:22:04.435
Off the cuff episode.
01:22:05.485 --> 01:22:11.515
Uh, a apologies again for our extended hiatus and for our paltry output thus far this year.
01:22:12.176 --> 01:22:14.275
Uh, with the kind of vagaries of life.
01:22:14.275 --> 01:22:22.916
I don't think we're gonna be able to get back to a weekly publication schedule, but, uh, we're gonna do our best to do better than an episode of quarter, at the very least.
01:22:24.176 --> 01:22:26.756
Uh, and in the meantime, we want to hear from you.
01:22:27.176 --> 01:22:30.836
Do you have any thoughts on anything we discussed or recommended this week?
01:22:31.286 --> 01:22:32.876
If so, what's your perspective?
01:22:32.905 --> 01:22:38.365
Um, or maybe there's a product or service you'd love to hear us focus on through the lens of product, uh, and product marketing.
01:22:38.966 --> 01:22:41.576
Whether it's a request, a question, or an observation.
01:22:41.996 --> 01:22:51.115
Please do share your thoughts with us at Learn make learn@gmail.com or on threads at Learn Make Learn Show, all one word.
01:22:52.046 --> 01:22:55.555
Thanks for listening, and we hope you'll join us for the next Learn.
01:22:55.555 --> 01:22:56.246
Make, learn.