0:00:00So Paul, last time you were on the show was a very special event.
0:00:04I crashed your party for the live talk show at the...
0:00:07Yeah, you were actually not invited.
0:00:10You were like backstage and then all of a sudden you came out.
0:00:13Well, I brought a drink.
0:00:15Oh, yeah, that was right.
0:00:17That was well received.
0:00:19And then you were talking about just the tip with Amy.
0:00:22So I crashed your party, like I said.
0:00:24Right, but she was actually invited to be on the show.
0:00:27But this time I'm invited, right?
0:00:28I don't need to leave now.
0:00:29No. And again, you did kind of keep your mouth shut. I mean, you weren't really...
0:00:33I didn't come out there and blather. I just, you know, I don't know.
0:00:37But in between, now that was like the second week of June, and we're recording right now
0:00:41on the 10th of November. In between, you and my wife Amy have had an entire season of a
0:00:50podcast, Just the Tip.
0:00:53That's right.
0:00:54How many episodes did you end up doing?
0:00:55It was 15 episodes for season one.
0:00:58You guys were planning originally just on 10, though.
0:01:01We were talking between 10 and 13, and then we had an advertiser that was interested to
0:01:06do a couple more episodes and were big sellouts.
0:01:09So you figured out a way to slip some more shows in.
0:01:12We wrote some more material, exactly.
0:01:16So how do you think it went?
0:01:18I think I've been pretty happy with it.
0:01:20And I'll tell you what, I get more feedback for that for the past couple months than I
0:01:24I have for the software company that I've run for a decade.
0:01:27So it doesn't make quite as much money.
0:01:30It's not really paying my bills, but you know, it's, uh, it's been well received.
0:01:34I think people like podcasts.
0:01:36I'm shocked because I hate them.
0:01:38Do you really?
0:01:41I don't, well, I shouldn't say I hate them, but I don't listen to them.
0:01:44I listen to, uh, I listened to our podcast over and over again as I'm editing it,
0:01:48which is the worst thing in the world.
0:01:49Uh, and I listened to some of the talk show and I listened to you look nice
0:01:53which is sadly about to end forever. Isn't it over? I thought that it was at the I thought the one
0:02:00that just came out last week was the final episode. Is it really? Well it was part one,
0:02:04but it was that a joke you think? I couldn't I haven't actually had a chance to listen to that
0:02:07one yet. I've been saving it. See that's what going on it's like it's like reading the there's like
0:02:12one David Foster Wallace novel I haven't read yet and I'm saving that you know. Because you know
0:02:17there aren't going to be any more exactly. Right and that's a dangerous game to play because it's
0:02:21It's been a couple of years now on David Foster Wallace.
0:02:24- You could die any moment.
0:02:25- Exactly, and then, you know, what was the point?
0:02:27You know, there's, how long do you save something like that?
0:02:32Probably not a good idea to save it at all.
0:02:34But I felt the same way with You Look Nice today.
0:02:37- Yeah, but yeah, so I don't, well, you know what it is?
0:02:40You work from home the same way I do.
0:02:42I don't have a commute.
0:02:43And everyone I know who listens to podcasts says like,
0:02:44"Oh, it's the best thing.
0:02:45"It gets me through the, you know,
0:02:47"45 minute hour drive that I have," or whatever it is.
0:02:50and my commute is 10 steps down from my bedroom.
0:02:53So it'd have to be a real short podcast.
0:02:56- Right, I listen to them a lot of times
0:02:58if I'm walking and doing errands
0:03:01or something like that through the city,
0:03:02I'll load one up on the iPhone
0:03:05and then I'll have something to listen to
0:03:06as I walk through the city.
0:03:08But I just don't have as much commute time as,
0:03:11I don't have any commute time.
0:03:13- Right, well, so I almost finished last week's talk show
0:03:17before we started recording this one.
0:03:18So I got like half an hour left on that one.
0:03:21So I'm almost done.
0:03:22- Yeah, I've been letting it slip.
0:03:25I've been letting it go way too long.
0:03:27Although--
0:03:28- I'm gonna cut it off.
0:03:30I'm just at like 45 minutes, I'm just gonna go.
0:03:31- Yeah, you should just go.
0:03:33Well, and it's funny because
0:03:34it gets to the nature of what people do
0:03:40when they listen to podcasts.
0:03:42And for people with, let's just say,
0:03:43and this is very common, especially in America,
0:03:47that you might have an hour commute each way.
0:03:50So you have two hours a day, and that's 10 hours a week.
0:03:54And so if you have 10 hours a week in your car,
0:03:57then a two and a half hour,
0:03:58I think it was almost two and a half hour episode
0:04:00of the talk show.
0:04:01If you like hearing me talk,
0:04:04and if you like John Siracusa,
0:04:06we got so many people who were like,
0:04:07"Oh my God, I was so happy when I saw Siracusa
0:04:10was on the show, and then I saw how long it was,
0:04:11and I got even happier."
0:04:13- Right, right.
0:04:13- But I'm sure there's also,
0:04:15and there's also, I think, a silent,
0:04:17I don't know if it's a majority, I don't know.
0:04:19But I'm sure there's a part of you out there
0:04:21who are like, "Oh my God, I love the show,
0:04:23"but come on, two hours, Jesus."
0:04:25How about some editing?
0:04:26And the worst part is it was edited.
0:04:28- Oh, so the real recording was like four or five hours?
0:04:32- I don't know, I think it was closer to three.
0:04:33But, you know, and we could, if I had the forethought,
0:04:38you know, 'cause I do the sponsor reads
0:04:40while I'm doing the show.
0:04:41And I guess what I could do is not do that.
0:04:44And then if it ends up that a guest is on
0:04:46and we get three feels like solid hours,
0:04:49I could call that two shows.
0:04:51- Right.
0:04:52- And then just record the bits in,
0:04:54the sponsor reads in later.
0:04:56But the way that I did the sponsor reads,
0:04:59I couldn't really, it wouldn't have been easy
0:05:01to break it into two episodes.
0:05:03- To cut it out, yeah, absolutely.
0:05:04- 'Cause that would be great,
0:05:05'cause then I could just take a week off
0:05:07and still have the show.
0:05:07- Then you don't have to do anything, yeah.
0:05:08- Right.
0:05:09But I'm gonna try, I wanna get back,
0:05:11I wanna try to, I'm gonna try to do this one in an hour.
0:05:14- All right.
0:05:14- What are we at?
0:05:15shit.
0:05:16[laughs]
0:05:17It flies.
0:05:18Time flies.
0:05:19Right.
0:05:20Now, you and Amy, though, on just the tip, you guys stuck—I know at the beginning,
0:05:26you guys even—I think you even said on air that you were gonna go for—
0:05:29It was a promise, yeah.
0:05:30It was—
0:05:31—30 minutes?
0:05:32—more than half an hour, yeah.
0:05:33Did you—
0:05:34We managed to do it, yeah.
0:05:35It's—so in the beginning, we recorded and we just talked and talked, and then I had
0:05:39to chop that down.
0:05:40And eventually, I realized, hey, I should make us have a hard cutoff of, like, 60 minutes,
0:05:44then I'll only have to edit 30 minutes out. But yeah, there was a lot of stuff that we
0:05:49cut out that, you know, maybe was a little bit funny or pretty funny, but we really wanted
0:05:54to hit that 30 minute point. So it's tough. Not editing is the way to go if you can do
0:05:59it.
0:06:00Yeah, you guys have a...
0:06:02You've been able to get away with it.
0:06:04Yeah, and I don't edit my show. My friend at Mule, Caleb Sexton, does, and he does a
0:06:09hell of a job. But he doesn't really edit...
0:06:12Edit for content.
0:06:14Right. For the most part. I mean, he'll call it. He's great though. He's a long time listener
0:06:18of the show and gets it. He totally gets what the show, if it's good, what it is that's
0:06:24good about it. And he will call it out and he'll ask. He'll say if an entire bit really
0:06:30bored him, then he'll suggest taking it out. And I don't think I've ever disagreed.
0:06:37But for the most part, whole bits don't get edited out. It's maybe a bit of stammering
0:06:42if there's a mistake or something like that. Right.
0:06:45And I think he does a great job. He does a good job making me sound a lot better. But he doesn't
0:06:52edit film editing, which is like what you and Amy did with Just the Tip, where you guys—
0:06:59Yeah, and it's a pain in the ass. I don't recommend it, but I am happy with the product
0:07:04that we get out of it. And I think—we were talking about people that like a long show,
0:07:08and certainly plenty of people do, but it's difficult to argue with a short show that's
0:07:12hopefully pretty punchy. Right. Which is, and you know, I'm sure, you know, if people who listen to
0:07:19dozens of podcasts can name others that do it, but it does lend itself to a higher production
0:07:25level feel. And, you know, You Look Nice Today always did that. And they did, they always had
0:07:32the nice thing where they have the little jingles in between the edited segments, which gives it
0:07:38more of a, you know, like a segmenty feel, like when there's those transitions.
0:07:46Right, absolutely.
0:07:47Like I thought you were, I listened to almost every episode of Just The Tip, I think. I don't
0:07:51know. I think so. But I like the edited nature of it. But I did think every once in a while,
0:07:58sometimes the transition between segments was abrupt.
0:08:01Yeah, you could. And part of it is, you know, this was the first time I was editing a podcast. So
0:08:05So part of it was just getting used to editing.
0:08:07And yeah, there definitely were points
0:08:09where you could hear a cut.
0:08:10And we had my friend Todd
0:08:12who did all these theme songs for the show.
0:08:13And so I was thinking about nicking that idea
0:08:15from "You Look Nice" today
0:08:16of just putting like a little musical interlude,
0:08:18five seconds between things.
0:08:20I might wind up doing that
0:08:21if I find that I do wind up having those cuts
0:08:24that are really obvious.
0:08:25- Especially now that they're off the air.
0:08:27- Yeah, absolutely.
0:08:28We can steal whatever we want from them.
0:08:29- Fair game to steal everything from those guys.
0:08:32- I'm gonna get Jon Hahn-jman to record stuff for us.
0:08:34Absolutely.
0:08:34That was why I tell you what that was one of the most surprising things to me because Amy and I you know
0:08:41Just you know, it's not that I don't think she listens to this show. Frankly. She might listen if you're on but
0:08:46She listens when it's somebody she likes. Yeah, that's what she said
0:08:49But she didn't really run much by me, you know
0:08:55I mean I was you know, I didn't know much in advance of any given week episode until it actually hit, you know
0:09:01So I was very surprised the first time I heard a theme song and it was you know, it's good
0:09:06But then the next week when it had like all new theme song that was just as good
0:09:11It was like bizarre to me because that's like the one of the hardest thing. How do you get a good theme song?
0:09:17It's very hard to do. Well, so this is my buddy Todd who's I shouldn't well
0:09:23I'm on a different show so I think I can I can rat him out a little bit
0:09:25But he's working on his doctorate and when he wants to slack off he just fiddles in Garageband
0:09:31And since we had about ten different theme songs, he's been you know
0:09:35What's the word I want, you know, just slacking off quite a bit, I think all right
0:09:39But that was amazing to me though because they were you know, pretty good
0:09:42Yeah, we were we were very happy with them and and certainly we were grateful to have this this supplied to us
0:09:48So and I always thought that you know, that was a real gift for you look nice today
0:09:51Is that I don't know if it was sandy you whoever I don't know did sandy make all those
0:09:56I never even got the story on where those
0:09:58All the John Hodgman recordings? Well, you know, and like the music too. Yeah, and the music. I think he did the music at least
0:10:05Yeah
0:10:06We should ask him. Yeah, I guess I just always assumed it was him
0:10:09I know Scott doesn't do music and I don't think well
0:10:12I think Merlin screws around but he doesn't screw around with that type of music
0:10:15But anyway, those jingles they had for the interstitials, you know between the segments were gave that show such an incredibly polished feel
0:10:23Mm-hmm
0:10:24And and I thought that you guys had sort of the same thing with the just the tip
0:10:28Theme songs, but it was so crazy that they were different every time. Yeah
0:10:34Well, so when we got one it was like, alright
0:10:36We can use this and then and then he gave me like three more and I was like, well, these are all great
0:10:40And none of them are obviously better than the others. So I might as well just use a new one every week
0:10:45So, you know, there's no brand recognition or anything like that that you're gonna get from this, but that's alright
0:10:50See that's a and that's for me. It's like the main reason why
0:10:54I love you know from the get-go all the way back to you know the original runs
0:11:00of this show with Dan that we've never had any kind of theme song or anything
0:11:04like that because my thought is if you can't find one that's great then it's
0:11:08better not to have any at all and right and too many podcasts I think out there
0:11:12have like the equivalent of like like music yeah like Times New Roman you know
0:11:17yeah like you've got you know Times New Roman and Helvetica on your computer and
0:11:22so you're going to use those. You know, not bad, but like so clearly like just
0:11:28generic that it doesn't feel real. It's like not there somehow there's like a line you can press,
0:11:38you know, put a song or a jingle or a theme song over that makes it feel real and original. And
0:11:42there's something else that's just like generic. Pulling from the library of like 10 podcast theme
0:11:47songs that exist in GarageBand maybe. Exactly like you know and just altering
0:11:52it a little bit. I get you know sort of like the difference between an original
0:11:56blog design and just using a template. Right. You know that's that like like one
0:12:02of the default WordPress templates which isn't bad necessarily right and you know
0:12:06a lot of those you know it's it's like the ante has been raised so high in
0:12:11template design you know like the default WordPress templates if you do
0:12:16like a fresh install today are actually pretty good you know right and and
0:12:19Squarespace and those guys all have really good ten minutes and it's the big
0:12:24one tumblr you know when you sign up for tumblr use some really good templates to
0:12:28choose from now but they're still you know they're not original right and and
0:12:32a hundred other sites are gonna have that same one right now probably I was
0:12:35so I always thought you know why not just have none if you know which at the
0:12:39time we but what would a nun template look like well I don't know like during
0:12:44Fireball?
0:12:45Like a white page?
0:12:46Well, but that's, I mean, you styled that.
0:12:49Like you created that style.
0:12:51But it's closer to none than, you know.
0:12:54The WordPress, Tumblr, yeah.
0:12:57I guess what would be the equivalent would be maybe more like the equivalent of having
0:13:00a blog that doesn't even have a logo.
0:13:03Okay.
0:13:04Something like that.
0:13:05Yeah.
0:13:06Like if you can't have a good logo, you don't have any logo instead of a bad logo.
0:13:10I don't know.
0:13:13I might be overthinking it.
0:13:14- No, you?
0:13:17- No, not me.
0:13:18Let's take a break.
0:13:20And if we're gonna get this done in an hour,
0:13:22let's see if we can do this.
0:13:23- All right.
0:13:24- I'm gonna take a break for our first sponsor.
0:13:26And I'm very, very happy about this.
0:13:28Brand new sponsor, first time on the show is lynda.com.
0:13:33That's lynda with a Y.
0:13:34- With a Y, right?
0:13:35- With a Y.
0:13:36Now, I've been around for a long time.
0:13:41It's online training, education material, books,
0:13:45that sort of thing.
0:13:47You can learn at your own pace.
0:13:49They've been around so long, but they have never
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0:13:56They have over 2,000 courses that you can take online
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0:14:05I remember originally when they got started,
0:14:07it was mostly like--
0:14:09I don't know if this is quite fair, but maybe it was just my own unique perspective.
0:14:12But it was mostly, to my mind, lynda.com, like back in the '90s, was for graphic designers
0:14:18moving to the web.
0:14:20And it was like, "Here, we know what you know.
0:14:22You know Photoshop and Illustrator.
0:14:25We're going to teach you how to take those skills to the web and do it for real."
0:14:27But now they have everything.
0:14:29And for people who listen to the talk show, they've got some great Apple-specific stuff.
0:14:34They have Unix for Mac OS X users.
0:14:37So if you've always thought, you know, I wish I could learn more about Unix and the Unix
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0:16:00easy go to lynda.com lynda.com slash the talk show that'll get you there it'll
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0:16:26It's a great deal. It's so much stuff to learn and it's such a great way, I think, learning with the videos
0:16:31to learn to just to get better at anything like that anything that's on your list for
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0:16:41Do you ever think that you know the logo for lynda.com? Yeah, can you picture it?
0:16:46She looks like she needs a new prescription on her glasses, doesn't she?
0:16:51You know, I met her years ago.
0:16:54That's right, because it's a, I mean, the logo's a cartoon, but it's a real woman named
0:16:58Linda something.
0:16:59I forget, but it's so funny, I forget her last name.
0:17:02But I remember meeting her at Macworld New York.
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0:17:05Yeah, they probably had a booth or something.
0:17:06Which tells you how long ago it was.
0:17:07It was Macworld New York.
0:17:09No, I remember it was at Macworld New York in the Javits Center, New York.
0:17:16That's the New York version of Moscone.
0:17:19I remember their booth was swarmed just packed. It was just knee-deep because of all the designer
0:17:26type people in New York who wanted to learn how to make websites and stuff.
0:17:34In the news this week, a couple of things jumped out at me.
0:17:37What do we got?
0:17:41I sent you the thing. What's her name? The woman from the New York Times who wrote this.
0:17:47She's an economics reporter.
0:17:48Alright, I just read over this and now I don't remember the name either.
0:17:54She wrote a piece in their Sunday magazine a week ago, Catherine Rampell.
0:17:58That's right.
0:18:00Alleging, pretty much flat out alleging, there's no real, you know, maybe to it, alleging that
0:18:08Apple like booby traps their iPhones so that when new models come out.
0:18:15It instantly knows and starts slowing down and…
0:18:18Your old phone start the battery the battery doesn't last as long
0:18:22and
0:18:24When it when she wrote the first piece I linked to a rebuttal in of all places
0:18:29Gizmodo and I wrote something to the effect of you know cats are chasing dogs because here's here's gives common sense
0:18:37Coming from Gizmodo to straighten your times to straighten out nonsense in the New York Times, right?
0:18:43What the hell is going on with the world? That's what you got to do
0:18:46But in the meantime since she's like doubled down on this
0:18:49she has like a follow-up post on the economics blog at the New York Times where she
0:18:55she reiterated some of the stuff and
0:18:57Explained some of the contention she had made right? She was on CNN. There was a segment on CNN
0:19:04What was that the head day the headline? There was a just like on real CNN. It was
0:19:08Hold on here. I'm firing it up
0:19:14Well, the Apple conspiracy right? Is there an Apple conspiracy or something?
0:19:18Right and it's who is whose law is it with headlines that whatever if you have a question mark headline
0:19:23And it can just be answered with yes or no then better. It's just law
0:19:26Right. That's right. The answer is always no, right, right exactly
0:19:30Well, that was the thing is the headline on her original piece, which you can still see in the in the slug in the URL was
0:19:37It was something like why Apple wants to bust your iPhone and then they changed the headline to you know
0:19:44something wishy-washy like the apple trap or something.
0:19:47Right. Who was it? I was talking about that with somebody. Was it Dan Fromer?
0:19:50I think it was Dan Fromer like a week or two ago on this show, probably two weeks ago because
0:19:55Syracuse was on last week. About on so many CMSs, you can see an original headline that got toned
0:20:02down subsequently. Bloomberg does it all the time. Bloomberg, it seems like they really, they'll put
0:20:08out like a real punchy headline for five minutes and then somebody will be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.
0:20:12That's you know, let's water that down. Well, you can see it in the URL, right? And at a certain point
0:20:17Do you think it's intentional and they you know?
0:20:19Tone it down after the fact after they've gotten some of the the links that they wanted in the first place
0:20:23No, I don't think so
0:20:25I think it's more that the pressure to publish fast and you know
0:20:29It means that the the oversight that would happen before you know
0:20:34It happened it comes after the fact they basically say oh we should have toned that down in the first place
0:20:39Right like like in the old days before
0:20:43The web let's you know go back to the 1988
0:20:47You know that if she wrote the same article for the New York Times magazine
0:20:50At some point before they actually put the magazine to press somebody would have looked some conservative copy editor
0:20:58Would have looked at the headline said hey, we got it. You know this this is you know, this is New York Times
0:21:01We can't do this. Whereas now it's like four o'clock. She's done
0:21:07415 it's gone through copy editing
0:21:09420 it gets published and like maybe 440 somebody else looks at it and is like hey the headline, you know
0:21:16It's already been published and you know
0:21:18You know and I do it - I certainly it's you know
0:21:21I it's stupid to pretend that the web is print and that once you've hit published, you know
0:21:26It's sacrosanct you can't correct anything or you know change it or whatever. I mean if you change it significantly
0:21:32I think you should market
0:21:34Yeah, almost as a courtesy not like as a self-flagellation
0:21:38But almost as a courtesy to readers who maybe read the original version and think they're going crazy
0:21:44I think they're going crazy, you know, just you know, if you've already seen it. No, this is what it used to say
0:21:48And now it says this
0:21:50But this didn't sit right with me and it hasn't and I the whole the whole basis of her argument you mean yeah and and
0:22:00It's it's a little bit more than just hey the New York Times wrote something really almost slanderous about Apple
0:22:07And I think I think what it is is and it just didn't occur to me at first is that it's not just that it's
0:22:16wrong, but that I think it's actually
0:22:18completely opposite I
0:22:21Think that in consumer electronics say what you want, you know
0:22:26You know, there's all sorts of ways to be cynical about Apple
0:22:29but I think overall even if you're not a fan of their products, even if you're an Android person or Windows users or
0:22:35You know
0:22:37Pick any other competing platforms. I really do think it's fair to say that Apple takes care of
0:22:42Existing the customers and older devices better than anybody else
0:22:47Well, I really look at look at Android and you know
0:22:51Look at how many devices never get an update or you know six months after their release
0:22:56They're considered out of date and don't get a new version of the operating system, right?
0:23:01And is that better right and look at the Nexus itself, which is the one from Google
0:23:08Which is the full Google experience and which they control the software updates to like one of the biggest parts of the Nexus
0:23:16hardware line isn't just that you get the you don't have any carrier add-on crap you can use Android
0:23:23It's also that you get your updates direct from Google
0:23:26Apple style right and so with i Android 4.4, which just came out like 10 days ago
0:23:33It it's only available for two models of phone the brand new one and the Nexus for the the two
0:23:41Models back Galaxy Nexus, which was still being sold
0:23:45In the beginning of calendar 2013 as like a discounted Nexus right and it's only two years old
0:23:51Period if you bought it on day one already has been cut off from Google's own OS
0:23:58right and in day six, you know their explanation is that
0:24:02You know, it uses a Texas Instruments chipset that Texas instrument, you know
0:24:07Texas Instruments has since in interim two years stopped updating or whatever
0:24:13But it's like that doesn't even make any sense though.
0:24:15It doesn't make any sense to the customer who bought one two years ago.
0:24:18Right. That's the thing that really matters is as a user, if you think, you know, I got this sometime
0:24:22even this year, you're saying, and suddenly it's out of date, that there's no explanation that's
0:24:27going to make you think, okay, that makes sense. Right. And so I really feel like it's just like
0:24:33what makes it so pernicious is that it really is actually the opposite of, you know,
0:24:40what's good about Apple. So here's another example. I know she's talking about phones,
0:24:45but look at Mavericks. Mavericks is a free upgrade for...
0:24:51The machines that are as old as six years old.
0:24:54Yeah. Now, I don't think it's every device from every Mac from 2007, but there are...
0:25:00Some of them.
0:25:01Some of the Macs from 2007 are eligible for Mavericks. And the only reason they drew the
0:25:07line there is that you know it not out of spite like well we want you to buy a new mac
0:25:13if you're still using a 2006 one but you know that that's the line where i think apple thinks
0:25:18would know mavericks would if we made it work it would be worse right well so if anything
0:25:23i mean there has been reports there have been reports in the past of phones getting more
0:25:28sluggish when they updated to the new os right you've heard this absolutely absolutely and
0:25:32I don't I don't doubt it either right exactly
0:25:35I mean you're running new new software on old hardware and the software was built for the new hardware that has now come out
0:25:41So potentially, you know, it would make sense that this would not work as well as the new devices obviously
0:25:46But even as well as the old software running on that device, but if they're guilty of something
0:25:51It's you know, not cutting things off when they should it's not an issue of them
0:25:56You know maliciously trying to make your phone lousy so that you'll go buy a new one
0:26:01I don't I think of all the guests you've had on your show. I might have sort of the
0:26:07Most complicated relationship with Apple certainly. I think that's actually very true
0:26:12I mean we've we as a company rogue amoeba has had multiple issues with with Apple and their app stores
0:26:18And you know not anything we need to get into but as as even as an individual as a user
0:26:22I have a complicated relationship with their products. I love their products
0:26:26I hate some of their policies, but I can't look at this and think like yep
0:26:29They're really trying to screw people over with their iPhone 4
0:26:33And make them buy a new phone. It just doesn't it doesn't read to me. It doesn't scan as as realistic, right?
0:26:39and
0:26:42Like again, I know that there are people out there who had let's say an iPhone 4 or even a 4s and then they upgraded
0:26:49to iOS 7 and
0:26:51The phone really got slow or the battery with 7.00 right?
0:26:57Because there was some rest was addressed with some of the updates, right?
0:27:00But it's definitely not the case. I and in fact, I've tested it just as sin the last week
0:27:07I like actually because I keep all my old iPhones. I actually fired up my old iPhone 4
0:27:11And I didn't even fresh install it Jonas had been using it for a year or more as his you know, like gaming device
0:27:19so without
0:27:21Wiping anything out a device that he had used, you know after I fresh and you know reinstalled it
0:27:27or wiped it, whatever you want to call it,
0:27:29but that he'd used for at least a solid year.
0:27:31I just did the okay, you know,
0:27:34a software update is available.
0:27:37- Drop it on there.
0:27:37- Yeah, just like a regular consumer would.
0:27:40Okay, allow it.
0:27:41You know, is it as snappy as my iPhone 5S?
0:27:47No, but it's absolutely usable.
0:27:50Is it not quite as snappy as iOS 5,
0:27:54which is what was where he was upgrading from.
0:27:56Maybe in some ways, some of the animations,
0:28:00but overall, no, I think it's fine.
0:28:02And I think there are things like Safari,
0:28:05which Apple has continued,
0:28:06like the WebKit in Safari has continued to improve.
0:28:10Like it's faster than it used to be.
0:28:12Or, you know, JavaScript is faster.
0:28:14- Yeah, this isn't, so you have some experience
0:28:17having tested this yourself.
0:28:18I can't, I shouldn't say that I've tested this
0:28:20and, you know, I didn't experience this,
0:28:22but all I've heard and what her article started out with
0:28:25was anecdotal evidence.
0:28:26- Right.
0:28:27- And it was, nobody had any facts, nobody had any--
0:28:30- No facts.
0:28:31- Exactly, and so the whole story which blew up,
0:28:34I mean not to the extent of like Antennagate
0:28:36or anything like that, but it blew up to the point
0:28:39where other news institutions were covering this
0:28:42and taking it seriously, the whole thing was based on,
0:28:45or predicated on, my phone's a little slower
0:28:48than it used to be, I think.
0:28:50- Yeah.
0:28:51And so here's where I think the fact that it's the New York Times makes it worse is
0:29:00that the New York Times is still the New York Times.
0:29:04And when something's in the New York Times, it has more gravity.
0:29:08It carries more weight.
0:29:10Yeah.
0:29:11So here's an article from Inc.
0:29:12Magazine which I didn't even know was still around, but you know, inc.com, Inc.
0:29:17Eric Sherman has an article from sometime in the last week.
0:29:21Headline, planned obsolescence question mark,
0:29:24that trick only works at Apple.
0:29:26Apple is worth emulating in many ways,
0:29:28but not when it comes to how the company
0:29:29intentionally limits the lifespan of its products.
0:29:32- And it was, was this a response to herpes?
0:29:36- Well, here, just let me, I'll read the beginning.
0:29:38The notion of planned obsolescence,
0:29:40or the practice of designing products
0:29:41so they have a limited effective lifespan,
0:29:43may seem like some smart practical economics to some.
0:29:47And at times that is true.
0:29:49But for entrepreneurs, deliberately limiting the life of products and services is a bad
0:29:54mistake.
0:29:55When iOS 7 came whistling down the data pipe to older model iPhones, it must have first
0:30:00seemed like an early holiday present.
0:30:03No cost and all sorts of new goodies.
0:30:05But as Catherine Rampell wrote in the New York Times, good news turned to bad as her
0:30:10iPhone 4 became "a lot more sluggish."
0:30:13And then it's a quote from her article.
0:30:15anyway the gist of it is the way that he starts it is look the if the New York
0:30:19Times says it makes your iPhone 4 slow then it makes your iPhone 4 slow and
0:30:23they did it on purpose so that people will upgrade because the New York Times
0:30:26said this right right and I really do think that makes it worse here it has
0:30:31given me an idea for an article I don't know who could do it it would have to be
0:30:34somebody like the verge or in gadget or one of those outfits where they have a
0:30:40a staff of people including staff members who use Android devices full time.
0:30:49Because one thing we know is that the batteries that are in these devices definitely get worse
0:30:53the more you use them.
0:30:56It's like a year old device that's been charged 300 times is not going to have the battery
0:31:00life that it did when it was brand new.
0:31:02That's just how batteries work.
0:31:04That was one of the most galling things about this was it was talking about the batteries
0:31:08and it was saying like, you know, should they put in a better battery? That battery doesn't exist!
0:31:14Right, they are exactly.
0:31:15They're putting in the best battery they can, and as much of that battery as they can,
0:31:19because they know everyone wants battery life. If anything, you know, that's the one thing that
0:31:24they're absolutely not doing. Right, one of the, yeah, exactly, one of her proposals was
0:31:28should Apple be putting in a battery that doesn't lose any capacity at one time? And it's like, no,
0:31:34because it doesn't exist. Should somebody invent that battery? Yes, please! I'm sure
0:31:39Apple would love to talk to you if you've invented such a battery. I'll bet you can get a very nice
0:31:44check out of Tim Cook if you can invent a battery that doesn't lose capacity. I'm also sure, though,
0:31:52that if you invented such a battery, I'm sure there are some physics departments around the
0:31:56country that would— I'd love to talk to you. Yeah, I would love to— You might get a call from
0:31:59Sweden after that one yeah because there's you know there's certain laws of
0:32:04I don't know if it's thermodynamics or what you want you know but you know
0:32:09there's a conservation there's a reason why batteries lose power the more you
0:32:12use them right it's it's physics so sorry I cut you off when I'm talking
0:32:19about the battery but that was that stuck out to me so much but I would love
0:32:22to see I you know I my biased maybe but I would bet money though that a year old
0:32:27iPhone that's been used full-time like a review unit but like you know like I
0:32:34could volunteer my year-old iPhone 5 run it through the same battery test that
0:32:39you do when you were testing the brand new devices and see what the difference
0:32:44is you know does a year-old Samsung galaxy hold up as well you know not just
0:32:50one that's been sitting on a shelf but I'm saying one that like an you know
0:32:53like a nerd tech now real-world usage absolutely has used for a year what's the battery life when
0:33:00it's a year old you know I I would I feel pretty good I would I would wager a wee bit of money
0:33:06that Apple devices percentage-wise hold up better than most or at least as good I would be shocked
0:33:14if it was worse it's certainly not something where it's gonna be worse exactly right I would
0:33:18I'd have to agree there. I would be flabbergasted if Apple devices lost more capacity over the same
0:33:25amount of usage as others. I would guess that if anything, it might be better. Right. But the
0:33:31articles make it sound as though it's only Apple. Right, right. And yeah, really pin this on them
0:33:37and, and made it sound like, oh, they're putting in terrible batteries, and they're rushing it out
0:33:42software updates that'll hurt your phone. And right. Yeah, the whole thing. The whole thing was,
0:33:46like I said, predicated on these personal experience that may or may not even be true
0:33:52and didn't have any factual basis or any facts backing it up.
0:33:57And then the one last thing that really bothers me about this whole narrative is that to me
0:34:02it's also predicated on a very sort of longstanding, they call it the "cult of Mac" theory. The
0:34:11idea that that you know it is I know there's a website called the cult of Mac
0:34:18now but that people have called it a cult you know and right and moltz has
0:34:21always been a guy who's called it out I mean it's a strong you're talking about
0:34:28the straw man argument of where Apple fans will defend anything and will buy
0:34:33anything right right no matter what Apple comes out with they'll buy it and
0:34:37I think that really plays into this because that's this you know like just
0:34:41look at this headline in ink, planned obsolescence, that trick only works at
0:34:44Apple. Because think about what they're saying. What they're saying is, including
0:34:49Catherine Rampell at the Times, they're saying, okay, you've got a two-year-old
0:34:53phone that you weren't necessarily thinking iPhone, that you weren't
0:34:57necessarily thinking about replacing. Then a software update came down and you
0:35:01said, okay, install it. And now your phone adds worse battery life and worse
0:35:07performance. And they're saying, well then of course you're gonna go buy a new
0:35:11iPhone. Wouldn't the rational person be at that moment less likely to buy another iPhone
0:35:18than something else? Right. Absolutely. Well, and so she's an economics reporter. She's not
0:35:24actually a technology reporter. And she did touch on this a little bit. So there was a little bit of
0:35:29interesting discussion on, you know, would it actually make sense to do this? And it was saying,
0:35:34you know, if you have a monopoly and you're the only ones making a smartphone, then yeah,
0:35:38you should do this because people are just going to buy your new device. But as you said,
0:35:42there's competition out there that's, you know, decent at least. And if you're pissed off at
0:35:46Apple because they made your phone work like crap, you're going to look at that competition
0:35:50a lot more closely. Right. And one of the ways that I think the computing world in general has
0:35:55gotten a lot better as time has gone on is that it's gotten a lot easier to switch from one
0:36:01platform to another. There's nowhere near as much lock in technical lock in as there used to be.
0:36:06I mean, it is absolutely true that with the App Store, you know...
0:36:09I was gonna say, on the mobile platforms, I feel like we sort of took a little bit of a step back there.
0:36:14But on the other hand, the prices having come down so far, where so many of the apps you may have
0:36:19bought are literally like 99 cents or buck 99 or free...
0:36:22That's true, yeah.
0:36:23But so many things that, you know, just the fact that your floppy disks were different formats...
0:36:28Right.
0:36:28...in the old days, right?
0:36:29You need to buy a whole new zip drive.
0:36:30Right. But I mean, so many people have so much of their stuff just in Dropbox or in,
0:36:36you know, Google Apps, you know, your mails and Gmail, you can put your calendar on Google
0:36:41Calendar and stuff like that, that it's really a lot easier to switch. And I know this from,
0:36:46you know, just the time if I, you know, the times when I'll try an Android phone for a
0:36:49month or something like that. I don't have everything, but I can get a lot, I can get
0:36:53a lot of my stuff just by signing into Dropbox and Google and stuff like that. It's a lot
0:36:59easier than it used to be. Certainly less, a lot easier, you know, I'm not saying it's
0:37:03easy. There's certainly some some technical lock-in, but it's easier than
0:37:07it used to be. So I don't think anybody, even Apple, would would be wise to do
0:37:11that. I just think and I think that the only reason I think the reason they only
0:37:14write this about Apple and nobody else is there's nobody else who you could
0:37:17even make it seem as though there are these irrational customers who after
0:37:21being given a total shit sandwich like, "Hey, we took your perfectly working
0:37:25iPhone and ruined it. Come buy a new iPhone." Like it's an insult to people who
0:37:31buy iPhones, I think. I really do. They'd be willing to just put up with this, absolutely.
0:37:35Right! Like, wouldn't that be the moment where you're most angry at Apple and most likely to
0:37:40buy a Samsung? I, in fact, I would be willing to bet if you can somehow survey a thousand people,
0:37:47or ten thousand people who've bought an iPhone, you know, or a cell phone period in the last six
0:37:52weeks of, like, from like today, if you can find the number of those people who installed iOS 7 and
0:37:58hated it for whatever reason I'll bet that those people are
0:38:02Disproportionate probably not it's I don't think there's a lot of them and I don't think the percentage would be high
0:38:07But I'll bet there would be some kind of correlation that those people were more likely to
0:38:10Try a Samsung switch over to Android. Yeah
0:38:14Yeah
0:38:15I think that you know
0:38:16It's you know
0:38:17It's a little irritation like that is the sort of thing that could really nudge you to do that and I think Apple is fully
0:38:23aware of that
0:38:23Right, right and well, yeah, like I said, I don't I don't agree with a lot of stuff Apple does
0:38:28But I just can't see that it makes any sense for them to say yep
0:38:31This is how we're gonna get some new sales. Let's screw over the people who bought a phone two years ago, right?
0:38:36I mean, I think I think the biggest thing is that like I said
0:38:39I think maybe they should not have offered this update to those older phones if it was not gonna work as well as it should
0:38:45Right, but of course, I mean if you do that, then you're getting the people who say oh, why is my phone already out of date?
0:38:50Right. Why can't I get the latest so you can't win when you have tens of millions of customers?
0:38:56Somebody's gonna be ticked off
0:38:57Right and it's definitely the case that you know
0:39:00An older phone is way more likely than a newer phone to have developed some sort of even if I want to call it a bug
0:39:07Want to call it some kind of configuration of preference settings and data and usage that?
0:39:13It's not going to turn up over the summer while it's being beta tested
0:39:17and it's certainly also the case that the majority of the people using iOS 7 while it was in beta and
0:39:24next year who will be using iOS 8 and beta are not using two or three year old iPhones they're
0:39:29right is on their new phones that they aren't allowed to show anybody yet all right but it is
0:39:33absolutely not the case and it's like I said it's the opposite that the three year old iPhone users
0:39:39get more from Apple than any other phone nobody takes care of older customers like Apple does
0:39:44You want to do another sponsor break, John?
0:39:49Perfect timing, Paul.
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0:41:58on the talk show maybe about six months ago they started advertising I think.
0:42:03That sounds about right.
0:42:05And this is, I'm not getting any money for this but we've been very happy with them and
0:42:12the simplest thing is if you don't want to deal with spam let them deal with it and you
0:42:15won't have any problems with it.
0:42:17At least we haven't.
0:42:18And I, you know, I think that to me it sounds a little funny.
0:42:21The first time I heard it, it sounds pretty cool and simple and they're not asking you
0:42:24to switch your entire mail.
0:42:26are not doing your hosting for you, the mail hosting. It does sound to me a little bit
0:42:31like, well, do I really want to put another layer of indirection between the outside world
0:42:35and my mail server? But yeah, you do, because think about it. It's just, all it is is just
0:42:42a layer of filtering. And that's...
0:42:43The outside world is terrible and full of spam.
0:42:45Exactly.
0:42:46And a filter, a layer there helps you avoid all that.
0:42:49I also, I owe my friends at Mailrat an apology. Last time they sponsored the show, I said
0:42:55something to the effect that they used to work at Microsoft. That's actually not true
0:42:58and they wanted me to clarify that. None of them, in fact, have worked at Microsoft. What
0:43:02they did is they had built a previous mail admin tool that they sold to Microsoft.
0:43:08Okay, but at no point did they come with the tool.
0:43:12Exactly.
0:43:13All right.
0:43:14And I just thought that was so adorable that they wanted me to... They didn't even say...
0:43:18They didn't ask me to correct it. They just wanted me to know that none of them had worked
0:43:21at Microsoft.
0:43:22Whoa, whoa, whoa.
0:43:23What?
0:43:24None of us have ever worked at Microsoft.
0:43:26Yeah
0:43:29But I think it speaks I don't know it's they seem like cool guys
0:43:33I feel like they wanted to straighten that out. Where do you go for to find out more?
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0:43:53Paul I bet you bet you're taking advantage of that. You seem like a guy who that's that's where we found it
0:43:58And and yeah, why not take 10% off for the next however many years we wind up using it
0:44:02So that's mail route dotnet slash the talk show really works. Just takes care of spam
0:44:08There you go. Three three sentences or three three words takes care. I guess that's four
0:44:14But my thanks to them mine too, but like I said, I'm not getting paid I just like the product
0:44:21How we doing on time? We're gonna make it an hour? Maybe.
0:44:27We're at probably 45 minutes, yeah. We can maybe, you know, you didn't set a hard limit.
0:44:33No. There's no buzzer going off. Although you threatened to drop the mic after 45.
0:44:37I might just unplug the mic and go.
0:44:39All right. I've always wondered, I wonder if I could pull it off someday to do a Vin Scully,
0:44:45which would be to do an episode of the show where I don't have a guest and I'll just talk.
0:44:51Now, Vin Scully is the 89 year old, I think he's 89.
0:44:56It's something ridiculous. He's great.
0:44:58He's the baseball announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He's been their team
0:45:04announcer for so long that he used to be the announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
0:45:07Brooklyn Dodgers, yup. 85. He's 85. We shouldn't...
0:45:11All right. But the most amazing thing is he sounds exactly the same. Like,
0:45:17there you listen to an old clip of Jackie Robinson you know right playing
0:45:22in Brooklyn in 1954 it sounds exactly like him calling the game today well I
0:45:28mean that's the beauty of radio is he doesn't look quite the same I can tell
0:45:31you that much he looks good for 85 I'll tell you absolutely but anyway unlike
0:45:36any other any other baseball announcer I'm aware of he still works alone he
0:45:42just it's him in the booth he doesn't there's not you know one guy doing play
0:45:45by play and another guy doing as they call it color commentary which is fine and you know and
0:45:52it's a reason why everybody else does it I think it would be really hard to do it by yourself but
0:45:55that's what he does is difficult right it's just amazing he's the voice of baseball and but I
0:46:00wonder if I could do a talk show with no guess well so you were a little late getting to this
0:46:03I actually did about 15 minutes before you got here it's all gold so you know maybe we'll tack
0:46:09that on right at the beginning Paul doing a Vin Scully yeah absolutely I would love to you know
0:46:15I would love to have Vince Sculley on the show
0:46:17This is he at all, you know, I mean he announces for the Dodgers so I have no opportunity to listen to him
0:46:25I'm aware of him. But does he have is he up on technology at all? I have to imagine he's not
0:46:30I'm guessing definitely not I would guess I would guess he's not up on technology
0:46:35So, I mean, it's got to just be a baseball show. You couldn't do anything else. Yeah, maybe some funny broadcasting stories
0:46:42Maybe you just let him do a talk show. Maybe it's a literal Vin. No, but I'm saying you're not on right exactly
0:46:47It's just a literal Vin Scully talks
0:46:49You know what? I thought was great during the playoffs
0:46:52baseball playoffs on
0:46:55TBS they're their studio show meaning not the games but when they'd when the games would cut back to the TBS studio in between the
0:47:02Games. Yeah. Yeah in between games
0:47:04It was a Keith Olbermann was leading it and whenever they would show highlights from the Dodgers games
0:47:10Instead of showing or listening to the TBS crews that had broadcast the games they were using Vince Scully
0:47:16They were using Vince Scully
0:47:17Which I thought was a really nice touch and I don't know if like
0:47:21Olbermann had to fight for that like if that was a little if there was any kind of pushback
0:47:24Internally because it was his own network, you know the run that he's that he's ousting basically, right?
0:47:29But I almost have to think that no because even if if you're if like me and you were calling the Dodgers
0:47:35St. Louis game but it when Keith Olbermann showed the highlights they used Vin Scully we'd be like, well, yeah, of course
0:47:41Of course, you got to use Vin Scully, right? Right. He's the baseball announcers baseball announcer, right?
0:47:46Hey who won that who won in the playoffs who won the World Series John the Red Sox? Oh, that's right. That's right
0:47:54Okay, you know good team
0:47:56Hell of a year. Yeah
0:47:59Well, it's just you know, I have no hard feelings. No, I'm just I'm just kidding
0:48:04Congratulations
0:48:06Get them next year, right? Yeah, that's what losers say. No
0:48:10All right. All right. Yeah, Keith fans don't say get him next year. It keeps fans like to they're just angry for six months
0:48:17Yes angry because they assume they assume win or lose. They're gonna get him next year. That's the thing
0:48:22See, that's the difference other teams have fans where they're like, well, we didn't do it this year. Maybe next year
0:48:27Yeah, the next year is assumed from the get-go. Anyway, it's this year and next year
0:48:32Yeah, and then you're after that I mean, you know winning the World Series is good
0:48:36but really you got to win three four five in a row before the Yankees will really
0:48:40Really put you in
0:48:43Alright, there's a funny thing, you know, there's a I don't know if the Red Sox fans do this
0:48:49I don't want to go too long on sports
0:48:50I know people get bothered but Yankees fans have always had there's there's real Yankees and not real Yankees and it's hard to team you mean
0:48:56Exactly. Jeter's a real Yankee a lot not so much JG a rod is not a real Yankee
0:49:02Although a rod is almost an asterisk in every category in every possible lab because he's been there for so long
0:49:08And managed to win a one World Series and the one that he won he'd you know, he
0:49:14Did he was unbelievable. He was really good
0:49:17I mean, he was a key key player on the team Matt Sui was the MVP
0:49:21But it could have been a rod right and for the whole playoff run. It was probably a rod
0:49:25But it's not just like so Jeter came up through the system, you know and and farm system Mariano Rivera
0:49:34I mean is clearly a real Yankee came up through the system Andy Pettit came up through the system
0:49:39Posada came up through the system
0:49:41But you don't have to so like a famous example of a guy who's everybody considers a real Yankee
0:49:47But did not come up through the system. In fact didn't even win his first World Series with the team was Paul O'Neill
0:49:52Remember Paul O'Neill? Yeah, absolutely
0:49:55right fielder who did he win with before the Reds okay he played like he came up
0:50:01while I don't know if he played for Pete Rose I don't think he he might have he
0:50:07might have been like a kid playing with on Pete Rose Reds and I'd have to look
0:50:12up when he started but he if not he came up on the Reds in like the late 80s and
0:50:18I always loved him because he was a hothead he was a type of guy who if he's
0:50:21If he struck out half the time when he'd strike out, he'd go down the clubhouse and take his bat to the Gatorade
0:50:27Jug break the bad
0:50:30Yeah, just he would just go in there and smash stuff and I always appreciate I always loved those guys
0:50:35I was always a McEnroe fan loved McEnroe, right? Yeah, same type like a racket smasher
0:50:40But he's a he's considered a real Yankee. Well get everybody and people will say like well, you know, what's the key?
0:50:45What's the secret? You know, they say, you know when you see it, right?
0:50:48It's like, you know, you see and guess what you got to win about three and four World Series, right?
0:50:52Paul O'Neill won like four World Series with the Yankees. So of course, he's a real Yankee, right?
0:50:57Not that hard
0:51:02Big poppy real Red Sox
0:51:04Absolutely. Do you started with the twins though? So right, right
0:51:08I don't have to don't have to come up with the organization Pedroia real Red Sox. All right
0:51:12Right because they signed Pedroia. It's like an 18 year contract something like that. All right
0:51:18Jacoby Ellsbury not a real red sign maybe if he resigned you need a very signs. Yeah, absolutely
0:51:23But if he takes a whole lot of money somewhere else then yeah, even even with two rings with the team
0:51:29Pedro
0:51:32Martinez yeah
0:51:33Real red sock. Yeah, that's right
0:51:36I mean now he came up from the Expos and he you know played for other teams
0:51:39But I think I think you know 30 years from now, you know Pedro shows up at Fenway and everybody, you know
0:51:45Hey, they're still gonna be inviting him, you know, well, how about how about one that's gonna
0:51:49I mean this is gonna hurt you a little bit. How about Dave Roberts?
0:51:52He was with the team for like half a season but that's you know, the biggest stolen base in the team's history
0:51:59Yeah, that might be enough to earn it. I don't know
0:52:01Yeah, I don't think so
0:52:04All right. All right. What else we got technology. Let's let's move off the bay. Let's do it
0:52:11Did you see this story? I think I sent you like this story about it was in Businessweek a couple days ago
0:52:17About the Steven Elop who's the Nokia CEO?
0:52:22Nokia rather you used to work at Microsoft and
0:52:25Microsoft has since announced an acquisition of Nokia's handset business. So he's he's coming back and before the whole balmer
0:52:33Resignation thing was slated to take over like the devices wing of Microsoft which was going to be Nokia phones and Xbox
0:52:41Right. So I looked at this, I looked at this briefly. What was, what was interesting about
0:52:46it to you? Well, it's a Businessweek story that says that three sources have said this is what
0:52:52ELOP would do. He would, here's how he'd run Microsoft. Well, in effect, here's how we would
0:52:58change it. Because, you know, it sort of goes unsaid, but everybody, you have to assume that
0:53:04whoever is coming in to take over Microsoft has got to do something different. Because if they're
0:53:09aren't gonna do something different why'd they squeeze balmer out so elop
0:53:12has come out I mean he hasn't come out and said it but he had three sources
0:53:15went to Bloomberg and said that he would he would stop using office as a way to
0:53:22keep people on windows and windows phone and instead take office to as many
0:53:29devices as the company could and I think the main one let's face it is got to be
0:53:34iOS it's right spiciness Mac right and and the Mac just doesn't measure in enough numbers to
0:53:42write in terms of percentage right and I say this is as a guy you know me a longtime Mac user who
0:53:47uses a Mac every day speaking to a guy whose company is Mac software yeah right is you know
0:53:52you what like 90 something percent Mac software you guys have some iOS stuff but a couple iOS
0:53:58well we have one Windows app as well but yeah but I mean we're a Mac software company right that
0:54:02would be my description. Right. You guys could stop making the other ones and your business
0:54:06would be the same. And if you stop making Mac software, you'd be in a new business.
0:54:09Very different. Right. But you know, the grand number of potential Mac office users is just
0:54:17not that big. And they're, you know, and they're, but they're also for 20 some years have done
0:54:21very well. Office for Mac is very popular on Mac.
0:54:24And very expensive. Right. But it's got to be a decent profit center. But it's just compared
0:54:28to iOS. Well, you know, do you remember there used to be and I think it's the sort of thing
0:54:32where you kind of have to take the analysts word for it because nobody really unveils
0:54:35it. But it used to be said, and I think that the math kind of holds up, that Microsoft
0:54:42traditionally profits more per Mac sold than they do per PC sold because the percentage
0:54:53of people who buy Office for Mac multiplied by the price of Office for Mac is greater
0:54:59than...
0:55:00**Matt Stauffer** Is higher than Windows.
0:55:01cost of Windows that gets light the version that gets licensed to the OEMs
0:55:06because almost nobody right yeah normally Windows users don't buy the
0:55:10hundred and twenty nine dollar copy of Windows they buy they never upgrade they
0:55:14just get the version that comes with the PC and install the free updates or
0:55:17service packs whatever they call them right and eventually buy a new machine
0:55:21that also comes with a licensed yeah right and a lot of them if they have
0:55:24office it came licensed to them or if they have it at work almost certainly
0:55:29it's you know some kind of site license and it's way lower whereas a lot of Mac users are consumers and by the
0:55:35hundreds-whatever dollar version of office right, right
0:55:39Well, so that so the plan the biggest part of the plan like you were saying was to have office be everywhere instead of saying
0:55:46Hey, if you want office, you probably want windows, right? And if you don't want windows
0:55:50Maybe you can get it on your Mac. And is it on anything else? It must be on Windows Phone
0:55:54Yeah, but if you want office, you probably want a Windows platform or maybe a Mac, but it's certainly not on but even with Windows phone
0:56:01It's about propping up their it's used as a competitive cudgel to prop up their platforms the OS itself. You're right
0:56:08And you know, I I guess they mentioned Android
0:56:13I mean there were I don't even think there've been whispers before that they'd even
0:56:15Considered taking office to Android and I think that that opens a whole can of worms in terms of the whole
0:56:21documentation and how many Android devices are even capable of it etc etc, but
0:56:25Regardless, it's the the article made it sound as though that's what ELOP would do
0:56:29But like you said this was based on a bunch. It was not him
0:56:33You know, they did not speak to him supposedly at least but they did say it was three different sources
0:56:38And and this is Bloomberg who's I mean we were just talking about the New York Times not being
0:56:42Terribly reputable at the moment, but this is a relatively reputable news source very I'd say highly reputable
0:56:48Yeah, you know, everybody makes mistakes and you know, I mean, I don't know if there's anybody with a perfect record, but
0:56:53And the reporters are long, you know, I know one of them was I remember was Peter Burrows and Peter Burrows is aces
0:56:59I mean, he's is a guy. I mean, I've never met him personally, but I know I you know decades of experience
0:57:04You know reporting on this industry
0:57:06So is it possible that three people
0:57:10Liled to Businessweek reporters, I guess but I I would bet my bottom dollar that three people said it and
0:57:18Business week is not the type of place where three people
0:57:20Who can't verify that they actually know Steven? He right if I call them up. It's not gonna create a story, right? You know if
0:57:28Paul 67 at gmail.com
0:57:30Sends an email and says I was
0:57:33Having drinks with Steven. You know yeah, I was sitting next to a guy who looked like Steven. He laughs at McDonald's
0:57:40And he says he's gonna. He's gonna sell the Xbox division
0:57:45No, I mean somebody said this now, you know, it's a me that's fascinating though and it to me the more I think about it
0:57:51the more it shows
0:57:53just how
0:57:55How bad the Microsoft situation has gotten you know that they they've gotten to the point now where like
0:58:03Prospective CEOs are fighting it out in public like this is in the in the media. Yeah, like behind the scenes
0:58:09This is obviously contentious. This is not any kind
0:58:13this is so definitely not a planned transition. Right. Right. That the infighting has become
0:58:19public. Well, to the point where, to the point where recently they were talking to, the media
0:58:24was talking to Bill Gates, saying like, "Hey, are you going to pull the Steve Jobs and come back and
0:58:28save your company?" Because, and they asked that because it seems like they may be needed. Right.
0:58:34I think he said no, though. He was pretty explicit in saying he wasn't going to do that, so. Yeah,
0:58:39But he did say in I just had a big interview with somebody I linked to it this week. I forget where it was was it
0:58:46Wired I don't know Gates had an interview with oh is the Financial Times
0:58:51He had a big there was a Financial Times had a real long profile of him mostly about his charitable work, right?
0:58:58But they addressed that and he did say though that he he is
0:59:02Spending and has been spending a lot more than the one day a week
0:59:06Right more time than he'd planned to when he said I'm leaving and that he definitely plans to you know
0:59:13Have an active role with whoever they choose as the next CEO
0:59:17So it might be real active because it's him
0:59:20I you know and he said it wasn't going to be him, but I don't know
0:59:24I mean, it's you know at a certain level. You've got to make a choice, you know, it's it's like
0:59:29somebody's got to be the coach of the team and it's like
0:59:33When you've got a former coach who's still working in the organization
0:59:37It's like, you know
0:59:38You've got to decide you can come back and be the coach again
0:59:40or you kind of have to give the ball to the new coach and you know, let him run you can't sort of half be
0:59:46There and he's in your shadow the whole time, right?
0:59:48Somebody's in charge and if you want if you want to be in charge then take the job. I
0:59:52think I don't think it works having a
0:59:56Somebody like chairman, right? I'm right. I mean you can be there. What's the phrase eminence grisé?
1:00:02You know right the you know the advisor behind the scenes if you're there as an advisor, you know like or like when?
1:00:09when Marlon Brando became
1:00:12His son's consigliere right he didn't he wasn't the godfather. He wasn't running the family
1:00:18He was there as an advisor to his son. You can be that guy, but then you know
1:00:22Everybody knows Michael is still in charge, right? I
1:00:25Just think in it. You know and to belabor the godfather argument
1:00:31Go ahead. There's the scene. It's one of the just one of the best scenes because it's so simple but so
1:00:37Logical that this is the way it's got to be there's the scene in the first one
1:00:40Where they're having a meeting and sunny
1:00:46Speaks up to sort of you know
1:00:49object to something and show that there's an argument in the family and over which way to proceed with the
1:00:55like the drugs and stuff and then they come out of the meeting and Brando is you know, like
1:01:01furious he's like you don't ever let anybody see that you know the fight you
1:01:06know you you know we do our fighting in private right right they were meeting
1:01:09with someone else right right cuz then that's why they you know this and ends
1:01:13up that's why they killed Sonny it gives the other people insight into what
1:01:17you're actually arguing about inside the the organization right and that to me is
1:01:23like what this elop thing going public with a plan a pretty bold plan to you
1:01:28know to focus on office rather than focus on their own platforms and you
1:01:34know it said that he'd consider selling the Xbox division or splitting it off you
1:01:38know whatever you want to call it making that public is unseemly to me right
1:01:45right and what and what what well I mean I guess that's the question is what is
1:01:50the benefit to doing that because if you're if you're interested in the job
1:01:53If you want to be the new CEO of the company, you can present this plan to the board, right?
1:01:59He's a high enough level person who can say like I need to speak to the board. This is what I would do
1:02:03He doesn't need to use you know, the the media to do that
1:02:07So what's the benefit to him of this leak? I
1:02:11Don't know think about that this thing about that
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1:03:30It's but it's you know having meetings and stuff like that. Just kill you okay? You need you need something like this
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1:03:45I can't I don't see the I'm with you. I don't see the angle on what what this does
1:03:51There must be something now and I only thing I can think of and it is something to the effect
1:03:55I like you said obviously if he's actually being considered for the job and it would appear that he is of
1:04:01Course, he's gonna present his plan to the board
1:04:04the only thing I can think of is if a big chunk of the board is resistant to this plan and
1:04:12famous it and and then there's public right support for it maybe because two people who
1:04:22are on the board are guys there's a guy named Bill Gates and there's another guy named Steve
1:04:26Ballmer and I think combined Ballmer and Gates control like just under 10% of the shares of the
1:04:33company I think gates hos like including public as well yeah yeah right and so
1:04:39you know obviously their board seats are I think more influential than others
1:04:47because they you know they actually control stock - I only thing I can think
1:04:52of is that there's some you know that that ELOP thinks that by leaking this in
1:04:57the public there's a big chunk of other shareholders who agree that that's a
1:05:01good way to go. That's the way to do it. Right. And that, you know, that they can put pressure on the
1:05:07board to hire someone who's going to go in that direction before they make the decision.
1:05:14That's my thought. My thought is that Elop could see the board is sort of against him,
1:05:19going another way, and he wants the job enough and thinks that by going public with it,
1:05:25he can shift the board's thinking. He's at least got a shot at it. It's the only way I can,
1:05:29it makes any sense to me. Well, so I was, you mentioned this to me and I looked at this,
1:05:34and I don't know too much about him. So have you looked at his Wikipedia page? No. Let
1:05:39me read you like three sentences of the opening paragraph of Steven Elop's Wikipedia page.
1:05:45During the three years Elop was Nokia CEO, Nokia revenues fell 40%, Nokia profits fell
1:05:5295%, Nokia market share collapsed in smartphones from 34% to 3.4%, Nokia's credit rating
1:06:01went from "A" to "junk", Nokia's share price dropped 60% in value, and Nokia's
1:06:09market cap lost $13 billion in value.
1:06:13The Financial Times calculated that Nokia shareholders ended up paying ELOP a bonus
1:06:17of 1 million euros for every 1.5 billion in market cap that he was able to destroy while
1:06:24Nokia's CEO." I mean, that's just brutal.
1:06:31That's pretty… That is brutal. That's a good way to put it. I mean, that seems to
1:06:36have been written by someone with a bit of a point of view. But not necessarily inaccurate.
1:06:41I almost feel like it's to Wikipedia's detriment that they… You know, like, those
1:06:46Those are all statements of fact.
1:06:48Right.
1:06:49Right.
1:06:50But they are put together in a persuasive way that I feel like Nokia or that—not Nokia—that
1:06:55Wikipedia sometimes tries to avoid.
1:06:56Right.
1:06:57They want to have that neutral—yeah, they don't want to be saying he's good or bad,
1:07:00but this is clearly saying he was not good for Nokia.
1:07:04You know, the—what's the—I forget if it's a Paul Krugman thing or who, but somebody
1:07:10has said in US politics that the facts tend to have a liberal bias.
1:07:13Right.
1:07:14Right.
1:07:15say here that the facts seem to have an anti-Steven Elop bias.
1:07:20Anti-Elop bias, absolutely.
1:07:22Yeah, that doesn't seem good. It doesn't really seem like a good way to get an upgrade to
1:07:27a bigger CEO job at a bigger company.
1:07:29No, he might want to have someone sanitize his Wikipedia page if at all possible. If
1:07:34he's got these people leaking for him, he can have somebody edit his Wikipedia page.
1:07:38Right. And who knows? I don't know. This is not just conspiracy. This is like a conspiracy
1:07:44of what I believe would be amount to some sort of securities fraud. Although, who knows,
1:07:49you know, it's obviously international. I don't even know what jurisdiction it would
1:07:53fall under since Nokia is a, you know, what's the country they're in?
1:07:58John: Finland, right?
1:07:59Dave: Finland, yeah.
1:08:00John; Yeah.
1:08:01Dave; Is the allegation that because he came from Microsoft.
1:08:07John; Right. He was at Microsoft before he went to be the CEO of Nokia.
1:08:10Right and Nokia went there had an existing. I just saw somebody on Twitter the other day
1:08:16I was in an at reply exchange with a couple people and they said something, you know
1:08:20Somebody had said something about that
1:08:22You know it was just seems like more and more that it was a mistake for no key to go with Windows Phone and they said
1:08:26Well, hey, what were they gonna do go with they couldn't otherwise they'd be on Symbian
1:08:30No, they had a thing called Migo and they even released one phone with it
1:08:34They had an you know, and it looked kind of interesting
1:08:37I mean, it was it was a future looking platform. Symbian was their old platform and their Migo platform was their
1:08:42Potential competitor to Android and iOS right and who knows maybe it would have been even worse
1:08:47But it was definitely not just like a slap of paint on Symbian. It was all new. It was a truly new
1:08:52System so that you know that would have been the alternative
1:08:56But he came in and said no, we're not doing Symbian. We're not doing right Migo. We're doing Windows Phone the allegation though
1:09:03I guess is the conspiracy allegation is that he effectively never stopped working for Microsoft
1:09:07Right and that his job was to his job was to do what he did which is drive their market cap down so that when?
1:09:14Microsoft bought them it would be cheaper. I
1:09:16Mean, I don't even know
1:09:18Is that a crime? I don't know. I don't know what you would get convicted of for that though
1:09:24I don't know and the other thing too that was so funny was that came out was the the the severance not severance package
1:09:30but like the
1:09:31He got a huge bonus
1:09:32That's what the right that was talking about was he got like a 19 million euro bonus
1:09:37Right as the company was getting sold to Microsoft for pennies, right and it's all written in his contract
1:09:43So like if you're the board at Nokia when you hired him when his lawyers come to you with this contract
1:09:49this is he would like to get a 20 million dollar bonus if he drives the
1:09:52company market cap to nothing and
1:09:56Revenues shrivel up such that the company needs to sell the hands say let's just say the handset business
1:10:03To possibly do a company right Microsoft like that
1:10:08Revenue and cash flow are down and they need to sell the handset business. Well, then he would like a 20 million dollar
1:10:13Bonus in that situation and they they obviously said sure
1:10:17I don't understand it. I just know enough about it to laugh about it, right?
1:10:23But there is a case that you could argue that if there was some kind of wink wink nudge nudge, you know
1:10:27Hey, here's what I think I'll do if I get this Nokia gig that you could see how maybe at Microsoft
1:10:32They do think that he did a good job. I right right. He was successful in in
1:10:37tearing that company apart right and the fact that they're even
1:10:41considering him
1:10:43for the CEO gig lends credence to that because
1:10:46Otherwise why you know if that's his record with his record. Absolutely. Yeah
1:10:52You know, what's his pitch? I really hope to do the same thing with Microsoft that I
1:10:57did with Nokia. I think my track record speaks for itself.
1:11:01[Laughter]
1:11:02Right, right, absolutely.
1:11:04I'll have Microsoft sold to Google within three years.
1:11:10For pennies on the dollar once again.
1:11:11And I would like a huge bonus when that happens.
1:11:13[Laughter]
1:11:14Well, so, I mean, so do you have a prediction on this? Who's the next CEO going to be?
1:11:20I think it's gonna be the guy from Ford.
1:11:23I really do, just because of who's leaked it.
1:11:26You know, that it's, I think it was the Wall Street Journal
1:11:30and you know, it doesn't make any sense to me.
1:11:34I mean, but I don't know the guy.
1:11:35And I don't wanna say that just because
1:11:37his primary experience is as the CEO
1:11:41of Ford Motor Company, that it means he couldn't be
1:11:44a good CEO of Microsoft.
1:11:47But, you know, and I don't know enough about him
1:11:50say, but it just doesn't seem to me that a guy who ran Ford would be good at anything
1:11:55that Microsoft needs.
1:11:56Right.
1:11:57Well, yeah, I mean, you don't see great tech CEOs come out of the automotive industry.
1:12:02I don't know if there's any precedent for that, so…
1:12:04Yeah, I just really think that the CEO of the company that's in the consumer space
1:12:10at all, and Microsoft wants to be.
1:12:13You have to have some ability to judge.
1:12:18You know, like Steve Jobs wasn't a designer.
1:12:22He couldn't sit down and design things.
1:12:24I mean, there's the famous story where he designed the calculator app or whatever.
1:12:27But that wasn't where he came from.
1:12:29His forte, yeah.
1:12:30He was a judge of design, though.
1:12:32And I know Tim Cook doesn't do the same thing that Jobs did.
1:12:35But Tim Cook, I do think he had decades of experience at Apple at building these devices.
1:12:43very intimately familiar with what an Apple device and service is.
1:12:50Right, whereas if you brought in somebody from the outside.
1:12:53Larry Page is a great example. I mean, the guy literally was one of two people who've
1:12:56just started Google. I mean, say what you want about what Google's done and how Larry
1:13:01Page has changed Google while he's been CEO. But he clearly understands Google. I mean,
1:13:08he couldn't argue otherwise. I just don't see how a guy from Ford really understands
1:13:12Microsoft but I could be wrong but I do I think that's who it's gonna be okay
1:13:16what's his name Malala or something like that yeah I don't know I saw that but I
1:13:19didn't yeah I didn't catch the name who do you think what is he is he leading
1:13:23the Vegas odds right now Ford's Alan Mulally there you go that's who I think
1:13:30I think if Vegas posted odds on it I think it would be him well somebody had
1:13:33somebody had odds on this didn't they a few months ago hmm somebody was somebody
1:13:38was posting odds on who the next CEO is gonna be and I saw somebody will take
1:13:41your money on that bet John here's so Reuters had an exclusive this is just
1:13:46googling this Reuters had an exclusive four days ago that they've narrowed the
1:13:50list to three internal candidates including former Skype CEO Tony Bates I
1:13:59guess he promises to build to bring Skype's user interface clarity to all
1:14:06of Microsoft's products. Jesus.
1:14:09That's in the article?
1:14:11No, I made that point.
1:14:12Okay. Okay.
1:14:13Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Nokia CEO Steven Elop, Skype CEO Tony Bates. So I guess he's in Microsoft
1:14:22right now, responsible for the business department.
1:14:23Yeah, when they acquired them, he got some executive vice president type position, I
1:14:27think.
1:14:28Oh, and another one. Satya, I hope I'm pronouncing it.
1:14:31Oh, you're going to butcher it.
1:14:33Well, no, the last name is easier Nadella. Okay, but I'm not sure if that's a
1:14:38Man or a woman I'm gonna guess it's a man
1:14:41It seems like it's pretty safe bet
1:14:43Unfortunately, yeah. Yeah. But anyway, they sat here Nadella is right now
1:14:49Microsoft's cloud and enterprise chief
1:14:52Right. Okay. So those are the four according to Reuters
1:14:56Alright put your go go put your money down in Vegas. We'll see who do I hope it is though boy
1:15:02I don't know. That's a good I I don't you know I would like to see Microsoft do well
1:15:06so I got it. I don't know does ELOP I worry is is
1:15:09somehow like a
1:15:11It's like a poison pill in human form yeah like that his only actual ability is the ability to further his own career
1:15:18And just and tear down companies while he does it right you know so I kind of I'm rooting against him because I don't want it
1:15:24I want to see Microsoft come out with something awesome. I want him to be good
1:15:28Yeah, there's there's really so you mentioned that the mail route guys wanted to make make it clear that they did not work at Microsoft
1:15:34That rivalry really does not exist anymore. No, I mean Windows Phone is
1:15:38Interesting and it doesn't seem like it's ever going to take off and I I don't know how much money they can throw at it
1:15:43A lot but it hasn't worked so far. No
1:15:46But I mean where that rivalry just you know, it's not interesting at all anymore. Yeah, somebody had a good tweet today
1:15:52I'm so sorry
1:15:54I just remembered the tweet, but I don't remember who it was and I don't have time to look it up
1:15:57but that they're, they're just, you could see how they're confused because on the one
1:16:02hand they're competing against a pretty good OS and we're just talking about mobile, which
1:16:07is Android. They're competing against Android, which is pretty good and totally free.
1:16:11And free to anyone who wants it.
1:16:13And on the other side, they're competing against a company that builds the whole stack, hardware,
1:16:18software, and integrates it all. And so you can see how they're confused and seem to be
1:16:24trying to do something in between those two.
1:16:26I mean, they should be the Google in this scenario, right?
1:16:29- Well, I would think so.
1:16:30Here's what I think though.
1:16:31I think that the thing that that tweet misses,
1:16:33whoever it was who wrote it,
1:16:36if you listen to the show,
1:16:37I don't even know what the odds are of that,
1:16:38but I apologize for not remembering it.
1:16:39But I think the problem is that the problem with Android
1:16:42from Microsoft's perspective isn't even that
1:16:44it's pretty good.
1:16:45The problem with it is that it's exactly
1:16:47what the customer wants.
1:16:49And the customer is not the consumer.
1:16:51The customer is the carriers.
1:16:53- The carriers, yeah.
1:16:54- And companies like Samsung,
1:16:56where they get to do whatever the hell they want with it.
1:16:59Right?
1:17:00That's the big thing with Android that is so appealing to them is, "You want to put
1:17:05your own crapware on it?
1:17:06Go ahead."
1:17:07Well, there wasn't, didn't, maybe you had this link.
1:17:10I know I saw it somewhere with it.
1:17:11Microsoft is making an f-ton of money on Android, right?
1:17:16You can say the f-word.
1:17:17Okay.
1:17:18They're making a fuck-ton of money on Android off the patents that they own, right?
1:17:22Somebody said, an analyst said that it would be, it was $2 billion a year.
1:17:26Right. I mean, that's a lot of money, especially like, I don't know what Windows, I mean, it's
1:17:30not a huge amount of money in the scheme of this, obviously.
1:17:34And like I wrote, I wrote when I linked to it, take it with your usual grain of salt
1:17:38that some analysts said it. I've never heard of the guy, who knows, you know, a lot, but
1:17:43you can make it. So let's say somebody else, I've heard that the figure is $5 a phone.
1:17:50And you know, that's a lot of money when you're talking about, you know, the more price sensitive
1:17:56platform and and for no work
1:17:58I mean, that's really the and it's and it's also not every Android phone. So like the ones that are sold in China
1:18:04Yeah, good luck getting you
1:18:06patent licenses on those and it's clearly a lot but you know
1:18:11How do you get so are there 400 million Android phones sold in the West?
1:18:17In the patent respecting countries. Yeah, I don't know that sounds like too many
1:18:23400 million sounds too many and you have to admit five if if it is five dollars a phone. That's a lot
1:18:28I number that's a high number to pay in licensing fees for no
1:18:32Like I don't know about no work. But well, I mean the work is done up front. They're not doing any continuing work, right?
1:18:39They're not even licensing code
1:18:41They're just licensing the right to have code that does these whatever these things are. Yes slide unlock or whatever it is
1:18:48It's a lot of money to pay in licensing for the company that didn't do any of the programming, right?
1:18:52And it would have to be if it is five dollars a phone
1:18:55Which I think is a lot there would have to be four hundred million devices a year to be two billion
1:19:00And I've forgotten how to multiply no, that's right. So I don't know I'd say take it with a grain of salt. Maybe it's less
1:19:06But if it's five dollars a phone it could be
1:19:09200 million devices right right. I mean that sounds I mean
1:19:14The the real point is they're making money off something that even if Android succeeds
1:19:19they're somehow being brought along with it in a way that is very strange as far as a platform
1:19:26rivalry goes. Right. And I would think that that might be, you know, that might be one of those
1:19:32things too, where you enter into that whole shipped versus sold debate, that maybe they get
1:19:37their licensing fees no matter what. So like if... On a shipped phone versus a sold phone? Yeah,
1:19:41you know, like so like companies that have had to take write downs, you know, on exist, you know,
1:19:46on unsold devices and stuff.
1:19:49And I'm not so sure that if you had the license,
1:19:52the thing that, you know, you might have to pay that
1:19:53when you make the device.
1:19:55- Right.
1:19:56- So I don't know.
1:19:57It is kind of, and I do think, you know,
1:20:00I think there's definitely an argument to be made
1:20:02that whatever the figure is for Microsoft's Android
1:20:06patent royalties.
1:20:08- Profits, yeah.
1:20:09- That it's greater than the Windows phone profits
1:20:12because they're probably losing money on Windows.
1:20:14- I mean, they have to be.
1:20:15- Right.
1:20:16popular it is they're advertising it more than that right and and they're
1:20:20clearly willing to do that for a couple years while they try and make it a
1:20:24viable platform right so that Android is profitable for Microsoft to some degree
1:20:28maybe it's not two billion a year but it's you know must be in the hundreds of
1:20:32millions hundreds of millions and Windows Phone is a law center right so I
1:20:39don't know maybe you know maybe the ELOP argument you know I'm not even say I
1:20:43I didn't even get into that like whether I actually think that's a good plan, right?
1:20:47Right. Yeah, you were just talking about the leaks and well what I loved was and you mentioned this
1:20:51It was the Microsoft response to it. Oh, that's
1:20:54Right, right. This is right up your alley. You should read that read that. Oh, I don't have right in front of it
1:21:02Let me pull it up
1:21:04This is we I can't believe I almost let the show end without I was gonna say yeah
1:21:09I can't believe you you nearly missed this
1:21:12Here we go. Yeah, I got it. So it's a is Frank Shaw who's a Microsoft spokesman
1:21:17He said in response to the Bloomberg article that supposedly referenced these three sources who none of whom were elop
1:21:25But who knows who they were? He said we appreciate Bloomberg's foray into fiction and look forward to future episodes. I
1:21:32Love Frank Shaw, maybe I should have Frank Shaw on the talk show
1:21:38Absolutely he and it's only him. I mean, I'm not saying he he's the only PR person at Microsoft
1:21:44But he's the guy who when the press
1:21:46Calls that he you know, he's almost always the spokesperson I see and he just lets it fly
1:21:53He answers the phone and he gives a real answer. Yeah
1:21:56He gives a real answer and no other company of that size does that certainly not Apple, right?
1:22:02Well Apple in my mind. I don't know that Apple has any spokespeople. I don't know that that role exists at Apple
1:22:07because it's always declined comment the Apple has oh well I guess they don't
1:22:13have spokespeople they hate PR people they have a ton of PR people and right
1:22:17they never respond to anything right it's the easiest job in the world right
1:22:23I don't know that I've ever seen a story that Apple has responded responded I
1:22:29guess I feel like maybe yeah there's a couple of cases I'm trying to think I
1:22:34know, Trudy… It's like in an Antennagate kind of scenario
1:22:41where they have to say something, they cannot just sit there and not say anything. But most
1:22:46of the time, like this story that we were talking about at the top of the show, they
1:22:50didn't respond to that. They're not going to say anything about that.
1:22:53And when they do respond, it is, you know, there's… Like with a touch ID thing, I
1:22:59I think that they gave some kind of response
1:23:01to the allegation when those jokers came out with the,
1:23:06if you get a 1200 DPI fingerprint.
1:23:10- Which is like a phenomenally high quality fingerprint.
1:23:12- Right, and you have the expertise to take that
1:23:16and print it on special, a laser printer,
1:23:19jury rigged to use extra toner,
1:23:22and then imprint it onto a piece of silicon,
1:23:26and then use that, you can then unlock the phone.
1:23:29And I'm not even saying that that's not interesting,
1:23:32and it's cool that somebody showed that you could do it,
1:23:34and that a pro, somebody who's a professional
1:23:37at faking fingerprints,
1:23:38which I'm sure is a real security issue,
1:23:41could, that would fake a touch ID sensor.
1:23:44The issue is, is that actually easier
1:23:46than learning somebody's four-digit password?
1:23:48- Right, exactly.
1:23:49- But anyway, I do think that somebody at Apple
1:23:51gave a statement on that,
1:23:52but the statement was just,
1:23:54touch ideas designed for the security and convenience of iPhone customers
1:23:58right it was a boring yet nothing it's nothing statement whereas right Frank
1:24:02Shaw will get out there and say that's frickin ridiculous nobody's gonna do that
1:24:06or yeah I you know that sounds like a great plot point for the next uh...
1:24:11oceans fourteen right right right
1:24:13you know in the meantime in the real world you know windows you we've made
1:24:16phones more secure right
1:24:18uh...
1:24:19love the guy he's he also let it fly on twitter too
1:24:22And it's not like just under, you know, it's under his own name.
1:24:25You know, it's like Frank X. Shaw is like his Twitter handle.
1:24:28And that's cool too.
1:24:29He's even got a cool middle initial.
1:24:31- He's got a middle initial, yeah.
1:24:32- Yeah.
1:24:33I mean, almost everybody should have X
1:24:35as their middle initial.
1:24:36- Well, I think you'd lose a little of the cache, then.
1:24:38- I guess you would.
1:24:39Oh, well, not everybody should.
1:24:41I would say everybody would sound cooler if they did.
1:24:44Paul X. Kefauzis.
1:24:46- Oh, that's sweet.
1:24:48- That is pretty sweet.
1:24:49It's kind of a mouthful to say, but it would look cool.
1:24:52right right john x_ and john x_ grouper
1:24:55that's good it's a good one
1:24:58frank shaw letting it fly nobody does pure like frank shaw
1:25:02i want to see wonder i mean it's almost you know
1:25:05like like
1:25:06is that going to be an issue when the new c_e_o_ comes in is a new c_e_o_
1:25:09gonna be like we can use
1:25:11who's this guy
1:25:13or is that i don't like how it's not always like clearly balmer supports it
1:25:17and it's i almost doesn't surprise me
1:25:19you know 'cause bombers a little
1:25:21Oh, he's nuts.
1:25:22Yeah, Balmer's a little loose-lipped.
1:25:26Maybe Frank Shaw should be the new CEO.
1:25:28You know what? Maybe he should.
1:25:31I don't know anything about his business expertise.
1:25:33Right.
1:25:33But he knows how to pitch a quote.
1:25:37It's a thought.
1:25:38Well, so I had one more story,
1:25:40and you can tell Caleb to cut it before this if you want,
1:25:43but this was not one—
1:25:45you sent a bunch of stuff to me. I had one for you.
1:25:48The Twitter IPO happened this past week.
1:25:50All right.
1:25:51Not terribly interesting to me as a technologist or anything like that, but did you see who rang the opening bell for them at the New York Stock Exchange?
1:25:59No, I did not.
1:26:01So it was—I'll tell you who it was, and then I'll tell you a story I heard from somebody I know at Twitter.
1:26:06It was Patrick Stewart, who's a fairly prominent Twitter user. Sir Patrick Stewart, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—
1:26:11You know what, I don't go for the "sir" nonsense. I'm an American.
1:26:13All right, Patrick Stewart then. What was he, Spock? I don't even know.
1:26:17No, he was Captain Picard.
1:26:19You're right, Picard, there we go.
1:26:20Picard, the woman who runs the Boston Police Department's
1:26:25Twitter stream, I don't have her name,
1:26:27but it was another prominent Twitter user,
1:26:30especially in the wake of what happened
1:26:32six months ago in Boston,
1:26:33and a nine-year-old girl who has used Twitter
1:26:37to raise a whole lot of money
1:26:38for a charity ending human trafficking.
1:26:41So basically, prominent and useful Twitter users, basically.
1:26:47And that's who they had, you know, the founders of the company, Dick Costello and Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams were all there, but they were not the ones ringing the actual bell, which is a sort of ceremonial role, right?
1:26:58Right.
1:26:59And so, you know, it's interesting.
1:27:01And they said, you know, we wanted to give back to Twitter and show this is, we respect our users and whatever.
1:27:06But the story that I heard, and I can't attribute this at all, but it's from someone at Twitter, was that what they were trying to do was avoid what they called the smiling assholes photo.
1:27:17Ha! Which is the photo that you get of the founders of a company like Groupon, or what's
1:27:26the game company, Zynga, where they rang the bell and it's the founders and they're looking
1:27:31up there in whatever their pop-collar polo or whatever they're wearing, and six months
1:27:36down the line, all their investors have gotten totally screwed. And this photo of them getting
1:27:41super rich still exists and they just look like smiling assholes. So I thought it was
1:27:47I thought it was a pretty good move to, you know, who knows what's going to happen to
1:27:51the Twitter stock in six months.
1:27:53But at the very least, there will not be a photo of Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and
1:27:57Dick Costello looking ecstatic about the billions of dollars they just made.
1:28:02I wouldn't want to ring the bell.
1:28:05Because of the photo or just in general?
1:28:06Yeah, well, both.
1:28:08I don't know.
1:28:09I mean, do you think Steve Jobs rang the bell when Apple had an IPO?
1:28:13I just googled Steve Jobs' Apple IPO, and all that comes up are pictures of Steve Jobs
1:28:17holding an iPod.
1:28:20If things use spelled iPod.
1:28:21Yeah, yeah.
1:28:22Because I think because their IPO is so long ago that it's, you know.
1:28:26It was in '76, right?
1:28:28Yeah, so it predates the, you know, the web.
1:28:32Now wait a minute, was the NASDAQ around back then?
1:28:36I don't know.
1:28:37I know for a while Apple traded on NASDAQ.
1:28:40I mean, that's what they are on now, isn't it?
1:28:42Are they? I don't even know. It used to be more of a difference. Now who even knows?
1:28:45I mean, I don't know.
1:28:46Right. Yeah, no, they've been on the NASDAQ for a long time, but I don't know if that
1:28:50existed when they came out. I mean, the NASDAQ doesn't have a bell. The NASDAQ is just a
1:28:54whole bunch of computers, right?
1:28:55Yeah, I don't know. You might be right. I don't know. Maybe they don't. Maybe they—I
1:28:59just assumed that they might have been on the New York Stock Exchange originally.
1:29:02Right, right. Yeah, that doesn't seem like—I don't know. I don't know. Back then, they
1:29:07were there.
1:29:08Was Facebook NASDAQ?
1:29:10I think it must have been, because that was the whole deal, was that Twitter was going
1:29:13in the New York Stock Exchange to try and avoid the problems that Facebook had.
1:29:17With the whole, yeah, they're on the Nasdaq.
1:29:19And that explains why nobody rang the bell.
1:29:21Well, but I thought, see now I thought I did hear something about them.
1:29:24So maybe Nasdaq does have a BS ceremonial bell.
1:29:28It's like a guy in a data center.
1:29:30Right, right, just powering on a computer.
1:29:33Yeah, and you just ding.
1:29:35Yeah, it's the startup chime, that's what it is.
1:29:40the centrist 650 that runs the Nasdaq.
1:29:45- Well for Facebook, yeah, that's what it looked like it was.
1:29:47- Right.
1:29:47I had some about Twitter, the IPO, but I just avoid,
1:29:55I'm not interrupting, I don't really care about IPOs.
1:29:57I mean, it's like, I think that's part of what makes
1:30:00Staring Fireball and me a little different
1:30:02than a lot of tech sites.
1:30:02Like I don't really care, you know.
1:30:05- Yeah, did you cover, did you mention it at all?
1:30:06- I don't think I even linked to it at all.
1:30:08It just doesn't matter to me.
1:30:09The only aspect of it that I find interesting as a user is that it secures that Twitter
1:30:16is for the near future is going to remain an independent company, that there's nobody
1:30:20who's going to acquire them.
1:30:22Right, they won't get bought up by Google or Facebook.
1:30:24But that's been clear for a couple of years.
1:30:27The IPO to me as a user is really more of a cap on the assumption that they're going
1:30:34to remain independent as opposed to selling to Google or Facebook or something like that.
1:30:39But it's been clear for at least two years that they were going to stay independent.
1:30:43They got –
1:30:44And headed towards an IPO.
1:30:45Right.
1:30:46Exactly.
1:30:47You know what? The other funny thing, and it, you know, it's like the – who is the
1:30:50Beatle, the Pete Best, you know?
1:30:52Oh, the fifth – yeah, the drummer, yeah.
1:30:54Yeah. That's the other thing that – you know, I don't want to rub it in, you know,
1:30:59just because the company's missed out on it or whatever. But it always seems like Yahoo
1:31:03is the P best, right?
1:31:05Like every single IPO, there's a story about how,
1:31:08like six years earlier, Yahoo almost bought Twitter for,
1:31:12I think it was like $12 million.
1:31:14- They made an offer for it, yeah, right, right.
1:31:16- And it was like, and they were like, maybe.
1:31:18And then like somebody at Yahoo was like,
1:31:20should we go to 14 million?
1:31:21Nah, nah, you know, but like, it was probably like,
1:31:24you know, like, Ed Williams or Jack Dorsey,
1:31:28who, you know, is sitting there like,
1:31:29if they go to 14, we'll say yes, all right, all right.
1:31:31And then like the phone doesn't ring and they're like,
1:31:33all right, all right, well back to work.
1:31:34- I guess we're not.
1:31:35- Yeah, back to work.
1:31:36- Well, the famous one for that is Google, right?
1:31:38Yahoo at least tried to buy Google
1:31:40and then now Google's eating their lunch, but yeah.
1:31:42- Right, and it was, I think the Google offer,
1:31:44I could be wrong, but it was preposterously low
1:31:47compared to where, it was like $50 million
1:31:49or something like that.
1:31:50But it's like in the midst of me saying
1:31:53this particular sentence, Google has made $50 million.
1:31:56- Right, right.
1:31:58- At this point, so it's pretty sad.
1:32:01It just seems like it's always Yahoo.
1:32:03And who knows?
1:32:04Yeah.
1:32:05Well, but, well, to be fair, that's old Yahoo.
1:32:07Hopefully Yahoo's, I don't know how you feel about it.
1:32:10I hope they do well.
1:32:12I own a few shares of their stock, but I hope they do well in the future because it's interesting
1:32:16to have a few competitors out there.
1:32:18But that's Yahoo from four or five years ago.
1:32:21Right.
1:32:22Well, and the other thing too is that my hopes for like a long term success of Yahoo would
1:32:27be original products from Yahoo coming out.
1:32:31just purchasing, not just them somehow, you know, yeah, finding the original things to
1:32:35buy and do.
1:32:37Well, but I mean, they bought Flickr, right?
1:32:39Yeah.
1:32:40And that's, eh, what have they done that's original at this point?
1:32:45Well, Flickr's a good example.
1:32:46I mean, you can't hold it against the current leadership because they've only, you know,
1:32:50Marissa Meyer's only been there a year.
1:32:52There for a year, but, you know, Flickr's a good example where clearly what they should
1:32:56have done after they bought Flickr is you know that there never should have
1:33:00been an Instagram they you know them owning Flickr should have made Instagram
1:33:05right and the rise of the iPhone and you know it should not have taken been too
1:33:11hard for someone in 2007 you know as Twitter was taking off and the iPhone
1:33:16was taking off and or 2008 let's say you know when the iPhone was kind of clearly
1:33:20wow this is a thing right to say well flicker should obviously be huge on the iPhone and what's
1:33:28the right format for that and it's you know what would be like Twitter just a stream of images from
1:33:33your friends in a you know format that's friendly for phone size screens right and make it easy to
1:33:39take pictures on the phone and send them there and in the meantime they spent five years with
1:33:44the design that was meant for, you know,
1:33:46web in like 2005. Right. Laptop displays and their mobile
1:33:51interface was designed for like flip phones. Right, right.
1:33:55All right, that's good. We made it in an hour. We only missed it
1:34:00by 49 minutes.
1:34:02[ Silence ]