The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► anybody ever tell you if I could girly voice fuck you yeah your mom told me I

00:00:06 ◼   ► have a girly voice we're already in trouble because I got I got a very

00:00:10 ◼   ► friendly email from the folks at iTunes about about profanity on the show and

00:00:17 ◼   ► the lack of an explicit marker on it what do you know what do you what do you

00:00:24 ◼   ► do with with the let's make mistakes do you guys swear oh yeah it's gotta be

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Do you have it marked explicit?

00:00:31 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:32 ◼   ► There's no way that Jesse and I could not swear.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:00:38 ◼   ► It's like, you know what, I wish that,

00:00:40 ◼   ► I wish that it were a different word than explicit,

00:00:45 ◼   ► but maybe I should just get over that.

00:00:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, explicit sounds like I've got my pants down.

00:00:49 ◼   ► - Exactly, right.

00:00:53 ◼   ► I feel like explicit could be anything.

00:00:55 ◼   ► And I just wanted,

00:00:56 ◼   ► I would just like it to say swear words.

00:00:59 ◼   ► - Like I'm yanking one on the show.

00:01:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:02 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Or telling stories of such a nature,

00:01:06 ◼   ► which is not the case, it's, you know.

00:01:09 ◼   ► - So when I wrote my book,

00:01:12 ◼   ► and they sent over a contract,

00:01:15 ◼   ► and I sent it to Gabe, my lawyer,

00:01:17 ◼   ► the first thing he did was

00:01:18 ◼   ► he got the profanity clause removed,

00:01:21 ◼   ► because he knew I would never be able to do it.

00:01:25 ◼   ► It's a funny thing and we could go on a whole divergence about it but I mean, I don't know

00:01:32 ◼   ► what the total number of swear words I've run on Daring Fireball over the years is but

00:01:37 ◼   ► it's higher than most professional blogs, sites in the genre but it's, you know, compared

00:01:46 ◼   ► to like a Lenny Bruce album, it's infinitesimal.

00:01:50 ◼   ► It's somewhere in between.

00:01:51 ◼   ► But I don't use them loosely.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Like if I mean fucking crazy, not using the word, the F word in that case, it would change

00:02:01 ◼   ► the meaning in a way.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Well, yeah, it's a different level.

00:02:04 ◼   ► There's crazy and then there's fucking crazy and then there's like art school crazy above

00:02:09 ◼   ► that.

00:02:10 ◼   ► Dave Right.

00:02:11 ◼   ► And every once in a while, I mean like my dad doesn't like it.

00:02:13 ◼   ► My dad is, you know, I think he's, geez, how old is he?

00:02:17 ◼   ► 77.

00:02:18 ◼   ► He's like a sharp 77.

00:02:19 ◼   ► He just called me today.

00:02:20 ◼   ► He shot a one over par playing golf.

00:02:22 ◼   ► uh...

00:02:23 ◼   ► but he's you know he's old school in that regard i mean mike mike

00:02:26 ◼   ► you know my dad was probably younger than lenny bruce but my dad

00:02:30 ◼   ► was of a of the previous generation

00:02:32 ◼   ► uh...

00:02:35 ◼   ► uh... my dad's the guy who went through the sixties in his thirties but kinda

00:02:38 ◼   ► looked like the mad men guys like still grease in their hair and wearing shirts

00:02:42 ◼   ► and ties and stuff

00:02:43 ◼   ► so you're a good looking man

00:02:46 ◼   ► i think you are and he is a good looking man good looking man

00:02:49 ◼   ► By the way, is this all gonna be in the show?

00:02:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:02:53 ◼   ► - So I'm beginning to see why this show is three hours long.

00:02:56 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:58 ◼   ► - I'll tell you what, my dad is a very good-looking man

00:03:01 ◼   ► for 77, I'll tell you that.

00:03:02 ◼   ► I would be lucky to be half as good-looking when I'm 77.

00:03:06 ◼   ► - Do you wanna make it to 77?

00:03:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't wanna die.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Do you hear Philly?

00:03:14 ◼   ► - It's hard to tell whether the sirens are coming

00:03:17 ◼   ► from your neighborhood or my neighborhood.

00:03:18 ◼   ► It's 50/50.

00:03:20 ◼   ► - It's Philly Sirens.

00:03:22 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:03:22 ◼   ► - So, kind of a bittersweet show.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Let's get it out of the way. - Why is that, John?

00:03:30 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:03:31 ◼   ► - This is going to be the last episode

00:03:33 ◼   ► of the talk show on M.U.L.E. Radio.

00:03:36 ◼   ► - Are you fucking kidding me?

00:03:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:03:39 ◼   ► And this is how you tell me?

00:03:42 ◼   ► Seriously?

00:03:43 ◼   ► - I thought I felt like this would be a way

00:03:45 ◼   ► to break it easy.

00:03:47 ◼   ► What a dick move.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Do you like that?

00:03:51 ◼   ► - That was pretty good.

00:03:52 ◼   ► That was well played.

00:03:53 ◼   ► No, the opposite, in fact, the truth is the opposite

00:03:58 ◼   ► where this has been like three months into work

00:04:00 ◼   ► and typical for me, it's taken a very long time

00:04:03 ◼   ► to move a very short distance.

00:04:06 ◼   ► - Yes, I'm kidding, of course.

00:04:09 ◼   ► John first told me about this.

00:04:11 ◼   ► Now I'm speaking about you in the third person.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Yeah, we talked about this months ago.

00:04:17 ◼   ► You know what, I didn't even look this up,

00:04:18 ◼   ► but let me look this up right now.

00:04:20 ◼   ► 'Cause if it's not the two year anniversary,

00:04:23 ◼   ► it is extraordinarily close.

00:04:28 ◼   ► - Are you looking at email?

00:04:29 ◼   ► - No, I'm looking at the archives.

00:04:32 ◼   ► So the first episode of this show on M.U.L.E.

00:04:35 ◼   ► was May 18th, so effectively two years.

00:04:39 ◼   ► - You almost made it.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, almost.

00:04:46 ◼   ► So it's 80 episodes, two years.

00:04:48 ◼   ► I actually think they've been pretty consistent.

00:04:51 ◼   ► Long story short, the show's gotten way too big and popular.

00:04:56 ◼   ► And so--

00:04:57 ◼   ► - It's too big for us.

00:04:58 ◼   ► - Well, it's too big not to have it

00:04:59 ◼   ► as part of Daring Fireball.

00:05:01 ◼   ► It's become untenable, I think, branding-wise.

00:05:04 ◼   ► I probably should have done this a year ago,

00:05:07 ◼   ► but again, I'm a very slow person,

00:05:11 ◼   ► slow to move and slow to realize the obvious.

00:05:14 ◼   ► It's too big.

00:05:16 ◼   ► Revenue-wise, attention-wise, time-wise,

00:05:21 ◼   ► it's effectively half of what I do.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And it's just gotten to the point

00:05:25 ◼   ► where it's kind of silly to treat it

00:05:26 ◼   ► as its own discrete, separate branded entity.

00:05:30 ◼   ► You're welcome, by the way.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I do.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I owe you guys.

00:05:33 ◼   ► Because when I came to you guys two years ago,

00:05:37 ◼   ► I really wasn't even sure that I would want to keep doing it.

00:05:42 ◼   ► I wanted to try.

00:05:44 ◼   ► definitely wanted to try but I had no idea you know you know it was gonna be a

00:05:48 ◼   ► very different thing doing the show on my own than doing the old show with Dan

00:05:54 ◼   ► and I had no idea would you know would it is this the sort of thing where I I

00:05:58 ◼   ► feel like I'm gonna do it for two months and then well that's that was nice that

00:06:02 ◼   ► was you know a nice little short trip but I'm done or is this something that

00:06:10 ◼   ► that has staying power.

00:06:12 ◼   ► And I had no idea how to do any of it.

00:06:14 ◼   ► So I do, I mean it, and that's why I wanted you

00:06:17 ◼   ► to be the last guest on Mule, is that,

00:06:20 ◼   ► I thank you.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - Well, that's very nice of you to say.

00:06:27 ◼   ► I appreciate you trying,

00:06:32 ◼   ► I appreciate you coming over to Mule Radio

00:06:34 ◼   ► because, I mean, in essence, that your show

00:06:37 ◼   ► is what allowed Mule Radio to get to where it is.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Can we get to the part of the show where we're cursing each other out?

00:06:45 ◼   ► Because this feels weird and awkward.

00:06:46 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:06:47 ◼   ► I know.

00:06:47 ◼   ► This is the longest we've been nice to each other.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Except for maybe that one time where we were out drinking beer

00:06:55 ◼   ► with Jeff Veen, who is--

00:06:57 ◼   ► what is he, about eight feet tall?

00:06:59 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, you've got to be nice around him.

00:07:01 ◼   ► Well, it's like you just lose track.

00:07:03 ◼   ► You pace yourself with the people you're drinking with.

00:07:05 ◼   ► Well, Jeff Veen, by the merits of his size,

00:07:09 ◼   ► he can drink gallons of beer.

00:07:11 ◼   ► - He can.

00:07:12 ◼   ► - I remember leaving a bar with you,

00:07:14 ◼   ► like, armors around each other, you know, "I love you."

00:07:17 ◼   ► - That was awkward.

00:07:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was terrible.

00:07:19 ◼   ► - Also, I don't think that was me.

00:07:21 ◼   ► - No, it was you.

00:07:22 ◼   ► It was some piece of crap bar around your neighborhood.

00:07:24 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, I remember that.

00:07:27 ◼   ► That's not a piece, that's a good bar.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Don't tell anybody what it's called.

00:07:30 ◼   ► - Well, it's good because I don't remember.

00:07:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't want anybody going there.

00:07:34 ◼   ► It's my quiet bar.

00:07:35 ◼   ► It was the nicest we ever were to each other.

00:07:37 ◼   ► And that suck when people find out where your bar is?

00:07:41 ◼   ► Totally.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:07:45 ◼   ► Kind of happened a couple of times

00:07:47 ◼   ► like in the WWDC type situations.

00:07:50 ◼   ► What was that place that had the bikes hanging?

00:07:52 ◼   ► I always forget.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Oh.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Oh, god.

00:07:56 ◼   ► That--

00:07:58 ◼   ► I always forget the name.

00:07:59 ◼   ► I know what you mean.

00:08:00 ◼   ► And that's the place that we always ended up in at like 1.30 in the morning.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:06 ◼   ► And it was great at first because it was a big, spacious place.

00:08:11 ◼   ► And I don't smoke.

00:08:13 ◼   ► I've never smoked.

00:08:14 ◼   ► But you were allowed to smoke in there long after the city or even--

00:08:19 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe it's the state-- had banned it because the regulations were

00:08:22 ◼   ► such that the smoking ban only applied to employees.

00:08:26 ◼   ► And the guy who owned the place was like the only employee.

00:08:29 ◼   ► and so he was allowed to allow smoking and he did but it was big enough that it

00:08:34 ◼   ► it didn't feel like a smoky place

00:08:37 ◼   ► yeah the way it works is if

00:08:40 ◼   ► is if it's owner

00:08:42 ◼   ► operated and you don't have any employees you can set your own rules

00:08:46 ◼   ► because you're not putting your employees at risk

00:08:51 ◼   ► that's a weird law

00:08:52 ◼   ► don't you think?

00:08:53 ◼   ► it is a weird law especially for california which is you know

00:08:57 ◼   ► Not in a bad way, but it's a little bit regulation heavy.

00:09:02 ◼   ► - Little bit.

00:09:03 ◼   ► - I mean, it's not quite Massachusetts, but.

00:09:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I freak out now if I go somewhere

00:09:09 ◼   ► and people are smoking inside.

00:09:10 ◼   ► - It's bizarre.

00:09:13 ◼   ► - You don't expect it.

00:09:14 ◼   ► - No, it's totally bizarre.

00:09:16 ◼   ► - It smells.

00:09:17 ◼   ► - The way it worked, and I could be misremembering this too,

00:09:20 ◼   ► but I'm almost certain that the way it worked in Pennsylvania

00:09:23 ◼   ► was some point in the 2000s Philadelphia banned smoking.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Maybe it was a similar type thing,

00:09:33 ◼   ► but effectively every place I went,

00:09:34 ◼   ► every bar, every restaurant, it was just banned.

00:09:36 ◼   ► But it wasn't statewide.

00:09:38 ◼   ► And then we would go to see relatives

00:09:41 ◼   ► or something outside the city and go out to eat,

00:09:43 ◼   ► and people would light up and it would be like,

00:09:44 ◼   ► "Dude, what are you doing?"

00:09:46 ◼   ► And then it's like, "Oh, we're not in Philly."

00:09:48 ◼   ► Very strange.

00:09:50 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:09:52 ◼   ► Anyway, so you should tell people where,

00:09:57 ◼   ► so your podcast is gonna be on your site.

00:09:59 ◼   ► - So the podcast is gonna be part of Daring Fireball.

00:10:01 ◼   ► It'll just be daringfireball.net/thetalkshow.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Starting with the next episode next week.

00:10:08 ◼   ► I believe we're working this out.

00:10:09 ◼   ► I think we can, enough 301 redirects and it should work.

00:10:13 ◼   ► Is nobody's gonna need to resubscribe to the feed.

00:10:16 ◼   ► We're gonna do some jiggly, jiggly,

00:10:20 ◼   ► pokely stuff behind the scenes.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Nobody's gonna need to resubscribe.

00:10:24 ◼   ► It should all just work and nobody will really notice.

00:10:27 ◼   ► If anybody skips the first 10, 15 minutes of this episode

00:10:30 ◼   ► that they may not even realize if they're a subscriber.

00:10:34 ◼   ► - And the best news is that you're going sponsor-free.

00:10:37 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:10:40 ◼   ► - I'm such a dick.

00:10:43 ◼   ► - Speaking of ways, let me take a break here

00:10:45 ◼   ► and thank our first sponsor,

00:10:47 ◼   ► our good friends at Backblaze.

00:10:51 ◼   ► You have the back blaze yet, Mike?

00:10:53 ◼   ► - I had it, but then I went to the doctor.

00:10:56 ◼   ► - Back blaze is different than what you're thinking of.

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00:11:12 ◼   ► I think a petabyte is 1,000 gigabytes,

00:11:14 ◼   ► but I don't think that.

00:11:15 ◼   ► - I think you misspoke.

00:11:16 ◼   ► Did you say $5 a month?

00:11:18 ◼   ► - $5 a month.

00:11:20 ◼   ► No, because that sounds like a $50 a month value, John.

00:11:23 ◼   ► It does.

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00:11:46 ◼   ► So once your whole Mac's backed up, you're out and about,

00:11:48 ◼   ► you have your iPhone.

00:11:49 ◼   ► you can use your iPhone to get to any of the files that have been backed up.

00:11:53 ◼   ► I always mention this is my favorite talking point that it's founded by

00:11:56 ◼   ► ex-apple engineers.

00:11:59 ◼   ► It just runs silently on your Mac. You'd never know it's

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00:12:31 ◼   ► I've been telling you for months, they're a long time sponsor.

00:12:33 ◼   ► I almost can't believe they're still with me because everybody ought to be signed up.

00:12:36 ◼   ► There are however many thousand people listen to this show, every one of you ought to be

00:12:40 ◼   ► using this service.

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00:12:42 ◼   ► Here's what you do.

00:12:43 ◼   ► dot-com

00:12:45 ◼   ► slash daring fireball and

00:12:47 ◼   ► Don't know you came from the show

00:12:51 ◼   ► First time they sponsored my show I

00:12:54 ◼   ► It's a tongue twister for me. I'm not I'm not a very good speaker and I called him black base black blaze

00:13:01 ◼   ► Ends up they have that domain

00:13:04 ◼   ► So if you go to black blaze comm slash daring fireball, that'll work, too

00:13:11 ◼   ► I'm gonna try that do you do that? Do you do you register typo domains?

00:13:15 ◼   ► No, I'm bad about that crap. No, it's just I used to it because it used to seem so much more important

00:13:23 ◼   ► Yeah, and that if somebody would go to a typo

00:13:26 ◼   ► You know, but it just seems like forget everybody just goes to Google and types whatever they're looking for exactly

00:13:34 ◼   ► I've been I've been arguing this for years

00:13:37 ◼   ► I don't understand why we're still designing sites with search boxes in them

00:13:41 ◼   ► Jason freed talked about that and they've since gone on and registered

00:13:47 ◼   ► Not backpack, what's the base camp they have base camp calm now, but it wasn't until like this year when they got it

00:13:56 ◼   ► They were base camp HQ calm right and turned it into like, you know

00:14:01 ◼   ► It's a 50-person business and he was like, you know, and this was years ago

00:14:04 ◼   ► And he just said forget it people just turn in you know people just type base camp into Google

00:14:08 ◼   ► And we could we could have any domain and they'd find us yep

00:14:11 ◼   ► So podcasting in general and and I think you know this show is a terrific example of it

00:14:23 ◼   ► It's getting it big and getting bigger, and I don't think that there's I'm very serious about it. I mean I know sometimes

00:14:32 ◼   ► my shtick on the show is that we you know, just sort of winging it but

00:14:36 ◼   ► It's a big deal and I think that the the the the

00:14:41 ◼   ► Aggregate attention that people out there are spending listening to podcasts is just tremendous. Oh

00:14:47 ◼   ► I agree

00:14:49 ◼   ► And I don't think it's had its its moment yet. It's blogger moment

00:14:58 ◼   ► Do you remember so back when you know, you know, we all used to do our websites and you know hand code everything and you know

00:15:06 ◼   ► The there was no CMS or any of that and then bloggers showed up and all of a sudden it became that much easier

00:15:13 ◼   ► It was like one it I remember there. I think their tagline was one click publishing or something

00:15:19 ◼   ► Yeah, if not them somebody had that. Yeah, but we haven't had that for podcasting yet

00:15:24 ◼   ► It just it feels like all of the pieces are there like the recording and the hosting and the distribution

00:15:32 ◼   ► but they're all in different places and

00:15:34 ◼   ► Nobody's yet figured out how to tie them all together in into

00:15:39 ◼   ► Here's here's the here's the the one thing you need to do to both make and listen to podcasts and to find podcasts

00:15:48 ◼   ► but I think

00:15:50 ◼   ► You know the I think what we're heading towards is

00:15:54 ◼   ► You know you get in your car at some point and you just hit your podcast button on your dashboard

00:16:00 ◼   ► And you start listening whatever you had queued up. Yeah, I think that you just took the words right out of my mouth is to me

00:16:06 ◼   ► The difference isn't so much even on the production side although it is true that that even somebody who just wants to get started

00:16:15 ◼   ► Rolling their own podcast definitely has to do more work than then what blogger made it to you know this sort of

00:16:22 ◼   ► Order of magnitude leap and ease of look

00:16:26 ◼   ► Here's your blog. Here's a box for a title. Here's a box for the body hit publish and now you've got an entry

00:16:33 ◼   ► We're not there yet on the publishing side

00:16:35 ◼   ► But to me the bigger thing is consumption where it's still a lot of it

00:16:40 ◼   ► Just feels like a little bit of a Rube Goldberg

00:16:43 ◼   ► Thing to get get and keep them synced up and to listen to them everywhere you want to be

00:16:48 ◼   ► The iPhone and then it's funny

00:16:52 ◼   ► Because and this you know, this goes back almost got to be close to ten years now

00:16:58 ◼   ► Maybe even ten years is the whole name podcast, you know is obviously the pod comes from iPod

00:17:03 ◼   ► But getting them on an iPod was always a huge pain in the ass

00:17:07 ◼   ► Yeah

00:17:08 ◼   ► It was, you know, you'd suck them down to your Mac in iTunes,

00:17:12 ◼   ► and then you'd have to plug your iPod into your Mac

00:17:16 ◼   ► and wait for it to sync.

00:17:17 ◼   ► And it was never the right time because you want it,

00:17:20 ◼   ► you're like, I'm on the way out the door,

00:17:22 ◼   ► and I wanna just grab my iPod and go and listen to podcasts,

00:17:25 ◼   ► but ah, I haven't synced it in a couple days,

00:17:27 ◼   ► and that means I've got nothing but last week's old ones.

00:17:30 ◼   ► - When's the last time you hooked up a phone to a computer?

00:17:33 ◼   ► - You know, I'm a bad example because I'm working on an app,

00:17:36 ◼   ► a new version of Vesper.

00:17:37 ◼   ► So I have to do it for that, for development.

00:17:41 ◼   ► But for any reason other than development,

00:17:43 ◼   ► it's been a long time.

00:17:45 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:17:46 ◼   ► - When's the last time you launched iTunes?

00:17:48 ◼   ► Not accidentally. - Yeah.

00:17:52 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:55 ◼   ► Accidentally is the only reason I can think of.

00:17:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, part of the issue here is that

00:18:00 ◼   ► iTunes is a piece of shit.

00:18:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it really is, it just looks old.

00:18:08 ◼   ► It just looks like something from, I don't know,

00:18:10 ◼   ► it just feels like something from the Bush administration.

00:18:13 ◼   ► - Oh, so, wait a minute.

00:18:15 ◼   ► I think I do launch iTunes every once in a while.

00:18:19 ◼   ► Here's the use case for that.

00:18:21 ◼   ► So I'm flying somewhere and I wanna load some video,

00:18:24 ◼   ► I wanna get some movies for my iPad.

00:18:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a good, I do that.

00:18:28 ◼   ► That's probably what I do too.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And that, depending on how you do it

00:18:34 ◼   ► and what you might already have on your iPad,

00:18:36 ◼   ► can take two apps or one.

00:18:41 ◼   ► So if you're, so let's say you've been binge watching

00:18:46 ◼   ► a TV show and you have old episodes of that TV show

00:18:50 ◼   ► on your iPad and you just go to the page

00:18:53 ◼   ► with the TV show listings,

00:18:55 ◼   ► there's the get more episodes link.

00:18:59 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:59 ◼   ► - And you can just download episodes right from there.

00:19:02 ◼   ► But if you're looking for episode,

00:19:05 ◼   ► if you're looking for something that's not already

00:19:07 ◼   ► on your iPad, that's not, you know, further episodes

00:19:10 ◼   ► of something you already have on there,

00:19:12 ◼   ► you have to go to the stupid iTunes app.

00:19:14 ◼   ► You can't do it, well there's,

00:19:17 ◼   ► so there's a store link in the videos app

00:19:20 ◼   ► that takes you to the iTunes app

00:19:23 ◼   ► where you can get 'em there in that stupid little box,

00:19:27 ◼   ► that stupid little pop-up box.

00:19:29 ◼   ► - Right.

00:19:30 ◼   ► - It sucks.

00:19:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, and feels too convoluted.

00:19:34 ◼   ► - It's way convoluted.

00:19:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:19:36 ◼   ► No, I'm the same way, and I feel like, you know,

00:19:40 ◼   ► with apps on the phone for podcasts, you know,

00:19:44 ◼   ► whether it's Apple's podcasting app,

00:19:48 ◼   ► or I've been using Castro.

00:19:51 ◼   ► I know a friend of the show, Marco Arment,

00:19:54 ◼   ► has his app coming up.

00:19:56 ◼   ► It's better because it's a lot more natural that you just subscribe in this app and you know

00:20:01 ◼   ► The shows eventually get there but for stuff like playing in the car

00:20:04 ◼   ► Then you still got to have some kind of hookup between the phone and the car

00:20:07 ◼   ► I'm with you where I feel like it's got to get to the point where it's it's just like tuning into xm radio or something

00:20:12 ◼   ► in your car where

00:20:14 ◼   ► you know and maybe the whole car play thing is the way we'll get there but

00:20:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's that's a step

00:20:20 ◼   ► um

00:20:22 ◼   ► I don't own a car so

00:20:24 ◼   ► This isn't an issue for me and I don't like you say xm xm radio. Um

00:20:29 ◼   ► Like did that actually take off?

00:20:32 ◼   ► You know what? It only did I think because so many cars they got deals with so many car makers to have it built in

00:20:38 ◼   ► you know that it's

00:20:40 ◼   ► You know, you just get it

00:20:42 ◼   ► Like we have a car it's I guess it's getting old now. I think it's eight years old seven or eight years old

00:20:47 ◼   ► But we have the xm and it's it's a negligible amount per

00:20:52 ◼   ► month and it's x_m_ it

00:20:56 ◼   ► i think they're doomed because i feel like the future is gotta be we were all

00:20:59 ◼   ► in these cars with phones that have l_t_e_ connections right internet

00:21:04 ◼   ► and yet i'm using this crummy

00:21:07 ◼   ► uh... i forget what the killer bit per second of x_m_ radio is but it's pretty

00:21:10 ◼   ► bad it's it's bad enough that even my bad ears can hear that it's tinny and

00:21:14 ◼   ► over compressed

00:21:17 ◼   ► way worse than streaming audio that you get over like an l_t_e_ connection

00:21:22 ◼   ► And it just seems ridiculous that you're communicating

00:21:24 ◼   ► to a satellite by a crappy digital connection.

00:21:28 ◼   ► But the huge advantage, if you just wanna turn something

00:21:31 ◼   ► on for a car trip versus FM radio,

00:21:34 ◼   ► is that there's no commercials.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Whereas FM radio, I don't know,

00:21:38 ◼   ► have you tuned into FM radio lately?

00:21:40 ◼   ► - If by lately you mean in the last 20 years, probably.

00:21:45 ◼   ► - I did it on a lark the other day,

00:21:47 ◼   ► driving Jonas home from baseball practice.

00:21:50 ◼   ► And we had practice at this place way down by the--

00:21:54 ◼   ► it was an indoor place because it was a rainy day,

00:21:57 ◼   ► batting cage type place down by the airport.

00:21:59 ◼   ► So you know roughly how far from the airport

00:22:01 ◼   ► it is to Center City.

00:22:03 ◼   ► It's like a 20 minute drive.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And I just thought on a lark, just thinking about stuff

00:22:09 ◼   ► like this, about radio and audio and podcasts and stuff,

00:22:14 ◼   ► I thought, let's listen to MMR.

00:22:16 ◼   ► And I put MMR on.

00:22:17 ◼   ► And it was commercials all the way home.

00:22:19 ◼   ► It was like 20 minutes of commercials.

00:22:22 ◼   ► We didn't, we got, a real song came on

00:22:26 ◼   ► as we got to the house, and that was it.

00:22:28 ◼   ► - Man, I used to listen to that so much when I lived there.

00:22:32 ◼   ► - And it wasn't even good. - MMR.

00:22:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, it wasn't even good. - No, no, it was never good.

00:22:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:39 ◼   ► - The only thing that they have going for them

00:22:41 ◼   ► is they still have that same logo,

00:22:42 ◼   ► so they're rocking a sort of nostalgia.

00:22:46 ◼   ► They're the only one left, I think.

00:22:48 ◼   ► - That ugly, ugly ass bubble letter logo?

00:22:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally '80s, orange, you know, you know it.

00:22:54 ◼   ► You know, it's exactly what you think.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Anybody who's ever lived in Philadelphia knows that logo.

00:22:59 ◼   ► But I'm with you. - That's awesome.

00:23:01 ◼   ► - I feel like that is podcasting's future moment,

00:23:05 ◼   ► that it's growth from here to there

00:23:08 ◼   ► until you can just tune in anywhere, anytime.

00:23:12 ◼   ► - Well, I think, I mean, its future moment

00:23:13 ◼   ► is when it's indistinguishable from radio.

00:23:17 ◼   ► - In terms of how you get it.

00:23:20 ◼   ► - Right.

00:23:20 ◼   ► - Like I think,

00:23:21 ◼   ► I think there are radio shows that get this.

00:23:29 ◼   ► I think, you know, the NPR people got this very quickly.

00:23:32 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:23:33 ◼   ► - They understood that, hey,

00:23:34 ◼   ► we might not get what this podcasting thing is,

00:23:38 ◼   ► but let's get on it.

00:23:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that's the great advantage they had

00:23:42 ◼   ► of not being beholden to commercial breaks.

00:23:45 ◼   ► I mean, and I know that over the years,

00:23:47 ◼   ► People have given them a lot of grief

00:23:48 ◼   ► because it's not that they don't have sponsors.

00:23:50 ◼   ► I mean, they call them different things.

00:23:52 ◼   ► This show's brought to you by so-and-so.

00:23:55 ◼   ► But they're not beholden to these every 10, 15 minutes,

00:23:59 ◼   ► these breaks where they run traditional radio commercials.

00:24:03 ◼   ► And so they didn't have anything.

00:24:04 ◼   ► They weren't as hesitant to disrupt themselves

00:24:08 ◼   ► as radio stations would be.

00:24:09 ◼   ► - What I worry about is who's gonna pay for this shit?

00:24:15 ◼   ► So, you know, the sponsorship model that's, you know,

00:24:19 ◼   ► there now, I mean, how much money does Squarespace have?

00:24:23 ◼   ► I hope it's a lot.

00:24:24 ◼   ► Because they're funding half of every podcast

00:24:28 ◼   ► in the universe.

00:24:30 ◼   ► And we have to, like one of the things that we talk

00:24:35 ◼   ► a lot about is what happens when this first wave of people

00:24:40 ◼   ► who are willing to pay for podcasts disappear.

00:24:44 ◼   ► And right now, podcasts are still,

00:24:49 ◼   ► a huge majority of podcasts are supported by tech

00:24:53 ◼   ► and about tech.

00:24:54 ◼   ► That's certainly changed a bit in the last couple of years.

00:24:57 ◼   ► But, I mean, the needle's moving in the right direction,

00:25:01 ◼   ► but we're still talking about an industry

00:25:03 ◼   ► that's dominated by tech shows.

00:25:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, and even, two perfect examples.

00:25:09 ◼   ► They're related because they've got,

00:25:11 ◼   ► they share founders and they have the same idea.

00:25:13 ◼   ► but Warby Parker sponsors a lot of podcasts

00:25:17 ◼   ► and Harry's the men's shaving company.

00:25:21 ◼   ► And their products are clearly not tech,

00:25:26 ◼   ► especially Warby Parker because Warby Parker,

00:25:29 ◼   ► I mean, is anybody with bad eyes,

00:25:31 ◼   ► you know, should be looking at him.

00:25:32 ◼   ► But in a sense though, they are,

00:25:34 ◼   ► because part of their disruptive model

00:25:37 ◼   ► is we can bring lower prices by selling this crap

00:25:41 ◼   ► directly to the consumer over the internet.

00:25:45 ◼   ► So they are still tech in the sense

00:25:47 ◼   ► that they've cut out the retail middlemen.

00:25:50 ◼   ► - I was excited when Warby Parker showed up.

00:25:54 ◼   ► Not just because they were bringing money, which is great,

00:25:57 ◼   ► but just because it's more of a consumer good.

00:26:02 ◼   ► I mean, it is a consumer good.

00:26:03 ◼   ► It definitely has a tech component to it,

00:26:05 ◼   ► but the appeal to a broader audience.

00:26:09 ◼   ► Like, I don't go to Warby Parker

00:26:11 ◼   ► because I'm a tech head nerd.

00:26:14 ◼   ► I go to Warby Parker because I need glasses.

00:26:16 ◼   ► And if podcasting is gonna survive and flourish,

00:26:20 ◼   ► and I think it will flourish,

00:26:22 ◼   ► it's gonna need that kind of attention.

00:26:26 ◼   ► It's gonna need to appeal to the audience,

00:26:29 ◼   ► to a Warby Parker audience and above.

00:26:32 ◼   ► It's gonna need to appeal to a Whole Foods audience.

00:26:34 ◼   ► It's gonna need to appeal to a Target audience,

00:26:37 ◼   ► not just a Squarespace audience.

00:26:40 ◼   ► And it's gonna need the kind of shows

00:26:43 ◼   ► that that audience appeals to as well.

00:26:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I totally see that.

00:26:51 ◼   ► - I mean, one of the things that,

00:26:56 ◼   ► one of the failures of Mule Radio

00:26:59 ◼   ► is that we don't have a sports show yet.

00:27:01 ◼   ► I've been dying to get a sports show.

00:27:03 ◼   ► And we talked about this years ago.

00:27:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, with MacArthur.

00:27:07 ◼   ► - Yeah. - MacArthur.

00:27:09 ◼   ► with American McArver.

00:27:11 ◼   ► - We didn't even last as long as McArver himself.

00:27:13 ◼   ► - No, we didn't.

00:27:14 ◼   ► But we wanted to do a podcast for that show,

00:27:19 ◼   ► and I think that podcast would have been great.

00:27:20 ◼   ► It was just a matter of all the people

00:27:23 ◼   ► who were writing for that show,

00:27:25 ◼   ► like, couldn't even sustain the writing.

00:27:28 ◼   ► But we were all in different locations,

00:27:29 ◼   ► and it was just too hard to figure out.

00:27:31 ◼   ► - Could be, I would imagine it as being something,

00:27:33 ◼   ► and don't say, you know, never, I wouldn't rule it out,

00:27:36 ◼   ► but I would imagine it as being to sports

00:27:38 ◼   ► what Snell's "The Incomparable" is to,

00:27:41 ◼   ► I don't even know what you'd say "The Incomparable" is,

00:27:46 ◼   ► movies and TV shows, popular movies and TV shows.

00:27:49 ◼   ► - General nerdy. - Yeah.

00:27:51 ◼   ► - That's a good show.

00:27:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a great show.

00:27:56 ◼   ► And I, you know, the sort of,

00:27:58 ◼   ► there's a circle of incomparable personalities,

00:28:04 ◼   ► but it's less, you know, because it's not the,

00:28:07 ◼   ► Although I guess Snell edits every show,

00:28:11 ◼   ► but for the most part though,

00:28:12 ◼   ► nobody else has that big of a commitment

00:28:14 ◼   ► in terms of every single week having to do it.

00:28:18 ◼   ► And I know that it's a very white wine.

00:28:23 ◼   ► I mean, there are 10 million worst problems

00:28:27 ◼   ► to have in the world.

00:28:28 ◼   ► But doing a show every week,

00:28:30 ◼   ► it's a serious commitment.

00:28:32 ◼   ► - Oh, it's a pain in the ass.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And I feel like that sort of, you know,

00:28:41 ◼   ► there's a regular gang, but everybody's not in every week,

00:28:44 ◼   ► could totally work for sports.

00:28:45 ◼   ► It also works with the seasonality of sports,

00:28:47 ◼   ► where somebody who's not into baseball,

00:28:51 ◼   ► but is a football bat maniac,

00:28:54 ◼   ► could just more or less take the summer off.

00:28:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:28:58 ◼   ► - Speaking, I mean, speaking of Squarespace,

00:29:01 ◼   ► let me thank them as our second sponsor.

00:29:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, go for it.

00:29:06 ◼   ► our good friends at Squarespace,

00:29:08 ◼   ► we joked about them before, but--

00:29:11 ◼   ► - Set that up perfectly, didn't we?

00:29:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, you didn't even know.

00:29:15 ◼   ► - I had no idea. - You had no idea.

00:29:16 ◼   ► But you know what, you could win a lot of money

00:29:18 ◼   ► betting on Squarespace as a sponsor of--

00:29:20 ◼   ► - It's true. - Of a podcast,

00:29:22 ◼   ► including this one.

00:29:23 ◼   ► You know them. - And they have a good product.

00:29:25 ◼   ► - They have a fantastic product.

00:29:27 ◼   ► You go to Squarespace, you sign up,

00:29:30 ◼   ► and you can get your own website,

00:29:32 ◼   ► And everything is built into their system.

00:29:36 ◼   ► You can have a store.

00:29:37 ◼   ► You can have a blog.

00:29:39 ◼   ► You can set up your own podcast.

00:29:41 ◼   ► It's probably the closest you can

00:29:42 ◼   ► get to Blogger for podcasting.

00:29:45 ◼   ► They have great templates and designs.

00:29:50 ◼   ► They're all responsive.

00:29:53 ◼   ► They all look great on mobile.

00:29:55 ◼   ► They look great on tablets.

00:29:56 ◼   ► They look great on desktop.

00:29:57 ◼   ► They have fantastic customer support.

00:30:01 ◼   ► They have a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week support team in New York City, and they're great.

00:30:08 ◼   ► I think they've won more awards for their support team than they have for their product,

00:30:11 ◼   ► and their product is great.

00:30:14 ◼   ► You'd be surprised at how many of the sites you look at that are built on Squarespace.

00:30:17 ◼   ► It's a tremendous product.

00:30:19 ◼   ► Go check them out.

00:30:21 ◼   ► Here's the URL.

00:30:22 ◼   ► Now, this is the thing.

00:30:23 ◼   ► They've run out of clever URLs.

00:30:25 ◼   ► The URL this month is squarespace.com/gruber.

00:30:34 ◼   ► They also have an offer code separate.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Offer code is JG.

00:30:39 ◼   ► Just type in JG when you sign up and you get 10% off and you'll save that for as long as

00:30:46 ◼   ► you have the account.

00:30:47 ◼   ► It's a great deal, a great service.

00:30:49 ◼   ► If you've been thinking about setting up a website for anything, a store, a blog, a podcast,

00:30:54 ◼   ► You're nuts if you don't check out Squarespace.

00:30:56 ◼   ► So go check them out at squarespace.com/gruber.

00:31:04 ◼   ► And I endorse them as well.

00:31:10 ◼   ► What else is going on this week?

00:31:12 ◼   ► So there's the sad news with Massimo Vignelli.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Yeah, that sucks.

00:31:20 ◼   ► But man, what a life.

00:31:22 ◼   ► So he, for those who don't know him,

00:31:25 ◼   ► to say he's a famous graphic designer is to understate,

00:31:31 ◼   ► it just understates it completely.

00:31:34 ◼   ► He did, among other things,

00:31:37 ◼   ► he did the New York City Metro, the MTA stuff.

00:31:44 ◼   ► - So the map, the subway map.

00:31:48 ◼   ► - Right.

00:31:49 ◼   ► The subway map that everybody--

00:31:51 ◼   ► It is it's the subway map like he did the New York one

00:31:54 ◼   ► But you know it also became the model for every subway map designed after that subway map

00:32:00 ◼   ► Right so he built the template for how to do a subway map with that New York one well and the big part of it

00:32:06 ◼   ► It's not just again

00:32:07 ◼   ► It's it's that mantra that you know you can reuse over and over and over again the Steve Jobs thing about

00:32:12 ◼   ► That design isn't how it looks. It's how it works. It's not just that the map looks good

00:32:17 ◼   ► it's that it works so well and the New York City subway line is so complicated and so many lines and his

00:32:23 ◼   ► The genius of it is that he kind of separated it from the actual geography

00:32:28 ◼   ► Right and that if you overlay an actual geographic map of New York over the subway map that he created

00:32:35 ◼   ► It doesn't line up at all

00:32:37 ◼   ► But by separating that it actually makes more sense

00:32:41 ◼   ► And that's what makes it easier and to use because these diet the diagonals all run at 45 degree lines and it just makes

00:32:49 ◼   ► Conceptual sense that right? Yes. I want to get to Yankee Stadium here. I am

00:32:54 ◼   ► Okay, I can take this train up to there and then 42nd Street

00:32:59 ◼   ► I can switch to this train and that'll take me right up to the Bronx, you know, so

00:33:03 ◼   ► The thing about a really good idea is that when you see it

00:33:10 ◼   ► Your first reaction is like oh duh

00:33:13 ◼   ► But of course, that's how you do that, right?

00:33:17 ◼   ► It's just that nobody had done it before right and but I did it people rejected it

00:33:22 ◼   ► Right, everybody was like you can't what this doesn't this doesn't line up with the with New York's geography, right?

00:33:27 ◼   ► But what but that wasn't the goal, right?

00:33:30 ◼   ► Massimo understood that the goal was getting people from point A to point B and he figured out the right way to do that

00:33:37 ◼   ► And he figured out that you know, the geography was kind of a suggestion

00:33:40 ◼   ► Like, you know this kind of sort of looks like New York enough. All right now, how do I get from point A to point B?

00:33:47 ◼   ► He did the original the one that everybody still remembers the American Airlines

00:33:52 ◼   ► branding

00:33:54 ◼   ► There's a big fan obviously, I mean famously I mean he was even featured in Gary hustwits film Helvetica

00:34:00 ◼   ► He was a big big user of Helvetica and Swiss design in general and that sort of basic

00:34:06 ◼   ► Swiss geometric look not just a type but everything.

00:34:11 ◼   ► - Unlike Eric Spiekerman, our good friend Eric Spiekerman,

00:34:18 ◼   ► he understood that Helvetica is the only font you ever need.

00:34:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I actually am drawing a blank on anything Massimo did

00:34:27 ◼   ► that wasn't Helvetica.

00:34:29 ◼   ► - I'm trying to troll Spiekerman,

00:34:31 ◼   ► I don't think he listens to the show.

00:34:33 ◼   ► - We should make him listen.

00:34:36 ◼   ► genius in his own right, but his blind spot for Helvetica has always confounded me.

00:34:41 ◼   ► But on the other hand, maybe because he--

00:34:44 ◼   ► - Which is funny because he designed Badoni.

00:34:47 ◼   ► - He designed so many great fonts.

00:34:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:34:50 ◼   ► - But maybe it's the fact that he doesn't like it which drove him in the direction to

00:34:53 ◼   ► do these other things that are new and distinct and not just rehashing already treading ground.

00:35:02 ◼   ► So one of my favorite things he did was,

00:35:05 ◼   ► and this one isn't as famous as the New York subway,

00:35:11 ◼   ► but you know when you go to a national park

00:35:13 ◼   ► and you get a map?

00:35:14 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:35:14 ◼   ► - That's his.

00:35:15 ◼   ► - Hmm, it's just great stuff.

00:35:18 ◼   ► - And any national park you go to,

00:35:21 ◼   ► they give you the brochure,

00:35:23 ◼   ► and you understand immediately I'm at a national park.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Oh, it's the brochure, I know how to use this brochure

00:35:30 ◼   ► it follows the same grid structure, it follows the same content structure from

00:35:36 ◼   ► park to park to park. The new American Airlines livery, I think that's

00:35:44 ◼   ► what they do, is it livery or livery? This is one of those words that I've done.

00:35:48 ◼   ► It's livery, like "liver snacks." Right, where they went away from his design and

00:35:54 ◼   ► and switched to, I don't know what typeface it is, some kind of humanist

00:35:58 ◼   ► thing and it's you know the colors are vaguely the same and you can you know if

00:36:02 ◼   ► you can read you can read that it still says American Airlines it's such it's

00:36:07 ◼   ► such a pointless redesign and it came at a time when American Airlines was in

00:36:12 ◼   ► trouble and I it was one of those redesigns where you just know it was it

00:36:16 ◼   ► was part of a you know distract from the financial problems let's say let's come

00:36:21 ◼   ► out with a new identity because it didn't do anything to help them it

00:36:24 ◼   ► It didn't--

00:36:25 ◼   ► - Like when Twitter got the new bird.

00:36:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:36:28 ◼   ► It's exactly like Twitter getting a new bird.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Right, it just came at a time of,

00:36:32 ◼   ► well, let's do something.

00:36:34 ◼   ► And it just made me so sad

00:36:36 ◼   ► because the old American Airlines brand and livery

00:36:40 ◼   ► could have lasted forever.

00:36:42 ◼   ► - Oh, it was beautiful.

00:36:43 ◼   ► - It could live, 50 years from now,

00:36:46 ◼   ► it would still look exactly as good,

00:36:49 ◼   ► and 100 years from now, it would probably look just as good.

00:36:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, the new one sucks.

00:36:53 ◼   ► It has that awful, awful tail bullshit with the stripes.

00:36:58 ◼   ► And I don't know what the hell is going on here,

00:37:03 ◼   ► but it's like a weird eagle-headed shape coming.

00:37:08 ◼   ► It's terrible.

00:37:09 ◼   ► - I've seen it a lot lately,

00:37:11 ◼   ► because Philly's main airline is US Air,

00:37:15 ◼   ► and US Air is acquiring, merging with American,

00:37:20 ◼   ► but it's one of those reverse acquisition

00:37:22 ◼   ► where US Air is the one that's fiscally solvent,

00:37:24 ◼   ► and they're buying American,

00:37:27 ◼   ► but because American has the better, more established brand,

00:37:30 ◼   ► they're gonna rebrand the whole thing as American Airlines.

00:37:33 ◼   ► And so when I fly, and I've been flying a lot recently,

00:37:36 ◼   ► and a lot of it's on US Air,

00:37:39 ◼   ► everything at like, Philly Airport at least, is 50/50 now.

00:37:43 ◼   ► Like all the, when you go to the US Air desk,

00:37:46 ◼   ► it's US Air and American.

00:37:48 ◼   ► They're like one foot in each boat right now,

00:37:52 ◼   ► And then soon, I guess, they're just gonna

00:37:54 ◼   ► take their foot out of the US Air one.

00:37:56 ◼   ► And I was so hoping that they would use this

00:37:58 ◼   ► as an opportunity to go back to the classic

00:38:01 ◼   ► American Airlines brand, but apparently not.

00:38:03 ◼   ► - The old one is so beautiful.

00:38:06 ◼   ► I mean, do you remember when UPS switched logos?

00:38:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was just thinking about that.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And that's the only thing I can think about this

00:38:12 ◼   ► is that they wanted to make it seem as though

00:38:14 ◼   ► the UPS logo switch made sense.

00:38:18 ◼   ► That was probably what, about five years ago?

00:38:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe a little longer,

00:38:23 ◼   ► somewhere between five and eight,

00:38:24 ◼   ► but they had that beautiful Paul Brand logo.

00:38:28 ◼   ► - One of his best, and he's--

00:38:29 ◼   ► - He really was, and that's saying something.

00:38:32 ◼   ► But they had the perfect logo.

00:38:36 ◼   ► - Right, just the perfect, idealized,

00:38:38 ◼   ► iconographic package.

00:38:41 ◼   ► - Perfection, it was logo perfection.

00:38:44 ◼   ► And they replaced it with shit.

00:38:47 ◼   ► It's pure shit.

00:38:50 ◼   ► It already looks dated it they replaced it with this sort of

00:38:55 ◼   ► Gradient look, you know, that was it was sort of a swoosh

00:39:00 ◼   ► Yeah, and and this sort of like their printer said hey we could print this

00:39:07 ◼   ► Gradient that'll make the shield look curvy on the trucks. Well, then let's use it and ah,

00:39:14 ◼   ► Just just awful. It already looks bad. It was I don't know

00:39:19 ◼   ► I don't think it was more than five or six years ago, but it was certainly within the last decade and

00:39:23 ◼   ► It already looks old whereas the Paul Rand one would have lasted forever

00:39:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I really would have the other thing about his and I mean it sincerely that that Paul

00:39:34 ◼   ► it's not just bitching about it because they changed it, you know, but it

00:39:38 ◼   ► It was just so perfect. It was good-looking and it was distinctive. Nobody else used

00:39:45 ◼   ► I mean, they still have the brown so that mean they're not that stupid that they got rid of that

00:39:49 ◼   ► But the the Paul Rand one made them look

00:39:52 ◼   ► Authoritative like yeah, they were they they somehow always as a kid seemed to me even more authoritative than the Postal Service

00:40:01 ◼   ► That even though the Postal Service was actually from the federal government a package by UPS. That was that was the real deal

00:40:09 ◼   ► Oh, that was good stuff. I mean what like UPS does not deliver bad news. I

00:40:14 ◼   ► Think that's part of it exactly and they don't you grew up

00:40:18 ◼   ► If UPS showed up they were bringing you something you wanted

00:40:22 ◼   ► When the mail showed up 50/50 shot that that was gonna suck, right?

00:40:27 ◼   ► overdue bill

00:40:29 ◼   ► collection agency

00:40:31 ◼   ► But UPS was always good and I don't know. I don't know what the deal is with this

00:40:36 ◼   ► I don't know if I I mean it's got to speak to like really good hiring practices

00:40:40 ◼   ► But every UPS guy or every UPS agent that I've ever dealt with

00:40:45 ◼   ► Has been great. Oh

00:40:48 ◼   ► That I have the exact same experience here. Totally. Yeah, like and then like the FedEx guy will show up

00:40:55 ◼   ► And you know, he's maybe recovering from last night

00:40:57 ◼   ► He's you know smells like smoke smells like cigarette smoke. Yeah, just give a veneer of sweat

00:41:04 ◼   ► But the UPS guy always looks impeccable

00:41:08 ◼   ► Very true, I are you we have a regular UPS guy and it's like I don't I I'm a little bit embarrassed

00:41:15 ◼   ► I don't know his name, but we just call each other chief, right?

00:41:19 ◼   ► Because we're in Philly.

00:41:19 ◼   ► Yeah, that works.

00:41:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:22 ◼   ► But he knows me.

00:41:23 ◼   ► I know him.

00:41:23 ◼   ► And he's awesome.

00:41:25 ◼   ► There was one time--

00:41:26 ◼   ► this was just a couple of weeks ago--

00:41:28 ◼   ► where we were going away.

00:41:31 ◼   ► And it was one of my recent trips.

00:41:35 ◼   ► We were flying the next day.

00:41:36 ◼   ► And Amy had ordered something that she wanted for the trip.

00:41:39 ◼   ► And Amy was gone, and it was just me and Jonas.

00:41:43 ◼   ► But I had to go pick up dry cleaning

00:41:45 ◼   ► that we wanted to take with us on the trip.

00:41:47 ◼   ► So Jonas was home.

00:41:48 ◼   ► We don't let him answer in the door

00:41:50 ◼   ► because he's only 10 years old

00:41:51 ◼   ► and he doesn't want to answer the door.

00:41:53 ◼   ► So he doesn't answer the door.

00:41:55 ◼   ► And I knew I had like a 15 minute window

00:41:57 ◼   ► where if the UPS guy came in at 15 minutes,

00:41:59 ◼   ► we were gonna miss this package.

00:42:00 ◼   ► And that's when he came.

00:42:02 ◼   ► And I was like a block and a half away, two blocks away.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And I see him driving and he sees me and he pulls over

00:42:08 ◼   ► and he goes, "Hey, I just missed you."

00:42:09 ◼   ► And he tosses me the package.

00:42:13 ◼   ► FedEx guy would have flipped you off.

00:42:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:17 ◼   ► - He never would have given it to me.

00:42:18 ◼   ► - No.

00:42:19 ◼   ► - Never in a million years.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - And now there's, I don't know,

00:42:24 ◼   ► I don't know if this is regional or what,

00:42:25 ◼   ► but like those shit services that Amazon

00:42:29 ◼   ► dumps their crap to.

00:42:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know what you mean.

00:42:33 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like a guy with a Subaru.

00:42:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, like EcoDeliver.

00:42:39 ◼   ► - Right.

00:42:41 ◼   ► - No, I know exactly, it's just the guy with the Subaru.

00:42:44 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe they do some kind of background check

00:42:46 ◼   ► on him or something, but they don't even have uniforms.

00:42:48 ◼   ► - They do, these are the guys who couldn't get UberX jobs.

00:42:51 ◼   ► And they're delivering your packages.

00:42:56 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:42:57 ◼   ► - And you know what it takes not to get hired by UberX?

00:43:01 ◼   ► I think your dick has to be visibly outside your pants.

00:43:07 ◼   ► - With a tattoo on it.

00:43:10 ◼   ► - Right.

00:43:11 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:12 ◼   ► It's his mom and there's a heart.

00:43:14 ◼   ► - Well, anyway, the sad story about Massimo Vignelli

00:43:17 ◼   ► is that he's apparently very gravely ill.

00:43:21 ◼   ► I just linked this up today.

00:43:23 ◼   ► And his son, they're spreading the news

00:43:25 ◼   ► and that they want anybody who's been inspired by him

00:43:29 ◼   ► to just send him a letter.

00:43:30 ◼   ► His son literally envisions.

00:43:32 ◼   ► You can't, don't think, oh, I don't wanna bother him.

00:43:36 ◼   ► They're probably gonna get a lot of letters already.

00:43:38 ◼   ► - No, they want this.

00:43:39 ◼   ► - Right, his son is envisioning

00:43:40 ◼   ► sacks and sacks of letters.

00:43:42 ◼   ► And he gave an address and just anybody

00:43:46 ◼   ► who's been inspired by it.

00:43:47 ◼   ► I did it, did you do it?

00:43:47 ◼   ► I literally made a real short letter.

00:43:50 ◼   ► - I have a postcard, I'm gonna mail it on the way home.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - I printed out a little thing

00:43:57 ◼   ► and of course I said it in Helvetica.

00:44:00 ◼   ► I just made a little short thing and just said thank you.

00:44:04 ◼   ► And in big letters and dropped it in a mail today.

00:44:09 ◼   ► - That's all you need to say.

00:44:10 ◼   ► The man's not gonna read an eight page letter.

00:44:12 ◼   ► - No, mine, I'll read you mine.

00:44:15 ◼   ► I didn't know how to address them.

00:44:16 ◼   ► I addressed it to Mr. Vignelli, and it just said comma,

00:44:20 ◼   ► and then double the size, it just said,

00:44:23 ◼   ► thank you for everything.

00:44:24 ◼   ► And then I put my name at the bottom.

00:44:26 ◼   ► - There you go. - That was it.

00:44:27 ◼   ► - And I tweeted this out earlier today.

00:44:30 ◼   ► If you're a young designer and you're like,

00:44:34 ◼   ► who's Massimo Vignelli?

00:44:36 ◼   ► just write the postcard and take this opportunity to do it

00:44:40 ◼   ► because in a few years you'll wish you had.

00:44:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:44:43 ◼   ► - You won't have it anymore.

00:44:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:44:45 ◼   ► Boy, and he was one of, I love,

00:44:47 ◼   ► I love the whole Gary Hustwit design trilogy,

00:44:50 ◼   ► but sort of like Star Wars,

00:44:52 ◼   ► it's like the first one has a special place in your heart.

00:44:55 ◼   ► I love Helvetica.

00:44:56 ◼   ► And he was so great in it.

00:44:58 ◼   ► Oh, I mean, the whole movie is great.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I can't say that he made the movie, but how great.

00:45:03 ◼   ► It just does me well knowing that he's ill.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Let's hope that he gets better, but it sounds like it's bad.

00:45:09 ◼   ► - It doesn't sound like that's--

00:45:10 ◼   ► - It does not, but oh man, how great is it though

00:45:12 ◼   ► that Gary had the idea to do the movie

00:45:16 ◼   ► while he was still around?

00:45:17 ◼   ► Because if you're gonna make a movie called Helvetica

00:45:19 ◼   ► about Helvetica and typography,

00:45:22 ◼   ► man, it would have been a crying shame

00:45:24 ◼   ► not to have him in it.

00:45:26 ◼   ► Really would have. - Absolutely.

00:45:27 ◼   ► - It never would have been the same movie without him.

00:45:29 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:45:30 ◼   ► - So anyway, sad news there,

00:45:33 ◼   ► but kind of a neat thing his son is doing.

00:45:35 ◼   ► I hope it works out great and I take some pictures

00:45:37 ◼   ► of all the stuff that comes in.

00:45:39 ◼   ► - It is, yeah.

00:45:40 ◼   ► All right, happy news.

00:45:44 ◼   ► - All right.

00:45:44 ◼   ► - Do you have any?

00:45:45 ◼   ► - Is comixology happy news?

00:45:49 ◼   ► - Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, no that's not.

00:45:52 ◼   ► - Talking about?

00:45:53 ◼   ► - Talking about making things worse.

00:45:55 ◼   ► I mean, I don't even get it.

00:46:04 ◼   ► I understand why, but the why is stupid.

00:46:08 ◼   ► So for John's three listeners who don't also read comics

00:46:15 ◼   ► and might have girlfriends,

00:46:19 ◼   ► Comixology was the thing that I did

00:46:27 ◼   ► 80% of the time I touched my iPad.

00:46:30 ◼   ► - Is that really true?

00:46:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, it really is.

00:46:33 ◼   ► Like, so, I don't use it that much.

00:46:37 ◼   ► I use it for reading comics.

00:46:38 ◼   ► I use it for movies if I'm traveling, like on a flight.

00:46:42 ◼   ► And I use it for reading, but I like split time

00:46:48 ◼   ► between that and my Kindle,

00:46:50 ◼   ► depending on what's closest to me.

00:46:51 ◼   ► - Right.

00:46:52 ◼   ► - But yeah, I loved reading comics on the iPad.

00:46:58 ◼   ► - I think comics were the one,

00:47:01 ◼   ► I don't know the economics.

00:47:02 ◼   ► I don't know how much money Comixology had made,

00:47:05 ◼   ► but it just seems, just without stats to back it up,

00:47:09 ◼   ► just observing and listening to friends.

00:47:11 ◼   ► Comics are the one thing, the one periodical

00:47:15 ◼   ► that really seemed to be thriving on the iPad.

00:47:20 ◼   ► - Well, because it doesn't matter when you read it.

00:47:24 ◼   ► - Well, and I think it's combined, and that it's--

00:47:27 ◼   ► - Back issues, back issues are just as relevant

00:47:30 ◼   ► as current issues and there's so much nostalgia in here.

00:47:35 ◼   ► I mean, so I used to buy, I used to go to the comic book shop

00:47:38 ◼   ► and every week, every Wednesday,

00:47:43 ◼   ► I'd go to the comic book shop, I'd grab my stack,

00:47:45 ◼   ► I'd go home and during the course of the week,

00:47:48 ◼   ► I would read through them until it was Wednesday again

00:47:50 ◼   ► and I'd get a new stack.

00:47:52 ◼   ► And after a few years,

00:47:54 ◼   ► you end up with a lot of fucking comics

00:47:57 ◼   ► and I'm not one of those guys who like put them in baggies.

00:48:00 ◼   ► But there would just be massive piles of comics around the house.

00:48:05 ◼   ► And it feels like a shame to throw them out.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Even if you're not putting them in baggies and filing them away,

00:48:10 ◼   ► it feels like a crying shame to throw a good comic book out.

00:48:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:13 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:13 ◼   ► I've just never been a throw out a comic book sort of person.

00:48:16 ◼   ► So I went out and I got all these long boxes and I put all the comics in them.

00:48:20 ◼   ► And now I have like 20 long boxes of comics in my house that I'll probably never open again,

00:48:27 ◼   ► but don't ever want to throw out.

00:48:29 ◼   ► So when the iPad came around and Comixology came out,

00:48:34 ◼   ► all of a sudden it got really, really easy

00:48:36 ◼   ► to read a comic on a device, on an iPad.

00:48:41 ◼   ► And it was a really great device to read.

00:48:43 ◼   ► It's like the iPad was made for reading comics.

00:48:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, I think that's part of it too,

00:48:47 ◼   ► is that there's no compromise.

00:48:51 ◼   ► I mean, reading an actual printed comic book is cool

00:48:54 ◼   ► and it works, but reading them on the iPad,

00:48:58 ◼   ► especially once the iPad went retina.

00:49:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:49:01 ◼   ► - Which is, you know, effectively at this point in time,

00:49:03 ◼   ► most all iPads in use, it's just great.

00:49:07 ◼   ► And the way that you could zoom and go from panel to panel

00:49:10 ◼   ► so that if it was actually physically small,

00:49:13 ◼   ► you could just quick tap into zoom and see it.

00:49:17 ◼   ► It was all just great.

00:49:18 ◼   ► And the nature of comics where one comic book

00:49:23 ◼   ► does not take that long to read, you know,

00:49:26 ◼   ► The full story is usually, you know, spans four or five episodes or issues.

00:49:35 ◼   ► It just works in a way that like binge watching TV shows works digitally but really just didn't,

00:49:42 ◼   ► you know, it didn't become a thing until after the DVD era ended and the download over Netflix

00:49:48 ◼   ► or iTunes or whatever.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Because you could say, "You know what?

00:49:51 ◼   ► It's only 11 o'clock.

00:49:52 ◼   ► I've got one more in me and that was a good episode.

00:49:55 ◼   ► Let's watch one more."

00:49:56 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:49:56 ◼   ► - And it's the same thing with comicsology

00:49:58 ◼   ► where you got to the end of a good one

00:50:01 ◼   ► and you're just one tap away from, yeah,

00:50:04 ◼   ► just here, here's my two, take my two dollars

00:50:07 ◼   ► and give me the next one.

00:50:08 ◼   ► - Well, it was like crack.

00:50:09 ◼   ► - Right.

00:50:10 ◼   ► - And I mean, there are a couple here in the office,

00:50:13 ◼   ► there are, you know, there's a few of us who read comics

00:50:17 ◼   ► and I mean, we, we, we, we were amazed when we realized

00:50:25 ◼   ► how much money we were sinking in a Comixology

00:50:27 ◼   ► on a weekly basis.

00:50:29 ◼   ► Because it was just so easy to hit,

00:50:31 ◼   ► give me that next one, give me that next one,

00:50:33 ◼   ► and it's three bucks down, and it's three bucks spent.

00:50:36 ◼   ► - So I'm curious where,

00:50:39 ◼   ► how severe a drop-off they're going to see.

00:50:43 ◼   ► - I think it is gonna be severe.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Because it wasn't, so I mean, I've heard people go,

00:50:48 ◼   ► well, you can just go to the website,

00:50:49 ◼   ► you can collect all your comics for the week.

00:50:51 ◼   ► But the thing that doesn't account for is discoverability.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Like I would go in there looking for one comic

00:50:59 ◼   ► and I would end up reading like four more titles

00:51:03 ◼   ► that I'd never heard of before

00:51:04 ◼   ► because it was recommending them to me,

00:51:06 ◼   ► because they were showing up on the featured page,

00:51:08 ◼   ► and because I was willing to give them a shot.

00:51:10 ◼   ► Because at three bucks,

00:51:11 ◼   ► you're willing to give something a shot.

00:51:13 ◼   ► - Right.

00:51:14 ◼   ► - And you end up discovering all these new titles

00:51:18 ◼   ► that you didn't know about,

00:51:20 ◼   ► and now you're buying one every month.

00:51:24 ◼   ► And entire evenings were spent this way.

00:51:29 ◼   ► And now you have to make a,

00:51:32 ◼   ► so if you're a casual comic reader,

00:51:38 ◼   ► and you're like, oh, let's download this comics app.

00:51:41 ◼   ► Previously, it's like, hey,

00:51:43 ◼   ► here's thousands of comics that you can try.

00:51:46 ◼   ► And now you download the Comixology app,

00:51:52 ◼   ► And it's like, dude, where are your comics?

00:51:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:51:56 ◼   ► - And you have, it sucks.

00:51:58 ◼   ► - And,

00:51:59 ◼   ► I don't know where fully to ascribe blame.

00:52:06 ◼   ► I kind of blame Amazon a little bit,

00:52:09 ◼   ► because obviously they knew when they acquired them,

00:52:11 ◼   ► this is what they were going to do.

00:52:13 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:52:14 ◼   ► - And it was going to be a big disappointment

00:52:17 ◼   ► to an awful lot, it has to be a majority

00:52:20 ◼   ► of the existing users.

00:52:21 ◼   ► You know, we're gonna buy this popular app.

00:52:24 ◼   ► And most of the users are on iPads,

00:52:28 ◼   ► and now most of them have a significantly

00:52:33 ◼   ► worse buying experience.

00:52:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:52:36 ◼   ► - I do understand Amazon's motivation

00:52:37 ◼   ► not to wanna give 30% to Apple,

00:52:41 ◼   ► but they knew what they had going in when they bought it.

00:52:45 ◼   ► - They knew it going in, and the Comixology people

00:52:48 ◼   ► knew it going in or should've known it.

00:52:50 ◼   ► or should have at least fucking asked about it.

00:52:54 ◼   ► Right. But I see even

00:52:59 ◼   ► even with the giving your 30 percent to Apple bit

00:53:04 ◼   ► I think you're still screwing yourself in the long term

00:53:10 ◼   ► because the amount that you just crippled

00:53:14 ◼   ► the discoverability for new users and of

00:53:18 ◼   ► and of related comics isn't gonna make up.

00:53:22 ◼   ► The 30% that you're getting back isn't gonna make up

00:53:25 ◼   ► for what you've taken away.

00:53:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the other thing too,

00:53:30 ◼   ► and that Comixology pulled this off

00:53:32 ◼   ► in a way that I'm surprised that everybody went along with,

00:53:35 ◼   ► was that Comixology was like a comic book shop

00:53:39 ◼   ► where you didn't have to go to a Marvel comic shop

00:53:43 ◼   ► and then drive a couple more blocks,

00:53:45 ◼   ► take a cab and go to the DC comic shop

00:53:47 ◼   ► and then go stop in the indie comic shop.

00:53:51 ◼   ► It's like you could just go to Comixology

00:53:53 ◼   ► and you could get all of that,

00:53:54 ◼   ► like at a real comic shop.

00:53:56 ◼   ► I mean, was it, am I overstating it?

00:53:58 ◼   ► - Except Dark Horse, which sucked.

00:54:00 ◼   ► - So there were individual holdouts.

00:54:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, they had most of them.

00:54:04 ◼   ► - But it was closer though to, you know,

00:54:08 ◼   ► a one-stop shopping.

00:54:10 ◼   ► - And they were like the type kit of comics.

00:54:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a good example.

00:54:15 ◼   ► You can get most of the fonts here.

00:54:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, good example.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Yeah, if you come here, you're going to have,

00:54:22 ◼   ► you're not just going to get these fonts,

00:54:25 ◼   ► you're gonna get most fonts.

00:54:27 ◼   ► - Right.

00:54:28 ◼   ► And every once in a while,

00:54:32 ◼   ► you have to drive to Hoffler's house.

00:54:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:36 ◼   ► - 'Cause you really, really need Gotham.

00:54:43 ◼   ► - Right.

00:54:44 ◼   ► And it's so little works out like that digitally.

00:54:51 ◼   ► Nobody wants to share like that.

00:54:52 ◼   ► Everybody sees digital as this chance

00:54:54 ◼   ► to make their own little moat where it's just DC.

00:54:59 ◼   ► And now that's back where we are, where if you want to,

00:55:02 ◼   ► Marvel and DC are going to have to make their own apps.

00:55:04 ◼   ► And you're going to have to go to different apps

00:55:06 ◼   ► for different things.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And I mean, for superhero stuff, everybody kind of

00:55:10 ◼   ► knows the separate universe.

00:55:11 ◼   ► I mean, that's part of being--

00:55:13 ◼   ► It's not like, you know, not knowing what channel

00:55:16 ◼   ► a certain TV show is on.

00:55:18 ◼   ► Everybody kind of knows Spider-Man is,

00:55:19 ◼   ► anybody who reads comics knows Spider-Man is Marvel

00:55:22 ◼   ► and Batman is DC.

00:55:23 ◼   ► - Well, they know that now.

00:55:25 ◼   ► - Right.

00:55:26 ◼   ► - And I think they probably, well, yeah,

00:55:29 ◼   ► I mean, that's pretty ingrained.

00:55:31 ◼   ► - I don't know, but reading comics on the iPad is now,

00:55:33 ◼   ► the bottom line though is that whoever the blame goes,

00:55:36 ◼   ► it's worse now than it was, and that sucks.

00:55:39 ◼   ► - So as a general rule, you're not going to make

00:55:43 ◼   ► more money by making something harder for people to use.

00:55:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, or hard, and especially harder

00:55:49 ◼   ► to separate them from their money.

00:55:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:55:51 ◼   ► - Because that's always gonna be

00:55:53 ◼   ► the stickiest part of the thing.

00:55:55 ◼   ► - I mean, separating people from their money

00:55:59 ◼   ► under the old ComiXology model,

00:56:01 ◼   ► there was so much lube in that flow.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Like, money just flowed out of your wallet.

00:56:08 ◼   ► It was kind of incredible how quickly you spent money

00:56:12 ◼   ► on that on that app. Yeah, and Amazon totally knows that. I mean, because that's certainly

00:56:18 ◼   ► a big part of the appeal of using Kindle. I, you know, for example, a couple years ago,

00:56:24 ◼   ► I read a reread all of Ian Fleming's James original James Bond novels. And they're pretty

00:56:30 ◼   ► short, you know, like that back in those days, you know, 50s 60s up until I don't know when

00:56:35 ◼   ► it's changed. But novels used to be fairly short. I mean, you know, you could put famously

00:56:40 ◼   ► So you could put the catcher in the rye, you could put it in your jeans pocket.

00:56:45 ◼   ► So they were short reads.

00:56:47 ◼   ► And if I read it and I still had gas in the tank at night, I would just immediately...

00:56:52 ◼   ► There's like two taps of a button and I'm reading the next one in the series.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Which I remember thinking, like, that's so totally different than the physical days of

00:57:03 ◼   ► physical books.

00:57:05 ◼   ► Even if I'd bought the whole series and had it,

00:57:09 ◼   ► but had like the next one upstairs in my office,

00:57:11 ◼   ► I might have just gone to bed.

00:57:13 ◼   ► Whereas two taps of a finger,

00:57:15 ◼   ► I'm gonna sit here and read another one.

00:57:17 ◼   ► And I think that Comixology has totally lost that.

00:57:21 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:57:23 ◼   ► And now, I mean, now there's a shopping cart model.

00:57:28 ◼   ► By the way, their website is atrocious.

00:57:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause doesn't the website predate the app?

00:57:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, if you're going to pull this move,

00:57:39 ◼   ► your website better be fucking gray.

00:57:43 ◼   ► And it's not, it's terrible.

00:57:44 ◼   ► And it has a shopping cart model.

00:57:48 ◼   ► So what you never wanna do with an addict,

00:57:51 ◼   ► and I think comics readers are addicts,

00:57:53 ◼   ► is show 'em a total.

00:57:54 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a good point.

00:57:57 ◼   ► - So I would sit there at night,

00:57:59 ◼   ► just hitting buy, buy, buy, buy,

00:58:02 ◼   ► And so I'm just buying comics an issue at a time.

00:58:07 ◼   ► Now I go to the website and I get to see a total,

00:58:11 ◼   ► like holy shit, I'm spending $35 on comics today.

00:58:14 ◼   ► That's really a lot of money.

00:58:16 ◼   ► - It would be like if your bag of chips

00:58:19 ◼   ► had like a digital readout that showed you

00:58:21 ◼   ► how many calories you've consumed

00:58:22 ◼   ► as you take the chips out of the bag.

00:58:25 ◼   ► - Right, and all of a sudden I'm like,

00:58:26 ◼   ► well, maybe I won't try,

00:58:28 ◼   ► well, I'm certainly not gonna try this new one

00:58:30 ◼   ► that I've never heard of before.

00:58:33 ◼   ► It might suck, and I wanna get out of here under 20 bucks.

00:58:37 ◼   ► So all of a sudden, I'm deleting from the cart.

00:58:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and addiction is sort of a loaded word,

00:58:44 ◼   ► but I think it's a fair one.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And the comics addiction, in a grand scheme of addictions

00:58:50 ◼   ► and ways to blow money online, is pretty benign.

00:58:54 ◼   ► As opposed to, say, something like Candy Crush,

00:58:56 ◼   ► where there's all these various psychological tricks

00:58:59 ◼   ► and artificial barriers like the stupid way

00:59:02 ◼   ► that they will lock you out and say like,

00:59:06 ◼   ► unless you give us money, you're done for half an hour.

00:59:10 ◼   ► There's nothing like that.

00:59:11 ◼   ► It's just, you must have been enjoying this story.

00:59:15 ◼   ► - But this is, I mean, this has always been

00:59:17 ◼   ► the joy of comics.

00:59:19 ◼   ► It's a quick hit.

00:59:20 ◼   ► - Right.

00:59:21 ◼   ► - I mean, I remember when I was a kid,

00:59:26 ◼   ► they went up from like 25 to 35 cents.

00:59:29 ◼   ► - You're pretty old.

00:59:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, I am pretty old.

00:59:33 ◼   ► But yeah, they used to be 25 cents.

00:59:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember how much.

00:59:38 ◼   ► My parents just gave me a box, just by coincidence,

00:59:40 ◼   ► a box of, a couple boxes of old stuff from my boyhood,

00:59:44 ◼   ► including a bunch of old comics.

00:59:46 ◼   ► I might have some in there that are 35 cents.

00:59:50 ◼   ► - But I mean, that's not a lot.

00:59:54 ◼   ► And even at three bucks, I mean, three bucks,

00:59:56 ◼   ► yeah, I'll hit that button.

00:59:57 ◼   ► But 35 bucks, I'm gonna think a little bit about this.

01:00:02 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Do you remember the West Coast Avengers?

01:00:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay.

01:00:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had that, well, I didn't have the whole,

01:00:10 ◼   ► I mean, eventually, that's the thing with comics,

01:00:13 ◼   ► is it's like soap operas, you can never actually,

01:00:15 ◼   ► they never end.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Eventually, I guess they reboot 'em.

01:00:18 ◼   ► But I had like the whole first couple years

01:00:20 ◼   ► of West Coast Avengers, and I liked it.

01:00:22 ◼   ► At some point in the '80s, it must have been

01:00:24 ◼   ► when they started it, and I liked it because,

01:00:27 ◼   ► unlike the regular Avengers,

01:00:29 ◼   ► which was up at like issue 200 and whatever,

01:00:32 ◼   ► and I felt like I had this nagging sense of incompletion

01:00:36 ◼   ► because I missed 200 episodes beforehand,

01:00:40 ◼   ► I liked that I was starting with issue one.

01:00:42 ◼   ► - Right. - And I remember thinking

01:00:43 ◼   ► it was gonna be real valuable, and I remember thinking,

01:00:45 ◼   ► I gotta really baby this issue one,

01:00:47 ◼   ► and of course, I ended up just,

01:00:49 ◼   ► it was just in a pile underneath my bed.

01:00:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, issue one was always a big deal,

01:00:53 ◼   ► not just because it might be valuable someday,

01:00:57 ◼   ► but like you said, it's your opportunity to come in

01:00:59 ◼   ► at the very beginning of the story,

01:01:01 ◼   ► and that didn't happen too often.

01:01:02 ◼   ► It happens a lot more now,

01:01:04 ◼   ► because now there's a lot more reboots,

01:01:06 ◼   ► a lot more offshoots, a lot more miniseries,

01:01:09 ◼   ► but back then, you had issue number,

01:01:13 ◼   ► I remember 500-something of Spider-Man.

01:01:17 ◼   ► - And the Fantastic Four was up at a ridiculous number.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Fantastic Four was five, six, seven hundred,

01:01:23 ◼   ► something like that.

01:01:24 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:25 ◼   ► - I remember, and when I had these,

01:01:28 ◼   ► I got these issues from my parents,

01:01:29 ◼   ► and I thought Jonas might really dig it.

01:01:31 ◼   ► Like, here's what the comic books were when I was a kid.

01:01:34 ◼   ► And I showed it to him, and

01:01:36 ◼   ► A, he thought Hawkeye looked,

01:01:40 ◼   ► he did not believe me that Hawkeye was Hawkeye.

01:01:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:01:44 ◼   ► - Purple, purple Hawkeye with the pointy eyes.

01:01:47 ◼   ► Yeah, and B, he thought that he was like, what is this?

01:01:52 ◼   ► They're ripping off Iron Man.

01:01:54 ◼   ► And I was like, no, you know,

01:01:55 ◼   ► Iron Man in the '80s kinda had shoulder pads

01:01:57 ◼   ► and he was silver, not gold.

01:01:59 ◼   ► And he's like, no he wasn't.

01:02:00 ◼   ► And I was like, yes, he was.

01:02:01 ◼   ► It was the '80s, shoulder pads were in.

01:02:04 ◼   ► He called him Rip-Off Iron Man

01:02:07 ◼   ► and he said, I'm not gonna read a rip-off.

01:02:09 ◼   ► So he wouldn't even read it.

01:02:11 ◼   ► Goddamn kids.

01:02:14 ◼   ► I would have been so happy to read my dad's comic books.

01:02:17 ◼   ► But he threw them out and I thought,

01:02:19 ◼   ► well I'll keep them and then my son will read mine

01:02:22 ◼   ► and he wants nothing to do with them.

01:02:24 ◼   ► - Do you remember when the first time

01:02:29 ◼   ► that Star Wars came back into theaters?

01:02:32 ◼   ► - I do.

01:02:32 ◼   ► - It's like the late 90s.

01:02:37 ◼   ► - Oh, I thought you meant like 1979.

01:02:40 ◼   ► - No, no, no, the first time they came back.

01:02:42 ◼   ► - I do remember that too.

01:02:43 ◼   ► I remember that anniversary.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it was the first time that Lucas started dicking with them.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Yeah, 1997 I think.

01:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:49 ◼   ► You're right, it was 20 years.

01:02:52 ◼   ► So they reintroduced all the action figures at the same time.

01:02:59 ◼   ► And I bought every single one and had them all still in the packaging

01:03:09 ◼   ► in a really large box.

01:03:12 ◼   ► And at one point I decided, you know what?

01:03:15 ◼   ► I'm gonna give these to my kid.

01:03:16 ◼   ► 'Cause he was just getting into Star Wars

01:03:21 ◼   ► and knowing all the characters and he was really into it.

01:03:24 ◼   ► And I'm thinking I got that big box of action figures there.

01:03:27 ◼   ► - It's gonna be, this is gonna be like Christmas in July.

01:03:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, he's gonna really appreciate this.

01:03:32 ◼   ► He's gonna go nuts.

01:03:33 ◼   ► And he did.

01:03:35 ◼   ► He tore open all the blister packs in about five minutes,

01:03:39 ◼   ► played with the toys for another five minutes,

01:03:41 ◼   ► and then went off to do something else.

01:03:44 ◼   ► That was it.

01:03:46 ◼   ► Left me standing there with this giant pile

01:03:53 ◼   ► of broken hope at my feet.

01:03:55 ◼   ► - For 10 minutes.

01:03:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like, that's great, what else you got?

01:04:00 ◼   ► - Do you remember, were they the figures that came out

01:04:05 ◼   ► and they were real buff, everybody had steroidal--

01:04:09 ◼   ► - It was like Troy Aikman, Luke Skywalker.

01:04:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it was a huge, huge pectoral muscles,

01:04:17 ◼   ► way out of proportion, almost like halfway

01:04:19 ◼   ► into the Masters of the Universe sort of physique.

01:04:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:04:22 ◼   ► - Which was a very bizarre choice, I thought.

01:04:27 ◼   ► Like, I do realize that the articulation of action figures

01:04:32 ◼   ► has proceeded at a remarkable clip

01:04:36 ◼   ► since when I was a little kid.

01:04:38 ◼   ► But changing the the physique of the characters always seemed to me like a very strange

01:04:46 ◼   ► a strange decision given the overall aesthetic of the Star Wars universe.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Well I think you first the first decision is what molds do we have available?

01:04:56 ◼   ► Yeah I don't know I don't know though it seemed like everybody you know well maybe that was part of it.

01:05:02 ◼   ► I liked the original figures from the Kenner ones from the 70s.

01:05:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, those were great.

01:05:11 ◼   ► - They were sort of the opposite.

01:05:13 ◼   ► Everybody just sort of looked a little lazy.

01:05:15 ◼   ► Nobody had any muscles at all.

01:05:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I didn't have those.

01:05:20 ◼   ► - No?

01:05:21 ◼   ► - No, we were poor.

01:05:22 ◼   ► We couldn't afford to spend money on toys.

01:05:24 ◼   ► - Oh man, that's--

01:05:24 ◼   ► - So I never had any of that stuff.

01:05:26 ◼   ► I never, so what the thing,

01:05:30 ◼   ► What really excited me about Star Wars coming back out

01:05:34 ◼   ► in the 70s into the theaters,

01:05:36 ◼   ► that was the first time I saw Star Wars in a theater

01:05:40 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't see the first one.

01:05:44 ◼   ► - Wow. - I didn't see the first one.

01:05:46 ◼   ► And remember, this was before Cable, this was before VCRs.

01:05:51 ◼   ► - And even when Cable and VCRs came out,

01:05:54 ◼   ► they kept those, the good movies didn't come out.

01:05:56 ◼   ► They didn't put Star Wars on VHS

01:05:58 ◼   ► until long into the VHS era.

01:06:03 ◼   ► - So the first time I saw Star Wars

01:06:05 ◼   ► was when it aired on TV.

01:06:08 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:06:10 ◼   ► - And by that time, I'd seen Empire Strikes Back

01:06:13 ◼   ► in the theater, but my parents wouldn't let me

01:06:16 ◼   ► see Star Wars.

01:06:18 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:06:19 ◼   ► - I think they were punishing me for something.

01:06:21 ◼   ► I forget what it was.

01:06:23 ◼   ► - Well, I don't know.

01:06:24 ◼   ► That's the saddest story I've ever heard.

01:06:27 ◼   ► - It's pretty sad, right?

01:06:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I don't even know what I did between 1977 and 1983 or so

01:06:36 ◼   ► other than talk Star Wars.

01:06:39 ◼   ► - Oh, I talked about it.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Like I read the novel.

01:06:42 ◼   ► I read the novelization, I read the comics.

01:06:44 ◼   ► Like I knew the plot.

01:06:47 ◼   ► I knew every single minute of plotline.

01:06:49 ◼   ► But I'd never seen it.

01:06:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I did.

01:06:52 ◼   ► I read the novelization.

01:06:52 ◼   ► It was like the most, you know what?

01:06:55 ◼   ► You're the person that novelization was created for.

01:06:57 ◼   ► Because the novelization was literally just telling you what happened in the movie. There was exactly

01:07:02 ◼   ► There was nothing else it was just here's the movie for someone who who for some reason has not or cannot see the movie

01:07:10 ◼   ► So it was actually must have been pretty useful for you

01:07:12 ◼   ► But you know, i'm a perfectly normal adult now, so this had no long-term repercussions. No, no scarring whatsoever. None

01:07:20 ◼   ► All right, let's uh

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01:09:10 ◼   ► to convey your idea in a prototype that actually comes to life. Here's where you

01:09:14 ◼   ► go to find out more. Their website giveabrief.com. Giveabrief.com and you

01:09:22 ◼   ► can go there and try it out for free today or you can go to the Mac App Store

01:09:27 ◼   ► search for briefs and buy it directly right there in the Mac App Store. My

01:09:32 ◼   ► thanks to Briefs. So you won award Mike you you you just literally today as we

01:09:38 ◼   ► We record, we're recording today on Friday the 9th of May.

01:09:43 ◼   ► You won an award today.

01:09:45 ◼   ► I did.

01:09:46 ◼   ► Have you ever won an award before?

01:09:48 ◼   ► I think so.

01:09:51 ◼   ► What did you win?

01:09:53 ◼   ► I got the Conference Talk of the Year for 20…

01:10:00 ◼   ► I guess 2013.

01:10:01 ◼   ► Isn't it a little late for an award for 2013?

01:10:04 ◼   ► Maybe it's for 2014.

01:10:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:10:06 ◼   ► I got the Conference Talk of the Year award.

01:10:08 ◼   ► - This is the one that I saw you give at Webstock 2013, though.

01:10:13 ◼   ► - That's right.

01:10:14 ◼   ► - Now that was February 2013,

01:10:16 ◼   ► so we're talking 14 months ago.

01:10:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:19 ◼   ► - It was a good talk, I have to say.

01:10:21 ◼   ► And I, you know, and just circling back

01:10:23 ◼   ► to the beginning of the show, it pains me

01:10:26 ◼   ► to give you a sincere and utter compliment,

01:10:28 ◼   ► but it really was, it was a great talk.

01:10:31 ◼   ► - See, the thing about getting a compliment from you

01:10:34 ◼   ► is that I know you always mean it.

01:10:37 ◼   ► because you wouldn't do it unless you absolutely had to.

01:10:42 ◼   ► And I know that it also pains you,

01:10:45 ◼   ► so that makes me feel better.

01:10:47 ◼   ► - It was, and it was impressive for multiple reasons.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Number one, Webstock is an amazing conference.

01:10:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I loved it down there.

01:10:55 ◼   ► - Very high standards though.

01:10:57 ◼   ► So you say it's a great venue, great people,

01:11:00 ◼   ► great audience, God, people in New Zealand are just,

01:11:03 ◼   ► I never met a--

01:11:05 ◼   ► - Man, they were into it.

01:11:07 ◼   ► I mean, they're engaged.

01:11:09 ◼   ► - It is a great audience, great talk.

01:11:10 ◼   ► They have other great speakers.

01:11:13 ◼   ► So it's a great place to go,

01:11:15 ◼   ► but you have to bring your A game, really,

01:11:18 ◼   ► to be there, to feel like you deserve it.

01:11:20 ◼   ► And you had the closing spot, which--

01:11:24 ◼   ► - Which freaked me out.

01:11:25 ◼   ► - Well, because you can't just, it's, you know,

01:11:29 ◼   ► opening spot, you can kind of get away

01:11:31 ◼   ► with just giving a talk, because somebody who hosts

01:11:34 ◼   ► the thing can get up there and sort of do the introductions

01:11:38 ◼   ► and let's get our toes into the water

01:11:41 ◼   ► and get into the conference mindset

01:11:42 ◼   ► and then here's our first speaker.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Closing speaker though has to give a closing talk.

01:11:49 ◼   ► It has to feel like punctuation,

01:11:51 ◼   ► whether it's a one day or a two day event

01:11:53 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:11:54 ◼   ► It has to emotionally feel like this is the end, we're done.

01:11:59 ◼   ► - You gotta work the crowd.

01:12:01 ◼   ► - Right.

01:12:02 ◼   ► - You gotta send the crowd home.

01:12:03 ◼   ► you're gonna be the last thing they hear.

01:12:05 ◼   ► - Right.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Two years prior, I've been to Webstock twice,

01:12:10 ◼   ► and Merlin Mann had that spot two years prior.

01:12:13 ◼   ► And he did a great job too.

01:12:17 ◼   ► I have to say I was worried,

01:12:19 ◼   ► and that's one of those things,

01:12:19 ◼   ► 'cause you're my friend,

01:12:20 ◼   ► and you worry about, you want your friends to do well.

01:12:22 ◼   ► I was a little worried about you in that spot,

01:12:24 ◼   ► because-- - Really?

01:12:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was, 'cause I just,

01:12:27 ◼   ► I know you're a good speaker,

01:12:28 ◼   ► and I know you have good things to say,

01:12:29 ◼   ► I just didn't know if you could pull it off.

01:12:31 ◼   ► - Well, did Merlin get conference talk of the year

01:12:33 ◼   ► for his closing spot, John?

01:12:35 ◼   ► - I don't think he did.

01:12:36 ◼   ► - Well, boom.

01:12:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:12:38 ◼   ► I'm such a dick.

01:12:39 ◼   ► I saw Merlin's talk, it was a very good talk.

01:12:43 ◼   ► - It was a very good talk.

01:12:44 ◼   ► Yours was excellent too, though.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Did you end up giving it elsewhere?

01:12:48 ◼   ► - I'm giving it now.

01:12:50 ◼   ► So that was the second time I'd given that talk.

01:12:54 ◼   ► And it was, so that was my back burner talk.

01:13:02 ◼   ► I've got like the talk that I'm doing this year

01:13:04 ◼   ► and the talk that I'm prepping for next year.

01:13:06 ◼   ► And so the way Webstock happened was kind of weird.

01:13:12 ◼   ► I got an email from Mike at Webstock, who's a great guy,

01:13:18 ◼   ► two weeks before the event.

01:13:22 ◼   ► - That's crazy.

01:13:26 ◼   ► And it's a two week flight.

01:13:28 ◼   ► - It is a two week flight.

01:13:29 ◼   ► I was, a plane literally stopped while I was reading

01:13:34 ◼   ► the email to pick me up.

01:13:35 ◼   ► Two weeks before the event, he said,

01:13:39 ◼   ► "Hey, will you speak at Webstock?"

01:13:41 ◼   ► And my first thought was, "Wow, they're really

01:13:46 ◼   ► on top of this, they're already getting speakers

01:13:48 ◼   ► for next year."

01:13:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:13:52 ◼   ► And it was like, "No, in two weeks."

01:13:56 ◼   ► OK.

01:13:57 ◼   ► Because this I'd always wanted to go to web.

01:13:59 ◼   ► You know this.

01:14:00 ◼   ► I mean, how many times have I had I bugged you like, hey,

01:14:03 ◼   ► John, you know the Webstock people, right?

01:14:06 ◼   ► Get me invited to Webstock.

01:14:08 ◼   ► I did.

01:14:09 ◼   ► You did.

01:14:10 ◼   ► And so two weeks before the show, they're like, hey,

01:14:13 ◼   ► will you come down to Webstock?

01:14:14 ◼   ► And I'm like, yes, definitely.

01:14:18 ◼   ► OK, but here's the deal.

01:14:21 ◼   ► We want you to give the closing talk,

01:14:24 ◼   ► and we want you to knock people out of their seats.

01:14:27 ◼   ► And I'm like, oh.

01:14:29 ◼   ► Will you write a new talk for us?

01:14:32 ◼   ► I'm like, yeah, not in two weeks, my man.

01:14:36 ◼   ► But I had this talk that I kind of put away for a while,

01:14:42 ◼   ► and I thought, you know what?

01:14:45 ◼   ► I think I can turn that talk into the talk he's looking for.

01:14:49 ◼   ► I think there's a closing talk hidden in there.

01:14:51 ◼   ► - What's the title?

01:14:52 ◼   ► How Designers Destroyed the World.

01:14:55 ◼   ► It's a good title.

01:14:57 ◼   ► Well, here's the story about the title.

01:15:00 ◼   ► So the first time I gave the talk was at

01:15:05 ◼   ► at Paris Web.

01:15:09 ◼   ► And so they invited me to speak there and I said

01:15:13 ◼   ► oh yeah great I'd love to. I have this talk about

01:15:17 ◼   ► you know how about designers and client relationships

01:15:21 ◼   ► and how you can develop more empathy with your clients.

01:15:25 ◼   ► And they're like, "That sounds great, but,"

01:15:30 ◼   ► and not to shit on these guys, they were great,

01:15:34 ◼   ► "but the talk's not for salespeople, it's for designers.

01:15:38 ◼   ► "Or the conference isn't for salespeople,

01:15:40 ◼   ► "it's for designers."

01:15:43 ◼   ► And I thought, "Well, that's a really fucking weird

01:15:44 ◼   ► "thing to say."

01:15:46 ◼   ► Well, how about a talk on how designers

01:15:49 ◼   ► ruin the fucking world?

01:15:50 ◼   ► And they were like, "That sounds great."

01:15:53 ◼   ► And I thought, "Well, shit, now I got to write that talk, but that's actually a really good title for a talk."

01:16:00 ◼   ► So that's where the talk came from, was me being an asshole to somebody and accidentally coming up with a great title that needed to be backed up.

01:16:10 ◼   ► But you haven't given it again since?

01:16:13 ◼   ► I have. I'm giving it at AEA this year.

01:16:16 ◼   ► Oh, and so you're on the regular AEA cycle, right?

01:16:23 ◼   ► You're part of the Traveling Roadshow, speaking of podcast sponsors.

01:16:28 ◼   ► So people can, you know, just, I mean, what the hell,

01:16:32 ◼   ► go to the Ann Avent Apart website and you can look at the schedule.

01:16:38 ◼   ► And you're going to be giving out each of the cities?

01:16:40 ◼   ► No, I'm doing five of them this year.

01:16:43 ◼   ► Well, then they're the ones people should know about.

01:16:46 ◼   ► right so i'm doing

01:16:48 ◼   ► uh... san diego is this

01:16:50 ◼   ► uh... this weekend for this week

01:16:52 ◼   ► also shall be

01:16:54 ◼   ► i'll be giving it in san diego on tuesday

01:16:57 ◼   ► and then chicago

01:17:00 ◼   ► uh...

01:17:01 ◼   ► austin

01:17:03 ◼   ► and uh... for the very first time uh... they're going to disney world yeah and

01:17:08 ◼   ► told in orlando

01:17:10 ◼   ► so i'll be cursing at people in disney world

01:17:14 ◼   ► I'm going to miss that.

01:17:15 ◼   ► Have you ever been to Disney World?

01:17:17 ◼   ► You're a big Disneyland fan.

01:17:19 ◼   ► I'm a Disneyland guy.

01:17:20 ◼   ► Yeah, we have arguments.

01:17:21 ◼   ► You and I, we argue.

01:17:22 ◼   ► That's probably the root of our animosity towards each other.

01:17:25 ◼   ► It is.

01:17:26 ◼   ► And so I think people are genuinely

01:17:31 ◼   ► surprised and possibly don't believe us

01:17:33 ◼   ► when we talk about how much we love the Disney places.

01:17:38 ◼   ► I think so, too, that they don't believe it.

01:17:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I love Disneyland.

01:17:44 ◼   ► I've never been to Disney World,

01:17:47 ◼   ► but it's the thing where, you know, if--

01:17:50 ◼   ► - I wanna be your guide.

01:17:52 ◼   ► - If somebody says, "Hey, you wanna go to Disney?"

01:17:56 ◼   ► Like, "Yeah, I wanna go to Disneyland."

01:17:59 ◼   ► 'Cause, yeah, Disney World is weird to me.

01:18:04 ◼   ► Disney World is for tourists.

01:18:07 ◼   ► - Well, we'll have to figure this out.

01:18:09 ◼   ► I don't know if I wanna go to Disneyland with you

01:18:11 ◼   ► or not go to Disneyland with you.

01:18:13 ◼   ► you have to come to disneyland well i definitely want to go i would like to do

01:18:17 ◼   ► a thing i would like to go and see all the disney lands around the world i

01:18:20 ◼   ► would like to see the one in paris the

01:18:22 ◼   ► the one in japan is apparently the the one to see

01:18:25 ◼   ► because yeah i would totally do that

01:18:27 ◼   ► because uh... this bit

01:18:28 ◼   ► the back story i've heard is that they got they had like outside investors for

01:18:31 ◼   ► the one in in japan and they insisted on

01:18:35 ◼   ► upping the standards so like in the way that like disneyland and disney world

01:18:39 ◼   ► have such higher production values and standards

01:18:42 ◼   ► than your typical theme park,

01:18:43 ◼   ► that the Disneyland Japan is even higher

01:18:46 ◼   ► than typical Disney standards.

01:18:48 ◼   ► - But here's the thing.

01:18:50 ◼   ► So Disneyland is the original.

01:18:52 ◼   ► - Right.

01:18:53 ◼   ► - And Disneyland, like as a designer,

01:18:57 ◼   ► what excites me about Disneyland

01:19:00 ◼   ► is that it was built around amazing constraints.

01:19:03 ◼   ► They had that plot of land.

01:19:08 ◼   ► which was fenced, it was fenced in by the highway and the street and the freeway.

01:19:14 ◼   ► They couldn't expand.

01:19:16 ◼   ► And they had that original design which was basically a hub and spoke model

01:19:23 ◼   ► where you walk in, you walk through mainland, you're in the circle, you're in the middle of Disneyland

01:19:28 ◼   ► and then everything radiates out from there.

01:19:30 ◼   ► So, as you're expanding the park, you have to figure out what the hell do you do when you run out of space?

01:19:40 ◼   ► So, Haunted Mansion, for example. You walk into the Haunted Mansion, and the first thing you do is you get into that room that's actually an elevator that looks like it's expanding.

01:19:54 ◼   ► But the reason that that room exists is because they have to get you out of the park because

01:20:03 ◼   ► they couldn't build the ride in the park.

01:20:05 ◼   ► They had to build it out, you know, in the bay, under the parking lot.

01:20:11 ◼   ► So they figured, so they thought, well, how do we get people down and out?

01:20:16 ◼   ► And they came up with this, this room, which, which they've ended up incorporating into

01:20:22 ◼   ► every subsequent version of the Haunted Mansion,

01:20:26 ◼   ► even though they didn't have to at that point.

01:20:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, the one in Florida, though, is not an elevator.

01:20:33 ◼   ► It goes, if you close your eyes and tell,

01:20:37 ◼   ► you can tell you're not moving.

01:20:40 ◼   ► It just looks like an elevator.

01:20:41 ◼   ► Instead, the walls go up instead of the floor going down.

01:20:45 ◼   ► - Right, right, which is the illusion

01:20:49 ◼   ► that's being created by the elevator.

01:20:52 ◼   ► So to me, all of those decisions that were made

01:20:55 ◼   ► in Disneyland were made because of real constraints

01:20:59 ◼   ► that existed, and there were creative ways

01:21:02 ◼   ► to get around that stuff.

01:21:04 ◼   ► Like the Indiana Jones ride.

01:21:09 ◼   ► The giant walkthrough through the caverns

01:21:14 ◼   ► and all that crap that you walk through in line,

01:21:19 ◼   ► That's all to get you the hell out of the park.

01:21:22 ◼   ► Because that ride is out in the parking lot somewhere, three levels down.

01:21:29 ◼   ► See, we don't have that ride.

01:21:32 ◼   ► Really?

01:21:34 ◼   ► No, there's no Indiana Jones ride.

01:21:37 ◼   ► There's an Indiana Jones stunt spectacular, but that's at the Studios Park.

01:21:45 ◼   ► But there's no, I've heard of this Indiana Jones ride

01:21:48 ◼   ► of which you speak, but that's not there.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Is that part of California Adventure,

01:21:53 ◼   ► or is that like an adventure?

01:21:53 ◼   ► - No, no, no, no.

01:21:55 ◼   ► - Adventureland? - That's an adventureland.

01:21:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:57 ◼   ► - Well, we don't have that.

01:22:00 ◼   ► - So as a designer, one of the things

01:22:02 ◼   ► that we have to deal with is constraints.

01:22:06 ◼   ► You can't design without constraints,

01:22:08 ◼   ► and everything has constraints.

01:22:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, Disneyland was the most constrained.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Right, and Disneyland was the most constrained.

01:22:18 ◼   ► And all of those design decisions that were made to work with those constraints

01:22:24 ◼   ► are amazing.

01:22:26 ◼   ► And then when they repeated that stuff out in the other parks,

01:22:29 ◼   ► then that becomes-- it's almost like what other people think design is.

01:22:35 ◼   ► At that point, it's just surface level stuff.

01:22:37 ◼   ► I hear you there.

01:22:41 ◼   ► I mean, I definitely wanna, you know,

01:22:43 ◼   ► at some point I gotta tell you,

01:22:44 ◼   ► I wanna go there while Jonas is still young enough

01:22:47 ◼   ► to wanna actually go to a Disney park with us.

01:22:52 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like that's one of the things--

01:22:53 ◼   ► - Bring him down this summer.

01:22:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, it just never--

01:22:56 ◼   ► - We're going this summer.

01:22:57 ◼   ► - I almost never, I just almost never end up

01:22:59 ◼   ► in Southern California.

01:23:00 ◼   ► I fly to San Francisco several times a year,

01:23:03 ◼   ► but it's just never in Southern California.

01:23:05 ◼   ► But one of these times we have to do it.

01:23:08 ◼   ► - Well, it's right in the middle of Anaheim,

01:23:09 ◼   ► There's no other place, there's nothing else to do in Anaheim that you would want to do.

01:23:14 ◼   ► Well, other than see the Angels, maybe.

01:23:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:18 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

01:23:22 ◼   ► Mike Trout.

01:23:24 ◼   ► You know what, though, bottom line note that you've put your finger, though,

01:23:27 ◼   ► on what it is that appeals to the--

01:23:30 ◼   ► going to the Disney parks for me is that there's so much design everywhere.

01:23:36 ◼   ► Anybody who appreciates design of any sort,

01:23:39 ◼   ► there's just so much to soak in and think about

01:23:43 ◼   ► and so many details to notice.

01:23:47 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Every time I meet somebody who's never been there,

01:23:52 ◼   ► I've met very few people who've been to one

01:23:54 ◼   ► and have been like, "Eh, it was kind of a letdown."

01:23:57 ◼   ► Whereas there's a lot of people who've never been to one

01:23:59 ◼   ► and it's, I feel like their preconceived notions

01:24:02 ◼   ► are completely spoiled by Great Adventure or Hershey Park

01:24:07 ◼   ► or any other shit hole like that.

01:24:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, the amount of detail that goes into Disneyland

01:24:17 ◼   ► compared to those other places is ridiculous.

01:24:20 ◼   ► Like, when you look at all the lands in the park,

01:24:22 ◼   ► like Adventureland and Frontierland and New Orleans Square,

01:24:27 ◼   ► and you realize just how physically small

01:24:29 ◼   ► those areas actually are,

01:24:32 ◼   ► But then if you're standing in Adventureland,

01:24:36 ◼   ► you are totally immersed by Adventureland.

01:24:39 ◼   ► You can't see the other areas.

01:24:40 ◼   ► You don't even know they exist.

01:24:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, my single favorite aspect

01:24:44 ◼   ► of the whole Magic Kingdom is the sightline management.

01:24:48 ◼   ► And that every once in a while,

01:24:50 ◼   ► they do let you peek through to another land,

01:24:52 ◼   ► but it's a, at this spot,

01:24:55 ◼   ► we want you to be able to see this.

01:24:58 ◼   ► - Right.

01:25:00 ◼   ► - To me, it's the most amazing thing.

01:25:01 ◼   ► the sight line management.

01:25:05 ◼   ► - They're marvels of design.

01:25:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:25:08 ◼   ► The sound management is amazing too,

01:25:11 ◼   ► where they have, you walk around the park

01:25:13 ◼   ► and there's a soundtrack that you don't even notice

01:25:16 ◼   ► 'cause it's not super loud and it's certainly,

01:25:18 ◼   ► you know, you mostly just hear the sounds of people

01:25:20 ◼   ► in an amusement park, but there's music

01:25:22 ◼   ► and the music is themed to the land.

01:25:24 ◼   ► But they manage the transitions where when you're walking

01:25:29 ◼   ► from Adventureland to Frontierland.

01:25:34 ◼   ► There's this transition area, but the music syncs up

01:25:37 ◼   ► so that it, as you hear half of the one and half the other,

01:25:41 ◼   ► it doesn't sound like you're hearing two different songs.

01:25:43 ◼   ► It sounds like something that actually does go together.

01:25:46 ◼   ► And it's at the same beat, and then all of a sudden

01:25:50 ◼   ► you're listening to a different song.

01:25:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, so we're gonna go to Disneyland this summer.

01:25:58 ◼   ► - Actually, what we should do is we should,

01:26:00 ◼   ► you and I should start a Disney podcast.

01:26:02 ◼   ► Because I feel like if anybody can bring the joy

01:26:05 ◼   ► of Disney to children across the world,

01:26:09 ◼   ► it would be me and you. - You know, for kids.

01:26:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, for kids, it would be a podcast for children.

01:26:13 ◼   ► - So listen up, jerks.

01:26:15 ◼   ► - We're two really, two really grumpy

01:26:18 ◼   ► 40-something-year-old men who swear a lot,

01:26:23 ◼   ► spoil all of the details of Disney theme parks.

01:26:27 ◼   ► I think it would be a huge hit.

01:26:31 ◼   ► So how long

01:26:35 ◼   ► does this podcast go on? Are we like halfway through?

01:26:39 ◼   ► No, we're done. We're rolling. We're done? Yeah, let's call it a...

01:26:43 ◼   ► We're not going to talk about beats? Oh, we can talk about beats.

01:26:47 ◼   ► We should talk about beats. Let's do 10 minutes on beats. 10 minutes.

01:26:51 ◼   ► So the beats thing to me is interesting

01:26:55 ◼   ► only as much as the conversations that are happening

01:26:58 ◼   ► about racism.

01:26:59 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:27:00 ◼   ► - Like what the fuck?

01:27:01 ◼   ► - That, you know, and it's funny.

01:27:05 ◼   ► It didn't even occur to me at first.

01:27:10 ◼   ► Because I know obviously it occurred to me that

01:27:13 ◼   ► certainly, you know, Dr. Dre is black

01:27:15 ◼   ► and he's from the hip hop world.

01:27:17 ◼   ► It's not like I didn't think that there was

01:27:19 ◼   ► any correlation at all.

01:27:21 ◼   ► But it didn't even occur to me yesterday.

01:27:23 ◼   ► This was yesterday when the Financial Times broke the news

01:27:27 ◼   ► that, I mean, and it still isn't finalized

01:27:29 ◼   ► as we record this, to my knowledge,

01:27:32 ◼   ► that Apple is going to buy them,

01:27:33 ◼   ► but it seems like a done deal that's just, you know,

01:27:37 ◼   ► lawyers ironing out details on the contracts.

01:27:40 ◼   ► Obviously, there was-- - It's done to me.

01:27:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, but nothing's even announced, right?

01:27:44 ◼   ► All right, unless I missed something in the last hour.

01:27:47 ◼   ► But now, yeah, it does seem like some kind of crazy

01:27:51 ◼   ► racial subtext thing is popping up about it.

01:27:55 ◼   ► And it's like, really?

01:27:57 ◼   ► It just seems nuts to me.

01:27:59 ◼   ► But not surprising.

01:28:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting deal

01:28:05 ◼   ► because they don't make deals like this.

01:28:08 ◼   ► 'Cause, I mean, if you're gonna buy a music service,

01:28:15 ◼   ► it's weird that you buy that one.

01:28:17 ◼   ► - I guess.

01:28:20 ◼   ► And the bottom line is you don't buy something that you don't need.

01:28:25 ◼   ► And what is it that they have that Apple needs?

01:28:27 ◼   ► And so at first, it didn't make sense to me,

01:28:29 ◼   ► because they don't need the technology.

01:28:33 ◼   ► It's certainly not the hardware technology.

01:28:35 ◼   ► Apple can make its own headphones.

01:28:37 ◼   ► No, they can't.

01:28:38 ◼   ► Headphones and mice.

01:28:43 ◼   ► They could.

01:28:44 ◼   ► I personally don't mind their ear.

01:28:46 ◼   ► I'm actually using their earbuds right now as we speak.

01:28:49 ◼   ► But I realize, though, that earbuds are a very personal thing.

01:28:54 ◼   ► Yeah, headphones are a personal-- they're very personal.

01:28:57 ◼   ► I can't stand those earbuds.

01:29:00 ◼   ► But I know that a lot of people seem just fine with them, and that's fine.

01:29:05 ◼   ► I actually have a pair of Beats, and they sound fine to me.

01:29:09 ◼   ► But if you ask other people, they're like, ugh, sound is terrible.

01:29:13 ◼   ► No mid-range.

01:29:14 ◼   ► I don't even know what the hell that means, honestly.

01:29:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know what that means either.

01:29:19 ◼   ► I just, I know that I put them on, I listen to a song and it sounds like I want it to

01:29:23 ◼   ► sound...

01:29:24 ◼   ► My hearing's broken anyway, and it's probably from terrible headphones.

01:29:29 ◼   ► Probably because of beats.

01:29:30 ◼   ► I don't think they need the technology for the streaming service.

01:29:34 ◼   ► I mean, Apple knows how to put audio and video on the internet for lots and lots of people

01:29:41 ◼   ► to listen at once.

01:29:42 ◼   ► I don't think it's a technical problem that has kept Apple from releasing its own Spotify

01:29:49 ◼   ► test sort of Pandora style streaming music service.

01:29:54 ◼   ► I think it's licensing and figuring out a way to know.

01:29:58 ◼   ► I mean licensing.

01:30:00 ◼   ► Sure that's one thing but I also think it's a sales problem like Apple knows how to sell

01:30:07 ◼   ► less than a dozen things really well to you.

01:30:11 ◼   ► But once you're looking at a catalog of thousands,

01:30:18 ◼   ► Apple doesn't know how to deal with that at all.

01:30:20 ◼   ► Like, Amazon can sell you one of 1,000 things.

01:30:23 ◼   ► Apple can sell you one of 12.

01:30:26 ◼   ► I don't know about that.

01:30:27 ◼   ► I think that the--

01:30:29 ◼   ► The browsing experience on the Apple TV, on iTunes,

01:30:35 ◼   ► like it just sucks.

01:30:39 ◼   ► I don't know if I agree with that, but maybe.

01:30:41 ◼   ► And I don't think their recommendation engine

01:30:43 ◼   ► is very good, but that's sort of beside the point

01:30:45 ◼   ► of this acquisition.

01:30:47 ◼   ► I just don't think that they're buying any technology that they

01:30:49 ◼   ► couldn't have built themselves.

01:30:51 ◼   ► But there are things that they're getting, I think,

01:30:54 ◼   ► especially one day in as I look at all the coverage,

01:30:56 ◼   ► they're getting--

01:30:58 ◼   ► I see two angles, two things they're

01:30:59 ◼   ► getting that they didn't have.

01:31:01 ◼   ► And one is that the Beats brand appeals to and has a lot of stature in, quite frankly,

01:31:13 ◼   ► you know, black America.

01:31:15 ◼   ► You know, and it's, you know, somebody cited there was a Nielsen survey that at 79% I forget

01:31:22 ◼   ► the but a very remarkably high percent of black Americans have smartphones and it's

01:31:28 ◼   ► It's actually higher than any other racial group, that more black Americans have a smartphone

01:31:34 ◼   ► than any other racial group.

01:31:37 ◼   ► And 73% of the black people in America who have a smartphone have an Android phone.

01:31:44 ◼   ► And that's disproportionate.

01:31:45 ◼   ► I think Apple's overall market share in the U.S. is very, very close to 50%.

01:31:52 ◼   ► And Beats is a real strong brand in black America.

01:31:57 ◼   ► So they're getting something there.

01:31:58 ◼   ► something that's actually that they don't have, you know, that you don't buy something

01:32:01 ◼   ► that you already have. Well, they don't have that. And then therefore, it might make sense

01:32:05 ◼   ► to keep that brand around even though they've never done that. There's never been an Apple

01:32:10 ◼   ► owned subsidiary that has its own brand unless you go back to truly prehistoric times like

01:32:15 ◼   ► file maker file maker is a holy what I was just thinking, but that's where it's and that's

01:32:21 ◼   ► it's like, how many would 100 times more people have heard of beats than file maker, maybe

01:32:27 ◼   ► a thousand times more. Oh, absolutely. Right. I think, I'm not sure I'm totally with you

01:32:33 ◼   ► with the Black America thing, and wow, two white guys talking about Black America, this

01:32:39 ◼   ► is going to be a good podcast. Oh, it's going to be a good rip-roaring. Yeah, it's going

01:32:42 ◼   ► to be great. I mean, lots of insight here. I don't think it's why they bought it, though.

01:32:48 ◼   ► But I think it's more about youth. Two other things that were, one other thing that were

01:32:56 ◼   ► were equally unqualified to be talking about youth.

01:32:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:33:01 ◼   ► - I'm right there with you.

01:33:04 ◼   ► - 'Cause I mean, when my kid has his buddies over and stuff,

01:33:09 ◼   ► the majority of them Android phones.

01:33:12 ◼   ► And Beats.

01:33:15 ◼   ► So, and as,

01:33:21 ◼   ► yeah, this is beyond the realm of this podcast, I think.

01:33:26 ◼   ► going into a discussion on race in America.

01:33:29 ◼   ► - Well, you know, it's delicate territory.

01:33:35 ◼   ► - I definitely think it's about

01:33:37 ◼   ► getting something they don't have.

01:33:38 ◼   ► And I'm intrigued because it's something

01:33:44 ◼   ► they haven't done before, so it'll be fun to watch.

01:33:48 ◼   ► And it could go great, it could go terrible,

01:33:52 ◼   ► but either way, it's a great story.

01:33:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

01:33:57 ◼   ► The other thing is the relationships

01:34:00 ◼   ► that Jimmy Eovine and Dr. Dre have,

01:34:05 ◼   ► and the rest of the leadership there.

01:34:07 ◼   ► I mean, what's Trent Reznor's title there?

01:34:10 ◼   ► He's like Chief Creative Officer.

01:34:12 ◼   ► And I don't think that's like a no-show job,

01:34:14 ◼   ► like when Alicia Keys got the job,

01:34:16 ◼   ► I think it might have been the same title, Chief Creative

01:34:19 ◼   ► Officer at BlackBerry.

01:34:21 ◼   ► And it's just a fancy way of saying,

01:34:23 ◼   ► we're paying her to be in an ad.

01:34:27 ◼   ► I think Trent Reznor is involved.

01:34:30 ◼   ► But that they have-- and this is some of the stuff I've read today.

01:34:34 ◼   ► And there's the legal angle, which is that some people speculated, well,

01:34:40 ◼   ► maybe these music labels didn't want to negotiate with Apple

01:34:43 ◼   ► because they're wary of Apple's overwhelming influence in downloads.

01:34:49 ◼   ► The music labels aren't happy with the way

01:34:51 ◼   ► it turned out that iTunes so dominates they'd rather have like 20% at Amazon 20% at Apple 20%

01:34:58 ◼   ► at Google 20% somewhere else so that no one of the stores has undue influence whereas iTunes I

01:35:07 ◼   ► think still has I don't know 70% of the download market so they're wary of them so they don't want

01:35:12 ◼   ► to give them streaming rights either and so Apple buys beats so that they can have the streaming

01:35:19 ◼   ► service and they've already got the deals in place.

01:35:22 ◼   ► But my understanding, and I think a lot of other,

01:35:24 ◼   ► it's not public information yet,

01:35:27 ◼   ► but the way I understand it is that those deals

01:35:30 ◼   ► have to be renegotiated if the company

01:35:33 ◼   ► is acquired by somebody else.

01:35:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I heard that too.

01:35:36 ◼   ► - But this is what I read today is that these guys,

01:35:41 ◼   ► these guys have a really good relationship

01:35:43 ◼   ► with the music labels.

01:35:44 ◼   ► I mean, Jimmy Jovine practically is a music label.

01:35:48 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:35:48 ◼   ► And that there's a couple of stories,

01:35:52 ◼   ► not just from one source,

01:35:53 ◼   ► saying that these guys are gonna stay as involved

01:35:56 ◼   ► post-acquisition by Apple as they were

01:35:59 ◼   ► while Beats was an independent company.

01:36:01 ◼   ► And that it really gives Apple,

01:36:04 ◼   ► could I think seriously give them a very,

01:36:06 ◼   ► even a further leg up in ongoing negotiations,

01:36:10 ◼   ► not just for music, but with the entertainment industry

01:36:13 ◼   ► as a whole, TV and movies.

01:36:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think they get a lot out of this.

01:36:19 ◼   ► I think there's the relationship angle,

01:36:22 ◼   ► there's the licensing angle,

01:36:24 ◼   ► and there's a profitable hardware business,

01:36:29 ◼   ► which I don't think you can scoff at.

01:36:34 ◼   ► - Right, and they're not publicly held,

01:36:36 ◼   ► so the numbers are, you have to take their word for it,

01:36:40 ◼   ► but numerous of the reports peg their revenues

01:36:44 ◼   ► at over a billion a year,

01:36:47 ◼   ► and presumably at very healthy,

01:36:50 ◼   ► almost probably Apple-like profit margins

01:36:53 ◼   ► because the knock against Beats

01:36:56 ◼   ► is that the headphones are not technically great.

01:36:58 ◼   ► They're not audio, they're selling them at audio file prices

01:37:01 ◼   ► but they're notoriously controversial

01:37:06 ◼   ► in terms of the audio quality.

01:37:08 ◼   ► But that there's, they're not spending $300

01:37:11 ◼   ► to make a $350 set of headphones

01:37:13 ◼   ► so that it's profitable too, not just revenue.

01:37:15 ◼   ► - Right, and if they did, they would be idiots.

01:37:18 ◼   ► - Right.

01:37:20 ◼   ► But it's interesting.

01:37:21 ◼   ► To me, the most interesting angle

01:37:22 ◼   ► at how this turns out is how they're gonna manage the brand.

01:37:26 ◼   ► That, to me, is the uncharted territory.

01:37:29 ◼   ► And there's people arguing with me on Twitter

01:37:31 ◼   ► that this is not uncharted territory for Apple.

01:37:34 ◼   ► Tim Cook has been saying for years

01:37:37 ◼   ► that Apple is not averse to big acquisitions

01:37:40 ◼   ► and blah, blah, blah.

01:37:41 ◼   ► But it's like, I just don't see it.

01:37:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, but he hasn't made 'em until now,

01:37:47 ◼   ► so it is unchartered territory.

01:37:49 ◼   ► - It could turn out to be a great idea,

01:37:50 ◼   ► it could turn out to be a terrible idea,

01:37:52 ◼   ► it could turn out to be something in between.

01:37:55 ◼   ► Whether it's a good or bad idea,

01:37:56 ◼   ► to me, put that aside for the moment,

01:37:59 ◼   ► I just don't see how anybody could deny

01:38:02 ◼   ► that this is not out of character for Apple as a company.

01:38:06 ◼   ► - It's totally out of character.

01:38:08 ◼   ► - Right, passing no judgment on whether it's a good idea

01:38:10 ◼   ► or a bad idea, it is new territory.

01:38:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's why it's interesting.

01:38:15 ◼   ► - Exactly, right.

01:38:17 ◼   ► - 'Cause I mean, had they acquired like a mapping company,

01:38:20 ◼   ► it's like, well, you know,

01:38:21 ◼   ► I know what they're gonna do with them.

01:38:22 ◼   ► - Right, exactly, right.

01:38:24 ◼   ► They're gonna-- - Like I have--

01:38:25 ◼   ► - They're gonna make-- - No idea.

01:38:27 ◼   ► - Right, if it was a mapping company,

01:38:28 ◼   ► they'd make the brand go away

01:38:29 ◼   ► and just use the technology to make the Apple Maps better.

01:38:34 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right.

01:38:35 ◼   ► No idea what they're gonna do with this.

01:38:37 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly why it's so exciting.

01:38:39 ◼   ► I don't understand why people would want to downplay that,

01:38:42 ◼   ► because here's a company that we're all interested in

01:38:47 ◼   ► and maybe the knock against them

01:38:49 ◼   ► is that they've been a little boring the last year or two.

01:38:52 ◼   ► And now they're doing something that seems,

01:38:54 ◼   ► it's not doesn't seem, I was gonna say crazy.

01:38:56 ◼   ► Crazy is the wrong word, but it's again, out of character.

01:38:59 ◼   ► Uncharted territory.

01:39:00 ◼   ► - Well, we better all freak out.

01:39:02 ◼   ► - Right.

01:39:03 ◼   ► - I think people care about Apple

01:39:05 ◼   ► the way they should care about their kids for the most part.

01:39:11 ◼   ► I mean, it's a fucking company.

01:39:13 ◼   ► Like, they make good stuff.

01:39:15 ◼   ► Some of their stuff is great.

01:39:19 ◼   ► Some of their stuff sucks.

01:39:21 ◼   ► - You know why one reason that people invest too much

01:39:25 ◼   ► in them, you know, I'll look in the mirror

01:39:28 ◼   ► and admit, myself included, is that nobody else

01:39:31 ◼   ► seems to be in their league.

01:39:33 ◼   ► You know, that nobody else, if you care about having,

01:39:37 ◼   ► you know, top notch computers in your pocket

01:39:40 ◼   ► and in your bag.

01:39:41 ◼   ► - That's absolutely true.

01:39:43 ◼   ► - If they lost the ball, then who do you go to?

01:39:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that's very true.

01:39:50 ◼   ► - I wish, like just one example,

01:39:53 ◼   ► the closest thing I've seen in the last 10 years

01:39:58 ◼   ► to an Apple quality product is the Palm Pre smartphones,

01:40:03 ◼   ► which to me looked like Apple products

01:40:06 ◼   ► from another universe.

01:40:08 ◼   ► In some ways, they looked more like Apple products

01:40:11 ◼   ► from an Apple that evolved from the '90s

01:40:14 ◼   ► without Steve Jobs, you know,

01:40:17 ◼   ► were the best of Apple from that '90s era.

01:40:21 ◼   ► And Apple did a lot of cool stuff back then, too.

01:40:23 ◼   ► They were in trouble,

01:40:23 ◼   ► but some of the stuff they did was great.