The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► So Paul, last time you were on the show was a very special event.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I crashed your party for the live talk show at the...

00:00:07 ◼   ► Yeah, you were actually not invited.

00:00:10 ◼   ► You were like backstage and then all of a sudden you came out.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Well, I brought a drink.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, that was right.

00:00:17 ◼   ► That was well received.

00:00:19 ◼   ► And then you were talking about just the tip with Amy.

00:00:22 ◼   ► So I crashed your party, like I said.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Right, but she was actually invited to be on the show.

00:00:27 ◼   ► But this time I'm invited, right?

00:00:28 ◼   ► I don't need to leave now.

00:00:29 ◼   ► No. And again, you did kind of keep your mouth shut. I mean, you weren't really...

00:00:33 ◼   ► I didn't come out there and blather. I just, you know, I don't know.

00:00:37 ◼   ► But in between, now that was like the second week of June, and we're recording right now

00:00:41 ◼   ► on the 10th of November. In between, you and my wife Amy have had an entire season of a

00:00:50 ◼   ► podcast, Just the Tip.

00:00:53 ◼   ► That's right.

00:00:54 ◼   ► How many episodes did you end up doing?

00:00:55 ◼   ► It was 15 episodes for season one.

00:00:58 ◼   ► You guys were planning originally just on 10, though.

00:01:01 ◼   ► We were talking between 10 and 13, and then we had an advertiser that was interested to

00:01:06 ◼   ► do a couple more episodes and were big sellouts.

00:01:09 ◼   ► So you figured out a way to slip some more shows in.

00:01:12 ◼   ► We wrote some more material, exactly.

00:01:16 ◼   ► So how do you think it went?

00:01:18 ◼   ► I think I've been pretty happy with it.

00:01:20 ◼   ► And I'll tell you what, I get more feedback for that for the past couple months than I

00:01:24 ◼   ► I have for the software company that I've run for a decade.

00:01:27 ◼   ► So it doesn't make quite as much money.

00:01:30 ◼   ► It's not really paying my bills, but you know, it's, uh, it's been well received.

00:01:34 ◼   ► I think people like podcasts.

00:01:36 ◼   ► I'm shocked because I hate them.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Do you really?

00:01:41 ◼   ► I don't, well, I shouldn't say I hate them, but I don't listen to them.

00:01:44 ◼   ► I listen to, uh, I listened to our podcast over and over again as I'm editing it,

00:01:48 ◼   ► which is the worst thing in the world.

00:01:49 ◼   ► Uh, and I listened to some of the talk show and I listened to you look nice

00:01:53 ◼   ► which is sadly about to end forever. Isn't it over? I thought that it was at the I thought the one

00:02:00 ◼   ► that just came out last week was the final episode. Is it really? Well it was part one,

00:02:04 ◼   ► but it was that a joke you think? I couldn't I haven't actually had a chance to listen to that

00:02:07 ◼   ► one yet. I've been saving it. See that's what going on it's like it's like reading the there's like

00:02:12 ◼   ► one David Foster Wallace novel I haven't read yet and I'm saving that you know. Because you know

00:02:17 ◼   ► there aren't going to be any more exactly. Right and that's a dangerous game to play because it's

00:02:21 ◼   ► It's been a couple of years now on David Foster Wallace.

00:02:24 ◼   ► - You could die any moment.

00:02:25 ◼   ► - Exactly, and then, you know, what was the point?

00:02:27 ◼   ► You know, there's, how long do you save something like that?

00:02:32 ◼   ► Probably not a good idea to save it at all.

00:02:34 ◼   ► But I felt the same way with You Look Nice today.

00:02:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, but yeah, so I don't, well, you know what it is?

00:02:40 ◼   ► You work from home the same way I do.

00:02:42 ◼   ► I don't have a commute.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And everyone I know who listens to podcasts says like,

00:02:44 ◼   ► "Oh, it's the best thing.

00:02:45 ◼   ► "It gets me through the, you know,

00:02:47 ◼   ► "45 minute hour drive that I have," or whatever it is.

00:02:50 ◼   ► and my commute is 10 steps down from my bedroom.

00:02:53 ◼   ► So it'd have to be a real short podcast.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - Right, I listen to them a lot of times

00:02:58 ◼   ► if I'm walking and doing errands

00:03:01 ◼   ► or something like that through the city,

00:03:02 ◼   ► I'll load one up on the iPhone

00:03:05 ◼   ► and then I'll have something to listen to

00:03:06 ◼   ► as I walk through the city.

00:03:08 ◼   ► But I just don't have as much commute time as,

00:03:11 ◼   ► I don't have any commute time.

00:03:13 ◼   ► - Right, well, so I almost finished last week's talk show

00:03:17 ◼   ► before we started recording this one.

00:03:18 ◼   ► So I got like half an hour left on that one.

00:03:21 ◼   ► So I'm almost done.

00:03:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've been letting it slip.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I've been letting it go way too long.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Although--

00:03:28 ◼   ► - I'm gonna cut it off.

00:03:30 ◼   ► I'm just at like 45 minutes, I'm just gonna go.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, you should just go.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Well, and it's funny because

00:03:34 ◼   ► it gets to the nature of what people do

00:03:40 ◼   ► when they listen to podcasts.

00:03:42 ◼   ► And for people with, let's just say,

00:03:43 ◼   ► and this is very common, especially in America,

00:03:47 ◼   ► that you might have an hour commute each way.

00:03:50 ◼   ► So you have two hours a day, and that's 10 hours a week.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And so if you have 10 hours a week in your car,

00:03:57 ◼   ► then a two and a half hour,

00:03:58 ◼   ► I think it was almost two and a half hour episode

00:04:00 ◼   ► of the talk show.

00:04:01 ◼   ► If you like hearing me talk,

00:04:04 ◼   ► and if you like John Siracusa,

00:04:06 ◼   ► we got so many people who were like,

00:04:07 ◼   ► "Oh my God, I was so happy when I saw Siracusa

00:04:10 ◼   ► was on the show, and then I saw how long it was,

00:04:11 ◼   ► and I got even happier."

00:04:13 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:04:13 ◼   ► - But I'm sure there's also,

00:04:15 ◼   ► and there's also, I think, a silent,

00:04:17 ◼   ► I don't know if it's a majority, I don't know.

00:04:19 ◼   ► But I'm sure there's a part of you out there

00:04:21 ◼   ► who are like, "Oh my God, I love the show,

00:04:23 ◼   ► "but come on, two hours, Jesus."

00:04:25 ◼   ► How about some editing?

00:04:26 ◼   ► And the worst part is it was edited.

00:04:28 ◼   ► - Oh, so the real recording was like four or five hours?

00:04:32 ◼   ► - I don't know, I think it was closer to three.

00:04:33 ◼   ► But, you know, and we could, if I had the forethought,

00:04:38 ◼   ► you know, 'cause I do the sponsor reads

00:04:40 ◼   ► while I'm doing the show.

00:04:41 ◼   ► And I guess what I could do is not do that.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And then if it ends up that a guest is on

00:04:46 ◼   ► and we get three feels like solid hours,

00:04:49 ◼   ► I could call that two shows.

00:04:51 ◼   ► - Right.

00:04:52 ◼   ► - And then just record the bits in,

00:04:54 ◼   ► the sponsor reads in later.

00:04:56 ◼   ► But the way that I did the sponsor reads,

00:04:59 ◼   ► I couldn't really, it wouldn't have been easy

00:05:01 ◼   ► to break it into two episodes.

00:05:03 ◼   ► - To cut it out, yeah, absolutely.

00:05:04 ◼   ► - 'Cause that would be great,

00:05:05 ◼   ► 'cause then I could just take a week off

00:05:07 ◼   ► and still have the show.

00:05:07 ◼   ► - Then you don't have to do anything, yeah.

00:05:08 ◼   ► - Right.

00:05:09 ◼   ► But I'm gonna try, I wanna get back,

00:05:11 ◼   ► I wanna try to, I'm gonna try to do this one in an hour.

00:05:14 ◼   ► - All right.

00:05:14 ◼   ► - What are we at?

00:05:15 ◼   ► shit.

00:05:16 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:05:17 ◼   ► It flies.

00:05:18 ◼   ► Time flies.

00:05:19 ◼   ► Right.

00:05:20 ◼   ► Now, you and Amy, though, on just the tip, you guys stuck—I know at the beginning,

00:05:26 ◼   ► you guys even—I think you even said on air that you were gonna go for—

00:05:29 ◼   ► It was a promise, yeah.

00:05:30 ◼   ► It was—

00:05:31 ◼   ► —30 minutes?

00:05:32 ◼   ► —more than half an hour, yeah.

00:05:33 ◼   ► Did you—

00:05:34 ◼   ► We managed to do it, yeah.

00:05:35 ◼   ► It's—so in the beginning, we recorded and we just talked and talked, and then I had

00:05:39 ◼   ► to chop that down.

00:05:40 ◼   ► And eventually, I realized, hey, I should make us have a hard cutoff of, like, 60 minutes,

00:05:44 ◼   ► then I'll only have to edit 30 minutes out. But yeah, there was a lot of stuff that we

00:05:49 ◼   ► cut out that, you know, maybe was a little bit funny or pretty funny, but we really wanted

00:05:54 ◼   ► to hit that 30 minute point. So it's tough. Not editing is the way to go if you can do

00:05:59 ◼   ► it.

00:06:00 ◼   ► Yeah, you guys have a...

00:06:02 ◼   ► You've been able to get away with it.

00:06:04 ◼   ► Yeah, and I don't edit my show. My friend at Mule, Caleb Sexton, does, and he does a

00:06:09 ◼   ► hell of a job. But he doesn't really edit...

00:06:12 ◼   ► Edit for content.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Right. For the most part. I mean, he'll call it. He's great though. He's a long time listener

00:06:18 ◼   ► of the show and gets it. He totally gets what the show, if it's good, what it is that's

00:06:24 ◼   ► good about it. And he will call it out and he'll ask. He'll say if an entire bit really

00:06:30 ◼   ► bored him, then he'll suggest taking it out. And I don't think I've ever disagreed.

00:06:37 ◼   ► But for the most part, whole bits don't get edited out. It's maybe a bit of stammering

00:06:42 ◼   ► if there's a mistake or something like that. Right.

00:06:45 ◼   ► And I think he does a great job. He does a good job making me sound a lot better. But he doesn't

00:06:52 ◼   ► edit film editing, which is like what you and Amy did with Just the Tip, where you guys—

00:06:59 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's a pain in the ass. I don't recommend it, but I am happy with the product

00:07:04 ◼   ► that we get out of it. And I think—we were talking about people that like a long show,

00:07:08 ◼   ► and certainly plenty of people do, but it's difficult to argue with a short show that's

00:07:12 ◼   ► hopefully pretty punchy. Right. Which is, and you know, I'm sure, you know, if people who listen to

00:07:19 ◼   ► dozens of podcasts can name others that do it, but it does lend itself to a higher production

00:07:25 ◼   ► level feel. And, you know, You Look Nice Today always did that. And they did, they always had

00:07:32 ◼   ► the nice thing where they have the little jingles in between the edited segments, which gives it

00:07:38 ◼   ► more of a, you know, like a segmenty feel, like when there's those transitions.

00:07:46 ◼   ► Right, absolutely.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Like I thought you were, I listened to almost every episode of Just The Tip, I think. I don't

00:07:51 ◼   ► know. I think so. But I like the edited nature of it. But I did think every once in a while,

00:07:58 ◼   ► sometimes the transition between segments was abrupt.

00:08:01 ◼   ► Yeah, you could. And part of it is, you know, this was the first time I was editing a podcast. So

00:08:05 ◼   ► So part of it was just getting used to editing.

00:08:07 ◼   ► And yeah, there definitely were points

00:08:09 ◼   ► where you could hear a cut.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And we had my friend Todd

00:08:12 ◼   ► who did all these theme songs for the show.

00:08:13 ◼   ► And so I was thinking about nicking that idea

00:08:15 ◼   ► from "You Look Nice" today

00:08:16 ◼   ► of just putting like a little musical interlude,

00:08:18 ◼   ► five seconds between things.

00:08:20 ◼   ► I might wind up doing that

00:08:21 ◼   ► if I find that I do wind up having those cuts

00:08:24 ◼   ► that are really obvious.

00:08:25 ◼   ► - Especially now that they're off the air.

00:08:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:08:28 ◼   ► We can steal whatever we want from them.

00:08:29 ◼   ► - Fair game to steal everything from those guys.

00:08:32 ◼   ► - I'm gonna get Jon Hahn-jman to record stuff for us.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:08:34 ◼   ► That was why I tell you what that was one of the most surprising things to me because Amy and I you know

00:08:41 ◼   ► Just you know, it's not that I don't think she listens to this show. Frankly. She might listen if you're on but

00:08:46 ◼   ► She listens when it's somebody she likes. Yeah, that's what she said

00:08:49 ◼   ► But she didn't really run much by me, you know

00:08:55 ◼   ► I mean I was you know, I didn't know much in advance of any given week episode until it actually hit, you know

00:09:01 ◼   ► So I was very surprised the first time I heard a theme song and it was you know, it's good

00:09:06 ◼   ► But then the next week when it had like all new theme song that was just as good

00:09:11 ◼   ► It was like bizarre to me because that's like the one of the hardest thing. How do you get a good theme song?

00:09:17 ◼   ► It's very hard to do. Well, so this is my buddy Todd who's I shouldn't well

00:09:23 ◼   ► I'm on a different show so I think I can I can rat him out a little bit

00:09:25 ◼   ► But he's working on his doctorate and when he wants to slack off he just fiddles in Garageband

00:09:31 ◼   ► And since we had about ten different theme songs, he's been you know

00:09:35 ◼   ► What's the word I want, you know, just slacking off quite a bit, I think all right

00:09:39 ◼   ► But that was amazing to me though because they were you know, pretty good

00:09:42 ◼   ► Yeah, we were we were very happy with them and and certainly we were grateful to have this this supplied to us

00:09:48 ◼   ► So and I always thought that you know, that was a real gift for you look nice today

00:09:51 ◼   ► Is that I don't know if it was sandy you whoever I don't know did sandy make all those

00:09:56 ◼   ► I never even got the story on where those

00:09:58 ◼   ► All the John Hodgman recordings? Well, you know, and like the music too. Yeah, and the music. I think he did the music at least

00:10:05 ◼   ► Yeah

00:10:06 ◼   ► We should ask him. Yeah, I guess I just always assumed it was him

00:10:09 ◼   ► I know Scott doesn't do music and I don't think well

00:10:12 ◼   ► I think Merlin screws around but he doesn't screw around with that type of music

00:10:15 ◼   ► But anyway, those jingles they had for the interstitials, you know between the segments were gave that show such an incredibly polished feel

00:10:23 ◼   ► Mm-hmm

00:10:24 ◼   ► And and I thought that you guys had sort of the same thing with the just the tip

00:10:28 ◼   ► Theme songs, but it was so crazy that they were different every time. Yeah

00:10:34 ◼   ► Well, so when we got one it was like, alright

00:10:36 ◼   ► We can use this and then and then he gave me like three more and I was like, well, these are all great

00:10:40 ◼   ► And none of them are obviously better than the others. So I might as well just use a new one every week

00:10:45 ◼   ► So, you know, there's no brand recognition or anything like that that you're gonna get from this, but that's alright

00:10:50 ◼   ► See that's a and that's for me. It's like the main reason why

00:10:54 ◼   ► I love you know from the get-go all the way back to you know the original runs

00:11:00 ◼   ► of this show with Dan that we've never had any kind of theme song or anything

00:11:04 ◼   ► like that because my thought is if you can't find one that's great then it's

00:11:08 ◼   ► better not to have any at all and right and too many podcasts I think out there

00:11:12 ◼   ► have like the equivalent of like like music yeah like Times New Roman you know

00:11:17 ◼   ► yeah like you've got you know Times New Roman and Helvetica on your computer and

00:11:22 ◼   ► so you're going to use those. You know, not bad, but like so clearly like just

00:11:28 ◼   ► generic that it doesn't feel real. It's like not there somehow there's like a line you can press,

00:11:38 ◼   ► you know, put a song or a jingle or a theme song over that makes it feel real and original. And

00:11:42 ◼   ► there's something else that's just like generic. Pulling from the library of like 10 podcast theme

00:11:47 ◼   ► songs that exist in GarageBand maybe. Exactly like you know and just altering

00:11:52 ◼   ► it a little bit. I get you know sort of like the difference between an original

00:11:56 ◼   ► blog design and just using a template. Right. You know that's that like like one

00:12:02 ◼   ► of the default WordPress templates which isn't bad necessarily right and you know

00:12:06 ◼   ► a lot of those you know it's it's like the ante has been raised so high in

00:12:11 ◼   ► template design you know like the default WordPress templates if you do

00:12:16 ◼   ► like a fresh install today are actually pretty good you know right and and

00:12:19 ◼   ► Squarespace and those guys all have really good ten minutes and it's the big

00:12:24 ◼   ► one tumblr you know when you sign up for tumblr use some really good templates to

00:12:28 ◼   ► choose from now but they're still you know they're not original right and and

00:12:32 ◼   ► a hundred other sites are gonna have that same one right now probably I was

00:12:35 ◼   ► so I always thought you know why not just have none if you know which at the

00:12:39 ◼   ► time we but what would a nun template look like well I don't know like during

00:12:44 ◼   ► Fireball?

00:12:45 ◼   ► Like a white page?

00:12:46 ◼   ► Well, but that's, I mean, you styled that.

00:12:49 ◼   ► Like you created that style.

00:12:51 ◼   ► But it's closer to none than, you know.

00:12:54 ◼   ► The WordPress, Tumblr, yeah.

00:12:57 ◼   ► I guess what would be the equivalent would be maybe more like the equivalent of having

00:13:00 ◼   ► a blog that doesn't even have a logo.

00:13:03 ◼   ► Okay.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Something like that.

00:13:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:06 ◼   ► Like if you can't have a good logo, you don't have any logo instead of a bad logo.

00:13:10 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:13:13 ◼   ► I might be overthinking it.

00:13:14 ◼   ► - No, you?

00:13:17 ◼   ► - No, not me.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Let's take a break.

00:13:20 ◼   ► And if we're gonna get this done in an hour,

00:13:22 ◼   ► let's see if we can do this.

00:13:23 ◼   ► - All right.

00:13:24 ◼   ► - I'm gonna take a break for our first sponsor.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And I'm very, very happy about this.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Brand new sponsor, first time on the show is lynda.com.

00:13:33 ◼   ► That's lynda with a Y.

00:13:34 ◼   ► - With a Y, right?

00:13:35 ◼   ► - With a Y.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Now, I've been around for a long time.

00:13:41 ◼   ► It's online training, education material, books,

00:13:45 ◼   ► that sort of thing.

00:13:47 ◼   ► You can learn at your own pace.

00:13:49 ◼   ► They've been around so long, but they have never

00:13:51 ◼   ► let off the pedal on pushing how much they do.

00:13:55 ◼   ► It's amazing to me.

00:13:56 ◼   ► They have over 2,000 courses that you can take online

00:14:02 ◼   ► and a really wide gamut of material.

00:14:05 ◼   ► I remember originally when they got started,

00:14:07 ◼   ► it was mostly like--

00:14:09 ◼   ► I don't know if this is quite fair, but maybe it was just my own unique perspective.

00:14:12 ◼   ► But it was mostly, to my mind, lynda.com, like back in the '90s, was for graphic designers

00:14:18 ◼   ► moving to the web.

00:14:20 ◼   ► And it was like, "Here, we know what you know.

00:14:22 ◼   ► You know Photoshop and Illustrator.

00:14:25 ◼   ► We're going to teach you how to take those skills to the web and do it for real."

00:14:27 ◼   ► But now they have everything.

00:14:29 ◼   ► And for people who listen to the talk show, they've got some great Apple-specific stuff.

00:14:34 ◼   ► They have Unix for Mac OS X users.

00:14:37 ◼   ► So if you've always thought, you know, I wish I could learn more about Unix and the Unix

00:14:41 ◼   ► type stuff on Mac OS X, where to start?

00:14:44 ◼   ► They have a great course for that.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Objective C, so if you're the sort of person who wants to get into Cocoa or iOS Cocoa Touch

00:14:54 ◼   ► programming, they have courses for that.

00:14:57 ◼   ► They have material for iCloud if you want to become an expert on iCloud.

00:15:03 ◼   ► Final Cut Pro, everything.

00:15:06 ◼   ► you might want to get better at at the Mac. GarageBand, you name it. Photography, videography,

00:15:15 ◼   ► audio, if you want to, you know, edit Paul's Paul and Amy show next season, you can learn

00:15:21 ◼   ► that from lynda.com. Just so much stuff. Like I said, over 2000 courses, new courses being

00:15:28 ◼   ► added daily, and great teachers. This isn't just like random crap from anybody. That's

00:15:34 ◼   ► the thing that that's made Linda.com so famous is that they hire the best people

00:15:38 ◼   ► to do this and pay them to create really high quality material high quality video

00:15:44 ◼   ► great production value just light years ahead of like the homemade crap that

00:15:51 ◼   ► you're just gonna find if you search for stuff on YouTube I mean this is really

00:15:54 ◼   ► really good stuff high high production value so where do you go to find out

00:16:00 ◼   ► easy go to lynda.com lynda.com slash the talk show that'll get you there it'll

00:16:11 ◼   ► let them know you're coming from this show and you get to try lynda.com for

00:16:16 ◼   ► free I've worked out a special deal with them for listeners of the show use that

00:16:20 ◼   ► code and you can access the entire library for free and see what it is

00:16:26 ◼   ► It's a great deal. It's so much stuff to learn and it's such a great way, I think, learning with the videos

00:16:31 ◼   ► to learn to just to get better at anything like that anything that's on your list for

00:16:36 ◼   ► Becoming better at you. I'm sure you're gonna find it at lynda.com. So my thanks to them

00:16:41 ◼   ► Do you ever think that you know the logo for lynda.com? Yeah, can you picture it?

00:16:46 ◼   ► She looks like she needs a new prescription on her glasses, doesn't she?

00:16:51 ◼   ► You know, I met her years ago.

00:16:54 ◼   ► That's right, because it's a, I mean, the logo's a cartoon, but it's a real woman named

00:16:58 ◼   ► Linda something.

00:16:59 ◼   ► I forget, but it's so funny, I forget her last name.

00:17:02 ◼   ► But I remember meeting her at Macworld New York.

00:17:04 ◼   ► Uh-huh.

00:17:05 ◼   ► Yeah, they probably had a booth or something.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Which tells you how long ago it was.

00:17:07 ◼   ► It was Macworld New York.

00:17:09 ◼   ► No, I remember it was at Macworld New York in the Javits Center, New York.

00:17:16 ◼   ► That's the New York version of Moscone.

00:17:19 ◼   ► I remember their booth was swarmed just packed. It was just knee-deep because of all the designer

00:17:26 ◼   ► type people in New York who wanted to learn how to make websites and stuff.

00:17:34 ◼   ► In the news this week, a couple of things jumped out at me.

00:17:37 ◼   ► What do we got?

00:17:41 ◼   ► I sent you the thing. What's her name? The woman from the New York Times who wrote this.

00:17:47 ◼   ► She's an economics reporter.

00:17:48 ◼   ► Alright, I just read over this and now I don't remember the name either.

00:17:54 ◼   ► She wrote a piece in their Sunday magazine a week ago, Catherine Rampell.

00:17:58 ◼   ► That's right.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Alleging, pretty much flat out alleging, there's no real, you know, maybe to it, alleging that

00:18:08 ◼   ► Apple like booby traps their iPhones so that when new models come out.

00:18:15 ◼   ► It instantly knows and starts slowing down and…

00:18:18 ◼   ► Your old phone start the battery the battery doesn't last as long

00:18:22 ◼   ► and

00:18:24 ◼   ► When it when she wrote the first piece I linked to a rebuttal in of all places

00:18:29 ◼   ► Gizmodo and I wrote something to the effect of you know cats are chasing dogs because here's here's gives common sense

00:18:37 ◼   ► Coming from Gizmodo to straighten your times to straighten out nonsense in the New York Times, right?

00:18:43 ◼   ► What the hell is going on with the world? That's what you got to do

00:18:46 ◼   ► But in the meantime since she's like doubled down on this

00:18:49 ◼   ► she has like a follow-up post on the economics blog at the New York Times where she

00:18:55 ◼   ► she reiterated some of the stuff and

00:18:57 ◼   ► Explained some of the contention she had made right? She was on CNN. There was a segment on CNN

00:19:04 ◼   ► What was that the head day the headline? There was a just like on real CNN. It was

00:19:08 ◼   ► Hold on here. I'm firing it up

00:19:14 ◼   ► Well, the Apple conspiracy right? Is there an Apple conspiracy or something?

00:19:18 ◼   ► Right and it's who is whose law is it with headlines that whatever if you have a question mark headline

00:19:23 ◼   ► And it can just be answered with yes or no then better. It's just law

00:19:26 ◼   ► Right. That's right. The answer is always no, right, right exactly

00:19:30 ◼   ► Well, that was the thing is the headline on her original piece, which you can still see in the in the slug in the URL was

00:19:37 ◼   ► It was something like why Apple wants to bust your iPhone and then they changed the headline to you know

00:19:44 ◼   ► something wishy-washy like the apple trap or something.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Right. Who was it? I was talking about that with somebody. Was it Dan Fromer?

00:19:50 ◼   ► I think it was Dan Fromer like a week or two ago on this show, probably two weeks ago because

00:19:55 ◼   ► Syracuse was on last week. About on so many CMSs, you can see an original headline that got toned

00:20:02 ◼   ► down subsequently. Bloomberg does it all the time. Bloomberg, it seems like they really, they'll put

00:20:08 ◼   ► out like a real punchy headline for five minutes and then somebody will be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:20:12 ◼   ► That's you know, let's water that down. Well, you can see it in the URL, right? And at a certain point

00:20:17 ◼   ► Do you think it's intentional and they you know?

00:20:19 ◼   ► Tone it down after the fact after they've gotten some of the the links that they wanted in the first place

00:20:23 ◼   ► No, I don't think so

00:20:25 ◼   ► I think it's more that the pressure to publish fast and you know

00:20:29 ◼   ► It means that the the oversight that would happen before you know

00:20:34 ◼   ► It happened it comes after the fact they basically say oh we should have toned that down in the first place

00:20:39 ◼   ► Right like like in the old days before

00:20:43 ◼   ► The web let's you know go back to the 1988

00:20:47 ◼   ► You know that if she wrote the same article for the New York Times magazine

00:20:50 ◼   ► At some point before they actually put the magazine to press somebody would have looked some conservative copy editor

00:20:58 ◼   ► Would have looked at the headline said hey, we got it. You know this this is you know, this is New York Times

00:21:01 ◼   ► We can't do this. Whereas now it's like four o'clock. She's done

00:21:07 ◼   ► 415 it's gone through copy editing

00:21:09 ◼   ► 420 it gets published and like maybe 440 somebody else looks at it and is like hey the headline, you know

00:21:16 ◼   ► It's already been published and you know

00:21:18 ◼   ► You know and I do it - I certainly it's you know

00:21:21 ◼   ► I it's stupid to pretend that the web is print and that once you've hit published, you know

00:21:26 ◼   ► It's sacrosanct you can't correct anything or you know change it or whatever. I mean if you change it significantly

00:21:32 ◼   ► I think you should market

00:21:34 ◼   ► Yeah, almost as a courtesy not like as a self-flagellation

00:21:38 ◼   ► But almost as a courtesy to readers who maybe read the original version and think they're going crazy

00:21:44 ◼   ► I think they're going crazy, you know, just you know, if you've already seen it. No, this is what it used to say

00:21:48 ◼   ► And now it says this

00:21:50 ◼   ► But this didn't sit right with me and it hasn't and I the whole the whole basis of her argument you mean yeah and and

00:22:00 ◼   ► It's it's a little bit more than just hey the New York Times wrote something really almost slanderous about Apple

00:22:07 ◼   ► And I think I think what it is is and it just didn't occur to me at first is that it's not just that it's

00:22:16 ◼   ► wrong, but that I think it's actually

00:22:18 ◼   ► completely opposite I

00:22:21 ◼   ► Think that in consumer electronics say what you want, you know

00:22:26 ◼   ► You know, there's all sorts of ways to be cynical about Apple

00:22:29 ◼   ► but I think overall even if you're not a fan of their products, even if you're an Android person or Windows users or

00:22:35 ◼   ► You know

00:22:37 ◼   ► Pick any other competing platforms. I really do think it's fair to say that Apple takes care of

00:22:42 ◼   ► Existing the customers and older devices better than anybody else

00:22:47 ◼   ► Well, I really look at look at Android and you know

00:22:51 ◼   ► Look at how many devices never get an update or you know six months after their release

00:22:56 ◼   ► They're considered out of date and don't get a new version of the operating system, right?

00:23:01 ◼   ► And is that better right and look at the Nexus itself, which is the one from Google

00:23:08 ◼   ► Which is the full Google experience and which they control the software updates to like one of the biggest parts of the Nexus

00:23:16 ◼   ► hardware line isn't just that you get the you don't have any carrier add-on crap you can use Android

00:23:23 ◼   ► It's also that you get your updates direct from Google

00:23:26 ◼   ► Apple style right and so with i Android 4.4, which just came out like 10 days ago

00:23:33 ◼   ► It it's only available for two models of phone the brand new one and the Nexus for the the two

00:23:41 ◼   ► Models back Galaxy Nexus, which was still being sold

00:23:45 ◼   ► In the beginning of calendar 2013 as like a discounted Nexus right and it's only two years old

00:23:51 ◼   ► Period if you bought it on day one already has been cut off from Google's own OS

00:23:58 ◼   ► right and in day six, you know their explanation is that

00:24:02 ◼   ► You know, it uses a Texas Instruments chipset that Texas instrument, you know

00:24:07 ◼   ► Texas Instruments has since in interim two years stopped updating or whatever

00:24:13 ◼   ► But it's like that doesn't even make any sense though.

00:24:15 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense to the customer who bought one two years ago.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Right. That's the thing that really matters is as a user, if you think, you know, I got this sometime

00:24:22 ◼   ► even this year, you're saying, and suddenly it's out of date, that there's no explanation that's

00:24:27 ◼   ► going to make you think, okay, that makes sense. Right. And so I really feel like it's just like

00:24:33 ◼   ► what makes it so pernicious is that it really is actually the opposite of, you know,

00:24:40 ◼   ► what's good about Apple. So here's another example. I know she's talking about phones,

00:24:45 ◼   ► but look at Mavericks. Mavericks is a free upgrade for...

00:24:51 ◼   ► The machines that are as old as six years old.

00:24:54 ◼   ► Yeah. Now, I don't think it's every device from every Mac from 2007, but there are...

00:25:00 ◼   ► Some of them.

00:25:01 ◼   ► Some of the Macs from 2007 are eligible for Mavericks. And the only reason they drew the

00:25:07 ◼   ► line there is that you know it not out of spite like well we want you to buy a new mac

00:25:13 ◼   ► if you're still using a 2006 one but you know that that's the line where i think apple thinks

00:25:18 ◼   ► would know mavericks would if we made it work it would be worse right well so if anything

00:25:23 ◼   ► i mean there has been reports there have been reports in the past of phones getting more

00:25:28 ◼   ► sluggish when they updated to the new os right you've heard this absolutely absolutely and

00:25:32 ◼   ► I don't I don't doubt it either right exactly

00:25:35 ◼   ► I mean you're running new new software on old hardware and the software was built for the new hardware that has now come out

00:25:41 ◼   ► So potentially, you know, it would make sense that this would not work as well as the new devices obviously

00:25:46 ◼   ► But even as well as the old software running on that device, but if they're guilty of something

00:25:51 ◼   ► It's you know, not cutting things off when they should it's not an issue of them

00:25:56 ◼   ► You know maliciously trying to make your phone lousy so that you'll go buy a new one

00:26:01 ◼   ► I don't I think of all the guests you've had on your show. I might have sort of the

00:26:07 ◼   ► Most complicated relationship with Apple certainly. I think that's actually very true

00:26:12 ◼   ► I mean we've we as a company rogue amoeba has had multiple issues with with Apple and their app stores

00:26:18 ◼   ► And you know not anything we need to get into but as as even as an individual as a user

00:26:22 ◼   ► I have a complicated relationship with their products. I love their products

00:26:26 ◼   ► I hate some of their policies, but I can't look at this and think like yep

00:26:29 ◼   ► They're really trying to screw people over with their iPhone 4

00:26:33 ◼   ► And make them buy a new phone. It just doesn't it doesn't read to me. It doesn't scan as as realistic, right?

00:26:39 ◼   ► and

00:26:42 ◼   ► Like again, I know that there are people out there who had let's say an iPhone 4 or even a 4s and then they upgraded

00:26:49 ◼   ► to iOS 7 and

00:26:51 ◼   ► The phone really got slow or the battery with 7.00 right?

00:26:57 ◼   ► Because there was some rest was addressed with some of the updates, right?

00:27:00 ◼   ► But it's definitely not the case. I and in fact, I've tested it just as sin the last week

00:27:07 ◼   ► I like actually because I keep all my old iPhones. I actually fired up my old iPhone 4

00:27:11 ◼   ► And I didn't even fresh install it Jonas had been using it for a year or more as his you know, like gaming device

00:27:19 ◼   ► so without

00:27:21 ◼   ► Wiping anything out a device that he had used, you know after I fresh and you know reinstalled it

00:27:27 ◼   ► or wiped it, whatever you want to call it,

00:27:29 ◼   ► but that he'd used for at least a solid year.

00:27:31 ◼   ► I just did the okay, you know,

00:27:34 ◼   ► a software update is available.

00:27:37 ◼   ► - Drop it on there.

00:27:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, just like a regular consumer would.

00:27:40 ◼   ► Okay, allow it.

00:27:41 ◼   ► You know, is it as snappy as my iPhone 5S?

00:27:47 ◼   ► No, but it's absolutely usable.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Is it not quite as snappy as iOS 5,

00:27:54 ◼   ► which is what was where he was upgrading from.

00:27:56 ◼   ► Maybe in some ways, some of the animations,

00:28:00 ◼   ► but overall, no, I think it's fine.

00:28:02 ◼   ► And I think there are things like Safari,

00:28:05 ◼   ► which Apple has continued,

00:28:06 ◼   ► like the WebKit in Safari has continued to improve.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Like it's faster than it used to be.

00:28:12 ◼   ► Or, you know, JavaScript is faster.

00:28:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, this isn't, so you have some experience

00:28:17 ◼   ► having tested this yourself.

00:28:18 ◼   ► I can't, I shouldn't say that I've tested this

00:28:20 ◼   ► and, you know, I didn't experience this,

00:28:22 ◼   ► but all I've heard and what her article started out with

00:28:25 ◼   ► was anecdotal evidence.

00:28:26 ◼   ► - Right.

00:28:27 ◼   ► - And it was, nobody had any facts, nobody had any--

00:28:30 ◼   ► - No facts.

00:28:31 ◼   ► - Exactly, and so the whole story which blew up,

00:28:34 ◼   ► I mean not to the extent of like Antennagate

00:28:36 ◼   ► or anything like that, but it blew up to the point

00:28:39 ◼   ► where other news institutions were covering this

00:28:42 ◼   ► and taking it seriously, the whole thing was based on,

00:28:45 ◼   ► or predicated on, my phone's a little slower

00:28:48 ◼   ► than it used to be, I think.

00:28:50 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:28:51 ◼   ► And so here's where I think the fact that it's the New York Times makes it worse is

00:29:00 ◼   ► that the New York Times is still the New York Times.

00:29:04 ◼   ► And when something's in the New York Times, it has more gravity.

00:29:08 ◼   ► It carries more weight.

00:29:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:11 ◼   ► So here's an article from Inc.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Magazine which I didn't even know was still around, but you know, inc.com, Inc.

00:29:17 ◼   ► Eric Sherman has an article from sometime in the last week.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Headline, planned obsolescence question mark,

00:29:24 ◼   ► that trick only works at Apple.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Apple is worth emulating in many ways,

00:29:28 ◼   ► but not when it comes to how the company

00:29:29 ◼   ► intentionally limits the lifespan of its products.

00:29:32 ◼   ► - And it was, was this a response to herpes?

00:29:36 ◼   ► - Well, here, just let me, I'll read the beginning.

00:29:38 ◼   ► The notion of planned obsolescence,

00:29:40 ◼   ► or the practice of designing products

00:29:41 ◼   ► so they have a limited effective lifespan,

00:29:43 ◼   ► may seem like some smart practical economics to some.

00:29:47 ◼   ► And at times that is true.

00:29:49 ◼   ► But for entrepreneurs, deliberately limiting the life of products and services is a bad

00:29:54 ◼   ► mistake.

00:29:55 ◼   ► When iOS 7 came whistling down the data pipe to older model iPhones, it must have first

00:30:00 ◼   ► seemed like an early holiday present.

00:30:03 ◼   ► No cost and all sorts of new goodies.

00:30:05 ◼   ► But as Catherine Rampell wrote in the New York Times, good news turned to bad as her

00:30:10 ◼   ► iPhone 4 became "a lot more sluggish."

00:30:13 ◼   ► And then it's a quote from her article.

00:30:15 ◼   ► anyway the gist of it is the way that he starts it is look the if the New York

00:30:19 ◼   ► Times says it makes your iPhone 4 slow then it makes your iPhone 4 slow and

00:30:23 ◼   ► they did it on purpose so that people will upgrade because the New York Times

00:30:26 ◼   ► said this right right and I really do think that makes it worse here it has

00:30:31 ◼   ► given me an idea for an article I don't know who could do it it would have to be

00:30:34 ◼   ► somebody like the verge or in gadget or one of those outfits where they have a

00:30:40 ◼   ► a staff of people including staff members who use Android devices full time.

00:30:49 ◼   ► Because one thing we know is that the batteries that are in these devices definitely get worse

00:30:53 ◼   ► the more you use them.

00:30:56 ◼   ► It's like a year old device that's been charged 300 times is not going to have the battery

00:31:00 ◼   ► life that it did when it was brand new.

00:31:02 ◼   ► That's just how batteries work.

00:31:04 ◼   ► That was one of the most galling things about this was it was talking about the batteries

00:31:08 ◼   ► and it was saying like, you know, should they put in a better battery? That battery doesn't exist!

00:31:14 ◼   ► Right, they are exactly.

00:31:15 ◼   ► They're putting in the best battery they can, and as much of that battery as they can,

00:31:19 ◼   ► because they know everyone wants battery life. If anything, you know, that's the one thing that

00:31:24 ◼   ► they're absolutely not doing. Right, one of the, yeah, exactly, one of her proposals was

00:31:28 ◼   ► should Apple be putting in a battery that doesn't lose any capacity at one time? And it's like, no,

00:31:34 ◼   ► because it doesn't exist. Should somebody invent that battery? Yes, please! I'm sure

00:31:39 ◼   ► Apple would love to talk to you if you've invented such a battery. I'll bet you can get a very nice

00:31:44 ◼   ► check out of Tim Cook if you can invent a battery that doesn't lose capacity. I'm also sure, though,

00:31:52 ◼   ► that if you invented such a battery, I'm sure there are some physics departments around the

00:31:56 ◼   ► country that would— I'd love to talk to you. Yeah, I would love to— You might get a call from

00:31:59 ◼   ► Sweden after that one yeah because there's you know there's certain laws of

00:32:04 ◼   ► I don't know if it's thermodynamics or what you want you know but you know

00:32:09 ◼   ► there's a conservation there's a reason why batteries lose power the more you

00:32:12 ◼   ► use them right it's it's physics so sorry I cut you off when I'm talking

00:32:19 ◼   ► about the battery but that was that stuck out to me so much but I would love

00:32:22 ◼   ► to see I you know I my biased maybe but I would bet money though that a year old

00:32:27 ◼   ► iPhone that's been used full-time like a review unit but like you know like I

00:32:34 ◼   ► could volunteer my year-old iPhone 5 run it through the same battery test that

00:32:39 ◼   ► you do when you were testing the brand new devices and see what the difference

00:32:44 ◼   ► is you know does a year-old Samsung galaxy hold up as well you know not just

00:32:50 ◼   ► one that's been sitting on a shelf but I'm saying one that like an you know

00:32:53 ◼   ► like a nerd tech now real-world usage absolutely has used for a year what's the battery life when

00:33:00 ◼   ► it's a year old you know I I would I feel pretty good I would I would wager a wee bit of money

00:33:06 ◼   ► that Apple devices percentage-wise hold up better than most or at least as good I would be shocked

00:33:14 ◼   ► if it was worse it's certainly not something where it's gonna be worse exactly right I would

00:33:18 ◼   ► I'd have to agree there. I would be flabbergasted if Apple devices lost more capacity over the same

00:33:25 ◼   ► amount of usage as others. I would guess that if anything, it might be better. Right. But the

00:33:31 ◼   ► articles make it sound as though it's only Apple. Right, right. And yeah, really pin this on them

00:33:37 ◼   ► and, and made it sound like, oh, they're putting in terrible batteries, and they're rushing it out

00:33:42 ◼   ► software updates that'll hurt your phone. And right. Yeah, the whole thing. The whole thing was,

00:33:46 ◼   ► like I said, predicated on these personal experience that may or may not even be true

00:33:52 ◼   ► and didn't have any factual basis or any facts backing it up.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And then the one last thing that really bothers me about this whole narrative is that to me

00:34:02 ◼   ► it's also predicated on a very sort of longstanding, they call it the "cult of Mac" theory. The

00:34:11 ◼   ► idea that that you know it is I know there's a website called the cult of Mac

00:34:18 ◼   ► now but that people have called it a cult you know and right and moltz has

00:34:21 ◼   ► always been a guy who's called it out I mean it's a strong you're talking about

00:34:28 ◼   ► the straw man argument of where Apple fans will defend anything and will buy

00:34:33 ◼   ► anything right right no matter what Apple comes out with they'll buy it and

00:34:37 ◼   ► I think that really plays into this because that's this you know like just

00:34:41 ◼   ► look at this headline in ink, planned obsolescence, that trick only works at

00:34:44 ◼   ► Apple. Because think about what they're saying. What they're saying is, including

00:34:49 ◼   ► Catherine Rampell at the Times, they're saying, okay, you've got a two-year-old

00:34:53 ◼   ► phone that you weren't necessarily thinking iPhone, that you weren't

00:34:57 ◼   ► necessarily thinking about replacing. Then a software update came down and you

00:35:01 ◼   ► said, okay, install it. And now your phone adds worse battery life and worse

00:35:07 ◼   ► performance. And they're saying, well then of course you're gonna go buy a new

00:35:11 ◼   ► iPhone. Wouldn't the rational person be at that moment less likely to buy another iPhone

00:35:18 ◼   ► than something else? Right. Absolutely. Well, and so she's an economics reporter. She's not

00:35:24 ◼   ► actually a technology reporter. And she did touch on this a little bit. So there was a little bit of

00:35:29 ◼   ► interesting discussion on, you know, would it actually make sense to do this? And it was saying,

00:35:34 ◼   ► you know, if you have a monopoly and you're the only ones making a smartphone, then yeah,

00:35:38 ◼   ► you should do this because people are just going to buy your new device. But as you said,

00:35:42 ◼   ► there's competition out there that's, you know, decent at least. And if you're pissed off at

00:35:46 ◼   ► Apple because they made your phone work like crap, you're going to look at that competition

00:35:50 ◼   ► a lot more closely. Right. And one of the ways that I think the computing world in general has

00:35:55 ◼   ► gotten a lot better as time has gone on is that it's gotten a lot easier to switch from one

00:36:01 ◼   ► platform to another. There's nowhere near as much lock in technical lock in as there used to be.

00:36:06 ◼   ► I mean, it is absolutely true that with the App Store, you know...

00:36:09 ◼   ► I was gonna say, on the mobile platforms, I feel like we sort of took a little bit of a step back there.

00:36:14 ◼   ► But on the other hand, the prices having come down so far, where so many of the apps you may have

00:36:19 ◼   ► bought are literally like 99 cents or buck 99 or free...

00:36:22 ◼   ► That's true, yeah.

00:36:23 ◼   ► But so many things that, you know, just the fact that your floppy disks were different formats...

00:36:28 ◼   ► Right.

00:36:28 ◼   ► ...in the old days, right?

00:36:29 ◼   ► You need to buy a whole new zip drive.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Right. But I mean, so many people have so much of their stuff just in Dropbox or in,

00:36:36 ◼   ► you know, Google Apps, you know, your mails and Gmail, you can put your calendar on Google

00:36:41 ◼   ► Calendar and stuff like that, that it's really a lot easier to switch. And I know this from,

00:36:46 ◼   ► you know, just the time if I, you know, the times when I'll try an Android phone for a

00:36:49 ◼   ► month or something like that. I don't have everything, but I can get a lot, I can get

00:36:53 ◼   ► a lot of my stuff just by signing into Dropbox and Google and stuff like that. It's a lot

00:36:59 ◼   ► easier than it used to be. Certainly less, a lot easier, you know, I'm not saying it's

00:37:03 ◼   ► easy. There's certainly some some technical lock-in, but it's easier than

00:37:07 ◼   ► it used to be. So I don't think anybody, even Apple, would would be wise to do

00:37:11 ◼   ► that. I just think and I think that the only reason I think the reason they only

00:37:14 ◼   ► write this about Apple and nobody else is there's nobody else who you could

00:37:17 ◼   ► even make it seem as though there are these irrational customers who after

00:37:21 ◼   ► being given a total shit sandwich like, "Hey, we took your perfectly working

00:37:25 ◼   ► iPhone and ruined it. Come buy a new iPhone." Like it's an insult to people who

00:37:31 ◼   ► buy iPhones, I think. I really do. They'd be willing to just put up with this, absolutely.

00:37:35 ◼   ► Right! Like, wouldn't that be the moment where you're most angry at Apple and most likely to

00:37:40 ◼   ► buy a Samsung? I, in fact, I would be willing to bet if you can somehow survey a thousand people,

00:37:47 ◼   ► or ten thousand people who've bought an iPhone, you know, or a cell phone period in the last six

00:37:52 ◼   ► weeks of, like, from like today, if you can find the number of those people who installed iOS 7 and

00:37:58 ◼   ► hated it for whatever reason I'll bet that those people are

00:38:02 ◼   ► Disproportionate probably not it's I don't think there's a lot of them and I don't think the percentage would be high

00:38:07 ◼   ► But I'll bet there would be some kind of correlation that those people were more likely to

00:38:10 ◼   ► Try a Samsung switch over to Android. Yeah

00:38:14 ◼   ► Yeah

00:38:15 ◼   ► I think that you know

00:38:16 ◼   ► It's you know

00:38:17 ◼   ► It's a little irritation like that is the sort of thing that could really nudge you to do that and I think Apple is fully

00:38:23 ◼   ► aware of that

00:38:23 ◼   ► Right, right and well, yeah, like I said, I don't I don't agree with a lot of stuff Apple does

00:38:28 ◼   ► But I just can't see that it makes any sense for them to say yep

00:38:31 ◼   ► This is how we're gonna get some new sales. Let's screw over the people who bought a phone two years ago, right?

00:38:36 ◼   ► I mean, I think I think the biggest thing is that like I said

00:38:39 ◼   ► I think maybe they should not have offered this update to those older phones if it was not gonna work as well as it should

00:38:45 ◼   ► Right, but of course, I mean if you do that, then you're getting the people who say oh, why is my phone already out of date?

00:38:50 ◼   ► Right. Why can't I get the latest so you can't win when you have tens of millions of customers?

00:38:56 ◼   ► Somebody's gonna be ticked off

00:38:57 ◼   ► Right and it's definitely the case that you know

00:39:00 ◼   ► An older phone is way more likely than a newer phone to have developed some sort of even if I want to call it a bug

00:39:07 ◼   ► Want to call it some kind of configuration of preference settings and data and usage that?

00:39:13 ◼   ► It's not going to turn up over the summer while it's being beta tested

00:39:17 ◼   ► and it's certainly also the case that the majority of the people using iOS 7 while it was in beta and

00:39:24 ◼   ► next year who will be using iOS 8 and beta are not using two or three year old iPhones they're

00:39:29 ◼   ► right is on their new phones that they aren't allowed to show anybody yet all right but it is

00:39:33 ◼   ► absolutely not the case and it's like I said it's the opposite that the three year old iPhone users

00:39:39 ◼   ► get more from Apple than any other phone nobody takes care of older customers like Apple does

00:39:44 ◼   ► You want to do another sponsor break, John?

00:39:49 ◼   ► Perfect timing, Paul.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Let me tell you about it, our good friends, back to sponsor the show again at MailRoute.

00:39:57 ◼   ► If you are like a system administrator, you're in charge of email for your team or company.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Hey, I am.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Have you been dumped by Postini?

00:40:05 ◼   ► Are you being strong-armed onto Google Apps or Office 365?

00:40:11 ◼   ► Does your spam filter arbitrarily refuse all mail from Gmail or Hotmail?

00:40:15 ◼   ► Does it get wacky like that?

00:40:16 ◼   ► Are you being deprived of quarantine notifications?

00:40:21 ◼   ► Are you only getting false positive reports once a day?

00:40:25 ◼   ► The best solution to an IT person who needs some kind of solution to these problems for

00:40:29 ◼   ► spam and virus filtering is MailRoute.

00:40:32 ◼   ► MailRoute provides fast delivery of clean mail to end users with low false positive

00:40:38 ◼   ► rate and super reliable uptime. They're cloud based hosted email protection, you just point

00:40:44 ◼   ► your MX records at them, then they point it back to your mail server. All the do it's

00:40:50 ◼   ► just like a filter that mail goes through first before it hits your servers. Totally

00:40:55 ◼   ► configurable. You get to configure which features you want, what type of filters you want. It

00:41:01 ◼   ► works for small teams works for big teams you can import big list of users

00:41:08 ◼   ► you can use it that works great for a small team with just a handful of users

00:41:12 ◼   ► they have an API that you can program against to really customize it they love

00:41:20 ◼   ► mail admins and they love the little guy is this the copy that they gave you I

00:41:24 ◼   ► assume some of it right so so we use mail round and that's the copies all

00:41:31 ◼   ► There's nothing in it that's inaccurate.

00:41:32 ◼   ► But basically, if you don't want to deal with spam

00:41:35 ◼   ► for your domain, this is a great solution.

00:41:39 ◼   ► And it's inexpensive.

00:41:40 ◼   ► You let somebody else deal with spam filtering,

00:41:43 ◼   ► and you don't have to do anything.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I mean, that's the simplest,

00:41:46 ◼   ► you know, that's the two sentence elevator pitch for this.

00:41:48 ◼   ► - And it really works.

00:41:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, and yeah, we've been using it.

00:41:51 ◼   ► We had another solution that we were using for a few years.

00:41:54 ◼   ► It was pretty good, but we got sort of fed up with them,

00:41:56 ◼   ► and we switched to mail route after hearing about it

00:41:58 ◼   ► on the talk show maybe about six months ago they started advertising I think.

00:42:03 ◼   ► That sounds about right.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And this is, I'm not getting any money for this but we've been very happy with them and

00:42:12 ◼   ► the simplest thing is if you don't want to deal with spam let them deal with it and you

00:42:15 ◼   ► won't have any problems with it.

00:42:17 ◼   ► At least we haven't.

00:42:18 ◼   ► And I, you know, I think that to me it sounds a little funny.

00:42:21 ◼   ► The first time I heard it, it sounds pretty cool and simple and they're not asking you

00:42:24 ◼   ► to switch your entire mail.

00:42:26 ◼   ► are not doing your hosting for you, the mail hosting. It does sound to me a little bit

00:42:31 ◼   ► like, well, do I really want to put another layer of indirection between the outside world

00:42:35 ◼   ► and my mail server? But yeah, you do, because think about it. It's just, all it is is just

00:42:42 ◼   ► a layer of filtering. And that's...

00:42:43 ◼   ► The outside world is terrible and full of spam.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:42:46 ◼   ► And a filter, a layer there helps you avoid all that.

00:42:49 ◼   ► I also, I owe my friends at Mailrat an apology. Last time they sponsored the show, I said

00:42:55 ◼   ► something to the effect that they used to work at Microsoft. That's actually not true

00:42:58 ◼   ► and they wanted me to clarify that. None of them, in fact, have worked at Microsoft. What

00:43:02 ◼   ► they did is they had built a previous mail admin tool that they sold to Microsoft.

00:43:08 ◼   ► Okay, but at no point did they come with the tool.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:43:13 ◼   ► All right.

00:43:14 ◼   ► And I just thought that was so adorable that they wanted me to... They didn't even say...

00:43:18 ◼   ► They didn't ask me to correct it. They just wanted me to know that none of them had worked

00:43:21 ◼   ► at Microsoft.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:43:23 ◼   ► What?

00:43:24 ◼   ► None of us have ever worked at Microsoft.

00:43:26 ◼   ► Yeah

00:43:29 ◼   ► But I think it speaks I don't know it's they seem like cool guys

00:43:33 ◼   ► I feel like they wanted to straighten that out. Where do you go for to find out more?

00:43:36 ◼   ► Guess what? You can try it for free

00:43:38 ◼   ► Go to mail route dotnet slash the talk show

00:43:42 ◼   ► You get a 15 day free trial and you'll get 10% off the lifetime of your account

00:43:48 ◼   ► using the promo code TTS or

00:43:51 ◼   ► the talk show

00:43:53 ◼   ► Paul I bet you bet you're taking advantage of that. You seem like a guy who that's that's where we found it

00:43:58 ◼   ► And and yeah, why not take 10% off for the next however many years we wind up using it

00:44:02 ◼   ► So that's mail route dotnet slash the talk show really works. Just takes care of spam

00:44:08 ◼   ► There you go. Three three sentences or three three words takes care. I guess that's four

00:44:14 ◼   ► But my thanks to them mine too, but like I said, I'm not getting paid I just like the product

00:44:21 ◼   ► How we doing on time? We're gonna make it an hour? Maybe.

00:44:27 ◼   ► We're at probably 45 minutes, yeah. We can maybe, you know, you didn't set a hard limit.

00:44:33 ◼   ► No. There's no buzzer going off. Although you threatened to drop the mic after 45.

00:44:37 ◼   ► I might just unplug the mic and go.

00:44:39 ◼   ► All right. I've always wondered, I wonder if I could pull it off someday to do a Vin Scully,

00:44:45 ◼   ► which would be to do an episode of the show where I don't have a guest and I'll just talk.

00:44:51 ◼   ► Now, Vin Scully is the 89 year old, I think he's 89.

00:44:56 ◼   ► It's something ridiculous. He's great.

00:44:58 ◼   ► He's the baseball announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He's been their team

00:45:04 ◼   ► announcer for so long that he used to be the announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

00:45:07 ◼   ► Brooklyn Dodgers, yup. 85. He's 85. We shouldn't...

00:45:11 ◼   ► All right. But the most amazing thing is he sounds exactly the same. Like,

00:45:17 ◼   ► there you listen to an old clip of Jackie Robinson you know right playing

00:45:22 ◼   ► in Brooklyn in 1954 it sounds exactly like him calling the game today well I

00:45:28 ◼   ► mean that's the beauty of radio is he doesn't look quite the same I can tell

00:45:31 ◼   ► you that much he looks good for 85 I'll tell you absolutely but anyway unlike

00:45:36 ◼   ► any other any other baseball announcer I'm aware of he still works alone he

00:45:42 ◼   ► just it's him in the booth he doesn't there's not you know one guy doing play

00:45:45 ◼   ► by play and another guy doing as they call it color commentary which is fine and you know and

00:45:52 ◼   ► it's a reason why everybody else does it I think it would be really hard to do it by yourself but

00:45:55 ◼   ► that's what he does is difficult right it's just amazing he's the voice of baseball and but I

00:46:00 ◼   ► wonder if I could do a talk show with no guess well so you were a little late getting to this

00:46:03 ◼   ► I actually did about 15 minutes before you got here it's all gold so you know maybe we'll tack

00:46:09 ◼   ► that on right at the beginning Paul doing a Vin Scully yeah absolutely I would love to you know

00:46:15 ◼   ► I would love to have Vince Sculley on the show

00:46:17 ◼   ► This is he at all, you know, I mean he announces for the Dodgers so I have no opportunity to listen to him

00:46:25 ◼   ► I'm aware of him. But does he have is he up on technology at all? I have to imagine he's not

00:46:30 ◼   ► I'm guessing definitely not I would guess I would guess he's not up on technology

00:46:35 ◼   ► So, I mean, it's got to just be a baseball show. You couldn't do anything else. Yeah, maybe some funny broadcasting stories

00:46:42 ◼   ► Maybe you just let him do a talk show. Maybe it's a literal Vin. No, but I'm saying you're not on right exactly

00:46:47 ◼   ► It's just a literal Vin Scully talks

00:46:49 ◼   ► You know what? I thought was great during the playoffs

00:46:52 ◼   ► baseball playoffs on

00:46:55 ◼   ► TBS they're their studio show meaning not the games but when they'd when the games would cut back to the TBS studio in between the

00:47:02 ◼   ► Games. Yeah. Yeah in between games

00:47:04 ◼   ► It was a Keith Olbermann was leading it and whenever they would show highlights from the Dodgers games

00:47:10 ◼   ► Instead of showing or listening to the TBS crews that had broadcast the games they were using Vince Scully

00:47:16 ◼   ► They were using Vince Scully

00:47:17 ◼   ► Which I thought was a really nice touch and I don't know if like

00:47:21 ◼   ► Olbermann had to fight for that like if that was a little if there was any kind of pushback

00:47:24 ◼   ► Internally because it was his own network, you know the run that he's that he's ousting basically, right?

00:47:29 ◼   ► But I almost have to think that no because even if if you're if like me and you were calling the Dodgers

00:47:35 ◼   ► St. Louis game but it when Keith Olbermann showed the highlights they used Vin Scully we'd be like, well, yeah, of course

00:47:41 ◼   ► Of course, you got to use Vin Scully, right? Right. He's the baseball announcers baseball announcer, right?

00:47:46 ◼   ► Hey who won that who won in the playoffs who won the World Series John the Red Sox? Oh, that's right. That's right

00:47:54 ◼   ► Okay, you know good team

00:47:56 ◼   ► Hell of a year. Yeah

00:47:59 ◼   ► Well, it's just you know, I have no hard feelings. No, I'm just I'm just kidding

00:48:04 ◼   ► Congratulations

00:48:06 ◼   ► Get them next year, right? Yeah, that's what losers say. No

00:48:10 ◼   ► All right. All right. Yeah, Keith fans don't say get him next year. It keeps fans like to they're just angry for six months

00:48:17 ◼   ► Yes angry because they assume they assume win or lose. They're gonna get him next year. That's the thing

00:48:22 ◼   ► See, that's the difference other teams have fans where they're like, well, we didn't do it this year. Maybe next year

00:48:27 ◼   ► Yeah, the next year is assumed from the get-go. Anyway, it's this year and next year

00:48:32 ◼   ► Yeah, and then you're after that I mean, you know winning the World Series is good

00:48:36 ◼   ► but really you got to win three four five in a row before the Yankees will really

00:48:40 ◼   ► Really put you in

00:48:43 ◼   ► Alright, there's a funny thing, you know, there's a I don't know if the Red Sox fans do this

00:48:49 ◼   ► I don't want to go too long on sports

00:48:50 ◼   ► I know people get bothered but Yankees fans have always had there's there's real Yankees and not real Yankees and it's hard to team you mean

00:48:56 ◼   ► Exactly. Jeter's a real Yankee a lot not so much JG a rod is not a real Yankee

00:49:02 ◼   ► Although a rod is almost an asterisk in every category in every possible lab because he's been there for so long

00:49:08 ◼   ► And managed to win a one World Series and the one that he won he'd you know, he

00:49:14 ◼   ► Did he was unbelievable. He was really good

00:49:17 ◼   ► I mean, he was a key key player on the team Matt Sui was the MVP

00:49:21 ◼   ► But it could have been a rod right and for the whole playoff run. It was probably a rod

00:49:25 ◼   ► But it's not just like so Jeter came up through the system, you know and and farm system Mariano Rivera

00:49:34 ◼   ► I mean is clearly a real Yankee came up through the system Andy Pettit came up through the system

00:49:39 ◼   ► Posada came up through the system

00:49:41 ◼   ► But you don't have to so like a famous example of a guy who's everybody considers a real Yankee

00:49:47 ◼   ► But did not come up through the system. In fact didn't even win his first World Series with the team was Paul O'Neill

00:49:52 ◼   ► Remember Paul O'Neill? Yeah, absolutely

00:49:55 ◼   ► right fielder who did he win with before the Reds okay he played like he came up

00:50:01 ◼   ► while I don't know if he played for Pete Rose I don't think he he might have he

00:50:07 ◼   ► might have been like a kid playing with on Pete Rose Reds and I'd have to look

00:50:12 ◼   ► up when he started but he if not he came up on the Reds in like the late 80s and

00:50:18 ◼   ► I always loved him because he was a hothead he was a type of guy who if he's

00:50:21 ◼   ► If he struck out half the time when he'd strike out, he'd go down the clubhouse and take his bat to the Gatorade

00:50:27 ◼   ► Jug break the bad

00:50:30 ◼   ► Yeah, just he would just go in there and smash stuff and I always appreciate I always loved those guys

00:50:35 ◼   ► I was always a McEnroe fan loved McEnroe, right? Yeah, same type like a racket smasher

00:50:40 ◼   ► But he's a he's considered a real Yankee. Well get everybody and people will say like well, you know, what's the key?

00:50:45 ◼   ► What's the secret? You know, they say, you know when you see it, right?

00:50:48 ◼   ► It's like, you know, you see and guess what you got to win about three and four World Series, right?

00:50:52 ◼   ► Paul O'Neill won like four World Series with the Yankees. So of course, he's a real Yankee, right?

00:50:57 ◼   ► Not that hard

00:51:02 ◼   ► Big poppy real Red Sox

00:51:04 ◼   ► Absolutely. Do you started with the twins though? So right, right

00:51:08 ◼   ► I don't have to don't have to come up with the organization Pedroia real Red Sox. All right

00:51:12 ◼   ► Right because they signed Pedroia. It's like an 18 year contract something like that. All right

00:51:18 ◼   ► Jacoby Ellsbury not a real red sign maybe if he resigned you need a very signs. Yeah, absolutely

00:51:23 ◼   ► But if he takes a whole lot of money somewhere else then yeah, even even with two rings with the team

00:51:29 ◼   ► Pedro

00:51:32 ◼   ► Martinez yeah

00:51:33 ◼   ► Real red sock. Yeah, that's right

00:51:36 ◼   ► I mean now he came up from the Expos and he you know played for other teams

00:51:39 ◼   ► But I think I think you know 30 years from now, you know Pedro shows up at Fenway and everybody, you know

00:51:45 ◼   ► Hey, they're still gonna be inviting him, you know, well, how about how about one that's gonna

00:51:49 ◼   ► I mean this is gonna hurt you a little bit. How about Dave Roberts?

00:51:52 ◼   ► He was with the team for like half a season but that's you know, the biggest stolen base in the team's history

00:51:59 ◼   ► Yeah, that might be enough to earn it. I don't know

00:52:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think so

00:52:04 ◼   ► All right. All right. What else we got technology. Let's let's move off the bay. Let's do it

00:52:11 ◼   ► Did you see this story? I think I sent you like this story about it was in Businessweek a couple days ago

00:52:17 ◼   ► About the Steven Elop who's the Nokia CEO?

00:52:22 ◼   ► Nokia rather you used to work at Microsoft and

00:52:25 ◼   ► Microsoft has since announced an acquisition of Nokia's handset business. So he's he's coming back and before the whole balmer

00:52:33 ◼   ► Resignation thing was slated to take over like the devices wing of Microsoft which was going to be Nokia phones and Xbox

00:52:41 ◼   ► Right. So I looked at this, I looked at this briefly. What was, what was interesting about

00:52:46 ◼   ► it to you? Well, it's a Businessweek story that says that three sources have said this is what

00:52:52 ◼   ► ELOP would do. He would, here's how he'd run Microsoft. Well, in effect, here's how we would

00:52:58 ◼   ► change it. Because, you know, it sort of goes unsaid, but everybody, you have to assume that

00:53:04 ◼   ► whoever is coming in to take over Microsoft has got to do something different. Because if they're

00:53:09 ◼   ► aren't gonna do something different why'd they squeeze balmer out so elop

00:53:12 ◼   ► has come out I mean he hasn't come out and said it but he had three sources

00:53:15 ◼   ► went to Bloomberg and said that he would he would stop using office as a way to

00:53:22 ◼   ► keep people on windows and windows phone and instead take office to as many

00:53:29 ◼   ► devices as the company could and I think the main one let's face it is got to be

00:53:34 ◼   ► iOS it's right spiciness Mac right and and the Mac just doesn't measure in enough numbers to

00:53:42 ◼   ► write in terms of percentage right and I say this is as a guy you know me a longtime Mac user who

00:53:47 ◼   ► uses a Mac every day speaking to a guy whose company is Mac software yeah right is you know

00:53:52 ◼   ► you what like 90 something percent Mac software you guys have some iOS stuff but a couple iOS

00:53:58 ◼   ► well we have one Windows app as well but yeah but I mean we're a Mac software company right that

00:54:02 ◼   ► would be my description. Right. You guys could stop making the other ones and your business

00:54:06 ◼   ► would be the same. And if you stop making Mac software, you'd be in a new business.

00:54:09 ◼   ► Very different. Right. But you know, the grand number of potential Mac office users is just

00:54:17 ◼   ► not that big. And they're, you know, and they're, but they're also for 20 some years have done

00:54:21 ◼   ► very well. Office for Mac is very popular on Mac.

00:54:24 ◼   ► And very expensive. Right. But it's got to be a decent profit center. But it's just compared

00:54:28 ◼   ► to iOS. Well, you know, do you remember there used to be and I think it's the sort of thing

00:54:32 ◼   ► where you kind of have to take the analysts word for it because nobody really unveils

00:54:35 ◼   ► it. But it used to be said, and I think that the math kind of holds up, that Microsoft

00:54:42 ◼   ► traditionally profits more per Mac sold than they do per PC sold because the percentage

00:54:53 ◼   ► of people who buy Office for Mac multiplied by the price of Office for Mac is greater

00:54:59 ◼   ► than...

00:55:00 ◼   ► **Matt Stauffer** Is higher than Windows.

00:55:01 ◼   ► cost of Windows that gets light the version that gets licensed to the OEMs

00:55:06 ◼   ► because almost nobody right yeah normally Windows users don't buy the

00:55:10 ◼   ► hundred and twenty nine dollar copy of Windows they buy they never upgrade they

00:55:14 ◼   ► just get the version that comes with the PC and install the free updates or

00:55:17 ◼   ► service packs whatever they call them right and eventually buy a new machine

00:55:21 ◼   ► that also comes with a licensed yeah right and a lot of them if they have

00:55:24 ◼   ► office it came licensed to them or if they have it at work almost certainly

00:55:29 ◼   ► it's you know some kind of site license and it's way lower whereas a lot of Mac users are consumers and by the

00:55:35 ◼   ► hundreds-whatever dollar version of office right, right

00:55:39 ◼   ► Well, so that so the plan the biggest part of the plan like you were saying was to have office be everywhere instead of saying

00:55:46 ◼   ► Hey, if you want office, you probably want windows, right? And if you don't want windows

00:55:50 ◼   ► Maybe you can get it on your Mac. And is it on anything else? It must be on Windows Phone

00:55:54 ◼   ► Yeah, but if you want office, you probably want a Windows platform or maybe a Mac, but it's certainly not on but even with Windows phone

00:56:01 ◼   ► It's about propping up their it's used as a competitive cudgel to prop up their platforms the OS itself. You're right

00:56:08 ◼   ► And you know, I I guess they mentioned Android

00:56:13 ◼   ► I mean there were I don't even think there've been whispers before that they'd even

00:56:15 ◼   ► Considered taking office to Android and I think that that opens a whole can of worms in terms of the whole

00:56:21 ◼   ► documentation and how many Android devices are even capable of it etc etc, but

00:56:25 ◼   ► Regardless, it's the the article made it sound as though that's what ELOP would do

00:56:29 ◼   ► But like you said this was based on a bunch. It was not him

00:56:33 ◼   ► You know, they did not speak to him supposedly at least but they did say it was three different sources

00:56:38 ◼   ► And and this is Bloomberg who's I mean we were just talking about the New York Times not being

00:56:42 ◼   ► Terribly reputable at the moment, but this is a relatively reputable news source very I'd say highly reputable

00:56:48 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, everybody makes mistakes and you know, I mean, I don't know if there's anybody with a perfect record, but

00:56:53 ◼   ► And the reporters are long, you know, I know one of them was I remember was Peter Burrows and Peter Burrows is aces

00:56:59 ◼   ► I mean, he's is a guy. I mean, I've never met him personally, but I know I you know decades of experience

00:57:04 ◼   ► You know reporting on this industry

00:57:06 ◼   ► So is it possible that three people

00:57:10 ◼   ► Liled to Businessweek reporters, I guess but I I would bet my bottom dollar that three people said it and

00:57:18 ◼   ► Business week is not the type of place where three people

00:57:20 ◼   ► Who can't verify that they actually know Steven? He right if I call them up. It's not gonna create a story, right? You know if

00:57:28 ◼   ► Paul 67 at gmail.com

00:57:30 ◼   ► Sends an email and says I was

00:57:33 ◼   ► Having drinks with Steven. You know yeah, I was sitting next to a guy who looked like Steven. He laughs at McDonald's

00:57:40 ◼   ► And he says he's gonna. He's gonna sell the Xbox division

00:57:45 ◼   ► No, I mean somebody said this now, you know, it's a me that's fascinating though and it to me the more I think about it

00:57:51 ◼   ► the more it shows

00:57:53 ◼   ► just how

00:57:55 ◼   ► How bad the Microsoft situation has gotten you know that they they've gotten to the point now where like

00:58:03 ◼   ► Prospective CEOs are fighting it out in public like this is in the in the media. Yeah, like behind the scenes

00:58:09 ◼   ► This is obviously contentious. This is not any kind

00:58:13 ◼   ► this is so definitely not a planned transition. Right. Right. That the infighting has become

00:58:19 ◼   ► public. Well, to the point where, to the point where recently they were talking to, the media

00:58:24 ◼   ► was talking to Bill Gates, saying like, "Hey, are you going to pull the Steve Jobs and come back and

00:58:28 ◼   ► save your company?" Because, and they asked that because it seems like they may be needed. Right.

00:58:34 ◼   ► I think he said no, though. He was pretty explicit in saying he wasn't going to do that, so. Yeah,

00:58:39 ◼   ► But he did say in I just had a big interview with somebody I linked to it this week. I forget where it was was it

00:58:46 ◼   ► Wired I don't know Gates had an interview with oh is the Financial Times

00:58:51 ◼   ► He had a big there was a Financial Times had a real long profile of him mostly about his charitable work, right?

00:58:58 ◼   ► But they addressed that and he did say though that he he is

00:59:02 ◼   ► Spending and has been spending a lot more than the one day a week

00:59:06 ◼   ► Right more time than he'd planned to when he said I'm leaving and that he definitely plans to you know

00:59:13 ◼   ► Have an active role with whoever they choose as the next CEO

00:59:17 ◼   ► So it might be real active because it's him

00:59:20 ◼   ► I you know and he said it wasn't going to be him, but I don't know

00:59:24 ◼   ► I mean, it's you know at a certain level. You've got to make a choice, you know, it's it's like

00:59:29 ◼   ► somebody's got to be the coach of the team and it's like

00:59:33 ◼   ► When you've got a former coach who's still working in the organization

00:59:37 ◼   ► It's like, you know

00:59:38 ◼   ► You've got to decide you can come back and be the coach again

00:59:40 ◼   ► or you kind of have to give the ball to the new coach and you know, let him run you can't sort of half be

00:59:46 ◼   ► There and he's in your shadow the whole time, right?

00:59:48 ◼   ► Somebody's in charge and if you want if you want to be in charge then take the job. I

00:59:52 ◼   ► think I don't think it works having a

00:59:56 ◼   ► Somebody like chairman, right? I'm right. I mean you can be there. What's the phrase eminence grisé?

01:00:02 ◼   ► You know right the you know the advisor behind the scenes if you're there as an advisor, you know like or like when?

01:00:09 ◼   ► when Marlon Brando became

01:00:12 ◼   ► His son's consigliere right he didn't he wasn't the godfather. He wasn't running the family

01:00:18 ◼   ► He was there as an advisor to his son. You can be that guy, but then you know

01:00:22 ◼   ► Everybody knows Michael is still in charge, right? I

01:00:25 ◼   ► Just think in it. You know and to belabor the godfather argument

01:00:31 ◼   ► Go ahead. There's the scene. It's one of the just one of the best scenes because it's so simple but so

01:00:37 ◼   ► Logical that this is the way it's got to be there's the scene in the first one

01:00:40 ◼   ► Where they're having a meeting and sunny

01:00:46 ◼   ► Speaks up to sort of you know

01:00:49 ◼   ► object to something and show that there's an argument in the family and over which way to proceed with the

01:00:55 ◼   ► like the drugs and stuff and then they come out of the meeting and Brando is you know, like

01:01:01 ◼   ► furious he's like you don't ever let anybody see that you know the fight you

01:01:06 ◼   ► know you you know we do our fighting in private right right they were meeting

01:01:09 ◼   ► with someone else right right cuz then that's why they you know this and ends

01:01:13 ◼   ► up that's why they killed Sonny it gives the other people insight into what

01:01:17 ◼   ► you're actually arguing about inside the the organization right and that to me is

01:01:23 ◼   ► like what this elop thing going public with a plan a pretty bold plan to you

01:01:28 ◼   ► know to focus on office rather than focus on their own platforms and you

01:01:34 ◼   ► know it said that he'd consider selling the Xbox division or splitting it off you

01:01:38 ◼   ► know whatever you want to call it making that public is unseemly to me right

01:01:45 ◼   ► right and what and what what well I mean I guess that's the question is what is

01:01:50 ◼   ► the benefit to doing that because if you're if you're interested in the job

01:01:53 ◼   ► If you want to be the new CEO of the company, you can present this plan to the board, right?

01:01:59 ◼   ► He's a high enough level person who can say like I need to speak to the board. This is what I would do

01:02:03 ◼   ► He doesn't need to use you know, the the media to do that

01:02:07 ◼   ► So what's the benefit to him of this leak? I

01:02:11 ◼   ► Don't know think about that this thing about that

01:02:13 ◼   ► I want to finish the show back on this topic, but I'm gonna take a moment right now and thank our third sponsor

01:02:18 ◼   ► is a great great app great service its flow

01:02:21 ◼   ► FLOW from meta lab design flow is a task management app

01:02:27 ◼   ► built for teams that want to get more done use flow to manage tasks

01:02:32 ◼   ► have discussions share files

01:02:35 ◼   ► get updates about the work that other members of your team are doing

01:02:39 ◼   ► you'll spend less time in meetings and more time actually getting stuff done

01:02:42 ◼   ► thousands of teams of all kinds use flow every day

01:02:46 ◼   ► and it's free to try for 30 days at getflow.com. They have an iPad app, they have an iPhone app,

01:02:55 ◼   ► and it looks great. Both of the apps look really great. The website looks great. They have a Mac

01:03:01 ◼   ► app. It's one of those apps that lives in the menu bar. Click it and you get a list of all the updates.

01:03:09 ◼   ► iPhone app iPad app website Mac app

01:03:12 ◼   ► Great way for teams to collaborate and share do you have you guys don't have meetings you guys don't have any employees who work together

01:03:19 ◼   ► Do you?

01:03:20 ◼   ► In the same room you mean now we're all all remote ten of us that are all remote exactly and I think this is not

01:03:26 ◼   ► A tool we've used, but it's I'm looking at the website right now, and I'm already interested exactly

01:03:30 ◼   ► It's but it's you know having meetings and stuff like that. Just kill you okay? You need you need something like this

01:03:36 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know if it's flow or not, but you're nuts if you don't check it out. I think it looks great

01:03:39 ◼   ► really cool-looking apps

01:03:42 ◼   ► Get flow calm

01:03:45 ◼   ► I can't I don't see the I'm with you. I don't see the angle on what what this does

01:03:51 ◼   ► There must be something now and I only thing I can think of and it is something to the effect

01:03:55 ◼   ► I like you said obviously if he's actually being considered for the job and it would appear that he is of

01:04:01 ◼   ► Course, he's gonna present his plan to the board

01:04:04 ◼   ► the only thing I can think of is if a big chunk of the board is resistant to this plan and

01:04:12 ◼   ► famous it and and then there's public right support for it maybe because two people who

01:04:22 ◼   ► are on the board are guys there's a guy named Bill Gates and there's another guy named Steve

01:04:26 ◼   ► Ballmer and I think combined Ballmer and Gates control like just under 10% of the shares of the

01:04:33 ◼   ► company I think gates hos like including public as well yeah yeah right and so

01:04:39 ◼   ► you know obviously their board seats are I think more influential than others

01:04:47 ◼   ► because they you know they actually control stock - I only thing I can think

01:04:52 ◼   ► of is that there's some you know that that ELOP thinks that by leaking this in

01:04:57 ◼   ► the public there's a big chunk of other shareholders who agree that that's a

01:05:01 ◼   ► good way to go. That's the way to do it. Right. And that, you know, that they can put pressure on the

01:05:07 ◼   ► board to hire someone who's going to go in that direction before they make the decision.

01:05:14 ◼   ► That's my thought. My thought is that Elop could see the board is sort of against him,

01:05:19 ◼   ► going another way, and he wants the job enough and thinks that by going public with it,

01:05:25 ◼   ► he can shift the board's thinking. He's at least got a shot at it. It's the only way I can,

01:05:29 ◼   ► it makes any sense to me. Well, so I was, you mentioned this to me and I looked at this,

01:05:34 ◼   ► and I don't know too much about him. So have you looked at his Wikipedia page? No. Let

01:05:39 ◼   ► me read you like three sentences of the opening paragraph of Steven Elop's Wikipedia page.

01:05:45 ◼   ► During the three years Elop was Nokia CEO, Nokia revenues fell 40%, Nokia profits fell

01:05:52 ◼   ► 95%, Nokia market share collapsed in smartphones from 34% to 3.4%, Nokia's credit rating

01:06:01 ◼   ► went from "A" to "junk", Nokia's share price dropped 60% in value, and Nokia's

01:06:09 ◼   ► market cap lost $13 billion in value.

01:06:13 ◼   ► The Financial Times calculated that Nokia shareholders ended up paying ELOP a bonus

01:06:17 ◼   ► of 1 million euros for every 1.5 billion in market cap that he was able to destroy while

01:06:24 ◼   ► Nokia's CEO." I mean, that's just brutal.

01:06:31 ◼   ► That's pretty… That is brutal. That's a good way to put it. I mean, that seems to

01:06:36 ◼   ► have been written by someone with a bit of a point of view. But not necessarily inaccurate.

01:06:41 ◼   ► I almost feel like it's to Wikipedia's detriment that they… You know, like, those

01:06:46 ◼   ► Those are all statements of fact.

01:06:48 ◼   ► Right.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Right.

01:06:50 ◼   ► But they are put together in a persuasive way that I feel like Nokia or that—not Nokia—that

01:06:55 ◼   ► Wikipedia sometimes tries to avoid.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Right.

01:06:57 ◼   ► They want to have that neutral—yeah, they don't want to be saying he's good or bad,

01:07:00 ◼   ► but this is clearly saying he was not good for Nokia.

01:07:04 ◼   ► You know, the—what's the—I forget if it's a Paul Krugman thing or who, but somebody

01:07:10 ◼   ► has said in US politics that the facts tend to have a liberal bias.

01:07:13 ◼   ► Right.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Right.

01:07:15 ◼   ► say here that the facts seem to have an anti-Steven Elop bias.

01:07:20 ◼   ► Anti-Elop bias, absolutely.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Yeah, that doesn't seem good. It doesn't really seem like a good way to get an upgrade to

01:07:27 ◼   ► a bigger CEO job at a bigger company.

01:07:29 ◼   ► No, he might want to have someone sanitize his Wikipedia page if at all possible. If

01:07:34 ◼   ► he's got these people leaking for him, he can have somebody edit his Wikipedia page.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Right. And who knows? I don't know. This is not just conspiracy. This is like a conspiracy

01:07:44 ◼   ► of what I believe would be amount to some sort of securities fraud. Although, who knows,

01:07:49 ◼   ► you know, it's obviously international. I don't even know what jurisdiction it would

01:07:53 ◼   ► fall under since Nokia is a, you know, what's the country they're in?

01:07:58 ◼   ► John: Finland, right?

01:07:59 ◼   ► Dave: Finland, yeah.

01:08:00 ◼   ► John; Yeah.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Dave; Is the allegation that because he came from Microsoft.

01:08:07 ◼   ► John; Right. He was at Microsoft before he went to be the CEO of Nokia.

01:08:10 ◼   ► Right and Nokia went there had an existing. I just saw somebody on Twitter the other day

01:08:16 ◼   ► I was in an at reply exchange with a couple people and they said something, you know

01:08:20 ◼   ► Somebody had said something about that

01:08:22 ◼   ► You know it was just seems like more and more that it was a mistake for no key to go with Windows Phone and they said

01:08:26 ◼   ► Well, hey, what were they gonna do go with they couldn't otherwise they'd be on Symbian

01:08:30 ◼   ► No, they had a thing called Migo and they even released one phone with it

01:08:34 ◼   ► They had an you know, and it looked kind of interesting

01:08:37 ◼   ► I mean, it was it was a future looking platform. Symbian was their old platform and their Migo platform was their

01:08:42 ◼   ► Potential competitor to Android and iOS right and who knows maybe it would have been even worse

01:08:47 ◼   ► But it was definitely not just like a slap of paint on Symbian. It was all new. It was a truly new

01:08:52 ◼   ► System so that you know that would have been the alternative

01:08:56 ◼   ► But he came in and said no, we're not doing Symbian. We're not doing right Migo. We're doing Windows Phone the allegation though

01:09:03 ◼   ► I guess is the conspiracy allegation is that he effectively never stopped working for Microsoft

01:09:07 ◼   ► Right and that his job was to his job was to do what he did which is drive their market cap down so that when?

01:09:14 ◼   ► Microsoft bought them it would be cheaper. I

01:09:16 ◼   ► Mean, I don't even know

01:09:18 ◼   ► Is that a crime? I don't know. I don't know what you would get convicted of for that though

01:09:24 ◼   ► I don't know and the other thing too that was so funny was that came out was the the the severance not severance package

01:09:30 ◼   ► but like the

01:09:31 ◼   ► He got a huge bonus

01:09:32 ◼   ► That's what the right that was talking about was he got like a 19 million euro bonus

01:09:37 ◼   ► Right as the company was getting sold to Microsoft for pennies, right and it's all written in his contract

01:09:43 ◼   ► So like if you're the board at Nokia when you hired him when his lawyers come to you with this contract

01:09:49 ◼   ► this is he would like to get a 20 million dollar bonus if he drives the

01:09:52 ◼   ► company market cap to nothing and

01:09:56 ◼   ► Revenues shrivel up such that the company needs to sell the hands say let's just say the handset business

01:10:03 ◼   ► To possibly do a company right Microsoft like that

01:10:08 ◼   ► Revenue and cash flow are down and they need to sell the handset business. Well, then he would like a 20 million dollar

01:10:13 ◼   ► Bonus in that situation and they they obviously said sure

01:10:17 ◼   ► I don't understand it. I just know enough about it to laugh about it, right?

01:10:23 ◼   ► But there is a case that you could argue that if there was some kind of wink wink nudge nudge, you know

01:10:27 ◼   ► Hey, here's what I think I'll do if I get this Nokia gig that you could see how maybe at Microsoft

01:10:32 ◼   ► They do think that he did a good job. I right right. He was successful in in

01:10:37 ◼   ► tearing that company apart right and the fact that they're even

01:10:41 ◼   ► considering him

01:10:43 ◼   ► for the CEO gig lends credence to that because

01:10:46 ◼   ► Otherwise why you know if that's his record with his record. Absolutely. Yeah

01:10:52 ◼   ► You know, what's his pitch? I really hope to do the same thing with Microsoft that I

01:10:57 ◼   ► did with Nokia. I think my track record speaks for itself.

01:11:01 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:11:02 ◼   ► Right, right, absolutely.

01:11:04 ◼   ► I'll have Microsoft sold to Google within three years.

01:11:10 ◼   ► For pennies on the dollar once again.

01:11:11 ◼   ► And I would like a huge bonus when that happens.

01:11:13 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:11:14 ◼   ► Well, so, I mean, so do you have a prediction on this? Who's the next CEO going to be?

01:11:20 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be the guy from Ford.

01:11:23 ◼   ► I really do, just because of who's leaked it.

01:11:26 ◼   ► You know, that it's, I think it was the Wall Street Journal

01:11:30 ◼   ► and you know, it doesn't make any sense to me.

01:11:34 ◼   ► I mean, but I don't know the guy.

01:11:35 ◼   ► And I don't wanna say that just because

01:11:37 ◼   ► his primary experience is as the CEO

01:11:41 ◼   ► of Ford Motor Company, that it means he couldn't be

01:11:44 ◼   ► a good CEO of Microsoft.

01:11:47 ◼   ► But, you know, and I don't know enough about him

01:11:50 ◼   ► say, but it just doesn't seem to me that a guy who ran Ford would be good at anything

01:11:55 ◼   ► that Microsoft needs.

01:11:56 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Well, yeah, I mean, you don't see great tech CEOs come out of the automotive industry.

01:12:02 ◼   ► I don't know if there's any precedent for that, so…

01:12:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I just really think that the CEO of the company that's in the consumer space

01:12:10 ◼   ► at all, and Microsoft wants to be.

01:12:13 ◼   ► You have to have some ability to judge.

01:12:18 ◼   ► You know, like Steve Jobs wasn't a designer.

01:12:22 ◼   ► He couldn't sit down and design things.

01:12:24 ◼   ► I mean, there's the famous story where he designed the calculator app or whatever.

01:12:27 ◼   ► But that wasn't where he came from.

01:12:29 ◼   ► His forte, yeah.

01:12:30 ◼   ► He was a judge of design, though.

01:12:32 ◼   ► And I know Tim Cook doesn't do the same thing that Jobs did.

01:12:35 ◼   ► But Tim Cook, I do think he had decades of experience at Apple at building these devices.

01:12:43 ◼   ► very intimately familiar with what an Apple device and service is.

01:12:50 ◼   ► Right, whereas if you brought in somebody from the outside.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Larry Page is a great example. I mean, the guy literally was one of two people who've

01:12:56 ◼   ► just started Google. I mean, say what you want about what Google's done and how Larry

01:13:01 ◼   ► Page has changed Google while he's been CEO. But he clearly understands Google. I mean,

01:13:08 ◼   ► he couldn't argue otherwise. I just don't see how a guy from Ford really understands

01:13:12 ◼   ► Microsoft but I could be wrong but I do I think that's who it's gonna be okay

01:13:16 ◼   ► what's his name Malala or something like that yeah I don't know I saw that but I

01:13:19 ◼   ► didn't yeah I didn't catch the name who do you think what is he is he leading

01:13:23 ◼   ► the Vegas odds right now Ford's Alan Mulally there you go that's who I think

01:13:30 ◼   ► I think if Vegas posted odds on it I think it would be him well somebody had

01:13:33 ◼   ► somebody had odds on this didn't they a few months ago hmm somebody was somebody

01:13:38 ◼   ► was posting odds on who the next CEO is gonna be and I saw somebody will take

01:13:41 ◼   ► your money on that bet John here's so Reuters had an exclusive this is just

01:13:46 ◼   ► googling this Reuters had an exclusive four days ago that they've narrowed the

01:13:50 ◼   ► list to three internal candidates including former Skype CEO Tony Bates I

01:13:59 ◼   ► guess he promises to build to bring Skype's user interface clarity to all

01:14:06 ◼   ► of Microsoft's products. Jesus.

01:14:09 ◼   ► That's in the article?

01:14:11 ◼   ► No, I made that point.

01:14:12 ◼   ► Okay. Okay.

01:14:13 ◼   ► Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Nokia CEO Steven Elop, Skype CEO Tony Bates. So I guess he's in Microsoft

01:14:22 ◼   ► right now, responsible for the business department.

01:14:23 ◼   ► Yeah, when they acquired them, he got some executive vice president type position, I

01:14:27 ◼   ► think.

01:14:28 ◼   ► Oh, and another one. Satya, I hope I'm pronouncing it.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Oh, you're going to butcher it.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Well, no, the last name is easier Nadella. Okay, but I'm not sure if that's a

01:14:38 ◼   ► Man or a woman I'm gonna guess it's a man

01:14:41 ◼   ► It seems like it's pretty safe bet

01:14:43 ◼   ► Unfortunately, yeah. Yeah. But anyway, they sat here Nadella is right now

01:14:49 ◼   ► Microsoft's cloud and enterprise chief

01:14:52 ◼   ► Right. Okay. So those are the four according to Reuters

01:14:56 ◼   ► Alright put your go go put your money down in Vegas. We'll see who do I hope it is though boy

01:15:02 ◼   ► I don't know. That's a good I I don't you know I would like to see Microsoft do well

01:15:06 ◼   ► so I got it. I don't know does ELOP I worry is is

01:15:09 ◼   ► somehow like a

01:15:11 ◼   ► It's like a poison pill in human form yeah like that his only actual ability is the ability to further his own career

01:15:18 ◼   ► And just and tear down companies while he does it right you know so I kind of I'm rooting against him because I don't want it

01:15:24 ◼   ► I want to see Microsoft come out with something awesome. I want him to be good

01:15:28 ◼   ► Yeah, there's there's really so you mentioned that the mail route guys wanted to make make it clear that they did not work at Microsoft

01:15:34 ◼   ► That rivalry really does not exist anymore. No, I mean Windows Phone is

01:15:38 ◼   ► Interesting and it doesn't seem like it's ever going to take off and I I don't know how much money they can throw at it

01:15:43 ◼   ► A lot but it hasn't worked so far. No

01:15:46 ◼   ► But I mean where that rivalry just you know, it's not interesting at all anymore. Yeah, somebody had a good tweet today

01:15:52 ◼   ► I'm so sorry

01:15:54 ◼   ► I just remembered the tweet, but I don't remember who it was and I don't have time to look it up

01:15:57 ◼   ► but that they're, they're just, you could see how they're confused because on the one

01:16:02 ◼   ► hand they're competing against a pretty good OS and we're just talking about mobile, which

01:16:07 ◼   ► is Android. They're competing against Android, which is pretty good and totally free.

01:16:11 ◼   ► And free to anyone who wants it.

01:16:13 ◼   ► And on the other side, they're competing against a company that builds the whole stack, hardware,

01:16:18 ◼   ► software, and integrates it all. And so you can see how they're confused and seem to be

01:16:24 ◼   ► trying to do something in between those two.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I mean, they should be the Google in this scenario, right?

01:16:29 ◼   ► - Well, I would think so.

01:16:30 ◼   ► Here's what I think though.

01:16:31 ◼   ► I think that the thing that that tweet misses,

01:16:33 ◼   ► whoever it was who wrote it,

01:16:36 ◼   ► if you listen to the show,

01:16:37 ◼   ► I don't even know what the odds are of that,

01:16:38 ◼   ► but I apologize for not remembering it.

01:16:39 ◼   ► But I think the problem is that the problem with Android

01:16:42 ◼   ► from Microsoft's perspective isn't even that

01:16:44 ◼   ► it's pretty good.

01:16:45 ◼   ► The problem with it is that it's exactly

01:16:47 ◼   ► what the customer wants.

01:16:49 ◼   ► And the customer is not the consumer.

01:16:51 ◼   ► The customer is the carriers.

01:16:53 ◼   ► - The carriers, yeah.

01:16:54 ◼   ► - And companies like Samsung,

01:16:56 ◼   ► where they get to do whatever the hell they want with it.

01:16:59 ◼   ► Right?

01:17:00 ◼   ► That's the big thing with Android that is so appealing to them is, "You want to put

01:17:05 ◼   ► your own crapware on it?

01:17:06 ◼   ► Go ahead."

01:17:07 ◼   ► Well, there wasn't, didn't, maybe you had this link.

01:17:10 ◼   ► I know I saw it somewhere with it.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Microsoft is making an f-ton of money on Android, right?

01:17:16 ◼   ► You can say the f-word.

01:17:17 ◼   ► Okay.

01:17:18 ◼   ► They're making a fuck-ton of money on Android off the patents that they own, right?

01:17:22 ◼   ► Somebody said, an analyst said that it would be, it was $2 billion a year.

01:17:26 ◼   ► Right. I mean, that's a lot of money, especially like, I don't know what Windows, I mean, it's

01:17:30 ◼   ► not a huge amount of money in the scheme of this, obviously.

01:17:34 ◼   ► And like I wrote, I wrote when I linked to it, take it with your usual grain of salt

01:17:38 ◼   ► that some analysts said it. I've never heard of the guy, who knows, you know, a lot, but

01:17:43 ◼   ► you can make it. So let's say somebody else, I've heard that the figure is $5 a phone.

01:17:50 ◼   ► And you know, that's a lot of money when you're talking about, you know, the more price sensitive

01:17:56 ◼   ► platform and and for no work

01:17:58 ◼   ► I mean, that's really the and it's and it's also not every Android phone. So like the ones that are sold in China

01:18:04 ◼   ► Yeah, good luck getting you

01:18:06 ◼   ► patent licenses on those and it's clearly a lot but you know

01:18:11 ◼   ► How do you get so are there 400 million Android phones sold in the West?

01:18:17 ◼   ► In the patent respecting countries. Yeah, I don't know that sounds like too many

01:18:23 ◼   ► 400 million sounds too many and you have to admit five if if it is five dollars a phone. That's a lot

01:18:28 ◼   ► I number that's a high number to pay in licensing fees for no

01:18:32 ◼   ► Like I don't know about no work. But well, I mean the work is done up front. They're not doing any continuing work, right?

01:18:39 ◼   ► They're not even licensing code

01:18:41 ◼   ► They're just licensing the right to have code that does these whatever these things are. Yes slide unlock or whatever it is

01:18:48 ◼   ► It's a lot of money to pay in licensing for the company that didn't do any of the programming, right?

01:18:52 ◼   ► And it would have to be if it is five dollars a phone

01:18:55 ◼   ► Which I think is a lot there would have to be four hundred million devices a year to be two billion

01:19:00 ◼   ► And I've forgotten how to multiply no, that's right. So I don't know I'd say take it with a grain of salt. Maybe it's less

01:19:06 ◼   ► But if it's five dollars a phone it could be

01:19:09 ◼   ► 200 million devices right right. I mean that sounds I mean

01:19:14 ◼   ► The the real point is they're making money off something that even if Android succeeds

01:19:19 ◼   ► they're somehow being brought along with it in a way that is very strange as far as a platform

01:19:26 ◼   ► rivalry goes. Right. And I would think that that might be, you know, that might be one of those

01:19:32 ◼   ► things too, where you enter into that whole shipped versus sold debate, that maybe they get

01:19:37 ◼   ► their licensing fees no matter what. So like if... On a shipped phone versus a sold phone? Yeah,

01:19:41 ◼   ► you know, like so like companies that have had to take write downs, you know, on exist, you know,

01:19:46 ◼   ► on unsold devices and stuff.

01:19:49 ◼   ► And I'm not so sure that if you had the license,

01:19:52 ◼   ► the thing that, you know, you might have to pay that

01:19:53 ◼   ► when you make the device.

01:19:55 ◼   ► - Right.

01:19:56 ◼   ► - So I don't know.

01:19:57 ◼   ► It is kind of, and I do think, you know,

01:20:00 ◼   ► I think there's definitely an argument to be made

01:20:02 ◼   ► that whatever the figure is for Microsoft's Android

01:20:06 ◼   ► patent royalties.

01:20:08 ◼   ► - Profits, yeah.

01:20:09 ◼   ► - That it's greater than the Windows phone profits

01:20:12 ◼   ► because they're probably losing money on Windows.

01:20:14 ◼   ► - I mean, they have to be.

01:20:15 ◼   ► - Right.

01:20:16 ◼   ► popular it is they're advertising it more than that right and and they're

01:20:20 ◼   ► clearly willing to do that for a couple years while they try and make it a

01:20:24 ◼   ► viable platform right so that Android is profitable for Microsoft to some degree

01:20:28 ◼   ► maybe it's not two billion a year but it's you know must be in the hundreds of

01:20:32 ◼   ► millions hundreds of millions and Windows Phone is a law center right so I

01:20:39 ◼   ► don't know maybe you know maybe the ELOP argument you know I'm not even say I

01:20:43 ◼   ► I didn't even get into that like whether I actually think that's a good plan, right?

01:20:47 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, you were just talking about the leaks and well what I loved was and you mentioned this

01:20:51 ◼   ► It was the Microsoft response to it. Oh, that's

01:20:54 ◼   ► Right, right. This is right up your alley. You should read that read that. Oh, I don't have right in front of it

01:21:02 ◼   ► Let me pull it up

01:21:04 ◼   ► This is we I can't believe I almost let the show end without I was gonna say yeah

01:21:09 ◼   ► I can't believe you you nearly missed this

01:21:12 ◼   ► Here we go. Yeah, I got it. So it's a is Frank Shaw who's a Microsoft spokesman

01:21:17 ◼   ► He said in response to the Bloomberg article that supposedly referenced these three sources who none of whom were elop

01:21:25 ◼   ► But who knows who they were? He said we appreciate Bloomberg's foray into fiction and look forward to future episodes. I

01:21:32 ◼   ► Love Frank Shaw, maybe I should have Frank Shaw on the talk show

01:21:38 ◼   ► Absolutely he and it's only him. I mean, I'm not saying he he's the only PR person at Microsoft

01:21:44 ◼   ► But he's the guy who when the press

01:21:46 ◼   ► Calls that he you know, he's almost always the spokesperson I see and he just lets it fly

01:21:53 ◼   ► He answers the phone and he gives a real answer. Yeah

01:21:56 ◼   ► He gives a real answer and no other company of that size does that certainly not Apple, right?

01:22:02 ◼   ► Well Apple in my mind. I don't know that Apple has any spokespeople. I don't know that that role exists at Apple

01:22:07 ◼   ► because it's always declined comment the Apple has oh well I guess they don't

01:22:13 ◼   ► have spokespeople they hate PR people they have a ton of PR people and right

01:22:17 ◼   ► they never respond to anything right it's the easiest job in the world right

01:22:23 ◼   ► I don't know that I've ever seen a story that Apple has responded responded I

01:22:29 ◼   ► guess I feel like maybe yeah there's a couple of cases I'm trying to think I

01:22:34 ◼   ► know, Trudy… It's like in an Antennagate kind of scenario

01:22:41 ◼   ► where they have to say something, they cannot just sit there and not say anything. But most

01:22:46 ◼   ► of the time, like this story that we were talking about at the top of the show, they

01:22:50 ◼   ► didn't respond to that. They're not going to say anything about that.

01:22:53 ◼   ► And when they do respond, it is, you know, there's… Like with a touch ID thing, I

01:22:59 ◼   ► I think that they gave some kind of response

01:23:01 ◼   ► to the allegation when those jokers came out with the,

01:23:06 ◼   ► if you get a 1200 DPI fingerprint.

01:23:10 ◼   ► - Which is like a phenomenally high quality fingerprint.

01:23:12 ◼   ► - Right, and you have the expertise to take that

01:23:16 ◼   ► and print it on special, a laser printer,

01:23:19 ◼   ► jury rigged to use extra toner,

01:23:22 ◼   ► and then imprint it onto a piece of silicon,

01:23:26 ◼   ► and then use that, you can then unlock the phone.

01:23:29 ◼   ► And I'm not even saying that that's not interesting,

01:23:32 ◼   ► and it's cool that somebody showed that you could do it,

01:23:34 ◼   ► and that a pro, somebody who's a professional

01:23:37 ◼   ► at faking fingerprints,

01:23:38 ◼   ► which I'm sure is a real security issue,

01:23:41 ◼   ► could, that would fake a touch ID sensor.

01:23:44 ◼   ► The issue is, is that actually easier

01:23:46 ◼   ► than learning somebody's four-digit password?

01:23:48 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

01:23:49 ◼   ► - But anyway, I do think that somebody at Apple

01:23:51 ◼   ► gave a statement on that,

01:23:52 ◼   ► but the statement was just,

01:23:54 ◼   ► touch ideas designed for the security and convenience of iPhone customers

01:23:58 ◼   ► right it was a boring yet nothing it's nothing statement whereas right Frank

01:24:02 ◼   ► Shaw will get out there and say that's frickin ridiculous nobody's gonna do that

01:24:06 ◼   ► or yeah I you know that sounds like a great plot point for the next uh...

01:24:11 ◼   ► oceans fourteen right right right

01:24:13 ◼   ► you know in the meantime in the real world you know windows you we've made

01:24:16 ◼   ► phones more secure right

01:24:18 ◼   ► uh...

01:24:19 ◼   ► love the guy he's he also let it fly on twitter too

01:24:22 ◼   ► And it's not like just under, you know, it's under his own name.

01:24:25 ◼   ► You know, it's like Frank X. Shaw is like his Twitter handle.

01:24:28 ◼   ► And that's cool too.

01:24:29 ◼   ► He's even got a cool middle initial.

01:24:31 ◼   ► - He's got a middle initial, yeah.

01:24:32 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:24:33 ◼   ► I mean, almost everybody should have X

01:24:35 ◼   ► as their middle initial.

01:24:36 ◼   ► - Well, I think you'd lose a little of the cache, then.

01:24:38 ◼   ► - I guess you would.

01:24:39 ◼   ► Oh, well, not everybody should.

01:24:41 ◼   ► I would say everybody would sound cooler if they did.

01:24:44 ◼   ► Paul X. Kefauzis.

01:24:46 ◼   ► - Oh, that's sweet.

01:24:48 ◼   ► - That is pretty sweet.

01:24:49 ◼   ► It's kind of a mouthful to say, but it would look cool.

01:24:52 ◼   ► right right john x_ and john x_ grouper

01:24:55 ◼   ► that's good it's a good one

01:24:58 ◼   ► frank shaw letting it fly nobody does pure like frank shaw

01:25:02 ◼   ► i want to see wonder i mean it's almost you know

01:25:05 ◼   ► like like

01:25:06 ◼   ► is that going to be an issue when the new c_e_o_ comes in is a new c_e_o_

01:25:09 ◼   ► gonna be like we can use

01:25:11 ◼   ► who's this guy

01:25:13 ◼   ► or is that i don't like how it's not always like clearly balmer supports it

01:25:17 ◼   ► and it's i almost doesn't surprise me

01:25:19 ◼   ► you know 'cause bombers a little

01:25:21 ◼   ► Oh, he's nuts.

01:25:22 ◼   ► Yeah, Balmer's a little loose-lipped.

01:25:26 ◼   ► Maybe Frank Shaw should be the new CEO.

01:25:28 ◼   ► You know what? Maybe he should.

01:25:31 ◼   ► I don't know anything about his business expertise.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Right.

01:25:33 ◼   ► But he knows how to pitch a quote.

01:25:37 ◼   ► It's a thought.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Well, so I had one more story,

01:25:40 ◼   ► and you can tell Caleb to cut it before this if you want,

01:25:43 ◼   ► but this was not one—

01:25:45 ◼   ► you sent a bunch of stuff to me. I had one for you.

01:25:48 ◼   ► The Twitter IPO happened this past week.

01:25:50 ◼   ► All right.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Not terribly interesting to me as a technologist or anything like that, but did you see who rang the opening bell for them at the New York Stock Exchange?

01:25:59 ◼   ► No, I did not.

01:26:01 ◼   ► So it was—I'll tell you who it was, and then I'll tell you a story I heard from somebody I know at Twitter.

01:26:06 ◼   ► It was Patrick Stewart, who's a fairly prominent Twitter user. Sir Patrick Stewart, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—

01:26:11 ◼   ► You know what, I don't go for the "sir" nonsense. I'm an American.

01:26:13 ◼   ► All right, Patrick Stewart then. What was he, Spock? I don't even know.

01:26:17 ◼   ► No, he was Captain Picard.

01:26:19 ◼   ► You're right, Picard, there we go.

01:26:20 ◼   ► Picard, the woman who runs the Boston Police Department's

01:26:25 ◼   ► Twitter stream, I don't have her name,

01:26:27 ◼   ► but it was another prominent Twitter user,

01:26:30 ◼   ► especially in the wake of what happened

01:26:32 ◼   ► six months ago in Boston,

01:26:33 ◼   ► and a nine-year-old girl who has used Twitter

01:26:37 ◼   ► to raise a whole lot of money

01:26:38 ◼   ► for a charity ending human trafficking.

01:26:41 ◼   ► So basically, prominent and useful Twitter users, basically.

01:26:47 ◼   ► And that's who they had, you know, the founders of the company, Dick Costello and Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams were all there, but they were not the ones ringing the actual bell, which is a sort of ceremonial role, right?

01:26:58 ◼   ► Right.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And so, you know, it's interesting.

01:27:01 ◼   ► And they said, you know, we wanted to give back to Twitter and show this is, we respect our users and whatever.

01:27:06 ◼   ► But the story that I heard, and I can't attribute this at all, but it's from someone at Twitter, was that what they were trying to do was avoid what they called the smiling assholes photo.

01:27:17 ◼   ► Ha! Which is the photo that you get of the founders of a company like Groupon, or what's

01:27:26 ◼   ► the game company, Zynga, where they rang the bell and it's the founders and they're looking

01:27:31 ◼   ► up there in whatever their pop-collar polo or whatever they're wearing, and six months

01:27:36 ◼   ► down the line, all their investors have gotten totally screwed. And this photo of them getting

01:27:41 ◼   ► super rich still exists and they just look like smiling assholes. So I thought it was

01:27:47 ◼   ► I thought it was a pretty good move to, you know, who knows what's going to happen to

01:27:51 ◼   ► the Twitter stock in six months.

01:27:53 ◼   ► But at the very least, there will not be a photo of Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and

01:27:57 ◼   ► Dick Costello looking ecstatic about the billions of dollars they just made.

01:28:02 ◼   ► I wouldn't want to ring the bell.

01:28:05 ◼   ► Because of the photo or just in general?

01:28:06 ◼   ► Yeah, well, both.

01:28:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:28:09 ◼   ► I mean, do you think Steve Jobs rang the bell when Apple had an IPO?

01:28:13 ◼   ► I just googled Steve Jobs' Apple IPO, and all that comes up are pictures of Steve Jobs

01:28:17 ◼   ► holding an iPod.

01:28:20 ◼   ► If things use spelled iPod.

01:28:21 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:28:22 ◼   ► Because I think because their IPO is so long ago that it's, you know.

01:28:26 ◼   ► It was in '76, right?

01:28:28 ◼   ► Yeah, so it predates the, you know, the web.

01:28:32 ◼   ► Now wait a minute, was the NASDAQ around back then?

01:28:36 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:28:37 ◼   ► I know for a while Apple traded on NASDAQ.

01:28:40 ◼   ► I mean, that's what they are on now, isn't it?

01:28:42 ◼   ► Are they? I don't even know. It used to be more of a difference. Now who even knows?

01:28:45 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

01:28:46 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, no, they've been on the NASDAQ for a long time, but I don't know if that

01:28:50 ◼   ► existed when they came out. I mean, the NASDAQ doesn't have a bell. The NASDAQ is just a

01:28:54 ◼   ► whole bunch of computers, right?

01:28:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. You might be right. I don't know. Maybe they don't. Maybe they—I

01:28:59 ◼   ► just assumed that they might have been on the New York Stock Exchange originally.

01:29:02 ◼   ► Right, right. Yeah, that doesn't seem like—I don't know. I don't know. Back then, they

01:29:07 ◼   ► were there.

01:29:08 ◼   ► Was Facebook NASDAQ?

01:29:10 ◼   ► I think it must have been, because that was the whole deal, was that Twitter was going

01:29:13 ◼   ► in the New York Stock Exchange to try and avoid the problems that Facebook had.

01:29:17 ◼   ► With the whole, yeah, they're on the Nasdaq.

01:29:19 ◼   ► And that explains why nobody rang the bell.

01:29:21 ◼   ► Well, but I thought, see now I thought I did hear something about them.

01:29:24 ◼   ► So maybe Nasdaq does have a BS ceremonial bell.

01:29:28 ◼   ► It's like a guy in a data center.

01:29:30 ◼   ► Right, right, just powering on a computer.

01:29:33 ◼   ► Yeah, and you just ding.

01:29:35 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the startup chime, that's what it is.

01:29:40 ◼   ► the centrist 650 that runs the Nasdaq.

01:29:45 ◼   ► - Well for Facebook, yeah, that's what it looked like it was.

01:29:47 ◼   ► - Right.

01:29:47 ◼   ► I had some about Twitter, the IPO, but I just avoid,

01:29:55 ◼   ► I'm not interrupting, I don't really care about IPOs.

01:29:57 ◼   ► I mean, it's like, I think that's part of what makes

01:30:00 ◼   ► Staring Fireball and me a little different

01:30:02 ◼   ► than a lot of tech sites.

01:30:02 ◼   ► Like I don't really care, you know.

01:30:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, did you cover, did you mention it at all?

01:30:06 ◼   ► - I don't think I even linked to it at all.

01:30:08 ◼   ► It just doesn't matter to me.

01:30:09 ◼   ► The only aspect of it that I find interesting as a user is that it secures that Twitter

01:30:16 ◼   ► is for the near future is going to remain an independent company, that there's nobody

01:30:20 ◼   ► who's going to acquire them.

01:30:22 ◼   ► Right, they won't get bought up by Google or Facebook.

01:30:24 ◼   ► But that's been clear for a couple of years.

01:30:27 ◼   ► The IPO to me as a user is really more of a cap on the assumption that they're going

01:30:34 ◼   ► to remain independent as opposed to selling to Google or Facebook or something like that.

01:30:39 ◼   ► But it's been clear for at least two years that they were going to stay independent.

01:30:43 ◼   ► They got –

01:30:44 ◼   ► And headed towards an IPO.

01:30:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:30:46 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:30:47 ◼   ► You know what? The other funny thing, and it, you know, it's like the – who is the

01:30:50 ◼   ► Beatle, the Pete Best, you know?

01:30:52 ◼   ► Oh, the fifth – yeah, the drummer, yeah.

01:30:54 ◼   ► Yeah. That's the other thing that – you know, I don't want to rub it in, you know,

01:30:59 ◼   ► just because the company's missed out on it or whatever. But it always seems like Yahoo

01:31:03 ◼   ► is the P best, right?

01:31:05 ◼   ► Like every single IPO, there's a story about how,

01:31:08 ◼   ► like six years earlier, Yahoo almost bought Twitter for,

01:31:12 ◼   ► I think it was like $12 million.

01:31:14 ◼   ► - They made an offer for it, yeah, right, right.

01:31:16 ◼   ► - And it was like, and they were like, maybe.

01:31:18 ◼   ► And then like somebody at Yahoo was like,

01:31:20 ◼   ► should we go to 14 million?

01:31:21 ◼   ► Nah, nah, you know, but like, it was probably like,

01:31:24 ◼   ► you know, like, Ed Williams or Jack Dorsey,

01:31:28 ◼   ► who, you know, is sitting there like,

01:31:29 ◼   ► if they go to 14, we'll say yes, all right, all right.

01:31:31 ◼   ► And then like the phone doesn't ring and they're like,

01:31:33 ◼   ► all right, all right, well back to work.

01:31:34 ◼   ► - I guess we're not.

01:31:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, back to work.

01:31:36 ◼   ► - Well, the famous one for that is Google, right?

01:31:38 ◼   ► Yahoo at least tried to buy Google

01:31:40 ◼   ► and then now Google's eating their lunch, but yeah.

01:31:42 ◼   ► - Right, and it was, I think the Google offer,

01:31:44 ◼   ► I could be wrong, but it was preposterously low

01:31:47 ◼   ► compared to where, it was like $50 million

01:31:49 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:31:50 ◼   ► But it's like in the midst of me saying

01:31:53 ◼   ► this particular sentence, Google has made $50 million.

01:31:56 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:31:58 ◼   ► - At this point, so it's pretty sad.

01:32:01 ◼   ► It just seems like it's always Yahoo.

01:32:03 ◼   ► And who knows?

01:32:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:05 ◼   ► Well, but, well, to be fair, that's old Yahoo.

01:32:07 ◼   ► Hopefully Yahoo's, I don't know how you feel about it.

01:32:10 ◼   ► I hope they do well.

01:32:12 ◼   ► I own a few shares of their stock, but I hope they do well in the future because it's interesting

01:32:16 ◼   ► to have a few competitors out there.

01:32:18 ◼   ► But that's Yahoo from four or five years ago.

01:32:21 ◼   ► Right.

01:32:22 ◼   ► Well, and the other thing too is that my hopes for like a long term success of Yahoo would

01:32:27 ◼   ► be original products from Yahoo coming out.

01:32:31 ◼   ► just purchasing, not just them somehow, you know, yeah, finding the original things to

01:32:35 ◼   ► buy and do.

01:32:37 ◼   ► Well, but I mean, they bought Flickr, right?

01:32:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:40 ◼   ► And that's, eh, what have they done that's original at this point?

01:32:45 ◼   ► Well, Flickr's a good example.

01:32:46 ◼   ► I mean, you can't hold it against the current leadership because they've only, you know,

01:32:50 ◼   ► Marissa Meyer's only been there a year.

01:32:52 ◼   ► There for a year, but, you know, Flickr's a good example where clearly what they should

01:32:56 ◼   ► have done after they bought Flickr is you know that there never should have

01:33:00 ◼   ► been an Instagram they you know them owning Flickr should have made Instagram

01:33:05 ◼   ► right and the rise of the iPhone and you know it should not have taken been too

01:33:11 ◼   ► hard for someone in 2007 you know as Twitter was taking off and the iPhone

01:33:16 ◼   ► was taking off and or 2008 let's say you know when the iPhone was kind of clearly

01:33:20 ◼   ► wow this is a thing right to say well flicker should obviously be huge on the iPhone and what's

01:33:28 ◼   ► the right format for that and it's you know what would be like Twitter just a stream of images from

01:33:33 ◼   ► your friends in a you know format that's friendly for phone size screens right and make it easy to

01:33:39 ◼   ► take pictures on the phone and send them there and in the meantime they spent five years with

01:33:44 ◼   ► the design that was meant for, you know,

01:33:46 ◼   ► web in like 2005. Right. Laptop displays and their mobile

01:33:51 ◼   ► interface was designed for like flip phones. Right, right.

01:33:55 ◼   ► All right, that's good. We made it in an hour. We only missed it

01:34:00 ◼   ► by 49 minutes.

01:34:02 ◼   ► [ Silence ]