Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► It's nice to be back on the same time zone, Myke.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Latency's gone. Although to be fair, there wasn't any latency in the call, to be honest.

00:00:06 ◼   ► I'm actually quite surprised about that. It was fun.

00:00:09 ◼   ► Well, I mean, look, I may have had very many things to say about Hawaii, but remarkably,

00:00:17 ◼   ► in Hawaii, I had a better internet connection than I have here in London.

00:00:21 ◼   ► So the internet connection was superior in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to my home

00:00:28 ◼   ► flat. I got back and checked the speed again. I was like, "Oh yeah, that's right. This

00:00:32 ◼   ► number is as small as I thought it was. How? How can I get literally a hundred times faster

00:00:41 ◼   ► internet in the middle of nowhere than I get in my apartment?" But, you know, the main

00:00:44 ◼   ► thing that really matters though is I'm so glad we're on the same time zone again.

00:00:49 ◼   ► I think both of us were getting a little loopy recording so far apart and at, for both of

00:00:55 ◼   ► us the least optimal time to record.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Yeah it was bad.

00:00:59 ◼   ► This feels so much better.

00:01:01 ◼   ► This does.

00:01:02 ◼   ► This feels so much better.

00:01:03 ◼   ► I could hear it in the editing of those two shows.

00:01:06 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, that's what I sound like when I'm crazy."

00:01:09 ◼   ► Yeah sure, all that was was just the time of the day.

00:01:13 ◼   ► There was definitely no other reason.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Oh, there were many reasons, but the time of the day did not help.

00:01:19 ◼   ► It's like, "No, I don't want to be recording at that time.

00:01:21 ◼   ► You didn't want to be recording at that time."

00:01:24 ◼   ► But yes, so I have now exited the Pacific Ocean, flown halfway around the world, and

00:01:31 ◼   ► returned home.

00:01:32 ◼   ► So I'm very happy to be here.

00:01:34 ◼   ► How has it been returning back to your office?

00:01:37 ◼   ► Well, I had a funny experience.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So we did all of the travel back at once, and I think I do the time tracking.

00:01:44 ◼   ► From the time we started packing, till the time I walked in the front door, was 30 hours

00:01:53 ◼   ► - To be fair, from the way you set that up, I thought that was gonna be long.

00:01:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, like, here's the thing. It's 30 hours in a row, which is rough. But then, at the same time,

00:02:05 ◼   ► I don't know how long it took Captain Cook or whatever to get to Hawaii from London,

00:02:10 ◼   ► but it was not 30 hours, right? It may have been six months. I have no idea. Like,

00:02:16 ◼   ► it is totally a miracle of the modern world that that is even possible. But at the same time,

00:02:22 ◼   ► after 30 hours you are very tired of this and you would like it to be done.

00:02:27 ◼   ► But I just had this funny feeling when we landed in Heathrow airport.

00:02:31 ◼   ► The word that my brain has been using is city stuff.

00:02:35 ◼   ► Like, oh! There's city stuff again?

00:02:38 ◼   ► And I had the weird experience of riding on this big long escalator at Heathrow.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Like, wow! An escalator! Right?

00:02:46 ◼   ► Like I was— I've never been happier to be on an escalator and I found it like completely charming.

00:02:51 ◼   ► like, "Oh, look at this! This escalator in this glass tube and the whole airport! It's made of

00:02:58 ◼   ► city stuff!" You become like one of those people that takes a little bit too long to get off.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm just looking around, you know, "Why isn't everybody as excited to be on this

00:03:07 ◼   ► escalator as I am?" Well, there's very good reasons why. I just keep thinking of all of the

00:03:13 ◼   ► this like minor city stuff that seems delightfully novel in a weird way to me now. This is always the

00:03:21 ◼   ► the benefit of traveling is things are different in the place that you go, that's why you're

00:03:27 ◼   ► traveling. Novelty is good for your brain and it also makes your home novel in funny

00:03:33 ◼   ► ways, especially if you've been gone for a long time, but even on minor trips, like the

00:03:37 ◼   ► experience of coming back always makes the things that you're returning to novel again.

00:03:42 ◼   ► So it is good to do, but having been gone for so long in such a rural environment, coming

00:03:48 ◼   ► back, the city itself is really striking in my brain. And the other thing that I keep

00:03:54 ◼   ► thinking of is just the sheer number of places I almost find slightly overwhelming. On the island,

00:04:01 ◼   ► there's just not that many places. I guess, like, what do I mean by this? I mean by,

00:04:07 ◼   ► what could you have as a pin on Apple Maps, right? Like, what would show up as a dot?

00:04:14 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, there were just not very many dots anywhere on the island."

00:04:20 ◼   ► And this morning, before we were going to record the show,

00:04:23 ◼   ► I always take a walk.

00:04:24 ◼   ► And so this is the first big walk that I've taken since I got back.

00:04:28 ◼   ► I sort of went around a five-mile walk in a big loop around where I live.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And 100%, I passed many multiples more places

00:04:39 ◼   ► than exist on the entirety of the island during that walk.

00:04:42 ◼   ► And it's just like, wow, there are so many places to go.

00:04:47 ◼   ► It's just very different.

00:04:48 ◼   ► - I mean, to be fair, this is not a massively different feeling that I get from when I go

00:04:52 ◼   ► into central London, where I live in the suburbs, right?

00:04:56 ◼   ► And there's places around, I can go get lunch and groceries or whatever.

00:05:02 ◼   ► But when I go into central London for something, it's completely different, right?

00:05:08 ◼   ► it's this whole world of its own full of people doing all these things, right? Like, they're

00:05:13 ◼   ► it. I can understand what you are saying even just from my lived experience of being in

00:05:19 ◼   ► this city, right?

00:05:20 ◼   ► BRIAN KARDELL-MULLER Everything is always relative because also

00:05:23 ◼   ► one of the most memorable trips I ever took was I went to Hong Kong a long time ago. I

00:05:29 ◼   ► was able to basically like sneak on a flight with my mom who was working as a flight attendant

00:05:34 ◼   ► and so it was delightful because this is the kind of thing that can happen when your mom

00:05:38 ◼   ► as a flight attendant. She basically was like, "Hey, do you want to go to Hong Kong this

00:05:41 ◼   ► weekend?" And I said, "Sure, I guess." And it was like, "Whoop, off I went." And I found

00:05:45 ◼   ► out in retrospect, she asked, but basically never expected that I would say yes. But I

00:05:50 ◼   ► was like, "Sure, why not?" So anyway, I went to Hong Kong. And I remember so well being

00:05:55 ◼   ► in Hong Kong, having this feeling like, "Oh, I've never seen a city before." Like the density

00:06:02 ◼   ► compared to New York City was just insane. Like it made New York City look like it was

00:06:08 ◼   ► nothing. So like you always have these different like what spaces are you moving between? And

00:06:14 ◼   ► I think that's good. I think that's good for brains. I think it's good in a novelty experience.

00:06:19 ◼   ► I just think like while Hong Kong made New York feel like nothing, I think it'd be pretty

00:06:23 ◼   ► hard unless I was going to Hong Kong to go from a lower density of places to a higher

00:06:29 ◼   ► density of places on a longer trip than what I've just done now. So I've just felt like

00:06:34 ◼   ► very overwhelmed with all of it. But it's been nice. Like it's been really nice to be

00:06:37 ◼   ► back. I was thinking this morning as I was walking around, places like Hawaii have like

00:06:42 ◼   ► this is just a general rural problem. They have an issue with brain drain, this idea

00:06:48 ◼   ► that people who grow up there often move somewhere else and they don't always come back. I was

00:06:55 ◼   ► just thinking about it where it's like cities are so interesting and they're so important

00:07:00 ◼   ► to the human species as a whole, which is also I think kind of important to reemphasize

00:07:07 ◼   ► after we've had this like long experience where people are like, oh, maybe I don't want

00:07:10 ◼   ► to live in a city. Maybe I do want to live in a more rural setting. It's like, but it

00:07:14 ◼   ► is really important that as a general piece of advice to people thinking about their careers

00:07:21 ◼   ► in that transition from like, oh, I'm not a student anymore. I'm now going to be a person

00:07:26 ◼   ► in the world is not applicable to everyone. But I do think it is generally applicable

00:07:32 ◼   ► and good advice that when you are done with school, you should probably move to the biggest

00:07:41 ◼   ► city that is reasonably accessible to you for at least a few years. This is just part

00:07:47 ◼   ► of like what do you want to do and one of the things you want to try to do is earlier

00:07:53 ◼   ► in your career maximize optionality. You want to maximize the number of things that can

00:08:00 ◼   ► happen. You want to maximize the number of opportunities that exist.

00:08:05 ◼   ► I mean this is why people pay obscene amounts of money to crown themselves in one bedroom

00:08:09 ◼   ► in a like five bedroom flat right? Yeah exactly. When they're starting out in their careers

00:08:14 ◼   ► because if you live like we're talking about London specifically right but if

00:08:18 ◼   ► you live in London you maximize everything you maximize the places you

00:08:23 ◼   ► can go the people you can see the people you can meet the experiences you can

00:08:26 ◼   ► have yeah by having lived in that environment like I know this from like

00:08:31 ◼   ► some professional groups that I'm in and they're like people that work in large

00:08:37 ◼   ► like much larger companies like huge companies right in the UK and media and

00:08:41 ◼   ► stuff like that. And it's been really interesting to talk to them during the

00:08:45 ◼   ► pandemic and now coming into a different stage where we are now and it seems like

00:08:49 ◼   ► for a while they were very much like oh no like no one's ever going to want to

00:08:54 ◼   ► come back to the office to an element of like oh no there's some people that

00:08:58 ◼   ► really do and or there's people that like they want flexibility now where

00:09:05 ◼   ► they can take time to go and be somewhere but they still want to live in

00:09:10 ◼   ► in the center and they still want to have our central office.

00:09:14 ◼   ► So it's been really intriguing to watch that,

00:09:16 ◼   ► like the reality in some people where they thought

00:09:19 ◼   ► they wanted a certain thing in a certain way,

00:09:22 ◼   ► but then they realized that once the opportunities come back

00:09:26 ◼   ► they want to still take advantage of them.

00:09:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, like the way I think about it is it's made sense

00:09:31 ◼   ► and I think it still makes sense to be kind of

00:09:33 ◼   ► in the short term to be short cities,

00:09:36 ◼   ► but in the long term to be long cities.

00:09:38 ◼   ► It's like, well, yeah, there's definitely a trend,

00:09:41 ◼   ► but there's this thing that just happens

00:09:44 ◼   ► where the more people you have around,

00:09:47 ◼   ► the more things those people can do,

00:09:49 ◼   ► and the more people can specialize,

00:09:51 ◼   ► and then that creates all kinds of different opportunities.

00:09:54 ◼   ► It came up in Hawaii with a couple of people

00:09:57 ◼   ► who were thinking about work and changing things,

00:09:59 ◼   ► and you just realize, like, in an environment

00:10:01 ◼   ► where the density of people is low,

00:10:04 ◼   ► the options of what people can do are extremely limited.

00:10:08 ◼   ► And then I come to London and I just think like,

00:10:10 ◼   ► oh my God, how many people are simply employed

00:10:13 ◼   ► just as like the delivery drivers?

00:10:16 ◼   ► I don't know, like 25% of the city,

00:10:17 ◼   ► as far as I can tell, is employed as delivery drivers.

00:10:20 ◼   ► But like that as a thing is a thing

00:10:22 ◼   ► that just simply can't exist in a low density environment.

00:10:26 ◼   ► And it's also why you end up with people

00:10:30 ◼   ► who can be really specialized at their work,

00:10:32 ◼   ► where do they usually exist?

00:10:34 ◼   ► They exist in the cities.

00:10:35 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't know.

00:10:36 ◼   ► It's just something that's been in my mind.

00:10:38 ◼   ► - That's interesting, right?

00:10:39 ◼   ► That in a non-city environment, a smaller environment,

00:10:42 ◼   ► you end up with like this, the work is this core level

00:10:46 ◼   ► of work by and large, right?

00:10:47 ◼   ► Like what are the things that we need as a community

00:10:51 ◼   ► to sustain ourselves and, you know,

00:10:54 ◼   ► to get what we want out of life as a community.

00:10:57 ◼   ► But then in the cities, there's obviously the luxuries,

00:11:00 ◼   ► right, where like, but that goes from gig economy work,

00:11:04 ◼   ► delivery drivers, taxi drivers, all the way up to like,

00:11:09 ◼   ► the real thinking of thinking is the jobs.

00:11:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, also like incredibly specialized jobs.

00:11:15 ◼   ► Like in London, there's just a shop that's famous

00:11:16 ◼   ► for just selling umbrellas, right?

00:11:18 ◼   ► And that's what they do.

00:11:19 ◼   ► It's like, this is the world class shop

00:11:21 ◼   ► for you need a fancy umbrella.

00:11:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:24 ◼   ► - But like, that can only exist in an environment

00:11:27 ◼   ► where the density of people is so incredibly high.

00:11:30 ◼   ► - Or like you get those like food shops, right?

00:11:32 ◼   ► where it's like, we do this one little thing.

00:11:34 ◼   ► Like one of the popular ones,

00:11:36 ◼   ► which unfortunately they closed during the pandemic

00:11:39 ◼   ► was serial killer in Shoreditch, which was a cereal cafe.

00:11:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:44 ◼   ► That was what they did. - I think you told me

00:11:45 ◼   ► about that, that's a great idea.

00:11:46 ◼   ► - You could go there and you could get a bowl of cereal

00:11:49 ◼   ► and it doesn't exist anymore.

00:11:50 ◼   ► They unfortunately didn't make it through the pandemic,

00:11:53 ◼   ► but they have an online store still.

00:11:54 ◼   ► So you can still buy from them, which you always could,

00:11:57 ◼   ► but they shut down their actual cafe that they used to have.

00:12:01 ◼   ► But like, you know, that can only exist in a place of really pure abundance, right?

00:12:07 ◼   ► There's no way, there's no other way to sustain something like that.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Yeah, or it's, I don't know, I feel like I'm lacking what I want to put into words here,

00:12:15 ◼   ► but it's like just simply the presence of a lot of people allows those people to engage

00:12:23 ◼   ► in a wider variety of activities.

00:12:26 ◼   ► And that is good.

00:12:27 ◼   ► Like a higher density of people makes people better.

00:12:32 ◼   ► - And I'll say, I know you're not not saying this,

00:12:34 ◼   ► but like just on the flip side,

00:12:36 ◼   ► that idea of the small community

00:12:38 ◼   ► is like very tantalizing to some people.

00:12:41 ◼   ► Like it is the speed of life, which is really attractive.

00:12:46 ◼   ► And as I'm getting older,

00:12:48 ◼   ► that becomes so much more attractive to me.

00:12:51 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, but this is what I mean by

00:12:53 ◼   ► there's a cycle that I think it is useful

00:12:56 ◼   ► for people to be aware of.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And that cycle is when you have finished education

00:13:02 ◼   ► and are entering the workforce,

00:13:03 ◼   ► it is generically good advice for you

00:13:05 ◼   ► to move to the largest city that is accessible to you.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Whatever that means, like, you know, in your region

00:13:12 ◼   ► and how far you're willing to move from your family,

00:13:14 ◼   ► you should make that move.

00:13:15 ◼   ► That's generically good advice.

00:13:17 ◼   ► But then it is also the case that as your career goes on,

00:13:23 ◼   ► that truism becomes less true.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And you can start taking of the advantages

00:13:29 ◼   ► in the reverse direction,

00:13:30 ◼   ► where after you've established yourself,

00:13:32 ◼   ► there may be ways that you can move away from the city,

00:13:36 ◼   ► but still take like the advantage of the career

00:13:38 ◼   ► that you have built with you.

00:13:40 ◼   ► And just as someone is more established in their career

00:13:44 ◼   ► or in their life, the optionality matters less

00:13:48 ◼   ► because you have chosen which of these options

00:13:51 ◼   ► are important to you.

00:13:52 ◼   ► and then you can maximize in a different way.

00:13:55 ◼   ► So yeah, it's something also like my wife and I

00:13:58 ◼   ► have discussed as well as we've thought sometimes about,

00:14:00 ◼   ► ooh, does it make sense maybe to move away from London now?

00:14:04 ◼   ► And we've deliberately decided that we're not going to do it

00:14:07 ◼   ► in the near term, but it is a thing where it's like,

00:14:10 ◼   ► oh, this starts to make more sense in a way

00:14:14 ◼   ► that it didn't make sense 10 years ago,

00:14:16 ◼   ► whereas like 10 years ago, the optionality of being

00:14:19 ◼   ► in a big city has been hugely important to my life,

00:14:23 ◼   ► but it's like that becomes less important

00:14:25 ◼   ► the more established you are.

00:14:27 ◼   ► And so I'm not surprised to hear that you're also

00:14:29 ◼   ► having that same experience as well.

00:14:31 ◼   ► You know, you also just want a bigger studio,

00:14:33 ◼   ► and so you need to move further out.

00:14:34 ◼   ► - I don't need a bigger studio.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Mega studio is sufficiently mega.

00:14:39 ◼   ► I do sit in here and look around sometimes and be like,

00:14:42 ◼   ► I definitely got more than a shit hub.

00:14:45 ◼   ► But like I remember, whenever I see that,

00:14:48 ◼   ► 'cause I'm in a building where it's all individual spaces,

00:14:51 ◼   ► right, and over the time that I've been here,

00:14:53 ◼   ► for obvious reasons, there's been a lot more turnover

00:14:57 ◼   ► in the space, so every now and then,

00:14:59 ◼   ► there's a little space that's available,

00:15:02 ◼   ► and I look at it and I'm like,

00:15:03 ◼   ► really, that's what I should've got?

00:15:05 ◼   ► - Right. - Like, it's just a place

00:15:08 ◼   ► for two people or whatever, but at the time,

00:15:11 ◼   ► there was nothing available, this was all they had,

00:15:14 ◼   ► and so I just got it.

00:15:15 ◼   ► I mean, I love it and continue to find new and exciting uses for this space.

00:15:20 ◼   ► So I'm happy I have it, but it is funny.

00:15:21 ◼   ► You know, like what something I like is there was a, there's a company that was

00:15:25 ◼   ► in a, uh, an office opposite me and these like clothing stuff.

00:15:29 ◼   ► And I'm pretty sure they had like five employees, you know, they were working

00:15:33 ◼   ► on designs and that kind of stuff.

00:15:35 ◼   ► And they just look like they were constantly on top of each other.

00:15:39 ◼   ► Like it looked terrible for them.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Like, but now they've moved into the unit next door to me, which is actually

00:15:44 ◼   ► bigger than mine. And I just feel really good for them. Right? Because it's like they were

00:15:49 ◼   ► there for I don't know, six months or so and I always felt sorry for them because like

00:15:53 ◼   ► it looked like they were really squished and it made sense that they looked like they were

00:15:57 ◼   ► starting out. Kind of like when I saw them moving in like I said to the guy like "Oh

00:16:01 ◼   ► this is really great like I'm happy you're doing this." He's like "Oh yeah like things

00:16:03 ◼   ► have grown for us and we finally got a space." And I was like "Yeah man, do it."

00:16:08 ◼   ► I totally get that. When I was at a co-working space I really enjoyed also seeing that thing

00:16:12 ◼   ► where it's like, oh, this team starts as two people and you watch them grow over time and then

00:16:17 ◼   ► eventually they outgrow the co-working space entirely and disappear. But that always,

00:16:21 ◼   ► it always felt really good to see like, oh, people are building things, they're making things and

00:16:26 ◼   ► they're being successful at the things that they're building. And you know, it's real positive sum.

00:16:30 ◼   ► - And I've got to wonder, what did I think goes on in here? I think about this a lot, right? Because

00:16:35 ◼   ► I have noticed them, they have noticed me. There was like once, there was like, I had a delivery

00:16:39 ◼   ► go there or whatever, you know, so they know I exist and now I'm next door to them, right?

00:16:44 ◼   ► And it's only ever me that's coming in and out of here and they must now especially have

00:16:50 ◼   ► an idea for how big this space is. What do they think happens in this office? You know,

00:16:56 ◼   ► what's going on in here? You're a product designer, that's what's going on in there.

00:16:59 ◼   ► Do you know, I tell people that more now that I work in product design. Oh, do you? Okay,

00:17:03 ◼   ► interesting. It's easier than podcasting because if I say podcasting, I always get that like,

00:17:09 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, of course you do."

00:17:10 ◼   ► You know when it'd be like, "Oh yeah, one day you'll make it."

00:17:12 ◼   ► You know, a little hobby or whatever.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Like, that tends to be the worst.

00:17:16 ◼   ► "Oh, that's a fun hobby."

00:17:18 ◼   ► Like, "No, it is my profession.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I've made a good professional career out there now."

00:17:22 ◼   ► But now I say product designer,

00:17:24 ◼   ► 'cause it's just, I like it.

00:17:26 ◼   ► One, I like it.

00:17:27 ◼   ► I was actually thinking about this the other day.

00:17:28 ◼   ► You know, people ask you like,

00:17:30 ◼   ► "If you could do anything that's not your current thing,

00:17:35 ◼   ► what would it be?"

00:17:37 ◼   ► And I have like two answers for it.

00:17:38 ◼   ► I have one which is the actual answer now,

00:17:41 ◼   ► which is like product design would have definitely

00:17:43 ◼   ► been one of mine, right?

00:17:44 ◼   ► Like the idea of coming up with and helping in the creation

00:17:48 ◼   ► of physical products that get made and then sold.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Like that has been something I've always wanted to do.

00:17:53 ◼   ► And now we're lucky enough that with the support

00:17:56 ◼   ► of the cortexins, we're in a position where we're doing that.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Like it's a thing that we do and I love it.

00:18:00 ◼   ► And I love coming up with ideas

00:18:02 ◼   ► and seeing them become a reality.

00:18:04 ◼   ► Like that would have been my answer before.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Now, because I do do that, my other answer is television.

00:18:10 ◼   ► I would love to do something in television,

00:18:11 ◼   ► like write a TV show.

00:18:13 ◼   ► - Really?

00:18:14 ◼   ► I've never heard you say anything about that.

00:18:15 ◼   ► - This is pure dream for me, which is why.

00:18:17 ◼   ► - Okay. - Right?

00:18:18 ◼   ► Like this is pure like, if you could do absolutely anything,

00:18:21 ◼   ► you already had the skills.

00:18:22 ◼   ► Creating a television show and writing a television show

00:18:26 ◼   ► and maybe even acting in a television show,

00:18:28 ◼   ► like I would love that.

00:18:29 ◼   ► - Huh. - Yeah.

00:18:30 ◼   ► Because I know it's not a thing for me, right?

00:18:32 ◼   ► Like-- - Yeah, yeah, but still.

00:18:33 ◼   ► - It's a dream, right?

00:18:34 ◼   ► Like if I could have a dream,

00:18:35 ◼   ► would be in that world. I love hearing people talk about it and I love like just as a viewer

00:18:42 ◼   ► like trying to pick things apart anyway like I've always enjoyed that. So I would love to do it but

00:18:47 ◼   ► it's you know I'll keep that as what little dream that I have but do you have one of those by the

00:18:53 ◼   ► way? Like if you couldn't do your current thing and it's the idea if you have all of the skills

00:19:00 ◼   ► right you've just got them. Do you know what that would be? What you would do?

00:19:05 ◼   ► I feel like I have a hard time processing this question.

00:19:10 ◼   ► Is there any profession in the world that you would like to do that's not your current one?

00:19:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. I know what you're sort of looking for here, but I just think there's something very different in my brain when I turn this thought upon myself.

00:19:27 ◼   ► It just returns nothing as an answer.

00:19:30 ◼   ► But I can completely understand your answer and what you mean by this.

00:19:34 ◼   ► - Oh, let me throw some at you. Would you like to be a writer?

00:19:37 ◼   ► - Well... - Like write a book?

00:19:40 ◼   ► - I guess. I think the problem with that is I know too well how miserable that would be,

00:19:49 ◼   ► both because a huge part of my work currently is writing.

00:19:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. I know. - I have seen up close several friends

00:19:55 ◼   ► write books and it's like, "Boy, that process does not sell itself when people write books."

00:20:00 ◼   ► - What about something with animals? - Yeah, I didn't...

00:20:03 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know. I don't know how to like, I think you're not gonna get anywhere with this question.

00:20:07 ◼   ► I'm not gonna get an answer, I can tell now. I wanted to just try on a couple.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Yeah, no.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Neither of them worked, so. But that's great though, because that means you're already doing the only thing you would want to do, you know?

00:20:17 ◼   ► Well, again, the way I always describe it is that I am extremely well suited to the work that I do.

00:20:22 ◼   ► I think that is the best, most accurate sentence to describe my current situation.

00:20:27 ◼   ► I mean, you have crafted your own job, so if you weren't, I don't know what you're doing.

00:20:30 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:20:31 ◼   ► - You know what I mean?

00:20:32 ◼   ► Like if you created this, if you're not suited for it,

00:20:34 ◼   ► I don't know what you're up to over there.

00:20:37 ◼   ► But like, it's just to say like,

00:20:39 ◼   ► obviously podcasting is my first choice, right?

00:20:42 ◼   ► 'Cause I did the same thing.

00:20:44 ◼   ► But it is that question, if I could do something else,

00:20:47 ◼   ► then first thing would be to make stuff

00:20:49 ◼   ► and now I have the joy of doing that.

00:20:51 ◼   ► But to go back to where I was with this initially

00:20:53 ◼   ► and I don't even remember how we got to it,

00:20:55 ◼   ► that is what I will tend to say to people now

00:20:58 ◼   ► when they say, "What do you do for a living?"

00:21:00 ◼   ► product design.

00:21:01 ◼   ► I have to say I'm also quite grateful to the existence of Cortex merch because I have now

00:21:07 ◼   ► updated the it's like this has been constantly a problem in my life is telling people about

00:21:12 ◼   ► what I do.

00:21:14 ◼   ► Partly just because on like on a personal level I just loathe the conversations that

00:21:18 ◼   ► come up when this happens like it's always just very awkward and weird it just never

00:21:22 ◼   ► it never goes well I hate everything about it.

00:21:24 ◼   ► also like, I had to put it this way, like at scale it can cause a bunch of problems.

00:21:31 ◼   ► And so it was actually very nice because the last two or three weeks in Hawaii, that was

00:21:36 ◼   ► when we really had all the family over. And so it's like the house was just packed full

00:21:41 ◼   ► of people and it was great. But one of the things that was really helpful is we finally

00:21:46 ◼   ► had a consistent story as a family about what does Gray do? And so like basically had a

00:21:52 ◼   ► meeting of like, "Okay everyone, listen." So now when someone asks you what this person does,

00:21:58 ◼   ► the answer is, "He works in stationery." That is the official story and it was great because I had

00:22:06 ◼   ► with me a bunch of the Cortex products. So it's like, "Oh, I had the pen, I had the notebook,"

00:22:12 ◼   ► and so it was actually quite useful because weirdly enough having those sort of props

00:22:18 ◼   ► really sold it to the rest of the family like, "Yes, this is not really what I do, but this is

00:22:24 ◼   ► what we're going to tell people what I do because it just makes everything easier for everyone and

00:22:30 ◼   ► reduces a bunch of security concerns and other problems and showing people, but look, I really

00:22:38 ◼   ► have made a pen and I have made a notebook!" I think that really sold it as like, "Oh, okay,

00:22:44 ◼   ► we're not lying, we're just mentioning only one part. He really does work in stationery.

00:22:49 ◼   ► And so let me tell you, at least the initial testing of this worked great for like a zero

00:22:56 ◼   ► follow-up question kind of answer. So if there was for any other reason, a good reason for us

00:23:02 ◼   ► to create Cortex Brand was so we both had an easier story to tell people about what we do for a living.

00:23:08 ◼   ► Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, Cortex Brand.

00:23:11 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building

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00:25:17 ◼   ► Great let's do some #AskCortex questions. Yeah. I haven't touched on these in a while and

00:25:21 ◼   ► they've been building up so I want to ask some of the burning questions

00:25:24 ◼   ► from the Kotexans. Matt says, "You were both really excited for focus modes in

00:25:30 ◼   ► IOS 15. With WWDC right around the corner, do you actually find yourself using them

00:25:36 ◼   ► still?" What do you think about that Myke? My answer is yeah. I am still using the

00:25:40 ◼   ► exact set of focus modes that I created that we spoke about at some point last

00:25:46 ◼   ► year I think. So I have just Do Not Disturb the same as it always was right?

00:25:51 ◼   ► didn't change that and I have my recording focus mode which turns off

00:25:56 ◼   ► basically all notifications except from Adina and also from Kerry our VP of

00:26:01 ◼   ► Sales because I figured they're the two people and I'm recording that I might

00:26:04 ◼   ► need to hear from and then I also have my exercise focus mode which turns off

00:26:10 ◼   ► 100% of everything except notifications from the activity app right it's the

00:26:14 ◼   ► only place I get anything and I still use them I use them across all my

00:26:17 ◼   ► devices. I'm still using the shortcuts that I have to trigger them at the times

00:26:21 ◼   ► that I want them. I would say that they built a really good foundation with

00:26:25 ◼   ► focus modes but they need to do more work on it. I want to see them continue. I

00:26:29 ◼   ► hope they will. WWDC literally is around the corner. It's in like a week which is

00:26:34 ◼   ► starting to terrify me a little bit but I'm also really excited for WWDC this year.

00:26:37 ◼   ► Is there something in particular that you're looking for out of focus modes?

00:26:40 ◼   ► What I want is a better setup process. So one of the things that I find really

00:26:47 ◼   ► frustrating about focus modes right now is you have to opt in every app that you want.

00:26:53 ◼   ► >> Right, right. >> I would prefer opting out apps that I don't want to notify me.

00:26:59 ◼   ► >> Yeah, I agree. >> Because the biggest thing is you've set up all your focus modes, right? You've

00:27:03 ◼   ► gotten perfect. Let's say you add a new chat app or a new email app. You have to go in and remember

00:27:10 ◼   ► to add that into all the places it needs to go. Like I would prefer focus modes to work how kind

00:27:16 ◼   ► kind of like notifications does where like something notifies you and you're

00:27:21 ◼   ► like oh I don't want this here let me get rid of it so just the setup process I

00:27:26 ◼   ► would like to be a bit cleaner and if they did that I would use it more just

00:27:31 ◼   ► for me the setup and maintenance of all of these things is too tricky for me to

00:27:35 ◼   ► like you know I would quite like a like maybe like a general work or like a

00:27:40 ◼   ► focused work focus mode you know what I mean like where I'm letting stuff in but

00:27:45 ◼   ► not everything and it could be a bit particular about it,

00:27:48 ◼   ► but I don't want to set that up

00:27:49 ◼   ► because then I'm having to constantly think,

00:27:51 ◼   ► oh, I just added this new app.

00:27:53 ◼   ► Do I want to add it to that?

00:27:54 ◼   ► I don't want that.

00:27:55 ◼   ► I want it to be a little bit simpler to manage,

00:27:58 ◼   ► but overall, I think the feature was a good one.

00:28:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I complained mightily

00:28:04 ◼   ► about the previous system

00:28:06 ◼   ► and I've just been hugely pleased

00:28:09 ◼   ► with the addition of focus modes.

00:28:11 ◼   ► It's so much better than it used to be.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Because it is actually doing what you were trying to get downtime to do.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:28:18 ◼   ► It's much more in line with what I was trying to do.

00:28:20 ◼   ► So I'm definitely using them.

00:28:22 ◼   ► I would like to use more.

00:28:23 ◼   ► I think what you have just said though, did pin something in my mind that's like, yes,

00:28:29 ◼   ► the creation process feels like it does need to be streamlined because it's a heavy weight

00:28:34 ◼   ► to try to figure it out.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And it's heavy weight to get started with, I would like to have a new mode in this way.

00:28:41 ◼   ► I think for me, one of the things that I wish you could do is like on your phone and on

00:28:46 ◼   ► the iPad, it's great that you can have these custom screens.

00:28:49 ◼   ► One of the biggest features for me is that you can have the phone or the iPad look different

00:28:53 ◼   ► based on which mode you're in.

00:28:56 ◼   ► But once you start having more than two or three, it becomes very difficult to keep track

00:29:01 ◼   ► of which screen is this supposed to be for when you're making these things like I wish

00:29:06 ◼   ► you could name what those individual screens are on your iPhone or on your iPad to be a

00:29:11 ◼   ► like this is for admin mode and this is for the instead of just like check boxes of like yes I

00:29:16 ◼   ► want these no I don't want those. So yeah I find like I think I would customize it more if it was

00:29:22 ◼   ► a little bit easier to keep track of which looks are supposed to go with which devices. But yeah I

00:29:28 ◼   ► really do like them and my main ones are that yeah there's a general do not disturb I use sleep

00:29:34 ◼   ► obviously I have core which is for all of like the core important work that's the basically nobody

00:29:40 ◼   ► disturbed me mode. Then I have like light admin, I have something for the weekend, which is like,

00:29:47 ◼   ► when am I not working? What do I want? And then a separate holiday mode, which is slightly different

00:29:52 ◼   ► of like, I'm on holiday, I need a different sort of set of things to be able to reach me. There's

00:29:56 ◼   ► one little trick with focus modes that I really like, though, which is you can use them as

00:30:02 ◼   ► triggers on different devices.

00:30:06 ◼   ► So when you go in and out of a focus mode,

00:30:11 ◼   ► that is updated on all of your devices.

00:30:14 ◼   ► And so you can have a device trigger based on,

00:30:18 ◼   ► oh, that has happened.

00:30:20 ◼   ► - Doing this for shortcuts, is that what you're talking about?

00:30:22 ◼   ► - Personal automations, I think what they call them.

00:30:24 ◼   ► Like this is running on the device.

00:30:25 ◼   ► - Currently, weirdly, that is not a thing on the Mac, right?

00:30:27 ◼   ► There's no personal automations on the Mac,

00:30:29 ◼   ► which is one of the emissions of shortcuts on the Mac.

00:30:32 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the last one I would really like to fall in line.

00:30:34 ◼   ► But so I was like, oh, if you want to change the wallpapers

00:30:37 ◼   ► when you switch modes, this is something

00:30:40 ◼   ► you can use to trigger and to recognize.

00:30:42 ◼   ► Like, oh, as a personal automation,

00:30:44 ◼   ► like the one that I did for Hawaii

00:30:46 ◼   ► and being in holiday mode is like, oh, I

00:30:48 ◼   ► had a Hawaii pattern background on the iPad and on the iPhone

00:30:52 ◼   ► of like, this is holiday mode, right?

00:30:54 ◼   ► Get in the mood.

00:30:55 ◼   ► But I always wanted it to be on both devices.

00:30:58 ◼   ► And so you can have the automation just look and see,

00:31:01 ◼   ► like, oh, when we've tripped into holiday mode, change the wallpaper on the iPad.

00:31:05 ◼   ► And the other one I was really quite pleased with myself in terms of automation

00:31:08 ◼   ► is I sleep with white noise.

00:31:10 ◼   ► So we have like ocean sounds that play, which I'm sure also will be funny to Myke.

00:31:15 ◼   ► That's like, yes, I listen to airplane sounds when I'm on the airplane.

00:31:17 ◼   ► And when I am in Hawaii, like we were playing ocean sounds while we're sleeping.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Traffic sounds in London.

00:31:23 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:31:24 ◼   ► That's what I do.

00:31:25 ◼   ► Doesn't everybody do that when you're driving in the car, you play traffic noises.

00:31:28 ◼   ► But what happens is the sound the white noise sounds of the wave like will keep my wife asleep

00:31:34 ◼   ► forever. Like basically as long as they're playing she like can't wake up. She has a really hard time

00:31:38 ◼   ► waking up with that. And so we're just playing those sounds off of the iPad. But you can use

00:31:43 ◼   ► a trigger which is really great of the phone my phone knows when I wake up like it switches out

00:31:50 ◼   ► of sleep mode. And so I have the iPad look for that like notice when we've swapped out of sleep

00:31:57 ◼   ► mode. So when sleep mode turns off, I have it then run an automation that over 20 minutes

00:32:03 ◼   ► slowly turns down the volume of the iPad. It's like it gets rid of the white noise sound

00:32:09 ◼   ► without just abruptly shutting it off, which can also wake up someone.

00:32:13 ◼   ► That's such a really great way to do that. Like also not just turning it off immediately.

00:32:18 ◼   ► Yeah, because that's what you don't want. You don't want it to just bam, waves are gone.

00:32:23 ◼   ► You want it to say, "Okay, repeat this loop.

00:32:26 ◼   ► Wait two minutes, decrease volume by 5%, do it again, do it again, and until 20 minutes

00:32:31 ◼   ► later you're at 0%."

00:32:33 ◼   ► That was one of those moments of an automating something, I'm like, "Oh, I'm so pleased

00:32:36 ◼   ► with myself."

00:32:37 ◼   ► But it took me a while to realize, "Oh, I'm so clever."

00:32:42 ◼   ► But I can use that focus mode as a trigger to have stuff happen.

00:32:46 ◼   ► And so I am really hoping they bring it to the Mac, partly for that reason of, "Oh,

00:32:50 ◼   ► Oh, it would be great to have something that I can have trigger on the Mac when you go

00:32:54 ◼   ► in and out of a different mode.

00:32:55 ◼   ► But yeah, so I really like those focus modes.

00:32:58 ◼   ► I think they're great.

00:32:59 ◼   ► I would like to see them improved.

00:33:00 ◼   ► But even if they didn't get improved, I feel like it's already so much better than the

00:33:04 ◼   ► old system.

00:33:05 ◼   ► I'm very happy with them.

00:33:07 ◼   ► And I think I'm going to slowly increase the number that I use over time.

00:33:11 ◼   ► On a similar note, Dries wants to know what Apple Maps updates you're looking for from

00:33:17 ◼   ► W2C this year.

00:33:18 ◼   ► It is all you care about, so.

00:33:20 ◼   ► Myke, I'm sure you have tons of things you'd love to see from Apple Maps. I know it's your favorite app.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Oh, I can't wait for it.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Apple Maps, the most interesting app that exists on the phone, which I literally think is true.

00:33:30 ◼   ► I don't know why you're sighing there. Look, the reason why it's so interesting

00:33:36 ◼   ► is because it's the place that they're clearly building their secret not-secret AR glasses

00:33:43 ◼   ► project right in public in front of all of our eyes. Like, they're doing it in Maps.

00:33:47 ◼   ► - No, they're doing more, man.

00:33:49 ◼   ► So this past week they had a press release

00:33:52 ◼   ► for Global Accessibility Awareness Day.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And there were a few features that they added

00:33:59 ◼   ► which were very AR focused and you could just see it.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Like one is using the LIDAR and machine learning

00:34:06 ◼   ► to detect doors for people that have vision problems.

00:34:09 ◼   ► - Oh, cool.

00:34:10 ◼   ► - And it can see like, do you need to pull this door?

00:34:13 ◼   ► Do you need to push this door?

00:34:14 ◼   ► Is this door locked?

00:34:16 ◼   ► What does the door say on it?

00:34:17 ◼   ► all this kind of stuff.

00:34:18 ◼   ► - That's really impressive.

00:34:19 ◼   ► - The other is live captions,

00:34:22 ◼   ► which I am super excited about.

00:34:24 ◼   ► - What do you mean by live captions?

00:34:25 ◼   ► - For video calls and media,

00:34:28 ◼   ► the system will show you captions

00:34:31 ◼   ► whether you have the audio on or off.

00:34:33 ◼   ► - Oh, that's good.

00:34:34 ◼   ► Yeah, YouTube does that for streams already.

00:34:35 ◼   ► That's interesting.

00:34:36 ◼   ► - Google added it to Android on the Pixel phones

00:34:38 ◼   ► a couple of years ago.

00:34:39 ◼   ► 'Cause you have to do, it's all on device.

00:34:41 ◼   ► You have to do it on device for speed, right?

00:34:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, of course.

00:34:44 ◼   ► - And so, yeah, they're gonna add this.

00:34:45 ◼   ► This all looks like it's probably gonna be

00:34:47 ◼   ► I was 16 stuff, they weren't completely clear,

00:34:49 ◼   ► but it's pretty obvious.

00:34:50 ◼   ► But they've been doing this for the last couple of years,

00:34:52 ◼   ► 'cause Global Accessibility Awareness Day happens

00:34:55 ◼   ► a few weeks before WWDC usually.

00:34:57 ◼   ► So rather than putting this stuff in a session,

00:35:00 ◼   ► they give it its own time and its own press release

00:35:04 ◼   ► and everybody sees it and talks about it,

00:35:05 ◼   ► which is just good for these kinds of features, right?

00:35:07 ◼   ► Makes people more aware of them.

00:35:09 ◼   ► And so yeah, you can see those things and you're like,

00:35:13 ◼   ► I see what you're doing, right?

00:35:15 ◼   ► I see what you're learning, I see where your efforts are,

00:35:19 ◼   ► and also your technology that you are building

00:35:24 ◼   ► is enabling these kinds of things,

00:35:26 ◼   ► and these things will be really good for AR glasses.

00:35:31 ◼   ► - I mean, behind the scenes listeners,

00:35:33 ◼   ► I'm teasing Myke because I do sometimes harass him

00:35:35 ◼   ► by sending him screenshots from my phone

00:35:38 ◼   ► of like cool things I found in maps.

00:35:41 ◼   ► - Look at this!

00:35:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:35:42 ◼   ► Good work, buddy.

00:35:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:35:44 ◼   ► And I know that Myke could not care many times,

00:35:48 ◼   ► but I'm just like, he still gets it.

00:35:52 ◼   ► - It's like things that annoy me,

00:35:53 ◼   ► like Apple Maps annoys me, like the transit stuff,

00:35:56 ◼   ► like what annoys me is they're really good at some things,

00:36:00 ◼   ► but the way that they show you options

00:36:03 ◼   ► of routes to choose from is so much worse than Google.

00:36:06 ◼   ► - For the transit options, I haven't used that in a while,

00:36:08 ◼   ► so I can't speak to that.

00:36:09 ◼   ► - I will like say like, I wanna go here or whatever,

00:36:11 ◼   ► and they're not clear completely about what you're going to be doing,

00:36:17 ◼   ► just like you're going to be getting on a train or something.

00:36:22 ◼   ► I would have to try and find an example.

00:36:23 ◼   ► -Oh, okay, I know.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Okay, I do know what you mean, yeah, some of the connection stuff.

00:36:28 ◼   ► -Yeah. -I think, though,

00:36:29 ◼   ► that this is one of those cases

00:36:30 ◼   ► where they're slowly building towards this more,

00:36:32 ◼   ► because one of the things that I did send Myke a screenshot about

00:36:35 ◼   ► when I was very excited to try it was the AR walking directions

00:36:39 ◼   ► that you can do on the phone with maps,

00:36:41 ◼   ► where it knows exactly where you are and it draws little floating arrows in the space in front of you.

00:36:46 ◼   ► Which, even on the phone, it worked surprisingly well.

00:36:50 ◼   ► But what I think is interesting is, also being in a big city like London,

00:36:53 ◼   ► you can see them testing out some of these features.

00:36:55 ◼   ► I love how they're clearly for special buildings and big locations.

00:37:00 ◼   ► They are making very realistic 3D recreations of them inside of maps.

00:37:07 ◼   ► So if you go browse around in London, you'll notice on the Explorer thing where they're

00:37:11 ◼   ► using all vector images that some of the buildings in London are really detailed and they're

00:37:17 ◼   ► colored.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I'm looking at them now.

00:37:20 ◼   ► Tower Bridge is nice.

00:37:21 ◼   ► And they keep adding more and more.

00:37:22 ◼   ► Yeah, like the Tower Bridge, that whole area.

00:37:24 ◼   ► Oh, Tower London's great.

00:37:26 ◼   ► That's getting better.

00:37:27 ◼   ► They're adding these things in and I think that they're duped.

00:37:32 ◼   ► This goes hand in hand with the AR directions, because I also suspect, or at least this is

00:37:38 ◼   ► what I would be doing if I was on that project, is you can start using this to try to teach

00:37:44 ◼   ► AI systems how to create these detailed abstract representations of the building, because now

00:37:51 ◼   ► you start to, you have a data set that you can give them of, here's all of our satellite

00:37:56 ◼   ► images of, and all of our like that crazy flyover stuff they're doing with the airplanes

00:38:00 ◼   ► to measure the 3D representation of the world.

00:38:04 ◼   ► Here's all the raw data for Tower Bridge, and then here we of the humans have created

00:38:10 ◼   ► what it should look like.

00:38:12 ◼   ► Or here's the Tate Modern, or here's the Shakespeare's Globe.

00:38:15 ◼   ► And then you can start to use that to expand to the whole world of, if we give you all

00:38:20 ◼   ► the data we have on any building, can you do this?

00:38:23 ◼   ► Can you recreate what it should be like?

00:38:25 ◼   ► This is what I mean by, I find the Apple Maps development stuff fascinating, because it

00:38:29 ◼   ► isn't just about maps, it's about an abstract but very legible for both humans and for machines

00:38:39 ◼   ► recreation of the whole world. It's like I could see what they're doing, it's so cool.

00:38:43 ◼   ► Sounds creepy when you say it like that. I don't understand what's creepy about that

00:38:47 ◼   ► at all. The recreation of the whole world. I don't know, there's something about that,

00:38:52 ◼   ► I was like I don't know how I feel about that when you say it that way. But yeah, I agree

00:38:55 ◼   ► with you. Okay, I'll narrow it down, the human built

00:38:58 ◼   ► environment. They're not recreating the terrifying forest

00:39:02 ◼   ► gulches that I could fall into in Hawaii, right? Those aren't getting recreated

00:39:06 ◼   ► right now, but it's the human-built world that they're recreating inside of their

00:39:10 ◼   ► system. Yeah, so I legit am super excited about map stuff. I don't particularly

00:39:15 ◼   ► have any, like the actual answer to the question now that we've gone on a huge

00:39:19 ◼   ► diversion, I don't particularly have any features except for I may be the only

00:39:25 ◼   ► person on Earth who uses their guides as much as I do, which is the way that you can tag stuff

00:39:33 ◼   ► and like keep track of it in Apple Maps. So I basically put everything that's interesting to me

00:39:40 ◼   ► I mark on Apple Maps so that I can always just be aware of it in the world. Like even in, I mean,

00:39:46 ◼   ► just in London I probably have like a hundred places that are tagged as something that's

00:39:50 ◼   ► interesting and if I'm ever reading a book or just you know you see a YouTube

00:39:55 ◼   ► video on an interesting place I just love to throw in a bunch of these tags

00:39:59 ◼   ► so I'm just aware of them. Like they would never do this because I think I

00:40:03 ◼   ► really do mean it I may be the person who uses guides most among any of the

00:40:07 ◼   ► users on the face of the earth but I would love to have some kind of feature

00:40:10 ◼   ► of like show me everything that I have put in this folder that is within two

00:40:17 ◼   ► hours travel distance of my current location. I think that might be the only feature that I would

00:40:22 ◼   ► be interested in, but I would never expect that they would actually do something like that because

00:40:26 ◼   ► it's just too narrow of a feature. But so I'm always excited to see whatever the Amplimaps team

00:40:30 ◼   ► has cooking up. This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Wealthfront. So many people regret not

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00:41:58 ◼   ► Question from Tony.

00:42:00 ◼   ► If Grey and Myke had to switch jobs for some amount of time,

00:42:03 ◼   ► who would have the better time and who would struggle more?

00:42:05 ◼   ► Oh my god, what an amazing question.

00:42:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I've been thinking about this question for three days.

00:42:10 ◼   ► That's such a good question. I mean, that's- Myke, that's very easy because your job

00:42:16 ◼   ► would kill me. I would just die if I had to do your job. This, like, there's not even any question

00:42:23 ◼   ► about that. I don't think you would enjoy my job. Maybe I'm wrong, but let me tell you, your job

00:42:30 ◼   ► would kill me. The things you sometimes casually mention, it's like, give me heart attacks.

00:42:36 ◼   ► - You would hate to deal with the kind of corporatey,

00:42:41 ◼   ► businessy stuff that I have to handle.

00:42:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:42:45 ◼   ► - And I, 'cause I was thinking like,

00:42:47 ◼   ► so that's kind of where I,

00:42:48 ◼   ► you wouldn't want to cope with my job.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Like you wouldn't be able to do it.

00:42:53 ◼   ► Now, what I was thinking is,

00:42:56 ◼   ► I could do what you do.

00:43:00 ◼   ► I would not enjoy it and I would not be good at it.

00:43:03 ◼   ► But like, if someone was like,

00:43:04 ◼   ► the two of you have to switch,

00:43:06 ◼   ► I feel like I could last longest.

00:43:08 ◼   ► - If I was put in charge of Relay,

00:43:10 ◼   ► it would just be a sinking ship, right?

00:43:12 ◼   ► It would be the freaking Titanic.

00:43:14 ◼   ► Just, oh boy.

00:43:16 ◼   ► You could last longer at my job.

00:43:19 ◼   ► I couldn't last at your job, but no way.

00:43:21 ◼   ► - But I think it is very fair to say,

00:43:23 ◼   ► if we swapped, both companies would end.

00:43:27 ◼   ► Just yours would go a little bit slower.

00:43:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, what's a,

00:43:32 ◼   ► Was there like a slower moving disaster in the Titanic?

00:43:36 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, yeah, the corporate side of it

00:43:38 ◼   ► would all completely fall apart if I had to do your job.

00:43:42 ◼   ► I just--

00:43:43 ◼   ► - Can you imagine if you had to do all the shows I did?

00:43:45 ◼   ► - I give you endless credit for the sheer number

00:43:48 ◼   ► of shows that you do.

00:43:49 ◼   ► You know, it's funny, thinking about it,

00:43:51 ◼   ► when I was a teacher, I almost certainly talked more

00:43:55 ◼   ► during the day than you do as a podcaster,

00:43:58 ◼   ► but the key difference there is it was the same thing

00:44:02 ◼   ► repeated many times over the course of the week, right, which vastly made it so much easier. And

00:44:08 ◼   ► you could kind of tweak it of like, Oh, okay, great. I get to do this lesson

00:44:12 ◼   ► five times and feel like I'm improving it slightly each of the five times. And then also,

00:44:18 ◼   ► very importantly, save that work for next year. And so then you start reaping those benefits of

00:44:23 ◼   ► like, Oh, I taught this last year. So I may have been talking more, what I didn't have that you

00:44:29 ◼   ► have is the sheer amount of unique things. I think your podcast schedule would just,

00:44:36 ◼   ► I would just be sucked dry, like I had had some kind of crossover with a vampire, and

00:44:42 ◼   ► it's just like, "Oh, I'm just a total husk of my former self, and I have nothing

00:44:46 ◼   ► more to give." That's how I would be after two weeks of doing your job. I would be dead,

00:44:52 ◼   ► yeah.

00:44:53 ◼   ► I do do an element of that, right? Which is like, things come up, and it's like, "Oh,

00:44:58 ◼   ► was good and they become like segments or like things we do multiple times or do every year but

00:45:03 ◼   ► they still have to all still be unique it's like it's just the idea is the same the actual content

00:45:10 ◼   ► has to change like we don't do the same thing every time so yeah there is an element of like

00:45:16 ◼   ► you create this kind of pseudo calendar of things that you can come back to but yeah that is the

00:45:22 ◼   ► the hardest part is that they all need to be original every single time.

00:45:27 ◼   ► - I don't want to do this swap, but I would be worse at it without any doubt.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Peter has a question here which is, "What is one good and one bad habit that you picked up from

00:45:37 ◼   ► your previous careers that you still have?" Which I also think is a very good question

00:45:43 ◼   ► that's catching my attention. I'm also finding very hard to answer.

00:45:47 ◼   ► So you go first with this one, Myke. What's an answer for that?

00:45:50 ◼   ► Mine are, it's actually two sides of the same coin.

00:45:54 ◼   ► Okay.

00:45:55 ◼   ► So one thing that I picked up from working in a large multinational corporation, right,

00:46:02 ◼   ► a huge bank and most of the skill that I was able to bring forward was working in the marketing

00:46:09 ◼   ► department for a number of years.

00:46:11 ◼   ► The good thing that I took away from that is understanding corporations, how people

00:46:16 ◼   ► work within them, structures and hierarchies and the way that people talk. This has been

00:46:22 ◼   ► very useful for me when working in the sponsorship side of our business. Understanding what people's

00:46:30 ◼   ► wants and needs are, like the aims that they are trying to fulfil and trying to not take

00:46:37 ◼   ► some decisions too personally and also understanding like why it can take 75 days for an invoice

00:46:45 ◼   ► to be paid, right? But like that not being a joke, right? That like knowing that like

00:46:51 ◼   ► everyone's agreed to 30 days but knowing why that isn't possible sometimes, right? That like

00:46:58 ◼   ► the person who made that agreement would love to be able to do it but it doesn't work like that

00:47:03 ◼   ► because it's going to go into the entry of accounting. It's like oh there are three people

00:47:07 ◼   ► off in accounting this week so it slows it. It's like just realizing that like that doesn't mean

00:47:12 ◼   ► "You are being personally affronted," right?

00:47:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:47:16 ◼   ► - And that everyone had the best intentions

00:47:18 ◼   ► when we all signed this contract,

00:47:20 ◼   ► but understanding that realistically,

00:47:22 ◼   ► things don't always work that way, you know?

00:47:25 ◼   ► So knowing that that's the way that things kind of move,

00:47:28 ◼   ► because I used to have to do this, right?

00:47:31 ◼   ► So someone would send me an invoice,

00:47:33 ◼   ► and I would send it to accounts payable,

00:47:35 ◼   ► and never thought about it again.

00:47:37 ◼   ► - Right.

00:47:38 ◼   ► - There was just a level of understanding

00:47:40 ◼   ► of the structures that was very helpful to me.

00:47:42 ◼   ► The bad side of it is how frustrating I find corporate speak,

00:47:47 ◼   ► and that never left me.

00:47:49 ◼   ► And I still hear it, I still see it,

00:47:52 ◼   ► and it really grates on me.

00:47:55 ◼   ► - Why does it grate on you, or like expand on that?

00:47:57 ◼   ► - I wished people would just say what they mean,

00:48:00 ◼   ► or what they want to say, rather than trying to hide it.

00:48:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, isn't that the purpose of corporate speak though,

00:48:05 ◼   ► is to obfuscate what they're actually trying to say?

00:48:07 ◼   ► Even from themselves sometimes, I think.

00:48:09 ◼   ► - But that's it, right?

00:48:11 ◼   ► I just wish people would get rid of it.

00:48:13 ◼   ► And I know I fall victim to it like everybody, right?

00:48:16 ◼   ► 'Cause sometimes language just changes

00:48:18 ◼   ► and we co-opt these things.

00:48:21 ◼   ► But the amount of emails that I have received

00:48:25 ◼   ► in the last three years that have been some form of

00:48:30 ◼   ► in these trying times and due to the current situation,

00:48:35 ◼   ► I just wish people would just be a little bit more open

00:48:38 ◼   ► and to say what they mean rather than fall.

00:48:40 ◼   ► the best slash worst one that I ever got,

00:48:44 ◼   ► somebody sent to me,

00:48:45 ◼   ► I honestly couldn't believe that they'd written this,

00:48:47 ◼   ► like, hope you're staying positive and testing negative.

00:48:52 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:48:53 ◼   ► - And I wanted to shoot that email into the sun.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Like I just wanted to like,

00:48:58 ◼   ► what could I do to get rid of it?

00:49:00 ◼   ► It's safe to say I did not proceed

00:49:03 ◼   ► with any kind of business interaction with this individual.

00:49:06 ◼   ► This was one of those emails I was talking about

00:49:07 ◼   ► from before, you know,

00:49:09 ◼   ► these emails that I just get

00:49:10 ◼   ► 'cause I'm on these lists.

00:49:12 ◼   ► By the way, someone sent me something recently.

00:49:14 ◼   ► A friend of mine forwarded this to me,

00:49:16 ◼   ► I think because of these conversations.

00:49:18 ◼   ► So one of the things that we were talking about a bunch

00:49:20 ◼   ► was like these people that are trying to book guests

00:49:24 ◼   ► onto our shows, right?

00:49:25 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:49:26 ◼   ► - This was a person who was going out to podcasts

00:49:30 ◼   ► to be like, "Hey, I am a guest booker.

00:49:32 ◼   ► "These are my services."

00:49:35 ◼   ► And they would charge $1,500 a week.

00:49:38 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

00:49:39 ◼   ► And then when I saw that, I was like, "Oh, so now I know why they send so many emails."

00:49:44 ◼   ► Because that is an obscene amount of money for what that job is.

00:49:46 ◼   ► That is absurd, yes.

00:49:47 ◼   ► That's completely absurd.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Which is sending spam to people.

00:49:51 ◼   ► Now I have a better sense of why they send me so many emails.

00:49:55 ◼   ► I was just trying to think about the...

00:49:56 ◼   ► I can't quite remember it.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I feel like George Orwell has some line about people who don't use words, but they're using

00:50:03 ◼   ► phrases like you're complaining about.

00:50:05 ◼   ► They speak as though with sections of prefabricated homes.

00:50:09 ◼   ► what like that's kind of what that is. Man that's beautiful. Orwell was pretty good with words.

00:50:14 ◼   ► Like I don't remember the exact quote. That man he knew how to put a sentence together you know.

00:50:18 ◼   ► He knew how to put a sentence together but yeah he has he has some line that that I'm the gist of it

00:50:23 ◼   ► really struck me of like oh it's it's not sentences it's sections of prefabricated homes that are just

00:50:28 ◼   ► coming one after another and and that's like I feel like that is a lot of what corporate speak

00:50:34 ◼   ► It's like it's weird, samey infrastructure.

00:50:38 ◼   ► Like it's not actually words

00:50:41 ◼   ► to communicate particular meanings.

00:50:44 ◼   ► - I found the quote here.

00:50:45 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, what is it?

00:50:46 ◼   ► - So like the lead up to it is Orwell writes

00:50:49 ◼   ► that this is a common problem in current political writing.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Quote, "prose consists less and less of words chosen

00:50:56 ◼   ► for the sake of their meaning,

00:50:58 ◼   ► and more and more of phrases tacked together

00:51:01 ◼   ► like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse."

00:51:04 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:51:05 ◼   ► HENRY: It's even better.

00:51:06 ◼   ► BRIAN: Henhouse makes it even better.

00:51:07 ◼   ► HENRY I was going to say, that's again like the skill of someone who can write like that

00:51:11 ◼   ► is henhouse gives that a completely different meaning than hums.

00:51:16 ◼   ► BRIAN Yes, yes it does.

00:51:17 ◼   ► Yeah it makes it so much worse.

00:51:18 ◼   ► It makes it so much worse.

00:51:19 ◼   ► HENRY And that is a beautiful sentence that's going to stick with me for a while.

00:51:22 ◼   ► BRIAN Yeah there you go.

00:51:24 ◼   ► There's like corporate speak is falling into that same category as like oh it's

00:51:28 ◼   ► weird kind of infrastructure.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Infrastructure for a henhouse.

00:51:31 ◼   ► It's not even a custom henhouse.

00:51:33 ◼   ► And it is one of those things which like super unfortunately is just it's changing language

00:51:39 ◼   ► which is I find it a shame but it is what it is. Anyway so that's that's mine where I feel like the

00:51:44 ◼   ► one good and bad habit that I picked up from my career is about corporate communication for me.

00:51:50 ◼   ► Yeah I still I still wanted to talk about language because I feel like I need to stall for my answer

00:51:56 ◼   ► but uh like because well because I think part of the reason that that question caught my attention

00:52:02 ◼   ► is the bad habit is the much more interesting part of that question. But just in being human,

00:52:09 ◼   ► I think your own bad habits can sometimes be less obvious to you. So like, I was trying to think

00:52:15 ◼   ► about that. And there's nothing that that jumps to mind. And this isn't really a habit. But I think

00:52:22 ◼   ► something really good that has stuck with me that came out of my previous career as a teacher was

00:52:31 ◼   ► Again, this is a little hard to articulate, but what I want to try to express here is that,

00:52:36 ◼   ► like we were talking about before, you have these different phases of life, right? And you start out

00:52:42 ◼   ► and you're a kid and you're not responsible for anything. And like, that's what being a child is.

00:52:46 ◼   ► It's like, you're an idiot and everyone else is responsible for your actions, but not you.

00:52:51 ◼   ► And, you know, then you start going to school and society tries to civilize you from being like this

00:52:59 ◼   ► this little monster into a person who can tie his shoes or whatever. And as you go through

00:53:04 ◼   ► school, you're growing up and you're becoming more of a person and then you leave school

00:53:11 ◼   ► and you go out into the real world. And you still have this transitionary period where

00:53:19 ◼   ► you're new at the job and so people can still treat you in a less serious way, but you're

00:53:26 ◼   ► still in the real world. Like I have a very particular moment. It wasn't really anything

00:53:31 ◼   ► but like for me this was really defined as like a moment that it just really struck me

00:53:37 ◼   ► as oh this is real now. Like everything is serious. There's no playing around anymore.

00:53:45 ◼   ► You know we're not bowling with those inflatable things on either side of the runway right.

00:53:49 ◼   ► It's like no no this is this is the real world and I would translate this as like it helped

00:53:56 ◼   ► me really become serious in, "Oh, are you seriously trying to go out on your own and

00:54:05 ◼   ► become self-employed?" Are you being serious about it? Or are you doing things that feel

00:54:13 ◼   ► like they're working towards this goal, but they aren't really? And the thing that really

00:54:19 ◼   ► struck me about it is, it's like, "Hey guy, well, you'll know every day if you haven't

00:54:25 ◼   ► been serious enough because you're still coming in here to the school to work. And it literally

00:54:31 ◼   ► took me years. I mean, probably timeline wise, it still took me like five years to actually

00:54:37 ◼   ► go self employed from that moment, maybe four years, but it was just a realization of like,

00:54:42 ◼   ► this is really for real in in, you know, like these moments in life where you just kind

00:54:46 ◼   ► of you have a mental change or you realize like now this phase of life is fundamentally

00:54:51 ◼   ► different than the things that have come before. That's something that's really stuck with me,

00:54:56 ◼   ► and it's a framework that I tend to apply to a lot of things. Let's put it this way, like,

00:55:02 ◼   ► you see a group of people, and they're trying to achieve objective x. And a very important question

00:55:09 ◼   ► is to ask, are these people actually serious about trying to achieve objective x, no matter what it

00:55:16 ◼   ► is. And I wish I could like articulate in more precise words what I mean by that, but

00:55:25 ◼   ► it's like something that I got in this moment of like a real clarity of like, this group

00:55:31 ◼   ► looks like they're trying to achieve objective X. But if you were serious about it, what

00:55:37 ◼   ► would you do? Like if they want to have a world where like, X doesn't exist anymore,

00:55:43 ◼   ► are the steps they're taking the steps that you would do if you were serious about making

00:55:49 ◼   ► a world without X as soon as possible. In the same way that when I was working as a

00:55:55 ◼   ► teacher the question is like, what do I really need to do so that I wake up one morning and

00:56:02 ◼   ► I don't come in to work as a teacher because I am actually supporting myself through self-employment?

00:56:09 ◼   ► Like, there's lots of things that can look like you're working towards that goal, but

00:56:14 ◼   ► they're not serious.

00:56:15 ◼   ► They're like play-acting towards it in some way.

00:56:19 ◼   ► So yeah, I think that's not exactly like a habit or something, but it's a kind of change

00:56:24 ◼   ► of mind that very clearly happened and has definitely carried forward with me, and it's

00:56:32 ◼   ► something I think about a lot of, like, am I being serious about this thing, or like,

00:56:36 ◼   ► is this person serious about this thing that they claim that they're interested in in some

00:56:40 ◼   ► way or another? And the answer is very frequently no. But like that's a different topic.

00:56:46 ◼   ► I can kind of see how that spreads across the good and bad, right? Where like it's good

00:56:51 ◼   ► for you to be able to realize that in yourself, but it could be bad because you would maybe

00:56:58 ◼   ► be more quick to judge someone on whether they are making that decision for themselves.

00:57:03 ◼   ► I don't think it is bad to make that judgment.

00:57:05 ◼   ► I think it is informative to make that judgment

00:57:07 ◼   ► about what the situation is.

00:57:09 ◼   ► I do also think that it has come up on the show many,

00:57:13 ◼   ► like I'm not the best with people,

00:57:16 ◼   ► but there's a way in which, I don't know,

00:57:19 ◼   ► maybe this is helpful for people who are like me

00:57:22 ◼   ► where you come across a person

00:57:23 ◼   ► and like they're working on thing Y

00:57:25 ◼   ► and they claim that they're very interested

00:57:27 ◼   ► and serious about thing Y,

00:57:30 ◼   ► but you judge that like, oh,

00:57:31 ◼   ► they're not actually doing the things that if you sat down

00:57:35 ◼   ► and like wrote them all on a piece of paper,

00:57:36 ◼   ► like what is the most cost effective per unit time thing

00:57:39 ◼   ► that you should be working on in order to do this?

00:57:42 ◼   ► Like they're not doing any of the things

00:57:43 ◼   ► that are at the top of that list,

00:57:45 ◼   ► they're doing all the things

00:57:45 ◼   ► that are at the bottom of that list.

00:57:47 ◼   ► It's not a judgment that like that person is bad,

00:57:52 ◼   ► it's just a kind of like, oh, okay,

00:57:55 ◼   ► well they're just not serious about that.

00:57:59 ◼   ► And that's fine.

00:58:01 ◼   ► I don't know, I find it like it's helpful, whereas it would be more frustrating in a

00:58:06 ◼   ► way to kind of like take them at their word that they really mean this. It's like, "No,

00:58:11 ◼   ► but you don't. You're just acting as though this is a thing that like you're very interested

00:58:15 ◼   ► in fixing this problem, but it like it doesn't actually seem that you're doing any of the

00:58:18 ◼   ► things that would do that." So yeah, I don't know. I think it's just it's a useful framework

00:58:22 ◼   ► that I can't articulate any better than just this simple word of like "serious" or "do

00:58:27 ◼   ► do you really mean it?" And there's some kind of objective measure in the world that

00:58:33 ◼   ► would be different about it. You know, like, maybe going back to that thing about writing,

00:58:38 ◼   ► it is such a it's such a dumb joke but it always stuck with me. There's like a really

00:58:41 ◼   ► old joke from Family Guy about Brian working on a novel and there's like all these clips

00:58:46 ◼   ► of Stewie giving him a hard time about like the novel he's working on. And that encapsulates

00:58:51 ◼   ► like people who aren't serious about doing a thing. It's like, how's that novel you're

00:58:56 ◼   ► working on, right? Like, because everyone knows with that joke, you know people who

00:59:01 ◼   ► are in these situations of like, they want to be a writer. And it's like, oh, okay,

00:59:06 ◼   ► do you know what writers do? They write the book?

00:59:10 ◼   ► We've all got that great novel, right? Like everyone's got that in them.

00:59:13 ◼   ► On the flip side, to be quite harsh about it, it's like, you know what writers don't

00:59:16 ◼   ► do? They don't go to classes about how to write a novel. They don't get PhDs in English

00:59:23 ◼   ► literature is like, and this is again one of these things of, it's sort of obvious to say,

00:59:28 ◼   ► but if you just think about it for a second, it's like, oh, how many of the great and successful

00:59:33 ◼   ► writers in the world have formal education backgrounds in English and writing? The answer

00:59:39 ◼   ► is like, basically none of them. And if they do, they were all already writing before that happened.

00:59:45 ◼   ► And like, they got those jobs because they were writers. So that's like an articulation of the

00:59:50 ◼   ► seriousness. Like, you want to be a writer? Oh, but you're getting your PhD in English literature?

00:59:55 ◼   ► Like you're immediate—you're not serious about this at all. Like you're doing something that

00:59:59 ◼   ► sounds and looks like it's towards the goal, but is like—but isn't really. So anyway, that's more

01:00:05 ◼   ► of a mindset, but I feel like that came out of working in school and trying to become self-employed

01:00:10 ◼   ► and just really having this realization of like, oh, there's a totally objective measure about

01:00:16 ◼   ► whether or not you've achieved your goal here, and it's whether or not you're still coming

01:00:21 ◼   ► in to work at the school, and so what actually really needs to happen to change that in the

01:00:29 ◼   ► real world? And that's what you need to focus on if you are quote "serious" about accomplishing

01:00:35 ◼   ► that goal, which again still took me many years, but I think it wouldn't have happened

01:00:41 ◼   ► if I hadn't kind of like in a particular moment had this realization and this mental

01:00:46 ◼   ► framing for things.

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01:02:29 ◼   ► So speaking about serious, you serious about TikTok?

01:02:32 ◼   ► Did you actually create a TikTok account?

01:02:34 ◼   ► Did you do it?

01:02:35 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

01:02:36 ◼   ► No, Myke, I'm deadly serious about TikTok, because yes,

01:02:39 ◼   ► I did upload to my TikTok.

01:02:41 ◼   ► You did?

01:02:42 ◼   ► And I got tens of views on my TikTok.

01:02:45 ◼   ► No way.

01:02:47 ◼   ► What's your TikTok account name?

01:02:49 ◼   ► Oh, God, I don't even know.

01:02:50 ◼   ► It has--

01:02:51 ◼   ► The problem was I went looking, and there's already

01:02:53 ◼   ► a bunch of CGP Grays.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I did upload to TikTok.

01:02:58 ◼   ► I forget what the actual official one is called,

01:03:01 ◼   ► but there is an official CGP Grey TikTok

01:03:04 ◼   ► on which was uploaded my couple of TikToks

01:03:06 ◼   ► and it did terribly, which is exactly what I was expecting.

01:03:08 ◼   ► I had no expectations in any other way.

01:03:09 ◼   ► - Is it CGP Grey official?

01:03:11 ◼   ► - Maybe, I don't even know.

01:03:14 ◼   ► This was like how much I didn't want to be involved.

01:03:18 ◼   ► - Okay, I think it is 'cause there are two

01:03:19 ◼   ► that have been uploaded and they're like,

01:03:21 ◼   ► our place one is 2200 and the towels one is 1500.

01:03:26 ◼   ► Yeah, so I did upload those and also since we did the last show, what came up while we

01:03:31 ◼   ► were recording and then I just did was also joked about uploading the towels are a lie

01:03:35 ◼   ► as a short since it was basically a short already so it's like yeah why the hell not.

01:03:39 ◼   ► This is like this is funny.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I've always kind of wanted this on the main channel anyway so let me just upload it as

01:03:44 ◼   ► a short.

01:03:45 ◼   ► However, I will say like this is actually kind of a funny follow-up to that very concept

01:03:49 ◼   ► of like being serious because so now I have two shorts that I posted.

01:03:54 ◼   ► The Towel is a Lie one is at like 800,000 views and it'll probably hit a million views.

01:04:00 ◼   ► And now again, I understand that is just a re-upload of a thing I already do.

01:04:05 ◼   ► It's 19 seconds long.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Like it's, it's even in shorts land, it is really short, but it's like those SAT questions

01:04:13 ◼   ► where you go like, "As A is to Y, how is X to Z?"

01:04:18 ◼   ► Because that first short about R-Place was to my regular videos, the second towel short

01:04:26 ◼   ► is to the R-Place short in terms of all of the stats that I actually care about.

01:04:33 ◼   ► So again, views look great, but behind the scenes…

01:04:36 ◼   ► I see what you're saying.

01:04:37 ◼   ► Right?

01:04:38 ◼   ► Okay, so in all the ways that the first short performed badly compared to a regular video,

01:04:44 ◼   ► the second short compared to even that one poorly.

01:04:48 ◼   ► Yes, right. So the stats that I care about for the first short were all like 1/20th to 1/30th for a regular video.

01:04:58 ◼   ► And this one is like a 20th to a 30th compared to the short. So it's like, oh my god.

01:05:04 ◼   ► I spent almost no time reformatting that and uploading it to YouTube.

01:05:09 ◼   ► And my business still lost money when you think about the fixed costs and the value of my time.

01:05:14 ◼   ► simply like re-uploading a thing that I had already done.

01:05:18 ◼   ► There's a couple of things I sort of shot while I was in Hawaii where I thought like,

01:05:22 ◼   ► "Oh, this might make like a fun short, I don't know."

01:05:24 ◼   ► There's one in particular that could be like,

01:05:27 ◼   ► "Oh, if I just spend an afternoon I could put it together."

01:05:29 ◼   ► So I'm not entirely done with shorts,

01:05:34 ◼   ► but since that conversation I have become looking into it a bit more and thinking about it more.

01:05:40 ◼   ► even way, way more negative on shorts as a thing that makes sense to do than I was in

01:05:47 ◼   ► that conversation where I was already incredibly negative.

01:05:51 ◼   ► It's been tech earnings season so it made me think you are bearish on shorts right now.

01:05:57 ◼   ► Yes I'm extremely bearish on shorts for me, like again I still think it makes sense depending

01:06:03 ◼   ► on what kind of creator that you are. I'm not saying it's, well actually having installed

01:06:09 ◼   ► TikTok and played around with it a bit and also watched more shorts to more fully understand the

01:06:13 ◼   ► platform. It's like, I do kind of think that the shorts format is intrinsically bad for civilization.

01:06:20 ◼   ► I really do. I spent more time actually thinking about it and I'm like, "Oh, I'll go on TikTok,

01:06:32 ◼   ► fine. I'll install it. Let me see the best of what this format has to offer."

01:06:38 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's not entertaining, but it makes me think of, um...

01:06:45 ◼   ► I don't know. It makes me think of this fundamental property of...

01:06:51 ◼   ► Is this a fundamental property? I don't know. Just this process by which...

01:06:57 ◼   ► You... Like, civilization works to refine certain sorts of experiences.

01:07:03 ◼   ► And I think like this is this is a refining of the I am content consuming experience that is too far.

01:07:13 ◼   ► It's gone too far in a particular direction. And I think particularly the like I am watching

01:07:19 ◼   ► something that is vertical on my phone with my thumb hovering above it to swipe it for any second.

01:07:27 ◼   ► It's like I just think it's bad. I think it's bad in the way it trains your brain to

01:07:33 ◼   ► as you said, Myke, munch through content.

01:07:35 ◼   ► I was just gonna say, it's the wrong kind of munching, man.

01:07:39 ◼   ► It's the wrong kind of munching.

01:07:42 ◼   ► Yeah, look, I will say, like, we obviously got quite a bit of feedback

01:07:46 ◼   ► from people that really love TikTok, and like, I want you to know,

01:07:49 ◼   ► I get it.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Like, I have seen some absolutely hilarious magic TikToks, right?

01:07:57 ◼   ► Like, things that have just really made me laugh.

01:07:59 ◼   ► So, like, I'm not saying that the content is bad on there.

01:08:03 ◼   ► I'm trying to say something slightly different, which is like the structure of it, the whole way things are presented is intrinsically...

01:08:17 ◼   ► I can give you an example, right? So this is part of why I was still looking into it a little bit more.

01:08:21 ◼   ► So when you're making a video, one of the things if you are making something that you do want to be widely seen, that's useful to think about,

01:08:28 ◼   ► is you have to think about the margins on that video.

01:08:31 ◼   ► So for example, you have things like what are called

01:08:33 ◼   ► title safe areas.

01:08:35 ◼   ► If you want to put words on the screen,

01:08:37 ◼   ► you should have them within a certain boundary

01:08:39 ◼   ► from the edge.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Because if someone say is in a classroom

01:08:42 ◼   ► and projecting onto the screen,

01:08:44 ◼   ► you can't guarantee that the word at the very edge

01:08:47 ◼   ► is gonna be shown all the way.

01:08:49 ◼   ► But you can be like very confident that with,

01:08:51 ◼   ► as long as you keep a 10% buffer from the edge,

01:08:54 ◼   ► they're gonna see the words.

01:08:55 ◼   ► And so I was also doing a thing with shorts

01:08:57 ◼   ► where I was thinking, oh, okay, well,

01:08:59 ◼   ► if I'm gonna make this stuff,

01:09:01 ◼   ► I need to be aware of what are the margins

01:09:04 ◼   ► for these videos.

01:09:05 ◼   ► So like with YouTube, when you hover your mouse

01:09:08 ◼   ► over just a regular video,

01:09:10 ◼   ► the controls come up on the bottom,

01:09:12 ◼   ► and that's a thing that you wanna be aware of.

01:09:13 ◼   ► You don't wanna put anything vital

01:09:15 ◼   ► where the controls are gonna be.

01:09:16 ◼   ► - One wrong mouse move and now you can't see the top part.

01:09:19 ◼   ► - You've obscured something.

01:09:20 ◼   ► Now, is that vital?

01:09:22 ◼   ► No, it's not vital.

01:09:23 ◼   ► I break that rule all the time,

01:09:24 ◼   ► but it's still something you wanna be aware of.

01:09:26 ◼   ► like where can I guarantee information can be seen

01:09:29 ◼   ► and where can I not guarantee

01:09:31 ◼   ► that the information can be seen?

01:09:32 ◼   ► And I started to quickly mock up on the Shorts format,

01:09:36 ◼   ► like what can I guarantee can be seen and what can't?

01:09:40 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, like this is,

01:09:43 ◼   ► I was like totally revolted when I realized,

01:09:46 ◼   ► oh, you actually have like this totally horrific margins

01:09:51 ◼   ► for where controls are gonna be

01:09:54 ◼   ► and what's actually gonna be shown on the screen.

01:09:56 ◼   ► And I was really thinking of your comment of like, oh, on TikTok, it's TikTok and shorts and vertical video.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Like there's, they're so optimized for a person on the screen.

01:10:08 ◼   ► Like that's, that's what this is.

01:10:11 ◼   ► It's optimized for, there's a talking head who's saying something, or you have an entire person's body on the screen.

01:10:19 ◼   ► And everything else is like almost impossible to display

01:10:23 ◼   ► in a way where you can be sure

01:10:25 ◼   ► that it's all going to be seen.

01:10:28 ◼   ► Which is also something if like it finally clicked

01:10:30 ◼   ► in my head of like even the sort of,

01:10:32 ◼   ► I'm gonna put them in like a thousand air quotes,

01:10:34 ◼   ► educational videos that I have seen in the shorts format.

01:10:38 ◼   ► I just think they're all kind of bad.

01:10:41 ◼   ► But it's like, oh, but this partly explains why.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Even your ability to visually communicate stuff

01:10:47 ◼   ► is really limited. So yeah, anyway, I'm very short shorts in terms of my own production

01:10:55 ◼   ► of them. I have a couple more that I might try, but in my own mental framing of like

01:11:01 ◼   ► constantly trying to scry the order of projects that I'm going to work on, it's like this

01:11:05 ◼   ► got totally put to the bottom of the pile of like, yeah, I may do some more shorts,

01:11:10 ◼   ► but only if it really happens to work out.

01:11:13 ◼   ► I'm not going to intentionally spend some time on shorts compared to almost every other

01:11:20 ◼   ► project, even after just two and then seriously investigating the format some more.

01:11:26 ◼   ► I'm just like, I just, I think it's kind of intrinsically a bad format and it's been too

01:11:31 ◼   ► refined as a product and it's gone past some marker where it is now bad.

01:11:36 ◼   ► It works for some creators, but this is kind of what I was saying before.

01:11:42 ◼   ► I think the energy and the way things are displayed, it's all a very specific type of

01:11:50 ◼   ► thing, and it's just not the area that you work in.

01:11:56 ◼   ► It just isn't.

01:11:59 ◼   ► There is a forcedness to a lot of it that I don't really think that you exhibit very

01:12:03 ◼   ► much or would struggle to the energy and stuff like that is I think is needed

01:12:09 ◼   ► it's just not it's just not your speed are you saying I don't have that high

01:12:13 ◼   ► youtuber energy Myke do you want to give it a go I do not know I was gonna put

01:12:20 ◼   ► you through the test there like oh you saying I don't have it was like come on

01:12:23 ◼   ► and show me show me what you got yeah I've been thinking about the visual for

01:12:27 ◼   ► like like for tik-tok right there is an episode of The Simpsons always comes

01:12:32 ◼   ► to the Simpsons.

01:12:33 ◼   ► There's an episode of the Simpsons,

01:12:34 ◼   ► I think it's one of the Halloween episodes,

01:12:36 ◼   ► the Treehouse of Horror episodes,

01:12:38 ◼   ► where Homer is sent to hell

01:12:40 ◼   ► and the devil is feeding him donuts.

01:12:42 ◼   ► - Right, I'm like, it's the donut machine,

01:12:44 ◼   ► whatever Myke's talking about.

01:12:45 ◼   ► - Where the devil's trying to give him what he wants

01:12:49 ◼   ► in a way that he would hate it.

01:12:50 ◼   ► And he just loves that these donuts

01:12:53 ◼   ► are being constantly fed to him

01:12:55 ◼   ► in a way where he barely has to do anything.

01:12:58 ◼   ► And this is what I imagine TikTok is for.

01:13:00 ◼   ► And again, I really want to come back to like,

01:13:02 ◼   ► if you love this content,

01:13:04 ◼   ► I love that you found something you like.

01:13:07 ◼   ► I just know for me, like this is how I feel about it.

01:13:10 ◼   ► Like for me as a consumer,

01:13:12 ◼   ► like I don't want to just be like over and over

01:13:16 ◼   ► and over again, getting served this stuff

01:13:19 ◼   ► like over and over.

01:13:21 ◼   ► It's just not the way I want too much content.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And it works for Homer, right?

01:13:26 ◼   ► And it may work for you like,

01:13:28 ◼   ► but it's just not my thing at all.

01:13:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, again, to bring this to The Simpsons again,

01:13:34 ◼   ► I understand that I can sound like

01:13:36 ◼   ► old man yells at cloud here.

01:13:38 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:13:39 ◼   ► - I get that.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - But I also, again, sometimes it's hard to articulate

01:13:45 ◼   ► thoughts on the fly like that.

01:13:48 ◼   ► This is why, Myke, I prefer to work in writing

01:13:50 ◼   ► because when you're just talking,

01:13:51 ◼   ► you have to just think a thought and say it straight away

01:13:54 ◼   ► and you can always have this miscommunication.

01:13:56 ◼   ► - Is it I who is out of touch?

01:13:57 ◼   ► That's what I'm thinking of now.

01:13:59 ◼   ► - No, the children are wrong.

01:14:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:14:03 ◼   ► There is a tendency to think that,

01:14:07 ◼   ► it's like, oh, so I've been on YouTube for 10 years

01:14:10 ◼   ► and then TikTok comes along

01:14:11 ◼   ► and there's a very easy way to go,

01:14:14 ◼   ► oh, of course, all the people on YouTube,

01:14:17 ◼   ► they don't get the new format

01:14:19 ◼   ► and this is the way that it's all going.

01:14:22 ◼   ► And it's like, yes, that can be true,

01:14:25 ◼   ► but I'm also saying like,

01:14:26 ◼   ► I think that TikTok is bad and, you know, and shorts content is bad.

01:14:34 ◼   ► And I guess what I keep trying to say by "refine" is the history of media is, "Oh, well, a

01:14:41 ◼   ► long time ago, we used to only have oral traditions in which we would just tell stories to each

01:14:45 ◼   ► other.

01:14:46 ◼   ► And then we had writing.

01:14:48 ◼   ► And then there were books.

01:14:49 ◼   ► And books is what existed for a really long time."

01:14:52 ◼   ► And you'll have people dig up these quotes where it's like, "Oh, Aristotle was really

01:14:57 ◼   ► concerned that the kids aren't going to be able to remember anything because now we

01:15:01 ◼   ► have writing."

01:15:02 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh."

01:15:03 ◼   ► It's easy to take that metaphor to everything that's modern and to go like, "Oh, it's

01:15:08 ◼   ► as ridiculous as Aristotle being worried that books were going to make the kids forget how

01:15:12 ◼   ► to remember things."

01:15:13 ◼   ► It's like, "Yes, okay."

01:15:15 ◼   ► But so we had books for a thousand years, and then we have radio, and then we have TV,

01:15:22 ◼   ► And it's like you can start to see the refinement process happen, particularly from like written

01:15:27 ◼   ► word to radio is, oh, this is easier, but you're still imagining stuff.

01:15:33 ◼   ► And then to TV, oh, this is easier, but you're not having to imagine things at all in in

01:15:39 ◼   ► the same kind of way.

01:15:40 ◼   ► There's just like editing implications of like, oh, what might have happened off screen,

01:15:44 ◼   ► which is now a concept that exists.

01:15:46 ◼   ► And then you progress to watching media on the internet, which is fundamentally different

01:15:52 ◼   ► from watching media on TV with streaming services and the rest of it.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And you have YouTube, which is like, I'm gonna put YouTube as net positive, but it's not

01:16:07 ◼   ► crystal clear to me that that's true.

01:16:09 ◼   ► Like I think I could have someone argue that it's not net positive and I'd be open to that

01:16:13 ◼   ► argument.

01:16:14 ◼   ► Like, watching videos on YouTube, while your alternatives are a click away, is a refinement

01:16:22 ◼   ► of watching something on TV where you can change the channel.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Like it's the same idea, but it's more.

01:16:28 ◼   ► And it's more precise.

01:16:29 ◼   ► And it's more targeted.

01:16:31 ◼   ► And so then switching from something like YouTube to something like TikTok is a further

01:16:36 ◼   ► refinement.

01:16:37 ◼   ► And at each one of those steps, you can use the Aristotle thought books were bad argument

01:16:45 ◼   ► to be like, "This is just the new thing."

01:16:49 ◼   ► But at a certain point, a difference in amount becomes a difference in kind.

01:16:55 ◼   ► And I think that Shorts have crossed that line of, "It's too refined.

01:17:01 ◼   ► It's too much."

01:17:02 ◼   ► And I think even if you like the content that shorts is creating and the content that is

01:17:08 ◼   ► on TikTok, which again, I found very funny, I think it is a bad environment for your brain

01:17:15 ◼   ► to be in that the like the ability to switch is too much like the algorithm is too good

01:17:22 ◼   ► at the next guessing of what it is that you want to do.

01:17:26 ◼   ► And I think like a like a key marker of this is, is, is also just like, even when I say

01:17:32 ◼   ► it that way, I think people can hear it the wrong way of like, oh, you're just thrilled

01:17:36 ◼   ► in every moment that you're watching TikTok.

01:17:38 ◼   ► But that's not necessarily the case.

01:17:40 ◼   ► I think a marker of, of its bad is just the ability to spend a huge amount of time on

01:17:47 ◼   ► it and kind of come away a bit like, oh, you know, where did all those hours go?

01:17:54 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:17:55 ◼   ► I just spent three hours watching things 30 seconds at a time.

01:18:01 ◼   ► And if you think that's not doing something to your brain, I think you're wrong.

01:18:06 ◼   ► And again, I may be Old Man Yells at Cloud here, but this is part of the reason why I'm

01:18:12 ◼   ► also more negative on the shorts is kind of thinking like, even if I made the best versions

01:18:20 ◼   ► of the things that I tried to make. It's clearer to me now that they're still existing in an

01:18:28 ◼   ► environment that is just, I think, kind of antithetical to brain health. So yeah.

01:18:36 ◼   ► Clearly we are both quite anti this form of content, right? Like I think this is very

01:18:41 ◼   ► obvious, right? And I know that there are going to be many people who think we're wrong and I'm

01:18:47 ◼   ► I'm fine with that, right?

01:18:48 ◼   ► Like, this is fine.

01:18:50 ◼   ► This is gonna happen, you know,

01:18:51 ◼   ► and I encourage people to enjoy the things they enjoy,

01:18:56 ◼   ► but I agree with you.

01:18:57 ◼   ► I think that this form of content

01:19:00 ◼   ► is ultimately not good for the consumer,

01:19:02 ◼   ► and I actually think it's worse for the creator.

01:19:04 ◼   ► I watched a really incredible video

01:19:06 ◼   ► that I'll put in the show notes

01:19:08 ◼   ► that I encourage people to watch, made by Hank Green,

01:19:10 ◼   ► where he was going through the economics of TikTok,

01:19:14 ◼   ► and how basically you can't make money on TikTok.

01:19:18 ◼   ► And this is one of those things

01:19:19 ◼   ► that we spoke about last time of like,

01:19:21 ◼   ► once anyone gets super famous on TikTok,

01:19:24 ◼   ► they try and do something else.

01:19:26 ◼   ► Because it's just this style of content,

01:19:30 ◼   ► I don't think can really work for monetization.

01:19:35 ◼   ► Because even if TikTok start giving you money, right?

01:19:39 ◼   ► Everybody knows, it's the same with YouTube,

01:19:41 ◼   ► like for a lot of people,

01:19:43 ◼   ► for most creators, the real money is in the ads

01:19:46 ◼   ► you can put inside of a video,

01:19:48 ◼   ► not the stuff that goes around it.

01:19:50 ◼   ► And if typically the videos are short,

01:19:53 ◼   ► even though they can be long,

01:19:54 ◼   ► but typically the videos are short,

01:19:56 ◼   ► and also they're like being served purely

01:19:58 ◼   ► by this algorithm, by and large,

01:20:01 ◼   ► I'm not sure if that's gonna get conversion

01:20:03 ◼   ► 'cause you're not building relationships

01:20:04 ◼   ► with the audience in the same way,

01:20:06 ◼   ► so for a lot of creators.

01:20:08 ◼   ► So yeah, I just think that ultimately,

01:20:11 ◼   ► this is a thing that's happening right now,

01:20:14 ◼   ► but I think is going to adjust.

01:20:16 ◼   ► I mean, I could honestly see TikTok kind of,

01:20:19 ◼   ► as it is anyway, changing to become more like YouTube

01:20:23 ◼   ► and less like it started.

01:20:25 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:20:26 ◼   ► - The videos are getting longer, right?

01:20:28 ◼   ► It's like a thing.

01:20:29 ◼   ► So it's like, well now you're just becoming

01:20:31 ◼   ► more like YouTube than you were this,

01:20:33 ◼   ► hey, here's a seven second,

01:20:36 ◼   ► basically more like YouTube, less like Vine.

01:20:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I know, and some people push back

01:20:42 ◼   ► about TikTok moving in a direction

01:20:44 ◼   ► where there's longer videos.

01:20:46 ◼   ► I think the key defining feature for me

01:20:48 ◼   ► of the two bad elements is vertical video

01:20:53 ◼   ► combined with instant swipe to next.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Like that to me is the refinement that I think is bad.

01:21:02 ◼   ► - Yes, I agree with you.

01:21:03 ◼   ► - Vertical video for a bunch of technical reasons

01:21:05 ◼   ► that I think people just, it's just not obvious

01:21:07 ◼   ► unless you are on the creation side of things

01:21:10 ◼   ► about how limiting that actually is.

01:21:12 ◼   ► But I think it's successful because it limits in a way

01:21:15 ◼   ► which is very attractive to people,

01:21:17 ◼   ► which is that it makes everything very people-focused.

01:21:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause I was gonna say,

01:21:21 ◼   ► I think vertical video is great for Instagram stories,

01:21:25 ◼   ► which is, you know, and like that kind of sharing,

01:21:28 ◼   ► which is like, I'm showing you something about my life,

01:21:31 ◼   ► I'm showing you what I'm doing.

01:21:33 ◼   ► Vertical video is great for that.

01:21:34 ◼   ► But when you're creating content, as you say,

01:21:37 ◼   ► It can give you a bunch of hurdles to jump through, which is complicated.

01:21:42 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

01:21:43 ◼   ► So if people are telling me like, oh, TikTok is moving in the direction of YouTube and

01:21:47 ◼   ► things are longer, it's like, yeah, that's better.

01:21:50 ◼   ► But I think it doesn't get to what is my fundamental concern about this way of munching through

01:21:57 ◼   ► content.

01:21:58 ◼   ► But I am significantly less convinced than you that it is going anywhere.

01:22:04 ◼   ► It's like, let me think.

01:22:05 ◼   ► What was that incredibly dumb platform that popped up in the pandemic where everyone was

01:22:10 ◼   ► like, "Oh my god, this is going to be amazing."

01:22:12 ◼   ► I was just thinking about it. I was about to bring it up. Clubhouse.

01:22:15 ◼   ► Clubhouse, thank you.

01:22:16 ◼   ► Like, I could see this would not work, but everyone was trying to say, "Oh, Clubhouse

01:22:20 ◼   ► is better than podcasting. Clubhouse is going to crush podcasting. It's the new podcasting."

01:22:25 ◼   ► And I'm like, "I tell you what, as someone who's been doing this for 10 years and have

01:22:29 ◼   ► seen products just like this come and go, it's not."

01:22:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I hadn't seen anything like that come and go, but I remember having a conversation with

01:22:38 ◼   ► my mom early in those days where she's always very interested in all the tech stuff.

01:22:42 ◼   ► She's like, "What's this clubhouse?" And I was like, "Oh, mom, you don't have to listen to

01:22:47 ◼   ► anything anyone says on this entire topic." I'm like, "I would bet my entire net worth that this

01:22:53 ◼   ► thing is gone in two years or is basically completely irrelevant, which is exactly what

01:22:58 ◼   ► what happened. And I felt so like I would have bet everything, right? Like I am all

01:23:02 ◼   ► in double down on this will not work. But I don't feel that same way about short video.

01:23:10 ◼   ► Even though we have had several different, including Vine, short video kinds of projects

01:23:15 ◼   ► in the past that have failed, I'm less confident in saying that the short video will will go

01:23:20 ◼   ► away. Which is also why I just just like concerned, I'm concerned about this as a thing that exists

01:23:27 ◼   ► in the world.

01:23:28 ◼   ► I don't think it's gonna go away, but I think that it's going to settle to something

01:23:32 ◼   ► where it feels like at the moment it's like it's being treated like this is the future

01:23:37 ◼   ► and I'm not convinced about that.

01:23:40 ◼   ► Right okay I would I would still take the position that I feel like I could be very

01:23:44 ◼   ► reasonably convinced that this is the future in a way and that makes me concerned would

01:23:49 ◼   ► be my my current position on it but.

01:23:52 ◼   ► We've got a very mic question here, I think.

01:23:55 ◼   ► Jim Behar wants to know, "With the supply chain issues and overall complexity of launching

01:24:01 ◼   ► physical products to diversify your business, are you happy this was the right decision

01:24:06 ◼   ► instead of perhaps doubling down on podcast membership or other digital products?"

01:24:11 ◼   ► Yes, I am happy that this was the right decision.

01:24:14 ◼   ► I think that there is still an element of time

01:24:18 ◼   ► to tell if this was the right decision.

01:24:23 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:24:23 ◼   ► - Because, you know, like physical products,

01:24:26 ◼   ► the creation of them take time.

01:24:29 ◼   ► And we have things that we've still been working on

01:24:32 ◼   ► for an amount of time

01:24:34 ◼   ► that we should see the light of day this year, right?

01:24:38 ◼   ► And that I think as we start to put more things out

01:24:40 ◼   ► in the world that's not the journal,

01:24:43 ◼   ► we can start to understand if we do actually have

01:24:46 ◼   ► like a solid business in our hands, right?

01:24:49 ◼   ► That it's not just the one thing.

01:24:51 ◼   ► But it has been complicated, yes, right?

01:24:55 ◼   ► And we did decide to do this more seriously

01:25:00 ◼   ► at possibly the worst possible time

01:25:04 ◼   ► that someone could decide

01:25:06 ◼   ► to launch a physical product business.

01:25:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, for listeners,

01:25:11 ◼   ► supply chains is to like it's unreal behind the scenes of just the whole world. Everything

01:25:17 ◼   ► involved in manufacturing it's shocking what's happening with supply chains behind the scenes

01:25:22 ◼   ► and getting access to materials and costs like it's it's very alarming I would say.

01:25:30 ◼   ► Like our paper just increased in price the paper we use for journals we just restocked the journals

01:25:36 ◼   ► and the price has gone up.

01:25:39 ◼   ► Yeah, which we knew this was gonna happen.

01:25:41 ◼   ► We've actually been pretty lucky so far

01:25:43 ◼   ► that the price has not yet gone up.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Like this is the first time we've had a price increase

01:25:47 ◼   ► on the actual paper that goes inside the journals themselves.

01:25:51 ◼   ► But like, you know, I hear people talk about this

01:25:53 ◼   ► and I believe it.

01:25:55 ◼   ► We're actually feeling the effects

01:25:57 ◼   ► of the beginning of the pandemic now.

01:26:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is more like what I expected at the start.

01:26:04 ◼   ► - It's slow moving.

01:26:05 ◼   ► So like issues that are occurring now, right?

01:26:08 ◼   ► 'Cause a lot more lockdowns in China happening now

01:26:12 ◼   ► that it's affecting things,

01:26:13 ◼   ► you know, for other types of manufacturing.

01:26:16 ◼   ► That specifically doesn't affect us.

01:26:18 ◼   ► Our issues are more European based,

01:26:21 ◼   ► but it's still this knock on effect of everything, you know?

01:26:26 ◼   ► So these things are gonna continue to happen for a while.

01:26:29 ◼   ► But at the same time, there is kind of a joy in like,

01:26:32 ◼   ► well, it can't be this bad forever.

01:26:35 ◼   ► and like we started doing this,

01:26:37 ◼   ► what would have been the most stressful time to do this.

01:26:39 ◼   ► So we've learned a lot of really valuable lessons

01:26:41 ◼   ► really, really quickly.

01:26:43 ◼   ► You know, is that we jumped into the fire kind of thing,

01:26:46 ◼   ► right, like we really in the deep end on it.

01:26:48 ◼   ► I still think it was the right decision

01:26:50 ◼   ► because a business like this,

01:26:53 ◼   ► if it works the way we want it to,

01:26:56 ◼   ► can reach more people

01:26:58 ◼   ► than we can necessarily reach for the show.

01:27:01 ◼   ► - Right.

01:27:02 ◼   ► - Like that's the overall goal here,

01:27:04 ◼   ► that Cortex Brands products will be desired

01:27:08 ◼   ► and bought by people that don't necessarily care

01:27:12 ◼   ► about Cortex.

01:27:14 ◼   ► I mean, I think we've achieved that to a point, right?

01:27:17 ◼   ► Kind of cheated a little bit

01:27:18 ◼   ► in that you've produced some great videos, right?

01:27:21 ◼   ► And so I believe that there are people

01:27:23 ◼   ► that use the theme system journal

01:27:24 ◼   ► that don't listen to the show.

01:27:25 ◼   ► Like I genuinely believe that is a thing that happens now.

01:27:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's totally, that is totally a cheat.

01:27:31 ◼   ► And that's not really what you mean

01:27:33 ◼   ► or what I think about when we say that,

01:27:35 ◼   ► like that people who don't know us would use the product.

01:27:38 ◼   ► - But my point on that is that is a proof of concept

01:27:41 ◼   ► that is important, right?

01:27:44 ◼   ► That like, if there are people that want the product

01:27:47 ◼   ► that don't listen to the show, do know you,

01:27:50 ◼   ► that's still like a step in that direction, right?

01:27:53 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:27:54 ◼   ► - That like ultimately,

01:27:55 ◼   ► like eventually all we're ever doing, right,

01:27:57 ◼   ► is like advertising the product to whoever,

01:28:01 ◼   ► is like the further steps.

01:28:02 ◼   ► So it's just like steps in that direction.

01:28:05 ◼   ► I think that that is still the right decision

01:28:09 ◼   ► other than just being like,

01:28:11 ◼   ► "Oh, hey, we do a whole other paid podcast now."

01:28:16 ◼   ► - Right.

01:28:16 ◼   ► - Which would probably do really great.

01:28:18 ◼   ► It's not just more content.

01:28:21 ◼   ► It's not just ad removal.

01:28:22 ◼   ► It's like a whole brand new show that we're doing

01:28:25 ◼   ► and you can give us five dollars a month for it.

01:28:28 ◼   ► I'm very confident that would have performed better

01:28:30 ◼   ► than what we're doing with more tax.

01:28:32 ◼   ► But I believe that would have sat in the middle

01:28:34 ◼   ► of what we're able to do with Cortex brand.

01:28:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree with that, yeah.

01:28:38 ◼   ► - So I still think it was the right decision

01:28:40 ◼   ► and I am very confident in that currently.

01:28:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe that would have been a better

01:28:45 ◼   ► short term decision, but not a better long term decision.

01:28:48 ◼   ► - It would have been a way better decision

01:28:50 ◼   ► for the short term.

01:28:52 ◼   ► Because all of the money that Cortex brand has been making

01:28:56 ◼   ► for a long time has just been reinvested

01:28:58 ◼   ► into that business.

01:29:01 ◼   ► So that's, which is not a thing that would have happened

01:29:03 ◼   ► if we would have done digital products,

01:29:05 ◼   ► 'cause there's no cost really other than our own time,

01:29:08 ◼   ► where, you know, for a long time,

01:29:10 ◼   ► we were just putting our own time and effort

01:29:13 ◼   ► into making money that would buy more stock.

01:29:16 ◼   ► And so like, that is a weird short term,

01:29:21 ◼   ► but the Cortex brand has never been a short term idea.

01:29:24 ◼   ► It's a long term business idea for the two of us.

01:29:27 ◼   ► It's like a future, we're betting on our future with it.

01:29:30 ◼   ► So I can't say it was definitely the right decision

01:29:34 ◼   ► because we haven't hit that,

01:29:36 ◼   ► we haven't even looked close to getting to the point

01:29:38 ◼   ► where we could make that decision

01:29:39 ◼   ► because, you know, as you said many times,

01:29:42 ◼   ► it was never about just having one product to sell.

01:29:45 ◼   ► And we are like, while we have multiple products,

01:29:47 ◼   ► really we're a one product business.

01:29:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is still functionally a one product business.

01:29:51 ◼   ► - And that's not the plan, that's not the goal.

01:29:54 ◼   ► And we need to continue accelerating

01:29:57 ◼   ► from the point that we're at now,

01:29:58 ◼   ► which we are working on,

01:30:00 ◼   ► to try and understand this answer more fully.

01:30:03 ◼   ► So can't really answer it now,

01:30:07 ◼   ► but I still think it's, my point of this is,

01:30:09 ◼   ► I still think we have made all of the right decisions

01:30:12 ◼   ► to get to the point that we're at at the moment

01:30:15 ◼   ► to allow us to continue moving on from it.

01:30:17 ◼   ► By the way, we do have a membership option though.

01:30:20 ◼   ► (both laughing)

01:30:23 ◼   ► Which you can always get access to

01:30:26 ◼   ► by going to getmoretext.com,

01:30:28 ◼   ► which gives you longer ad-free episodes

01:30:32 ◼   ► of every single episode of Cortex.

01:30:33 ◼   ► So you get more content with no ads at getmoretex.com.

01:30:38 ◼   ► - Getmoretex.com.