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130: Ron Has a Pretty Sweet Job

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► [BEEP]

00:00:00 ◼   ► [♫ "The

00:00:29 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm. We are gonna be together in a few weeks time.

00:00:33 ◼   ► - We are. I was asked to return to your part of the world. And so we're gonna get together. Yeah,

00:00:45 ◼   ► I'm gonna be... So last fall, we saw each other and we did a special upgrade episode from Ireland

00:00:50 ◼   ► where I was doing... You attended UEL and I was attending UEL, but I was also a special guest of

00:00:58 ◼   ► the event. And what I was doing is interviewing participants in the event for something called

00:01:04 ◼   ► "Ool Radio," which is a podcast that I did. And it was just 20-minute interviews with

00:01:07 ◼   ► interesting people talking about what they, sort of the same subjects that they were talking

00:01:12 ◼   ► about at Ool. And we also did a clockwise from there. Anyway, they asked me to come

00:01:16 ◼   ► back and do more "Ool Radio" this time. And I said yes because I can't resist going back

00:01:22 ◼   ► to Ireland. I think this will be the fifth straight calendar year I've gone to Ireland,

00:01:26 ◼   ► is crazy because I'd never been before. And the fourth Oul. So we're gonna both be an

00:01:34 ◼   ► Oul, that's the starter, we will be back in Ireland together. And people should, I guess

00:01:41 ◼   ► we should plug Oul, 2017.ool.u-l-l.i-e. They have not asked us to in any way, but the fact

00:01:49 ◼   ► that this will be, what, the third time that we've recorded upgrade from Oul? I think that

00:01:55 ◼   ► we would both very much endorse this conference. It is my favorite conference that I go to.

00:02:00 ◼   ► All is very special and it's a special place and the lineup this year is maybe the best lineup

00:02:09 ◼   ► that I've seen at All before. So I'm super excited about it. I have a warm feeling in my heart to

00:02:18 ◼   ► look at the lineup and see how many Relay FM hosts there are. That makes me smile.

00:02:24 ◼   ► now. Yeah, OOL is amazing. If you're inclined, if you're thinking about doing it, I would

00:02:33 ◼   ► say yeah, you really should. Like, if you're thinking about it, I recommend that you actually

00:02:38 ◼   ► just go out and do it. So we'll put some links in the show notes. You should attend if you're

00:02:43 ◼   ► interested.

00:02:44 ◼   ► And you can see us, and we'll be there. And depending on timing, we've tended to record

00:02:49 ◼   ► upgrade from a hotel room, but you never know.

00:02:53 ◼   ► The old radio room was actually pretty great

00:02:55 ◼   ► and we had an audience for Clockwise

00:02:57 ◼   ► and I'm not sure what days I'm having access to the rooms.

00:03:00 ◼   ► We might be able to record upgrade just in the room

00:03:04 ◼   ► that's the podcast room.

00:03:06 ◼   ► So-- - Upgrade in front

00:03:07 ◼   ► of a live audience.

00:03:08 ◼   ► - Could be, it's possible.

00:03:10 ◼   ► That would be exciting, but if not,

00:03:11 ◼   ► we'll definitely be around and talking to people

00:03:14 ◼   ► and yeah, so check it out and we'll be there.

00:03:18 ◼   ► But, talking about being around, I'm going to flash everybody back to 2015.

00:03:24 ◼   ► If you remember back to then, I was going to Uhl, and it was this time of year, I think.

00:03:30 ◼   ► It was more of the spring, and they moved it to fall last year for a few reasons, but it's back in the spring.

00:03:37 ◼   ► 2015, I made a point of stopping by the UK, which I couldn't do in 2016.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Since I'm going all that way, I wanted to visit my pals in the UK as well.

00:03:49 ◼   ► So that's happening again.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And we did a meetup in 2015 when I was there with me and Myke

00:03:56 ◼   ► at a place called the Big Chill House in Kings Cross.

00:03:59 ◼   ► And guess what? We are doing it again.

00:04:03 ◼   ► We're doing it again.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And we've done a couple of meetups there now, like we did one with Federico last year.

00:04:10 ◼   ► And a few other Relay FM hosts as well did a connected meetup.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I really like the Big Chill, they're very accommodating.

00:04:17 ◼   ► This time we're going for a slightly smaller room than before.

00:04:22 ◼   ► There are 50 tickets available.

00:04:24 ◼   ► We have to do tickets because we have a room booked with a maximum capacity.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So there are tickets.

00:04:29 ◼   ► They're free.

00:04:30 ◼   ► They're first come first served.

00:04:32 ◼   ► It's going to be on April the 5th, Wednesday April the 5th from 7.30 to 11pm as Jason mentioned

00:04:38 ◼   ► at the Big Chill house.

00:04:39 ◼   ► is a link in the show notes where you can get your Upgrade London Meetup tickets. We

00:04:45 ◼   ► are only mentioning this on the show for now because we want to make sure that Upgradians

00:04:49 ◼   ► get the first attempt at coming to this thing. Because ideally we would love it if it was

00:04:54 ◼   ► just upgrade listeners that came because you're all the best people and we want you to be

00:04:59 ◼   ► there. So Wednesday April 5th there's a link in the show notes to get your Upgrade London

00:05:04 ◼   ► Meetup tickets. So you want to find that, click the link, sign up and you'll be able

00:05:09 ◼   ► to come and hang out with me and Mr. Jason Snell for a couple of hours. It was so much

00:05:15 ◼   ► fun last time. I'm very excited to do it again.

00:05:18 ◼   ► It was. It was amazing. Somebody gave me cheese. Somebody gave me some manchego, which I left

00:05:23 ◼   ► behind. I just totally forgot about it. Well, I was carrying cheese around for hours and

00:05:29 ◼   ► then I left it somewhere and I don't even know where it is. Can I be honest, Myke? People

00:05:33 ◼   ► kept bringing us drinks.

00:05:34 ◼   ► It was crazy.

00:05:35 ◼   ► That may be the most alcohol I have ever had in one session.

00:05:39 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:05:39 ◼   ► I remember thinking on the tube back to where I was staying, thinking,

00:05:44 ◼   ► "Well, drunk people on the tube is pretty much common in London, so I'm not worried about it."

00:05:49 ◼   ► I felt like I was fitting in, but boy, that was—people kept bringing us drinks. It was amazing,

00:05:55 ◼   ► and a great time, and I met a lot of great people. So hopefully people will come

00:05:58 ◼   ► and find us at the Big Chill. So sign up for the tickets.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Last time it was way less prepared and we didn't really do any preparation at all, and

00:06:06 ◼   ► this time I've decided we should.

00:06:08 ◼   ► I think that's good.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Literally they were shooing us out of the main area.

00:06:11 ◼   ► So many people came for the meetup that they were like, "We need to, you know, we have

00:06:16 ◼   ► an empty room upstairs, why don't we just shoo these people upstairs and that way it'll

00:06:20 ◼   ► be less intimidating in here for all of our other patrons."

00:06:23 ◼   ► And that was great, but you know, this time we wanted to plan ahead a little bit so we

00:06:27 ◼   ► have a room for us, which is nice, and they want us to, you know, we have to buy drinks

00:06:31 ◼   ► and things obviously because there's a so everybody buy drinks or buy us drinks. Well

00:06:37 ◼   ► maybe buy yourself drinks first.

00:06:38 ◼   ► Myke I don't endorse the everybody buy it. Maybe

00:06:41 ◼   ► like a small handful of people.

00:06:43 ◼   ► Chris No, that was so dangerous. It is a city I'm

00:06:47 ◼   ► not used to that I had to find my way back home to a place I don't normally live. It

00:06:50 ◼   ► was tough.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Myke I'll make sure you get home this time. Don't

00:06:52 ◼   ► worry.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Chris Thank you. Thank you, Myke. Thank you. I appreciate

00:06:55 ◼   ► it.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Myke I will say it starts at 730pm up until 11.

00:06:59 ◼   ► can come and leave whenever you want. You don't have to be there for the whole time.

00:07:01 ◼   ► We won't keep you present. Don't worry. But you can come and we're going to have a great

00:07:05 ◼   ► time. So I hope to see you there. I would like to address something. Uh, I'm sure you

00:07:11 ◼   ► received equal amounts of tweets and emails about this as I did because it has long been

00:07:19 ◼   ► known that both me and you enjoy pineapple on our pizza with pepperoni pineapple being

00:07:26 ◼   ► the preferred choice of both of us after you introduced it to me. It is the most important

00:07:30 ◼   ► things, yes. Some would say the official food of the Upgrade podcast is pepperoni pineapple

00:07:35 ◼   ► pizza. Well I did find out on Analog episode 100, which I got to participate in, that pizza

00:07:42 ◼   ► is your favorite food. It is. And this pizza is my favorite pizza, so really you are responsible

00:07:50 ◼   ► for my favorite food. Well you're welcome. Anytime. And basically we received a lot of

00:07:58 ◼   ► follow up and feedback about the fact that the president of Iceland, the country, said

00:08:03 ◼   ► that he would ban pineapple as a pizza topping if he could. So lots of people were telling

00:08:09 ◼   ► us even one of two things. This is an outrage or this proves that your pizza choice is bonkers.

00:08:19 ◼   ► which I would like to just say for the fact I don't care what you say, I love pineapple

00:08:25 ◼   ► on my pizza and it's amazing. So if you don't like it, that's fine, but we do very much.

00:08:32 ◼   ► What I really appreciated about the president of Iceland is that, although he explained

00:08:35 ◼   ► – also I have to laugh because one, um, one Upgradient wrote in to explain that it

00:08:40 ◼   ► was the president of Iceland, the country, not the frozen foods store.

00:08:45 ◼   ► That was why I said the country, because in the UK there is a frozen food store called

00:08:49 ◼   ► Iceland, and I just feel like it's worth just putting that into perspective, you know?

00:08:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it makes me laugh. Anyway, he said in a later follow-up after this caused a ridiculous

00:09:02 ◼   ► controversy. An international outrage, I would say.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Well that's true, because we're going to get to the Canadians. There was definitely some

00:09:09 ◼   ► across the North Atlantic there was some tension building, but he said he went on to make a

00:09:14 ◼   ► a point that although he doesn't personally prefer pineapple pizza and recommend seafood

00:09:19 ◼   ► pizza instead, that he, just because he's the president, he doesn't think presidents

00:09:23 ◼   ► should make a law that people should only do things that he likes. That's not, he's,

00:09:28 ◼   ► you know, people should be able to do what they like. He just says as a person, he doesn't

00:09:31 ◼   ► like that kind of pizza. He prefers the seafood pizza. And I thought that was a very nice

00:09:35 ◼   ► follow up for somebody who probably has better things to do with their time than talk several

00:09:41 ◼   ► times about pizza toppings so full good job president of Iceland. I will say I cannot

00:09:48 ◼   ► abide by somebody saying pineapple is not a good topping and instead saying seafood

00:09:53 ◼   ► is. Yeah. Seafood on a pizza? I cannot envision a fish pizza but I don't like fish I don't

00:10:00 ◼   ► like seafood in general then again he's in Iceland they're right there in the middle

00:10:04 ◼   ► of the ocean they probably really like their seafood there so that's fine whatever. And

00:10:09 ◼   ► It turns out, turns out, turns out the Hawaiian pizza, the pineapple, the pineapple and ham,

00:10:17 ◼   ► which is the traditional right, was actually invented in Canada.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Yes.

00:10:22 ◼   ► And Justin Trudeau, who is the Prime Minister of Canada, and is, I would say, a meme machine,

00:10:31 ◼   ► I think is pretty fair.

00:10:33 ◼   ► He came out and said on record that he stands by this delicious Southwestern Ontario creation

00:10:41 ◼   ► and that he is in fact Team Pineapple. So I'm wondering if maybe we should just move

00:10:46 ◼   ► to Canada, both of us, and we base upgrade from there now.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Well Canada's pretty great and it has something for both of us in that it is a unique mixture

00:10:59 ◼   ► of English and North American, United States culture.

00:11:04 ◼   ► It is sort of the place,

00:11:06 ◼   ► other than maybe like Bermuda or something,

00:11:08 ◼   ► it's one of the few places that is this combination

00:11:12 ◼   ► of my culture and your culture swirled together

00:11:16 ◼   ► with the unique Canadian culture,

00:11:18 ◼   ► but it has similarities with both of our homelands.

00:11:22 ◼   ► - It doesn't get any better than the money, right?

00:11:24 ◼   ► It's called dollars, but it has the queen on it.

00:11:28 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And they have the looney and the tooney, which are coins.

00:11:33 ◼   ► And they have no pennies.

00:11:35 ◼   ► They have no pennies either.

00:11:36 ◼   ► There's lots of things to be said for Canada.

00:11:39 ◼   ► Here's the thing, Myke.

00:11:40 ◼   ► I am a Californian and I struggle with the idea

00:11:44 ◼   ► 'cause pretty much all of Canada is pretty far

00:11:48 ◼   ► to the north from me.

00:11:50 ◼   ► And the weather is not so good.

00:11:54 ◼   ► If I must move to Canada,

00:11:55 ◼   ► I would probably choose Vancouver or Victoria, something on the west coast as a west coast

00:12:00 ◼   ► guy.

00:12:01 ◼   ► Alright, we'll move there.

00:12:02 ◼   ► But Canada's great.

00:12:03 ◼   ► So yes, upgrade world headquarters of the future in British Columbia.

00:12:08 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:12:09 ◼   ► And we will be, and the upgrade world headquarters will, the commissary will only serve pepperoni

00:12:15 ◼   ► and pineapple pizza.

00:12:16 ◼   ► God that'd be incredible.

00:12:17 ◼   ► I could eat it every day.

00:12:19 ◼   ► I could eat it every day.

00:12:21 ◼   ► Until you die of pizza.

00:12:23 ◼   ► What a way to go. He died as he lived. He died doing what he loved.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Eating pizza. Eating pizza, yep.

00:12:33 ◼   ► So thank you Canada. Yeah, thanks. Canada's great. We love Canada.

00:12:38 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. Life as a freelancer can be a challenging

00:12:44 ◼   ► thing. Jason Snell is well aware of this. He hosts a podcast dedicated to it called

00:12:49 ◼   ► free agents, which you should go and listen to. And you actually just did an episode all

00:12:54 ◼   ► about invoicing and getting people to pay you. And in my opinion, there is no better

00:12:59 ◼   ► way than FreshBooks. FreshBooks has been designed from the ground up to work exactly the way

00:13:06 ◼   ► that people do these days with it being all based online. It is built to make you more

00:13:12 ◼   ► productive and organized whilst also letting you get paid quickly. The working world is

00:13:17 ◼   ► different now and with the growth of the internet there's never been more opportunities to become

00:13:21 ◼   ► self-employed. There are opportunities now that simply could not have existed before and Freshbooks

00:13:26 ◼   ► works tirelessly to make sure that their system is built to work the way that you do.

00:13:31 ◼   ► Freshbooks is super easy to use. You can get professional looking invoices created and sent out

00:13:36 ◼   ► in less than 30 seconds. You can integrate a myriad of online payment options with just a few clicks

00:13:41 ◼   ► and this is why Freshbooks customers get paid up to four days faster. I really love that you can go

00:13:46 ◼   ► into an invoice and see if it's been viewed by your client, if it's been printed by your

00:13:50 ◼   ► client. That stuff is really interesting and really informative so you don't have to play

00:13:55 ◼   ► guessing games or send out chaser emails. You can also actually have FreshBooks send

00:13:59 ◼   ► out automatic reminder emails for you if you want.

00:14:03 ◼   ► FreshBooks has a great notification system. When you log in, you'll be able to see exactly

00:14:07 ◼   ► what's changed with your business and what needs your attention. All of these features

00:14:11 ◼   ► are coupled with a beautiful design which focuses on simplicity and clarity, answering

00:14:16 ◼   ► the age old question of how is my business doing?

00:14:19 ◼   ► FreshBooks is offering a 30 day unrestricted free trial to listeners of this show. Go to

00:14:23 ◼   ► freshbooks.com/upgrade and enter upgrade in the how you heard about us section so they'll

00:14:28 ◼   ► know that you came to them from this show. I will just underscore how much I love FreshBooks.

00:14:33 ◼   ► We are fast approaching our 1000th invoice with FreshBooks at Relay FM. It really makes

00:14:39 ◼   ► our work a lot easier to manage. Thank you so much to FreshBooks for their support of

00:14:43 ◼   ► of this show and relay FM.

00:14:45 ◼   ► All right, so Jason, you went to spend a little bit

00:14:49 ◼   ► of time today talking about Uber.

00:14:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, I don't wanna go like super deep down

00:14:55 ◼   ► in it because it's been out there,

00:14:58 ◼   ► the story's been out there for a while.

00:15:00 ◼   ► And I'd like to say, as we often do on the show,

00:15:02 ◼   ► that the folks over at Accidental Tech Podcast

00:15:06 ◼   ► covered it very well in episode 210.

00:15:09 ◼   ► It was covered in Rocket in episode 111.

00:15:12 ◼   ► There's some really good podcasts out there about it.

00:15:15 ◼   ► The story is a woman named Susan Fowler spent a year at Uber

00:15:20 ◼   ► and then left to go work at Stripe.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Where did she end up going?

00:15:24 ◼   ► Stripe. - She's in Stripe, yeah.

00:15:26 ◼   ► - And once she left Uber, she talked about her reasons

00:15:31 ◼   ► for leaving Uber and how super awful aspects of the job were.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I think it's interesting and important to note

00:15:41 ◼   ► that as John noted on ATP, that there are lots of reasons

00:15:45 ◼   ► you might not just immediately quit

00:15:48 ◼   ► when something bad happened to you at your job,

00:15:50 ◼   ► including liking your coworkers

00:15:52 ◼   ► and being really excited about the work you're doing.

00:15:56 ◼   ► And it's messy and it's complicated.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Although I think what says it all is the chapter

00:16:03 ◼   ► about Uber in ATP last week,

00:16:07 ◼   ► 'cause Marco puts in the chapters now,

00:16:09 ◼   ► was Uber is horrible, which is, it's about it.

00:16:12 ◼   ► She was treated badly, she was harassed by managers

00:16:17 ◼   ► and there was retaliation against her

00:16:20 ◼   ► for reporting managers to HR.

00:16:22 ◼   ► And she was refused transfers

00:16:25 ◼   ► because of bad working conditions.

00:16:29 ◼   ► And just, it's a horror story, it's worth reading.

00:16:33 ◼   ► I think what's really amazing about it also

00:16:36 ◼   ► is that since it came out,

00:16:39 ◼   ► women who work in the tech industry have said,

00:16:42 ◼   ► "This is not unusual."

00:16:45 ◼   ► It might be on an extreme end,

00:16:47 ◼   ► but it's not like a one, you know, it's not a,

00:16:50 ◼   ► "Oh, one time this happened."

00:16:53 ◼   ► That's not what the case is.

00:16:55 ◼   ► But I wanted to talk about it.

00:16:58 ◼   ► I don't wanna retread a lot of what's been already covered

00:17:01 ◼   ► and covered probably better than I can

00:17:03 ◼   ► in places like Rocket and ATP.

00:17:05 ◼   ► But I wanted to talk about the HR angle here.

00:17:07 ◼   ► I wrote about this briefly on Six Colors too,

00:17:09 ◼   ► because human resources, you know,

00:17:12 ◼   ► I spent, you know, a long time managing people

00:17:16 ◼   ► in a large organization.

00:17:17 ◼   ► And over time that was a large group of people.

00:17:20 ◼   ► And I was on a management team where we had,

00:17:21 ◼   ► we talked to the HR people and we talked to the other,

00:17:23 ◼   ► the heads of other groups about what was going on

00:17:26 ◼   ► to a certain degree.

00:17:27 ◼   ► There's a certain degree that I'm sure happened

00:17:28 ◼   ► that was completely confidential

00:17:29 ◼   ► that I didn't get involved in 'cause it wasn't my group.

00:17:32 ◼   ► But I, you know, I got to see a lot over the years about it.

00:17:35 ◼   ► And that's the thing that struck me about Susan Fowler's story,

00:17:40 ◼   ► is about human resources.

00:17:41 ◼   ► Like, human resources-- also, my uncle

00:17:45 ◼   ► was the vice president of human resources for a large--

00:17:51 ◼   ► like a Fortune 500 company for Owens, Illinois,

00:17:54 ◼   ► Brockway, which is a glass and plastic manufacturer.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And he did union negotiations and all of that.

00:18:02 ◼   ► So I thought about HR stuff.

00:18:04 ◼   ► my wife worked in HR briefly. I mean, it's-- I've thought about this for a long time and

00:18:07 ◼   ► worked with HR people for a long time. And, you know, HR-- John mentioned some of this

00:18:12 ◼   ► on ATP. HR used to be the personnel department, first off. They used to just call it personnel.

00:18:16 ◼   ► And that's something that you might be able to kind of see that what HR is, is it's, you

00:18:23 ◼   ► know, it's an entity that works for the company, right? These people work for the company,

00:18:28 ◼   ► and their primary job really is to make sure that the company doesn't fall into legal trouble.

00:18:32 ◼   ► So their job is like to make sure that if you've got unions that you have to negotiate

00:18:37 ◼   ► the union contracts, but it's also things like here are the company rules and processes

00:18:41 ◼   ► and if you follow them and don't follow them and here are the benefits and we're going

00:18:43 ◼   ► to administer them. And when I say that the HR department works for the company, I mean

00:18:49 ◼   ► what I really wanted to say is a lot of people who are just workers and have an HR person

00:18:55 ◼   ► that they fill out forms with or talk to about issues they've got with their benefits and

00:18:58 ◼   ► and all that. You can, and HR people are, you know, almost all the HR people I've met

00:19:04 ◼   ► have been great people who legitimately care about the people who work for their company.

00:19:09 ◼   ► But when a company's culture is completely aligned with the idea that the employees are

00:19:16 ◼   ► important and that they want to be taken care of and they need to be protected if people

00:19:21 ◼   ► are breaking the rules or doing things that are bad, when the culture is aligned there

00:19:25 ◼   ► with those kinds of values, then HR really is a pretty healthy place that is about protecting

00:19:33 ◼   ► the interests of the employees and the company. And the best HR environments I've been in

00:19:40 ◼   ► have been like that. What gets bad is when there's a kind of broken corporate culture

00:19:47 ◼   ► suddenly some of the priorities are not really conducive to taking care of

00:19:55 ◼   ► your employees and it's much more about, you know, in the case of Uber, protecting

00:20:00 ◼   ► sort of unfireable people who are bad actors and shielding them from any

00:20:06 ◼   ► fallout from their bad behavior at the expense of other employees and what you

00:20:09 ◼   ► saw in Susan Fowler's story is literally HR people gaslighting an employee and

00:20:15 ◼   ► saying, "No, this has never happened before. This is a first time," when it turns out other

00:20:18 ◼   ► people had also reported this person for the same, you know, making passes at women who

00:20:25 ◼   ► reported to him. It was not a first time. And so, I mean, that's the truth of HR is

00:20:32 ◼   ► that if your corporate culture is broken or skewed in some way, HR is no longer necessarily

00:20:38 ◼   ► a refuge. And I know that there are HR people who get frustrated about that. I will say

00:20:42 ◼   ► the worst HR people I've ever worked with were people from a kind of broken culture

00:20:47 ◼   ► who I came to not trust. And in fact, I had managers in that group tell me not to trust

00:20:53 ◼   ► the HR people because they were almost like the enemy. And that was a sign of a culture

00:20:58 ◼   ► that was not, was messed up. So anyway, my big point here is I love HR people. When they're

00:21:07 ◼   ► in a healthy environment, they are great to work with as a manager and as an employee.

00:21:11 ◼   ► are very helpful people, they want to be helpful. I've worked with some wonderful

00:21:14 ◼   ► HR people over the years. But in a broken culture, things get really bad. And when

00:21:20 ◼   ► Travis Kalanick says, or Kalanick, yeah, Travis Kalanick says, "Oh no no no no,

00:21:25 ◼   ► this is against our culture. We're gonna get to the bottom of this." My takeaway is,

00:21:30 ◼   ► no, it is your culture, dude. It is your culture. Because for your HR department

00:21:35 ◼   ► to act this way, they must feel like the company's priorities are completely

00:21:40 ◼   ► broken and that comes from the company culture because otherwise they wouldn't

00:21:45 ◼   ► behave this way. I mean you worked in a big bank, you know, what's your

00:21:48 ◼   ► take on all of this? I was also a manager. You know, I had to deal with HR for many

00:21:54 ◼   ► different reasons, you know, when I had difficult employees or employees with

00:21:58 ◼   ► difficulties, you know, I had to work of HR, they had to work of HR. I had to work

00:22:02 ◼   ► of HR when I was going through some problems. I mean, really, I think in a

00:22:07 ◼   ► responsible company, a big company, the HR department should feel like an

00:22:11 ◼   ► independent organization. Like, they should feel like that they're an outside part

00:22:16 ◼   ► of the company because nobody should be able to put their hands in and mess

00:22:20 ◼   ► around in there. Right, and in an independent, yeah, they should feel

00:22:23 ◼   ► independent. Ultimately they do, they are trying to make sure that the

00:22:28 ◼   ► company is shielded from problems, but if you think about it, like in a healthy

00:22:32 ◼   ► culture, protecting the employees is part of the culture and therefore protecting the employees

00:22:40 ◼   ► by making sure people follow the rules also protects the company, right? That is,

00:22:45 ◼   ► and I've had that. I mean, I've had HR people who have defended employees about like, you know,

00:22:50 ◼   ► we shouldn't lay this person off, you know, like really serious and push back to push on the best

00:22:58 ◼   ► interests of the employees and say, you know, to management, you need to rethink the way

00:23:04 ◼   ► you're approaching this. And that's that in a healthy environment, that is absolutely

00:23:08 ◼   ► what it should feel like. But it's not like the independence is created into the group,

00:23:14 ◼   ► right? The group doesn't isn't fundamentally independent. It feels fair because the culture

00:23:19 ◼   ► has said we want to treat everybody fairly.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Like a good HR department should not feel like it's defending any individual except

00:23:28 ◼   ► for the rules, right?

00:23:31 ◼   ► Sometimes they'll work against people, sometimes they'll work for people, right?

00:23:34 ◼   ► Like employees, or sometimes they work for the managers, sometimes they work against.

00:23:38 ◼   ► It should always just be that their guiding principle is the rules, right?

00:23:42 ◼   ► That they're not necessarily going to go one way or another.

00:23:45 ◼   ► So if a company is doing stuff like this, the rules are either not clear enough or they're

00:23:51 ◼   ► not enforced or there are incentives to work against the rules for whatever reason.

00:23:58 ◼   ► It seems like from what has been said about Uber at this point that this isn't just one

00:24:04 ◼   ► bad person inside of the HR department, right?

00:24:08 ◼   ► Because there have been multiple stories of this type of stuff.

00:24:12 ◼   ► I mean, let alone all of the other things that Uber has done, right?

00:24:15 ◼   ► Right, like threaten journalists with spying and yeah, the list is long.

00:24:23 ◼   ► At this point, no matter what they think are the principles of the company, the employees

00:24:31 ◼   ► of the company are not following the principles that have in theory been set out.

00:24:37 ◼   ► What they're following is the leader.

00:24:41 ◼   ► And it seems like that that's not going very well.

00:24:44 ◼   ► I hear so many people say that everyone that works at Uber is terrible, and I don't agree

00:24:48 ◼   ► with that, because they're obviously not.

00:24:50 ◼   ► You know, like—

00:24:51 ◼   ► No, Susan Fowler would deny that, right?

00:24:53 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:24:54 ◼   ► Because she said she loved a lot of her co-workers and the projects that they were working on

00:24:57 ◼   ► were fascinating and interesting, right?

00:24:59 ◼   ► She's not saying it's awful, you know, 100%.

00:25:03 ◼   ► saying that this aspect of it was untenable and it's cultural and it's huge.

00:25:08 ◼   ► Yeah, but what is very clear is that there are people that are being treated terribly.

00:25:15 ◼   ► Either they're being sexually harassed or they're being bullied or there's a myriad

00:25:19 ◼   ► of problems that have to be fixed if this company is going to continue.

00:25:23 ◼   ► The sexual harassment is incredibly offensive and has understandably gotten a lot of the

00:25:28 ◼   ► attention here, but the thing as a manager of many years, the thing that struck out at

00:25:34 ◼   ► me the most was the retaliation. Like, at one point in her story, literally, the HR

00:25:39 ◼   ► person says, "Well, you're going to get a bad review because you reported this guy,

00:25:42 ◼   ► and that's just going to happen, and we're going to deal with it." And that is incredibly,

00:25:49 ◼   ► I mean, that's illegal. And that goes back to something that I've heard a few people

00:25:54 ◼   ► which is if the HR department's job is to protect the company from being sued, this

00:25:59 ◼   ► group did a really bad job because that's like a fundamental, like responding to reports

00:26:03 ◼   ► of sexual harassment with retaliation is literally the "how big would you like the check to be"

00:26:07 ◼   ► moment in terms of the law. That's amazing that they can show and they admitted that

00:26:12 ◼   ► they were going, there was going to be retaliation against her for reporting this incident. It's

00:26:17 ◼   ► amazing. But that's how broken this culture was, is that even something like that of protecting

00:26:22 ◼   ► the company wasn't as high up on the list as protecting these people who were bad actors

00:26:29 ◼   ► and allowing them to continue doing it. That is a completely broken culture.

00:26:32 ◼   ► I just really struggled to get my head around how there is clearly such a focus on women

00:26:37 ◼   ► in technology right now, right? It is a thing that is being spoken about. There are so many

00:26:43 ◼   ► pushes to try and make these environments better. I cannot understand how a company

00:26:47 ◼   ► as big as Uber can let something like this happen. Like, I just cannot understand how

00:26:52 ◼   ► you can still, at this point, have a culture that has not ironed this stuff out. Like,

00:27:00 ◼   ► this shouldn't be happening. There should be no push on the HR department to act this

00:27:06 ◼   ► way. They should be pushed the other way. They should be pushed to overact in the other

00:27:11 ◼   ► way.

00:27:12 ◼   ► healthy corporate culture, the HR people say, "Oh my god, did you see what just happened?

00:27:19 ◼   ► That guy needs to go."

00:27:20 ◼   ► - Because we cannot face that type of public relations, right? Like, they must know.

00:27:27 ◼   ► - Well yeah, but also just from an HR perspective, it's like, you have to have the healthy PR

00:27:31 ◼   ► aside. I mean, the management should be supportive of it for a lot of reasons, right? To defend

00:27:35 ◼   ► their employees and protect their employees and have a positive work environment, and

00:27:38 ◼   ► not have this be an issue where it's a huge PR problem if it comes out.

00:27:42 ◼   ► Yeah, of course I don't mean this like, "this shouldn't happen just for PR." Like, what

00:27:46 ◼   ► I mean is like, it should never happen, but especially right now, right? Like, these things

00:27:50 ◼   ► should not be done, they should be dealt with appropriately, but in the culture that we're

00:27:55 ◼   ► in right now, like the climate that we're in right now, like, you have to overact these

00:28:01 ◼   ► things to try and stomp them out, right? Yeah, and the, again, I have a hard time imagining

00:28:07 ◼   ► how this situation happened because the HR people I worked with would not take any crap.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Like the years that I worked at Mac publishing, Macworld, and in my early days at PC World,

00:28:21 ◼   ► Macworld combined too. I mean, I would talk and there would be a lot of back and forth.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Like Kate, my HR person, she was a fierce defender of doing what was right and the rules

00:28:32 ◼   ► and of the people, and she would push back against the management team. Ultimately, if

00:28:37 ◼   ► the president of the company said, "This is what we're going to do," she would need to

00:28:41 ◼   ► do it, or I guess quit if it was something outrageous, but there was that kind of relationship.

00:28:46 ◼   ► And what I see in these Uber reports is that HR did not have that relationship. Either

00:28:51 ◼   ► HR didn't care and it had already been made clear that their number one priority was keeping

00:28:56 ◼   ► this great talent no matter what they did. And if they acted like awful people, it didn't

00:29:00 ◼   ► matter. Or they had just decided that they couldn't fight it anymore, that anybody who

00:29:06 ◼   ► would take a stand and say, "This is unacceptable. These are not the kind of practices that any

00:29:10 ◼   ► modern business should ever do," that they were essentially told to leave or they had

00:29:17 ◼   ► to leave because they were not being listened to. Because that's the healthiest moment here,

00:29:21 ◼   ► is, right? The HR person should say, "We got to get this guy out." And yeah, okay, if it

00:29:26 ◼   ► truly is somebody's first time, I can see the argument that like, "Okay, we're going

00:29:32 ◼   ► to take this person and we're going to give them training and we're going to, you know,

00:29:36 ◼   ► give them, put them on probation and we're going to check in with them and all of that.

00:29:41 ◼   ► We could argue that point about do you just instantly fire somebody for certain offenses

00:29:45 ◼   ► versus other offenses or do you give them a second chance? But if you do give them a

00:29:49 ◼   ► second chance in some way, you know, opportunities to retaliate and, you know, having other things

00:29:56 ◼   ► happen, you know, then even with a second chance, that second chance should be on a

00:30:00 ◼   ► like thin ice and they should be gone and the HR department should be patrolling that,

00:30:05 ◼   ► right? But none of that seems to have happened here and in fact it's the reverse where they're

00:30:08 ◼   ► defending the bad actor and it's just baffling to me because the HR people I worked with

00:30:14 ◼   ► would, I mean, they would push back on way more gentle things in terms of, you know,

00:30:21 ◼   ► anything involving the employees. They were always like devil's advocate at least for

00:30:24 ◼   ► the employees, like what if we did this, you shouldn't do that, did you think about this

00:30:29 ◼   ► aspect that will happen if we change this policy?" Like, that's—that was my experience

00:30:33 ◼   ► with my HR people, and it was great. I mean, sometimes it was annoying, right? Because

00:30:36 ◼   ► you're like, "Oh, I have this great idea," and they're like, "That's not gonna work because..."

00:30:39 ◼   ► But that's their job, is to do that. And at Uber, it's just, yeah, it's baffling to me

00:30:43 ◼   ► that how broken did it have to be. It's not like they said, "We're gonna hire evil HR

00:30:48 ◼   ► people. Whoa, get the evil people here. We want evil HR here." That's not—either it's

00:30:54 ◼   ► people who are, like, willing to do whatever because they're working for a big company

00:30:57 ◼   ► and they'll do whatever or they're so beaten down that they just will follow orders. It's

00:31:04 ◼   ► just baffling to me because I think most HR professionals would just be aghast at some

00:31:08 ◼   ► of this behavior. It's amazing.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Yeah, basically, you know, this shouldn't be happening anymore. Companies need to be

00:31:15 ◼   ► more responsible. I don't know if and how Uber can show that, but they need to show

00:31:24 ◼   ► it.

00:31:25 ◼   ► a theory about why this happens in a lot of, and it doesn't, it's not a like why sexual

00:31:29 ◼   ► harassment happens, but like why so much of this stuff goes un undocumented, unpunished

00:31:35 ◼   ► and all of that. My theory is that in a lot of these tech companies, they are young and

00:31:41 ◼   ► they, they are founded and run by people who don't actually know what the rules are or

00:31:47 ◼   ► don't care what the rules are. In fact, maybe they got where they are by ignoring what the

00:31:51 ◼   ► rules are. I mean, that's the whole Uber corporate culture, right? It's just do it and not worry

00:31:55 ◼   ► about it and don't worry about the rules. Who cares about the rules?" And maybe there's

00:32:00 ◼   ► something in that, that like the way these cultures get built is totally deformed because

00:32:05 ◼   ► it's entirely focused on startup growth and high performers and things like that. And

00:32:12 ◼   ► that like anything goes, you will work way more hours than anybody should be asked to

00:32:16 ◼   ► work because startup. And our high performers who do that are incredibly valuable and we

00:32:21 ◼   ► we want to give them incentives to do it because startup.

00:32:24 ◼   ► And then you get to that point where you've got

00:32:28 ◼   ► an HR department because you have to,

00:32:29 ◼   ► because somebody said, no, you need to hire HR

00:32:31 ◼   ► because you can't, you know,

00:32:33 ◼   ► you actually need to pay these people and have policies

00:32:35 ◼   ► and all of those things and do payroll.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And they're like, all right, we'll hire some HR people,

00:32:39 ◼   ► but they're never integral to the company.

00:32:41 ◼   ► They just get in the way and they are to be batted away

00:32:44 ◼   ► whenever the startup mentality kind of floods in.

00:32:47 ◼   ► Now that might be an excuse.

00:32:49 ◼   ► I'm not a good one.

00:32:50 ◼   ► I'm just trying to understand why it might happen at a startup like Uber has been. Why

00:32:56 ◼   ► did it get so broken? Maybe that's one of the reasons. That doesn't really excuse all

00:33:00 ◼   ► the established corporate cultures where this happens. Like if you're Apple and you've been

00:33:05 ◼   ► around for decades, this should be over. And my understanding is old tech companies have

00:33:13 ◼   ► these same problems too. So I don't know. What are the priorities here? It's frustrating.

00:33:18 ◼   ► it's frustrating. I think at the point where you have to hire HR people you can't do that stuff

00:33:22 ◼   ► anymore. You know like you can't break people, you can't push people, you know like it right?

00:33:27 ◼   ► Yeah obviously, obviously that the things that Susan was talking about in her piece should never

00:33:33 ◼   ► be allowed anywhere but like at least some of the things that you're talking about like over pushing

00:33:37 ◼   ► your employees, making them work every hour that ever happens like at the point where you're at

00:33:42 ◼   ► the size where you need to hire HR like you just can't you just can't do that anymore. Yeah and

00:33:46 ◼   ► And clearly, for whatever reason, they didn't bend to that.

00:33:50 ◼   ► - I would argue that maybe Silicon Valley cultural

00:33:52 ◼   ► in general is broken or deformed to a certain degree

00:33:56 ◼   ► where not just things like sexual harassment

00:34:01 ◼   ► or failing to hire women

00:34:04 ◼   ► and people who aren't white for jobs,

00:34:09 ◼   ► beyond that to just basic employee care,

00:34:14 ◼   ► Like the idea that I think a lot of Silicon Valley is built on hire somebody in their

00:34:19 ◼   ► early 20s, work them to death until they burn out, discard them.

00:34:24 ◼   ► They get money that they haven't spent because they haven't lived their life, they've just

00:34:28 ◼   ► been working and then they go off and do something else with the money.

00:34:32 ◼   ► But you know, you work them and break them and throw them away and continue again.

00:34:36 ◼   ► And a lot of Silicon Valley companies, that is the business model.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you name checked Apple a moment ago, like from all reports I've ever heard,

00:34:44 ◼   ► still like this? Yeah, yeah, certainly in some groups. I think not all groups are like

00:34:48 ◼   ► that but any core product groups and all of that, yeah, there's this expectation that

00:34:51 ◼   ► we will work you, in a lot of companies including Apple, we will work you to death basically.

00:34:57 ◼   ► You don't have a life. You work for us. We pay you. You can't do anything with the money

00:35:01 ◼   ► but we pay you. And then at some point people are like, and we know people like this, I've

00:35:05 ◼   ► talked to people like this at Apple conferences, like at some point they're like, "I'm not

00:35:09 ◼   ► going to do this anymore," and they go on and they do something else with a more reasonable

00:35:14 ◼   ► work schedule. And I would say that this is a broken part of Silicon Valley culture because

00:35:21 ◼   ► the attitude there is, why pay an older worker who wants to have a family and a life for

00:35:28 ◼   ► 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week when I can pay a lot less to a 20-something and they'll

00:35:33 ◼   ► work 60 hours a week? And I would say that that's kind of immoral because you're exploiting

00:35:40 ◼   ► you're younger workers, discriminating against people who have lives, and you're just, you

00:35:46 ◼   ► know, you're billion dollar companies that are cheapened out because you've got, you've

00:35:50 ◼   ► got kind of cheap labor that you're exploiting. And then at some point that I feel like that

00:35:55 ◼   ► is broken and that people should be allowed healthy company culture includes the fact

00:36:00 ◼   ► that people should not have to work a 60 hour week. But Silicon Valley culture, that is

00:36:05 ◼   ► incredibly common. That's gross.

00:36:06 ◼   ► I mean, I've worked in those industries. I know people like advertising is really

00:36:11 ◼   ► bad, banking is really bad, like still, you know, like these aren't nowhere near

00:36:15 ◼   ► startups, right? And they work people to the bone.

00:36:18 ◼   ► Yeah, companies want to get as much out of their employees as they can, as they

00:36:22 ◼   ► can get away with for as little as they can pay them. That is a part of

00:36:25 ◼   ► the part of the deal. And, you know, I do think that that is beyond a certain

00:36:30 ◼   ► point that is broken because I'm skeptical of how effective people are after a certain

00:36:40 ◼   ► point and whether that's actually useful or not, but also I think it's immoral to burn

00:36:46 ◼   ► people out and know you're burning them out just because. Look, if you want to work more,

00:36:50 ◼   ► that's fine, but culture is where you literally can't not work. It's broken. And I would argue

00:36:57 ◼   ► that once you're at that point in your corporate values that it's not a big

00:37:02 ◼   ► jump from there to all these other things because you've already got an HR

00:37:06 ◼   ► group that is essentially not defending its people because it knows that it's

00:37:10 ◼   ► its workers because it knows that these kinds of things are just part of the

00:37:13 ◼   ► game. You have already established your fundamental lack of respect for the

00:37:17 ◼   ► people that you pay money to and that sort of starts seeping into everything

00:37:22 ◼   ► and then you just start to forget what should be basic human values, which is clearly, as

00:37:29 ◼   ► we've seen here, where Uber is right now, and they have to have to fix it. Like, they

00:37:34 ◼   ► just have to fix it. And, you know, the press has been on them, thankfully, in such a harsh

00:37:42 ◼   ► way that they're making a bunch of statements and they've been, what do they get, like a

00:37:46 ◼   ► former US Justice or something, like, in to start looking at it for them?

00:37:51 ◼   ► That's the Attorney General. One of the Obama Attorney Generals is investigating it. And

00:37:56 ◼   ► yeah, we'll see.

00:37:57 ◼   ► I mean, I can't, and it's going to be like a public leave, like it's going to be like

00:38:01 ◼   ► a public report, right? That they'll publish about this?

00:38:04 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

00:38:05 ◼   ► I can't imagine how that's going to look for them.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:09 ◼   ► They just got to fix it because this, this really isn't where we should be. And we should

00:38:15 ◼   ► be at this point trying harder and harder to bring people of all backgrounds and genders

00:38:22 ◼   ► into these companies and making them feel safe.

00:38:26 ◼   ► How are we still at this point?

00:38:30 ◼   ► I hope there's some change.

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00:39:54 ◼   ► My entire mind right now is occupied thinking about Friday. Because on Friday the Nintendo

00:40:04 ◼   ► Switch is released.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Ahhh

00:40:07 ◼   ► I have some switches on pre-order.

00:40:11 ◼   ► I have multiple machines pre-ordered.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Because I have suffered in the past, Jason, from pre-ordering things that don't arrive when they're supposed to.

00:40:21 ◼   ► So I have a small handful of pre-orders from different places.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And if I get all three of the pre-orders, I already know what I'm doing with the other two consoles.

00:40:31 ◼   ► I won't be keeping them.

00:40:33 ◼   ► I'll be selling one onto a brother and then the third one.

00:40:36 ◼   ► either onto a friend or I'm gonna be putting it on eBay.

00:40:39 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:40:40 ◼   ► - Are you at all interested in the Nintendo Switch?

00:40:43 ◼   ► - I'm interested in it.

00:40:47 ◼   ► I made the decision not to pre-order it.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Part of that, and forgive me if you've heard this before,

00:40:54 ◼   ► but part of it is console creep.

00:40:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is a total thing.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Yep, 100%.

00:41:00 ◼   ► - You know, I have a Wii U, which I like.

00:41:04 ◼   ► I bought mostly from Mario Kart,

00:41:05 ◼   ► but there are a bunch of great games on it.

00:41:06 ◼   ► My kids were playing Mario Kart 8 the other day.

00:41:09 ◼   ► I'm not sad that I bought it.

00:41:11 ◼   ► If it had been completely incompatible

00:41:13 ◼   ► with all of our old Wii games,

00:41:15 ◼   ► I would have been sad that I bought it

00:41:16 ◼   ► 'cause there are not that many Wii U games out there

00:41:18 ◼   ► and now it's a kind of a dead platform,

00:41:19 ◼   ► but we had a Wii with all those Wii games

00:41:22 ◼   ► and it's compatible with all of them.

00:41:24 ◼   ► So like this weekend, my family and I played

00:41:28 ◼   ► Beel's Rock Band, which is a Wii game.

00:41:31 ◼   ► And we still have all the instruments still work on the Wii U

00:41:34 ◼   ► and it works on the Wii U and it's great.

00:41:36 ◼   ► Plus then we can flip over and do Mario Kart 8

00:41:38 ◼   ► and that's a Wii U game and it's got the high quality.

00:41:41 ◼   ► So my point is the Wii U for me had value

00:41:44 ◼   ► because it was replacing a box, right?

00:41:47 ◼   ► - It was an upgrade. - And one of the things

00:41:48 ◼   ► that, yeah, oh.

00:41:50 ◼   ► But it's not a, it's not a,

00:41:52 ◼   ► it's, I'm keeping a level number of consoles

00:41:55 ◼   ► in my house, right? - Yeah.

00:41:56 ◼   ► - But like the Xbox One, which we have,

00:41:59 ◼   ► I still have an Xbox 360 in a different room, why?

00:42:02 ◼   ► because sometimes my son wants to play those Xbox 360 games

00:42:05 ◼   ► and the games he likes never got that compatibility thing

00:42:09 ◼   ► that Microsoft talked about, but really didn't deliver on,

00:42:11 ◼   ► where you could download, you know,

00:42:13 ◼   ► Xbox One compatible versions of Xbox 360 games.

00:42:16 ◼   ► His games that he played never--

00:42:18 ◼   ► - That's a slow moving, but continually moving process.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, there may be more now,

00:42:22 ◼   ► but it's one of those things

00:42:23 ◼   ► where I've just kept the 360 around because why not?

00:42:26 ◼   ► And we have the TV that's out here actually in my office

00:42:29 ◼   ► that he will come in here sometimes

00:42:31 ◼   ► and play on the 360 and it's great.

00:42:33 ◼   ► But again, now there's another console.

00:42:35 ◼   ► I have a PlayStation 3 and an Xbox 360 in this room,

00:42:39 ◼   ► and then I've got a Wii U and an Xbox One

00:42:42 ◼   ► in the living room.

00:42:43 ◼   ► - There's a lot of games in the smell zone.

00:42:45 ◼   ► - So that's my feeling about the Nintendo Switch is,

00:42:49 ◼   ► I'm intrigued by it, but it's another box in our house.

00:42:54 ◼   ► And I realize this is a box you can pick up

00:42:55 ◼   ► and carry in your hands and do other things with.

00:42:57 ◼   ► And it looks cool and I'm looking forward to it.

00:43:00 ◼   ► And since we are a Nintendo Wii kind of house,

00:43:03 ◼   ► in the sense my kids have grown up with a Wii

00:43:05 ◼   ► and then the Wii U and it's part of their childhood

00:43:10 ◼   ► and they still have fondness for that stuff.

00:43:12 ◼   ► And my son has a DS as well.

00:43:15 ◼   ► I feel like we will probably get one at some point

00:43:18 ◼   ► and that probably it'll be my son kind of demanding it.

00:43:23 ◼   ► And given that he will be able to play it on the TV

00:43:25 ◼   ► and just walk away with it and play with it,

00:43:29 ◼   ► without taking over our living room. I'll probably get there, but, um, and the stuff looks good,

00:43:35 ◼   ► you know, and that's where you're going to be able to get the latest Mario stuff and, and,

00:43:38 ◼   ► and Zelda and all the Nintendo stuff. But I'm holding back a little bit. I'm, I tend not to be a

00:43:45 ◼   ► first buyer of any consoles and, and there's just my fundamental frustration with more box clutter

00:43:51 ◼   ► in like, I don't have a PS4. Why don't I have a PS4? It's like, I don't want another box. I'm

00:43:56 ◼   ► intrigued by the PS4 with the VR and all of that and yet I don't have a PS4 because where am I

00:44:02 ◼   ► going to put that? I mean I've already got a huge stack of boxes in my living room it's too many

00:44:07 ◼   ► boxes already. As you say luckily the Switch is has a very small footprint it's very small and so

00:44:13 ◼   ► that you know it's good for if you have a unit like it obviously isn't your problem but for many

00:44:17 ◼   ► people like if your problem is how am I going to fit another console like it fits nicely into your

00:44:23 ◼   ► your existing arrangement. However, Nintendo at this point are doing people in your position

00:44:29 ◼   ► a favour, which is doing a disservice for a lot of the people that are buying the Switch

00:44:34 ◼   ► immediately is that there's like four games. And this is the same for many consoles, right?

00:44:42 ◼   ► But they also don't even have a lot of ports available of old stuff. Like it's very slim.

00:44:48 ◼   ► However, what they have already done is they have a good runway of games that will lead

00:44:52 ◼   ► up to the holiday season. Which I expect the plan is that they are going to be selling

00:44:58 ◼   ► it now, a bunch of games will come out, they'll drop the price at the holidays, and you'll

00:45:02 ◼   ► be able to get a great bundle with the new Mario and have Mario Kart on it and it'll

00:45:06 ◼   ► have Zelda on it, Splatoon, you know.

00:45:09 ◼   ► And you can see Splatoon, which is such a great game. So I think that it's a very smart

00:45:16 ◼   ► roll out because they're rolling it out in, you know, it's not even spring yet. And you

00:45:20 ◼   ► with Nintendo we've seen it over the years there are always huge availability problems.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Like I remember trying to get a Wii and it was really hard.

00:45:28 ◼   ► Yeah the Wii was a unique case. It was a combination of Nintendo were trying to see if they could

00:45:37 ◼   ► constrain reliability, this is what you believed. But then also it was a massive hit. So it

00:45:43 ◼   ► was unfortunately a double header right?

00:45:46 ◼   ► - And you know, when I tried to get an Xbox One,

00:45:49 ◼   ► which was after launch by quite a bit,

00:45:51 ◼   ► it was still kind of hard to get them.

00:45:53 ◼   ► Like I find the consoles can be hard to find

00:45:56 ◼   ► and hard to buy.

00:45:57 ◼   ► - Look at what it's like when you try and buy an iPhone.

00:45:59 ◼   ► You know, you want to buy one immediately,

00:46:00 ◼   ► you wait for a month.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Like it's that kind of idea, right?

00:46:03 ◼   ► - So I think this is smart on Nintendo's part,

00:46:07 ◼   ► because they're not like what Apple has become,

00:46:09 ◼   ► where they drop a huge,

00:46:11 ◼   ► they're manufacturing them all the time

00:46:13 ◼   ► and then they announce the product

00:46:14 ◼   ► and they drop a huge amount of them

00:46:15 ◼   ► and they can fulfill a lot of their demand.

00:46:16 ◼   ► Although even Apple, as we know with the seven plus

00:46:19 ◼   ► could not fulfill demand at all

00:46:22 ◼   ► into the whole first quarter of 2017.

00:46:26 ◼   ► But this gives Nintendo time to launch the platform,

00:46:29 ◼   ► get people including their developers

00:46:31 ◼   ► used to what the platform is,

00:46:33 ◼   ► and ramp up production, gauge demand.

00:46:36 ◼   ► And so when you hit the holidays,

00:46:38 ◼   ► when people might buy these,

00:46:39 ◼   ► and that might be when we buy ours,

00:46:40 ◼   ► although, and my son's birthday's in August,

00:46:42 ◼   ► so maybe that's a thing too, I don't know.

00:46:44 ◼   ► But at that point, they should be available,

00:46:46 ◼   ► and there will be more games for them,

00:46:48 ◼   ► and it will all start to make sense.

00:46:50 ◼   ► So that's my kind of applause to Nintendo.

00:46:53 ◼   ► Like if they do this right, when they hit the holidays,

00:46:56 ◼   ► anyone who's gonna be able to want a Switch

00:46:58 ◼   ► will be able to get one, and it'll have great games,

00:47:00 ◼   ► and they'll be happy.

00:47:02 ◼   ► And that's the way you do it.

00:47:03 ◼   ► You don't wanna frustrate people by creating sort of,

00:47:06 ◼   ► you know, accidentally or purposefully this scarcity

00:47:09 ◼   ► where it's hard to get.

00:47:10 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, no.

00:47:11 ◼   ► You want people to be able to go to Amazon and say,

00:47:12 ◼   ► give me a Nintendo Switch and have it come two days later.

00:47:15 ◼   ► I think this is part of the reason they've done it, because March is a terrible time

00:47:18 ◼   ► to release a games console. There is no good reason to do it.

00:47:22 ◼   ► It's a soft launch in a way, right? Including the catalog, which is very small. It's really

00:47:26 ◼   ► a soft launch, and I think that's fine. I think it's fine, because really, when do they

00:47:31 ◼   ► want to be at full speed with this thing? Holiday quarter.

00:47:34 ◼   ► Yeah. Because Nintendo have a lot of work to do to try and encourage outside developers

00:47:39 ◼   ► to make games for their platforming again. And they're doing, they've got some interesting

00:47:43 ◼   ► deals in place like the next FIFA game will be available on the Switch and that is something

00:47:47 ◼   ► that has not happened on Nintendo consoles for a long time especially when it looks like

00:47:51 ◼   ► it's going to be the full game which is also something that hasn't happened for a very

00:47:55 ◼   ► long time. Even on the Wii, you know, console makers would release these weird or watered

00:48:00 ◼   ► down versions of these games.

00:48:02 ◼   ► I mean, why do I have an Xbox One? It's because, it's because I wanted, I mean I had an Xbox

00:48:06 ◼   ► 360 because I wanted to play Destiny, you know, my son wants to play Overwatch. These

00:48:12 ◼   ► are titles that are not on Nintendo's platforms and it's frustrating.

00:48:18 ◼   ► There's still going to be a lot of that.

00:48:20 ◼   ► There is. I think Nintendo's always going to have that where they're not going to have

00:48:24 ◼   ► the triple-A titles and all of that, but if Nintendo can do what they do well, which is

00:48:30 ◼   ► their stuff especially, and they've got this really interesting design where it is a handheld

00:48:34 ◼   ► and a console in one, then they have a chance to reach people who don't really care about

00:48:42 ◼   ► the AAA games, and also to be a second console for people who've got a Playstation or an Xbox

00:48:46 ◼   ► One, but also want to get the Nintendo stuff. Because it's such a different product, I think

00:48:50 ◼   ► it actually feels better to buy something like the Nintendo Switch, because it's not

00:48:53 ◼   ► yet another plastic box under your TV, like the Playstation and the Xbox.

00:48:58 ◼   ► Also, if and when they go all in on it being the only Nintendo platform, that's going to

00:49:05 ◼   ► be a big thing for them.

00:49:07 ◼   ► Because then they get people that want the handheld, they get all the DS stuff, Pokemon,

00:49:14 ◼   ► the next Pokemon game will hopefully be available for the Switch only.

00:49:17 ◼   ► If they do that, then they will be making a big statement.

00:49:20 ◼   ► As of right now, Nintendo is not claiming the death of the 3DS line.

00:49:26 ◼   ► However, there are also not a lot of games coming out for the 3DS.

00:49:30 ◼   ► It may go on, I mean they still sell, my son got one for his birthday, like they're old,

00:49:35 ◼   ► but there's a huge catalogue and people love them and it's great for kids, especially,

00:49:39 ◼   ► it's like, you know, your kid might not have a phone, but they've got a DS and it's great.

00:49:46 ◼   ► But I think, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

00:49:53 ◼   ► fact that it's a handheld makes it a different kind of product and I like that about it,

00:49:59 ◼   ► that it's a little bit of both.

00:50:00 ◼   ► -With inbuilt two-person multiplayer, you know, you can split the controller in half,

00:50:05 ◼   ► give one person, you know.

00:50:06 ◼   ► -Yeah, split the controls. It's got some control innovation like on the Wii, which is great,

00:50:11 ◼   ► that because it's portable, it makes it easier to do a LAN party essentially, which, you

00:50:15 ◼   ► know, you can't do. I think about that a lot with, like, console games that I've got where

00:50:19 ◼   ► it's like, "Well, I can't bring my console," I mean, you can, but who does, "to your friend's

00:50:23 ◼   ► and then you need another TV and all of that. And there are a lot of games that have network

00:50:26 ◼   ► multiplayer but they don't, they won't do split screen in person multiplayer. And with

00:50:31 ◼   ► a Switch you just bring your Switch with you to another friend's house and you can play

00:50:36 ◼   ► together easily which is really great. And then you know the other thing I like about

00:50:40 ◼   ► it? No disc. Yeah. Cards. It's all on cards. Basically, yeah, memory cards. And what's

00:50:50 ◼   ► What's great about that is the games that need to install.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Yep.

00:50:55 ◼   ► Just pop them in and you play.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Yep.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Which is not the way it is in the modern world.

00:50:58 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm super excited about this.

00:51:01 ◼   ► If you want to hear me and Federico and Shaheed continue to just go crazy over this thing,

00:51:07 ◼   ► you go check out remaster 29.

00:51:10 ◼   ► We've made the joke that we're all kind of, especially me and Federico are basically nesting

00:51:14 ◼   ► for this thing right now.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Like we're setting up the area where it's going to go in.

00:51:18 ◼   ► the space where it's gonna go yep making sure we've got all the accessories we

00:51:22 ◼   ► want and I've labeled the input on my TV switch it's ready to go it's that plug

00:51:27 ◼   ► we'll plug it right in there yeah sure yes you're ready we're very I'm very

00:51:30 ◼   ► very excited about this I said this on the show and I'm making a I'm planning

00:51:35 ◼   ► on making a YouTube video kind of focused around this idea but I love

00:51:40 ◼   ► Apple but I don't love Apple as much as I love Nintendo interesting my nostalgia

00:51:46 ◼   ► and love for Nintendo goes back my entire life. My earliest memories are playing NES games.

00:51:52 ◼   ► Some of my very earliest memories are playing various Nintendo games with my brother or

00:52:00 ◼   ► watching him play Nintendo games when I was like three years old. This is a company that has been

00:52:06 ◼   ► with me throughout my entire life. They're a company that like it doesn't matter how many

00:52:09 ◼   ► mess ups they make like I'm always convinced that they'll pull it out of the bag and I really want

00:52:16 ◼   ► the Switch to be a success because they need it and I need it if I want them to continue.

00:52:21 ◼   ► So yeah Nintendo is the company that I love the most it's not the company that I pay the

00:52:25 ◼   ► most attention to because you know honestly that one of the reasons that remaster exists

00:52:30 ◼   ► is because me and Federico or like the reason that me and Federico have a video game podcast

00:52:36 ◼   ► it's the third iteration of this show is because we just want a place to talk about video games

00:52:41 ◼   ► and mostly that's Nintendo because it's the we we are quite similar in that regard to like our

00:52:46 ◼   ► entire lives Nintendo has been a part of it, where Apple has maybe been for the last 10

00:52:50 ◼   ► years, but like our entire lives Nintendo has been a massive part of that. So please

00:52:57 ◼   ► let the Switch be amazing.

00:52:58 ◼   ► And for me, Nintendo is a part of my children's lives, and so for them it's been a part from

00:53:05 ◼   ► the beginning, and for, and I'm sure my son who loves video games would say, you know,

00:53:11 ◼   ► was playing Wii games is where he got his start, but for me it's just as a parent. It's

00:53:17 ◼   ► that thing. I completely skipped the original Nintendo generation. The Wii was the first

00:53:23 ◼   ► Nintendo device that I ever got because I went from the Atari 2600 to not playing video

00:53:29 ◼   ► games again until the PS1, and so I skipped all over that. However, my brother-in-law,

00:53:35 ◼   ► I would visit, Lauren and I would visit her parents' house and her brother's 15 years

00:53:40 ◼   ► younger and he was a NES kid and so like I learned about you know Mario and and what

00:53:52 ◼   ► else did he play Kirby all of that stuff so because he's he's only a little bit older

00:53:58 ◼   ► than you so yeah it's it's a I get it I get it even though it's just not for me for me

00:54:05 ◼   ► know, the Atari 2600 was incredibly formative, and then, you know, the Apple

00:54:10 ◼   ► stuff. But I get why people are attached to Nintendo, and I think that that's one

00:54:14 ◼   ► of the great things about... that's why Nintendo's still around, and that's why it

00:54:17 ◼   ► has the power that it has, is that it has a personality in a way that, you know,

00:54:22 ◼   ► honestly, like, Xbox and PlayStation have... sort of have personalities, kind of, but

00:54:26 ◼   ► when they're battling over AAA titles, I mean, they do exclusives and stuff, but

00:54:31 ◼   ► why do they even have to do exclusives? It's trying to differentiate at all between them.

00:54:36 ◼   ► Whereas Nintendo, there's no, again, for right or for wrong, for good and for ill, Nintendo

00:54:41 ◼   ► there's no mistaking that it is what it is. It is not like the others. And that's, I mean,

00:54:49 ◼   ► how similar does that sound to how we talk about Apple? It's a similar kind of feeling.

00:54:53 ◼   ► Like when I watched that Nintendo Switch presentation, the live presentation they did, I thought

00:54:57 ◼   ► myself, well one, it's a little weird, but two, it is the most Apple-like presentation

00:55:02 ◼   ► I've ever seen from another company in the sense that they're just like, their whole

00:55:07 ◼   ► attitude seemed very similar to Apple.

00:55:10 ◼   ► So transitioning back to the company and their Apple.

00:55:14 ◼   ► Speaking of Apple.

00:55:15 ◼   ► Last week we were talking about San Jose and we were talking about the Apple Campus and

00:55:18 ◼   ► wondering whether there will be any events at the Apple Campus and we weren't sure when

00:55:22 ◼   ► the thing was opening and then a couple of days afterwards we found out that Campus 2

00:55:27 ◼   ► be opening in April but it now has a name it will not be called campus 2 which would

00:55:32 ◼   ► have been the worst name ever because campus 2 electric boogaloo I guess the name for campus

00:55:41 ◼   ► 2 is now apple park yes apple park do you know I don't like it I it doesn't doesn't

00:55:47 ◼   ► roll off the tongue very nicely for me there's too many p's too closely together but apple

00:55:53 ◼   ► Apple Park is, I don't know, I wonder if we're gonna start calling it the park, like, you

00:55:59 ◼   ► know, the loop, if it'll be like that.

00:56:02 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe.

00:56:03 ◼   ► Apple Park, it does feel a little bit like a stadium, it also I think makes it harder

00:56:06 ◼   ► for Apple to sponsor, like, by naming rights for a stadium somewhere, because it'd be Apple

00:56:10 ◼   ► Park.

00:56:11 ◼   ► You think they would ever do that, though?

00:56:12 ◼   ► They would have to do Apple Stadium, I guess.

00:56:14 ◼   ► It seems unlikely.

00:56:16 ◼   ► They, a few people noted that it's, it may be, either accidentally or purposefully, a

00:56:22 ◼   ► of a cap to Xerox Park, which was the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, which is famously

00:56:29 ◼   ► where Steve Jobs went and saw the Alto, I think it was.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I wondered that, and I kind of came to the conclusion that it must be, because

00:56:40 ◼   ► when they were talking about the name, if this ever came up, they would have gone, "Well,

00:56:43 ◼   ► that's kind of like Xerox Park, right?" Like, they would have at least—someone would have

00:56:47 ◼   ► like tweaked that beforehand. So if they didn't name it like because of that, I'm sure they

00:56:51 ◼   ► they spoke about it and like, "Oh yeah, that's kind of nice."

00:56:53 ◼   ► - They should have called it Campus 2 with the brackets from the Apple 2. That's what

00:56:58 ◼   ► they should have done. - Oh no.

00:57:00 ◼   ► - But Apple Park is, I think it's fine. I think we'll get used to it. I think it's like

00:57:04 ◼   ► changing PowerBook to MacBook. I think we'll get used to it and it'll be fine.

00:57:06 ◼   ► - Oh, we sure will. We sure will. It's not a bad name. I just don't, I like the way it

00:57:10 ◼   ► looks when it's written. I don't like how it sounds when I try and say it.

00:57:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, fair enough. - Which isn't necessarily a reason that they

00:57:18 ◼   ► should call it something else. It's going to take over six months to move the 12,000

00:57:23 ◼   ► people that are going to be occupying the park. There is still some construction though

00:57:28 ◼   ► that's going to continue all the way through to the summer, so it's not 100% done, but

00:57:33 ◼   ► you can move people in and still work on a few parts of it.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Yeah, there's so much landscaping and stuff going on too. I imagine a lot of the work

00:57:40 ◼   ► is going to be landscaping and things that will continue because if you look at the pictures

00:57:44 ◼   ► of it. The center of the ring is just enormous landscaping, and it's all landscaping. And

00:57:50 ◼   ► then the outside of the-- I mean, there's so much-- I mean, the other reason to call

00:57:54 ◼   ► out a park is that it looks like a park with buildings in it. There are trees and fields

00:57:59 ◼   ► and things all over this thing. And that was part of the design plan from the beginning.

00:58:05 ◼   ► So I think that's appropriate. Keep in mind, too, I had a couple people ask what happens

00:58:10 ◼   ► to Infinite Loop, and the answer is Apple has so many people in Cupertino and around

00:58:14 ◼   ► there. In fact, I believe they basically filled up Cupertino and they've started renting space

00:58:19 ◼   ► in like San Jose nearby just because they've run out of Cupertino space. Apple will be

00:58:23 ◼   ► able to move people from the Loop, presumably all of the people in the Loop will be moving

00:58:27 ◼   ► to Apple Park, I don't know that for sure, but they'll have that space. Well, they've

00:58:31 ◼   ► got so many other people in other buildings in Cupertino that they will be able to put

00:58:34 ◼   ► those groups together where they're probably far-flung. We talked about that on a previous

00:58:38 ◼   ► show that they may be in different areas, those groups will be able to come together

00:58:41 ◼   ► in one place in the loop. Then what happens is the disparate groups that are out there

00:58:46 ◼   ► in all these office parks around Apple and Cupertino, they will get to move to other

00:58:53 ◼   ► parts together and get more of the facilities together instead of being scattered. And yes,

00:59:00 ◼   ► in the end, there will probably be some square footage in some parts of Cupertino or over

00:59:06 ◼   ► in San Jose that they will drop, but it will be like, if you've ever been to Cupertino,

00:59:11 ◼   ► you may have noticed this, and if you haven't done it, you should do it sometime. When you

00:59:14 ◼   ► get off the freeway, you get off 280, you turn right, if you're coming from San Francisco,

00:59:19 ◼   ► and the loop campus is on the left, and you can turn in there, and you make the left turn

00:59:27 ◼   ► on Mariani, and it becomes Infinite Loop. What you may not know, if you're focused on

00:59:32 ◼   ► the majesty that is Infinite Loop, there's where the icon garden used to be. Does it

00:59:36 ◼   ► really go all the way around? Yes it does. Look at all the parking lot that's full of

00:59:40 ◼   ► electric cars. There they are. But as you're coming down Mariani, approaching the entryway

00:59:45 ◼   ► to the loop, on the right side, there are all these other office buildings. Those are

00:59:49 ◼   ► all Apple. That's where that anechoic chamber that they demoed during an antenna gate, it's

00:59:55 ◼   ► across the street. It's not even in the loop, it's across the street. And then if you don't

00:59:59 ◼   ► make the turn on Mariani and you just drive down, what is it, Steven's Creek Boulevard?

01:00:04 ◼   ► is that street? How would I know? I don't know. I wasn't asking myself. I wasn't asking

01:00:10 ◼   ► you. If you drive down that street, just look at the signs on the road of all of the office

01:00:16 ◼   ► buildings as you pass them. They all have Apple logos on them. It's a company town.

01:00:23 ◼   ► It is packed. We think of Apple as taking place at the Loop, but the Loop is a tiny

01:00:28 ◼   ► fraction of the office building space that they've got in Cupertino. And so with the

01:00:35 ◼   ► park, they'll move the loop people presumably to the park, maybe not all of them, then there'll

01:00:41 ◼   ► be a whole thing. So I think the loop's not going anywhere because it's like another nice

01:00:47 ◼   ► campus. I think Apple would probably prefer to have the loop than to have just random

01:00:51 ◼   ► office buildings in Cupertino. And then they'll rearrange their other thing. So it's a mammoth

01:00:57 ◼   ► task for facilities people. There's somebody working very hard, a lot of people working

01:01:02 ◼   ► really hard in their facilities group to do it, and I find it fascinating, but I don't

01:01:05 ◼   ► think the loop is going to go anywhere. In fact, it'll be that building behind an IHOP

01:01:11 ◼   ► in San Jose that they drop. Like, "Well, fine, we didn't need that. Our lease is coming up

01:01:17 ◼   ► and we're not going to need that space, so we're going to drop it." They'll probably

01:01:19 ◼   ► also keep some space around and either allow themselves to spread out a little bit or keep

01:01:24 ◼   ► some space open for growth because that's been a challenge for them too is where do

01:01:28 ◼   ► you put people if you've rented all of the available business space in Cupertino.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Some cool statistics about Apple Park. The ring-shaped building, so the main building,

01:01:39 ◼   ► houses 2.8 million square feet of space. It features the largest curved panels of glass

01:01:46 ◼   ► in the world. I feel like Apple keep doing this. They keep getting the largest pieces

01:01:50 ◼   ► of glass? How much more glass?

01:01:54 ◼   ► One day there will be a book about how Apple revolutionized the curved glass industry.

01:02:02 ◼   ► The campus will run on 100% renewable energy.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Yeah, there's solar panels on everything, and then they've also got their big solar

01:02:11 ◼   ► park down the coast that they get all the power from.

01:02:15 ◼   ► there will be a cafe, I should say,

01:02:19 ◼   ► and an Apple store opens to the public, which is great.

01:02:23 ◼   ► - This is a huge thing that people have made the pilgrimage

01:02:27 ◼   ► to Infinite Loop and there's the new,

01:02:30 ◼   ► it used to be the company store,

01:02:31 ◼   ► now it's just the little Apple store

01:02:32 ◼   ► that's in Infinite Loop 1 or next to Infinite Loop 1.

01:02:35 ◼   ► And there's a little parking lot there for people to come

01:02:37 ◼   ► and it's always very busy and it's a little bit weird.

01:02:40 ◼   ► - It's so hostile feeling.

01:02:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, it feels like you shouldn't be there, right?

01:02:44 ◼   ► So they're gonna do a visitor center essentially,

01:02:46 ◼   ► where you're gonna be able to come to the Apple,

01:02:49 ◼   ► the new Apple Park campus and park

01:02:51 ◼   ► and there'll be a cafe and an Apple store.

01:02:53 ◼   ► And it'll probably be--

01:02:55 ◼   ► - This is such a great thing that they've done

01:02:58 ◼   ► because they need to admit it.

01:02:59 ◼   ► You need to admit that people idolize your company

01:03:03 ◼   ► to the point that they just wanna come and see it.

01:03:05 ◼   ► And you can't create a building like that

01:03:09 ◼   ► and not let people come and see it.

01:03:11 ◼   ► Like otherwise make a nondescript building.

01:03:13 ◼   ► Infinite Loop doesn't look amazing.

01:03:15 ◼   ► It's just a cluster of buildings.

01:03:18 ◼   ► It's a circular, you know, you can drive around it.

01:03:20 ◼   ► It's not really amazing looking.

01:03:23 ◼   ► This thing is maybe some of the most interested in architecture

01:03:26 ◼   ► on the planet today.

01:03:28 ◼   ► You hire these people to make a beautiful building,

01:03:31 ◼   ► let people come and see it.

01:03:33 ◼   ► And if they do come and see it,

01:03:34 ◼   ► get them a cafe to come and sit in for half an hour

01:03:38 ◼   ► before they have to leave again.

01:03:39 ◼   ► Because at Infinite Loop, you go there,

01:03:41 ◼   ► You will go into the Apple store. You probably buy something because they have stuff that you can't get anywhere else

01:03:46 ◼   ► I some pens by the parents buy a t-shirt you take a picture with the sign and then you leave

01:03:50 ◼   ► Yep, and so it's kind of a little bit underwhelming

01:03:52 ◼   ► So I'm really excited that they're doing this and I'm so happy that it will be open before

01:03:57 ◼   ► WWDC because I can then go and see it and it's way easier to get to it probably

01:04:03 ◼   ► You know, you could take a taxi now. You don't have to hire a car, right?

01:04:08 ◼   ► Because it's so far it was so far away from from downtown San Francisco. So yeah, I'm excited about this

01:04:13 ◼   ► I think that it is a great addition a welcome addition

01:04:16 ◼   ► The theater where we assume Apple will be doing some product on valings in the future will be named the Steve Jobs Theatre

01:04:25 ◼   ► Which is a fitting name

01:04:27 ◼   ► It has 1,000 seats and is comprised of a 20 foot tall glass cylinder because of course it is with a metallic

01:04:34 ◼   ► carbon fiber roof. The theater has been built on top of a hill which overlooks meadows and the main

01:04:40 ◼   ► building. And the way it works it's on top of a hill but that's also like it's down in the earth

01:04:45 ◼   ► like you will enter the the entryway the lobby um is this is this cylinder and then my understanding

01:04:53 ◼   ► is then you go down into the auditorium so it's down from the campus but still above

01:05:02 ◼   ► other stuff. Yeah, yeah, so it's no but but what I'm saying is when you enter the auditorium,

01:05:07 ◼   ► like the auditorium isn't isn't tall, the auditorium is in is down in the ground. You go

01:05:12 ◼   ► down like a staircase or something. Yeah, yeah, the order when you're sitting in the auditorium,

01:05:16 ◼   ► you're not overlooking outside, like you can't get distracted by by a bird flying by or something.

01:05:21 ◼   ► No, you're descending into the descending into the earth there, which actually is how the town hall

01:05:25 ◼   ► works, right? You enter at ground level and then and then you are at the top of the auditorium and

01:05:31 ◼   ► and it goes down and that's where it'll be.

01:05:33 ◼   ► Steve Jobs Theater is really great.

01:05:34 ◼   ► Pixar has a Steve Jobs building

01:05:37 ◼   ► and that's how they honored him.

01:05:38 ◼   ► I wondered for a long time if they were gonna refer to this

01:05:41 ◼   ► as the Steve Jobs Campus.

01:05:42 ◼   ► I think it's better this way that there is the--

01:05:45 ◼   ► - That would be too much.

01:05:46 ◼   ► - That they don't have to invoke Steve

01:05:48 ◼   ► every time they talk about where they're going.

01:05:51 ◼   ► But like, I'm going over to Steve's place, it's weird.

01:05:55 ◼   ► But the Steve Jobs Theater, like what are people,

01:05:58 ◼   ► what people remember about Steve Jobs?

01:06:00 ◼   ► like his presentation. So to name the theater after him, it's perfect. It is the perfect

01:06:05 ◼   ► combination of not having to be, like you said, too much, but honoring him with a building

01:06:11 ◼   ► on the campus. And not the big ring building, but this place where all the press comes and

01:06:15 ◼   ► they're going to say, "Apple announced at the Steve Jobs Theater in this event," and

01:06:19 ◼   ► that's great.

01:06:20 ◼   ► - And they'll get to say on stage, they'll be like, "In this building that is dedicated

01:06:23 ◼   ► to Steve, like we own the other products that we think."

01:06:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, "Welcome to the Steve Jobs Theater." Absolutely.

01:06:28 ◼   ► I think it's nice. I think they did it well. I assume that they obviously, again, like

01:06:32 ◼   ► Steve Jobs' campus was on the table, and I'm also pleased that they found a more fitting

01:06:38 ◼   ► tribute because naming the entire campus after him is maybe too much.

01:06:44 ◼   ► So let's talk scale for a second.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Yep.

01:06:47 ◼   ► Because, and I will put a link in the show notes to this tweet that I found. This is

01:06:52 ◼   ► from Sky1Ron is Ron Servi he is the traffic reporter for KCBS in San Francisco.

01:06:59 ◼   ► Perfect person to take this picture. He takes some spectacular Bay Area pictures. You should,

01:07:04 ◼   ► if you like pictures of the Bay Area you should follow Sky1Ron because he's up in the air

01:07:10 ◼   ► flying around the Bay Area all the time. Wow, he really does. Yeah, I'm looking at his feed

01:07:14 ◼   ► now. It's amazing. In fact, one day I was sitting in bed drinking my tea and looking

01:07:19 ◼   ► a twitter and I saw a picture of Marin County from Sky1Ron and the funny thing is I had

01:07:24 ◼   ► just heard an airplane go over my house and it was totally him. That was when he was taking

01:07:29 ◼   ► that picture. It was pretty funny.

01:07:30 ◼   ► That's a plane, not a helicopter.

01:07:32 ◼   ► No it's a plane. It's an airplane.

01:07:33 ◼   ► That's interesting.

01:07:34 ◼   ► Well the barrier is really huge so he needs a plane to get around to all the different

01:07:39 ◼   ► - it's a pretty large region so he flies his little plane around to all of the freeways

01:07:44 ◼   ► and stuff to see the congestion and things like that.

01:07:47 ◼   ► Ron has a pretty sweet job, doesn't he?

01:07:49 ◼   ► That's a pretty good job. What do you do if you're gonna fly a tiny plane around San Francisco

01:07:54 ◼   ► and take photos of it?

01:07:55 ◼   ► And every 10 minutes I'm on the radio saying where there's a backup. And that's it. That's

01:08:00 ◼   ► what he does.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Every 10 minutes?

01:08:02 ◼   ► Traffic and weather together every 10 minutes.

01:08:04 ◼   ► I assumed you're in the rush hour, right? Not like all day.

01:08:06 ◼   ► AM 740. Well, they do traffic and weather together every 10 minutes. They don't have

01:08:11 ◼   ► Sky 1 Ron on, I think, except during the commutes.

01:08:14 ◼   ► Okay, because then it became a terrible job.

01:08:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm like, I'm up all day, I can't go away,

01:08:19 ◼   ► I'm trapped.

01:08:20 ◼   ► No, when it's really foggy, they put him in a car sometimes,

01:08:22 ◼   ► that's extra sad.

01:08:23 ◼   ► Like I just am driving around in traffic.

01:08:26 ◼   ► So anyway, this picture that he tweeted,

01:08:28 ◼   ► which you'll see I replied to him and said,

01:08:30 ◼   ► you don't have to call it Campus 2 anymore,

01:08:32 ◼   ► now you can call it Apple Park.

01:08:34 ◼   ► And this was taken on Steve Jobs'

01:08:36 ◼   ► what would have been his 62nd birthday.

01:08:37 ◼   ► I like this picture because of one thing,

01:08:39 ◼   ► which is the scale.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Like the auditorium looks like an outhouse,

01:08:45 ◼   ► it looks like a water tank.

01:08:46 ◼   ► It is dwarfed in comparison to the giant ring.

01:08:51 ◼   ► That ring, I think we're all gonna go there

01:08:55 ◼   ► and be blown away by the scale of it.

01:09:00 ◼   ► I think from the outside, you're barely gonna be able

01:09:03 ◼   ► to tell if you're standing next to it that it's curved

01:09:06 ◼   ► because it's so huge.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And then the inside, which we are imagining,

01:09:10 ◼   ► I always kind of imagine the inside of Infinite Loop

01:09:14 ◼   ► where there's kind of a little park in there

01:09:16 ◼   ► and tables and pathways and that's where Cafe Max kind of opens out onto. And this thing

01:09:22 ◼   ► is huge. I mean, you could put a baseball stadium on the inside of this if you wanted

01:09:27 ◼   ► to. It's just, it is staggering. So anyway, it's a great picture and the scale of it just

01:09:32 ◼   ► blows me away. Like, this is a big, thousand seat auditorium that Apple's going to open

01:09:37 ◼   ► up to the press and it is like if the main building is a wheel it's like I don't even

01:09:46 ◼   ► know it's like it's not the hubcap it's like a little bolt that holds the wheel on it's

01:09:51 ◼   ► so tiny.

01:09:52 ◼   ► David: Yeah that seems kind of incredible.

01:09:55 ◼   ► Myke: Yeah.

01:09:56 ◼   ► David; Like I've been there's a building in Romania called the Palace of the Parliament

01:10:00 ◼   ► or People's House and it's the second largest administrative building in the world after

01:10:06 ◼   ► the Pentagon. And I imagine seeing campus 2 or Apple Park, the ringed building would

01:10:14 ◼   ► be kind of like this where you kind of walk up to this building or you arrive at this

01:10:17 ◼   ► building and it's bigger than you can see, right? Like you can't see the edges of it,

01:10:25 ◼   ► right? Like it's so large, the ends of it just pass outside of your field of vision.

01:10:32 ◼   ► And I imagine it's going to be a similar kind of thing to that because this building is

01:10:36 ◼   ► just massive.

01:10:37 ◼   ► It has an area of 365,000 square meters, which is just, it's massive.

01:10:47 ◼   ► It's like I'm doing like a conversion to feet now.

01:10:51 ◼   ► Oh my, I can't even work that out.

01:10:53 ◼   ► It's really big, really big is the answer.

01:10:57 ◼   ► And I wonder, I wonder like how, how it scales up to like what, what the new

01:11:01 ◼   ► canvas building is going to be like.

01:11:03 ◼   ► But yeah, I imagine it's going to be kind of like that.

01:11:04 ◼   ► Uh, what do you think the first event in the Steve Jobs theater will be?

01:11:09 ◼   ► Well, we talked about this last week about WWDC.

01:11:12 ◼   ► I think the best answer is probably the iPhone event.

01:11:15 ◼   ► Uh, because that allows them to, I don't, I'm not sure when the theater will be

01:11:19 ◼   ► ready and there's the access in and there's all this construction going on.

01:11:22 ◼   ► It would seem logical that maybe it would be that event, uh, because that's Apple's

01:11:27 ◼   ► biggest event and to hold it there if they feel they can hold it there. I mean, I guess

01:11:31 ◼   ► that's the question is, is they've been holding those events in places like Bill Graham and

01:11:36 ◼   ► do they want to do all their events on campus now? And is that going to be, you know, the

01:11:39 ◼   ► thousand seats is going to be the only, that's the only event venue for Apple ever. That'll

01:11:45 ◼   ► be interesting to see because it's still not as big necessarily as a giant theater that

01:11:52 ◼   ► they could rent somewhere, but it's theirs,

01:11:56 ◼   ► and they don't have to like spend days in San Francisco

01:11:59 ◼   ► doing setup and stuff, right, and build out.

01:12:02 ◼   ► They can just do it at their, they own it.

01:12:05 ◼   ► They can spend weeks before the event making it perfect

01:12:07 ◼   ► because they'll be, they control the space.

01:12:10 ◼   ► So I think that's something to watch is,

01:12:12 ◼   ► does Apple do all their events there from now on?

01:12:15 ◼   ► Is it good enough capacity for that?

01:12:18 ◼   ► But if I had to guess, I'd say the iPhone,

01:12:21 ◼   ► because that seems to be the, um, it gives them some construction time and, uh, symbolically

01:12:27 ◼   ► I think it's good to have their biggest thing be there.

01:12:29 ◼   ► So I just did some calculations. Oh good.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Uh, it's 2.6, I think. Oh no wait, it's 260,128 square meters.

01:12:41 ◼   ► Okay. And, uh, so yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's

01:12:45 ◼   ► still smaller than the palace of the parliament, which isn't surprising. Basically, you know,

01:12:49 ◼   ► I will put a link in the show notes to the Palace of the Parliament, the People's House.

01:12:54 ◼   ► It's a building with a very interesting history. I should do this, we should do this on NGeniust.

01:13:01 ◼   ► I'm going to put this in for our NGeniust channel because I have some stories about

01:13:06 ◼   ► this building. Yeah, so that might actually be kind of fun. But yeah, I wonder if it would

01:13:10 ◼   ► be the iPhone just because a thousand, I have way more than a thousand people go to that

01:13:15 ◼   ► event, right?

01:13:16 ◼   ► Yeah, oh it's four million square feet by the way, Myke. By my calculations, the palace

01:13:22 ◼   ► of the parliament, four million square feet.

01:13:23 ◼   ► There you go.

01:13:24 ◼   ► That's a lot. A lot of feet.

01:13:26 ◼   ► Yeah, a lot of feet. It's really many, many feet. But yeah, do you think that they would

01:13:30 ◼   ► do it and just scale back the amount of people?

01:13:34 ◼   ► I don't know. I honestly don't know. I think it's not something I really thought about,

01:13:40 ◼   ► but that's a good question. Like, what's the purpose of the Steve Jobs Theatre? Is it to

01:13:45 ◼   ► prevent Apple from having to rent out a space for smaller events that would have

01:13:52 ◼   ► been in that theater in San Jose, the California theater, or in the Yerba Buena

01:13:57 ◼   ► Center, like, or Town Hall, which was too small. Is that what it's for,

01:14:03 ◼   ► or is it for everything? And if it's for everything, or maybe everything except

01:14:09 ◼   ► WWDC keynote, where you've got that in San Jose and you might want to have that

01:14:12 ◼   ► that happen in San Jose. If it's for everything, that probably means that something like the

01:14:19 ◼   ► iPhone event is not going to have quite as expansive a guest list as it usually does.

01:14:24 ◼   ► So that'll be the thing. Will they do the iPhone event in another big venue, but every

01:14:30 ◼   ► other event in the Steve Jobs Theater? I don't know. It's a really interesting question,

01:14:34 ◼   ► and it sort of depends on what Apple feels like they get out of the turnout to those

01:14:39 ◼   ► events and if it's worth it for them because like I said it's way more convenient to have

01:14:44 ◼   ► it be in the place that they completely control for all time.

01:14:47 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:14:48 ◼   ► - As opposed to, you know, as opposed to having to rent. Yeah, I mean, people don't know,

01:14:52 ◼   ► like I've talked to people who worked on on events for Apple, like the the amount of planning

01:14:56 ◼   ► that goes into those is enormous. When they do Bill Graham, Civic Auditorium, they spend

01:15:00 ◼   ► like a week building or more building out their demo rooms and things like it's not,

01:15:07 ◼   ► don't just like sweep up the floor the day before and put on a show. Like it's

01:15:11 ◼   ► an enormous, enormous undertaking to convert those venues because Apple wants

01:15:16 ◼   ► them the way they want them. The same with the same with Yerba Buena theater

01:15:20 ◼   ► where they built the whole like outside demo building basically as a temporary

01:15:25 ◼   ► structure because they wanted it the way they wanted it. This gives them that

01:15:29 ◼   ► ability themselves. So the question is just the big events with big capacity. Do

01:15:35 ◼   ► they scale those back, but everything else, like, it's a no-brainer. And for those, it

01:15:40 ◼   ► might still be worth it just to have them have complete control over the venue.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. I wonder where they'll go. We'll see. I mean, we'll see maybe if they want

01:15:50 ◼   ► to do it sooner, right? There might be an event before then, they might be able to do

01:15:53 ◼   ► it there. Otherwise, they'll probably will keep it to the iPhone.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Yeah. Especially, you know, it is, I mean, if Apple

01:15:58 ◼   ► do want to play it that way, you know, the anniversary, 10-year anniversary year of the

01:16:02 ◼   ► iPhone.

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01:18:17 ◼   ► It's time for some Ask Upgrade, Mr. Jason Snell.

01:18:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, all right, let's do it.

01:18:22 ◼   ► - Jack asked, does old technology actually get slower

01:18:25 ◼   ► or just our expectations in software demand more speed?

01:18:28 ◼   ► - That's a big one.

01:18:31 ◼   ► You know, this is the feeling like, you know,

01:18:35 ◼   ► oh, my phone keeps getting slower.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Well, no, of course the old tech doesn't actually get slower.

01:18:39 ◼   ► What happens is that the software gets updated.

01:18:42 ◼   ► One, its software gets updated

01:18:45 ◼   ► and the software updates are tested

01:18:47 ◼   ► on newer pieces of hardware,

01:18:49 ◼   ► and so they add more stuff in there,

01:18:53 ◼   ► and the new pieces of hardware run it acceptably,

01:18:56 ◼   ► and they often don't really test it on the older stuff,

01:18:59 ◼   ► and so the older stuff feels like it's gonna slow down.

01:19:02 ◼   ► Also, the new stuff is faster,

01:19:04 ◼   ► and so if you go from one to another,

01:19:05 ◼   ► yes, it feels slower,

01:19:08 ◼   ► because now there's something that's much faster,

01:19:10 ◼   ► and it's a combination of those things.

01:19:12 ◼   ► But I would argue like, yeah, so it's a combination.

01:19:16 ◼   ► I think that's exactly right, Jack.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Expectations in software.

01:19:19 ◼   ► You could use like, I could still write on a Mac,

01:19:24 ◼   ► an original Mac.

01:19:26 ◼   ► I could still write on a PowerBook 160

01:19:28 ◼   ► that I used in the 90s.

01:19:30 ◼   ► Absolutely could, absolutely could.

01:19:32 ◼   ► Because in the end, it's like Microsoft Word

01:19:35 ◼   ► on those things.

01:19:36 ◼   ► It will let me type words as fast as I can type them.

01:19:39 ◼   ► And that's really all I need.

01:19:40 ◼   ► It's all the other stuff.

01:19:41 ◼   ► "Oh, but I want to have a retina display and I want to be able to record audio and cloud

01:19:45 ◼   ► sync all of my files and have a..."

01:19:48 ◼   ► And then you start making the list of all the things that you really have to have that

01:19:50 ◼   ► have nothing to do with putting words down, and that's where all the power goes.

01:19:54 ◼   ► Yep.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Could not have put it better myself.

01:19:59 ◼   ► Sey asked, "What was the first technology purchase you can remember spending your money

01:20:05 ◼   ► on or what is your all-time favorite?"

01:20:07 ◼   ► Jason?

01:20:08 ◼   ► First, I mean, so I'm gonna say the Mac SE, I had, to be fair, I had my money that the way my parents saved for college for me, essentially they gave me a bank account and said, "This is the money we saved for you for college."

01:20:27 ◼   ► And that was it. So like, I could spend it on things that weren't college, but then I wouldn't be able to afford to go to college, which is an interesting approach.

01:20:36 ◼   ► And I was super paranoid about it and I just didn't spend money out of that account for anything.

01:20:42 ◼   ► But I used it to buy a Mac SE. That was the thing.

01:20:45 ◼   ► And I think I bought a hard drive upgrade for it at some point, which was huge because hard drives were very expensive.

01:20:53 ◼   ► But that Mac SE was the time where I felt like I was first exerting my own financial control to buy something for me.

01:21:01 ◼   ► In terms of something that was like money I earned myself for technology, I'm

01:21:10 ◼   ► not sure it would have been, you know, after I started working at MacUser and

01:21:14 ◼   ► it would have been like a mid, you know, mid-90s, early to mid-90s

01:21:18 ◼   ► PowerBook probably. So I will take this question as like the first money

01:21:25 ◼   ► that I earned because I know what that exactly went on.

01:21:30 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, do it.

01:21:31 ◼   ► - That was my entire first paycheck

01:21:35 ◼   ► from when I worked at the bank,

01:21:38 ◼   ► I spent on the white plastic MacBook.

01:21:41 ◼   ► - Oh.

01:21:42 ◼   ► - It was my entire paycheck,

01:21:43 ◼   ► but it was fine because I had absolutely no commitments

01:21:48 ◼   ► at that point financially, so like it didn't matter.

01:21:50 ◼   ► All I needed was to be able to just continue to get to work

01:21:53 ◼   ► At that point, I could walk to work.

01:21:56 ◼   ► So I took my entire paycheck

01:21:59 ◼   ► and I bought the white plastic MacBook, which was awesome.

01:22:01 ◼   ► I already had an iMac at that point,

01:22:03 ◼   ► but I went and bought the white plastic MacBook

01:22:07 ◼   ► and I loved that thing.

01:22:08 ◼   ► I really, really loved it.

01:22:10 ◼   ► I couldn't afford the black one because it was more money.

01:22:13 ◼   ► - It was more money, yeah it was.

01:22:14 ◼   ► - I think at that time as well, I wanted the white one.

01:22:17 ◼   ► Like, white Apple was still cool.

01:22:19 ◼   ► You know, white Apple products were still cool,

01:22:22 ◼   ► you know, at that point.

01:22:23 ◼   ► They weren't, but okay. Sure they were. iPods were still white at that time.

01:22:28 ◼   ► It's true. The black one was cooler, but I'm not saying what was cooler, I'm just

01:22:33 ◼   ► saying the white one was still cool. Okay. I always prefer the way that the

01:22:39 ◼   ► white one looks to the black one, personally. That was just my aesthetic at the time.

01:22:43 ◼   ► #MykeWasWrong. Mm-hmm. J. Lilly asked, "Is there a non-Apple

01:22:48 ◼   ► charger for the 12 inch MacBook. So yes and no. Because the 12 inch MacBook is USB-C,

01:22:57 ◼   ► it can be charged in theory by any USB-C charging device. There are battery packs that will charge

01:23:06 ◼   ► it, like external batteries. You can get any cable and plug it in and to any wall plug.

01:23:12 ◼   ► but you will have varying levels of success based upon like the voltage that the charger that you're

01:23:18 ◼   ► using can output so just check that basically you want to make sure that you can have something that's

01:23:23 ◼   ► got kind of the right voltage that can can power the thing i don't know exactly what those specs

01:23:28 ◼   ► are and i don't want to lead you down a path the good thing is the new um the macbook is the least

01:23:35 ◼   ► power required of any of the USB-C laptops so it's the easiest to find a charger for it.

01:23:42 ◼   ► That would be compatible but the answer short answer is yes the long answer is you might need

01:23:48 ◼   ► to do a bit of research but yes there are. It comes with a 29 watt USB-C power adapter so if

01:23:54 ◼   ► you bought a USB-C power adapter that could put out 29 watts or more then you could you can charge

01:24:00 ◼   ► the MacBook with it.

01:24:01 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm, you'll be fine.

01:24:02 ◼   ► - Which is, I mean, one of these sort of unsung things

01:24:05 ◼   ► about going to USB-C is Apple had the patent or whatever

01:24:09 ◼   ► on MagSafe, and so every MagSafe thing was either a hack

01:24:13 ◼   ► or it had to come through Apple and be approved,

01:24:15 ◼   ► and for a long time, maybe most of the time,

01:24:18 ◼   ► Apple did not do that.

01:24:19 ◼   ► And now, it all goes.

01:24:22 ◼   ► You don't have to have a battery

01:24:25 ◼   ► that your power cable plugs into and then goes to MagSafe.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Like you said, you can just have a battery pack

01:24:29 ◼   ► that plugs in via USB-C.

01:24:31 ◼   ► It's wide open now for charging USB-C MacBooks.

01:24:36 ◼   ► - Yep, definitely.

01:24:39 ◼   ► All right, Dario asks,

01:24:42 ◼   ► what is your and Jason's view on iPhone cases?

01:24:46 ◼   ► - Wow, so my view overall is that if you like a case

01:24:52 ◼   ► because it affects the grippiness of the phone

01:24:55 ◼   ► or because you can tuck stuff in it

01:24:59 ◼   ► or whatever the reason is, or you drop your phone all the time and you've been saved by

01:25:02 ◼   ► a case, then you should do it. Do what feels right for you. I think it's a very personal

01:25:08 ◼   ► decision. For me, I never used a case until the 6 because the 6 felt slippery like a bar

01:25:16 ◼   ► of soap. So for the 6 and 6S, I used the same black leather Apple case, and that made it

01:25:23 ◼   ► grippier. And with the 7, I've got the jet black, and it's grippy enough that I am now

01:25:28 ◼   ► caseless again? I think I have used a case since the 4 because I got a free case.

01:25:33 ◼   ► The bumper. The bumper is the best case that Apple's ever made by the way. Like the

01:25:41 ◼   ► struggles that that we have had in this house to try and find something like a

01:25:46 ◼   ► bumper for adena's iphone 6 that was that was a tough time because we I

01:25:52 ◼   ► fought very difficult like very hard to find one for the five right because most

01:25:56 ◼   ► and they look like bumpers but they have the plastic back on them, right? But she loved

01:26:00 ◼   ► the bumper so we found one, I ended up finding one, I think it was like Spigen or that company

01:26:05 ◼   ► that made that. But no such thing exists that we could really find for the 6 because the

01:26:11 ◼   ► phone's just not built that way to support a case of that kind. She wasn't very happy

01:26:14 ◼   ► about that but she does like her, she has one of the silicone cases. I am an Apple silicone

01:26:20 ◼   ► case person. I like Apples cases. I think that they over time the quality is improved

01:26:27 ◼   ► of them and like the quality of it right now is pretty good. I did accidentally kind of

01:26:31 ◼   ► like break mine the other day. It's got like a like a winner in it like a little crack.

01:26:35 ◼   ► So I got a little crack in it. So I'm just trying to ignore that for the time being because

01:26:40 ◼   ► I don't really want to buy another case right now. I'm not even sure if I have one for the

01:26:45 ◼   ► I used to have a few for the 6s+ but for the 7+ I don't have any because it has the new

01:26:54 ◼   ► hole right so I'd have to buy a new case which I might do. I'm going to see if I can hold

01:26:57 ◼   ► out right for when they do new watches because when like new watch bands because they bring

01:27:01 ◼   ► out new case colours. They should hopefully be in the coming month so we'll see if they

01:27:06 ◼   ► do that. I'm a case person just really for grippiness and for added protection especially

01:27:12 ◼   ► with the big phone it has the ability to jump out of my hand so I like to have that added

01:27:17 ◼   ► protection because I don't buy AppleCare. So yeah I am a case person. And then on a

01:27:22 ◼   ► similar vein Brian asked what our thoughts were on the wallet iPhone cases that carry

01:27:27 ◼   ► cards and cash. I don't like these. I think they add even more bulk to the device. I'm

01:27:34 ◼   ► not a fan of these personally. I have I saw when I was in LA the other weekend I saw somebody

01:27:40 ◼   ► who had a wallet case that looked really nice. It was the first one of those I'd seen in

01:27:46 ◼   ► a while that I thought was just like it was super thin. It had room for a couple of cards.

01:27:51 ◼   ► I also I think that they're depending on how you use your iPhone having a have one of those

01:27:56 ◼   ► cases that is front and back so it's got a little you know you flip it open so it's got

01:28:02 ◼   ► a cover on the front of your iPhone. I think depending on how you use your iPhone that

01:28:05 ◼   ► can be a really nice thing if you've got like a leather case with a that it goes in so it's

01:28:09 ◼   ► like your iPhone is your wallet, but it's got a couple of cards in it. My daughter keeps

01:28:13 ◼   ► a couple of cards tucked in the back of her case, which is I think really useful. Um,

01:28:17 ◼   ► but I think they're just tucked in. I think there's not, it's not built for a wallet.

01:28:21 ◼   ► Yeah. I know people that put like emergency cash, just take the case off, put like a couple

01:28:25 ◼   ► of bills and then close it up again. Right. But I'm with you. I feel like I use my phone

01:28:30 ◼   ► in my pocket all the time when I don't need to carry around cards. And, uh, so for me,

01:28:36 ◼   ► I'd rather just have a second module of thing

01:28:40 ◼   ► that I bring with me when I need cash and cards

01:28:42 ◼   ► and the rest of the time,

01:28:44 ◼   ► I can bring my wallet when I need my wallet

01:28:46 ◼   ► and otherwise I just bring my phone.

01:28:47 ◼   ► And I have a little tiny thin wallet.

01:28:49 ◼   ► So like it's not a big, super thick John Syracuse

01:28:52 ◼   ► a size wallet.

01:28:53 ◼   ► So that works better for me,

01:28:56 ◼   ► but it depends on if you're always leaving the house

01:28:59 ◼   ► with your phone and your cards and your cash,

01:29:03 ◼   ► then it makes sense.

01:29:03 ◼   ► Again, personal decision more than anything.

01:29:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, like when I'm at home, you know, most of the time,

01:29:10 ◼   ► I really don't need that.

01:29:11 ◼   ► - You really don't.

01:29:12 ◼   ► - I just don't need it.

01:29:14 ◼   ► - I'm fascinated by both of these things being like,

01:29:16 ◼   ► what's your view and where do you stand?

01:29:18 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like Dario and Brian are trying,

01:29:21 ◼   ► I see you, Brian Hamilton,

01:29:23 ◼   ► are trying to get us to like proclaim what is right or wrong.

01:29:29 ◼   ► And we're not those kinds of people.

01:29:32 ◼   ► - No, I would never say something is right.

01:29:35 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:29:36 ◼   ► I am not that kind of person.

01:29:40 ◼   ► Do what is right for you.

01:29:41 ◼   ► I don't think they're fundamentally good or bad.

01:29:44 ◼   ► Do what's right for you.

01:29:45 ◼   ► - That was a joke, but Myke was right.

01:29:47 ◼   ► It's not about fundamentals.

01:29:49 ◼   ► It was about factual correctness.

01:29:51 ◼   ► That's where it began.

01:29:52 ◼   ► And people think that it's about

01:29:54 ◼   ► me having fundamental decisions,

01:29:56 ◼   ► but it began with I made a proclamation

01:30:00 ◼   ► that Apple would unveil the iPad Pro alongside the iPhone,

01:30:03 ◼   ► and nobody believed me.

01:30:04 ◼   ► and then I kept fighting about it,

01:30:07 ◼   ► and it ended up that I was right,

01:30:09 ◼   ► and that was where it came,

01:30:10 ◼   ► but now it's been kind of morphed into this like,

01:30:13 ◼   ► ideological debate when, you know,

01:30:16 ◼   ► that's kind of not where it started.

01:30:17 ◼   ► - Right.

01:30:18 ◼   ► - It's just what Myke is right or wrong about,

01:30:20 ◼   ► like factually.

01:30:21 ◼   ► - Remember when the rumor was

01:30:22 ◼   ► that it was gonna be the iPhone 6 Math?

01:30:24 ◼   ► And it was because somebody had seen the six

01:30:27 ◼   ► and the A+ symbol and had translated that to Math?

01:30:31 ◼   ► - Good, I do remember that.

01:30:34 ◼   ► good times. That person was not right. Kevin wants to know, this is harkening back to another

01:30:41 ◼   ► discussion today, what are our favourite Nintendo franchises? For me it is Mario. Mario is my

01:30:46 ◼   ► favourite Nintendo franchise, like the standard Mario platformer game. Yeah, Mario Kart. That's

01:30:54 ◼   ► a great one. That's mine. Mario Kart is brilliant. I'm not kidding when I said that the thing

01:30:58 ◼   ► that pushed me over into buying a Wii U was Mario Kart 8, because like we had played Mario

01:31:02 ◼   ► cart on the Wii, Mario Kart Wii forever and ever and ever and when I realized that there

01:31:07 ◼   ► was a new Mario Kart coming out on the Wii U and it was compatible with all my old Wii

01:31:10 ◼   ► stuff too, I was like yeah let's do that because that I can't wait and it's a great game. It's

01:31:14 ◼   ► just such a great game. Yeah when does Mario Kart 8 Deluxe come out for the Switch? Because

01:31:21 ◼   ► I want to know if I'll have it when we see each other. I feel like that's also a concession

01:31:28 ◼   ► a little bit to the fact that a lot of people never did get the Wii U is like, "Well, okay,

01:31:33 ◼   ► if you get a Switch, you can play Mario Kart 8 plus some extra stuff."

01:31:37 ◼   ► Myke G

01:31:48 ◼   ► Unfortunately, it's the end of April.

01:31:50 ◼   ► say we're also going to record an episode of Upgrade Live in London, probably in MegaOffice,

01:31:55 ◼   ► which is very exciting, on a Tuesday, probably, because I'll be jet-lagged on the Monday,

01:32:02 ◼   ► and that seems like a bad idea to do a podcast right after I step off of an international

01:32:07 ◼   ► flight.

01:32:08 ◼   ► So...

01:32:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was on the table, and I immediately vetoed that.

01:32:13 ◼   ► - But I'm gonna be...that means I'm gonna be at your house, I'm gonna see MegaOffice,

01:32:16 ◼   ► I'm going to be able to see that Nintendo Switch and I don't know what else, what other

01:32:20 ◼   ► wonders will await me in Myke's house.

01:32:24 ◼   ► I'll line up a set of things to show you.

01:32:27 ◼   ► Like when you're in school and your friend was coming over for the first time and you

01:32:32 ◼   ► would line up all of the things you wanted to show him, that's what I'm going to do for

01:32:35 ◼   ► you.

01:32:36 ◼   ► You're going to get to see all my cool stuff.

01:32:39 ◼   ► And Matt asked today, finally, if Apple could bring one Pro Mac app to the iPad this year,

01:32:44 ◼   ► which one should they do? I'm not going to answer which they should do, I'm going to

01:32:48 ◼   ► say which one I want and it would be logic.

01:32:53 ◼   ► Fair enough. I would probably consider using logic, although, you know, Ferrite does everything

01:33:02 ◼   ► I need in a logic-like way, and so I don't feel like I need to move on to something else.

01:33:09 ◼   ► I heard you talking to Marco and you said that Ferrite, you tried it again and it didn't

01:33:14 ◼   ► I don't really understand this. I spent an hour trying to just cut a track, just trim it.

01:33:21 ◼   ► I couldn't work it out and I couldn't find the answer in the guides. Maybe I'll sit, I'll just,

01:33:28 ◼   ► I'll have to sit down with you and just step you through it myself. What I want is an application

01:33:33 ◼   ► that's a relearn, right? That's why I want logic. Like I just want an app that has all the same

01:33:38 ◼   ► keyboard shortcuts. I don't know why the Ferrite developer hasn't used the keyboard shortcuts from

01:33:45 ◼   ► an app like Logic. GarageBand and Logix are also similar. That's true, and I don't use Ferrite with

01:33:50 ◼   ► a keyboard. So I feel like, you know, maybe there should have been. The gesture UI just didn't gel

01:33:57 ◼   ► with me. All right, so I would say that I would take Logic mostly, I think, for compatibility

01:34:03 ◼   ► reasons. Right now the problem I have with editing things in Ferrite is that they can only be

01:34:08 ◼   ► in Fair Write, and if I start editing a project in Logic and then need to go on the road,

01:34:12 ◼   ► I can't take it with me. So having Logic there for compatibility reasons would be great.

01:34:18 ◼   ► I see the appeal of Final Cut, right, where like the iPad Pro has a lot of capability.

01:34:23 ◼   ► It could be a pretty great video editor beyond what iMovie has.

01:34:28 ◼   ► - Final Cut should be the one that they do. But it's not the one that I would want the

01:34:32 ◼   ► most.

01:34:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then Xcode is an interesting question.

01:34:36 ◼   ► I think that there's so much baggage with Xcode.

01:34:39 ◼   ► I'm gonna make a wacky prediction,

01:34:41 ◼   ► which is I don't think Xcode will ever come to the iPad.

01:34:44 ◼   ► I think Apple will do a development environment

01:34:47 ◼   ► for the iPad, but I don't think it'll be Xcode per se.

01:34:51 ◼   ► Maybe they'll call it that. - I think they'll call it Xcode.

01:34:53 ◼   ► - They might call it Xcode,

01:34:54 ◼   ► but it's not gonna be Mac Xcode.

01:34:56 ◼   ► It is gonna have so many different limitations

01:34:59 ◼   ► in the ways it works because the platforms are so different.

01:35:02 ◼   ► I just, I think that, and because it is Xcode, I don't know.

01:35:06 ◼   ► They may not call it that.

01:35:08 ◼   ► They may call it something completely different.

01:35:09 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:35:10 ◼   ► - It depends what the priority is.

01:35:12 ◼   ► Like if what they're trying to do is move people,

01:35:15 ◼   ► then they'll call it Xcode.

01:35:16 ◼   ► But if they're trying to like,

01:35:18 ◼   ► say that they've got a new way of doing things,

01:35:21 ◼   ► they'll give it a new name.

01:35:22 ◼   ► You know? - Yeah.

01:35:24 ◼   ► - 'Cause it really depends. - Swift code.

01:35:25 ◼   ► - Swift code.

01:35:27 ◼   ► X-Swift.

01:35:28 ◼   ► Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode

01:35:30 ◼   ► of

01:35:46 ◼   ► Incapsula and Blue Apron. Again, if you want to come and hang out with us in London on

01:35:53 ◼   ► April the 5th, then you want to go and hit the link in the show notes and you can do

01:35:58 ◼   ► that. Thanks so much for listening as always and we'll be back next time. Until then,

01:36:04 ◼   ► say goodbye Mr Snell. Goodbye everybody!

01:36:06 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:36:10 ◼   ► [ Music ]