September 11, 2024 • 40 mins
We introduce a new, shorter, more off-the-cuff format focused on recommendations that we hope you’ll enjoy. Also, our apologies for the audio getting a bit crunchy in spots—we’re working hard to improve our audio quality. Please do let us know what you think of this new format at LearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or on Threads @LearnMakeLearnShow.
ONE MILLION CHECKBOXES – 03:20
Are You a Checker or an Unchecker? (paywall)
The Secret Inside One Million Checkboxes
Nolan Royalty on X
‘Infinity Blade II: ClashMob’ Uses the Cloud, Crowd-Sourcing for Group-Based Gaming
ON KITCHEN FAUCETS & BRAND VALUES – 12:09
Generative AI x Product with Anmol Anubhai
That Much-Despised Apple Ad (paywall)
Design Thinking: Failure or Fall Guy?
Toolbox: How “Jobs To Be Done” Can Help You Make, Better
Touch vs Touchless Faucets
Are touchless faucets for the kitchen worth it?
Hansgrohe Select Technology
Axor Citterio Kitchen Faucet with Select Technology
Why is my LG Washing Machine using 3.6GB of data/day?
STEVE JOBS, CORNING & BEING UNREASONABLE – 29:07
The Science and History of the iPhone Screen
Founder Mode
NEUTRON JACK – 33:45
The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy
How Jack Welch’s Reign at G.E. Gave Us Elon Musk’s Twitter Feed
CLOSING – 39:14
****
Rant, rave or otherwise via email at LearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or on Threads @LearnMakeLearnShow.
CREDITS
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Drum hit: PREL / Musical Element 85 / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ernest (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Learn Make Learn, where we share
qualitative and quantitativeperspectives on products to help
you make better.
My name is Ernest Kim, and I'mjoined by my friend and co host
Joachim Gröeger.
Hey Joachim, how's it going?
Joachim (00:19):
It's good It's been so long We haven't done this in a
while and I just realized thatyou know I felt like we were
going to be like at episode 200by this point, but It didn't
happen.
So what can you do?
We're here now.
we're going to try a littleexperiment to get talking again
and recording thoseconversations.
So I'm looking forward to it.
How about you?
How are you?
Ernest (00:38):
Good.
Yeah, I definitely feel quiterusty.
We've had a bit of a summerhiatus, but it's funny you
should say Episode 200.
This is actually Episode 20.
So we're Yeah, a factor of 10away.
But, um, and as you hinted at,we are going to bring you a new
type of episode today that I'mreally excited about.
(01:01):
And Joachim, this was yourbrainchild.
Can you share some of thethinking behind this new format?
Joachim (01:07):
I like how you call it.
I was like the brainchild.
It wasn't a big revelation.
It was just, Me realizing as Istumbled on lots of things that
I was enjoying, like reading orfinding little tidbits, I'd be
like, Oh, I just add that to theend of an episode for learn,
make, learn, but there were noepisodes.
So then I thought, you know,it's a lot of effort to have a
(01:31):
big topic.
So why don't we just do the lastbit of the episodes as an
episode and talk about more thanone product each and have a
little chit chat or anythingthat we've come across and
basically make a recommendationsepisode, you know, Um, because I
just missed these conversationsand I missed, uh, having a, an
outlet sort of where we couldhave a little back and forth.
So here we are, we're giving ita try to just talk about
(01:54):
recommendations.
No big agenda other than here'ssome things that we stumbled on
and we'll see where theconversation goes.
Ernest (02:00):
I really liked this idea because, our standard, I guess,
episodes do take a bit of,production, especially if, um,
as we're hoping to get some morefolks in for interviews.
So they can be pretty timeconsuming.
Um, and I love this idea of sortof a unplugged format where we
can continue to have theseconversations, as you said,
(02:22):
with, less of that, Productionrequirement.
but will hopefully still beinteresting to the audience.
and I think will hopefully helpus and enable us to be a bit
more timely too with ourconversations because we can be
a bit more responsive to thingsthat are happening out in the
world.
so I, I really loved the ideaand It should allow us to
(02:46):
publish more frequently as well,which, um, is something that,
uh, I think we're both excitedabout.
Yeah,
Joachim (02:52):
That's, that's the, that's the hope that we can just
hop onto a squad cast sessionand just share, edit, and then
post.
And also for the listeners, havea quick little tidbit, which
would be
Ernest (03:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And as you just touched on, ofcourse, we want to know what you
think about this new format too.
So please do share your thoughtswith us at
LearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or onthreads@LearnMakeLearnShow, all
one word.
All right.
So with that setup out of theway, let's move on to our
(03:24):
recommendations.
Joachim, do you have, anythingyou want to get us started with?
Joachim (03:30):
Yeah, so I, I really.
I'm between two possible pathshere.
So, this was a tweet thread, or,I don't know, do we call it X
now?
What is a Twitter thread?
It's like a X thread.
That just sounds inappropriate.
I don't know.
Anyway, I saw a thread on socialmedia, on the platform formerly
(03:51):
known as Twitter, that I foundreally, really incredible.
I would like to recommend it.
It is from the maker of a gamecalled One Million Checkboxes.
But I would, I don't want togive anything away, but now I
want to give it away because Ithink it's too It's too
interesting not to have aconversation about here So I
think everyone should read itthere's also the creator also
(04:12):
made a video where they walkthrough the logic of everything
and there's a lot of subtletyand Uh a little bit of technical
detail.
That's very very interesting.
But here's kind of the summary.
So 1 million check boxes is aweb based game um where you have
a million check boxes And whenyou log on to the page You are
(04:34):
seeing in real time otherplayers Clicking and unclicking
these check boxes.
So all you can do on this thingis click and click a checkbox or
switch it off.
So if someone clicks one on andyou unclick it, they will
immediately see you havingsomeone has unclicked that box.
So it's a live, real time clickcheckbox game.
(04:57):
Uh, and there is no game.
There's no, there's actually nopoints or scores or anything.
It's just a grid check boxes andeveryone can click on and off
and at the same time.
So you can also just sit there.
and watch people do this.
You, you need not participate inthe, in the game.
So the creator wakes up onemorning and he's trying to
(05:19):
rewrite some bits in the in thebackend of the system, he dumps
the database as a text file.
So he has, he's been logging allthe check marks on off and he
converts that into.
text ASCII code, but he's beenstoring it basically as bits
because it's just zeros andones, right?
On, off.
So he wants it to be compact andhe got it down to like 25
kilobytes or something tiny tostore a million checkboxes.
(05:40):
So he then converts it to textfor some reason.
He didn't even have an idea whyhe turned it into ASCII, but he
did.
And then he'd start scrollingthrough it and he sees URL
embedded in the text.
And so he's convinced that hissite has been hacked.
Uh, and it's like, I think the,the, the address has like
(06:02):
catgirls.
to4.
It's like, so it soundsuntoward.
Everything's right.
He freaks out, thinks he's beenhacked, does his best to verify
that everything is okay with hiscode base.
No one else has been accessingstuff.
He's been the only personaccessing it.
And then he starts.
essentially going through histext file and trying to figure
out how that text found its wayinto, you from the check boxes
(06:25):
got turned into text.
Well, it turns out if youbasically read blocks of four
check marks, you can convertthat to a number, that number
then becomes text.
And that's how the text wasgetting embedded using those
check boxes.
And so he found like an H in histext file and he could say,
okay, well, these are the checkboxes that represent the H.
(06:45):
And then he would, um, Click onthem to get rid of the age and
then within a second it wouldget clicked back on to have the
age back In there.
So someone had a bot that wasensuring that the age was
maintained there all the time.
So he's now now he understandsthat someone has built a bot
that's hitting his Website andit's basically like doing these
(07:10):
checkboxes.
So he's super curious about whyyou would do that so he Visits
the website, it links to aDiscord server, where there are
about, I think he said like 20people, he hops on, he says, hey
guys, and one of the usersimmediately recognizes his
handle and says, oh my god, youare the maker of 1 million
(07:31):
checkpoints, he says, that'sright, it's me.
What is going on with the site?
And they said, oh, we're justhaving fun.
So imagine this game, it is justa screen with checkboxes.
And they say to him, have youever looked at your website on a
1000 by 1000 square square?
Grid, like zoom out and makesure there's a thousand by a
(07:52):
thousand on it.
Why would I do that?
Just do it.
You'll see.
And they have embedded images.
They have embedded text.
They have embedded QR codes,links.
They've basically, they wrotethese bots.
That could translate the checkboxes into anything they wanted
(08:12):
to, including images.
One of them even made the bluescreen of death in honor of
Microsoft, and they hadbasically.
Use these checkboxes as a meansto find other people, other like
minded people who would thinkalong the same lines and they
left this cookie crumb trail forthem to find each other.
(08:33):
And I think he said when he leftthe Discord server there were
about 60 people who had figuredthis out.
And the website is hugelypopular, got New York Times
coverage and all of this stuff.
But there's this very littletiny community of teenagers,
they're all teenagers he figuredout as well.
That basically hacked his systemto find each other and they used
it as a communicator and he doesall kinds of fun stuff Like he
(08:53):
he doesn't throttle anyone for abit and then they basically, um,
they can animate the check boxesThey had they put a full
rickroll on there Like it'sthey're very clever and they're
very funny kids um, and it's areally wonderful story and I you
should still read it even thoughi've given away most of it, but
Um, it just gives you hope Idon't know.
(09:15):
It's just really incredible,like, you know, no, the other
people that find that Discordserver won't have the text file
format, they wouldn't be dumpingit.
So they would have to bethinking, I wonder if anyone has
embedded a code inside of thesecheckboxes and I'm going to
start figuring that out as anoutsider.
So they would have to write ascript.
to basically pull all the checkmarks and then pass that.
It's just, it's just a lot ofeffort and they're teenagers who
(09:39):
are having fun with this andfinding each other.
It's just incredible.
I, I was so blown away by thatstory and it's, it just, I feel
like it's the best oftechnology.
It's the best of youth.
It's the best of everything inthis very, very constrained
environment that this personknew could inspire people to do
something clever.
It felt very heartwarming tohear that people are still using
(10:01):
technology for Finding eachother.
Ernest (10:04):
that's fantastic, I hadn't heard about this,
Joachim (10:06):
Oh Yeah, um, and, Actually, broadly, there's
actually a lot of otherinteresting stuff that emerges
from this type of mechanic ofgetting many people to do one
task, um, There was a muchfancier version of that in a
game called Infinity Blade 2that was run on mobile, like on
(10:27):
early iPhones, you know, likemid 2010s or something like
that.
And they had, they wanted tocreate these massive synchronous
games where people couldcollaborate and do like what
they do on their PCs.
But mobile was nowhere near,their speeds were not what they
could be.
So, the creator, um, I think hisname was Donald Mustard, he did
a lot of work on Fortnite aswell.
He said, why don't we do thisthing called a clash mob, where
(10:50):
you have one mega enemy that noindividual can beat and Everyone
hops onto the gameasynchronously and they just
bash bash away try and cut thisthing up and and you know
There's only one life bar thateveryone is contributing to
driving down.
So you get a sense of communityBut you're not having to get the
(11:10):
full blown synchronous gameplay.
It's asynchronous, but you'reall linked to each other through
this main big boss that you'retrying to beat.
So it kind of reminded me ofthat.
This is the low fidelity versionof that.
So the lesson as well is like,The lower the fidelity,
actually, the bigger thecommunication pathway can be.
Whereas Infinity Blade had this,you graphics and all of that, so
(11:31):
it was super intense.
It had a very limitedcommunication channel.
It was just, I fight.
But this was zeros and ones.
once you give people zeros andones, They can do magical stuff
and this was proof of that.
So yeah, everyone should readthat and everyone should just
like, remember the youth, they,they are okay.
(11:52):
They, there are some of them outthere that are really trying to
do something exciting.
So yeah, it's one of those thatgave me a little bit of hope in
the
Ernest (12:00):
that's awesome, and like you mentioned, we'll provide
links to the articles about thisin the show notes as well,
Joachim (12:07):
Yeah.
Ernest (12:07):
oh, that's a great one.
Joachim (12:09):
What do you have Ernest?
Like, do you have, do you havethoughts about that or do you
have something that's veryproduct
Ernest (12:15):
Well, I, the thing I wanted to share is actually very
Very loosely tangentiallyrelated in
Joachim (12:24):
I'm ready.
Let's do
Ernest (12:25):
well, just in that, I think another important aspect
of that, of what enabled that isthat it's allows you to get into
the plumbing, that'd be anotherreason you can't do it on, I
guess, the mainstream mobileplatforms is that they're so
locked down.
Um, so the fact that.
(12:45):
We have these wonderfultechnologies, um, that are still
so open source and extensibleand, um, allow for you to get
behind the scenes on things.
Um, it's what makes this wholeexperience possible.
Um, and I, I, I guess I lamentthe loss of that because it, you
(13:10):
know, these newer platforms areso locked down and are in so
many cases just black boxes.
Um, and, you know, you lose all.
capacity for this creativity andthe ability to tap into the
creativity of people in theworld.
So it's this idea, uh, thisthing I wanted to share is very
(13:31):
tangentially related, but it'sactually, um, a kitchen faucet,
uh, And what, what made me thinkabout it was actually this AI
craze that we're in right now.
We talked about that in our lastepisode where we had that
fantastic interview with AnmolAnubhai about AI.
And I thought she made somefantastic points.
(13:53):
And, um, what kind of got me toit was We're on the eve of the,
um, latest Apple event,actually, as we record this,
we're recording on a Sunday.
Tomorrow is going to be theevent, um, where Apple is
expected to announce the latestiPhones and share the latest on
their, um, uh, latest version ofiOS, which will incorporate, um,
(14:17):
Apple intelligence as they'vecalled it, features, um, and
this is kind of coming on theheels of, um, the iPad ad that
Apple had put out.
Published, um, not too long agothat they actually had to pull
back that featured lots ofdifferent musical instruments
and artistic implements beingcrushed into this one, you know,
slab of aluminum.
(14:37):
Um, you know, they thought thatwas a good idea.
And, um, It just kind of got methinking about some of the
frameworks we had talked aboutin the past around product
creation and product innovation.
You know, for example, we talkedabout the three lenses of
innovation framework that IDEOuses where they talk about the
(14:58):
need for human desirability, Uh,technological, uh, feasibility
and then economic viability.
You have to have all three ofthose things for a concept to
be, to have a chance of beingsuccessful.
Uh, we've also talked about jobsto be done, which is a
framework, um, popularized byClinton Christian, Christensen,
which, um, can be very helpful.
(15:19):
I've used both of thoseframeworks and I've found them
to be very powerful.
But What I think both of thoseframeworks, and I really all of
the frameworks I've seen aroundproduct innovation and product
creation, what they miss is thequestion of should we do it, you
know, you know, you could say,um, IDEO's three lenses
(15:42):
framework does help you tounderstand if a concept could be
Be successful, right?
If it delivers on those threethings of this desirability,
viability, feasibility, yes.
Then, okay, it's, it's apotentially powerful concept,
but then should we do it?
We being, you know, the brand,whatever your company is, that's
(16:02):
considering this.
And if we do do it, then howshould we do it?
And I think the problem, what alot of people miss is they don't
bother asking that question.
They just say, Oh, okay.
It checks the boxes.
So let's do it.
And really, I think mostcompanies don't even spend that
(16:24):
much time thinking about it tojust say, Hey, here's the
successful concept.
So let's do our version of it.
Um, or really just a version ofit that maybe costs a little bit
less or just has someincremental difference around
the edges, um, to justify, uh,some shelf space, at Retail.
(16:45):
And, um, I find that reallydepressing because I think
that's what leads us tosomething that I think it was
Steve Jobs that talked aboutthis, but you can just see it.
So it's self evident if you goout to any retailer in this case
of jobs, he was talking aboutthe PC market, but he said, you
know, we have so many options,but so little choice.
(17:05):
And I think that's true ofalmost every industry.
You have so many options on theshelf, but they're all just.
Tiny little variations on thesame exact theme.
And it's because people justdon't take the time to think
about, okay, should we do it?
And if we do do it, then what isthe version of it that's true to
us as a brand and that we canjustify existing because we can
(17:28):
offer some unique, uh, value onit, uh, version of it.
So the, so the way that connectsthe faucets is, um, when we,,
renovated our house a few yearsback and we had to, we kind of
went down to the studs and we,so we had to kind of pick
everything.
And I'd never really spent muchtime thinking about kitchen
(17:51):
faucets, but, um, I was forcedto, and it ended up being pretty
interesting because, um, Ilearned about this whole, um,
category of, touch and touchlessfaucets.
So, um, it started with touch, acompany called Delta Faucets
introduced the, the, first touchfaucet in 2008, which was the
(18:14):
idea behind it was instead ofhaving to manipulate a handle,
you could just touch the faucetwith say the back of your hand.
So if you had your hands full,something in your hands or your
hands were dirty.
That's probably the most commonuse case in the kitchen.
And you've got stuff on yourhands and you don't want to turn
the handles and get them allgunky.
So you can just touch the faucetand it'll turn the water on.
(18:35):
Um, so Delta introduced this in2008 and it was popular enough
that their primary competitors,Moen, Kohler, et cetera, all
introduced versions of that sameconcept.
Um, and then, Just a few yearslater, Delta followed that up
with the touchless faucet.
So basically bringing the,probably the most frustrating
(18:57):
technology in the world, whichis, you know, the touch-free,
uh, automated faucets that youencounter in every corporate and
industrial environment that, youknow, only work like half the
time, brought that to theresidential world.
And, uh, much like the, uh,commercial versions, they use
motion sensors to detectmovement of your hands under the
faucet.
Um, and once again, all their.
(19:20):
Competitors, um, kind offollowed suit with their
versions of the same products.
What I came to learn, you know,as I had to kind of think about
what faucet we should use in ourhouse was that these faucets,
these touch and touchlessfaucets have a very high failure
rate.
Um, the folks at the, this is Ithink pretty unusual.
The folks at the multiple storeswhere we looked to purchase
(19:44):
these things said don't buy thembecause they're terrible and
they're going to break.
there's a lot of reasons to notlike them.
You know, one of one is thatthey require either connection
into main, uh, mains power or abattery.
They just add a lot ofcomplexity, but What we heard
over and over again is thatthey're just not particularly
reliable.
I'll include a link to a reallygreat Reddit thread in the show
(20:07):
notes.
Um, it's, uh, it was posted justnine months ago.
And the title of the, uh,subreddit is are touchless
faucets for the kitchen worth itor more hassle than they're
worth.
And, um, it's just in the past,uh, nine months received 146
responses and the one with themost upvotes came from a user
with the name shitty plumber.
(20:28):
That's their name.
Uh, and their reply was quote,I've removed more than I've
installed if that says anythingunquote.
Uh, so that got the mostupvotes.
Another plumber responded, um,and also got quite a few upvotes
and they, uh, their response wasif you want more things that can
fail early, sure.
(20:49):
Resolving those issues is alsomore expensive as a plumber.
I would not ever have one in myhouse unquote.
Um, And so, you know, we heardthat a lot, uh, from retailers
and yet, you know, the reasonthat Delta's competitors
followed suit is that a lot ofpeople found the idea appealing,
(21:10):
right?
There is something there, youknow, there are those use cases
where you have things on yourhands and you don't want to get
your faucet handles dirty.
So, um, you know, How can yousolve for that?
I think the problem is likewe've just been talking about.
Delta's competitors, they alljust, instead of asking the
question of one, should we doit?
And if we do, then what can beour unique value proposition
(21:33):
version of this?
They just basically found theeasiest way to get around
whatever patents Delta hadestablished to offer their
version, maybe a little bitcheaper, but what, I found was
there were just a couple ofexceptions to this and one was,
uh, the company we ended upgoing with.
Um, I'm going to butcher thename, it's a German brand
(21:56):
called, uh, I believe it'ssomething like Hansgrohe.
Yeah.
It's something like that.
I think Americans say Hansgrohe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joachim (22:04):
Oh, oh, that's, that hurts.
That one hurts.
Ernest (22:09):
it's, uh, Hansgrohe and then they have a, uh, kind of,
uh, upper tier version of theirbrand called, uh, Axor or Oxor.
Joachim (22:18):
Oh, okay.
Ernest (22:18):
Um, it's kind of like their version of Lexus to
Toyota.
So we have the Axor version ofthis, but you can get the same
thing in, um, Hans, Hansgrohefaucets as well.
They call their technologyselect.
And the What's great about it isthat you can tell they just took
the time to look to, to take amore considered approach to this
(22:42):
opportunity, right?
So Delta showed that there is anopportunity here around, uh,
solving for this problem.
Um, but what Hans Grunewald saidwas, okay, one of our Core
values as a brand isreliability.
That's something that they talkabout a lot in their, in their
literature is reliability.
And that's something we heardfrom plumbers was that their
products are really reliable.
(23:04):
So they looked at this, youknow, challenge and said, okay,
how could we do this in a waythat doesn't break, you know,
like all these other brands.
And.
they came up with a purelymechanical solution.
And it's really simple.
It's basically just, they put abutton on the top of the faucet
(23:24):
and, I'll include a link in theshow notes so you can see what
this looks like.
But, uh, They included amechanical button.
There's no batteries, no powerinvolved, but you, it satisfies
that same use case.
So you have a lot of stuff, gunkon your hands.
You don't want to touch thehandles of your faucet.
All you have to do with the backof your hand or with your elbow
is press this button and itstarts the water and then just
(23:47):
shut it off.
You press the button, then it'llshut it off.
So.
I just thought that was such agreat example of a company
looking at an opportunity andinstead of just copying what
their competitors have done,actually taking a step back and
thinking, okay, what's theunique value we can bring to
this, uh, and doing it in a waythat's true to who we are, um,
(24:07):
and then, because of thatresults in a unique solution.
And, um, I.
You'll see the image, but theshape of the faucet is quite
unique.
It's quite different.
And that's a function of thefact that they had to
accommodate this button, but Ithink they've ended up with a
solution that's just much moreergonomic and really pleasant to
use and invites interaction.
(24:29):
Uh, and we've had this faucetnow for, um, four years and it's
been rock solid, uh, and, uh,we've just really enjoyed it.
And so.
I just wanted to highlight thatas kind of a shout out to any
folks listening who are in thebusiness of making products to,
take that moment to, to stepback, you know, like all these
(24:52):
tech companies that are now inthis AI craze, right?
And just.
Doing what everyone else isdoing, just putting their logo
on it, take a step back, thinkabout how should we do this?
And then if so, how can we dothis in a way that's true to our
brand and delivers value in away that's unique to our brand?
(25:12):
Um, I think, you'll end up witha much better solution, a
solution that's differentiated,um, and can, can create
competitive advantage for youand your brand, not only for
that specific product, but forthe brand overall, like for
example, you know, thisHansgrohe solution has further
(25:33):
cemented.
The brands, um, you know,overarching proposition as being
a brand that's super reliable.
we bought it through a shop thatsells fixtures, but then, um,
the people who installed it weredifferent people, the plumbers
who installed it were different,but they said the same, they
were like so excited to installit.
They're like, yo, this stuff isgreat.
(25:53):
It's so well made.
Um, So it just was really coolto see that, um, and, uh,
hopefully, uh, it's somethingthat folks realize can be
applied across domains.
It's not just something specificto plumbing fixtures or faucets.
Uh, it's, it's under theunderlying concept is relevant,
um, across industries.
Joachim (26:15):
As you were talking, I was thinking to myself.
I mean, there's obviously amechanical solution to this,
right?
There has to be something thatgets you the benefit without all
the stupid stuff.
And I guess, yeah, you rememberthe bathrooms, we have to like.
Hit this very hard button mainlydone so that the faucet switches
off after a certain amount andthey're terrible,
Ernest (26:34):
Yeah.
Joachim (26:35):
you don't you don't need things to automatically
switch off in a private home.
You will switch it off It's yourwater right?
The essence of the innovationwas what you were describing.
I can use the tap withouttouching and then kind of
whittle it down and get rid ofall the stuff until you're left
with kind of the essence of theproblem.
Um, this actually reminds me of,um, I, I, another Twitter thread
(26:57):
that I stumbled on, uh, uh,maybe a year ago.
Um, I, we were shared in theshow notes.
It's a guy who was watchingNetflix.
And it kept buffering.
He was just watching it and itkept buffering, and he was so
perplexed.
He said, I have fiber optic forGod's sake, why the hell am I
having to wait for these moviesto stream?
(27:18):
So, he didn't let it just slide,and started digging around and
trying to figure out what wasconsuming his bandwidth.
He figures out that his washingmachine His new washing machine
that he had installed, uh, wasconsuming about four gigs of
data a day.
Yeah.
And it was like thesedownloadable wash cycles.
(27:41):
Each wash cycle was a programthat was downloaded from the
cloud onto the machine.
And it was doing these kind ofweird daily updates.
You know, when some softwareengineer is trying to prove that
they've done something like, Oh,I updated baby clothes, wash
cycle here at a push that intoprod and all these washing
machines receive like.
Five gigs of data because theychanged one line of code.
(28:02):
And so that is such an exampleof the total insanity of what
we're doing.
Like, just make a, work onmaking a really good cycle, load
it on there and, and move on.
And now we've put.
full blown computers inside ofwashing machines that now need
broadband internet access inorder to operate.
It comes back to some of thestuff we would talk about in
(28:24):
that this period of excess,right, where there's just so
much of everything we were ableto just load up with everything
and zero concern for the actuallong run consequences of
garbage.
And I think, you know, asinterest rates come up, as
things get more expensive, asthere's inflation, the true
(28:45):
innovators are the ones that arequietly trying to figure out how
to do the stuff that we'vegotten used to.
With less crazy technology,lighter weight, less resource
hungry.
Um, that would be nice, weshould live in that world.
Ernest (28:59):
Right, right.
I mean it sounds so simple, andhonestly, I think it is!
Joachim (29:07):
yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's it, right?
It's not like this really crazy,cool, over the top thing.
Um, just another tidbit thatthat reminds me of was, uh,
CorningWare's contribution tothe iPhone, since we're just
before the eve of, uh,developers, uh, well, the iPhone
event.
Um, it reminds me of that, thestory where Steve Jobs famously
(29:32):
walked into the offices andsaid, this is unacceptable,
holding up the phone saying thathis keys had scratched up the
plastic everywhere.
And he says, you should beputting glass on this thing.
And they said, well, we thoughtabout doing that.
It doesn't work.
And then they got the guy fromCorningware, he just called, the
CEO got called in to meet Steve,and Steve Jobs says, this is how
glass gets made, and you shouldbe making glass that can do this
(29:53):
thing, and then, so allegedly,Corningware's CEO said, Steve,
let me teach you some fuckingscience.
He said it that coarsely, andthen they talked about, The
complexity of making glass thatwas transparent, strong, all of
those things.
But he said, then he said,that's great.
Six months.
Can you give me glass that couldbe durable enough?
And they combined two separateprocesses that got them this.
(30:15):
It's a fascinating story.
I think, I read it's a TrungPhan kind of post as his
Substack.
So again, we'll add that tothat, but that's one of those
things where, you know, the,it's a question around
innovation around glass.
It's an old material.
We've seen it forever.
It is the best material for thistype of like scratch resistance,
but hard to work with andrequires a lot of innovation.
(30:40):
but it turns out that they hadactually the bits and pieces of
that technology lying aroundsince the 60s.
It's just that they neverthought to apply it in this
setting.
So again, it was an idea aheadof its time or didn't have an
application.
Which speaks to doing somethingright, innovative and
interesting.
The payoff is going to come.
Yeah.
Potentially past the life cycleof the CEO who was there when
(31:02):
they said it was okay to do thatwork, but you should still give
them kudos for having tried todo that.
Right.
So yeah, so it's nuts to thinkthat Glass has enabled our high
tech world right now and simple,complex, yeah.
Ernest (31:17):
One, one last thing that reminds me of is a conversation
I had recently with a friendwho, um, is a founder of a
company.
You know, there's been all thistalk about founder mentality
going on around, which I thinkis so stupid, but
Joachim (31:31):
Oh wait, is this founder mode versus manager
mode?
Is that the thing?
Oh my god, we have to link tothat.
That's such an irritating postby Paul
Ernest (31:38):
this might feel a little bit like founder mode, but I
think there's a, there's truthto it and it is connected to
what you were just talking aboutin that he said he's, he was,
uh, is the founder of thiscompany.
You know, he can't be fired, sohe can be unreasonable in a way
that no one else can in thateven a traditional CEO.
(32:00):
And you know, that was the casewith Steve Jobs too.
He was the founder, co founderof Apple, and he could be
unreasonable in a way that no,you know, product manager could
be.
So no product manager couldinsist, Oh, we've got to call in
the CEO of Corning and, youknow, get them to make this new
glass.
So there is something to that,that.
(32:22):
Uh, person at a level who's ableto be disruptive, um, and also
willing to ask these very simplefundamental questions, um, that,
that really is essential tocreating some of these, um,
fundamental innovations.
Joachim (32:40):
I would rotate the statement just a little bit Your
friend was pointing out that hecan't get fired.
It's the safety, right?
It's that security, right?
That allows you to take thatrisk.
And I think it's safe to sayback in the sixties, I'm sure
the employees at Corning wereprobably felt very secure.
They understood that If youshowed up at work, you did your
(33:03):
job and honed your craft at yourjob, people would respect you
and you'd get on with it.
And sometimes stuff works out,but that's the nature of work is
that you go there, you giveeverything and then you go home.
Um, and so I, I can imagine thatthat culture allows.
Always innovation.
I think this was one of theearliest things we talked about.
I think like safety, securityand insurance for creative
(33:25):
people is that's what you need.
There's nothing worse thanfeeling stressed out about your
safety and your ability toprovide.
And so you won't get creative.
I mean, the golden eras ofcivilizations are marked by
incredible amounts of wealthbecause there's enough money for
everyone.
So you start contemplatingbigger questions other than just
raw survival.
Um, jack Welch is the exactperfect example of someone who
(33:48):
created a company built on fearand we can see now the
consequences of that type ofthinking.
I mean, it's permeated mostevery corporation around the
world, but what he left behindin GE is just a shell of a
company that has nothing to dowith where their innovation lay
in the 60s and 70s.
I think if you give peoplesafety, security, and the
ability to just take a risk andreally take a risk, cause
(34:10):
everyone says, Oh, we should allshow ownership and blah, blah,
blah.
That's not true.
Like you don't, you don't thinkof me as a co owner in the
innovation process in yourcompany, or even as part of the
daily grind of keeping thelights on, you just, just a
number on a spreadsheet ofpeople.
So where's the reality of youactually providing that security
that we can actually try stuff,you know?
(34:31):
Oh yeah.
Tough times.
Ernest (34:33):
I love, I'm glad you brought that up though, cause I,
that's a pet peeve of mine too.
The whole like act like an ownerfoolishness, it's, it's just
such a gibberish corporategibberish.
Joachim (34:44):
Yeah, it really is.
Ernest (34:46):
All right.
What did you, did you want totalk about any of the other
recommendations?
Joachim (34:51):
I mentioned Jack Welch just briefly there.
I actually finished a book byJack Welch, uh, pardon me, not
by Jack Welch.
Oh my God.
I finished a book.
That would be terrible.
I finished a book about JackWelch and it's the title of the
book is called The Man Who BrokeCapitalism.
Uh, David Geller, I will put alink in the show notes of that.
It's a great book.
I will only briefly, uh, givethe brief summary, which is, uh,
(35:15):
It tracks the history ofAmerican corporations, um, from
kind of the 50s, post World WarII era, period of prosperity,
success, innovation, all the bigstuff, you know, the big ideas
were being formulated then.
GE was at the forefront of a lotof that.
Its leadership viewed itself ashaving a duty to its workers,
mostly.
(35:35):
It had a duty to exist.
As a company for them to work atand it had a duty to make good
stuff, um, be good to thecommunity, very hippie, dippy
stuff.
But you have to imagine likethese are these super
conservative 1950s businessmenwho believe this stuff like this
wasn't, this was just the wayyou operated.
Um, and Jack Welch kind of risesto fame in, in, uh, in GE by
(36:00):
being this abrasive person.
His biggest, the way he made hisbig splash was he took over one
of the plastics divisions.
Pushed the scientists so hard todeliver something on ridiculous
time scales, typical like Welshthing, like do this within two
months, right?
We would recognize this as,that's a great leader pushing
these crazy constraints.
(36:21):
So like, do this crazy thing intwo months.
The process was so unhinged thatit blew up the lab.
Like people got injured, youknow, and this is how he
operated.
Um, and that's kind of hiscalling card, like a wrecking
ball through the place.
And in the end he figured outthe easiest way to make things
profitable is fire people, buyother companies, fire those
(36:43):
people, essentially hollow outeverything and then go into
financial services.
That's the worst best way.
So the book just plots the wholething.
But what's.
kind of scary about it is ifyou've ever wondered why
corporations worry aboutquarterly results, why the
cadence of your meetingschedules peaks when the quarter
is coming up, why um, you haveto set Goals and KPIs against
(37:09):
OKRs and all of this stuff, andyou gotta stack rank the crap
out of everything.
It's Welch.
Welch is like the person.
And when you see how it wasweaponized by him, you can kind
of see it's like the echoes ofwhat's happening right now.
So, I recommend reading thatbook so that you, as a person
who has to operate incorporations, have a sense of
the lineage of ideas thatyou're, you know, taking.
(37:32):
And how many ex GE peopleinfiltrated other companies.
And I say it in that way becauseit's really awful.
Steve Ballmer was an ex GE guywho ran Microsoft terribly.
We now know.
Satya Nadella, we don't knowreally what he's going to do.
It's a bit strange.
It seemed good at the beginning,but now this Gen AI stuff is a
bit crazy.
Um, but also, uh, various Boeingheads were, from GE.
(37:56):
Um, and so they, we know wherethat's going.
So there's so many alumni of GEor people who look to GE as
great management style, um, infact.
The person whose name, theirname escapes me now.
Maybe you remember, um, theDiscovery HBO,
Ernest (38:14):
Oh, Zaslav.
Joachim (38:16):
Zaslav.
He spoke at Welch's funeral andsaid, Welch saw the world for
what it was going to be, andshaped the world.
Like, he's one of those people.
He's the guy who takes creativeoutput and puts it, locks it
away, you know, locks it away ina vault so they can get the tax
writers.
Like, that's, that's the guy.
That, that financializationaccounting shenanigans way of
(38:36):
running a business as opposed torun the business.
Yeah, you make movies.
I'm sorry, you got into thisindustry.
It's uncertain.
Freaking do it.
You know, that's what your jobis.
But instead of doing thatthey're just like, oh, no, no
We'll just do like mergers andacquisitions and firings and
we'll play these financial shellgames to to make it look like
we're growing so Welch, um, soyeah, the the man who broke
(38:59):
capitalism is the book.
Um, Well worth a read easy toread chock full of interesting
stuff.
Ernest (39:06):
Wow.
That's a great recommendation.
Really, really timely as well.
Joachim (39:10):
Yeah feels that way doesn't it?
Ernest (39:13):
Well, all right.
I think that does it for ourfirst Recommendations minisode.
I guess maybe not so mini, butepisode,
Joachim (39:22):
Yeah
Ernest (39:23):
um, as I mentioned earlier, we want to hear from
you.
What did you think of this newformat and, um, how about our
recommendations?
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Or maybe they've brought to mindrecommendations that you'd like
to share with us.
Whatever the case, we want tohear from you, so please share
your thoughts atLearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or on
threads at@LearnMakeLearnShow,all one word.
(39:46):
Thanks for listening, and wehope you'll join us for the next
Learn Make Learn.
Hello, and welcome to Learn Make Learn, where we share
qualitative and quantitativeperspectives on products to help
you make better.
My name is Ernest Kim, and I'mjoined by my friend and co host
Joachim Gröeger.
Hey Joachim, how's it going?
Joachim (00:19):
It's good It's been so long We haven't done this in a
while and I just realized thatyou know I felt like we were
going to be like at episode 200by this point, but It didn't
happen.
So what can you do?
We're here now.
we're going to try a littleexperiment to get talking again
and recording thoseconversations.
So I'm looking forward to it.
How about you?
How are you?
Ernest (00:38):
Good.
Yeah, I definitely feel quiterusty.
We've had a bit of a summerhiatus, but it's funny you
should say Episode 200.
This is actually Episode 20.
So we're Yeah, a factor of 10away.
But, um, and as you hinted at,we are going to bring you a new
type of episode today that I'mreally excited about.
(01:01):
And Joachim, this was yourbrainchild.
Can you share some of thethinking behind this new format?
Joachim (01:07):
I like how you call it.
I was like the brainchild.
It wasn't a big revelation.
It was just, Me realizing as Istumbled on lots of things that
I was enjoying, like reading orfinding little tidbits, I'd be
like, Oh, I just add that to theend of an episode for learn,
make, learn, but there were noepisodes.
So then I thought, you know,it's a lot of effort to have a
(01:31):
big topic.
So why don't we just do the lastbit of the episodes as an
episode and talk about more thanone product each and have a
little chit chat or anythingthat we've come across and
basically make a recommendationsepisode, you know, Um, because I
just missed these conversationsand I missed, uh, having a, an
outlet sort of where we couldhave a little back and forth.
So here we are, we're giving ita try to just talk about
(01:54):
recommendations.
No big agenda other than here'ssome things that we stumbled on
and we'll see where theconversation goes.
Ernest (02:00):
I really liked this idea because, our standard, I guess,
episodes do take a bit of,production, especially if, um,
as we're hoping to get some morefolks in for interviews.
So they can be pretty timeconsuming.
Um, and I love this idea of sortof a unplugged format where we
can continue to have theseconversations, as you said,
(02:22):
with, less of that, Productionrequirement.
but will hopefully still beinteresting to the audience.
and I think will hopefully helpus and enable us to be a bit
more timely too with ourconversations because we can be
a bit more responsive to thingsthat are happening out in the
world.
so I, I really loved the ideaand It should allow us to
(02:46):
publish more frequently as well,which, um, is something that,
uh, I think we're both excitedabout.
Yeah,
Joachim (02:52):
That's, that's the, that's the hope that we can just
hop onto a squad cast sessionand just share, edit, and then
post.
And also for the listeners, havea quick little tidbit, which
would be
Ernest (03:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And as you just touched on, ofcourse, we want to know what you
think about this new format too.
So please do share your thoughtswith us at
LearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or onthreads@LearnMakeLearnShow, all
one word.
All right.
So with that setup out of theway, let's move on to our
(03:24):
recommendations.
Joachim, do you have, anythingyou want to get us started with?
Joachim (03:30):
Yeah, so I, I really.
I'm between two possible pathshere.
So, this was a tweet thread, or,I don't know, do we call it X
now?
What is a Twitter thread?
It's like a X thread.
That just sounds inappropriate.
I don't know.
Anyway, I saw a thread on socialmedia, on the platform formerly
(03:51):
known as Twitter, that I foundreally, really incredible.
I would like to recommend it.
It is from the maker of a gamecalled One Million Checkboxes.
But I would, I don't want togive anything away, but now I
want to give it away because Ithink it's too It's too
interesting not to have aconversation about here So I
think everyone should read itthere's also the creator also
(04:12):
made a video where they walkthrough the logic of everything
and there's a lot of subtletyand Uh a little bit of technical
detail.
That's very very interesting.
But here's kind of the summary.
So 1 million check boxes is aweb based game um where you have
a million check boxes And whenyou log on to the page You are
(04:34):
seeing in real time otherplayers Clicking and unclicking
these check boxes.
So all you can do on this thingis click and click a checkbox or
switch it off.
So if someone clicks one on andyou unclick it, they will
immediately see you havingsomeone has unclicked that box.
So it's a live, real time clickcheckbox game.
(04:57):
Uh, and there is no game.
There's no, there's actually nopoints or scores or anything.
It's just a grid check boxes andeveryone can click on and off
and at the same time.
So you can also just sit there.
and watch people do this.
You, you need not participate inthe, in the game.
So the creator wakes up onemorning and he's trying to
(05:19):
rewrite some bits in the in thebackend of the system, he dumps
the database as a text file.
So he has, he's been logging allthe check marks on off and he
converts that into.
text ASCII code, but he's beenstoring it basically as bits
because it's just zeros andones, right?
On, off.
So he wants it to be compact andhe got it down to like 25
kilobytes or something tiny tostore a million checkboxes.
(05:40):
So he then converts it to textfor some reason.
He didn't even have an idea whyhe turned it into ASCII, but he
did.
And then he'd start scrollingthrough it and he sees URL
embedded in the text.
And so he's convinced that hissite has been hacked.
Uh, and it's like, I think the,the, the address has like
(06:02):
catgirls.
to4.
It's like, so it soundsuntoward.
Everything's right.
He freaks out, thinks he's beenhacked, does his best to verify
that everything is okay with hiscode base.
No one else has been accessingstuff.
He's been the only personaccessing it.
And then he starts.
essentially going through histext file and trying to figure
out how that text found its wayinto, you from the check boxes
(06:25):
got turned into text.
Well, it turns out if youbasically read blocks of four
check marks, you can convertthat to a number, that number
then becomes text.
And that's how the text wasgetting embedded using those
check boxes.
And so he found like an H in histext file and he could say,
okay, well, these are the checkboxes that represent the H.
(06:45):
And then he would, um, Click onthem to get rid of the age and
then within a second it wouldget clicked back on to have the
age back In there.
So someone had a bot that wasensuring that the age was
maintained there all the time.
So he's now now he understandsthat someone has built a bot
that's hitting his Website andit's basically like doing these
(07:10):
checkboxes.
So he's super curious about whyyou would do that so he Visits
the website, it links to aDiscord server, where there are
about, I think he said like 20people, he hops on, he says, hey
guys, and one of the usersimmediately recognizes his
handle and says, oh my god, youare the maker of 1 million
(07:31):
checkpoints, he says, that'sright, it's me.
What is going on with the site?
And they said, oh, we're justhaving fun.
So imagine this game, it is justa screen with checkboxes.
And they say to him, have youever looked at your website on a
1000 by 1000 square square?
Grid, like zoom out and makesure there's a thousand by a
(07:52):
thousand on it.
Why would I do that?
Just do it.
You'll see.
And they have embedded images.
They have embedded text.
They have embedded QR codes,links.
They've basically, they wrotethese bots.
That could translate the checkboxes into anything they wanted
(08:12):
to, including images.
One of them even made the bluescreen of death in honor of
Microsoft, and they hadbasically.
Use these checkboxes as a meansto find other people, other like
minded people who would thinkalong the same lines and they
left this cookie crumb trail forthem to find each other.
(08:33):
And I think he said when he leftthe Discord server there were
about 60 people who had figuredthis out.
And the website is hugelypopular, got New York Times
coverage and all of this stuff.
But there's this very littletiny community of teenagers,
they're all teenagers he figuredout as well.
That basically hacked his systemto find each other and they used
it as a communicator and he doesall kinds of fun stuff Like he
(08:53):
he doesn't throttle anyone for abit and then they basically, um,
they can animate the check boxesThey had they put a full
rickroll on there Like it'sthey're very clever and they're
very funny kids um, and it's areally wonderful story and I you
should still read it even thoughi've given away most of it, but
Um, it just gives you hope Idon't know.
(09:15):
It's just really incredible,like, you know, no, the other
people that find that Discordserver won't have the text file
format, they wouldn't be dumpingit.
So they would have to bethinking, I wonder if anyone has
embedded a code inside of thesecheckboxes and I'm going to
start figuring that out as anoutsider.
So they would have to write ascript.
to basically pull all the checkmarks and then pass that.
It's just, it's just a lot ofeffort and they're teenagers who
(09:39):
are having fun with this andfinding each other.
It's just incredible.
I, I was so blown away by thatstory and it's, it just, I feel
like it's the best oftechnology.
It's the best of youth.
It's the best of everything inthis very, very constrained
environment that this personknew could inspire people to do
something clever.
It felt very heartwarming tohear that people are still using
(10:01):
technology for Finding eachother.
Ernest (10:04):
that's fantastic, I hadn't heard about this,
Joachim (10:06):
Oh Yeah, um, and, Actually, broadly, there's
actually a lot of otherinteresting stuff that emerges
from this type of mechanic ofgetting many people to do one
task, um, There was a muchfancier version of that in a
game called Infinity Blade 2that was run on mobile, like on
(10:27):
early iPhones, you know, likemid 2010s or something like
that.
And they had, they wanted tocreate these massive synchronous
games where people couldcollaborate and do like what
they do on their PCs.
But mobile was nowhere near,their speeds were not what they
could be.
So, the creator, um, I think hisname was Donald Mustard, he did
a lot of work on Fortnite aswell.
He said, why don't we do thisthing called a clash mob, where
(10:50):
you have one mega enemy that noindividual can beat and Everyone
hops onto the gameasynchronously and they just
bash bash away try and cut thisthing up and and you know
There's only one life bar thateveryone is contributing to
driving down.
So you get a sense of communityBut you're not having to get the
(11:10):
full blown synchronous gameplay.
It's asynchronous, but you'reall linked to each other through
this main big boss that you'retrying to beat.
So it kind of reminded me ofthat.
This is the low fidelity versionof that.
So the lesson as well is like,The lower the fidelity,
actually, the bigger thecommunication pathway can be.
Whereas Infinity Blade had this,you graphics and all of that, so
(11:31):
it was super intense.
It had a very limitedcommunication channel.
It was just, I fight.
But this was zeros and ones.
once you give people zeros andones, They can do magical stuff
and this was proof of that.
So yeah, everyone should readthat and everyone should just
like, remember the youth, they,they are okay.
(11:52):
They, there are some of them outthere that are really trying to
do something exciting.
So yeah, it's one of those thatgave me a little bit of hope in
the
Ernest (12:00):
that's awesome, and like you mentioned, we'll provide
links to the articles about thisin the show notes as well,
Joachim (12:07):
Yeah.
Ernest (12:07):
oh, that's a great one.
Joachim (12:09):
What do you have Ernest?
Like, do you have, do you havethoughts about that or do you
have something that's veryproduct
Ernest (12:15):
Well, I, the thing I wanted to share is actually very
Very loosely tangentiallyrelated in
Joachim (12:24):
I'm ready.
Let's do
Ernest (12:25):
well, just in that, I think another important aspect
of that, of what enabled that isthat it's allows you to get into
the plumbing, that'd be anotherreason you can't do it on, I
guess, the mainstream mobileplatforms is that they're so
locked down.
Um, so the fact that.
(12:45):
We have these wonderfultechnologies, um, that are still
so open source and extensibleand, um, allow for you to get
behind the scenes on things.
Um, it's what makes this wholeexperience possible.
Um, and I, I, I guess I lamentthe loss of that because it, you
(13:10):
know, these newer platforms areso locked down and are in so
many cases just black boxes.
Um, and, you know, you lose all.
capacity for this creativity andthe ability to tap into the
creativity of people in theworld.
So it's this idea, uh, thisthing I wanted to share is very
(13:31):
tangentially related, but it'sactually, um, a kitchen faucet,
uh, And what, what made me thinkabout it was actually this AI
craze that we're in right now.
We talked about that in our lastepisode where we had that
fantastic interview with AnmolAnubhai about AI.
And I thought she made somefantastic points.
(13:53):
And, um, what kind of got me toit was We're on the eve of the,
um, latest Apple event,actually, as we record this,
we're recording on a Sunday.
Tomorrow is going to be theevent, um, where Apple is
expected to announce the latestiPhones and share the latest on
their, um, uh, latest version ofiOS, which will incorporate, um,
(14:17):
Apple intelligence as they'vecalled it, features, um, and
this is kind of coming on theheels of, um, the iPad ad that
Apple had put out.
Published, um, not too long agothat they actually had to pull
back that featured lots ofdifferent musical instruments
and artistic implements beingcrushed into this one, you know,
slab of aluminum.
(14:37):
Um, you know, they thought thatwas a good idea.
And, um, It just kind of got methinking about some of the
frameworks we had talked aboutin the past around product
creation and product innovation.
You know, for example, we talkedabout the three lenses of
innovation framework that IDEOuses where they talk about the
(14:58):
need for human desirability, Uh,technological, uh, feasibility
and then economic viability.
You have to have all three ofthose things for a concept to
be, to have a chance of beingsuccessful.
Uh, we've also talked about jobsto be done, which is a
framework, um, popularized byClinton Christian, Christensen,
which, um, can be very helpful.
(15:19):
I've used both of thoseframeworks and I've found them
to be very powerful.
But What I think both of thoseframeworks, and I really all of
the frameworks I've seen aroundproduct innovation and product
creation, what they miss is thequestion of should we do it, you
know, you know, you could say,um, IDEO's three lenses
(15:42):
framework does help you tounderstand if a concept could be
Be successful, right?
If it delivers on those threethings of this desirability,
viability, feasibility, yes.
Then, okay, it's, it's apotentially powerful concept,
but then should we do it?
We being, you know, the brand,whatever your company is, that's
(16:02):
considering this.
And if we do do it, then howshould we do it?
And I think the problem, what alot of people miss is they don't
bother asking that question.
They just say, Oh, okay.
It checks the boxes.
So let's do it.
And really, I think mostcompanies don't even spend that
(16:24):
much time thinking about it tojust say, Hey, here's the
successful concept.
So let's do our version of it.
Um, or really just a version ofit that maybe costs a little bit
less or just has someincremental difference around
the edges, um, to justify, uh,some shelf space, at Retail.
(16:45):
And, um, I find that reallydepressing because I think
that's what leads us tosomething that I think it was
Steve Jobs that talked aboutthis, but you can just see it.
So it's self evident if you goout to any retailer in this case
of jobs, he was talking aboutthe PC market, but he said, you
know, we have so many options,but so little choice.
(17:05):
And I think that's true ofalmost every industry.
You have so many options on theshelf, but they're all just.
Tiny little variations on thesame exact theme.
And it's because people justdon't take the time to think
about, okay, should we do it?
And if we do do it, then what isthe version of it that's true to
us as a brand and that we canjustify existing because we can
(17:28):
offer some unique, uh, value onit, uh, version of it.
So the, so the way that connectsthe faucets is, um, when we,,
renovated our house a few yearsback and we had to, we kind of
went down to the studs and we,so we had to kind of pick
everything.
And I'd never really spent muchtime thinking about kitchen
(17:51):
faucets, but, um, I was forcedto, and it ended up being pretty
interesting because, um, Ilearned about this whole, um,
category of, touch and touchlessfaucets.
So, um, it started with touch, acompany called Delta Faucets
introduced the, the, first touchfaucet in 2008, which was the
(18:14):
idea behind it was instead ofhaving to manipulate a handle,
you could just touch the faucetwith say the back of your hand.
So if you had your hands full,something in your hands or your
hands were dirty.
That's probably the most commonuse case in the kitchen.
And you've got stuff on yourhands and you don't want to turn
the handles and get them allgunky.
So you can just touch the faucetand it'll turn the water on.
(18:35):
Um, so Delta introduced this in2008 and it was popular enough
that their primary competitors,Moen, Kohler, et cetera, all
introduced versions of that sameconcept.
Um, and then, Just a few yearslater, Delta followed that up
with the touchless faucet.
So basically bringing the,probably the most frustrating
(18:57):
technology in the world, whichis, you know, the touch-free,
uh, automated faucets that youencounter in every corporate and
industrial environment that, youknow, only work like half the
time, brought that to theresidential world.
And, uh, much like the, uh,commercial versions, they use
motion sensors to detectmovement of your hands under the
faucet.
Um, and once again, all their.
(19:20):
Competitors, um, kind offollowed suit with their
versions of the same products.
What I came to learn, you know,as I had to kind of think about
what faucet we should use in ourhouse was that these faucets,
these touch and touchlessfaucets have a very high failure
rate.
Um, the folks at the, this is Ithink pretty unusual.
The folks at the multiple storeswhere we looked to purchase
(19:44):
these things said don't buy thembecause they're terrible and
they're going to break.
there's a lot of reasons to notlike them.
You know, one of one is thatthey require either connection
into main, uh, mains power or abattery.
They just add a lot ofcomplexity, but What we heard
over and over again is thatthey're just not particularly
reliable.
I'll include a link to a reallygreat Reddit thread in the show
(20:07):
notes.
Um, it's, uh, it was posted justnine months ago.
And the title of the, uh,subreddit is are touchless
faucets for the kitchen worth itor more hassle than they're
worth.
And, um, it's just in the past,uh, nine months received 146
responses and the one with themost upvotes came from a user
with the name shitty plumber.
(20:28):
That's their name.
Uh, and their reply was quote,I've removed more than I've
installed if that says anythingunquote.
Uh, so that got the mostupvotes.
Another plumber responded, um,and also got quite a few upvotes
and they, uh, their response wasif you want more things that can
fail early, sure.
(20:49):
Resolving those issues is alsomore expensive as a plumber.
I would not ever have one in myhouse unquote.
Um, And so, you know, we heardthat a lot, uh, from retailers
and yet, you know, the reasonthat Delta's competitors
followed suit is that a lot ofpeople found the idea appealing,
(21:10):
right?
There is something there, youknow, there are those use cases
where you have things on yourhands and you don't want to get
your faucet handles dirty.
So, um, you know, How can yousolve for that?
I think the problem is likewe've just been talking about.
Delta's competitors, they alljust, instead of asking the
question of one, should we doit?
And if we do, then what can beour unique value proposition
(21:33):
version of this?
They just basically found theeasiest way to get around
whatever patents Delta hadestablished to offer their
version, maybe a little bitcheaper, but what, I found was
there were just a couple ofexceptions to this and one was,
uh, the company we ended upgoing with.
Um, I'm going to butcher thename, it's a German brand
(21:56):
called, uh, I believe it'ssomething like Hansgrohe.
Yeah.
It's something like that.
I think Americans say Hansgrohe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joachim (22:04):
Oh, oh, that's, that hurts.
That one hurts.
Ernest (22:09):
it's, uh, Hansgrohe and then they have a, uh, kind of,
uh, upper tier version of theirbrand called, uh, Axor or Oxor.
Joachim (22:18):
Oh, okay.
Ernest (22:18):
Um, it's kind of like their version of Lexus to
Toyota.
So we have the Axor version ofthis, but you can get the same
thing in, um, Hans, Hansgrohefaucets as well.
They call their technologyselect.
And the What's great about it isthat you can tell they just took
the time to look to, to take amore considered approach to this
(22:42):
opportunity, right?
So Delta showed that there is anopportunity here around, uh,
solving for this problem.
Um, but what Hans Grunewald saidwas, okay, one of our Core
values as a brand isreliability.
That's something that they talkabout a lot in their, in their
literature is reliability.
And that's something we heardfrom plumbers was that their
products are really reliable.
(23:04):
So they looked at this, youknow, challenge and said, okay,
how could we do this in a waythat doesn't break, you know,
like all these other brands.
And.
they came up with a purelymechanical solution.
And it's really simple.
It's basically just, they put abutton on the top of the faucet
(23:24):
and, I'll include a link in theshow notes so you can see what
this looks like.
But, uh, They included amechanical button.
There's no batteries, no powerinvolved, but you, it satisfies
that same use case.
So you have a lot of stuff, gunkon your hands.
You don't want to touch thehandles of your faucet.
All you have to do with the backof your hand or with your elbow
is press this button and itstarts the water and then just
(23:47):
shut it off.
You press the button, then it'llshut it off.
So.
I just thought that was such agreat example of a company
looking at an opportunity andinstead of just copying what
their competitors have done,actually taking a step back and
thinking, okay, what's theunique value we can bring to
this, uh, and doing it in a waythat's true to who we are, um,
(24:07):
and then, because of thatresults in a unique solution.
And, um, I.
You'll see the image, but theshape of the faucet is quite
unique.
It's quite different.
And that's a function of thefact that they had to
accommodate this button, but Ithink they've ended up with a
solution that's just much moreergonomic and really pleasant to
use and invites interaction.
(24:29):
Uh, and we've had this faucetnow for, um, four years and it's
been rock solid, uh, and, uh,we've just really enjoyed it.
And so.
I just wanted to highlight thatas kind of a shout out to any
folks listening who are in thebusiness of making products to,
take that moment to, to stepback, you know, like all these
(24:52):
tech companies that are now inthis AI craze, right?
And just.
Doing what everyone else isdoing, just putting their logo
on it, take a step back, thinkabout how should we do this?
And then if so, how can we dothis in a way that's true to our
brand and delivers value in away that's unique to our brand?
(25:12):
Um, I think, you'll end up witha much better solution, a
solution that's differentiated,um, and can, can create
competitive advantage for youand your brand, not only for
that specific product, but forthe brand overall, like for
example, you know, thisHansgrohe solution has further
(25:33):
cemented.
The brands, um, you know,overarching proposition as being
a brand that's super reliable.
we bought it through a shop thatsells fixtures, but then, um,
the people who installed it weredifferent people, the plumbers
who installed it were different,but they said the same, they
were like so excited to installit.
They're like, yo, this stuff isgreat.
(25:53):
It's so well made.
Um, So it just was really coolto see that, um, and, uh,
hopefully, uh, it's somethingthat folks realize can be
applied across domains.
It's not just something specificto plumbing fixtures or faucets.
Uh, it's, it's under theunderlying concept is relevant,
um, across industries.
Joachim (26:15):
As you were talking, I was thinking to myself.
I mean, there's obviously amechanical solution to this,
right?
There has to be something thatgets you the benefit without all
the stupid stuff.
And I guess, yeah, you rememberthe bathrooms, we have to like.
Hit this very hard button mainlydone so that the faucet switches
off after a certain amount andthey're terrible,
Ernest (26:34):
Yeah.
Joachim (26:35):
you don't you don't need things to automatically
switch off in a private home.
You will switch it off It's yourwater right?
The essence of the innovationwas what you were describing.
I can use the tap withouttouching and then kind of
whittle it down and get rid ofall the stuff until you're left
with kind of the essence of theproblem.
Um, this actually reminds me of,um, I, I, another Twitter thread
(26:57):
that I stumbled on, uh, uh,maybe a year ago.
Um, I, we were shared in theshow notes.
It's a guy who was watchingNetflix.
And it kept buffering.
He was just watching it and itkept buffering, and he was so
perplexed.
He said, I have fiber optic forGod's sake, why the hell am I
having to wait for these moviesto stream?
(27:18):
So, he didn't let it just slide,and started digging around and
trying to figure out what wasconsuming his bandwidth.
He figures out that his washingmachine His new washing machine
that he had installed, uh, wasconsuming about four gigs of
data a day.
Yeah.
And it was like thesedownloadable wash cycles.
(27:41):
Each wash cycle was a programthat was downloaded from the
cloud onto the machine.
And it was doing these kind ofweird daily updates.
You know, when some softwareengineer is trying to prove that
they've done something like, Oh,I updated baby clothes, wash
cycle here at a push that intoprod and all these washing
machines receive like.
Five gigs of data because theychanged one line of code.
(28:02):
And so that is such an exampleof the total insanity of what
we're doing.
Like, just make a, work onmaking a really good cycle, load
it on there and, and move on.
And now we've put.
full blown computers inside ofwashing machines that now need
broadband internet access inorder to operate.
It comes back to some of thestuff we would talk about in
(28:24):
that this period of excess,right, where there's just so
much of everything we were ableto just load up with everything
and zero concern for the actuallong run consequences of
garbage.
And I think, you know, asinterest rates come up, as
things get more expensive, asthere's inflation, the true
(28:45):
innovators are the ones that arequietly trying to figure out how
to do the stuff that we'vegotten used to.
With less crazy technology,lighter weight, less resource
hungry.
Um, that would be nice, weshould live in that world.
Ernest (28:59):
Right, right.
I mean it sounds so simple, andhonestly, I think it is!
Joachim (29:07):
yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's it, right?
It's not like this really crazy,cool, over the top thing.
Um, just another tidbit thatthat reminds me of was, uh,
CorningWare's contribution tothe iPhone, since we're just
before the eve of, uh,developers, uh, well, the iPhone
event.
Um, it reminds me of that, thestory where Steve Jobs famously
(29:32):
walked into the offices andsaid, this is unacceptable,
holding up the phone saying thathis keys had scratched up the
plastic everywhere.
And he says, you should beputting glass on this thing.
And they said, well, we thoughtabout doing that.
It doesn't work.
And then they got the guy fromCorningware, he just called, the
CEO got called in to meet Steve,and Steve Jobs says, this is how
glass gets made, and you shouldbe making glass that can do this
(29:53):
thing, and then, so allegedly,Corningware's CEO said, Steve,
let me teach you some fuckingscience.
He said it that coarsely, andthen they talked about, The
complexity of making glass thatwas transparent, strong, all of
those things.
But he said, then he said,that's great.
Six months.
Can you give me glass that couldbe durable enough?
And they combined two separateprocesses that got them this.
(30:15):
It's a fascinating story.
I think, I read it's a TrungPhan kind of post as his
Substack.
So again, we'll add that tothat, but that's one of those
things where, you know, the,it's a question around
innovation around glass.
It's an old material.
We've seen it forever.
It is the best material for thistype of like scratch resistance,
but hard to work with andrequires a lot of innovation.
(30:40):
but it turns out that they hadactually the bits and pieces of
that technology lying aroundsince the 60s.
It's just that they neverthought to apply it in this
setting.
So again, it was an idea aheadof its time or didn't have an
application.
Which speaks to doing somethingright, innovative and
interesting.
The payoff is going to come.
Yeah.
Potentially past the life cycleof the CEO who was there when
(31:02):
they said it was okay to do thatwork, but you should still give
them kudos for having tried todo that.
Right.
So yeah, so it's nuts to thinkthat Glass has enabled our high
tech world right now and simple,complex, yeah.
Ernest (31:17):
One, one last thing that reminds me of is a conversation
I had recently with a friendwho, um, is a founder of a
company.
You know, there's been all thistalk about founder mentality
going on around, which I thinkis so stupid, but
Joachim (31:31):
Oh wait, is this founder mode versus manager
mode?
Is that the thing?
Oh my god, we have to link tothat.
That's such an irritating postby Paul
Ernest (31:38):
this might feel a little bit like founder mode, but I
think there's a, there's truthto it and it is connected to
what you were just talking aboutin that he said he's, he was,
uh, is the founder of thiscompany.
You know, he can't be fired, sohe can be unreasonable in a way
that no one else can in thateven a traditional CEO.
(32:00):
And you know, that was the casewith Steve Jobs too.
He was the founder, co founderof Apple, and he could be
unreasonable in a way that no,you know, product manager could
be.
So no product manager couldinsist, Oh, we've got to call in
the CEO of Corning and, youknow, get them to make this new
glass.
So there is something to that,that.
(32:22):
Uh, person at a level who's ableto be disruptive, um, and also
willing to ask these very simplefundamental questions, um, that,
that really is essential tocreating some of these, um,
fundamental innovations.
Joachim (32:40):
I would rotate the statement just a little bit Your
friend was pointing out that hecan't get fired.
It's the safety, right?
It's that security, right?
That allows you to take thatrisk.
And I think it's safe to sayback in the sixties, I'm sure
the employees at Corning wereprobably felt very secure.
They understood that If youshowed up at work, you did your
(33:03):
job and honed your craft at yourjob, people would respect you
and you'd get on with it.
And sometimes stuff works out,but that's the nature of work is
that you go there, you giveeverything and then you go home.
Um, and so I, I can imagine thatthat culture allows.
Always innovation.
I think this was one of theearliest things we talked about.
I think like safety, securityand insurance for creative
(33:25):
people is that's what you need.
There's nothing worse thanfeeling stressed out about your
safety and your ability toprovide.
And so you won't get creative.
I mean, the golden eras ofcivilizations are marked by
incredible amounts of wealthbecause there's enough money for
everyone.
So you start contemplatingbigger questions other than just
raw survival.
Um, jack Welch is the exactperfect example of someone who
(33:48):
created a company built on fearand we can see now the
consequences of that type ofthinking.
I mean, it's permeated mostevery corporation around the
world, but what he left behindin GE is just a shell of a
company that has nothing to dowith where their innovation lay
in the 60s and 70s.
I think if you give peoplesafety, security, and the
ability to just take a risk andreally take a risk, cause
(34:10):
everyone says, Oh, we should allshow ownership and blah, blah,
blah.
That's not true.
Like you don't, you don't thinkof me as a co owner in the
innovation process in yourcompany, or even as part of the
daily grind of keeping thelights on, you just, just a
number on a spreadsheet ofpeople.
So where's the reality of youactually providing that security
that we can actually try stuff,you know?
(34:31):
Oh yeah.
Tough times.
Ernest (34:33):
I love, I'm glad you brought that up though, cause I,
that's a pet peeve of mine too.
The whole like act like an ownerfoolishness, it's, it's just
such a gibberish corporategibberish.
Joachim (34:44):
Yeah, it really is.
Ernest (34:46):
All right.
What did you, did you want totalk about any of the other
recommendations?
Joachim (34:51):
I mentioned Jack Welch just briefly there.
I actually finished a book byJack Welch, uh, pardon me, not
by Jack Welch.
Oh my God.
I finished a book.
That would be terrible.
I finished a book about JackWelch and it's the title of the
book is called The Man Who BrokeCapitalism.
Uh, David Geller, I will put alink in the show notes of that.
It's a great book.
I will only briefly, uh, givethe brief summary, which is, uh,
(35:15):
It tracks the history ofAmerican corporations, um, from
kind of the 50s, post World WarII era, period of prosperity,
success, innovation, all the bigstuff, you know, the big ideas
were being formulated then.
GE was at the forefront of a lotof that.
Its leadership viewed itself ashaving a duty to its workers,
mostly.
(35:35):
It had a duty to exist.
As a company for them to work atand it had a duty to make good
stuff, um, be good to thecommunity, very hippie, dippy
stuff.
But you have to imagine likethese are these super
conservative 1950s businessmenwho believe this stuff like this
wasn't, this was just the wayyou operated.
Um, and Jack Welch kind of risesto fame in, in, uh, in GE by
(36:00):
being this abrasive person.
His biggest, the way he made hisbig splash was he took over one
of the plastics divisions.
Pushed the scientists so hard todeliver something on ridiculous
time scales, typical like Welshthing, like do this within two
months, right?
We would recognize this as,that's a great leader pushing
these crazy constraints.
(36:21):
So like, do this crazy thing intwo months.
The process was so unhinged thatit blew up the lab.
Like people got injured, youknow, and this is how he
operated.
Um, and that's kind of hiscalling card, like a wrecking
ball through the place.
And in the end he figured outthe easiest way to make things
profitable is fire people, buyother companies, fire those
(36:43):
people, essentially hollow outeverything and then go into
financial services.
That's the worst best way.
So the book just plots the wholething.
But what's.
kind of scary about it is ifyou've ever wondered why
corporations worry aboutquarterly results, why the
cadence of your meetingschedules peaks when the quarter
is coming up, why um, you haveto set Goals and KPIs against
(37:09):
OKRs and all of this stuff, andyou gotta stack rank the crap
out of everything.
It's Welch.
Welch is like the person.
And when you see how it wasweaponized by him, you can kind
of see it's like the echoes ofwhat's happening right now.
So, I recommend reading thatbook so that you, as a person
who has to operate incorporations, have a sense of
the lineage of ideas thatyou're, you know, taking.
(37:32):
And how many ex GE peopleinfiltrated other companies.
And I say it in that way becauseit's really awful.
Steve Ballmer was an ex GE guywho ran Microsoft terribly.
We now know.
Satya Nadella, we don't knowreally what he's going to do.
It's a bit strange.
It seemed good at the beginning,but now this Gen AI stuff is a
bit crazy.
Um, but also, uh, various Boeingheads were, from GE.
(37:56):
Um, and so they, we know wherethat's going.
So there's so many alumni of GEor people who look to GE as
great management style, um, infact.
The person whose name, theirname escapes me now.
Maybe you remember, um, theDiscovery HBO,
Ernest (38:14):
Oh, Zaslav.
Joachim (38:16):
Zaslav.
He spoke at Welch's funeral andsaid, Welch saw the world for
what it was going to be, andshaped the world.
Like, he's one of those people.
He's the guy who takes creativeoutput and puts it, locks it
away, you know, locks it away ina vault so they can get the tax
writers.
Like, that's, that's the guy.
That, that financializationaccounting shenanigans way of
(38:36):
running a business as opposed torun the business.
Yeah, you make movies.
I'm sorry, you got into thisindustry.
It's uncertain.
Freaking do it.
You know, that's what your jobis.
But instead of doing thatthey're just like, oh, no, no
We'll just do like mergers andacquisitions and firings and
we'll play these financial shellgames to to make it look like
we're growing so Welch, um, soyeah, the the man who broke
(38:59):
capitalism is the book.
Um, Well worth a read easy toread chock full of interesting
stuff.
Ernest (39:06):
Wow.
That's a great recommendation.
Really, really timely as well.
Joachim (39:10):
Yeah feels that way doesn't it?
Ernest (39:13):
Well, all right.
I think that does it for ourfirst Recommendations minisode.
I guess maybe not so mini, butepisode,
Joachim (39:22):
Yeah
Ernest (39:23):
um, as I mentioned earlier, we want to hear from
you.
What did you think of this newformat and, um, how about our
recommendations?
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Or maybe they've brought to mindrecommendations that you'd like
to share with us.
Whatever the case, we want tohear from you, so please share
your thoughts atLearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or on
threads at@LearnMakeLearnShow,all one word.
(39:46):
Thanks for listening, and wehope you'll join us for the next
Learn Make Learn.
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