CarPlay or the Highway?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ernest (00:03):
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 Groeger.
Hey, Joachim, how's it going?

Joachim (00:19):
Hello.
I'm still under the weather,but, again, not bad enough to
cancel on anything.
A little rundown.
I want this be over.
I want us to be able to beoutside more and not be in, in
wintertime.
How about you?
How are you feeling?

Ernest (00:34):
I'm kind of in a similar boat, uh, as we've discussed
offline.
This has been in the news, so Ithink I could mention this
publicly that there's been somepretty big layoffs at Nike over
this past week.
So it's, uh,, been a challengingtime, but, I think we're, I.
Kind of through the worst of it.
uh, Definitely looking forwardto longer days.

(00:54):
It's been nice to see the dayslast a little bit longer and,
uh, I think what daylightsavings is coming up relatively
soon as well, so, uh, yeah,they'll be nice as well.

Joachim (01:05):
Yeah, a rough week, in Beaverton.
for sure.
I've been a lot of things onLinkedIn and a lot of
commiseration and support, whichis nice to see the support
aspect, obviously, but yeah,still very rough.

Ernest (01:18):
Yeah, it's been a tough, gosh, past few months across so
many industries.
The tech industry's been reallyhard hit, so I, I, I definitely
agree.
It's been really nice to see thesupport that people are showing
on LinkedIn.
I think we, everyone's realizingwe're kind of all in the same
boat.
If you work at a big company,you're subject to the vagaries
of, uh,, big company decisions.

Joachim (01:40):
Yep, exactly.
And the stock market and all ofwhat that entails.

Ernest (01:45):
Well, maybe that's something we could talk about at
some point down the road.
But, uh,

Joachim (01:49):
yeah,

Ernest (01:51):
for today, this is episode nine and our topic is,
uh,, what we're calling CarPlayor the highway, and that's a
play on the expression, my Wayor the Highway that speaks to
the tension between integratedin-car user experience platforms
versus third party platformslike Apple's Car play or
Google's Android Auto.

(02:11):
But before diving into thattopic, let's start with some
follow ups to our previousepisode.
What the bleep is a productmanager.
Joachim, do you have any followups to share?

Joachim (02:21):
yeah.
I don't wanna hijack this againbut we did discuss it last
episode where we were talkingabout behavioral economics and
is it a real discipline and.
I was reading a totallyunrelated book.
It's called The Moment ofClarity, which is trying to draw
on the humanities and socialsciences to help the innovation

(02:42):
process,, as opposed to usingdata-driven approaches or the
more quantitative frameworks,even jobs to be done.
There was a, an anecdote about ashoe company that remained
nameless.
So I don't know who this is, butthis was the early two
thousands.
And, an executive asked aquestion very innocently, is
yoga a sport?

(03:04):
And he was laughed out of theroom.
But the authors of the book havesaid, it's a great question to
put yourself in a position of,humility and exploration and
What happened was of,'cause hewas laughed at, he was mocked
for this perspective.
They said, no, no, no.
High performance, athletic wearis what we do.
And, and yoga is justirrelevant.
Even though at the time it wasvery clear that people were

(03:24):
spending more time doing yogathan running marathons,
obviously.
So that then reminded me of whatwe were talking about last time,
where people make bad decisions.
And I didn't want to come acrossas suggesting that people never
make bad decisions.
I think that people make baddecisions for some very specific
reasons.
So, there are two things thatare at the root of bad decision

(03:45):
making.
One of them is when you flattenthe world and remove all of the
complexity and, um,, you losefidelity into the perspective of
what's actually happening.
When you do that, you're alwaysgonna make a bad decision.
So I would call that bad signalscoming into the system and
ignoring the good signals, ornot investing the time to build
better signals.
Everyone says, simplify.
Simplify, simplify.

(04:07):
People forget that there's apoint where you can't simplify
any further and you are stuckwith the specific complexity of
the problem that you're dealingwith.
In fact, there's someone who isa human computer interaction
chap Tesla, Larry Tesla, whocame up with his conservation of
complexity principle saying thatthere is a point where the
complexity can only be shiftedfrom one party to the other.
And you just have to accept thatthere's a certain level of

(04:28):
complexity.
I think when bad decisionshappen is when we ignore that
leftover complexity and we justsay, simplify.
Get rid of it.
So flattening the world thatleads to bad decisions.
And we do that because it'seasier.
And then the obvious one isincentives matter.
Bad incentives lead to bad andseemingly irrational decisions.
So if I tell you that you canleave this job and no one has to
know what you did here, you'vesigned an NDA, you can fabricate

(04:50):
any story about how amazing youwere and how, your leadership
was the reason why everythingwas successful or that failure
had nothing to do with youbecause the company is so big.
So you can obscure what yourcontribution was in that.
So of course you'll make baddecisions.
There's no discipline on you.
So again, no discipline, noincentives, no constraints,
leads to bad decision making.
So all of that to say, Iacknowledge.

(05:11):
That bad decisions happen allthe time.
We've talked about thisfrequently, Ernest, and it's
probably what motivated a lot ofour conversation to start this
was trying to understand andunpick when do we cross over
into just bad decisions aroundany type of innovative process.
I do think people make very badmistakes, but again, in that
rational framework asking whatis it that's driving that, they

(05:33):
don't want to invest the timebecause they're incentivized to
just do something quickly, movefast and break stuff that tells
you already you're gonna makebad decisions from that kind of
philosophy.

Ernest (05:43):
That, That's a great one.
That brings to mind a couple ofthings for me actually.
One thing I loved at Weiden andKennedy was one of their kind of
maxims was walk in stupid everyday.
The joke is that's easier forsome people than for others.
But I think there's a lot of,validity to your point of that
person asking that question, isyoga a sport?
It there, I think it does take alot of humility.

(06:05):
I.
To ask questions like that, askfundamental questions, that are
really important.
And, That was one of the thingsI think that helped make Weiden
such a great place, was that somany people were willing to do
that.
And it does take courage to askthose types of questions because
oftentimes you are laughed outof the room if the company
doesn't have the right culturethat's willing to, confront

(06:26):
important questions like that,fundamental questions like that.
The second thing is related to,our topic today, and it's this
point of, uh,, there's thistendency for companies to get
into this mode where they're sofixated on doing this.
One thing there's the adagearound the reason the train

(06:47):
companies, which had been sodominant in the us but the
reason they really fell fromthat was that they became
fixated on being train companiesversus being transportation
companies.
And when other modes oftransportation, emerged, um,,
they really lost out and, youknow, are now just a shadow of
their former selves in terms ofthe, the size of the companies.

(07:09):
So I think that's a great pointto make, a great point to
highlight.
And I think we're gonna touch onthat over the course of this
episode.
Um, in terms of follow-ups, Ijust have, A couple, one.
it's really something that'svisual, so we'll include it in
the show notes.
But, after our episode, I cameacross this great, post on
threads, and the cap it relatesto something else we talked

(07:32):
about, which is Dune.
It's an image of the directorDenis Villeneuve, who's wearing
just like a regular outfitwalking alongside Timothy
Chalamet, who's wearing hiscostume from Dune.
It's a very interestingdichotomy to see the two of
them.
And the caption is a productmanager takes a developer to
meet with a client.

(07:54):
Uh, and it's, it's, you know,you have to see it.
It's so we'll include that linkin the show notes, but it speaks
to, um, I think a common threadof, uh,, product managers are
sort of meant to be thatgeneralist that sort of.
Quote, unquote normal person in,in a room full of experts,

(08:16):
domain experts who might havesome ex eccentricities.
and I thought that was just anice illustration of that.
A related thread that I cameacross has to do with designers,
but it also kind of speaks tothis point of specialization.
so this is from, a person namedTrevor Young who posted this,
and I'll just read the thread.
He says, it feels to me likeover the past 10 years we've

(08:40):
watched designers everywheretrade in a lot of what made
their contributions unique in anattempt to gain influence among
their peers and otherdisciplines, which ironically
has made them less valuable.
Maybe it's time for a big reset.
And then he follows that upwith, a little bit more detail
here.
He said some modern advice givento designers is learn to speak

(09:02):
in business terms, to convinceyour leaders of your worth to
justify your design decisionsand to see your work realized.
But then he says, it seems likewe've seen the limits of what
that will do and that no one wasever inspired by a KPI.
Um, and, and I, I've, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's great.

(09:22):
'cause I absolutely have seenthat advice, shared quite a bit
over the last several years of,you know,, talk like a business
person, given to designers.
Um,, but I think there's just somuch validity to this, you know,
around the, the value ofspecialization.
So I just thought that was worthsharing and I'll, include that
link to that thread in the shownotes as well.

Joachim (09:41):
There's a lot of nuance in that point, right?
The reason why we're talking isbecause we want to get our ideas
across, and those ideas comefrom a highly specialized place,
either quantitative design andthey have depth because of your
training, and you bring that tothe thing.
But then when you talk to theperson, it should be in a way
that allows them to wrap theirhead around this complex problem
in a way that lets them see whatit is that you're doing, ask the

(10:03):
right questions and guide themto understanding what it is
they're doing and say yay ornay.
Right?
That's ultimately the decisionmaker's power.
But instead of holding onto thecomplexity of the problem and
working really hard on thecommunication piece.
What's happened now it feelslike is that people have taken
only the communication piece andthey're going the other way
around.
They're saying, okay, well Ineed to find something I can

(10:24):
tell my manager or or businessleader about.
So I'll come up with some dumbdinky thing that they get and
then work and then hope thatthat impresses them and then we
take it from there.
But then you sound like everyoneelse.
I've seen a lot of people in myfield, in the technical field
essentially remove theirtraining, removing their
specialty and their skillsetfrom the conversation and trying

(10:47):
to reverse engineer fromsomething they think a business
leader would like to hear.
And then you just sound likeeveryone else.
And then the question becomes,why are you here?
If you just sound like everyoneelse, I could hire someone
that's cheaper, doesn't have aPhD and all this stuff.
When I said, boom, I really feltit.
And also, no one was everinspired by a KPI, I mean,
goodness me.
Yeah, that's that's true.

(11:08):
Even in technical fields, likeno one's gonna care.
But we've all gotten used to,yeah, let's get motivated to
move this metric by a couple ofpercentage points.
Thanks for sharing that, Ernest.
That is a banger, as they say.

Ernest (11:22):
No, not at all.
I, I think the challenge thoughis that you, it's a two-way
street.
You have to have leaders whowant these other perspectives.
and I think, those types ofleaders have been fairly
unusual.

Joachim (11:40):
Yeah.

Ernest (11:41):
I think you're not gonna ever get there if you as a
designer or you as a domainexpert, just, give yourself up
to this sort of corporate speak,and sounding like everyone else.

Joachim (11:52):
You'll waste time because keep thinking that maybe
they'll get it if you come inand say, this is what it is,
this is what I think.
And they go, I hate it.
go, cool.
I'm gonna start looking foranother job, or,, or figure out
something my time.
There's a certain of, selfpreservation as well that's
necessary.
And I'm not saying ignore adviceand ignore feedback, but I'm

(12:13):
saying if you're not coming inwith a perspective, you should
be coming in with that andsomeone doesn't like it.
Then move on

Ernest (12:18):
Right, right.
Well, actually that's a goodsegue to our, our main topic for
today, which is, as we saidearlier, CarPlay or the highway.
and this topic was actuallysuggested by a friend and
colleague Kiran.
In the wake of GM's announcementlate last year, that they're
phasing out support for AppleCarPlay and android Auto, kiran

(12:38):
suggested that we discuss thetension between integrated
in-car user experience platformsand third party platforms like
CarPlay and Android Auto thatSubsume built in systems with
their own interfaces in mixingsupport for CarPlay and Android
Auto GM joins EV pioneers, Teslaand Rivian who've never
supported those platforms intheir vehicles.

(13:00):
And if you spend much time inonline car forms, you'll see
that this lack of support is asubject of fierce debate.
So is this a short sighted movethat will ultimately hurt these
brands, or is there insistenceon owning their relationship
with their customers, includingthrough their user experience
platforms, a wise decision thatwill pay dividends in in the

(13:21):
long run?
Joachim, what do you think?

Joachim (13:24):
When Kieran shared his follow up on our episode on VR a
couple of weeks ago, I washaving a hard time trying to
wrap my head around, you know,is this a serious problem?
And, and what is the broaderdiscussion that's happening
around this topic?
And I feel like I've distilledit in my mind to a very focused
thing, which is this is adiscussion around platforms,

(13:46):
walled gardens, and who ownswhat.
In a sad way, some of thosequestions have already been
answered.
We are living in a world whereownership over these things has
really been taken away from usin so many ways.
You buy a video on a streamingservice, you own it kind of as,
as long as the service exists,as long as the terms haven't

(14:08):
been maintained the same waythey've always been, then you
own it.
But it's not the same thing asowning a disco that you can
then, lend to other people.
Same thing with video games.
So we've become very accustomedto this idea of not really
owning things.
but I think it's because we'vesleepily entered into that state
and when these topics come upand when you see corporations

(14:29):
very clearly saying, Nope, thisis mine and that's not yours, we
get upset.
So I realize that this isfocused around CarPlay and car
manufacturers locking down theirecosystems.
So I was reading The Verge andthey had a really nice title for
their piece, which was, who ownsthe screen in your car?

(14:49):
And I think that's the perfectdistillation of the problem.
This thing that I bought andcost a lot of money is now being
taken away from me, butpiecemeal, and it's being
presented as a new phenomenonnow because they're saying EVs
are very different from internalcombustion engine cars.

(15:10):
So in that verge thing, theyactually say this line, which I
found really interesting.
They say with EVs essentiallybeing software driven, batteries
on wheels, CAR OS will allow forover the air updates, more
advanced automated driving,assistant connected car
capabilities and native versionsof power apps like Google Maps
and Spotify.
So the focus I really wannadraw, our listeners attention to

(15:30):
is with EVs essentially beingsoftware driven batteries on
wheels.
That's not true.
Our internal combustion enginecars are already that thing.
If you ever just look up themain functions of the engine
control unit, you'll see thatthing is a software piece that
handles so many aspects ofrunning that car.
It's a list of 20 items atleast, that have to do with the

(15:52):
fuel injection system, theignition system, the how the
accelerator pedal operates.
So we've already given up a lotof control over the car.
So.
This is a platform battle.
This is a question that's muchbigger than just Apple CarPlay
versus gm And to focus in onthis idea that, you know, EVs
are this high tech softwarething, so only software
companies can build on top ofthat.

(16:15):
And so gm, you old, old, oldindustry, you have no idea what
you're talking about So this isa little bit of a meandering
thing, but I just wanted topaint the picture that is a
debate about platforms and weshould be having a debate about
how much power do theseplatforms have.
And when you look at thediscourse online, there's a lot

(16:37):
of just two walled gardensfighting each other, and GM is
just exerting its muscle andsaying, no, it's our screen, our
car, stay away apple.
And the apple bros are going,ah, you, you fools.
You don't know how to makesoftware.
Apple is so wonderful.
Open up your ecosystem, open itup.
Don't be so greedy.
And you go, you do realizeyou're defending Apple here,
right?
The most closed off ecosystem inthe world.

(16:59):
The people that cut backroomdeals to access lower pricing
and lower revenue share fortheir products.
And we should be asking abroader question around how do
we want our services, how ourproducts interact with us?
And maybe we should actually,instead of arguing that Google
should be allowed in, or Appleshould be allowed in, we should
be saying, you know what?

(17:20):
Just strip everything out of thedamn car and I would, I don't
want you or anyone else inthere, and there shouldn't be
any screens or whatever, like aminimal vehicle that is just, I
just want the software to runthe car and make sure it's fuel
efficient and does the thingsit's supposed to do.
Yeah, I was trying to reallyzoom out from the discussion
because, The point is whenpeople talk about owning the

(17:41):
relationship with a customer,that to me has become now double
speak for I need to lock thisthing down and I need to keep
you in my system, and then I'mgonna get recurring subscription
revenue from you.
This idea of recurring revenuesubscription, I think lies at
the heart of all of this.
And that means that both partiesare insidious because they both
want to have that softwarerevenue.
of course Apple could wake uptomorrow and say, yeah, every

(18:03):
time you use CarPlay, we'llcharge you know, you wanna have
CarPlay here.
They can just push that into thesystem straight away.
Change the terms of theagreement with us.
Do we own our screens?
No.
Little mini rant.
I just, I had to replace the TVbecause one of my little people
decided to clean it, clean ourold TV with a spray bottle and
just spraying liquid.

(18:24):
And then, yeah, it's the, the TVfailed.
and so I bought this new tv, ithas, Google TV as the operating
system.
And I decided I'm not gonna loginto the service.
And what happens is that none ofthe ads on the screen show up
because I'm not connected toanything.
and so I thought, oh, this ispretty good.
I actually have taken ownershipback of my machine just to a

(18:44):
little bit.
But the point is that I couldn'tuse YouTube when I did that.
And so the login screen for theYouTube app would just quickly
blink up and say, login, andthen disappear again.
And then I realized, I thinkthis is because I haven't logged
into the TV's account system,and then I logged into the TV
account system, and then lo andbehold, the YouTube thing
unlocked for me.
And so it, I felt very.

(19:06):
It's bad.
I felt like I didn't own this TVthat I'd spent a lot of money on
and this big piece of hardware.
Uh, and it reminded me justabout what is the relationship
that I have with thesecompanies.
I don't really control thesesurfaces anymore, so I got a
little philosophical about this.
I think we can get a little bitmore in the weeds of the Apple
CarPlay versus Rivian and, andthose things and those aspects,

(19:27):
but I just wanted to start thereand then see what you think.
Ernest, you know, I throw thatout as a, as a starting point
for us.

Ernest (19:35):
it is a great point.
I think your point about.
Apple is, is very telling inthat, apple would never allow a
third party to subsume theirinterface on their devices.
And yet, you know, here you havejust as you were saying, all
these people saying, oh, appleshould be allowed to subsume the

(19:57):
interface in my car.
Uh, so there is a, an irony tothat.
And yet I do understand thatimpulse on the part of consumers
of wanting that convenience, ofhaving all the things they
already have on their phones,uh, their music, their maps,

(20:20):
their contacts, and just beingable to project that into this
screen that's in my car.
Um, so it's a very, um, I.
Understandable impulse on thepart of folks to want that in
their cars.
And yet I also absolutelyunderstand the perspective of

(20:42):
the car makers as well.
You know, because it's that sameperspective that Apple has about
their own devices.
You know, it's this theme thatwe've talked about a lot over
the past, you know, since westarted of having a point of
view and being opinionated and,that's what we want from our
products.
And, and that's, I think, a bigpart of Apple's success is that
they're very opinionated thatcomes to life in their products.

(21:05):
And, uh, up a, um, side effectof that is that their products
are locked down because theyhave this very specific
perspective on the sort ofexperience they want their
products to deliver.
And so, you know, you could saythe same of say, Tesla.
Which has never supportedCarPlay or Android Auto.

(21:25):
And they've said, it's becausewe want to deliver a very
specific user experience intheir case.
I think, um, the rationale goeseven a little deeper in saying,
you know, there are somefeatures we want to deliver that
are only possible if we own thatfull stack.
Like, for example, if younavigate to a Tesla, uh,

(21:48):
supercharger station, the carwill actually precondition the
battery so that it's able tocharge more efficiently and more
effectively once you arrive atthe charging station.
So, that's a, a pretty coolthing that.
They're only able to do if theyown that full stack.
Um, but overall I'd say theargument would be, we think that

(22:10):
that interface that we presentto you is part of the
overarching experience ofdriving a Tesla.
And I think Rivian would say thesame thing.
So to me that's a veryunderstandable impulse as well
from a, a, the perspective ofsomeone who makes products.
Um, so I, I absolutely see bothsides of this.

(22:34):
Um, I find that.
cause I, I, um, participate in alot of these car forums and I
see a lot of these people withthese very strongly held views
of, I'd never buy a car thatdoesn't support CarPlay or
Android Auto.
And I have to say, I personally,I find that puzzling.
I, I feel like it's, it isconvenient.

(22:56):
I have a car today that supportsCarPlay and I do find it
convenient.
But, if a, a car offered aninterface that was really good,
I would be open to buying thatcar even if it didn't support
CarPlay.
So I guess I don't approach itwith this kind of dogma.
The crux of this is for, say,the Teslas and the Rivian and

(23:16):
the GMs of the world.
If you're going to take thisstance, then you have the
responsibility to actuallycreate a really good user
experience.
if you're not gonna supportthese other platforms that
obviously a lot of people reallydo like, then that's you saying
that this is a core part of ourexperience.

(23:38):
And so you have to invest in itas though it's a core part of
your experience.
the same way you invest in yourengine and your engine software,
in all the other aspects yourcar that you invest in, you have
to invest in it in the same way.
And clearly GM hasn't, there'slots of stories about they even
have to take the ev blazer offthe market because it just was,
the software was so terrible andthat's just not been a core

(24:01):
compet competency for them.
The consumer, the driver facingsoftware experience.
So I am of the perspective thatit's that product maker's
decision to make as to whetherthey're gonna support the
feature or not.
But if they're not gonna supportit, then they just have to make

(24:21):
sure that they're going toinvest in it, and deliver a
great experience that is atleast as good, if not better,
than this kind of off the shelfsolution that exists.
That's kind of my overarchingperspective on the car
experience piece of this, but itis a really thorny question.
I agree.

(24:41):
I you spoke to this as well,because there are new
expectations on.
Car makers, like in a lot ofindustries, their industry is
changing.
Where it used to be that youcould just deliver this physical
object and you were donebasically, and that, you could
offer service and so forth, butfundamentally, you made the

(25:04):
widget, you delivered it, andthat was, pretty much the end of
your job.
But now people expect that thingto continue to improve over time
because that's the sort ofexperience we get from our
phones and other, softwaredriven devices.
So I do think they're in a bitof a tough situation and that,

(25:25):
there's an expectation.
of kind of enhanced performanceover time, but they don't have a
business model that supportsthat.
And, that's what's leading tothese sorts of subscription
based models, that haven'treally been successful.
Like, for example, BMW tried to,um,, make heated seats a

(25:48):
subscription offering and theywere just completely lambasted
for that, which I think is, uh,rightly so.
And GM has these ridiculousestimates.
They projected that they'regonna make as much as$25 billion
a year from sub subscriptions by2030, which is just ludicrous.
There's no basis in reality forthat.
But, it's just they recognizethat if they're going to adopt

(26:09):
this software like model, theyneed to have some kind of
ongoing revenue stream tosupport that ongoing
development.
So it's a, it's a struggle forthem.
Uh, I'm kind of talking incircles because I think it is a
really difficult problem.
whenever you're in the middle ofdisruption.
I think it's a very difficultchallenge, but I'd say for me at

(26:32):
least, I would always come backto that consumer need.
What is that consumer need andconsumer expectation?
And start from there.
And to me, the most interestingsolutions I've seen are these
holistic subscription services.
For example I think Volvo andPorsche offer them where they've

(26:55):
thought about the car ownershipmodel in a very different way,
where they're offering asubscription to the car.
And I guess in a way it's a bitlike a lease, but it's all
encompassing.
So it includes.
The cost of the car, as well asthe cost of service, as well as
the cost of insurance.
So you just have this one feethat gives you access to the

(27:17):
car.
that sort of model I think getsinteresting in that it does get
at that core I.
Consumer need versus kind ofcreating these patches on the
existing model, which maybe is,showing its, age showing its,
uh, warts.
I think that's where maybethere's some opportunity.

(27:38):
But it's, it obviously it'sdifficult because there's all
these other elements to theautomotive model that make that
difficult, like the dealership,model, you know, and the car
makers don't own their dealers.
but if I were, giving advice tocar makers, that's what I would
propose is think about this in amore, much more holistic way.

(28:01):
The whole CarPlay versus notCarPlay is very much at the
surface of it, but there arethese fundamental disruptions
that are coming.
So I.
like you were saying, take thatopportunity to step back and ask
those fundamental questions thatmight seem dumb, but I think are
gonna lead you to more,promising solutions than just

(28:23):
spending a ton of time debatingwhether we should support
CarPlay or not.

Joachim (28:28):
that is a really productive direction to push
into Ernest, that you've justtouched on this idea of the,
subscription based model.
When you think aboutsustainability and you think
about the possibility of carsbeing built from the ground up
to be fleet vehicles, and themanufacturer understands that

(28:49):
it's not a one and done thing,five years is kind of the
horizon that they think about.
If they say, well, I gotta holdonto this car for at least 10
years.
So at least a couple of roundsof owners, how do I design the
car from the ground up to havesome element of modularity in it

(29:09):
so that I can yank something outand it's not gonna break the
whole thing?
Right now everything is sotightly packaged, it can only
work one way.
And that's a result of all ofthe efficiency gains that we've
had from mass production.
But now we've got lack ofresilience in the system and a
lot of fragility built into thatI can't swap parts across.

(29:31):
And car manufacturers have alsolocked down their systems in
many ways.
If I put in non-originalequipment parts, um, sometimes
computers will detect that andthey can lock the whole car
down.
I mean, there's a crazy exampleactually, fun anecdote.
some guy had just bought apretty expensive Ferrari.
all Ferraris are expensive.
Um, but uh, he then for somereason he wanted to change the

(29:53):
seats in the car.
They started messing around withthe seats and they somehow
triggered an antit tampersoftware device, and it locked
down the whole car.
Basically bricked the car now.
If it was an official Ferrariperson, they could have just
pulled out their laptop andhooked it up and then reset and
everything would've been fine.

(30:15):
However, this was a persontaking control of the car that
they wanted, right?
They're just changing seats out.
It's not a big deal.
so they would have to callFerrari to do a remote unlock
and confirm that they're doingthis for all the right reasons.
The problem was the car was in abasement garage, and so it had
no cell reception and theycouldn't do it, and they

(30:36):
couldn't start the car.
They couldn't undo the handbrakes and get it into neutral,
so it was a whole faf.
They had to get a truck downthere, they had to lift it up,
put it in, and drive it outside,and then when it had reception,
it could, be unlocked.
It's a very silly examplebecause it's slightly
self-inflicted, but it alsobrings home just how much of
these systems are already lockeddown.

(30:57):
And car manufacturers are alsovery guilty of the software
industry's approach of treatingtheir software as intellectually
sensitive and materials, andtherefore fall under the DMCA
and you could be imprisoned ifyou started tampering around
with these things despite thefact that you own that stuff.
So, just a little side anecdoteto that and to the point of they

(31:18):
have built these systems to belocked down and not to be
resilient, modular, renewable,and regenerative so that they
can keep running them for alonger period of time.
It reminds me of something thatwe were talking about before,
which is if your business modelis built on locking people into
your system and not giving themchoice, something about that
feels incredibly fragile eitherbecause legislation will come in

(31:39):
that will change the game, orsomeone just comes along and
says, we're not doing thatanymore and we're fed up with
that.
You're right, Ernest, aboutthinking more broadly around
debate about how do we treatthese, durable goods that have
to have multiple years of useout of them.
They are very expensive, they'reenvironmentally very difficult
to produce, even if they're anelectric car.

(31:59):
Of course, batteries are veryexpensive and dangerous for the
environment.
How do we build resilientinfrastructure around that so a
company can continue to innovatebut treats their vehicle more as
a platform, physical platform,not tech platform, software
platform.
A physical platform that'sallowed to be modularized.
Reminds me a little bit aboutDita Rams, the industrial

(32:22):
designer from Brown who inspireda lot of Apple products.
His thinking now has evolved tothe point where he's asking, how
do we create more of theseleasing models, even with
household items and I don'tthink anyone's really sat down
to tackle that question.
I wonder to what extent as wellthe, our obsession with Apple
CarPlay and Android Auto and theconvenience of those things, I

(32:45):
feel like is also, maybe this isa bigger philosophical question,
but is it because we treat carsas extensions of our living
rooms?
And should we not be doing that?
Should we really be going into acar and expecting the seats to
be as comfortable as a lazyboyand the screen to be as big as
our laptops so that we can dothings?

(33:06):
Teslas insistence that we needvideo games on the screen
suggests that there's somestrange cultural phenomenon that
suggests that the car is yourliving room or something like
that.
And if you are so obsessed withthe, convenience of having those
things, maybe you've got yourpriorities wrong.
You know, as you're saying,people saying, I'm not gonna buy
this car'cause it doesn'tsupport X, Y, ZI think you're,

(33:30):
maybe you're not testing yourcars properly, mate, you should
be getting behind the wheel andmaking sure that the steering
wheel gives you enough feedbackfrom tires and you can feel what
the car has grip and doesn'thave grip.
These really basic things thatmanufacturers used to focus on
so obsessively.
As you were pointing out, movingto these other more visible

(33:51):
features such as the screen andthe fantastical subscription
revenue, that's gonna come fromHeaven.
Again, boosts a short shareprice in the short run.
But we're left with theconsequences of these terrible
decisions.
The average car price now isaround$50,000.
I suspect that there will be amoment of reckoning when, people
realize that there's actuallyspace for the strip down car.

(34:12):
And maybe we'll see.
Some Chinese electric carmanufacturers come in and that
lower price point and undercuteveryone and surprise the whole
industry when they realize, oh,no one actually cares about
this.
They really care about theprice, the quality of the car
that they can drive.
And that's about it.
All of that to say, I thinkthere's also a chance that

(34:34):
everyone is so focused on thisconvenience aspect, they will
forget the simple thing that theprice has been creeping up and
someone is gonna see that marginas an opportunity to come in.
Always right?
Your margin is someone else'sopportunity to undercut you.
And it sounds very veryaggressive to be talking in

(34:55):
those terms, but maybe that'swhat it will take to end this
discussion will just say,there's a screen.
I don't care how much does thiscar cost.

Ernest (35:03):
Right.
That's my great hope as well,that market forces will actually
finally, prevail and you'll seesomeone enter the market in that
way of saying, yes, we're justgonna offer you this bare bones
car.
And like,, to your point of theJapanese cars, um,, I forget, I
guess in the eighties, ninetiesthat we're really made as a

(35:24):
platform for aftermarketadd-ons, and that it still is a
thriving aspect of, um,, thatkind of Japanese car community,
the ability to mod your car.
what you were saying also bringsto mind something you mentioned,
I think it was back in theepisode where we were talking
about vr, around the risksassociated with autopilot in

(35:45):
the, in airlines it was foundthat You can't mix modes between
autopilot and human piloting.
you have to create very cleardistinctions between the two and
in, piloting, it's possible inthat a big bulk of the flight
can be handled via autopilot.
But there are these distinctparts of flying that are.

(36:07):
Explicitly, uh, done just byhuman pilots.
the industry found that you hadto have these explicit
distinctions because there's nosafe way to blend auto and
non-auto, human interfaces.
And I think we're gonna findthat the same is true for cars.
That there's just no safe way toblend self-driving, quote

(36:29):
unquote self-driving and nonself-driving.
And that humans need to engagein the activity of driving.
that's the only safe way todrive.
I hope that we come to thatrealization sooner rather than
later.
But, I think that's somethingthat's going to have to happen.
To your broader point too aboutmodularity, one example I've

(36:49):
seen that has me really excitedis Bang and Olsen, the high-end
audio products maker.
A few years back, they adoptedthis modular platform for their,
higher end speaker systems thatis designed to allow those
speakers to be upgraded overtime.
So the core compute portion oftheir speakers is modular so

(37:13):
that because they recognizethat, these specifications,
airplay, Bluetooth, et cetera,they're always constantly
changing, constantly beingupdated, and it just is insane
to think that you'd have toreplace like a$5,000 speaker
just because there's a newversion of Bluetooth that's been
released.
And so acknowledging thatthey've come up with this

(37:34):
fundamentally modular system fortheir high end speakers, which
is, so fantastic for so manyreasons.
from a.
Consumer's perspective, itallows you to buy their products
with confidence because,historically speakers are
something you could own fordecades, and they would continue
to be fantastic and, delivergreat value.

(37:55):
It was only in recent years asthey became more software
dependent, that they becamethese things that only lasted
for a few years, which is,ludicrous.
I think From our perspectivethat's great, but also from
their perspective, it, it allowsthem to make products that are
gonna be more sustainablebecause they last longer,
they're more durable, andthey're easier to repair as
well.
So.

(38:15):
I think that is, that's excitedme because that's a,, premium
brand, that is very designdriven because that's one excuse
I think that's been madeparticularly on Apple's part as
to why they can't make theirproducts more modular.
It's because, well to achievethis beautiful design there's

(38:36):
such tight tolerances, we can'thave modular design, but Bang
and Olufsen's all aboutbeautiful design and very high
performance, and they've managedto make their systems modular so
that they can be more lastingand more resilient, and more
repairable over time withoutsacrificing any of that

(38:56):
beautiful design or any of thathigh performance.
And in fact, making theperformance even better, because
it's something that, can beupgraded and, repaired over
time.

Joachim (39:05):
Just to say, just to interrupt briefly, So what's
interesting about the Bang onOleson example, earnest is of
course this huge margin thatthey're putting on top of it
being a premium product.
But that margin doesn'trepresent them power over you
and the ability to lock you init represents the fact that
they're bringing you in.
'cause you know, this thing hasmany more years of life ahead.

(39:27):
So that's not an opportunity foranother person to come into
undercut unless they themselveshave developed and devised a way
to modularize their product andoffer the same guarantee that
says, this is gonna last for atleast 10 years, trust me.
And they found a way to do thatcheaper bang on all of them.
But I don't think that'spossible.
I think there is a premiumaspect to it that represents

(39:50):
this is an investment.
That's really how we used totreat expensive things, right?
We used to treat them asinvestments for the long run.
You get a nice wristwatch.
I did it with a little wink.
For the listeners because ofErnest and I, obsession with the
wrist watches, but they used torepresent investments.
I have this watch for decadesand I know that I'm paying

(40:12):
premium for this because it'sgonna be, first of all, the
company's gonna be around for along time and they'll be able to
repair this thing.
They'll be service, they'll be,will be a sustainability
component to this investment.
so margin when it's based onlong run value, I feel like
doesn't look like easyopportunity for someone to
undercut.
They can only undercut really byoffering a worse product.

(40:35):
and then just a brief tangent onwhat you're saying about Apple's
laptop, approach.
We actually have a really greatexample in the framework laptop
that's out there.
I'm not sure if you'veencountered this Ernest, but
framework make.
A 13 inch laptop that lookspretty great.
but it's real trick is that it'stotally modular.
every component can be replacedby the end user.

(41:00):
The basis of the laptop is, arethese little modules that you
insert into slots, and you canhot swap them.
So you can swap out a harddrive.
A-U-S-B-C interface as an HDMIconnector.
More memory, less memory.
I mean, you can go nuts withwhat you want to do there.
And that product is highlyrepairable, highly sustainable.

(41:21):
And the very, very cool thingis, you can save a little bit of
money by building it yourself.
So they'll send you the kit.
It's not super complicated.
A small screwdriver and a littlebit of patience, and you can
assemble this thing.
And I think they can sell thatat about$900 before tax.
New modules come along, you canreplace the chips, the memory
stuff, it's totally doable.

(41:42):
And the device, I think it'scomparable to a great Dell
laptop.
but with that added benefit ofall this modularization and
repairability a reallyfascinating product.
I'm glad it exists.
You know, come on, apple.
This is a challenge to you guys,they're able to hit these
tolerances and spend years on,designing how two aluminum

(42:03):
pieces are supposed to fittogether and how they glue in
everything.
So everything is nice andtightly packed up, but I think I
would sacrifice some of that,slickness for a thing that is
truly repairable.
and the challenge is how do youdo that and still maintain the
cool design language of Apple?
And if I was a designer, I'dwant to take on that challenge,

(42:23):
and I'm sure they're probablydesigners inside of the company
that would love to do that.
And then a finance person tellsthem, think like a business
person and then everything willbe clear to you.
You can't do that.
Just make something that wethrow away after a couple of
years and force the customer toupgrade again.
So, those were just a few thingsthat popped in my mind as you
were describing.

Ernest (42:40):
I'll definitely look up this framework laptop, but I
also shared your sentiment.
You mentioned the role oflegislation, few minutes back.
And I do think that is the onething that is forcing Apple to
change their ways.
these right to repair laws thatare being enacted, increasingly,
I think will force their handeventually and force them to

(43:03):
start thinking, in a moremodular way.
But I am disappointed thatthey're not taking that as an,
at a, as an opportunity toinnovate and, leading instead of
being dragged kicking Andre, uh,screaming into this.
because it reminds me, sometimeback Apple had this highfalutin
video about like their designand how amazing their design is

(43:23):
and a thousand no for every Yes.
Blah, blah, blah.
But, you mentioned Dieter Ramsand it's just, it's remarkable
how much they've cribbed fromDieter Rams, when you see his
designs, it's like carbon copyof his designs in the iPod and
in the iMac But what theyhaven't copied is are his
principles, you know, one ofwhich was good design is

(43:45):
lasting.
And so that's been such adisappointment that they've,
really not innovated on thatfront.
Coming back to cars, I've beenexcited to see, these modular
concepts that were introducedrecently, I think late last year
by both Toyota, I believe itwas, and Kia, they're these very

(44:05):
small trucks, the kind of trucksthat you see very commonly in
Japan in particular, where youcan really easily change the
configuration in some reallyfundamental ways.
So using the same base, youcould make it a pickup or
something that's more like anSUV or something that's more
like a food truck or somethingthat's an ambulance.

(44:27):
And one, excited to see thoseconcepts, but also excited to
see the excitement that, thoseconcepts, sparked in the broader
car community.
So it gives me a lot of hopethat if they're taking this
approach to the vehiclesthemselves, maybe they'll
actually start to think that wayfor the things inside the

(44:48):
vehicles, just exactly whatyou're saying, a more modular
approach to that user experiencelayer as well.
And this is something that Ithink Kieran had touched on as
well, because late last year,apple also announced CarPlay
two, or it might have beenmiddle of last year, where, not
only can CarPlay take over yourcenter screen, but also could

(45:10):
take over your speedometer, youknow, the,, the information
aspects of the car interface.
And to me that as a car maker,would've been a much clearer
line where I would've said, noway, you know,

Joachim (45:24):
Yeah.

Ernest (45:24):
for these elements that are central to your experience
of using this product, thisvehicle, I'm not going to give
those up to this other device,that I don't control.
Because, I think one of the goodarguments for not supporting
CarPlay that GM brought up wasthat it's one of the, if not the

(45:49):
most, common source ofcomplaints about their vehicles
is plan Android Auto.
And, even though the problem maybe in the phone, it's the car
maker that's always blamedbecause, oh, it's not working in
my car, so it's problem with thecar.
so giving up control ofsomething as central as the

(46:10):
speedometer, it just feels veryclearly to be a step too far

Joachim (46:15):
Yeah.

Ernest (46:16):
when you know you, you might not be at fault for it not
showing properly if you allowcontrol for that to be, you,
offloaded to this phone that'sdoing all these other things at
the same time.
so to me that's a clear one,that man, I would not give up
control of that interface to thephone.
Kan actually gave this exampleof the way that Mini is doing it

(46:37):
in their new interface.
So in their newest car that hasthis beautiful circular OLED
display and it supports CarPlayin what's very clearly a window
on that circular screen and thenthat window surrounded by these
other interface elements thatare controlled by mini.
So the climate control thingslike that, are still within the

(47:01):
context of the broader miniinterface.
and that feels like a prettyobvious middle ground where, for
the things like playing yourmusic or your maps, we'll offer
you the ability to plug in yourphone whether it's physically or
wirelessly.
but for the aspects that arecentral to.
The operation of the car, we'regonna maintain control over that

(47:24):
because that is a part of yourexperience of using the car.
Another example that I, cameacross just recently, I've
watched, MKB HD's, review of theKia EV nine, their three row EV,
SUV, and he noted that theysupport CarPlay and Android
Auto.
But if you use their built-innavigation system, then it does

(47:46):
do preconditioning of thebattery.
So if you navigate to, acharging station, it'll
precondition the battery soit'll charge more effectively
when you get there.
So, they're offering that.
As a competitive advantage, butthey're still giving you the
choice of, Hey, if you stillwant to use your built, you
know, your CarPlay maps or yourAndroid auto maps, you can do

(48:07):
that.
But we're gonna offer you someadded functionality and
hopefully, win on the merits, ofthe added conveniences that
we're gonna offer you.
And they also still control thespeedometer and other, vital car
control interfaces, with theirown UI versus letting that go to
car flight, Android Auto.
So I guess, if you were to justsay, what would I do?

(48:32):
Given the current state ofthings to me that would, that
feels like a reasonable middleground, to offer up those third
party interfaces as a, somethingthat you could do to control
things like music and maps ifyou want.
but for the things that arecentral to the operation of the
car, as an automaker, you shouldkeep control of those things.
and then maybe down the road,take this much more modular

(48:55):
approach where, yeah, if youwanna plug in aspects from your
phone, go ahead.
But there are gonna be thesethings that are central to the
operation of the car that we'realways going to make, maintain
control over.

Joachim (49:07):
That idea of actually generating more value with your
operating system and stillleaving it open to everyone,
that is really the approach thatyou'd want to take because it's
not a lock-in approach.
It's one that's saying, feelfree to do what you want.
There's a little bit of a, atyour own risk kind of thinking,

(49:29):
which says, well, you're notgonna have the benefit of the
battery being ready for thecharge.
But I appreciate that givingback the agency and winning on
merit, as you said as the pathforward.
Makes a lot of sense.
Then the other thing that youtouched on About right to repair
and the fact that Apple issomewhat being forced to take on
some of these things, givecredit where credit is due.

(49:52):
American farmers are really tothank for a lot of that work,
and they have been at theforefront of this for many years
now because they haveexperienced the total lockdown
of their agricultural equipmentby a few manufacturers, and it
has really, really affectedtheir ability to run their
businesses.
and so farmers, have been formany years unable to fix

(50:15):
tractors from John Deere inparticular, naming and shaming
right now, because they have,they've been the main focus
here, but they have beenresponsible.
John Deere has been responsiblefor locking down.
Their tractors, and these arehugely expensive pieces of
equipment.
They've put in all sorts ofbells and whistles to help

(50:35):
improve the product.
But all of that comes with aprice that if something fails on
that tractor, somethingmechanical fails and you can see
that part.
If you pull it out, that's it,game over.
You're not allowed to replace itwith anything else, and you lose
all of the support that thecompany provides you with.
I know you're in the middle ofnowhere, but you need to go, 200
miles that way to get to aservice center.

(50:56):
that's crazy, crazy power andcan really hit the bottom line
of these farmers over somethingso ridiculous as not being able
to fix that.
So farmers have been reallyworking hard on right to repair
and one of the things thatthey've done to be very
subversive is not to upgradetheir equipment.
A lot of them are running oldequipment that they can repair
themselves and they've createdthese communities where they

(51:18):
trade spare parts.
So a community driven solutionhas come about and.
They're saying, we're done,we're out of the market and
we've created our ownmarketplace here where we are
actually gonna trade oldmachines and old parts, and we
know how to fix them.
And we have a community ofpeople that know how to fix them
so they don't even upgrade andget locked in.
They stay out.

(51:38):
And that's a lot of lost revenuethere.
But because of their constantlegal battles, this notion of
right to repair has reallybecome part of our discussion
and and technology circles aswell, because John Deere has
been so awful at this.
and a side note about howpowerful this really is.
If you recall when the UkraineWar started, when Russia invaded

(51:59):
the Ukraine, John Deere was ableto remotely kill tractors and so
they had these bricks that werejust lying there now that were
completely useless because thesoftware had just shut them
down.
So.
Kind of cool in this moment ofan invasion where you can say,
okay, power move.
You've stopped them from beingable to use their tractors.

(52:20):
But, think about also the powerthat the company has over your
product then and on your foodsupply.
And not just that John Deere hasthat, but they've opened up a
vulnerability that anyone canexploit.
So again, if the car companiescontinue to push more into
software, which they've alreadybeen doing for the last decade.
They've been able to remotelykill your car for a while.
It gets pretty worrying.

(52:41):
Now we have very few centralnodes that are failure points
for the whole economy.
We've seen enough examples ofthe fragility of our modern
system.
The high efficiency that we'vedriven for has led to no
redundancy in the system andcentral points of failure.
I mean, we've had a couple ofoutages just on certain
locations because someone made abad software patch inside of

(53:04):
Amazon.
Some one junior engineer, canbring down huge things.
So I think it's a good time tojust broaden the discussion and
really get into how do we createmodular products, long lasting,
sustainable products.
Maybe this CarPlay discussion isthe way to start getting that
focus, talking about right torepair as we have done pulling

(53:26):
in all of these things to, takein a holistic perspective that
this is not just about a screenin your car this much, much
deeper problem and we'vealready.
it's a deep, deep problem thatis so interwoven with every
aspect of technology and, andproduct innovation right now.

Ernest (53:40):
I am so glad you highlighted that example of
farmers and John Deereequipment.
That's such a great example ofwhere this is headed.
If we just keep going on thispath that we're on, where, you
as a buyer really actually haveno ownership of these things
that you, bring into your life.
I think that's such a great,example to cite.

(54:01):
I think to your point too, thatthere, this is just one, kind of
tip of the iceberg of a muchbigger issue.
But if we were to take a stepback and think about this from
the perspective of people makingproducts, is there a way that
you can think of to abstractthis of, if you're faced with
this core question of should wetake on something ourselves or

(54:25):
should we offload it to a thirdparty, allow a third party
solution?
is there some heuristic orframework that you apply to help
answer that question?

Joachim (54:36):
Oh, okay.
Very practical question.
I would, yeah, I would approachit, touching on all the things
we've been saying.
resilience and fragility.
It really comes back to that andthe thing that has been winning
out in all of these discussionsis efficiency, and usually
efficiency defined in a prettysloppy way.

(54:57):
So don't worry about the longrun consequences.
So I think my simple heuristicwould be, does building it
in-house give you resilience toshocks?
And you have to be very.
Realistic about those drugs, andyou have to be, to some extent,
maybe mildly apocalyptic.
What if AWS goes down?

(55:20):
What if Google Cloud goes down?
What if we get hacked?
What if apple gets hacked?
What if a virus is inserted intoa device and it takes over the
cause?
You should be asking yourself,well, we've been giving away
this control so much tosoftware.
How do we get resilience backinto the system?
And is this a good idea?
So redundancy resilience andanti-fragile steal lops,

(55:44):
adjective, anti-fragile antifragility, maybe being the goal
there.
And that means you take a, younaturally take a long run
perspective.
You're naturally thinking aboutlong run revenue, naturally
thinking about the, long runlifespan of your customers and
of your business.
What about you, Ernest?
What's the rules of thumbs thatyou would draw onto to figure
that out?

Ernest (56:04):
Yeah, I guess my, I have a framework that's pretty
similar to yours.
Um,, there's three questionsthat I would ask, and the first
is actually rooted in somethingthat, Jeff Bezos has said about
innovation that, you know, Ithink there's a lot you can
criticize Bezos about, but Ithink on this point he.
Was very wise.
he noted that he frequently getsthe question, what's gonna

(56:26):
change in the next 10 years.
people when they talk aboutinnovation, always focus on
what's gonna change.
and he said I think that's avery interesting question.
The question I almost never getis what's not going to change in
the next 10 years?
And he says, I submit to youthat that second question is
actually the more important ofthe two, because you can build a
business strategy around thethings that are stable in time.

(56:47):
and he goes on to say that's,you can innovate against these
things that you know, won'tchange because you know that,
they'll continue to beimportant.
And he gives the example ofdelivery.
You know,, I know people aren'tgonna wake up one day and just
say, boy, I wish stuff tooklonger to get to me.
Uh,, he knows that gettingdelivery faster is always gonna
be a meaningful need.
So..

(57:07):
That's something he can feelconfident, investing against.
So, to me that would be thefirst question.
Is this a lasting need?
Is this thing that's going to,is something that's going to
continue to be important for thecustomer?
The second thing is just, arethere existing solutions that
can meet this need effectively?
To that point of efficiency.
If there's something out therethat I could tap to solve this,

(57:31):
that does the job really well,then that feels like um,,
something worth being aware of.
But then the third one is, wouldwe as a company gain a
significant advantage by doingthis ourselves or be at a
significant disadvantage by notdoing it ourselves?
And related to that point issomething very close to your

(57:51):
point about resilience.
Would this, would us not doingit, create a fundamental
dependency on a third party?
that would put our.
Existence at risk.
And, I think if you can answerthose three questions, it kind
of helps to get you to theultimate answer of should we do

(58:13):
this ourselves or should we relyon the third party?
Do the, to do this.
And so that's kind of what leadsme to my perspective on the
whole CarPlay thing today is, interms of just allowing, someone
to,, project their music and,maybe their existing maps into
the car.
Yes.
That feels like that's a goodexisting solution.

(58:34):
Is this gonna be a significantdisadvantage for us not to do
that?
I don't think so.
But if it gets to the, takingover your entire cars interface,
that is, I think, a verysignificant disadvantage that
um,, gets at your, yourcompany's ex reason for
existing, you know,, product's,the reason for existing.
So that is why I would say no,to that.

(58:56):
So I think if you can give, it'skind of a dumb, dumb checklist I
guess, but I've found thathelpful for me to kinda answer
these questions of whether it'sworth trying to roll your own,
in any given situation or, uh,,whether it's worth, um,,
adopting a third party solution.
But your point about this neverending quest for efficiency, I

(59:16):
think is a really good call out.
It's related to something wetalked about previously.
As well.
When you don't have anyonelooking at the whole picture,
it's very easy to fall intothese traps because these
individual decisions all makesense.
And you can say, yes, it makesus more efficient, but it can be

(59:37):
so easy to lose track of thatultimate and picture, like that
example I mentioned of that carmaker that will remain unnamed,
where they had this incentivestructure where, you know,
anyone who comes up with an ideato, reduce the cost of the
product, they'll get a bonus andthat solution will get worked
into the product.

(59:57):
One or two of those maybe makessense, but over the course of
several years of a product beingin development, you end up with
something at the end that's justcompletely unrecognizable,
because no one had that biggerpicture in mind.
So yeah, I think that's such agreat call out that, we can't
just, Give up our judgment.

(01:00:18):
We, you know, Obviously bigcorporations need systems and
processes, but you can't give upyour judgment, um, over the
course of the making a product.
Um, There just still needs to besome common sense applied.

Joachim (01:00:35):
I think it brings us back right to the beginning of
asking a dumb question.
And I think that's maybe thepurest heuristic that you could
do is just ask this sillyquestion.

Ernest (01:00:44):
Mm-Hmm.

Joachim (01:00:45):
does this mean everyone's gonna hack us now?
does this they can steal thecars?
And you kind of sound like adilletante, who doesn't
understand anything, but you areasking a fundamental question
where are we going with this?
You know, what's the plan here?

Ernest (01:01:02):
And to have some empathy for your customer, you know,,
put yourself in their seat.
And just imagine for a minute,how would you feel if you
couldn't repair your owntractor?
Right?
I mean, when your livelihooddepends on the tractor and you
can't repair it and like yousaid, you have to take some
service center 200 miles away.
Can you do that?

(01:01:23):
Yes, obviously you can, butshould you, I think that's where
you have to apply some judgmentand some empathy.
But, uh, now that you've heardour perspectives, we want to
hear from you, RGM Tesla andRivian justified in their
exclusion of Alpha CarPlay andAndroid Auto, or are they
swimming against this inexorablecurrent and burning precious

(01:01:44):
resources in the process.
uh, you know, Or these otherthings we talked about: the
importance of right to repairand modularity.
We want to hear what you thinkabout these, really big, meaty
topics.
So please let us know what youthink by emailing us at
LearnMakeLearn@gmail.com.
Now let's move on to ourrecommendations of the week.

(01:02:06):
Joachim, what has you excitedthis week?

Joachim (01:02:10):
So I'm keeping it in line with what our discussion
was about.
I'm submitting the Morgan MotorCompany from England.
A very, very oddball carmanufacturer that.
Operates in a way that no othercar manufacturer on earth
operates on.
They're efficient enough, butthey still do most things by

(01:02:30):
hand.
And in the late eighties, earlynineties, it was clear that they
were probably gonna go outtabusiness.
their products are opinionated.
On the outside it really lookslike an old car.
We'll, of course share a link.
It looks like something from the1930s, 1940s.
In the early two thousands, theyhad a little bit of budget and

(01:02:52):
they created a new car.
And this is how I was remindedof this company because, the
article that I was reading andthat we will share here, was
about a design intern who wasgiven the job of.
Creating this new car, that wasa closed top.
So they already had a design foran open top version, and so they
thought well give the intern thejob to put a closed top on this
thing for a very specificcustomer.

(01:03:13):
So the story is incredible.
Yeah, he had to keep it verysecret.
so he was on secondment there,but also still a student.
No one in their right mind wouldgive the intern something so
important, but it just remindedme of how wonderful this company
is in many ways, that they'resuch a strange, oddball outfit.
There was a very famous PPCdocumentary, by the former head

(01:03:36):
of ICI, which is a hugechemicals company in Britain.
He hosted a TV show calledTroubleshooters, and he would be
dropped into a company and likea management consultant had to
fix what was going on.
And he was dropped into theMorgan company in the nineties
and he said, you have to rethinka lot of the things that you're
doing.
I, I like that you are handmaking the car, that makes
sense, but something has tochange and you're just so slow

(01:03:57):
to change.
It doesn't make sense.
And he was really giving them ahard time.
And the father and son team justsaid, absolutely not.
We're doing this our way slowly.
People like the way we dothings.
and then 10 years later theyrevisited the factory.
and some things had changed.
They, they had taken someversion of the advice on, but
they were still managing tosurvive.

(01:04:18):
But ultimately the company stilloperates in a very similar way
that they used to reallyopinionated and they just do
what they want to do.
So, I wanted to share thecompany, these two documentary
pieces and the article about anintern that I thought was really
funny, that they would letsomeone like that design a car.

Ernest (01:04:36):
That's awesome.
I love that.
That's such a great example.
I was actually going to share anautomotive, recommendation as
well, but based on theconversation, I'm gonna actually
switch things up and insteadrecommend a film that I saw just
last night.
And I think this is gonna beright up your Alley Joachim as
well, in that it's, directed bya German director, but it's a

(01:05:00):
Japanese language film set inJapan, and it's called Perfect
Days.
and it's I think just aremarkable movie.
it's kind of cliche to say, butit's the kind of movie that just
isn't made anymore.
and.
I wanted to recommend it for afew reasons, but I think,,
fundamentally what's superinteresting is that the genesis

(01:05:23):
of this was that the, likeTokyo, Tokyo had this program
called the Tokyo Toilet, wherethey hired very, renowned
architects to design publictoilets across the city.
And so.
you may have seen a lot of, uh,,YouTubers made videos about the
toilet, where it's fully glassand uh,, you can see into it and

(01:05:47):
until you lock the door and thenthe glass becomes opaque.
So that's just one of several ofthese public toilets that were
designed by these, reallyrenowned architects across the
city.
But, they wanted someone tomake, they wanted vim vendors
with the director.
They engaged him about making adocumentary series about these

(01:06:07):
toilets.
You know, it would've been yourtraditional documentary where he
would've interviewed thearchitects and, blah, blah,
blah.
Talked about, um,, the impactthat these toilets have had.
But, vendors as an artist cameback and said, I'm not really
interested in that.
What if we made it a movie?
what if we made a narrativearound this?
I think for people makingproducts, I think it's such a

(01:06:29):
great call out that we've, Ithink, become so cookie cutter
in the way we story tell aroundproducts.
everyone does the same things.
And you had mentioned theimportance, in the previous
episode about artists like, um,Ursula Luin and thinking and
bigger realities.
And that's the great thing thatartists do.
And that's what vendors didhere.

(01:06:49):
And, saying, forget that.
Let's make this a story about aperson who cleans those toilets
and create this beautifulnarrative around that.
And so he worked with, a personnamed Takuma Takasaki to write
this story, uh,, about thisperson who, has this job of
cleaning these toilets.

(01:07:09):
And so you still see thesebeautiful toilets, but you.
Engage with them in such a, aricher way than you would've if
it were just this drydocumentary.
Right.
Also, why I wanna talk aboutthis is, you talked about the
wonders of physical media andthe main character, Hirayama, is

(01:07:31):
a huge fan of physical media.
He has this huge collection of,,audio tapes,, uh, as well as of
physical books.
And, music plays a huge part inhis life and in the story.
And it's not in a self-consciousway of, being a hipster.
It's just that these were thingsthat played an important part in

(01:07:52):
his life.
And so they continue to beimportant for him.
similarly, he's a photographerand, takes physical photographs,
not digital photographs, it'sjust such a beautiful story.
I think it's also, it's not foreveryone, it's a very
deliberately paced, butsomething I realized in watching

(01:08:13):
it, my wife and I, we saw itlast night was,, like big action
movies are often referred to asthrill rides.
and I think that's an aptdescription because you really
feel like you're on this rideand you get on at the beginning
and you can shut your brain off.
And I think that's great.
But movies like Perfect Days areactually so much more
interactive in their deliberatepace.

(01:08:35):
They force you to engage withthe themes of the film as you're
going through it.
And I found both, we weretalking about my wife and I
about the film afterwards, andwe talked about how we both were
thinking so much about how themovie, as we were watching it,
forced us to think about our ownlives in the context of the

(01:08:56):
central character's life.
And forcing us to reevaluate ourlives, as we were engaging with
the film.
And in that way it was sointeractive.
And, I, it did take me a littlebit to get into it because I'm
just so accustomed to muchfaster paced type of media.
But as I got into it, I just, Iwas so engrossing.

(01:09:17):
I don't know the name of themain actor, but it's an
incredible performance by themain actor.
but it also, the film introducedme to this concept that I hadn't
heard of before.
You may be aware of it.
It's called komorebi.
and apparently it, there's nodirect translation into English,
but it's a Japanese word thatdescribes sunlight shining

(01:09:40):
through the leaves of the kindof tree canopy, creating these
overlapping layers of light anddarkness.
And it's just, yeah, theappreciation of that moment,
that's never the same.
You know, You're never gonnaexperience that in the same way.
Twice and.
The central character has thisappreciation for that, and it

(01:10:03):
really is all about theappreciation of that.
and so it just felt like it wasreally fitting, given this
broader conversation we've had.
Yes, there's a place for theseawesome technologies as a,
lifelong tech geek, absolutely,I appreciate them, but there's
also a place for these otheraspects of life as well.
And, I hope that we can findmore of that balance.

(01:10:28):
The reason I love this film isthat it really reminded me of
the importance of that balance.
So it's called Perfect Days, andI would really encourage people
to see it in a theater if theycan, because of that pacing.
It's beautiful, but it'sactually shot in like a TV
aspect ratio, more like almost asquare aspect ratio.
So it's not like this, you know,oh, you need to see it on a big

(01:10:49):
screen.
But I think it's the focus thatyou get in a theater experience.
Um, it's the sort of film thatreally benefits from that focus,
and that transportive feelingyou can have in a theater that
you don't get when you watch amovie at home.
So, um, yeah, if you can, I'dsay watch it in a theater and

(01:11:10):
it's,, it's just a beautifulfilm.
Alright, well I think that doesit for us.
Thank you so much for joining ushere at Learn, make Learn, and
thank you as and for suggestingour topic today.
And as I mentioned earlier, wewanna hear from you, whether you
have questions, feedback, topicideas.
Please share them with us atLearnMakeLearn@gmail.com.

(01:11:31):
And tell your friends about us.
For our next episode, we'regonna build on today's
CAR-centric theme with a focuson something called restomods,
which strictly speaking, is atype of vehicle restoration that
combines a vintage cars classicdesign with modern technology
and components.

(01:11:51):
Restomods are becoming more andmore popular in the automotive
space, but is this somethingthat could apply beyond the
world of cars?
Could the restomod conceptapplied more broadly, offer a
path to more sustainable productcreation?
We'll share our own experiencesand perspectives on this topic
on the next Learn, Make, Learn.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}CarPlay or the Highway?

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

CarPlay or the Highway?

Stuff You Should Know