Enough *Is* Enough - Learn, Make, Learn

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 Groger.
Hey Joachim, how's it going?

Joachim (00:18):
I'm well, Ernest, thanks for asking, as you do at
the top of every episode.

Ernest (00:24):
My pleasure.

Joachim (00:25):
yeah, no, we're doing well.
We had some quality family time,family in town, which was really
nice.
And, just trying to get backinto a emptier house with fewer
participants taking part infamily stuff, which is, it's a
little sad when someone who'salways there, then, Goes back to
another country, start missingthem, but Yeah, we're gonna,

(00:47):
we're gonna get through it.
That's all I can say.
Uh, how about, yeah, how aboutyou, Ernest?

Ernest (00:52):
It's funny because we actually had family staying with
us as well.
and they also, left just acouple of days ago.
So, yeah, we're also kind of,uh, coming down from that.
So definitely, uh, Feel whereyou are.

Joachim (01:07):
yeah, exactly.

Ernest (01:09):
All right.
Well, this is episode 16.
And today we're going to discussthe idea that when it comes to
products and product innovation,in our new era of higher for
longer interest rates, enough isenough.
But let's start with some followups.
Joachim, do you have any followups to our previous episode on
Kahneman or to any episodesprior?

Joachim (01:31):
Um, yeah, I had a quick follow up that got triggered by
a meme that I saw, um, and wewill link to it.
I saw on Mastodon, and the memewas, it's just three panels, the
first figure is speaking andsays, Blow my mind.
And the second person says, Didyou know that if you touch the

(01:52):
spacebar on your touchscreen, itallows you to move the cursor
through the text.
And initially, I didn't thinkthat was that impressive.
It didn't blow my mind.
And then I thought about itmore.
And I realized, is that true?
This is it.
So I went to my phone, held downthe spacebar, and then it
became, I could control thecursor on the text that I typed
out.
And it did blow my mind.
And I was mind blown, but thenalso so disappointed in the

(02:18):
designers, because it, It is notobvious at all that that
function is hidden there.
So I'm sure people haveencountered this and I think it
does make the rounds where itpops up again and again.
That's a really bad thing thatit's not something that's so
obvious to us.
Uh, and it reminded me of ourdiscussion way back when we were
talking about vision pro anduser interaction design and

(02:41):
coming up with, a, a languagethat allows you to interact with
your devices that doesn'trequire extra instruction.
And here it's become a meme.
That's how ridiculous it is.
It's so hidden and concealedthat it's become a meme.
Um, and so it made me a littlebit sad that I, you know, I
don't know how long that's beenlurking in under my iOS

(03:02):
keyboard.
Um, I have had many frustratingmoments trying to move the
cursor.
Never occurred to me that theremight be another way to do it.
So, um, that's kind of areconnecting to all the
discussions that we've had andalmost, um, a kind of a
connection back to the Kahnemanthing, which is sometimes we are

(03:24):
really dumb and it's worthexplaining something or showing
an obvious way back to the user.
And, uh, this is one of thoseexamples where it's too deeply
concealed.
And I just.
have no way of interacting.
I mean, when would you ever holddown a spacebar?
It's meant to be a quick tap to,to move to the next word.
So there's nothing in it thatwould say you should, this would

(03:45):
happen naturally or whatever.
So, uh, little connection totwo, two topics that we talked
about.
Um, yeah.
What about you, Ernest?
What's, uh, what's on your mind?
Yeah.

Ernest (03:56):
couple of things to share.
One quick one though, there is avery similar thing in iOS where
if you have an iPhone that'sfull screen that does not have a
home button, you know, and atthe bottom of the screen you'll
see that horizontal bar that,um, allows you to go back to
home.
If you actually, um, pull thatbar sideways instead of up, it

(04:20):
is an application switcher.
So it'll just go directly to thenext app.
And that's a similar thing wheremany people aren't aware that
that feature exists.
Uh, and I agree that Apple usedto be so good at these
affordances that would help youto interpret the interface
without having to have,guidance, uh, direct guidance.

(04:46):
And, um, I think as they'vegotten into the touch interface
era and even more so in thevoice interface era.
They've seemed to have lostfocus on that as an important
aspect of their interfaces tojust provide you with some form
of hint or cue to let you knowthat these features exist.

(05:06):
So I'm glad you brought that oneup.
Um, okay.
So from my end, I have twothings.
First, following up on our Timeto Learn episode, where we kind
of geeked out on watches, Iwanted to highlight an event
that's taking place this week.
So, for context, we're recordingthis the week of April 28th, and

(05:26):
the event is the Wind Up WatchFair, hosted by Warn Wound.
which is a fantastic resourcefor information on watches.
And they now host watch fairsthree times a year, one in New
York, one in Chicago, and thenthis one in San Francisco.
It kicks off this Friday, May3rd, and runs through this
Sunday, May 5th.

(05:48):
And, uh, this is not sponsoredby Warner Welln, it's just
something I thought some of ourlisteners might be interested
in.
Um, I was lucky enough to beable to attend the first wind up
event in San Francisco a fewyears back.
And I'd say that even if youhave only a passing interest in
watches, it's worth a visit.
For one, it's entirely free.
But it's free.

(06:08):
I'd say more importantly, theWarner Whelan team does just a
great job of cultivating a warm,welcoming environment.
Um, there are going to be over60 brands on site for this
incarnation, including some bigones like Oris and G Shock and
Citizen.
For me, the real stars of theshow are the micro brands, like

(06:29):
for example, Anardane out ofScotland.
Fiers out of England, Orage outof Switzerland and Minase out of
Japan and many, many more.
So these are the sorts of brandsthat you're almost never going
to, you know, encounter in yourday to day.
So wind up is a greatopportunity to see their
products in real life in themetal.

(06:50):
Um, they're also expanding theirlineup of non watch exhibitors
this year.
So for example, Leica, thecamera company, will be at the
show, as will a number of brandsfrom the bag world, including
Bellroy and Topo Designs.
So the windup watch fair SanFrancisco is my first follow-up
it's free, like I mentioned.

(07:11):
Takes place this Friday, May 3rdto Sunday, May 5th, and we'll
provide a link to the Windupsite in our show notes.

Joachim (07:18):
I was just going to say, technically, Leica is a
watch exhibitor as well, if youthink about it.
You're right.
There's just, you know, justlittle watchmaking pedantry
happening right now, but theyhave a couple of pretty
interesting watches in the lastcouple of years.

Ernest (07:36):
That's a great point.
I wonder if they'll have any ofthose on hand.

Joachim (07:39):
It would be That would be so foolish if they didn't.
How sad would that be ifdecided, you know what, this is
a watch thing, but we reallyfocus on other stuff.

Ernest (07:50):
Yeah, so that's, um, I, I, I really couldn't encourage
you more if you're in the areato, to check it out.
Uh, my second follow up is amessage from a good friend and
listener, Jeff, who shared agreat note with, um, you.
connectivity into several of ourprevious episodes.
And I think it connects totoday's topic as well.
Now I've done some anonymizationto his message to protect the

(08:14):
innocent, but I think thesubstance gets through.
So he wrote quote, whilediscussing a product on a
previous episode, you mentionedthat half of the initial product
ended up in the recycle bin.
I know from firsthand experiencethat in reality, instead of the
recycle bin, all of thoseproducts ultimately ended up in
the garbage.

(08:35):
What companies don't want toacknowledge is that the product
is ultimately waste.
We spent all this time measuringthe percentage of waste compared
to the weight of a product.
So a product that weighed 500grams with 15 percent waste in
manufacturing was consideredmore sustainable than a product
weighing in at 250 grams with 50percent waste.

(08:56):
But when you consider thatultimately the product itself is
also waste.
The numbers are stark.
575 grams of total waste for thesupposedly more sustainable
product versus 375 grams oftotal waste for the supposedly
less sustainable product.
Anyway, just another example ofthe importance of ensuring that
you're measuring the rightthings, unquote.

(09:19):
So I want to send a huge thankyou to Jeff for sharing this
because it's such a vital point.
Now Joachim, you've citedStafford Beer's observation on a
couple of occasions that thepurpose of a system is what it
does.
I'd paraphrase this and suggestthat the output of a system is
predicated on what it measures.
In this case, if you genuinelycare about reducing the

(09:39):
environmental impact of yourproducts, you need to account
for the material volume of theproduct itself, which as Jeff
noted, ultimately ends up in thegarbage bin, in many cases.
You also need to measureabsolute values as in total
grams of waste versus relativevalues, which can lead to the
sort of gaming of percentagesthat Jeff highlighted.
It's a, just a super importantpoint.

(10:01):
And again, a big thank you toJeff for taking the time to
share this real world example.
And we love hearing from you.
So please keep the comments andquestions coming to
learnmakelearn@gmail.com.

Joachim (10:13):
I just want to add, sorry, I just realized that this
is sequence, but Jeff's point,and also your point as you're
pulling it together at the endof not trying to game it by
using percentages, that is sucha It's such an obvious point,
but we are so accustomed totalking about percentages and
not total volumes of things.

(10:34):
And it's really interesting tosee actually pretty renowned
popular science writers leaningon percentages to make their
point, but actually using that,that, that, uh, approach to
completely masks the, the deeperproblems.
And the only one I would justwant to highlight is Steven
Pinker, who is a very big namein neuroscience and popular

(10:55):
science writing.
He does this thing where hetalks about, uh, World War II
not being as bad as everyonesays.
And you just ask yourself, whatare you talking about?
This has been, this is thebloodiest war on records.
We have annihilated, you know,huge numbers of people.
It's insane.
And he says, well, don't worryabout the absolute numbers.
Think about the per capitamortality.

(11:16):
And you go, you've lost theplot, my friend, you've just
completely lost the plot.
That, that is not.
That doesn't make any sense.
So I just wanted to point outthat this idea of going to
percentages and fractions andnormalizing is a neat trick.
And it's really a greatrhetorical device.
If you know that you're going tolook good in a, in a fraction,

(11:37):
but as Jeff points out, man,it's those absolute numbers
matter, especially when it comesto environmental impact, I don't
think the environment caresthat, you know, Oh, well, per
person, it's only this one.
Like, no, no, it doesn't reallymatter.
It's the absolute amount ofstuff that is the problem.
So, uh, yeah, you so much, Jeff,for bringing that up.

(11:57):
It's such a great, such a greatpoint.

Ernest (11:59):
I'm really glad you emphasized that.
Well, all right.
moving on to our main topic fortoday enough is enough.
And to set us up, I'm going toquote an article by Rogé Karma
that was published in theAtlantic last December.
Quote, when inflation started tospike in 2022.
The federal reserve made theonly move it could raising

(12:20):
interest rates.
Over the course of 18 months,rates shot from near zero to
above 5% and have remained theresince.
Now inflation appears undercontrol, having fallen steadily
since July, 2022.
But while the fed may be doneraising rates, it's not cutting
them back to zero anytime soon.

(12:40):
As jarring as 5% interest mayseem.
By historical standards.
It is pretty modest.
And believe it or not.
Represents a healthy adjustment.
America since the greatrecession has been living
through an anomalous period ofsuper low rates that contributed
to widening inequality andspeculative asset bubbles.
Higher for longer, should Heralda fair more sustainable economy.

(13:03):
Americans just have to survivethe transition.
Because before we get to thegood place higher for longer is
going to feel bad.
Or at least very weird.
Rates haven't been this highsince George W.
Bush was president and TaylorSwift was an elementary school.
At this point, nearly everyfacet of the American economy
has reshaped itself around nearzero interest rates.

(13:26):
As with any dependency,withdrawal will be painful,
unquote.
as karma notes, we lived in aZIRP or zero interest rate
policy world for over a decade.
And that's influenced everyfacet of the American economy
and economies around the world,including consumer products.
So today we're going to dig intowhat the post ZIRP withdrawal

(13:47):
means for people in the businessof making products.
First any thoughts on thebroader economic dynamics
associated with zero interestrate policies and the return of
more typical rates of interest.

Joachim (14:00):
Yeah.
This was, um, anotherinteresting topic that, that you
threw into the mix, Ernest, andI'm happy that you did.
Um, It was a real challenge tothink through, to be honest, um,
but thankfully, some smartpeople have written some really
good books about this.
And the one that I leaned onquite heavily is a book by

(14:21):
Edward Chancellor called ThePrice of Time, The Real Story of
Interest.
And when interest rates arezero, or close to zero, tomorrow
and today in financial termsseem almost the same.
There's no reason to put moneyin the savings account and
expect it to get bigger.
So therefore money today, moneytomorrow, it's almost the same

(14:44):
thing.
Um, so this zero interest rateworld leads to a really weird
disconnection from how weexperience time and how
financial markets experiencetime.
What's interesting about EdwardChancellor's book is he does
this back and forth structure tohis chapters.
He basically shows you in ahistorical situation where, he
tracks some phenomenon relatedto interest rates.

(15:06):
And then he shows you how thatis informing something that's
happening today.
So the zero interest rate regimehas existed in the past and it
gave us the gilded age, and thatwas then swiftly followed by the
crash and.
lots of intervention system.
Japan's economy also had a verysimilar situation with zero
interest rates and that led toall kinds of craziness as well
and no discipline andflabbiness.

(15:27):
it's a really, it's a badoutcome and it's surprising that
we really hadn't quite contendedwith the fact that that is the
economy that we're building up.
And so go back away from thisecon perspective.
What does this mean about theworld and how we perceive
product innovation?
I think it's just that.
incumbents were able to sitthere, get really big, and they

(15:50):
didn't really need to innovatebecause they could just use debt
to pay their way out of thesituation.
In that situation, no one'sgoing to be able to actually
compete on quality.
It's not about quality.
It's just scale.
You have so much scale.
So even if someone comes up witha great product, they really
don't have a shot at competingon the dimensions that you as a
product creator would want tocompete on, which is I have a

(16:13):
better product than you.
I know that the quality ishigher.
I think that's probably what'sgoing to change is that we
actually have an opportunity nowto go back to a world where we
compete on quality and not justyour ability to financially
engineer.
a cool solution for yourself.
So that, that, that was kind ofthe quick, quick thing that came

(16:33):
to mind when I was thinkingabout all of those things.
As we move to higher interestrates, There are going to be
ripples through the system andit's going to cause an
adjustment.
This is why people make fun ofboomers, man.
They got to ride the bubble.
They got to ride the asset pricebubble.
They got to do cash out and nowthey get to chill and it's.
us now, everyone who's still inpart of the labor force, to

(16:55):
figure out which are the rightcompanies, who figured it out
right, who didn't take advantageof the financial engineering
apparatus that's out there, whois actually making real stuff.
Um, and so call back to one ofour earlier discussions around
values and ethics.
Those become anchors now, right?
So an employee perspective anddesigner perspective, I suggest

(17:20):
that it would be a moment toreally, focus back on the things
that you care about and be in aplace where you hope that you
can actually innovate so that's,that was getting a little bit
long winded and I had a coupleof other points, but I think
they'll come up as we discussmore.
Um, so I think the bigimplications are there's a big
adjustment.
That's been.
Total mismanagement ofeverything at multiple, and this

(17:41):
has been going on not just thelast, uh, five years, six years.
This is something that startedlike in the early 2000s, the
late 90s, you know, you cantrace it back to the late 90s to
Alan Greenspan's operation.
So this is not something thathas occurred out of nowhere.
People have been takingadvantage of it and we've been
along for the ride for some ofit.

(18:02):
again, if you're not in the Csuite, you're probably going to
pay the price in some way.
Sorry, that's a bit sad way toput it, but I hope we'll get
back into the, like, this is achance for quality and true
efficiency to shine, right?
We want to find that silverlining and, and focus our minds
on that.
But anyway, um, yeah.
Let's, let's, let's, uh, let's,uh, let Ernest get in on this.

(18:25):
What are you about this?
Again, this was a topic that youproposed.
I'm really happy that you did.
yeah, let's talk about thedirection you wanted to pop into
this.

Ernest (18:34):
Well, as you kind of started to go in this direction,
I was curious to hear if thereare any companies that stand out
to you as examples of, whetherfor good or for ill, we might be
able to point to, to say, okay,here's an example of what you
can do in this environment orwhat you shouldn't be doing in

(18:54):
this environment.

Joachim (18:56):
I think in this environment, people have gotten
incredibly undisciplined becausethey know they can use, They, in
the past, were able to justspend money like mad to get
themselves out of a hole, eventhough they shouldn't even have
started digging a hole.
And so, um, and I think a reallyrecently interesting, uh,

(19:16):
situation that involves productinnovation is, um, actually the
review of the humane AI pin byMarques Brownlee, uh, He, you
know, he's a, he has anincredibly successful YouTube
channel, millions ofsubscribers, has a whole
business built around reviewingtech products.
He's generally a booster fortechnology.

(19:38):
So people really, they'd like togo to him because he's always so
enthusiastic and so optimisticabout the future, and it always
has been.
And humane AI did exactly that.
They approached him.
His audience is what they wantedthe millions of viewers that he
has.
And, He was not impressed bythis product.
I mean, it, it was a disaster.

(19:59):
In fact, the title is the worstproduct I've ever reviewed dot,
dot, dot for now.
Um, so he's very clearly statingthis is half baked.
This is nowhere near ready.
And, it kicked off a whole stormof discussion.
And there's a really strangeinteraction that, uh, popped up
online.

(20:20):
Someone called Daniel Vasallo,who is allegedly an AWS or
former AWS engineer.
He tweeted, I find itdistasteful, almost unethical to
say this when you have 18million subscribers, i.
e.
the title of the YouTube videobeing this is the worst product
I've ever reviewed.
Hard to explain why, but withgreat reach comes great
responsibility.
Potentially killing someoneelse's nascent project wreaks of

(20:41):
carelessness.
First, do no harm.
Really, I just found that suchan interesting take because his
perspective is that the powershould lie with the company,
because it traditionally has,because they've been able to
spend people out of existenceand not with the customer.
The customer is essentiallyirrelevant in this whole thing.

(21:02):
And that's the sloppy thinking Ithink that has been able to
permeate, people who have beenworking in these huge
corporations, essentially justdo what the hell they want to
do.
You look at the Google productgraveyard, it's absolutely epic.
It's insane.
The list is We'll link to it.
It's embarrassingly long, thefailed things.
And the only reason why they'reable to keep doing is not

(21:23):
because they're innovating,because they have access to the
capital markets and they canplay these games.
And so of course yourperspective on your product
becomes I showed up, that's it.
Now shut up and sit down and buythe damn thing.
And I think, subliminally, Idon't think Marques Brownlee
came into this wanting to benegative.
I think he wanted to be anoptimist, but the environment is

(21:45):
such that he found it hard.
He said to talk about a 700product.
In a positive light, when it wasfailing so badly, you know, 700.
I think in the past phones havebeen getting progressively more
expensive.
People didn't really care thatmuch.
We were okay with it.
We could get easy zero interestfinance on it.
It's fine.
So I found this inversion reallybizarre that he was saying that.

(22:07):
Marques was being unethicalbecause he was telling his
viewers exactly what he thoughtof an expensive product.
And his viewers are there to seereviews of a product in order to
make an informed decision.
So the ethics of the situationare pretty clear cut.
And I think just, a little bitof a piece in the customer
feedback loop that's comingthrough is, I can't afford all

(22:28):
this crap anymore and I'm notgoing to want to compromise on
things if it costs so muchmoney.
And that's feeding all the wayback.
Marcus Brownlee was also had ascathing review recently of the
rabbit, the R1, uh, the largeaction model and all of those
things.
And he was again, giving it arough ride and saying it's
pretty slow, pretty bad and soon.

(22:50):
Um, But he said the one, thesilver lining is it's 200, only
200.
So if it is an iterativeproduct.
There's a way to deal with it.
200, you're going to getsoftware updates.
Maybe you're willing to go downthat path and be an alpha or
beta test in that environment.
I think the customer largecorporation relationship is

(23:11):
undergoing a change.
And I really don't think peopleare in this.
Game anymore to just let pricesgo up in exchange for nothing
being improved.
I mean, let's think about thisvery briefly.
I feel like we're picking onNetflix all the time.
I think last time we talkedabout Netflix, but if you think
about it, usually when prices goup, something has changed in the
product, right?

(23:32):
It's something has gotten betteror something that goes into the
product has become moreexpensive.
Netflix subscription chargeshave just been going up over and
over again.
And we haven't really gottenmuch more, we're in fact getting
less, oh you can't passwordshare, oh you can't have more
than five screens, oh now youget ads, you know.
So all these things that used tobe value adds for the Netflix

(23:54):
service are now being removedand now being put through
higher, higher prices, and inexchange for no extra quality.
And I don't think people aregoing to want to play that game
much longer, hence you alludedto the fact that subscriber
numbers don't be reportedanymore, I think they know
something is up if they keepdoing this.
Yeah, what's your take on that?
Did you catch that wholecontroversy?

(24:15):
And have you seen any otherdiscourse on humane AI?

Ernest (24:20):
I did.
I was just flabbergasted by thatwhole conversation that you
highlighted, just the idea thatthe role of the reviewer should
be to protect the company and,you know, rather than sharing an
honest perspective on theproduct.
I think it speaks to that.
The sort of perversions thathave happened.
Come up, um, over this, youknow, decade plus where we've

(24:42):
had this very artificialbusiness environment of a near
or zero interest rates, um, thathave led to these very backwards
sort of perspectives on, uh, howthis is all supposed to work.
Um, you know, another examplethat comes to mind for me is,
Kind of a product of this sortof Zerp, as people call it,

(25:04):
phenomenon is certainly crypto.
I think that's a kind of classicexample of something that
wouldn't happen in a sceneenvironment.
But, um, I'd say that kind of abuild on that is actually this,
uh, Large language model basedapproach to AI.
This is something you've talkedabout in a previous episode as
well, but, um, I just wanted toquote this article from Reuters

(25:28):
from last year.
They noted that, uh, somequoting here, Morgan Stanley
estimated that Google's 3.
3 trillion search queries lastyear cost roughly a year.
fifth of a cent each, a numberthat would increase depending on
how much text AI must generate.
Google, for instance, could facea 6 billion hike in expenses by
2024 if chat GPT like AI were tohandle half the queries it

(25:51):
receives, analysts projected.
What makes this form of AIpricier than conventional search
is the computing power involved.
Such AI depends on billions ofdollars of chips, a cost that
has to be spread out over theuseful life of several years.
Analysts said electricitylikewise adds costs and pressure
to companies with carbonfootprint goals.
So, um, I can't remember whichepisode it was, but you had,

(26:14):
raised this and how ridiculousthese approaches are.
You know, it's kind of like thatexpression of hiring Arnold
Schwarzenegger to take out yourtrash.
But, uh, Yeah, it's almost likeyou couldn't come up with a more
expensive way to deliver onsearch than using an LLM based
AI to do it, you know,, in termsof as this article notes to, um,

(26:36):
the chips, the processing power,but also the actual just
electricity.
Um, it just is incrediblypowerful.
Yeah.
Wasteful.
and it just every day feels moreand more like this current AI,
uh, craze is just another grift,that is predicated on cheap
money, but you know, now thatmoney isn't as cheap as it was.

(26:58):
Um, it's, I think you'restarting to see that, the
promise isn't quite what wewere, uh, told it was going to
be.
Uh, I don't know if you had aperspective on that.

Joachim (27:07):
It is really just overkill, right?
You're able to grab all thiscompute.
And that was in the content.
I remember, I think we weretalking about alternative ways
of achieving very similarperformance, uh, but using
techniques that are incrediblylow cost and can run on local
laptops and can handle a lot ofcapacity.
So, I think we've become veryUndisciplined.

(27:30):
And I remember this as well.
Um, when I was working for atech platform, I basically had
an interface where I couldinteract with the data and I had
no sense of how much extramachinery was being spun up.
in order for me to complete mytask.
We had essentially auto scaling,meaning that if a task was

(27:53):
bigger, it would just grab moreservers and, grab more compute
as much as it needed.
And it would just serve the, um,give me my results as quickly as
possible.
I never saw a bill.
I never saw how many credits Iwas spending.
It was just part of doingbusiness day to day.
So again, it's this,undisciplined and, and
unconstrained approach to theseproblems and total overkill.

(28:15):
Um, so there was somethingabout, like you said, Arnold
Schwarzenegger taking out thegarbage for you.
Although, you know, to behonest, I would pay for that
service because.
I have a problem with likingArnold Schwarzenegger.
But anyway, aside, aside, aside,I agree with you there.
But I feel like there's Theremust be so many more examples

(28:36):
like surely also the tech onesare so easy, but physical stuff
I had the humane.
Is there other physical stuffthat comes to your mind when
you're thinking about this thisworld?

Ernest (28:46):
Oh yeah, definitely, um, you know,, one that comes to
mind, I think just based on myinterest in cars is, uh, to me,
kind of the error example of azero interest rate policy
product is that Tesla cybertruck, which, you introduced,
uh, as they would have said,introduced a host of quote
unquote innovations, which addedsignificantly to its cost with

(29:07):
little to no added benefit forthe customer.
And I'd say exhibit a in thiscontext is their use of
stainless steel for the truck'sbody.
And, um, you know, for sake oftime, I won't talk through it,
but I'll include a link to aWired article that kind of talks
to the many reasons whystainless steel is a really poor
choice for body panels.
One big one being that they're.

(29:29):
Quite heavy, which when you'retalking about efficiency is the
exact opposite of what you'd,you'd want.
Um, but then to me, the, thereis a counter example here too.
So, you know, that would be whatnot to do the sort of thing to
not do anymore.
We should have never done it,but certainly not now, um, in
this new environment.
So on the flip side is the VolvoEX30, which is a new compact,

(29:53):
uh, electric SUV from Volvo.
That's going to go on sale inthe U S this summer.
It's targeted, targeted at themost popular automotive segment
in the U S and possibly in theworld, which is the compact
crossover segment.
It delivers fantastic real worldperformance against the
attributes that people actuallycare about, uh, such as range,

(30:13):
but also safety.
And it was engineered from theoutset to be perfect.
profitable, even at a veryaggressive price point.
And, um, I was really interestedto see that the Detroit free
press, which is a publicationthat really isn't known to be in
the bag of the EV industry.
They, uh, did a review of the X30 and they were so impressed

(30:34):
after their test drive that theywrote.
I'm quoting them here.
The Volvo X 30 is.
Prime to change how manyAmericans think about EVs and
put the exciting new technologywithin the reach of a vast new
group of buyers unquote.
Now if you compare theirreaction to the conclusion of
the editors at the drive whoended their review of the Tesla

(30:56):
Cybertruck with the followingquote, the constraints of the
Cybertruck's construction andits current pricing scheme have
doomed it to be a play thingrather than a useful tool like
its competitors unquote.
And I think this.
These two, you know, contrastingquotes, they highlighted an
important point when we talkabout enough being enough.

(31:17):
We're not talking about a lackof innovation.
Instead, it's about innovating,um, against the things that
matter for your customers ratherthan your CEO's ego.
The Volvo EX30 is full of thissort of focused innovation, um,
and it's going to be offered ata starting price of just under
35, 000 in the U.
S.

(31:38):
While still delivering a healthyprofit margin for Volvo,
something that the company hasbeen really open about.
Um, you know, so those are acouple of examples kind of, uh,
what not to do and maybe whatyou could do.
What you look to as an example,uh, looking at another industry,
we talked about this in aprevious episode and kind of
touched on it, uh, earlier aswell, that Apple vision pros and

(31:59):
cons episode.
We talked about the Apple visionpro and to me, that is.
I think will be seen as verymuch a zero interest rate policy
era product in that it wasdesigned really more as a tech
showcase, kind of a play thingin the parlance of that drive
quote, then a product thatenables its users to actually do

(32:21):
any job in particular, perhapsoutside of watching movies in
isolation.
Now, you know, you can contrastthat to the momentum that
continues to build.
Behind Meta's latest generationof smart glasses, they're Ray
Ban Meta smart glasses, uh, withmany real world users really
praising the fact that theproduct obviates several other
products and actually adds valueto their lives.

(32:44):
Um, so that, you know, thatwould be another kind of, uh,
what not to do, what, and whatto do in this new sort of
environment.
Um, but, uh, that's just onmine.
I was curious if you had any,any other things that came to
mind, or if you had any thoughtsabout those products.

Joachim (32:59):
Yeah, I think they're really good examples of Just the
excess the excesses of what wewe have right now I remember the
Cybertruck when it was launchedpeople could take delivery of
Oh, it was a launch event, Ican't remember now, but they had
the Cybertruck pulling a 911Porsche on a trailer, and they
drag raced it against the same911, and they showed that the

(33:20):
Cybertruck won, and there's somecontroversy around whether it
actually won and blah blah blah.
That's such a, it's soridiculous.
It's just ridiculous thing.
Electric cars were meant to be,uh, actually there to help the
environment, and they're notthere as, like tractors to pull

(33:41):
stuff.
meant to be efficient ways ofgetting us to a cleaner future.
Well, so I think back to thepoint that you are making, that
is the slight paradox of wherewe are.
And I found this reallyparadoxical and hard to wrap my
head around, which is ifinterest rates are zero, then
tomorrow is like today, whichmeans you're able to think about

(34:03):
something that goes long run.
So you want to innovate andinnovation takes time.
So you'd think in thisenvironment, innovation would
just be everywhere.
But the problem is, everythinglooks flat.
So essentially, you can now windthe time horizon further out,

(34:25):
and you can then start promisingever more extravagant things.
And that's where the insanitycomes in.
And that's the slight thingthat's a subtle piece about
innovation in this environment,because you would really think
all innovation would thrive inthis environment.
But that's not true.
Because if my innovation issomething that will
incrementally improveEfficiency, um, costs, whatever,

(34:50):
by a few dollars, a few cents onthe dollar or whatever.
So kind of a tangent on thiswhole, efficiency and small
incremental benefits don'tgenerate any value for the
company in this environment.
Um, here's, here's a quickexample that.
should illustrate how crazythings were at one point.

(35:11):
The chief marketing officer ofUber appeared on a podcast.
We'll link to that in the shownotes if I can find it.
And he's the former CMO of Uber.
And they paid for a highlyfocused advertising product.
Basically, they would only payfor an ad if a user saw the ad,

(35:32):
clicked on the ad, installed theapp, and Paid for a first ride,
so an incredibly high bar ofquality that they wanted to hit.
And they were spending hundredsof millions of dollars, I
believe is the number on this,performance advertising product.
And you would think in the worldof efficiency, this is a great
idea.
They're totally focused on justthe thing that matters, which is

(35:53):
generating revenue.
Forget brand awareness and allof that.
They want to make sure peopleare using the service straight
away.
After a while, it's chiefmarketing officers asking
questions around how is thisbudget being used and should we
really be refining what we'redoing here.
So they started switching offsome of that performance
advertising budget.
And for some reason, the inflowof installations So they

(36:20):
switched off this advertisingproduct that only paid out when
there are ads that led toconversions and then bookings,
and they switched it off andnothing changed.
So everyone's celebrating, theyare very happy, they can switch
off this ad, they can save moneyand redeploy it somewhere else.
Now the chief marketing officercould not let go of this.

(36:41):
Paradox, which is, if I'm payingfor something, it surely must be
doing something.
It cannot be that when I stopspending money on something, it
stops absolutely nothing fromchanging, nothing changes, So,
he started digging around, andeventually, he figured out that,
they don't directly pay for it.
buy these ads.

(37:02):
They're going through variousagencies who go out and then
they look for third parties andso on.
But essentially what he figuredout is these companies were
using vulnerabilities in otherapps.
that granted them access, rootaccess, to the phone.
Meaning they could use, if youinstalled a crappy Torch app on

(37:22):
your phone, um, that app youprobably could have granted root
access, and whoever's used,built that app can start seeing
what you're doing with yourphone.
And what they were doing wastrying to figure out when
someone installed Uber andbooked a ride.
They would see all of thatinformation.
So then, when they saw thatevent take place, they would
grab the IDs, pass those backto, uh, the agencies and say,

(37:42):
Hey, see, we, um That's theperson that we served an ad to,
and lo and behold, they, um,they, they, uh, installed and
bought a ride.
So, of course, these were Theywere taking credit for things
that are going to happen anyway.
So no wonder when you switch itoff, nothing changes.
So, that's not the story.
The story is that the ChiefMarketing Officer realized they
could switch off all of thebudget because there was no way

(38:04):
to guarantee not all of theirimpressions were these type of
fraudulent, quote unquote,fraudulent impressions.
And so, he just shut down thewhole budget, saving the company
hundreds of millions of dollars.
In this interview, if I recallcorrectly, he points out that he
had no way of celebrating thator receiving kudos from
leadership.
He was living in a world wherehundreds of millions of dollars

(38:24):
saved meant nothing because onthe other side, on the value
generation side, as opposed tothe cost saving side, the
business was promisingdriverless cars, which was going
to, you know, monopolize allurban transit in perpetuity for
the rest of human history.
And so again, It's aquadrillion, drillion, billions
of dollars will be coming yourway.
And you don't have to discountit because interest rates are

(38:47):
zero.
And even if there's only a 1percent chance of it happening,
you'll still be a billionaire inexpectation, right?
On average, you might be abillionaire because of that.
So, how can you compete againstthat number?
However, in this environmentright now, there's a lot that
can be done and people will belistening and looking out for
that.
lazy thing to do is to lay offyour workforce.

(39:09):
That's not a cost center, theygenerate value for you.
I think, hopefully, We will makeit through this period where
companies make terrible choicesand get rid of people that might
be valuable, and we willactually start seeing an
opportunity for just groundedprincipled thinking to, to come
back.
And yeah, as you were pointingout, the NFTs and all of those

(39:30):
things were just totally out ofcontrol.
there was no way to really, evenprocess that type of insanity.
And again, only possible in azero interest rate environment
because you're saying this thingis going to be worth trillions
and trillions of dollars.
And there's, you know, even ifthere's only a 1 percent chance
of that being true.
So, um, yeah, just a quickexcursion on that.

Ernest (39:50):
Hmm.
Was curious, um, do you see it,if we kind of bring it back to
folks who are making products ona day to day basis, are there
given These things we've talkedabout, are there certain
frameworks or approaches thatyou would suggest as guidelines,
if you're kind of, you know,just trying to figure out what

(40:13):
you can do in this environment?

Joachim (40:15):
Oh, yeah, this is kind of maybe just really, really
obvious, and it's somethingwe've talked about in so many
different contexts, butultimately, you have to be
really focused on this simpletruth that is, are you serving a
customer's need?
And I think that's really theonly thing that should guide you
through this time.

(40:36):
Um, yeah.
I think you could take that astep further, which is in this
environment of crazy lowinterest rates and, you know,
total promise the heavens toyour customers and your
investors.
or rather in this completelycrazy hyped up environment where

(40:57):
any fairy tale about what'spossible decades from now will
get you investors focus on thethings that are actually real
incremental contributions to acustomer's well being.
And so I would go so far as tosuggest that in this environment
and business models and businessmodes that were based on quote

(41:23):
unquote parasitic interactionswith larger firms are not going
to be sustainable in thisenvironment.
And what I mean by that is ifyou're going to build Some sort
of supporting product around agenerative AI thing like I'm
gonna build the generative AIbridge that connects You know
insurance salespeople with chatGPT.

(41:45):
Well, you're not really buildinga generative AI product You're
just the tunnel that feedsinformation to that chat GPT
bot.
So you're not actually doingsomething.
You're just sitting there as amiddle person consuming the
value that ChatGPT is gettingand kind of skimming off some of
that for yourself.
And because, uh, OpenAI andMicrosoft's margins are so fat

(42:09):
right now because they can doall this crazy, leveraging, you
will get some benefit from that.
And people will buy into yourproduct because they say, of
course, ChatGPT is going to bethis, you know, quadrillion
dollar, uh, company.
So, a quadrillion per dollar.
product.
So anything that gets, 1 percentfrom a quadrillion is still a
huge amount of money.

(42:29):
And so any parasitic thing thatemerges from that will be very
valuable.
And I think that type ofcalculus is going to fall away
now because you can't make thosecrazy promises anymore.
I think if you stop trying tofind the thing that feeds off
another business and is alsothen trying to live off of
another platform, um, you'regoing to be in a better state of

(42:49):
affairs.
So actually try and buildsomething that stands by itself
and addresses a customer need.
Maybe that is the more focusedway to think about what I, um,
how I would direct my effortsnow.
Um, yeah.
It shouldn't be that you do thething that sits in the middle
between a customer and a biggerproduct and a platform.
And also there are risks, ofcourse, by building on other

(43:11):
platforms.
I think YouTube creators are theperfect example of individuals
who are building on a specificplatform targeting a specific
algorithm, and they areconstantly trying to figure out
how to get traction on thatplatform.
And they are playing a losingbattle against an algorithm that
changes, every day, every month,every quarter, and different

(43:31):
things become important.
And, their businesses areincredibly fragile.
So I would focus on just havingyour core value added, uh,
approach to things and yeah,focus on the customer right at
the end of all of this.
So again, prettystraightforward, but I would add
that little extra bit of Don'tbuild something that is feeding

(43:53):
off of another product, tryingto skim some of that goodness
that another company has somehowgenerated, because some of that
goodness is being generated byzero interest rate plus hype.
And you don't want to be part ofthat, because when it comes
crashing down, guess what?
You're going to be the firstperson to feel the pinch.
So, yeah.

Ernest (44:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I think your point that it,,it's pretty, it's actually
pretty straightforward as I, youknow, feel the same.
I think there were some thingsmaybe you could look to as, uh,
guiding lights, to give you asense for where things might be
headed as well.
You know, you had mentionedJapan earlier and, there were

(44:33):
some very specific dynamics atplay in that market, but I do
think that they can be a reallygood example to look at for
where things might be headed nowthat we're in this new, more
reasonable interest rateenvironment.
And I say that because, Japan'sbeen through this extended
period of very slow or negativegrowth.

(44:57):
Uh, coming out of the, what theycall the lost decade, but that's
continued, you know, to today.
And, you know, it's a similarsort of dynamic that we're now
starting to see in the West aswell, where this kind of hyper
growth is slowing down.
And when I did some digging intoconsumer behaviors there, uh, I

(45:17):
forget who published thisreport.
It was one of the consultingagencies, but they noted that.
The two areas of opportunity inJapan today are, and when it
comes to consumer goods are atthe value end, there is an
opportunity for things like theDon Quixote, the kind of dollar
stores, or at the quality end,not ultra luxury, but your

(45:40):
everyday staples, with an addedelement of quality to them.
So, what we're seeing there isproducts in the middle.
Are getting crunched.
but if you're at either end,there's a lot of opportunity
either at that kind of value endor at the higher quality end.
and I think if you say, wantedto focus more on that higher

(46:02):
quality end of that, opportunityspectrum.
There's a few things I would saycould be helpful, you know, in
terms of how you can increaseyour chances of success.
And one thing is somethingyou've, you touched on earlier,
which is just being reallyruthless in your focus on the
real problems to solve the realjobs to be done by your

(46:25):
consumer.
not just what your CEO wants, orjust what is the trend of the
day, but really getting,absolutely.
Sharp on the need of yourcustomer and then this might
sound obvious, but then justbeing really ruthless and
executing against that.

(46:45):
And I could share one examplethat speaks to this.
I was involved in creating aproduct and the team was very
excited about the idea ofcreating some unique packaging
for this product.
it was kind of meant to launchat this event and it just felt

(47:05):
like there'd be a greatopportunity to create this
special, touch point.
And this was at a time whenpeople were really into Apple's
packaging.
This was kind of at the, at thestart of the, you know, Apple's
very cool packaging.
And my boss at the time hadreally great advice.
He said, If you were thecustomer and, you knew that we

(47:26):
had X dollars to spend againsteverything to do with this
product, would you want us tospend that on the product or on
the box, And, you know, when Ithought about it, I had to be
honest and say, you know, Iwould want it to be in the
product.
The box would be nice, but it'ssomething you're probably going

(47:48):
to toss, right?
So, you know, that's what I meanwhen I talk about really being
ruthless about executing againstThat job to be done.
There's so many ways you can getdistracted, but, the reality is
you have a very fixed amount ofFOB dollars to spend on that
product, so be ruthless aboutusing that to execute against

(48:09):
that job to be done.
And then the last one might be alittle bit controversial because
it might seem counterintuitive,uh, but it's in terms of your
messaging and your engagementwith your customer.
I think it's been very popular.
In the past few years to takethis highly segmented approach

(48:31):
to engaging your customers, youknow, identify each of your
segments and, um, make surethey're, you know, MECE,
mutually exclusive, collectivelyexhaustive so that you could be
as efficient as possible inreaching each of those
individual segments.
But I think the problem withthat is, you know, when you get
into the super hyper targetedsort of messaging, you end up

(48:52):
with stuff that has noresonance.
So instead I'd say, think moreabout benefits and messaging
that are going to resonateuniversally as much as possible.
think about messages that are socompelling that your customer
will be able to relay itthemselves, and focus on

(49:16):
building your story and yourproduct around that versus
trying to get, too clever byhalf in getting super segmented
and super targeted.
Uh, so I guess those would bethe three things I would focus
on just that kind of reallyruthless focus on job to be
done.
Ruthless focus on executing onthat job and then getting to a

(49:36):
message that resonates broadlyversus being super targeted.
But I don't know if you have anyreactions to any of that.

Joachim (49:44):
Yeah, I have to say that this ruthless focus on
executing on the job and gettingthings done in a focused way,
got me thinking a little bitmore, about, what are the levers
that have been ignored duringthis whole period of zero
interest rates?
So, Another way of thinkingabout the zero interest rate
thing is you don't have toactually run a business that's

(50:05):
profitable because you can justkeep taking out debt.
And if interest rates keep goingdown, that debt becomes, you can
refinance the debt at everdecreasing interest rates and
just accumulate corporate debtover and over again.
In fact, if you actually look ata chart, You can see when
interest rates start going down,uh, like say Apple, a company
that's notoriously cash hoarder,their corporate debt just starts

(50:26):
skyrocketing as they take outdebt to do all kinds of
financial engineering at the endof the day.
So, debt allows you to rununprofitable businesses and
therefore crappy businesses cansurvive.
Now, what's interesting in thatenvironment is then we've all
become, we've lost the simple,um, muscle.
We've not trained the simplemuscle, which is set.

(50:49):
Meaningful prices.
I think prices are such apowerful disciplining device in
this environment now.
Now people are actually going tobe asking.
how much should we charge forthis, this product.
In the past, we might have beenable to charge below cost.
So Uber's initial strategy ofjust undercutting everyone and
using debt to finance andsubsidize those rides.
Yes, we all took advantage ofthose rides and we got the

(51:11):
benefit of that.
But, look at the, um, theconsequences now it's not great.
Um, so we were enjoying lowerprices, but also.
If a product was, I'll call itpremium mediocre, to steal a
phrase from Venkatesh Rao, um,it's, there are a lot of
products that sit in the middle.

(51:34):
These products are neither badnor great.
They're okay.
And they have been priced at aslightly more premium point than
a basic good.
and their quality is maybe onlymarginally better or it's just a
very popular brand and they canride on brand recognition to

(51:54):
enable that type of purchase.
So the price there is, yes,containing something on the
brand, but you are getting awaywith that because people were
able to take out debt and creditcards and interest free payment
plans and all of those thingsthat enable the flow of money
from consumers to, to sellers.
And so, prices have notreflected the true cost, uh, and

(52:17):
value of products.
And I think there's a lot ofthat premium mediocre stuff that
is going to have to fall by thewayside, unfortunately, and
people will be looking at focus.
Uh, people will be looking atquality again.
And that I think is again, the,the product creators golden
moment, which is, Hey, you'veall been ignoring this very
basic advice of, trust thecustomer, follow the customer's

(52:38):
needs, meet them where they are,think holistically and broadly
about the implications of whatyou're doing.
Yeah.
All the things we've beentalking about in previous
episodes comes together in thesemoments because now it's really
critical to get it right becausenow there are real consequences.
We can't just take out a loanand, uh, whitewash and wash over
the problems.
So that's Interesting, I think.

(52:58):
And again, right back to thething I wanted to talk about,
which is about pricing.
Um, if you compare mediacompanies, two media companies
come to mind.
One is Vice Media, that is asuper debt loaded, crazy, over
the top hype machine that hascompletely collapsed overnight.
And an offshoot, From Vice, uh,from Motherboard's, from, uh,

(53:19):
from Vice's sub brand,Motherboard 404 Media.
So, Vice was a thing that Icould consume, there were ads,
it was totally free, no price.
And there was some qualityjournalism there as well.
Uh, like I mentioned,Motherboard was great, but then
they also had a news channel,they had HBO shows.
all of this fueled by debt.
Um, at one point, I think theywere valued over four billion

(53:41):
dollars, which is completelyinsane because there was no
money coming in.
It was all being spent and theywere taking out loans to just
consume.
All doable in a decreasinginterest rate environment where
you can just refinance over andover again.
So, yeah.
That company just collapsed andthey were just making totally
stupid bets with no disciplineat all.
And they forgot the coremission.

(54:02):
If you really wanted to be anews organization, you have to
find news and get reporters andpay them.
And it turns out they weren'tpaying them, they weren't paying
the reporters, they weretreating them pretty badly, and
they were using the money forcompletely ridiculous vanity
projects.
Contrast that with 404 Media.
I think it's about four or fivepeople who left Motherboard.
I mean, rather, Motherboard shutdown and they didn't have jobs

(54:23):
anymore and they set up thistech journalism platform.
That's super critical to usunderstanding what is actually
going on outside of the hypemachine.
They don't write press releasesfor tech companies.
They actually try and assesswhat's going on.
And they have a subscriptionmodel.
So they're saying this is theactual price for this thing.
And they say, you know, you'vebeen used to living in an

(54:44):
environment where everything isfree and the businesses promise
crazy audiences to advertise andtherefore it all works out and
we have debt and blah blah blah.
Here we're saying no, the, theprice for this to be sustainable
is, I forgot exactly what thenumber, but it's a, not, it's a
pretty significant number.
It's like five,$6 or somethingper month.
And so you would, you know thateveryone's scared about doing

(55:07):
that because they'll say, well,you, you're not gonna get any
customers.
You won't have scale, you won'thave growth.
And say, well, they've probablydone the math and said, if they
can just get a fraction of, um.
the original audience ofMotherboard paying some money in
some form, they can make itsustainable.
And the good news is within ayear, they were totally
sustainable, able to pay theirwages and survive.

(55:28):
And, and this, this, um, thiswebsite's going to exist for a
little bit longer in anenvironment with, you know,
increasing interest rates whereTheir whole business model from
the outset was to be disciplinedand make sure there was more
money coming in than going out.
So set prices to make sure moremoney coming in and going out.
And then also wait for thefeedback from the market,

(55:49):
because if you set a real price,you will know if your product is
actually valuable.
back to the Netflix example on,on subscription fees, those
subscription fees are going upand soon those numbers are going
to really bite and people aregoing to ask themselves, is it
app really worth putting 30down?
to get access to some show thatyou want to binge watch.

(56:10):
Um, and here's the thing I findso surprising about that.
I think, people don't pulsetheir subscriptions.
Like switch them on and switchthem off based on the content
that they want to have.
So that's your hack for savingmoney on Netflix.
You know, switch it off when youdon't care about what's on
there, switch it back on whenyou need it.
And I guarantee that That willbecome more popular as a
strategy, and I'm sure Netflixwill find a way to shut that

(56:31):
down.
As opposed to actually addingvalue into the system, right?
Password sharing used to just bea thing that you did and it was
okay.
Shut it down, lock people intoit, grab money.
So you're just coercing peopleinto paying for money.
And that's not really addingvalue.
You're just forcing them to dosomething they don't do.
And they will ask simplequestions around, Do I really
want to be coerced into payingfor the subscription?

(56:52):
Am I getting anything out of it?
Um, so.
Yeah, all of that to just comeback to the simple point, prices
are powerful now, setting pricesthat reflect the true value, the
cost, the value out of whatyou're doing will become your
ally in these, in thesedifficult times.
So, yeah.

Ernest (57:13):
I think that's a great place to end it.
Um, and we'll actually maybetalk about this a little bit
more when we get into ourRecommendations of the Week as
well.
But, um, now that you've heardour perspectives, we want to
hear from you.
Please share your thoughts withus at learnmakelearn@gmail.com.
Now, let's move on to ourRecommendations of the Week.

(57:35):
Joachim, do you have arecommendation you'd like to
share?

Joachim (57:38):
Yeah.
Um, this week I'm going torecommend a YouTube channel and
it's the YouTube channel byStuart Hicks.
He's a practicing architect aswell as an assistant professor
of architecture at theUniversity of Illinois at
Chicago.
And his channel is justincredibly entertaining.
He has, he covers so manywonderful topics.

(58:01):
Um, and the video that reallystuck with me recently was one
on modernism and, minimalism aswell.
He was using Rohe as a casestudy of how minimalism has
failed us.
and the video is really funbecause he plays two, two people
in the video.
One, the booster for modernism,and then the other one, the more
critical voice.

(58:22):
And he uses Chicago as a great,example of how van der Rohe's
work was really cool for a bit,but then also inherently
destructive and had no realconcern for the longer run
implications of the designs.
So there are a lot ofinteresting aspects of how the

(58:43):
design influenced the way thecity was able to then progress.
And in particular, Stuart Hickshighlights the effect of grid
structures allowing theghettoization of certain, you
know, minorities.
So it's, it's interesting.
It's a great video.
It's a genuinely powerful lessonthat I think we've talked about
in different ways where we'vediscussed how design affects

(59:05):
decision making and therefore itaffects the way people interact
with each other.
And so this is a great video asan introduction to Stuart Hicks
channel.
It touches on so many aspects,but his channel is chock full of
Really just wonderful, um,wonderful discussions on all
kinds of, different topics,including the Line project in

(59:26):
Saudi Arabia, which is just thathuge structure that is a long
line that's supposed to be aself contained city in the
middle of the desert, And, andmany more topics.
I think just browsing throughthe channel, you'll find at
least one video that will tickleyour fancy.
Uh, and then you'll just becompelled to watch more because
he's a really great, um,presenter and teacher.

(59:48):
I think that's the mostimportant part is, uh, as a
professional academic and ateacher.
He's also really good atexplaining things to, uh, to lay
people.
So, um, yeah, I, that's myrecommendation for the week.

Ernest (01:00:03):
That's awesome.
I can't wait to check that out.
Um, as an architect,architecture junkie, I'm really
excited to check that out.
on my end, I wanted to highlighta product and it does, like I
mentioned, connect back into ourconversation.
And it's a product fromBirkenstock.
It's actually not a sandal, buta boot and particularly what

(01:00:23):
they call their Birmingham boot.
And, just to give you a littlebackstory on this, I guess
around maybe a little over ayear ago, I just made a
commitment to myself that, uh,outside of athletic shoes, I
would only ever buy shoes thatare resoleable so that I could,
keep them for longer and notcontribute to the waste stream,

(01:00:47):
that we touched on, uh, in that,message from Jeff that we talked
about earlier.
So I spent, I kind of, uh, I dida bit of a deep dive into
resoleable shoes and boots, andthat led me to this product from
Birkenstock, their Birminghamboot.
And, um, it's offered in both,um, slip on and lace up forms.

(01:01:08):
And there are a few things thatexcited me about them.
One is that they're resoleable.
They feature what's calledstitch down construction that's
very easy to resole.
They're also made with very highquality leather uppers, Horween
leather for the leather geeks inthe house.
And I was also drawn to the factthat Birkenstock shoes offer a

(01:01:32):
very generous fit, which worksreally well for my feet because
I have wide feet.
I also really like Birkenstock'sfootbeds, anyone who's worn a
Birkenstock sandal or any oftheir products will recognize
that their footbeds are verycontoured.
You know, there's a lot of, likea cheap flip flop will just be

(01:01:52):
flat, the footbed.
But by contrast, Birkenstock'sfootbeds are very contoured.
Some people don't like it, but Ilove that.
I find that it just Makes myfeet feel really good and helps
me to feel comfortable forlonger and, um, the Birmingham
features the, uh, Birkenstock'sdeep blue footbed, which, um, is

(01:02:13):
very contoured around the heeland the arch, um, has a less of
a, what's called a transversearch, which is that arch that
spans the space just behind thejoints at the base of your toes.
some of Birkenstock's.
shoes have more of a pronouncedtransverse arch.
The boots, um, these boots haveless of that, but still overall,

(01:02:34):
I'd say they have, great supportunderfoot foot.
Compared to most what are knownas heritage resoleable boots,
these Birkenstock Birmingham'sare Really, really comfortable
right out of the box.
A lot of these kind of classicheritage boots take a really
long time to break in.

(01:02:55):
And the idea is that becausethey have leather footbeds, they
conform to the shape of yourfoot over time.
So, you know, eventually yearsdown the road, they'll feel
amazing, you know, and as, as ifthey were designed for you, but.
They have a really long break inperiod.
And at the beginning, they canbe pretty uncomfortable.
So, Birkenstocks made somedecisions that make the shoes,

(01:03:20):
uh, these boots morecomfortable, you know, straight
away.
Now I know that some hardcoreheritage boot fans aren't so
happy with some of the decisionsthat Birkenstocks made, like for
example, Weston Kay who, um,runs the Rose Anvil YouTube
channel.
channel, which I really like, hehas a video and I'll provide a
link to the video where you kindof breaks down the boot.

(01:03:43):
He actually cuts it in half andhe calls out some of the things
he's not happy about.
And I think he makes some reallygood points.
But I'd say that for mepersonally, um, I am a fan of
the choices Birkenstocks madehere.
I think they've struck a goodbalance between comfort and
durability.
Um, and the fact that theseboots are resoleable means that

(01:04:04):
they're usable life is longer.
should still be measured indecades rather than years.
so that's just some context onthe product.
Now, as an Asian person whotakes off my shoes at home, ease
of entry and exit is a bigconsideration when it comes to
shoes and boots.
So I started with the slip onversion of the Birmingham, and I

(01:04:26):
really liked that.
The comfort and, you know,especially like I mentioned that
underfoot comfort.
but I'd say my critique would bethat they look and feel like
they're very voluminous, evenfor me, you know, even
considering that I have prettywide feet.
when you look at them from abovethat kind of, uh, top down view,

(01:04:47):
they, they look quite big onyour feet.
You know, I, I like them enoughto keep them but I ended up also
buying a pair of the lace upversion.
And I'm really, really happywith that version.
They're built on the sameplatform.
They're also, they're bothresoleable.
They both kind of have that sameunderfoot feel, but, um, the

(01:05:07):
lace up version, just by virtueof its laces allows you to get a
much, um, closer fit, uh, youknow, also allows you to tune
that fit because of the laces.
And, so I find that it's just amuch more versatile, overall
product, the lace up version,because it allows you that
ability to tune the fit.
And, the, uh, slip on I'd saywould be good just for everyday

(01:05:30):
wear.
Uh, but the lace up version, Ifind that, I can tune to fit
enough that I feel comfortablegoing hiking in them.
I'm able to use it across morecontexts.
Now, as to our previousconversation, these aren't
inexpensive products the, um,lace up version is I believe 350
and the slip on version is 320.

(01:05:51):
But I do think they offer reallygood value because when you
consider the fact that, I mean,I, they'll basically last the
rest of my life because the factthat you can resole them, I
think you'll be able to get twoto three resolings without
really a compromise in the otheraspects of the shoe.

(01:06:12):
So, you know, that's when youconsider that to me, the price
becomes very reasonable.
Also the fact that you're notjust contributing to this.
waste stream of disposableproducts.
Um, that's something that reallymatters to me now.
So, um, uh, it's a product that.
I'm really glad exists, youknow, in this day and age where

(01:06:34):
there are so many disposableproducts.
And I was very, I went to an REIthis past weekend and looked at
the boots they had on the wall,and I was really disappointed.
That they had no resoleableboots at, you know, REI, which
is a company that talks a lotabout sustainability.
and you know, it depressed methat one day didn't make that

(01:06:57):
decision to, to bring in a bootthat was resoleable.
And also that so fewmanufacturers today are, you
know, building on this.
So, um, I was really happy tosee that Birkenstock was doing
this.
One thing I'll point out, um, asa bit of a caveat, Birkenstock
does make some boots that looklike they're resoleable, but
actually are not.

(01:07:18):
so, it's something to just beaware of the, the Birmingham
definitely is resoleable.
There's at least one other boot,that I believe they make that is
resoleable as well, but anythingbelow about, I think, 190, 190
will probably not be resoleable,even if it looks like it is.
So, um, that's kind of one shameon them sort of thing, I think.

(01:07:42):
But overall, I'm really, um,happy that they're offering this
product and it's something I'vebeen really happy with.
So the, uh, BirkenstockBirmingham boot, uh, in slip on
and lace up versions.
Alright, well, I think that doesit for us.
Thank you so much for joining ushere at Learn Make Learn.
As we mentioned, we want to hearfrom you.
So, please send any questions orfeedback to LearnMakeLearn at

(01:08:06):
gmail.
com and tell your friends aboutus.
In our next episode, we're goingto dig into the perils of fan
service, often associated withanime and more recently big
budget franchise films.
Fan service is generallyunderstood to be material added
to a work that has no relevanceto the story or character
development and is includedsolely for the purpose of

(01:08:28):
pleasing existing fans.
The Marvel Cinematic Universeand recent crop of Star Wars
films are full of fan servicemoments, with the most egregious
for me being the eye rollingmoment early on in Solo, a Star
Wars story, in which Solo'sname.
Something I don't think we, weneeded to know.

(01:08:48):
Um, but, Fanservice is somethingwe also see in product design,
and while it certainly makessense to engage existing
customers when planning for thenext incarnation of a given
product, balance too far overinto fanservice can lead to
diminishing returns.
We'll share our own experiencesand perspectives on fanservice
on the next Learn Make Learn.

All Episodes

Enough Is Enough

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;}Enough *Is* Enough