MKBHD, Panels & Pricing

A conversation triggered by MKBHD’s Panels app gets really interesting when we dig into pricing & lessons for people in the business of making products.

FOLLOW-UPS – 02:23
Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive?
How gamification took over the world
Can't Play, Won't Play
An Interview with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth
Meta Connect Keynote 2024
Meta’s big tease

MKBHD, PANELS & PRICING – 07:30
Marques Brownlee
MKBHD’s first review
Marques Brownlee says ‘I hear you’ after fans criticize his new wallpaper app
YouTubers are not your friends
Why Criticism Still Matters

LESSON FOR PRODUCT CREATORS – 20:02
How Nike finally hacked skateboarding

ON PRICING – 23:42
Friedrich Hayek
Oskar R. Lange
Lange model
Kanopy
Taylor Swift–Ticketmaster controversy
The Changing Face Of The Secondary Market: Rolex CPO and more

RECOMMENDATIONS – 43:18
MUBI
The Substance on MUBI
The Fall on MUBI
Goeff McFetridge: Drawing a Life on MUBI
Thatcher had “phenomenal” impact on Britain’s cultural landscape
Bedrock Sandals
Creepers Socks
How Did Hokas Become So Popular? (paywall)

CLOSING – 56:29

****

Rant, rave or otherwise via email at [e-mail] or on Threads @LearnMakeLearnShow.

CREDITS
Theme: Vendla / Today Is a Good Day / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
Drum hit: PREL / Musical Element 85 / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com

Episode Transcript

Ernest (00:36):
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 (00:51):
Very good.
I guess we're post election, sowe don't have to talk about
politics, we're in the new, thenew regime, so we have to, we
have to contend with that,however we all feel about that
situation.
But that's on our minds, Iguess.
I don't, I just realized wedidn't even think about talking
about that, but it's too, it's,everyone's talking about it, so
we're all living the, theconsequences.

Ernest (01:12):
Are we in the acceptance phase yet?
in the hierarchy.

Joachim (01:16):
Tuesday night, I was very ready for, for the outcome.
And I, I was not, I was notsurprised.
And it didn't take me aback atall.
And, uh, it felt, it felt likeit was somewhat inevitable in a
strange way, but, um, yeah, Idon't know.
How, how were you?
I just,

Ernest (01:34):
Yeah, it's funny.
I had the same reaction.
It was really not a surprise.
It just seemed like that'scontrary to a lot of the social
media chatter.
I think it just felt like that'swhere things were headed.

Joachim (01:45):
Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think that's exactly
right.
Not a surprise enough dynamicsin the internet realm were
pointing that there was a verylarge group of people that felt
a certain way.
So anyway, here we are.

Ernest (02:01):
That's a good segue.
Yeah.
So this is episode 24

Joachim (02:05):
I

Ernest (02:07):
and today our topic is MKBHD.
his controversial panels app,and pricing, which was really
the primary source of thecontroversy around panels.
We'll dive into this in greaterdetail in just a minute, but
let's start with some followups.
Joachim, do you have any followups to our previous episode, Why
is Design So Boring?
with Nate Grubbs, or to anyepisodes prior?

Joachim (02:31):
think they're very focused around design.
So the first, the first followup is, um.
Adjacent to Boring Design, butit's a small article called Are
Song Lyrics Getting MoreRepetitive?
First of all, from, just fromthe perspective of how the
article comes across on thescreen is very unique.
It has interactive elements thathave been done in a very, um,

(02:53):
mindful way, not just for thebling effect, but for actually
transmitting the informationaccurately.
The gist of it is simply, ifthere is a way to take the
lyrics and compress them by alot, that suggests there's a lot
of repetition in the lyrics, andif you can't compress them a
lot, Then there isn't that muchrepetition.
the author shows that you cancompress the crap out of

(03:15):
everything right now and, andback in the day all the lyrics
were harder to compress and sothen he links this to just a
broader trend of kind of thehomogenization, I mean if you're
all, if the lyrics are reallyshort then you're all probably
saying very similar thingsbecause there's not much you can
transmit in so few words, um,and then, The question is, is
there some homogenizationhappening in popular culture?

(03:37):
Is it also being driven by the,uh, Spotify algorithms that are
incentivizing short songs and ahigh volume of short songs to
get the maximum monetization outof that?
So just a very interesting readand part of the whole
conversation that we're havingaround boring, boring design and
samey, sameness and everythingbeing average.
And then another bit aboutdesign, and I, we didn't really

(03:58):
talk about this from theinteraction design perspective,
but I feel like we might havetouched on these topics
somewhere, but, um, Gamificationfor a period gamification was
going to fix everything, youknow from environmental problems
to learning languages So there'sa technology review article that
is about gamification, but itactually points out something

(04:20):
that I think is really true, andI think anyone who's used
Duolingo for an extended periodof time will recognize, which is
it's not actually a game, it'smore pointsification.
So they try and, use the onemechanic of games that is
probably the most irrelevant andboring part, which is XP.
And they just lean so hard on XPas the thing that they call that

(04:42):
gamification.
And like, that's the worst partof it.
Games are beautiful narrativestructures that can be immersive
and you experience and learn atthe same time.
And there's also socialcomponents that can be brought
together inside of a game inreally, really surprising ways.
And none of our products that weconsider gamified really lean
into that at all.

(05:02):
So, um, a really interestingcounterpoint to the idea that we
live in a totally gamified worldwhen really we live in a
pointsified world and that isthe worst of gaming, just
summarizing one thing, like get,get your XP.
So all of these, those thingsare related to Interaction
design, but also sameness ofdesign.
So those are my follow ups toNate's piece.
What about you?

(05:23):
Did you want to dig deeper intothe archives about what to
follow up on?

Ernest (05:27):
No, those are great ones actually.
Um, I, I'm actually lookingforward to digging into those
myself.
Um, yeah, on my end, I, um, didwant to actually dig a bit, uh,
into our archives.
Actually going back to our.
It's the second episode, uh,which was titled Apple Vision
pros and cons, uh, which werecorded in January of this
year.
Um, and as the title for thatepisode suggested, we discussed

(05:49):
Apple Vision Pro, whichrepresented Apple's entry into
what Tim Cook described as,Quote, the beginning of a new
era for computing, unquote.
Um, my follow up here is for anylisteners with an interest in
that space, of spatial computingor augmented reality, if that's
you, I highly recommend that youlisten to an interview conducted
by Ben Thompson from theStratechery podcast and blog,

(06:12):
and it's with Andrew Bosworth,the longtime leader of Meta's
Reality Labs division, and since2022, the company's overarching
chief technology officer.
The interview actually tookplace back in late September
during Meta's Connectconference, so it's not new.
But I only recently had a chanceto listen to it and I just found
it fascinating.
For one, I thought Bosworth'sappearance, at least to me,

(06:35):
apparent openness and honestywas really refreshing.
And then as someone who stronglybelieves that spatial computing
does represent an important nextstep in the ongoing evolution of
personal computing, I found thesubstance of the conversation
really interesting as well.
And, um, I should note that thiswas right after Meta unveiled
their Orion augmented realityprototype, which, um, while

(06:57):
still very much a prototype,really.
It has wowed everyone who's hada chance to experience it.
Um, so Bosworth talks a bitabout Orion, but he also talks
more broadly about Meta'sapproach to the still nascent
spatial computing space and howtheir approach contrasts with
Apple's.
And the conversation is onlyabout 40 minutes long.
And I think well worth a listen,if you have any interest in AR

(07:20):
and VR or are just interested inproduct strategy in general.
So, uh, we'll include a link tothat in our, uh, to that
interview in our show notes.
All right, so, uh, jumping toour episode today, our topic was
actually suggested by my brotherin law, Michael.
Uh, so first, thanks forlistening, Michael.

(07:40):
Uh, we really appreciate it.
Now Michael asked, and I'm goingto quote him here, I'm curious
what you think of MarquesBrownlee and his panels app and
how he stumbled with it,unquote.
Now, Joachim, I know you'refamiliar with Marques Brownlee,
uh, but are you familiar withthis whole kerfuffle around the
panels app that he launched inlate September?

Joachim (08:02):
Yeah, so I've, when I was still using X and I have now
come off it and I'm, I'm said,I'm done.
Um, but, uh, it was, it turnedout to be a trending topic one
day and it came on with thehashtag MKBHD panels.
I had no idea what that was allabout.

(08:22):
Usually those trending thingsare terrible anyway, but given
that we had discussed.
his reviews for the Humane AIpin and the rabbit as being
scathing, honest and, importantreviews in the technology
domain.
And he also receiving a ton offlack for having been honest
about the product, which wasreally interesting.

(08:44):
So I was, it piqued my interestand I started reading up on it
and it was, just so many peopleangry and they just kept saying,
this is ridiculous.
And I was so puzzled.
And I thought, what is thispanels thing?
What's getting everyone soupset?
And it turns out it's an app forwallpaper on your phone.
and that just, and so I justwent down the rabbit hole and

(09:06):
started following the thread onthat.
So I'm, I also thank Michael forasking that question cause it
was, it was out there and on mymind for sure, but I didn't have
a way of, uh, getting it intothe podcast.
Well, now Michael's given us theexcuse to do that.
So that's a great thing.

Ernest (09:21):
Yeah, I was glad as well, I thought that was a great
question.
And just to take a quick stepback, just in case anyone's not
familiar with Marques Brownlee,as Joachim mentioned, we've
talked about him in the past,uh, but for anyone who is
unfamiliar, Brownlee is areally, really popular tech
YouTuber.
He's probably better known byhis handle MKBHD, which is also
the name of his YouTube channel.

(09:41):
as noted on his Wikipedia page,as far back as 2013, Vic
Gundotra, who at the time was asenior vice president at Google,
described Brownlee as quote, thebest technology reviewer on the
planet right now, unquote.
Now, as to why, his contentbecame so popular.
At least for me, I think thereare a few reasons.

(10:02):
For one, he has this sort ofease and charisma in front of
the camera, which comes acrossfrom his very first video, which
he published in January of 2009while he was still in high
school.
And, uh, I think that leadsright into the second reason,
which is that Brownleeepitomizes the aphorism that it
takes 20 years to make anovernight success.

(10:23):
You know, he's been a leader inhis field for 15 years, and over
that span, he's continued tohone his craft.
And what really continues toimpress me is how effortless he
makes it look.
You if you know anything aboutvideo production and audio
production, his content hasextremely high production value,
but it's all done and deliveredin a way that feels remarkably

(10:45):
accessible, um, even to nontechie people.
And then this takes me to what Ithink is the third and the most
important reason for success,and that's his perceived
authenticity.
Over the past 15 years in eachof his videos, you felt like you
were still getting the core ofwhat you saw in that very first
video.
A smart, engaging person with aninterest in tech, giving his

(11:07):
honest perspective on a piece oftechnology, with the hope that
that perspective might helpothers decide whether that tech
was right for them.
And, uh, At least for me, Ithink it's the sense that the
panels that, which, as youmentioned, it's just a
wallpaper, but it's the sensethat the panels that betrayed
that authenticity is what's ledto such a surprisingly loud

(11:29):
outcry, um, over it.
And, but, you know, I wascurious, what do you think?
Do you, does that kind ofcomport with your sense of why
there's so much, um, seeminganger about this?

Joachim (11:40):
Yeah, I think it, it's, it is very interesting that he
decided to make an app, Was sopoorly thought, thought out, um,
Like you said, his reviews Arehigh production value, Carefully
choreographed, Nothing is doneby accident, you know, He knows
what he's doing, 20 millionsubscribers, Every video hitting

(12:02):
multiple million views, This isall carefully crafted.
so then seeing an app fail somiserably on so many fronts is
just incredibly surprising.
Actually just a little bit ofbackground like we said that the
panels app is An app that youdownload and it gives you
access, um, either to some free,lower resolution wallpapers for

(12:28):
your phone on an iOS device oran Android device.
the free tier is supported byads, which is part of the outcry
that came out.
We'll, we can dig into that alittle bit.
And then there's a premium tierwhere you get high resolution
wallpapers for your phone.
And I don't know, where do youeven start?
He takes his considerableresources.
to do something that is so lame.

(12:51):
It is such a surprise.
It's so boring.
one of the things that peoplepointed out immediately was that
the free tier is an ad drivenproduct, which means that the
app requires access to variouspieces of information on your
phone.
and you have to grant it allkinds of permissions.
Most people said, you'reprobably just stealing our data
at this point.
That's what it felt like withvery invasive tracking,

(13:14):
including GPS.
Why would you need locationservices to be switched on for a
wallpaper app?
The quickest summary for me isjust, what is the problem that
you're actually trying to solvehere?
He explained in a video lateron, he says it was something
that he, he gets questions allthe time about the wallpapers
that he has on his phones andhow wonderful they are and which

(13:34):
artists do that and so on.
And this app doesn't seem toanswer that problem.
Here's, here's a broader point.
I think people form very deepparasocial relationships with
these hosts and they lean intothat because as you said, that's
the brand you feel connected tothat person and rightly or
wrongly, we imbue that distantrelationship with a lot more

(13:58):
depth than it maybe deservesbecause they're, they are a
person on the screen.
So I think parasocialrelationships are probably one
of the strongest forces rightnow in our world because they
tend to shape our emotionalconnection with things, topics,
subjects, the way we perceivethe world.

(14:19):
And so I think when someone, toa certain extent, Abuses that
relationship and tries to sellsomething very grifty and,
People feel deeply, deeplyoffended because they have built
a deep personal connection withthis person.
I believe a lot of the YouTubersdon't fully understand the
Pandora's box that they'veopened around that.

(14:39):
By being so personable, byinviting people to get closer to
them, by having social mediaconnections with those people,
it creates a false relationship.
And at the end of the day, Ithink people, when these things
happen, they get reminded ofthemselves.
They realize, Oh, wait a minute,you're a product and I'm buying
your product you just want mymoney or my eyeballs.

(15:00):
So I think there's a couple oflayers to it, not just the
product aspect of it, but alsothe nature of the parasocial
relationship that emerges.

Ernest (15:10):
Yeah, I think there's a lot to that.
And I think the most authenticthing that, uh, Brownlee said in
relation to this whole thing wasin the kind of follow up.
I think he was smart to respondrelatively quickly and be very
open, um, about the feedback.
But he said something along thelines of, I acknowledge now that

(15:31):
if I were reviewing this as aproduct, I would have given it a
very bad review,

Joachim (15:35):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Ernest (15:36):
is just like you're saying is what makes it so
puzzling that someone who, youknow, through 15 years of
content has shown that he'sreally smart and has really good
taste.
Why would you do this?
Thing that goes against so muchof what you've kind of shown
that you value.
But one interesting thing Ithink is just this underlying

(15:56):
dynamic that you see acrossYouTube is YouTubers recognizing
that they need to diversifytheir revenue sources, you know,
recognizing that they just, theycan't just rely on whether it's
YouTube or Instagram or, um,TikTok as their sole source of
revenue.
You could see it across theboard and very, coming up with

(16:17):
different ways to try togenerate revenue beyond the
revenue that they're generatingfrom the content.
And so this would be oneexample.
It's just, you know, to yourpoint though, all the things you
could have done.
Why would it be this, it doesseem really, really puzzling.
And I could very much imaginethat some of those things he's
described, like you mentionedthis desire to maybe elevate
artists, um, you know, thatthere were questions about what,

(16:39):
you know, his own wallpapersthat he shows during his
reviews, that, that, that, thatwould take away, Those are
probably true and I couldimagine maybe him having some
conversations and laying outthis very loose brief But then
having no involvement from thatpoint on and then publishing
this thing.
I'd say that would maybe be thekind Scenario for how this came
about but I'm just verysurprised that someone who is as

(17:02):
I think seems to at least be assavvy As he is would allow a
product so that's so poor to goout with his name associated
with it.
Um, that is really, reallypuzzling.
Um, and I wonder if it was kindof to your point of these folks,
not necessarily understandingthe Pandora's box that they've

(17:22):
opened up, that maybe he justhad lost sight of that.
You know, I guess if you're, ifthat's your life, I imagine it
must be difficult to haveperspective on it.

Joachim (17:31):
And, and as you know, like his.
M-K-B-H-D is his channel.
It is a company that is nowbuilt around him.
He has people that work for him.
And I can imagine, you know,even if he's a nice guy, no
one's gonna say, Hey Marques,like this is, this is really
lame.
You know, no one, I don't thinkanyone wants to be in that
situation because it's tough andhe's the big boss.

(17:52):
But what I was trying to get atis I think Back to the idea the
power social relationships ofthe thing that got got them
where they are and thatPandora's Boxes You have to
acknowledge.
That's what it is that you are.
Now.
you are.
a focal point.
You are a big Broadcastingplatform and so I That means
maybe you're just a channel, inthe sense of a conduit, I should

(18:16):
say, for things that you thinkare worth elevating.
And maybe that would have been away to lean into it, because
he's talking a lot about, Iwanted to elevate some artists.
So you go, well, build somethingthat allows that to come out and
you lend your voice to drawingpeople to that form, right?
That's always the hardestproblem when you're trying to
build some sort of platform orany kind of multi sided

(18:41):
experiences, getting everyone toshow up.
You know, if you want to have Imean, YouTube is the perfect
example.
You need creators and you needthe audience.
And if I was going to start aYouTube tomorrow, I could bribe
all these creators to join myplatform.
But if no one is there to watchthe stuff, there is no platform.
It's, it's non existent.
So he doesn't have that problem.

(19:02):
He's literally both, he could beboth sides.
It's bringing everyone togetheras a central node and a network.
He can create the public squarethat where those ideas can
flourish and maybe he's theperson that is more of a seed
investor and those things, asopposed to the person that comes
up with every idea, you know?
So I can understand that peoplewant to cross over to being, um,

(19:23):
a maker.
I do think critics are reallyimportant.
Like they're that outside voicethat help you identify whether
you're on the right path or not.
And it would be great if wecould all have strong inner
critics, but not everyone does,and we need those voices.
All of that to say, he is acentral node in the social
network that is, vast, and heshould have really leaned more

(19:45):
into that direction to get soagain, like there's so many
layers to where you go, just alack of cares.
Disappointing.
And I'm, I think it took themyears to work on this app.
Yeah.

Ernest (19:57):
know, one thing you mentioned the importance of
having that inner critic, I'dsay maybe one, if we were to
abstract out one lesson forpeople who are in the business
of making products, one thatcomes to mind for me is the
importance of having that innercritic, because it can be so
easy for people.
when you're immersed in anindustry and making products

(20:21):
within an industry to becomeincredibly myopic about our
world and just assume thateveryone else shares this, you
know, incredible focus on thisthing that we do.
And that's a mistake that I seeso often from people.
When they're going out andengaging with people, um, for
focus groups, for example, thatthey just assume that everyone

(20:43):
out there is spending as muchtime thinking about this one
little thing that they devotetheir life to.
Um, And, you know, of course,the reality is that's not true,
right?
We all have very busy lives.
We might interact with yourproduct, you know, for a few
minutes out of a week.
So it's so important to havethat humility and have that
inner critic that you can tapinto to, um, help you kind of

(21:07):
check yourself, right?
To recognize that, um, I needto.
find ways to deliver value.
I can't assume that people arespending their lives thinking
about my product all the time.
How can I, just like you weresaying, answer some problem or
deliver some value, uh, so thatI can earn that time and
attention.
And I can think of one specificexample where I failed to do

(21:29):
that.
I was leading a focus group.
And I actually thought I wasbeing very clever.
I intentionally started withoutintroducing myself, uh, because
I thought that'd be morescientific.
It'd be kind of keeping theparticipants at a remove.
Um, but then fortunately thefolks group went very well.

(21:51):
You know, the participants feltlike, um, we were really
listening.
And then at the end, one of theparticipants said, you know, um,
can I, Can I talk to you?
Can you let the other peopleleave and just, can we talk for
a minute?
And we said, oh, of course.
And I felt so thankfulafterwards that they had the
courage to do this, because itdoes take courage to do this.

(22:12):
But, so after everyone left,they said, you know, I really
felt, I can't remember the exactwords, but essentially
disrespected that you didn'tshare your name.
You know, like, it just feltlike you were a big company
person and, you know, we didn'tmatter enough to you for you to,
you know, even share your namewith us.
And, you know, certainly thatwasn't my intention at all.

(22:34):
But once they said that, Iabsolutely recognized how that
could be.
They, they knew that I was,there's representative of the
big company.
And so it just kind of, um, mybehavior aligned to kind of what
they assumed the big companyperson would act like.
And so that was, it's somethingthat I still, every, every day.

(22:56):
I think about it all the timenow, as a reminder to, you know,
check your assumptions, um, put,you know, it's so simple, but
just put yourself in that otherperson's shoes.
Um, and that is going to reallyhelp you to get to something
more meaningful in terms of, youknow, why are you doing focus
groups in the first place,right?

(23:17):
Just try to uncover somemeaningful insight.
So, um, Um, being able to putyourself in the place of the
other folks in the room is soimportant and not, I'd say this
maybe connects back to theelection thing, but not talking
down to people because theydon't speak your same language,
um, I think is, is, is soimportant as maybe one, one kind

(23:38):
of generalized lesson that maybewe could take away from this.
But I was curious as well,Joachim, given your background
in economics, whether you hadany.
Thank you.
More generalized thoughts aboutpricing, you know, because that
was one of the things thatpeople were so, reacted so
strongly to when it came to thispanels app.

Joachim (23:57):
Yeah, okay.
I will definitely talk aboutpricing, but the last thing that
you're talking about, it'sinteresting, and maybe you're
not allowed to shill for yourcompany, but I will do it
because I don't work thereanymore.
But, uh, a reminder to everyonehow incredible Sandy Bodecker's
strategy was for Nike SB.
Sandy Bodecker just going, wecannot.

(24:18):
just show up and say we're Nikeand expect all these guys to
sign up and enjoy what we'redoing.
We need to listen to what theywant and then connect with them
on a deeper level.
So I found that the whole storyof Nike SB is absolutely
fascinating.
Uh, in fact, there was a YouTubechannel that, Just ran a really
great little series on it.
and we'll put the link in that,but it's, but this guy, James

(24:40):
Pumphrey used to do a seriescalled up to speed where you
give you like 20 minute lessonson the history of a car history
of a brand.
And now he's doing it for allbrands and he covered like SP.
it was pretty interesting to, hedoes the whole thing and he's
neutral.
He's, he doesn't work for Nike,but,

Ernest (24:54):
oh, that's great.
I'd love to see

Joachim (24:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a really, really fun with his
funky personality.
Again, one of those things whereyou have a personality really
helping deliver a message that.
could just be a very boringhistory lesson, uh, a corporate
history lesson, but, uh, yeah,definitely worth, worth
watching, but then pricing.

(25:17):
So, yeah, that's one of thosethings that I think is so,
pricing is just.
It's the, it's the central mosttopic in economics, but it is
surprising how crappily it isdone.
So I'm going to do a minihistory lesson that's going to,
not too long, but so there was abig conflict between, the
socialists, the communists whobelieve that you could create a

(25:39):
planned economy and the freemarketeers who said, no, no, no,
there's no way it's, it'sliterally impossible to
construct something like that.
And so there was a bigdiscussion.
Hayek from the Austrian schoolwas one of the.
Big voices.
And it's one of the voices thatto this day kind of won that
discussion because he talkedabout markets being information
aggregators, and you can sendsignals into the market and the

(26:01):
market will understand it andprices are part of those signals
and it organizes everythingseamlessly.
And it's great.
There's actually a counterpoint,which is a guy called Oscar
Lange, Hungarian economist, Ibelieve.
And he said, no, no, I don'tthink we, you need even any of
that stuff.
What we can do is we can createa fake economy and we modulate
the prices.
And then we just see.

(26:22):
If the market's clear, if theydon't clear and we'll use
computers to model that process.
And then eventually we can dothat without having to actually
do the experiment where we movethe prices around.
We can simulate it and thenwe'll just set prices
automatically that way.
So he was a big believer intechnology in solving the market
pricing problem.
So the reason I mentioned thatis if you go into a technology

(26:44):
company today or any liketechnology driven retailer, when
they describe.
Pricing, it is very clear thatthey have no idea what the
correct price is.
There is no demand curve outthere.
No one knows what the demandcurve is.
In fact, the econ academicliterature, my subfield has
spent the last 40 years.
Designing various complicatedmodels to find demand curves.

(27:06):
If it was so easy, you wouldn'tget tenure at Harvard based on
work on demand curve estimation.
It's.
Impossible to do.
And so if you look at kind ofthe cutting edge of how people
do pricing nowadays andtechnology companies.
They basically sit there andthey modulate the prices and
they see where the sales go upor down or something like that.

(27:27):
And they try and map out thedemand curve exactly like the
socialist Oscar Lange suggestedin total contravention of what
Hayek suggested, right?
When I joined industry, Irealized.
You guys don't know what pricesare.
I built models assuming you knewwhat prices were.
You don't even know how much ofthis thing should be, anything,
right?
But I think from the perspectiveof actually being ambitious and

(27:48):
clever about pricing, I think itcomes down to being very humble
and saying, I actually don'tknow what the price is.
And I also know that a price isa very coarse way of
partitioning my customer base.
So if I just say, set the priceat a hundred and people will buy

(28:08):
it, then I know that anyone whovalues my item above a hundred
will buy it.
And everyone below a hundredwon't buy it.
And that's it.
I just know that there's like 50people that want to buy it and
then no one else.
I don't know who those otherpeople are that didn't want to
buy it at that price, which iswhere that experimentation with
the pricing comes from.
You're trying to.
Modulate the prices so you cantrack who's coming in and who's

(28:31):
coming out.
Now you can only do that withlow price goods.
Couldn't do with cars oranything like that.
Right?
So the way out?
Well, you just ask the customershow much they would be willing
to pay for something, and thenyou build a protocol that makes
that message to you binding sothat they can say, I am willing
to pay.
This much for this item.

(28:51):
And if you charge me this price,I will pay, I'm going to, I'm
locking myself into the marketthat way.
Essentially an auction kind oflike the eBay structure the
cognitive load on the customershigh, but that's one very, very
clear way that you can elicitthat information from the
market.
So from my perspective, whatwould have been nice for panels
is if they had startedexperimenting with different
pricing models.

(29:12):
Now you don't have to go all theway to the fall, build auctions
for every single thing.
is a middle ground, right?
That's the extreme.
Everything is a market, butthere is another way to kind of
on a spectrum design placeswhere people can express their
value for something.
Um, and that's what you reallywant.
You need people to express that.
So pricing in my mind is alwaysa way of opening up a

(29:34):
communication path to thecustomer so they can express.
Yeah.
This is how much I value thatitem.
So sometimes it doesn't evenhave to be dollars.
It can just be something that'sfinite and fake, but valuable
inside of the ecosystem.
And then from that, you can alsobuild more interesting
mechanisms that allow people toexpress.
value in the system withouthaving to put money on the spot

(29:56):
or Anyway, there's a lot of waysto design these markets that
actually starts opening up apathway of communication if
anyone wants to hire me to talkabout this stuff, please do.
But it's, it is, I think it's areally, really big problem that
we haven't tackled very well,because there's been this belief

(30:17):
that we figure out what theright price is, you know?
And when you look at an MBAclass on pricing, they'll just
say like, you know, costs plusthis.
Markup and you go, the markup iseverything.
How do I know what the rightmarkup is?
And how frequently should I bewilling to, to move that?
And you can basically see whenyou go in your Amazon basket,
right?
You can see if you save items,prices are going up and down all

(30:39):
the time, based on something whoknows what it is.
And it's not clear that that iseven, you know, tracing out my
willingness to pay.
What would be even cool is if Isay.
I have this item in my safebasket, but I, if it hits 50,
I'll buy it.
Very similar to the way a stockmarket is, right?
You can say, here's a limitorder.
And when this, I know it mightnever sell or never buy at that

(31:02):
price.
But I'm willing to take thatrisk to get it at that price,
because that's how much I valueit at.
And then you have a piece ofinformation from the customer
that you didn't have before.
This is a non purchaser tellingyou something in a binding way,
right?
So, the communication pathwayhas to have some skin in the
game for it to be meaningful,but ultimately, that's what it
is.
And Marques Why not bomb doingsomething different and

(31:24):
exciting.
That's what, when I was readingall those reviews, that was one
of the things that struck me.
It's just, why didn't you justgo all out, make a creator's
platform, create a firstplatform, pay them, do you know,
just go nuts, Show the bounds ofwhat is feasible outside of a
standard two tier pricing model,right?
There's so many more ways ofdoing this So that is very

(31:45):
disappointing to me in general,but um Yeah, that was a long
excursion.
Maybe we should do a wholeepisode about just pricing
goods.

Ernest (31:53):
I really liked your, because, you know, you mentioned
the auctions as being kind ofmaybe a prime example of this,
but your example of, uh, limitorder, I think is a really good
one that I'm guessing a lot ofpeople have that exposure to,
but just that idea that you havesome mechanism for the
prospective buyer to provideinformation about how much they

(32:14):
value a good, um, that isreally, really interesting.
Very good.
are you aware of any?
One that's doing anythinginteresting in pricing, in terms
of like the product space.

Joachim (32:27):
Okay.
I think to me, this is a verydinky example, but I think it is
powerful.
there is a service streamingservice called canopy um, that a
lot of public libraries, you cansubscribe to it, but a lot of
public libraries set upagreements with this company, so
you can access it essentiallyfor free through your public
library, canopy gives youcredits.

(32:48):
That you spend on content thatyou want to watch.
What's interesting about it, Ithink it's very, it's very, very
basic but it's a very powerfultool.
There's no real price here.
No money is exchanging hands,but a constraint is operating on
the customer and therefore theyhave to think about trade offs.

(33:09):
So what do I want to reallywatch right now?
And so a certain degree ofmindfulness, active decision
making will come in and Peoplewill express a true desire,
right?
And so there's a certain amountof commitment needed.
It is high friction, but as aresult, I think they can also
keep their library very focusedbecause people will be asking,

(33:31):
Hey, maybe they have that onefilm that I've been meaning to
watch.
And you can see, you'll learn alot about what a person is.
Out for so they haven't fullyexplored that thing and I don't
even know why they chose to dothis I think it is a way to just
keep their payments forlicensing very controlled But
that's step zero for what couldbe possible if you started

(33:51):
really Pushing on that model.
Now, we live in a subscriptionheavy world again, and, and that
is, I think, really just a mindhack.
It is there to get you to signup, and then to forget about it.
So Canopy as a small example ofusing credits that you have to
spend and creating strongchoices and trade offs.

(34:15):
I think it's a good example.
Yeah, but so much more to bedone in that domain.
Um, and really we have not fullyextracted the value of that.

Ernest (34:24):
You know, one other example from the watch world,
which we're both big fans of, orenthusiasts of, I think is, um,
and, and this to me speaks topricing being really as much art
of science as Rolex.
or really you could say any ofthe kind of top tier luxury
brands.
But during the zero interestrate days, uh, the market sent

(34:47):
Rolex a very strong signal thatthey were willing to pay much
more for their products thanRolex was charging.
Like for folks who aren'tfamiliar with this, but during
the heyday of the zero interestrate phenomenon period, uh,
immediately after, uh, Rolexmade a watch available for not
everyone, but most of theirmodels.

(35:08):
Next day, it'd be available onthe secondary market for 2x, 3x,
4x, the price, if not even more.
So, I think that's reallyinteresting, because that is the
market sending a signal to say,you're actually underpricing.
But, Rolex didn't change theirprices, they've kept their
pricing consistent.
And I think that was the rightdecision.

(35:30):
I think, maybe an economistmight say that's the wrong
decision because the market'sclearly telling you, you should
raise your prices.
But to me, from a brandperspective and a kind of tying
this back to Marques and thepanels up again, just from a,
your relationship with yourcustomer perspective, I think
that relationship would havebeen broken if Rolex had taken

(35:51):
that as a license to massivelyincrease their prices.
And yet.
I could certainly argue theother side of it too, right?
It's totally logical to say,well, hey, there is this very
clear signal that you should beraising your prices.
I was just curious what youthought of that.
Right,

Joachim (36:12):
and short run profit making.
We generally have been operatingin a short run profit making
world where you can cash outquickly.
Move to the next job, become theCEO somewhere else.
the dynamics of our capitalistsystem right now are very
friction free.
And that has always been theargument that was supposed to
make everything super efficient.
But actually what it does is itmeans that you have very little
skin in the game.
And so you can escape quicklybefore anyone else knows you've

(36:35):
screwed up, you've destroyedthis company, you've, you've
milked everyone dry, And nowthere's nothing left.
employees are stuck.
The customers are stuck and youcashed out, bro.
No, cool.
That's not cool.
Right.
So there's, that dynamic I thinkis the, the reason why a lot of
companies would go say, yeah, ofcourse the economics speak for
themselves.

(36:55):
Take them, charge them at a highprice.
Now the long run value, which isthat you want your brand to be
here tomorrow.
You want customers to be herenext month.
So long term value would tellyou, you don't need to do that.
You, you are going to pricepeople out of the market and
scare them off.
And it's going to create.
A degree of discontent.

(37:15):
That means that they might nevercome back.
So I, I, there is a rationalargument that says, actually, if
you look at the thing, there's,there's that, what every
business person likes about thetotal addressable market, right?
That mythical beast that no oneknows is out there, but that is
kind of where you're worryingabout if I set prices in the
wrong way and I send the wrongsignal to the market, that.

(37:37):
Potential customer just getsturned off and is done with it,
you know, and they're nevergoing to engage with this brand.
So the argument I always lean onis if you want your business to
survive.
The long term value calculationand it's very difficult to do
that math, I'm not saying it'strivial, but the long term value
math would say don't do thattype of stuff, um, but coming

(38:00):
back to like pricing and cleversystem, I think ultimately the
real problem was the secondarymarket, the existence of people
that were bad actors, right?
The thinking about that shortterm long run thing, right?
Rolex understood that they hadShort term players in there that
didn't care about Rolex.
Bad actors are generally, I'llcall them platform agnostic,

(38:22):
right?
They don't care about theplatform.
What they care about is currencyand currency is highly liquid
and can be transferred acrossany activity.
So these people probably wereworking in Bitcoin, stocks,
Rolex, cars.
They didn't care what it was.
It just had to be fiat that theycould transfer everything into.
So.
They could have made money offBitcoin and then they could have
just gone into the Rolex store,bought everything there, come

(38:45):
back out and become Rolexdealers over and I just said,
here's F5X.
And then Essentially annihilatedthe market, created this huge
bubble, stepped out, cashed outthat they don't care.
But Rolex has to sit there.
It's like they had been chasingthat the tails of these
operators.
They would have been in trouble.
They would have really erodedthe brand.
And that's the interesting thingnow as prices collapse.

(39:06):
In the secondary market, becausethis bubble is now done.
Rolex doesn't seem like such abad actor anymore.
They're just like, well, wenever charge high prices.
We didn't tell you to pay forthese stupid prices.
Doesn't matter that thesecondary market has collapsed.
So I feel like, it was the smartmove.
Chasing that explosive pricewould have just destroyed I
think the Taylor SwiftTicketmaster saga is a perfect

(39:28):
example of that.
If an economist sat there andsaid, I got to maximize short
run profits.
Yeah.
Run an auction, go crazy withthe pricing.
Someone like Ticketmaster andTaylor Swift should be thinking,
wait a minute.
I'm killing my fan base.
I need them to be here tomorrow.
Like this is.
Just extracting everything.
And just one quick analogy, likethis is part of what our free

(39:50):
market capitalist system does isit tries to extract at a maximum
rate now with the least amountof effort, there is a reason why
we are facing so manyenvironmental problems right
now.
It's because the system doesn'tcare about.
Slow, sustainable, thoughtful,long run stuff.
It's like, today's today, takeit out today, don't waste your
time.
You want to build systems andpricing mechanisms that make it

(40:11):
a high friction environment tocash out.
And then you have, um, somemagic there because then now you
have all of the customers thatdon't mind the friction because
they want to be in yourecosystem.
And all these other people arelike, I need to get out of this
damn thing.
I just wanted to make a quickbuck.
I don't want to be exposed toNike sneakers or Rolex watches.
I don't give a flying monkeyabout that.
I need cash, so that dynamic iswhat you want to get rid of.

(40:34):
From your marketplace.
So again, related to pricing,but yeah, the secondary market
thing, again, the subtleties ofthese interactions are deep and
require a lot of thought anddesign.

Ernest (40:45):
And actually just two things related to this that I
think are interesting is, um, Ithink one of the reasons Rolex
was able to approach this withsuch patients is their unique
governance structure.
I think we've talked about thisin the past.
They're not a publicly heldcompany.
They're actually a privatecharitable trust.
So they very much operate with alongterm view, just as you were
saying, versus this kind of moretraditional market driven

(41:06):
quarterly, profit driven,approach that it's kind of
ascendant, I guess, right now.
So I think that's one of thethings that enabled them to
weather.
This bubble.
Um, and then the second is theimportance of, if not owning at
least controlling yourdistribution.
And I think it's reallyinteresting to see, you know,
off the back of this experiencethat Rolex has entered into the

(41:26):
secondary market as well.
And I think my guess would bethat, partly because it's a
business opportunity, but alsobecause it's a lever for them to
be able to, to.
to some degree controlled thatpricing in the secondary market
as well.
So I think there was arecognition that they, they had
to do this as a way to try tomoderate this speculation that

(41:47):
you were talking about.
And I think it's just super,super smart on their part to do
that because they do take thisvery long term holistic view of
their relationship with thecustomer and wanting to make
sure that's a positiverelationship.
So I think there are some reallyinteresting lessons there.
I'd say one of thecounterexamples would be in the
automotive space.
in the U.
S.
with the traditional dealermodel where The automakers don't

(42:09):
own their distribution.
The dealers are not owned by thecar makers.
And so you saw a lot of pricegouging at the dealer level,
which created, a lot of, brandnegativity, which is really
difficult because the car makersdon't own their dealers.
So they can't force them not togo out which maybe they have
some levers they can try topull, but pull.

(42:29):
But, um, it's a very challengingsituation for them.
to deal with that.
And, you can see these hugepeaks and valleys that are a
consequence of that, where theygo through, really fat years.
And then off the back of that,they go through these really
shallow years.
So, um, it speaks to theimportance of having some
mechanism to be able to manageyour distribution as well, so

(42:49):
that you can have some controlon pricing, so that you're not
alienating your customers, justlike you were talking about.

Joachim (42:58):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Ernest (42:59):
All right, well, this has been a great conversation.
I think there's, I canabsolutely imagine us revisiting
some of these topics.
Um, but, um, now that you'veheard our perspectives, we want
to hear from you.
So please share your thoughtswith us at learnmakelearn gmail.
com, or on threads atlearnmakelearnshow, all one
word.

(43:21):
All right, now let's move on toour recommendations of the week.
Joachim, do you have arecommendation you'd like to
share?

Joachim (43:29):
Yeah, I'm going to share a platform.
So, uh, Mubi.
com is a movie streamingplatform, highly focused
content, small library, thingscome in and out all the time.
But the claim is that they'reheavily curated and curated by
human beings.
So the catalog is, verynavigable.

(43:49):
But right now is a pretty sweettime to be on MUBI.
So, Coralie Fagia is a Frenchdirector.
She is being feted right now forher movie, The Substance, which
Demi Moore starred in.
Uh, it's a strange body shock,horror ish movie.
Um, about taking your personalaesthetic a little bit too far.

(44:14):
It gets a little gruesome.
There's a little bit of bodyshop, but it is quite fun to
watch and heavy handed, a littlebit B movie ish, hitting you
over the head with a messagetype stuff, which I think we
need right now.
It kind of reminds me of the 80swhen John Carpenter's movies
were so heavy handed and antiReaganite.

(44:35):
It feels like there's somethingin the air that we need people
to be doing these things.
So, Mubi they produced TheSubstance, and so you can stream
that now.
It just came out in the cinemasa few weeks ago.
Um, but Coralie Faget also has amovie called Revenge, which is a
very violent B movie revengeflick.

(44:55):
Warning, it does involve, scenesof sexual assault.
Um, but then, as the namesuggests of the movie, there is
revenge afterwards.
And it is over the topridiculous.
But also, and again, heavyhanded with the imagery, there's
a lot of, uh, phoenixes risingfrom the ashes type imagery.
So it's, it's very satisfying.

(45:17):
and very good, but again,warning that the content does
start off with that.
and then there's The Fall, whichwas a big cult favorite, uh,
starring Lee Pace, a very youngLee Pace.
And I'm a huge fan, because Ithink you are as well, because
of his work in Halt and CatchFire, and you watch Foundation,
I think, as well, right?
Yeah, so he's, he's a fantasticactor, and here at 24, he's,

(45:39):
he's brilliant, and The Fall isa really beautifully shot film.
It's been restored to 4K, andMubi has it on stream there, so
it is very engrossing.
Somewhat sad, but alsoincredible to see a film from
the early 2000s where there's, Imean, very little to no CGI at
all.
It is all in location, incamera, unbelievable stuff.

(46:03):
So, I recommend that as it'salso a movie and a documentary
that I think is great about JeffMcFetridge drawing a life.
And.
I think all of us might have hadsome exposure to his art because
he is the artist who made theapple watch face with the faces
and the little, um, the numbersthat are on there.

(46:24):
So that's him.
Uh, and this is a documentaryabout his artistic pursuits.
He comes from the skateboardingscene.
Um, and started doing, like,graphic design, and he's a very
interesting character.
I, I think his art is, it's veryeasy and very accessible to
consume, and that's why I thinkhe can move very seamlessly from
commercial to the more artisticpursuits.

(46:44):
But what's interesting is alsohow he pursues his art.
He tries to live a completelife.
He wants to be a dad, he wantsto be an athlete, he's a
straight edge, hardcore guy, sohe's still, lives a clean life,
and he wants to pursue art atthe same time.
And That's, it's just very niceto see an artist who is not
trying to screw up their life toachieve something in art, but

(47:04):
it's like, I'm going to do artand I'm going to be a good
person and I'm going to be aparent and I'm going to do all
these lovely things.
So, um, a very, um, upliftingstory about him.
So Mubi, I would just subscribeand just consume all that stuff.
Cause it's really great rightnow.

Ernest (47:17):
That's great.
And your, your point about maybewe need over the top expressions
right now, I think is a reallyinteresting one.
I saw a comment, I think it wason threads.
I can't recall who said this,but noting that a lot of
creative people right now, Ithink do feel quite defeated,
um, and depressed, but theymentioned that the explosion of

(47:40):
creativity that we saw comingout of the UK in the eighties.
was very much a response to theThatcher years.
And so, you know, that just yourexactly to your point that maybe
that is what we need is justthis willingness to be over the
top and bigger in a way that wehaven't seen in recent years.

(48:03):
So, um, maybe that thesubstance, even though she's a
French director, is that right?

Joachim (48:08):
French director, but yeah, Demi Moore, it's, it's an
English language film as is

Ernest (48:12):
Right.

Joachim (48:13):
Um, but, but she kind of gets it.
She's clearly consumed Americanculture.
Like when you see these things,they're

Ernest (48:19):
In the, I think, generally positive response to
the movie, I think maybe it is areflection of this hunger for,
you know, these bigger, um,expressions of recognition that
maybe we need that.
So that's a great one.
I won't, you know, just like yousaid, we'll provide links to all
this stuff in the show notestoo.
Um, I have a recommendationthat's completely different, uh,

(48:39):
it's a physical product.
It's actually, um, from, uh,it's basically, it's a company
called bedrock and.
I think they're maybe evencalled bedrock sandals.
They make sandals.
And what I love about them isthat they're a great example of
going against the grain.
I guess, uh, as a, someone whojust likes underdogs, I, I love
those types of companies that gotheir own way and are able to

(49:00):
find success doing that.
So, uh, Bedrock, um, got theirstart making sandals that I
guess would be classified asthong type sandals, meaning that
they have a little piece ofmaterial that goes between your
big toe and your second toe.
Um, but unlike your traditionaljust cheap supermarket thong
sandals that you buy just for aday at the beach and throw away,

(49:21):
um, Bedrock really focused onhiking.
And the opportunity to createsandals that would be very
minimal and lightweight, butwould still work really well for
hiking on, you know, prettytechnical terrain.
And the way I got exposed tothem was, I'm interested in
hiking in the outdoors, and Isaw that a lot of pretty serious

(49:41):
hikers were adopting thesesandals.
And I have to admit that I alsokind of had a Uh, negative
perceptions about thong sandalsand I, you know, wasn't so keen
about the idea of havingsomething between my toes, but
based on all this positive, um,feedback I'd been hearing, I
gave one of their products atry, I think it was the Cairn

(50:02):
Evo, uh, sandal and I really,really liked it.
There was, uh, I was sosurprised by how well.
The shoes stayed on my feet,even on uneven terrain, just
based on this very cleverdesign.
You know, a big part of it wasthe thong that goes between your
toes.
That really helps keep yourforefoot on the footbed without

(50:25):
having to have all kinds ofother overlays and structures
around your foot.
But they also have this reallyclever fit system that goes
around your ankle and your heel.
Um, it's really hard todescribe, um, you know, in
words, but yeah.
What's clever about it is thatyou just have to adjust it once.
And once you've adjusted it totune it to your own foot shape,

(50:47):
then you never have to adjust itagain.
Then it's just a matter oftightening it.
So it's really easy to put themon and take them off.
And yet they fit.
They give you the sort of one toone fit so that it works even
in, you know, pretty ruggedterrain.
Um, so, uh, that Care and Evowas the first product I bought.
Then, um, they introduced a lineof foot pads.
clogs, which don't have anythingbetween your big toe and your

(51:10):
second toe.
They call it the mountain clog.
It looks a bit like, I thinkit's the, uh, Birkenstock
Boston.
It's the one that's reallypopular.
So it looks a bit like that,but, um, it has, it doesn't have
that contoured foot, footbedlike Birkenstock.
And for some people that mightbe a pro or a con, but I
actually am a big fan of thatcontoured footbed in
Birkenstocks.
And yet I've also been a reallybig fan of mountain clog.

(51:32):
Has.
For me at least, like exactlythe right amount of cushioning,
just what I want.
It's like, it's, it's prettyminimal, but it has this like
uniquely like flubbery feel toit.
It's not, I think for me, shoesthese days are just too soft.
Everything's, everyone's tryingto make marshmallows.
And so I love that I get alittle bit of feedback, but it's

(51:54):
just enough to take the edgeoff.
And then just recently I got anew product that they introduced
called the Cairn Evo C, wherethe C stands for cushion.
So it's basically an addition tothe product.
So they still make the originalshoe, the sandal I bought, the
Cairn Evo Pro, but they've addedto their line with this Evo C
that has just a little bit morecushion to it.

(52:15):
It's not like a maximal shoe.
It's, it's, you still get agreat feel for the ground, but
it's just a little bit morecushion.
And I took a flyer on it.
I wasn't sure what I wouldthink, uh, cause I cut, I, one
of the things I liked about myoriginal care, any votes was,
um, just how much I could feelthe ground.
But I actually was thinkingabout trying to run in the

(52:36):
sandals.
And so I thought, yeah, I mightwant just a little bit more
cushion.
And then I said, wow, they'reoffering this new product.
And I, I've only done one run inthem, but I, so far I really
liked them and I could imaginejust using them as my everyday
kind of everything shoe.
I wear them with, um, toe socks,uh, from a brand called
Creepers.

(52:56):
And so maybe two recognitions inone.
It's a small, um, brand.
I can't see that out ofAustralia and New Zealand.
They'll hate that I got thatwrong, but, uh, I, I'm really
into wool and they're the onlywool based toe sock I've been
able to find that actuallylasts.
All the other ones break downwithin a handful of wearings,

(53:16):
but I've had these creeper socksfor over a year and they're
still no holes.
Great match for these bedrocksandals.
So like I mentioned, part of thereason I love them is that they
had the curves to go their ownway.
You know, I'm sure a lot ofpeople told them, Oh, no one's
gonna buy it.
Long style sandals.
No one wants stuff between theirtoes.
But they realized it led to abetter solution.

(53:37):
It allowed them to make a muchmore minimal shoe that still
worked in pretty hairy trailsituations.
Um, and then now I think they'redoing a great job of building on
that success.
And in a lot of ways, they kindof remind me of what Hoka's
done, where, you know, verysimilarly, Hoka took this very
unorthodox approach to thefootwear market, where it was

(54:00):
just a couple of guys fromFrance who are really into
downhill trail running.
And they thought, Hey, you knowwhat?
We'd like, you know, at thatpoint, the orthodoxy around the
trail was you should, you shouldbe super minimal so that, you
know, um, you're as stable aspossible and you want to feel
the trail.
But they said, Hey, for whatwe're doing, we actually want
more cushioning.
And.

(54:20):
you know, they believed in that,they pushed it, they stuck with
it.
And, you know, now it's thisincredibly, um, popular brand
with great momentum.
So, you know, for the folks outthere making products, just kind
of a reminder to, um, have thecourage of your convictions, you
know, if, if you're, you're, ifyou've got something that really
adds value, um, I'd say, youknow, stick to it, it's going to

(54:42):
be, it's not going to be easy,but, um, if you stick to it,
there's a good chance thatyou're going to find success.
And I think there's a lot ofexamples where.
you know, ideas that maybe, um,might've gone against the grain,
still managed to break throughbecause there was real value,
uh, to the products.

Joachim (55:00):
I think it's like, uh, it reminds me kind of, um, of
workwear, you know, that, thatworkwear that is Carhartt is
like workwear practical.
Every part of the stuff is therefor a reason for the worker.
And then, you know, Iteventually becomes a fashion
item.
And then everyone's wondering, Iwonder what the little pocket

(55:21):
was for.
You know, there's, there'salways that thing.
And I feel like Hoka managed tocross over as well into this
other domain.
I know they're owned now by amuch bigger group, um, but
they've leaned into theweirdness of those wedge soles
and put bright colors on them.
And they're pretty funky andweird and cool.
And I I've been looking at themas well, just because I see them

(55:44):
around so much and they.
They stick out, you know, youjust see everyone's wearing them
and I love that.
Like they're crossing over intobeing just like the funky weird
wedge shoe.
And I, we was just talking aboutlike, is that when you said, Oh,
these guys are downhill runners.
I was like, wait, is that whythey got that weird big wedge at
the back of every hiking bootand every running shoe?
Like that makes sense.
But it just, it's just.

(56:04):
Kind of looks cool now, youknow, it has this, uh, it just
looks out of the ordinary.
So it's nice that there's afunction to it, but then it also
becomes pure style, which isalso an interesting evolution.
I always find that these

Ernest (56:16):
And then now the trick is, can they stay true to that
core authenticity whileexpanding.
I think that they're kind ofright at that, the cusp of that.
So it'll be interesting to seehow that goes.
All right.
Well, I think that does it forus.
Uh, thank you so much forjoining us here at learn, make,
learn, and a big thank you againto Michael for suggesting

(56:36):
today's topic, which led to thisgreat conversation.
Um, now I would just want togive folks a heads up with the
holidays approaching you.
and both Joachim and I having totravel between now and the end
of the year.
We're not exactly sure whenwe'll be able to publish our
next episode, but we're going todo our best to publish episode
25 before the calendar hits2025.

(56:59):
I'm not sure if we'll get it,but we're going to try our best.
So thanks in advance for yourpatience, and we hope you'll
join us for the next Learn MakeLearn.