The Weight of History

Episode Transcript
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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 Groeger.
Hey, Joachim, how's it going?

Joachim (00:18):
I just took a sip of coffee.
I'm ready.
I think that's, that's it.
Let's do this.
How about you?

Ernest (00:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been a dreary day in the Pacific
Northwest, so definitely I'vegot a little caffeine going as
well.
So, uh, I feel good to go.
this is episode 18, and todayour topic is the weight of
history.
We'll dive into this in greaterdetail in just a minute, but
let's start with some follow upsto our previous episode on the

(00:47):
perils of fan service, or to anyepisodes prior?

Joachim (00:50):
Yeah, so our episode enough is enough, which was
dealing with the zero interestrate, World and the world of
limitless possibilities.
Um, we discussed two AIproducts, the Humane AI Pin and
the Rabbit R1.
And so actually there are followups that are related to both of

(01:13):
those products.
First Humane AI, uh, is tryingto find a buyer.
So the founders of this companyare trying to swiftly find the
exit door.
And they're going to sell thisthing.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I just don't know what they'rehoping to be able to achieve
with this.

(01:33):
Maybe just get some cash in thebank and then move on.
Because this is I mean, thisproduct has been thoroughly dis
Discredited and reviewed sopoorly.
Um, so that's the one littlefollow up.
That's interesting to see theseguys trying to exit.
Um, and not, and not stick withit, which is, I think in our
conversation, we talked a littlebit about the possibility that
these companies are trying toiterate and they're going to

(01:55):
push things out and then it'sgoing to get better.
And we've all become accustomedto that idea of iterating on a
product as we own it.
Um, you get software updates.
I mean, we're doing it withcars.
Why not do it with everythingelse as well?
Right.
So, um, But it seems like theydon't want to do that.
They just want to get out there,finish it off, and cash out.
Which feels like it's, aconsequence of this environment.

(02:16):
the lack of free money flowingthrough the system means that
they don't see the pathforwards.
And they know they won't be ableto raise any more money given
that everything is just soexpensive.
So, an interesting little tidbitthere about Humane.
And then the other one, which Ireally wasn't expecting, this
is, uh, part of my YouTubesubscription set.
Um, a couple of weeks ago, avideo was posted by Coffizilla.

(02:40):
Um, I don't know if anyonelistening to this knows about
him, but I'll give a quicksummary.
Coffizilla is a fraud buster, Ithink, put simply.
He puts it as, um everything upon YouTube, all of his
investigations.
And he has uncovered prettyawful scams that involve NFTs,

(03:01):
Bitcoin.
Um, he was one of the earlypeople to highlight some red
flags surrounding FTX.
He does not qualify in atraditional sense as an
investigative journalist.
You know, like the, he's not,he's not working for the New
York times, but he holds himselfto a very, very high standard
because he is calling peoplefrauds outright.
It's very risky.

(03:21):
so to our followup coffee Zilladid a two episode, uh, special
on.

Ernest (03:29):
Ah.

Joachim (03:29):
I was not expecting that.
And the title of it wasbasically, is this, you know,
the scam that preceded Rabbit?
And the second part of the videowas it gets worse.
This could be a scam again.
Um, and the first video explainshow the founder of Rabbit, uh,
was essentially a crypto king.
making all kinds of fraudulentclaims.

(03:51):
Uh, and the product that he waspushing was a currency that was
also carbon neutral, or evencarbon negative, that it would
start cleaning up the air.
Um, and it would then be used ina game.
And immersive experience.
That was like the metaverse.
And it was so immersive andthere's going to be AI and it,
It's going to feel like theMatrix and I think at one point

(04:13):
he even, the founder even saysthat, you know, if you die in
the game, you die in the realworld, like referencing all of
this Matrix lore.
So really, really rotten stuff.
People have lost money.
that kind of sets the scene forthe, this founder's reputation
already.
I mean, it's a little bitshabby.
It's not clear that thisperson's actually legitimate and
if they're even.

(04:34):
sensible, you know?
So that is, uh, one piece.
The second part of the video isactually very focused around the
RabbitR1, and he digs into thecode, talks to specialists and
experts, and all of thediscussion is around the large
action model.
And, and the bit that wediscussed that we saw as well,
that there are lots of problemswith this large action model,

(04:55):
and its potential that itdoesn't actually even exist.
and people have been looking atthe code base.
And from what they can gather,there is nothing fancy.
That's basically using off theshelf, um, automatic macro
creators and so on.
So the scam piece is the factthat the founder keeps telling
us that LAM is.

(05:15):
in the system now.
Uh, and he's trying to pass offthis product as a large action
model in existence right now,but it's clearly not there.
Um, so it just really, I wasjust struck by the whole, uh,
discussion and having everythinglaid out back to back in that
way really makes you wonder, um,what was this environment that

(05:36):
we were operating in that thisbehavior was allowed to just
continue.
And I think maybe for theproduct innovators in the world,
it's heartening because as soonas you leave the realm of
vaporware and then the nextlevel of vaporware software and
code, and then you try and makehardware, it becomes very, very

(05:57):
hard to hide, doesn't it?
When people can hold this thingand you make all these claims,
it's very different than youmake all these claims and it
kind of exists in the cloud,let's say, you know, abstractly.
Physical products need to bedesigned well.
And the fraudsters will be foundout pretty quickly because we
still have our senses when itcomes to these tactile
experiences, I think.

(06:17):
So, um, I recommend we'll putlinks in the show notes for
these two videos.
And also I recommend thatchannel in general.
It's absolutely fascinating.
If anyone is concerned that theydon't understand about Bitcoin
and NFT and crypto, Don't worry,most of it is fraud.
And that's Coffeezilla remindsus.
So, you know, at the end of theday, a lot of these schemes do
not have to be viewed throughthe lens of blockchain, crypto,

(06:39):
anything, they're just frauds.
Uh, and I think that's alsoimportant reminder of, uh, you
know, the essential truth of alot of the technologies that
we're surrounded by really takeaway the hype and maybe it's
just a bit of a fraudulentthing.
So, uh, those are my followupsto our episode on, you know,
enough is enough and the rabbitR1 and humane AI.

Ernest (07:00):
Oh, that's great.
I'm really glad you called thoseout.
I can't wait to check that out.
I have a couple of follow upsthis week.
The first connects to threerecent episodes, namely our last
episode where we highlighted theperils of fan service.
But also our enough is enoughepisode where we discuss the
impacts of our new post zerointerest rate phenomenon era

(07:22):
like you were just referencingas well, actually.
Um, and then our time to learnepisode where in the lead up to
the annual watches and wonderstrade show, we highlighted
learnings from the watchindustry that go well beyond the
world of the internet.
Horology.
Um, to set this up, I'm going toquote an excerpt from an article
by Alex Dent at, um, Worn andWild.
Quote, After several years awayfrom the international trade

(07:44):
show scene following the demiseof Baselworld, Nomos is back
this year making their firsttrip to Watches and Wonders and
featuring a fun spin on aclassic.
With new, limited edition takeson the Tangente 38 Date.
With eye catching colorpalettes, the new Tangente 38
Date models combine a fanfavorite design with an array of

(08:05):
new colors the brand hopes willgive wearers a chance to better
express themselves.
through their watch.
With a staggering 31 differentcolors, there are plenty of
options for the watchenthusiasts who want something a
little different from what youmight typically see in the watch
world.
But what might be most eyecatching is the price.
Unlike many of the limitededition watches being unveiled

(08:25):
at Watches Wonders, the newNomos Tangente 38 Dates are
genuinely affordable andactually cheaper than the
standard model.
The regular run Tangente 38 datecan be found on the Nomos
website for 2, 780 US.
The limited edition watches willsell for 2, 310 US, a discount

(08:46):
of 470 and a move Nomos sees asan investment in brand
accessibility, unquote.
Now I know this is belated giventhat watches and wonders took
place this last April, uh, but Iwanted to highlight this.
Because I think it's such agreat example of that enough is
enough concept we discussed acouple of episodes ago crossed
with the perils of fanservice.

(09:07):
On that latter point, if Nomoshad only listened to hardcore
watch enthusiasts, they wouldhave concluded that the thing
for them to do to mark theirdebut at Watches and Wonders
would have been to create anultra complicated watch, ideally
a chronograph, which they don'tcurrently offer and which many
watch geeks covet.
Of course, being ultracomplicated, this new model
would also have been ultraexpensive.

(09:29):
Now, you know, two to threeyears ago at the height of the
zero interest rate phenomenonera that exorbitant cost might
not have mattered.
But today it absolutely doeseven in inherently lux segments
of the economy like the watchmarket.
So fortunately for Nomos, theydidn't listen to the superfans
of the watch world and neitherdid they conform to the status
quo of upcharging for a limitededition models.

(09:52):
Instead, they took an enough isenough approach.
In that episode, I mentionedthat when we talk about enough
being enough, we're not talkingabout a lack of innovation.
Instead, it's about innovatingagainst the things that matter
for your customers, rather thanyour CEO's ego.
Which was a dig at Elon Musk andthe Titanic failure.
That is the Tesla Cybertruck.
Uh, in the case of Nomos, theyfocused on the modern watch

(10:14):
customers desire for selfexpression and delivered on it
through a joyful celebration ofcolor and individuality.
We'll include a link to the fullcollection in the show notes
because the colorways really arefantastic.
And some of them are just reallywild.
Uh, and importantly, they, theybased it on their most iconic
model, the Tankente, and as AlexDent noted in his article, they

(10:35):
actually priced this limitededition version.
Below the price of theequivalent standard issue
Tangente because as Dent wrote,Nomos sees this collection as an
investment in brandaccessibility.
I think this is just such agreat example of product
planning and creation through aperiod of significant headwinds.
The easy thing for Nomos to dowould have been to retrench and

(10:58):
focus on their highest margincustomers with higher margin
offerings, such as preciousmetal versions of existing
models.
But instead they're leaning intothe headwinds and using them as
an opportunity to win newcustomers in an environment
where many of their competitorsare taking the easy path.
And by all accounts, Nomosapproach seems to be working.

(11:19):
Many journalists cited thisTangente collection as one of
the standout hits of Watches andWonders 2024.
And as far as I can tell, Everysingle one of the 31 colorways
is already sold out online.
Um, so I just think this is agreat example of some of the
ideas we've discussed in recentepisodes being applied with
great success out in the realworld.
Had you seen these at all?

(11:40):
Yeah.

Joachim (11:42):
I'm really happy that you brought this up because when
I saw them as a Okay, watch,watch enthusiast.
I was so uninterested.
I have to, I have to be veryhonest.
I just thought, okay, greatcolors.
Brilliant.
Don't care.
Show me something chronographcomplicated.

(12:02):
You know, I need to see lots ofcogs flicking around.
give me the IWC eternalcalendar.
That's going to be accurate fora million years.
Great.
So.
Hearing your description makesit very clear.
Yes.
Why target me?
I'm, I, I'm not the rightperson.
This is, and as you said, theheadwinds that they're facing
right now is that this is a,this could shrink this
marketplace.

(12:23):
I think what's interesting alsofrom a pure business perspective
is as you were highlighting thefact that the prices of these
items are actually lower thanthe normal, uh, the regular
tangente.
This is a really, really cleverapproach to the problem because
each piece is limited to 175watches.
And then they're going to have,wait, are they doing 175 colors

(12:43):
or 31

Ernest (12:44):
Yeah.
31.

Joachim (12:45):
175 limited pieces in 31

Ernest (12:48):
Right.

Joachim (12:49):
and they're knocking off three or 300 off the price.
So this sounds insane.
But it's really, really wellthought out because your cost
and exposure is super limited.
You know exactly how much moneyyou're foregoing.
And you have a very clear ideaof what you're trying to do.
You're saying this is a, aninvestment in the future
customer base.

(13:10):
And so unlike a pure marketingpush that you're just going to
throw money into the, into theether and hope that someone gets
the vibes of your brand thisway, it's very direct to saying
this is for the people who areinterested in this watch.
And it's investment for Nomosand they understand that and the
exposure is fixed.
So I really liked that.
It reminded me in some ways tothat, um, point that you made

(13:31):
actually in the, uh, time tolearn episode about Cartier
buying it's debt, the stock thatwas just not shifting and just
pulling it out of the market.
Again, the math and thearithmetic is very clean.
There are so many units outthere.
It's going to cost so much topull them back.
That's how, that's yourexposure.
And so from a, the, the businessmanager's friend is always like,
suddenly this is a very clear,certain thing, uh, in many ways,

(13:55):
even though it's, and that's whyyou can go crazy with it.
You don't have to be superconservative because the
exposure is so well controlled.
Um, so a lot of things here thatI really appreciate.
I'm really happy you brought itup.
And like I said, I was souninterested in this.
It's great because I just let itwash over me.
So the people that would beinterested are the ones that are
most likely to click and buy andwant to buy.

(14:16):
It'll probably not interestflippers because flippers care
about aficionados who want tobuy stuff.
Again, there's a lot of littlebits here that I think really
make this a smart move that goesbeyond just, um, the typical
growth strategies thatbusinesses like to pursue.
I think there's a lot of lessonsin this one.
So yeah.
Thank you so much for bringingthat one up.

Ernest (14:33):
No, no, I'm so glad you were honest about your initial
reaction to it.
Because I have to admit, thatwas also my reaction.
Like, oh, you know, this is justcolors on an existing model.
But once you dig into it, Ithink it does make a ton of
sense.
Another thing I didn't mentionthat I love about their approach
here is they didn't just doanother one of these, you know,
stupid vacuous collabs with somestreetwear brand, you know,

(14:57):
which Tag Heuer just did was Ithink kids, um, you know, they
applied their own designprowess, which they have, you
know, great talent in.
and their own taste and judgmentto create this beautiful
collection.
I just think it's just such agreat example that I hope other
brands pick up on, um, and kindof follow Nomos lead on.

(15:20):
All right, well now the secondpiece of follow up I have is Is
a comment from a friend, aformer colleague from when I
worked out in Singapore and alsoa listener to the show named
Tony.
For context here, Tony has deepfirsthand experience in user
experience design.
He's a fantastic interactiondesigner in response to our

(15:41):
perils of fan service episode,Tony wrote.
Quote, another awesome episode.
He said that, not me.
Uh, it's so true that customerssometimes don't have the
language to express what theywant and are only able to
provide feedback based on whatthey already know.
The biggest problem with UXdesign now is that some
organizations design teams justlisten and don't innovate.

(16:03):
Sometimes I think short UXdesign courses in schools like
Hyper Island are killinginnovation, because they teach
people how to gather data, butnot how to be innovative and
learn more about the problem.
I think this is a greatobservation by Tony, and I find
his point about the mechanisticways in which product creation
in general, and UX design inparticular, are taught to be

(16:24):
particularly resonant.
There's such a focus on theexecution and so little
attention paid to understandingthe why Underpinning it these
days.
So a big thank you to Tony fortaking the time to share this
observation.
And I just want to say that, youknow, we love hearing from you.
So please keep the comments andquestions coming to learn, make
learn at gmail.

(16:45):
com.
Joachim You had raised somegreat points in past episodes on
the potential risks associatedwith an over focus on user
centered design.
And so I was wondering if youhave any thoughts on Tony's
points about the ways you UXdesign tends to be taught these
days.
You Heh heh

Joachim (17:01):
Yeah, I'm really,

Ernest (17:03):
heh.

Joachim (17:04):
I'm so happy that Tony wrote in and shared his
perspective on these things andalso brought up the, the user
experience and user interactiondesign aspects.
Having someone who's an expertsay very directly, there's
something fundamentally wrongwith the way we're doing it
right now and the way we'reeducating the next generation of
designers.
Um, and I stumbled on this, um,old video of Noel Gallagher that

(17:25):
I thought was perfect thatdescribed this whole phenomenon.
And Noel Gallagher, of course,the guitarist, main songwriter
of Oasis, and, uh, he uses a lotof colorful language, as you
should know.
But in this small, uh, tidbitfrom an interview, uh, he talks
about the consumer.
And so it starts off like this.

(17:45):
He says the consumer didn't wantJimi Hendrix, but they got him
and it changed the world.
And he's got a couple of otherexamples.
And then he just says verybluntly, F the customer.
The customer doesn't know whathe wants.
You give it to him.
He likes it.
That's it.
Customers are idiots.

(18:06):
So I think there's a lot,there's a lot of wisdom in that,
right?
We lack the language to describethe thing that we want.
Um, and so.
listening to the customer as wedo nowadays feels very limiting
because we're trying to, we'rejust literally asking them, what
do you want?

(18:26):
And you say, well, could I havemore of that thing, please?
Okay, here it is.
And so that's the other piecethat Tony was talking about that
I think is a deeper point.
He says, you know, the biggestproblem is that they teach
people how to gather data, butnot how to innovate, There's
this focus around user data,gathering what they're doing But

(18:48):
that's very backward lookingbecause you're just asking them,
what do they know?
and I think there's a really,there's a big danger in that, in
the domain of interactiondesign, if you try and become
too quote unquote data drivenbecause data driven is
inherently conservative.
It means that you have seensomething and you're collecting
data on an existing phenomenon.

(19:09):
And.
That's going to fail to capturethe complexities and the nuance
and the essence of what, uh, isactually going on under the
hood.
If you think of the interactiondesign domain, people will ask
questions like, how many secondsdid they spend on this screen?
Uh, where did they click?
Uh, did they hit the back buttonand how often, um, and things
like that, that are just metricsAnd so.

(19:32):
If you're just looking at theseaggregates where you just add up
all the numbers that havehappened in a session or over a
month, you miss the whole chainof events that leads to
something that's magical.
And that's where the innovationcomes is when you start
understanding the journey.
There is a way to do that withthe data, but just adding up
numbers from that is going tomask the whole thing.
And you're going to just lookat.
I've really low fidelity pictureof it, and you're going to focus

(19:53):
on the things that are easilymeasurable.
And therefore you think thoseare the things that you should
focus on.
There are innovation is notmeasurable because you haven't
made it yet.
They don't know what it is.
This is a very, very commonphenomenon, this inability to
unpack a journey and just focuson the stats.
So here's a really unrelatedtangent that I just stumbled on.

(20:14):
It's from a recent Atlanticarticle on.
social media and young people'sminds.
A new book has come out byJonathan Haidt where he's saying
that social media is destroyingyoung minds and we're incapable
of functioning anymore aschildren.
So they have in the Atlantic, aresponse from Candace Hodges,
who is a developmentalpsychologist and the title of

(20:37):
her piece is the panic oversmartphones doesn't help teens.
And subtitle, it makes it worseactually.
One little thing that she pointsout there is that so many of
these studies they just say,this is how many minutes of
social media a person's having,and they're all depressed.
the more minutes, the moredepressed these children are.
In the few studies that she hasseen where people actually look
at.
The path that a young person'smind is taking.

(21:00):
So they follow an individualfrom age 12 onwards or some
point, and then they see whatthey're doing.
In most cases, what they find isthat they're already exhibiting
depressive behaviors due toother trauma, more serious
trauma rather than social media.
And as a result of that, theythen start consuming more social
media.
So the causation is completelythe wrong way around.

(21:22):
But when I look at a slice of aperson at age 16, I see, look at
the hours of social media, lookat their depressive state.
You're missing the wholepicture.
So, um, Well, thank you, Tony.
That's all I can say.
It gave me, it gave me an excuseto, to, to talk about these,
these things, but I think it'sone of those things that's going
to, in our current climate wherepeople want to lean on data so

(21:43):
much and look back and data isalso kind of a historical weight
that sits on you and you need tounpack it properly to really
understand the chain of thingsthat gets you to where you are
today, as opposed to just here'sthe snapshot.

Ernest (21:57):
Oh, that's a great point and also a great segue actually
into the main topic for today.
Uh, so as we mentioned, we'regoing to discuss how, um, you as
someone in the business ofmaking products can escape the
weight of history.
Now just to give you somebackground on this, um, the two
most powerful forces in anyorganization are inertia and

(22:18):
history.
Inertia is easy to understand,and it is a cousin to history in
that history is the pressurethat develops within companies
to beat, or at the very leastrepeat history, as in the
previous year's sales for agiven product.
This leads to a tendency to fallback on the tried and true, what
you know works, just like youwere talking about Joachim,

(22:38):
because last year's numbers arealways looming in your rearview.
But ultimately this leads tostagnant products and puts you
at risk of disruption by morenimble competitors who aren't
weighed down by your historicalbaggage.
One manifestation of the weightof history that's been in the
news recently is Nike.
Now, in the spirit of fulldisclosure, I am employed by

(22:58):
Nike, but as we said on our veryfirst episode, hello world, the
views expressed here are oursand ours alone, and don't
represent those of our employerspast, present, or future.
At the same time, I'm not goingto disclose any privileged
information.
So, anything I said on thisepisode Is based on public third
party sources.
All right.

(23:18):
So getting back to Nike, a piecein Reuters from earlier this
year, cited longtime industryanalyst, Matt Powell, who said,
quote, Nike has been stuffingthe market with top sellers,
like it's retro lifestylesneakers and iterations of its
Jordan brand, releasing too manystyles to retailers, despite
signs that shoppers have grownweary of Nike shoes.

(23:39):
A sample of eight retailers byanalytics firm Vertical
Knowledge showed that they soldfar more Nike sneakers at a
discount than they did Hokasneakers, Adidas shoes,
Switzerland based on runningshoes or Puma styles.
Another sign of waning shopperdemand.
Nike styles, including the NikeDunk Low Retro, have also sunk

(24:00):
in price on the sneaker resalemarketplace.
In 2023, Nike released 116 newversions of that shoe, compared
to just 31 in 2019, according toDylan Dittrich, head of research
for Alton Insights, whichstudies the collectible sneaker
market.
Unquote.
So that's just one example toget us started.

(24:20):
And, uh, as I mentioned just aminute ago, given Joachim and my
history with Nike, we're notable to discuss the brand in any
detail, but Joachim, does thisexample spark any broader
thoughts on the weight ofhistory that extend beyond Nike?

Joachim (24:33):
As I was thinking about this question around, you know,
the weight of history, it turnsout we call the weight of
history many different things.
That's the negative version.
But if you rotate it a bit, theweight of history also has
different, you know, words thatwe use to describe it, it can
become something like heritage.
Uh, and if it's a specific itemor product that we've created,

(24:55):
then it becomes iconic, um, orthe things have a lineage, uh,
you know, all of these otherwords become, there's such a
positive version of that thing.
We've discussed brands that havegot really iconic products.
Porsche's 911 is iconic, LandRover's Range Rover is
absolutely iconic.

(25:15):
But we've seen how they'vemanaged to balance it, maybe
sometimes successfully,sometimes a little bit
unsuccessfully, but there is away to, to move things forward.
What's of interest to me is nowthe question, what if they had
not leaned back on those thingsto regain their customer's
confidence.
So Porsche, of course, had aperiod where they were getting

(25:35):
experimental, quote unquote, uh,nine, 14, uh, car partnership
with the vw.
With vw.
Um, pretty experimental car.
Mid engine, very quirky.
Not a success when it came out.
Um, 944, 928, all of thosesurvived long enough, but were

(25:56):
never considered parshas forsome reason, and have just
disappeared.
Um, So I wonder, you know, hadthey, and then they brought back
the 911, you know, essentiallythe 911 remained pretty
unchanged for a long period oftime we'll never really know if
they had tried to just breakaway from a 911.
What kind of company wouldPorsche have been today?

(26:18):
You know, maybe it could be aneven more successful company,
right?
So there's this question of,yes, we are living this specific
timeline right now.
So it's really hard to know ifsomething has been a successful
thing.
And so you have to take a stepoutside of it and you have to
revisit those old decisionsbecause those cars are
brilliant.
The nine for four is a.

(26:39):
From the design is fantastic.
It was modern, uh, water cooledengine.
That thing was a real, really,really prime product for its
era.
And somehow it just didn't, itjust didn't work.
So I think it's worth revisitingthose decisions, the failures
there and understanding what itwas, because it can't just be,
it wasn't a 9 11 and this iswhat people wanted, something

(27:00):
else was going on.
And I think it's worth thinkingabout.
So those are just some briefthoughts that I was going, uh,
that were going through my head.
But, um, what about you, Ernest?
This is something that we werediscussing.
In fact, when we met in person,we were thinking about, you
know, when you work for bigcompanies that have been around
for a while and are so wellknown for specific products.

(27:21):
How do you even communicate inyour amongst yourselves in a way
that allows you to move beyondthat, but, but build on it as
well without forgetting it?
I guess there's some respect tothe past that you want to
maintain.

Ernest (27:33):
Yeah.
Um, I want to answer that injust a sec, but, um, What you
said about Porsche made me thinkabout, the fact that there isn't
one way to go about this, right?
Like, for example, Porsche, theyfound that they did have to get
back to the touchstone of the911.
And there are going to beexamples like that.

(27:55):
For example, when I was atWadden Kennedy, I worked on the
Coca Cola account.
They learned the hard way thatthat brand is all about history,
and you know, the value of thatbrand is in the fact that it
doesn't change the core product.
But, it's kind of like we talkedabout, I think it was last
episode, you can take this yesand approach, the way that

(28:17):
Porsche has, where Yes, we'regoing to stay true to the shape
of this thing called the 911 andbuild on top of it with these
other models that are, uh, morerelevant to our current times,
you know, specifically the SUVs.
Similarly with Coke, they found,you know, we can't mess with the
original, the classic, but wecan build around it.
We could add Diet Coke.

(28:37):
We could add Coke Zero.
We could add these other, um,things around it as long as we
stay true to that core.
So that's a, you know, they'regoing to be these distinct
examples.
So, uh, you know, I don't thinkwe don't want to get across the
board.
The idea that there's oneapproach to this, um, but your
car example, you know, alsobrought to mind BMW, um, you

(28:57):
know, and you referenced them aswell.
And I think they're such animpressive company in that, you
know, that's a company with alot of heritage, or if you want
to say it negatively, a lot ofweight of history, but they've
shown a remarkable.
Willingness and capacity tochange.
And one example that comes tomind that I find so admirable is
they were early, very early tothe, you know, Electric

(29:21):
transition in their introductionof the I three and the I eight.
I can't remember off the top ofmy head what year that was, but
you know, they were, I think thefirst, uh, of the German
carmakers and first of the bigEuropean carmakers to introduce
commercialized electric vehiclesand.
BMW is actually a relativelysmall company and that was a
huge bet for them, almost kindof betting the company.

(29:44):
And those were very unsuccessfulproducts.
they had to create these newproduct lines, uh, new, you
know, manufacturing lines, allnew, um, processes.
And, um, ways to get, um, thedifferent materials into their
factories and process them.
It was this huge bet thatfailed.

(30:05):
And I think most companies wouldhave seen that and said, okay,
screw that.
We're going to go back to, whatwe've done well in the past,
kind of historically, what ourheritage has been in, you know,,
they're Bavarian motorworks.
They've been about engines,classic engines, but instead
they were able to learn fromthose mistakes and build on

(30:29):
them.
And now I've come back with anevolved approach to EVs that's
been showing great success.
And so I think that is such agreat example showing that if
you're willing to confrontHistory, just like you're
saying, it creates opportunitiesfor learning that can help you

(30:49):
to navigate the future becausethe future is always going to
change.
It's going to be very difficult.
Porsches and Coca Cola's of theworld are the exceptions.
Um, so I just think that's agreat example showing that yes,
you can.
You can break from history andyou can learn from history to
help kind of chart your coursedown into the future.

(31:11):
Um, in terms of that question ofhow you, you do it from what
I've seen, I think thatultimately it, it always in the
cases I've seen that where it'sbeen successful, it always just
comes down to culture.
It has to be something that'sreally baked into the culture of
the company in the, you know,for an example of something that

(31:32):
I'm familiar with at Nike, what,when I think Nike has always
been at its best is when it'sdelivered on Phil Knight's
mantra of listening to the voiceof the athlete.
You know, that might soundcorny, but I think that's in my
experience, that's always beenthe case that when Nike is at
its best, it's when it'slistening to the voice of the
athlete.

(31:53):
I think the fortunate thing forNike is that athletes, in my
experience, tend to be peoplewho aren't particularly
introspective, you know, who arevery forward looking, um, and
who aren't too worried about thepast, uh, but at the same time
are also, very willing to learnfrom past mistakes because they,
they recognize that if they wantto improve, they're going to

(32:14):
have to learn from things thatthey didn't do as well as they
wanted to.
So that gives you this built inculture of people that you're
talking to and engaging withthat are, Just by their nature
going to be forward looking.
And as long as you stay true tothat, you know, your company as
a whole is going to reflectthose values and those

(32:36):
behaviors.
In the case of say Apple, Ithink it was just a matter of
their CEO having this, um,innate inability to stand still.
A famous Steve jobsism was, hesaid, if you don't cannibalize
yourself, someone else will.
So, might as well be the one todo it to yourself.

(32:57):
And he didn't just say that theytalk to talk, Apple was
constantly cannibalizing theirown products with things that
they believe are better.
And, so in that case, that verymuch came down from the top of,
of something that, um, Stevejobs represented.
Um, So I think that that's onereally important and effective

(33:21):
way to deliver on this is, is tobuild that into your culture.
You know, obviously, if you'recoming into a company like you
mentioned, that has anestablished culture that doesn't
maybe reflect these sorts ofvalues that might be more
challenging.
But, um, that's, I think themost effective way, because, you
know, kind of leaning on anothersports analogy here, I think the

(33:42):
tendency is in all walks oflife.
Once you've found success.
The tendency is to want to playdefense to protect that success.
Uh, in American football,there's a famous coach turned
broadcaster named John Madden,and he had this expression I
always loved.
Um, in American football,there's this thing called the
pre vent defense.

(34:02):
It's just a basically a type ofdefense where you play very
soft.
You allow the offense to, togain yards just as long as they
don't score a touchdown.
Because you're just trying toprevent them from getting that
one big play because you've gota lead and you're, you're trying
to protect it.
But something that John Maddensaid was all the prevent defense
does is prevent you fromruining.

(34:23):
I think that's true in football,true in sport and true in
business in large part as well.
That, um, Once you get into thisjust kind of defensive mode of
almost trying to fight thefuture, uh, you know, maybe you
can tread water with thatapproach for a little while, but
invariably, it's going to catchup to you.

(34:43):
And, um, you know, you're goingto be in a very difficult
position.
So, uh, I, I feel like.
Um, based on my own, my ownexperiences, it's always better
to just be on the offense, um,so that you just don't find
yourself in that position.
And, you know, that doesn't meanyou're not going to make
mistakes, just like BMW, they,they made some big mistakes in

(35:04):
their first EV push, but so longas you're willing to learn from
those mistakes, um, as long asyou stay on that offense, then,
um, I think you're going to tendto find yourself in a good
position, much like BMW hasfound itself now.
I'd say, you know, you could saythe same thing of Hyundai.
That's very much been on theoffense and it supports the EVs
and just this new future.
Um, and I'd say over and overagain, you could see companies,

(35:27):
the companies that aresucceeding.
Another one I'd give you asNetflix, you know, that business
was built on DVDs by mail,right?
And that was a very successfulbusiness and you know, they
could have continued to ride onthat success for many, many more
years.
But they realized theirleadership realized the future
was streaming and we need to getthere.

(35:49):
Before everyone else soonerrather than later, and we can't
allow our weight of history, theweight of success we have had in
this previous business model toslow that down.
And so they completelydisassociated the physical DVD
business from the streamingbusiness business.
A lot of people thought that wasreally, um, Extreme at the time

(36:09):
they recognized how powerfulthese forces are.
This, this weight of history.
It's just so powerful, um, thatthey needed to detach it.
One last example I'll give isVolvo.
I know we're kind of justdefaulting to some car examples,
but they too, again, I think alot of people think of Volvo as
a pretty big company becausethey've been around for a while,

(36:30):
but they're a tiny company interms of their overall global
market share.
So for them, making thetransition to EVs was.
You know, again, a big risk, um,and much like Netflix, they
recognize that if they didn'tkind of detach themselves from
the old ways of doing things,they would never get there.
And so they actually spun offtheir internal combustion engine

(36:54):
business to a different company,different manufacturer.
It's almost like the equivalentof burning the boats, right?
So that you have no, Nothing tofall back on.
You're forced to look forwardbecause without these forcing
functions, whether it's culture,whether it's a CEO who instills
this culture or, you know,mechanisms that you can put in
place like Volvo and Netflixdid, um, the weight of history

(37:17):
is so strong that, um, you'rejust always going to have this
tendency to fall back on it.
So, but I think the great thingis you can see that there are
these examples of companies thathave found ways to break away
from that.
Um, you know, whether it'sthrough culture or through
mechanisms that they've put inplace to break away from that.
Uh, so I just wanted to, youknow, make that point that, um,

(37:38):
you can do something about it.
There are things you could doabout it.
There's some great case studiesout there showing that you can
have success.
Uh, even as a company with a lotof heritage, there's things you
could do to break, um, fromthose tendencies that just fall
back on the past.

Joachim (37:53):
Yeah, I think cars are actually a really, really rich
well to draw from because a lotof changes do get forced onto
the car manufacturer.
Safety regulations is thebiggest forces that really.
imposes constraints on what acar manufacturer can and cannot
do, um, so I think in thatsense, there's something

(38:15):
interesting in this domainbecause, because of that forced
change, a car manufacturer thatwants to keep making cars has to
keep innovating and has tochange the shapes of its cars.
It can't get away with holdingonto the designs for too long.
and so back to BMW is a goodexample of that.

(38:35):
They lean on their history in avery, very specific and very
limited way.
So I think the best example isthe 3 Series that has been in
production.
As the three series since Iguess the late seventies.
Uh, and the three series was thereplacement for the O2 series.

(38:55):
Not to get too car geeky, butthe 2000, we'll show pictures of
these cars.
So the 2002 BMW was kind of thissmall, nimble, fast, compact
car, uh, still looks great.
Um, and even though it looksnothing like any of the BMWs you
see on the road today, you cankind of see the connection to
the cars today.

(39:16):
And so.
I think BMW with the 3 serieshas just continuously told us
and educated its audience.
This thing is going to keepchanging, you know, we're not
too precious about this thing.
So the 2002 becomes the firstgeneration 3 series, which is
the E21.
And you can see the evolution ofthat car.
It is, it is.

(39:37):
And then you go from the E21 tothe E30, which is getting to
more the eighties boxy designs.
And then they're just on a roll.
They just keep changing thesedesigns in dramatic ways.
However, there are always twothings that stay the same on a
BMW, the kidney grill and theHofmeister knick, which is the
little Corner, uh, the, the rearwindow from the passenger side,

(40:00):
a little corner, the angle thatthey've put in there, that is a
distinctive feature of the BMWrear window named after one of
the early designers Hofmeister.
So they kept the kidney grill,which makes no sense because the
kidney grill originally was, uh,attached to another car because
the grill was actually, that wasthe shape of the grill, but they
just somehow kept This designlike plonked on the front of the

(40:22):
car because it was echoing thatpast.
Um, and so the kidney grill andthe Hofmeister Knick just kind
of persist as these echoes oftheir heritage.
And they're not superconstraining.
But then I think some designersand BMW got frustrated with that
kidney grill.
I said, why the heck do I haveto start with a kidney grill?
And they just said, instead ofgetting rid of it, which they

(40:45):
knew they couldn't do, They justsaid, we're going to make it
massive.
We're going to just make it thisgigantic thing, and we're going
to fully confront and embracethis kidney grill.
And it's going to be divisive.,and now the M3 has just got
this, some people have likenedit to bugs, bunny teeth at the
front.
And it's terrible.

(41:06):
I mean, I hate it, but it's alsoadmirable.
It's an admirable quality thatthis car company making a car is
a really, really expensivething.
And these executives sat thereand they said, man, this looks
like nothing else we've everdone.
And maybe it looks terrible, butmaybe we should do it as well.
Who knows how it's going to godown?
And maybe that was theconversation.

(41:26):
I would really like to have beena fly on the wall for that.
But like you said, I think BMWis a really great, a great
example of, it's about, the vibeof what the brand was standing
for.
The Hofmeister Knick hasabsolutely no bearing on the
function of the car.
It's just a thing.
And those that know, know, andit's enjoyable.
He goes, Oh, I think there wasone car that didn't have the

(41:47):
Knick.
And it was very controversialamongst the aficionados.
Um, it's just kind of a thingthat you do out of respect when
you join BMW.

Ernest (41:55):
It reminds me a lot of something you said.
I think it was last episode ortwo episodes ago, you said the
quote from Steven Soderbergh,and I'm going to get it wrong,
but it's something like, youknow, Follow the creator, not
the work.
Was that right?
Something like that?

Joachim (42:08):
It was, that was the vibe.
I don't remember the exactquote, but it was exactly the,
that was the essence of what hewas saying.

Ernest (42:13):
Yeah, I think that, I think there's so much to that,
because, um, like you're saying,it's really what's kept BMW so
vibrant is that they'vecontinued to deliver on this
vibe, this spirit, which, youknow, has a couple of
touchstones to it, but, It'sreally about this spirit of kind
of pushing forward and, youknow, making you uncomfortable,

(42:34):
just like, um, Jimi Hendrix,right?
It's, it's less about thespecific works and more about
that spirit.
And, you know, I think thatmaybe is why they've managed to
stay relevant for so longwithout, you know, just aping a
specific silhouette becausethey've stayed true to the
spirit, um, very effectively.

Joachim (42:56):
I think what is very easy to understand with a car,
like I just said, The regulationshape, the car and technology
shapes, the car fuel efficiencyrequirements shape, the car.
All of these things contributeto the way the car has to be set
up, I think what's interestingabout that is that it's very
legible why certain choices weremade.

(43:16):
As you go through the history ofthe thing.
And so maybe that's what it is.
It's the legibility of thehistory in a car that makes it
really easy to understand whatis an essential feature.
And what was a feature that wasa response to something that was
necessary or a response tosomething that was necessary
because customers wanted it.
I think there's a way toprobably partition these things
out more easily in the cardomain, potentially.

(43:38):
So if you're able to unpack, youknow, and we were talking about
this earlier, unpack thathistory, unpack the sequence of
events and the needs that werebeing addressed as you're moving
through the history of thisthing, then I don't think the
history becomes a burdenanymore, because now you're not
just looking at the snapshot ofthe final product.
Instead, if you understandactually where you've come from

(44:00):
and the context in which thatproduct emerged from and the
sequence of events that led tothat product, I think that might
help you then understand whatyou need to do next, because now
you're going to be able tohopefully partition out.
the causes.
And you can say, well, that,that cause is no longer relevant
because that was something thatwas very specific to that time
period and what the customerswanted in that time period or

(44:23):
the prevailing wisdom amongstcustomers around that period.
Now customers want somethingdifferent.
Um, and I think that's the, um,that's kind of interesting.
I don't want to get too deepinto sneakers, but I do feel
like other brands like have beenon a roll because they just,
through the rule book out, theyunderstood something about what

(44:44):
the previous innovations weretrying to do.
They're trying to understandthis sequence of causes that led
to That's the kind of foams thatwere being used and they put
support here.
And you mentioned, you talkedabout pronation being such a big
deal for such a long time andthat kind of shifting and moving
away.
And then it just, you know, thearm guys, I think the initial

(45:05):
prototype, they just took gardenhoses and cut them up and glued
them to the bottom of the shoes.
That's a, I mean, Mike, what agreat story.
It's like, um, Bauman and thewaffle shoe, right?
Really similar thing of just theperson.
working away in that littleworkshop, coming up with
something and presenting thisincredibly weird shoe, um, that

(45:27):
was fulfilling what they thoughtwas a, the customer need.
And they themselves were arunner, I think as well.
Right.
I think the person who startedon was, uh, an ultra distance
marathon run.
I can't remember now, but theywere running through a lot of
shoes and they thought this isthe way to move forwards.
And now it's become a stylething totally separately from
that.
But again, that, that person.

(45:47):
You know, even though theyweren't working for a company,
they were still bound.
They still want to sell the damnshoes.
So that means they are stillbound as well.
Like I said, we're alwaysconstrained by history.
They would have to educate the,the runners out there that they
are actually addressing a need.
This is not just some quirkylook to get your attention.
And, and here is the thing thatI've been pulling apart from the

(46:10):
history of running shoes.
And now we've got this design.
Uh, actually I've never worn onshoes, so I don't know if
they're any good, but people whohave worn them told me that they
are so comfortable relative toother things that have been on
the market for them.
And I don't know, it's kind ofironic because, you know,
they're just.
hollow.
There's like air, you know, notto name names, but there's air

(46:33):
flowing through the bottom ofthe shoe.
So it's kind of, again, it's aninteresting thing where they've
maybe taken the essence ofthings that have existed that
were out there in the ether andplonked it into this shoe.
And we're not constrained by thehistory, but understood that
there was something valuable init that they could then bounce
off from.

Ernest (46:51):
Yeah, I do think that there's a benefit, that's a big
part of the benefit of being anew company is you're
unconstrained by history.
I think, um, oftentimes as acompany, you, you know, as you,
you, UI designers might talkabout cruft in interfaces.
You also develop cruft as acompany of ideas where.

(47:13):
You've tried something and itfailed.
So just like BMW, it would havebeen very easy for them to say,
Oh, we tried to use and theyfailed.
So screw that we're going to,you know, we're not going to do
that again.
Right.
And so it takes a lot of wisdom,I think, to recognize that maybe
it was just the timing, maybethere were some specific things

(47:33):
in the execution, but you know,the broader sweep of history is,
is pointing in this direction.
So.
We need to, we can't just, wedon't have the luxury of just
saying, we're not going to dothat.
We need to pursue that just in abetter way.
Um, but I think that often I'dsay in my experience, at least

(47:55):
companies often fail to havethat amount of, um, Uh, insights
in their own processes and in,in examining their own
histories, you know, it's like,Oh, well, we just tried that and
it didn't work.
So forget it.
Whereas, you know, a companylike on like, Oh yeah, let's try
this.
And you know, maybe company Xtried it in their in house labs

(48:16):
a million times and it didn'twork.
But you know, we don't knowabout any of that.
We don't know any better.
So we're going to give it a goand make it work.
Um, that kind of reminds me ofanother anecdote related to
Apple, which is Supposedly whenSteve Jobs came back to Apple,
uh, became its interim and thenfull time CEO, one of the first
things he did was he eliminatedtheir in house museum.

(48:38):
Apparently Apple had a kind ofin house corporate museum.
And, um, it was just areflection of, I think of him,
but also of his desire to getApple out of its sort of navel
gazing phase that it was in atthe time when he came back, of
just kind of wanting to recreatepast success, um, and instead
having to kind of create a newfuture for themselves.

(49:00):
Um, you know, it's a little bitdifferent from the approach that
you talked about of maybe beingable to learn from the context
of history.
And I think it's a starkerapproach that maybe has a little
bit more risk, but I thinkthat's, that's something that
could be another path, uh,towards this as well.

Joachim (49:21):
Yeah, I think maybe another negative version, and
maybe this is what.
Steve Jobs's act was reallytrying to get out is the perils
of nostalgia, you know, the ideathat man, everything was so good
back then.
And if only we could get back tothat point, it's always back.

(49:41):
You're not thinking about thejourney that got you to that
point.
Which is the lesson, right?
That is the, the path to thething is the interesting thing,
not the thing that happened.
Um, it's kind of related to, um,a deeper philosophical error
that a lot of people fall intoas well.

(50:01):
I was, you were talking a lotabout failure.
The failure is a deeperconsequence of not having
thought more deeply about whatit was that was going on.
So introspection and revisitingthe decision process, the chain
again, I think is quite, um,critical to, to assessing a
failure in these cases, right?
So I think that's right.

(50:22):
The weight of a failure and thehistorical failure that is also
always on everyone's mind, Ithink must've been on everyone's
mind when Steve Jobs wasthinking, let's do iPhone and
everyone that's probably sittingand going, we did the Newton.
Remember that that didn't workso well.
And if you actually uncover thehistory of the Newton, you
actually, you start looking atthis and you start realizing
that actually there was somemagic in that and they were,

(50:44):
they were onto something, but.
It's been misattributed is, Ithink we've now, you look back
on it and say, obviously thatwas a bad idea.
So there was something in therethat they had missed and I think
they still have not leaned onand, and they haven't learned
again.
I have to say, I'm so sorry,Apple guys.
But.
Come on, thinner everything.

(51:05):
That's, that's not the way.
That's not the way you, that istruly being crushed by the
weight of history in the ad asevery object is being crushed.
It feels like that's actuallyhistory crushing you guys.
You're not, you're just, itmakes no sense.
I was tempted by the specs ofthe new one.
I don't know why I don't need anew one.
I picked up my iPad Pro, which Igot a few years ago, and I'm

(51:28):
holding it up for the listeners.
I'm holding it up to for earnestto see, and I've never picked
this up and said, man, this isso thick.
It is not.
I mean, it's nothing.
But do you know what I docomplain about all the time?
The fact that I'm locked intoiPadOS.
That upsets me, no end, no onecares.

(51:52):
A lot of reviews of the new iPadwas saying, this is absolutely
incredible.
The chip is incredible.
The technology is incredible.
It's so thin.
And everyone then ends on a notetoo bad.
It's running iPad OS.
The iPad was this thing that wasthe middle point between full
blown laptop, phone, biggerscreen.
And yeah, it's a little bitconniving and manipulative and

(52:14):
so, but they got us, right?
With that.
Value proposition, and it wasn'tso expensive.
The iPad Pro now cost as much asa high performance laptop, and
it's locked behind a terribleoperating system.
Something has gone awry there.
They've forgotten what it wasthat allowed the iPad to even
gain an audience.
And so it, it was the, it wasthe not computer person's

(52:36):
computer.
Um, and that was okay, but nowyou're trying to turn it into a
pro tool.
With an operating system that'snot going to meet those users
where they need it to be.
I mean, if you put all thiseffort into it, and then it's
still just like a big iPhoneoperating system.
I don't think that's acceptable.

Ernest (52:54):
I do think that's a great example of a company that
does seem to be caught in thisweight of history.
is just my conjecture from theoutside looking in, but I feel
like a big part of the reasonthey're in this situation with
the iPad is they're trying toprotect their existing business
lines of their existing.

(53:15):
laptop business and theirexisting iPad business because
they're both, you know, prettysizable businesses.
Cause the, I mean, I mean, itseems to me at least obvious
that you would want to combinethese things.
And they've talked for yearsabout the fact that they're not
going to do that.
And there are many differencesin the OS that they'd have to
confront, but yeah.
Yeah.
So then do that, right?

(53:36):
Instead of making a thinneriPad, address these challenges
so that you can get to the thingthat people want, which is a
single device.
You don't want to have to have alaptop and an iPad and an
iPhone.
You know, obviously I guess forsomeone like Tim Cook, that
might look like a good thing.
Oh yeah, look, we're sellingpeople three things, you know,
instead of one.

(53:57):
And that's, I think, Where theculture becomes so important in
that Steve Jobs would do thingsthat didn't necessarily make
logical sense from a purefinance perspective, but we're
true to what people were lookingfor and created the spirit of
innovation for this company thatmade so many people around the
world fall in love with thembecause you could see it was

(54:18):
like the Jimi Hendrix, right?
Maybe I didn't ask for that, butwow, I'm so glad you made it.

Joachim (54:31):
The, even something like price points become these
anchors

Ernest (54:37):
Mm

Joachim (54:38):
or floors, really, right?
A price is generally seen as afloor.
Never go below that because nowyou're going to undermine the
perception of this brand'squality.
So of course, in luxury items,they just keep jacking up the
price as opposed to even everlowering because then that would
signal something is wrong.
No mosses approaches completelythe opposite.
So this is an investment.

(54:59):
Uh, and if you just took thisshort run KPI perspective, you
say, well, we sold all thesewatches, but we didn't make as
much money as we normally wouldhave.
So that's not the point.
The point is that they're tryingto seed something new here, new
territory.
And it's not meant for thosepeople, it's meant for these
people.
Um, and again, iPad fulfilledthat thing.

(55:20):
I think for a long time it wasthe thing that you gave your
parents so they could get, theydidn't have to go full computer
but they had a big screen thatthey could read.
And um, I remember actuallythere was, there was this German
comedy show where someone wastaught to say they've given
their parents an iPad and um,she's watching her dad prepare a

(55:41):
meal and she said, where's the,um, where's the iPad?
He says, Oh, I think it's reallygreat.
It's really practical.
Um, so good.
And then she notices that she's,he's been using the iPad as a
cutting

Ernest (55:52):
Ha ha

Joachim (55:53):
it's a cutting board.
There was no other purpose.
But all of that to say thatthat.
That thing fulfilled a veryspecific niche, kind of a funky
one for a while.
And then it caught, it wasn't aninvestment thing.
So again, it comes back to whatis the chain of events that gets
you to this point.
And then more interestingly,from an innovation perspective,

(56:13):
you need to think you need toform beliefs about what you
think is going to happen in thefuture.
Right.
And so I think I'm speculating,of course, about Nomos.
I don't know anything aboutthem.
But I do think they're thinkingabout it as an investment that
has limited exposurefinancially, but is a seed.
And you, when you're plantingseeds, The logic is not
immediately obvious.

(56:33):
It won't come out in yourmeasurement today.
The value that it's going togenerate is not something that
will come straight away.
The discipline isn't actuallyforming a clear narrative and
story of what you think thatforward trajectory is going to
look like.
Right.
And then I think the no mostexample of limited financial
exposure, it's fixed guys.
175, 31 colors.
We know exactly how much moneywe're losing on this, you can

(56:53):
put that money aside and then doit.
You don't have to even pullmoney and leverage.
So.
Um, yeah, that was just a bitmore of a point of look to the
past form beliefs about thefuture and maybe do it in a way
that's limiting your financialexposure in a smart way.
Yeah.

Ernest (57:08):
I think that's a great, important point to make.
I think that's going to help alot of folks who are just in the
business of making products on adaily basis to make that
argument is to make it selfcontained, create boundaries for
this so that it's more palatablebecause, you know, obviously
your boss is in a toughsituation as well.
Everybody's, you know, lookingat numbers that aren't looking

(57:30):
so great.
So, how can you make something,um, make it easier to say yes.
To something basically versuscoming to them with an idea
that's very open ended, youknow, and just feels like it
could have a lot of risk,infinite risk associated with
it.
Instead, you know, give it someboundaries.
Um, so because you have toempathize and recognize that it

(57:52):
is a risk, right?
To, to do something different,it's always a risk.
Um, but as long as you can helppaint a picture of what the
future is going to look like andshow that, um, You know, your
exposure, your potentialdownside is a specific finite
figure.
I think that's going to reallyhelp you make your case.
Um, all right, well, now thatyou've heard our perspectives,

(58:13):
we want to hear from you.
Please share your thoughts withus at learn, make, learn at
gmail.
com.
Now let's move on to ourrecommendations of the week.
Joachim, do you have anyrecommendations you'd like to
share?

Joachim (58:28):
Um, yeah, I have one blog post and then a
recommendation not to buysomething.
So I'm going to flip ourrecommendation.
So the first one is aninteresting read.
Um, I think it, it speaks to allof the.
The things that we've beendiscussing here, it's, um, by
Chung Fan, who is prolificTwitterer, but also writes a

(58:51):
nice newsletter.
And his latest bit is calledStarbucks Digital Dilemma.
And it's all about the fact thatthe quarterly revenue numbers at
Starbucks don't look as good asthey did before.
And the brief, uh, the summaryof his pieces, the thing that
was making so much money forthem is actually probably
killing their business at thesame time.

(59:13):
And so that's the.
The app, because Starbucks hasreally gotten everyone focused
on mobile ordering and loadingup their cards on their phones
with money.
And that's very profitablebecause sometimes people don't
spend that money and so they canthen convert some of those funds
into revenue and that's becomespure profit for them.

(59:34):
But the point is that becausethey've pushed everyone into
this, uh, situation on being onthe mobile thing, their stores
are suffering The stores are notmaking as much money as they did
before.
And so, and that's probablywhat's sitting at the root of
that weakness in their revenue.
Now And so.
Trang Phan does a little bit ofanecdotes, uh, scouring, and he

(59:57):
hears a lot about people who,uh, ex managers, who are upset
with the way, uh, Starbucks hasbecome just this volume business
of driving, you know, get thesemobile orders in and push them
out as quickly as possible.
The coffee shop space is nolonger a third place where
people want to be.
People coming in, uh, customershave said this, they, they see.

(01:00:20):
The mobile orders gettingserviced first.
So they see this line of mobileorders and they're not getting
the treatment that they used tofrom a barista.
And so they stopped coming tothe shop.
Now what's interesting is amanager in that shop, here's
this kind of KPI thinking, noone's in the shop.
I don't need chairs anymore.
Get rid of the chairs, right?

(01:00:42):
That's not the thing.
You, you, you didn't understandthe chain of events that's led
to the people.
Not, they're not coming becausethey're not, they're not buying
from you anymore.
They're done with this product.
The product that they wanted wasthe brief interaction with the
barista, and they like theambience of the shops.
And now the shop is just ahollowed out counter where
people pick up stuff.
Um, So a really interesting,there's a lot of stuff in there

(01:01:05):
that we touch on and I think isa really interesting case study
on Starbucks.
So an interesting thing there.
Um, my other recommendationslash rant is about a product
that is a children's firstproduct.
Um, it's very popular.
So if there are any parentslistening to this, I'm very

(01:01:26):
sorry.
But um, this product is theYotoPlayer.
Um, that is a ebook playingdevice.
So it's a small cube like, uh,sh object.
At the top is a slot.
You put a card in there, creditcard shape, a sized card, place
it in there.
And then this thing startsplaying an audio book or some

(01:01:49):
pieces of music.
It has a, uh, pixel screen onthe front of it.
So it can show an image ofwhat's actually playing, which
is really great.
It has two chunky knobs on itthat you can turn.
Everything is right about thisthing.
Aesthetically roughly, you know,there's a, it was designed by
Pentagram who got stuck in withthe industrial design and I
will, we'll link to theirdescription of what they think

(01:02:10):
this machine is supposed to bedoing.
It's just great to have adedicated device that's not
necessarily.
a phone or whatever else that wewould be using to listen to
audiobooks.
And my children like listeningto audiobooks before bedtime.
So having a little nightlightwith a little animation plus the
sound, I mean, this is hittingall the right notes.
So it's meeting the customer'sneeds right where it is.

(01:02:32):
So I'm unboxing it, plug it in,and I just shove a card in it.
I'm like, play.
And the pixel screen is justblinking back at me angrily, and
it's saying, wifi, give me wifi,give me wifi.
And I was so annoyed.
So I was like, okay, fine.
How do I give you wifi?

(01:02:53):
Oh, download the app first.
Get the app and then you, oh,and I was just.
What is going on here?
Um, so you download the app, youpair it up.
You then you need an account,you need a bloody account.
I'm sorry.
You have to sign up for anaccount.
Then we know what your libraryis because you need to make sure

(01:03:13):
digital rights management, didyou really buy these things?
You really don't want peopleswapping cards and making their
own cards.
God forbid that happens.
So lock that down, get thatecosystem locked down, hook your
device to wifi.
It can have some local cache soyou can store things on it.
Um, but the cards areessentially NFC cards.
There's nothing on them, nostorage.

(01:03:33):
They're just there to say, thisis the serial number.
Please play this thing.
And pulls the item from thecloud, probably shoves it onto
the player, caches it therebriefly, and then it plays it
back.
It is everything that I haverailed against in this podcast.
I really sat down and tried tothink about this product really
from, from the ground up, and Iunderstand that, um, there's a

(01:03:55):
lot of bits that make sense thatthe cards are easy to shove into
the machine.
There's no contacts in there.
So it's all near fieldcommunication.
Um, So for children, it's ideal,right?
It's not this Nintendoentertainment system.
You got to shove it in there andblow on the car.
All that, all of that's out thewindow.
You just shove it into thisthing and it communicates
wirelessly with the device.

(01:04:15):
Wonderful.
So I love that.
That's great.
I understand the thinking behindthat, but why, and why in God's
name, do I need to go to thecloud and have an app that does
all of these things?
This app, requires engineeringand it requires backend
engineering and the servicethat, you know, meets my box and
lets it access out that needsanother backend service.

(01:04:37):
So you've gone from a complexthing that should just be, why
don't I just put the media on acard?
And I innovate on how that cardmakes connections to the device,
to this.
We'll just use the cloud.
We'll have all of this otherstuff that, Is hidden in the
background, but it's actuallythe complexity that allows this
thing to operate the way itdoes.
It really is one of those thingswhere I think if this company

(01:04:58):
goes bust, I can't use thesecards anymore.
I'm pretty sure about that.
I think the whole servicecollapses and they will break
it.
And we just had a recent storyabout Spotify essentially
breaking all of its car devicesas well because it's not making
money for them.
So they just shut the servicedown and that's it.
It's dead.
So I was very sad as I waslooking at this device because

(01:05:19):
there are so many elements of itthat work really well.
And I really get that they'retrying to meet the parent where
they are, but this reliance ofoutsourcing that complexity to
the cloud and software feelsreally, really lame.
I would have preferred that theydon't hire Pentagram and just
give me a gray box with a pixelscreen.
And you've got a clever way ofgetting content on cards.

(01:05:41):
I actually looked up there areNFC chips, NFC chips generally
have very little data on them,but you can get NFC chips.
They're a little bit moreexpensive, but they have a
couple of megs of data on them.
And I have to be clear, this,the speaker on this thing is not
good.
It is not a good speaker.
So you can compress the crap outof that audio file and shove it
on that NFC card and childrenwill be happy.

(01:06:04):
I think if a parent would liketo have a device that plays an
audiobook for them, I think youshould just use your phone and
put it in a corner and don'tmess around with the stuff.
Because it is, the thing isexpensive.
It's over a hundred dollars.
The cards are expensive.
And here's the thing where theydid not meet the parent.
These cards are credit cardssized.
So we have lost two already.

(01:06:25):
They say, Oh, don't worry.
If you lose a card, you can usethe app.
That's not why I bought thisthing.
I bought the thing to use thecards.
So again, like a chunky, chunkycard is what a kid wants.
They don't want like a flimsylittle thing.
It needs to be big, like abrick, so that I can find it
when they shove it somewhere inbetween books or something and a
toy box.
Um, and so again, the chunkinessof a cartridge would allow you

(01:06:46):
to innovate so many things so ifanyone, if someone from Yota,
please hear me out, let's, let'swork on something that's more
hardware focused as opposed tocloud focus.
Anyway, I'm done.
That was too long.
But,

Ernest (01:06:58):
No, no, that's

Joachim (01:06:59):
yeah.

Ernest (01:07:00):
I

Joachim (01:07:01):
got for us?
Artists?

Ernest (01:07:02):
curious actually, I wonder, I should look into this.
Do you know the Qi chargingstandard?
The magnetic induction charging.
Can you transmit data through Qias well?

Joachim (01:07:12):
I think, yeah.
So I think not necessarilymagnetic, but this near field
communication is just radio,right?
So it, it, the thing that allowsyou to do Apple pay and all
that.
That's sending data back andforth.
Okay, let's just hand wave itand say there's a way to do
this.
I think there's a way, butagain, if there isn't, then I
would like to have seen someoneon the engineering side really

(01:07:33):
just come up with somethingcool, because I mean, here's the
thing.
Nintendo innovated in thisdomain quite early on.
Um, the Game Boy cartridges.
Game Boy had an open slot andthen you just shove the
cartridge in and it works there.
The Switch has a similarcartridge that can be shoved in
and kids use those all the time.
It doesn't feel impossible tocreate something that does have

(01:07:55):
contacts, but in the end, uh,near field communication devices
or RFID, and I think there is away to, I think there's a way to
move data pretty quickly.
It need not pull that data everytime, right?
So you could just say the firstplay, it might take 10 seconds
for it to, to push things ontothe local storage, but you have
it.

Ernest (01:08:14):
Mm hmm.

Joachim (01:08:15):
even if it's wiped, you can put it again.
So I think there's little,there's a way to do this.
Um, and as I'm describing it, itsounds so much more complicated.
And.
And that's right.
It's more complicated becauseI'm putting it all in front of
your face, as opposed to I'mgoing to push it onto a cloud
server.
That is incredibly complicated,right?
This needs teams of softwareengineers to keep this thing
going.

(01:08:35):
And you know, if there areoutages, someone's going to get
page and say, Hey, the Yotaplayer servers down.
You need to get back on it.
You know, that's, that's what'shidden in the cloud.
It's these software engineerswho have to devise these
solutions, create this resilientinfrastructure and it's also
super expensive, right?
So this is, and so it's notclear.
Am I going to start getting abill in the mail to, Oh, if you

(01:08:56):
want to keep using this, youwill have to pay a 5
subscription charge.
And I can't say no, because theycan brick the thing.
So there are many, and you know,on the topic of bricking things
remotely, I mean, that is, uh,it sounds terrible to do this to
people, but it happens all thetime.
You know, it is standardbusiness practice.
Now,

Ernest (01:09:13):
right.
Oh, I mean, the Spotify's carthing example you shared has
just happened this past week.
So Yeah,

Joachim (01:09:19):
just this week.
Exactly.
Yeah.
We'll link to a story about thatas well, because it's absolutely
ridiculous.
Oh,

Ernest (01:09:26):
that.
Uh, on my end, I have somethingvery different.
It's actually a movie.
Um, uh, it's called the firstomen.
It just started streaming onHulu.
It was out in theaters for alittle while.
Um, it's also available forpurchase on iTunes and prime
video.
I think it'll be available forstreaming, uh, for rental.
digital rental on thoseplatforms by late July.
But for now, it's only streamingon Hulu.

(01:09:49):
And, um, I should note too, I'mnot a big fan of horror movies
in general, but, um, my brotherin law, uh, recommended this to
us and we watched it, uh, mywife and I earlier this week and
we both really enjoyed it.
Um, and I wanted to highlight itfor a couple of reasons.
So let me share a little bit ofbackground.
This is a.
snippet from an article by AngelMillenson on Fangoria.

(01:10:13):
It was titled the first omen, abattle with the devil and an NC
17 rating for folks not in theU.
S.
NC 17 is kind of like a X ratingor, you know, it's beyond rated
R.
So meaning like really foradults only, and it's kind of
the kiss of death.
If you have an NC 17 rating,your movie's not going to do any
business in theaters.

(01:10:33):
So, uh, quoting this Melansonpiece now, the first omen hits
theaters with a solid R rating,but that nearly wasn't the case.
Director Arkasha Stevenson madeher feature directorial debut,
and for Stevenson, this story isrooted in the reality of forced
birthing and woman's autonomy,or lack thereof.

(01:10:53):
Because of this, showing awoman's body in a non sexual
manner was key to driving thehorror home.
As stated by the director, thehorror in a key scene is how
dehumanized that woman is.
This has been my life for a yearand a half, fighting for the
shot.
It's the theme of our film.
Producers David Goyer and KeithLevine backed Stevenson through

(01:11:14):
the whole process.
Goyer points to a bit of adouble standard when it came to
fighting the NC 17 rating.
Noted Goyer, the movie by itsnature deals with female body
horror, and I do think there's adouble standard.
That was really interesting whenwe were negotiating with the
ratings board.
I think there is morepermissiveness when dealing with
male protagonists, particularlyin body horror.

(01:11:35):
Um, so I just thought that wasvery interesting in, you know,
really highlights the importanceof diversity in storytelling and
obviously in all fields.
But in this case, I, I, my, Ididn't, when I, when we watched
the movie, I didn't know it wasdirected by a woman, but after
the fact it was very obviousthat it was, it was, it, it

(01:11:57):
offered a very distinctperspective.
Um, I, I made an Instagram postabout this, but you know, I know
this is somewhat highfalutinlanguage, but I think a lot of
horror movies for, you know,which are almost always directed
by men are produced with a malegaze, you know, it's kind of
leering at women.
Um, and this was a verydifferent sort of experience.

(01:12:18):
You're, you're, you're reallyinto it.
in this world with the, the maincharacter in the film, who's
played remarkably by thisactress named Nell Tiger free.
Uh, there's one scene inparticular, which actually isn't
even the scene in questionwhere, Oh my goodness, she's,
it's this one on, uh, you know,kind of on uncut sequence, which
is just incredible.
But, um, so.

(01:12:40):
You know, I think the fact thatit was directed by a woman
really led to a much richer,different sort of story.
Um, and, and the scene that thedirector's talking about is one
example of it.
And I think it just, you know,the, the quote here from the
producer, David Gore, speaks tothe, To this double standard
that exists and without more,uh, critters from diverse

(01:13:01):
perspectives pushing againstthese double standards, you
know, they're never going tobreak down.
So, um, I think that was one,one reason I wanted to highlight
it.
The second is that I was soimpressed.
You know, horror moviestypically are pretty schlocky.
You know, they, they're, I thinkthey're kind of mass produced
off of assembly line.

(01:13:22):
And within a few minutes ofwatching this movie, I felt
like, Holy crap, this is so muchbetter than it needs to be.
You know, someone really caredabout this.
Um, and I looked it upafterwards.
The film had a budget of about30 million.
All of it is on the screen.
I mean, it's remarkable how wellthey deployed that money.
Cause it's actually a periodpiece.
It's set in the early seventiesand period pieces always, yeah.

(01:13:44):
They always crank up, you know,the cost of a movie and somehow
they managed it.
Um, and it was kind of a starkcontrast with another movie
actually that also came from aDisney imprint because, so this
movie was released by Fox, whichis owned by Disney now.
It's kind of remarkable.
They were willing to releasethis movie, but, uh, last year
Disney released, uh, the latestIndiana Jones sequel, the dial

(01:14:06):
of destiny, that moviereportedly cost over 387 million
to produce was also a periodfilm set in like 1969 or, you
know, late sixties.
So very similar time period 10 Xthe cost.
And it looked so much worse.
So, um, I really, uh, think it'sremarkable, um, what the

(01:14:28):
director and the team were ableto achieve within a really, um,
pretty, you know, tightconstraint for a film of 30
million, um, showing that, youknow, you can really make
something very compelling, uh,that has great production value
without having to spend, youknow, 387 million, uh, to make
it happen.
And so.
Uh, the first domain streamingon Hulu available for purchase

(01:14:52):
on iTunes and, um, Amazon primevideo is my recommendation for
the week,

Joachim (01:14:58):
Nice.
I'm now very.
I'm quite tempted now.
I would, uh, I was, I, Iremember seeing bits of trailers
and things like that advertisedand I was like, Oh God, not
another remake fan service,weight of history, all of this
stuff.
But this feels like this issignificantly different leading
on the law that's there, buttelling a very different story.

(01:15:19):
So that makes it.
And then of course, thisperspective is so unique.

Ernest (01:15:22):
And you know, the thing is that, um, I think it could
very easily have been just astandalone film.
It, you know, unfortunately itwouldn't have been made if it
were standalone because the wayHollywood works these days.
But I think the worst parts ofthe film are the parts where
they're trying to create thisconnectivity into this.
Bigger lore of the omen.
Fortunately, there's not toomuch of that.

(01:15:43):
Um, but yeah, it's, it is thissort of a weight of history
penalty that, uh, they're havingto contend with.
All right.
Well, I think that does it forus.
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 learn, make, learn
at gmail.
com and tell your friends aboutus.

(01:16:05):
As for our next episode, we'reworking on something and we're
not entirely sure what's goingto come together, so I can't
give you our typical preview,but it's going to be a new type
of episode and we really hopeyou'll join us for the next
Learn Make Learn.

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