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Personal Development Tips told through Short and Sticky Stories

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 27, 2023 57:19

A conversation with Tim Hwang about historical simulations, the interaction of policy and science, analogies between research ecosystems and the economy, and so much more. Topics Historical Simulations Macroscience Macro-metrics for science Long science The interaction between science and policy Creative destruction in research “Regulation” for scientific markets Indicators for the health of a field or science as a whole “Metabolism of Science” Science rotation programs Clock speeds of Regulation vs Clock Speeds of Technology References Macroscience Substack Ada Palmer's Papal Simulation Think Tank Tycoon Universal Paperclips (Paperclip maximizer html game) Pitt Rivers Museum Transcript [00:02:02] Ben: Wait, so tell me more about the historical LARP that you're doing. Oh, [00:02:07] Tim: yeah. So this comes from like something I've been thinking about for a really long time, which is You know in high school, I did model UN and model Congress, and you know, I really I actually, this is still on my to do list is to like look into the back history of like what it was in American history, where we're like, this is going to become an extracurricular, we're going to model the UN, like it has all the vibe of like, after World War II, the UN is a new thing, we got to teach kids about international institutions. Anyways, like, it started as a joke where I was telling my [00:02:35] friend, like, we should have, like, model administrative agency. You know, you should, like, kids should do, like, model EPA. Like, we're gonna do a rulemaking. Kids need to submit. And, like, you know, there'll be Chevron deference and you can challenge the rule. And, like, to do that whole thing. Anyways, it kind of led me down this idea that, like, our, our notion of simulation, particularly for institutions, is, like, Interestingly narrow, right? And particularly when it comes to historical simulation, where like, well we have civil war reenactors, they're kind of like a weird dying breed, but they're there, right? But we don't have like other types of historical reenactments, but like, it might be really valuable and interesting to create communities around that. And so like I was saying before we started recording, is I really want to do one that's a simulation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But like a serious, like you would like a historical reenactment, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like everybody would really know their characters. You know, if you're McNamara, you really know what your motivations are and your background. And literally a dream would be a weekend simulation where you have three teams. One would be the Kennedy administration. The other would be, you know, Khrushchev [00:03:35] and the Presidium. And the final one would be the, the Cuban government. Yeah. And to really just blow by blow, simulate that entire thing. You know, the players would attempt to not blow up the world, would be the idea. [00:03:46] Ben: I guess that's actually the thing to poke, in contrast to Civil War reenactment. Sure, like you know how [00:03:51] Tim: that's gonna end. Right, [00:03:52] Ben: and it, I think it, that's the difference maybe between, in my head, a simulation and a reenactment, where I could imagine a simulation going [00:04:01] Tim: differently. Sure, right. [00:04:03] Ben: Right, and, and maybe like, is the goal to make sure the same thing happened that did happen, or is the goal to like, act? faithfully to [00:04:14] Tim: the character as possible. Yeah, I think that's right, and I think both are interesting and valuable, right? But I think one of the things I'm really interested in is, you know, I want to simulate all the characters, but like, I think one of the most interesting things reading, like, the historical record is just, like, operating under deep uncertainty about what's even going on, right? Like, for a period of time, the American [00:04:35] government is not even sure what's going on in Cuba, and, like, you know, this whole question of, like, well, do we preemptively bomb Cuba? Do we, we don't even know if the, like, the warheads on the island are active. And I think I would want to create, like, similar uncertainty, because I think that's where, like, that's where the strategic vision comes in, right? That, like, you have the full pressure of, like, Maybe there's bombs on the island. Maybe there's not even bombs on the island, right? And kind of like creating that dynamic. And so I think simulation is where there's a lot, but I think Even reenactment for some of these things is sort of interesting. Like, that we talk a lot about, like, oh, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Or like, the other joke I had was like, we should do the Manhattan Project, but the Manhattan Project as, like, historical reenactment, right? And it's kind of like, you know, we have these, like, very, like off the cuff or kind of, like, stereotype visions of how these historical events occur. And they're very stylized. Yeah, exactly, right. And so the benefit of a reenactment that is really in detail Yeah. is like, oh yeah, there's this one weird moment. You know, like that, that ends up being really revealing historical examples. And so even if [00:05:35] you can't change the outcome, I think there's also a lot of value in just doing the exercise. Yeah. Yeah. The, the thought of [00:05:40] Ben: in order to drive towards this outcome that I know. Actually happened I wouldn't as the character have needed to do X. That's right That's like weird nuanced unintuitive thing, [00:05:50] Tim: right? Right and there's something I think about even building into the game Right, which is at the very beginning the Russians team can make the decision on whether or not they've even actually deployed weapons into the cube at all, yeah, right and so like I love that kind of outcome right which is basically like And I think that's great because like, a lot of this happens on the background of like, we know the history. Yeah. Right? And so I think like, having the team, the US team put under some pressure of uncertainty. Yeah. About like, oh yeah, they could have made the decision at the very beginning of this game that this is all a bluff. Doesn't mean anything. Like it's potentially really interesting and powerful, so. [00:06:22] Ben: One precedent I know for this completely different historical era, but there's a historian, Ada Palmer, who runs [00:06:30] Tim: a simulation of a people election in her class every year. That's so good. [00:06:35] And [00:06:36] Ben: it's, there, you know, like, it is not a simulation. [00:06:40] Tim: Or, [00:06:41] Ben: sorry, excuse me, it is not a reenactment. In the sense that the outcome is indeterminate. [00:06:47] Tim: Like, the students [00:06:48] Ben: can determine the outcome. But... What tends to happen is like structural factors emerge in the sense that there's always a war. Huh. The question is who's on which sides of the war? Right, right. And what do the outcomes of the war actually entail? That's right. Who [00:07:05] Tim: dies? Yeah, yeah. And I [00:07:07] Ben: find that that's it's sort of Gets at the heart of the, the great [00:07:12] Tim: man theory versus the structural forces theory. That's right. Yeah. Like how much can these like structural forces actually be changed? Yeah. And I think that's one of the most interesting parts of the design that I'm thinking about right now is kind of like, what are the things that you want to randomize to impose different types of like structural factors that could have been in that event? Right? Yeah. So like one of the really big parts of the debate at XCOM in the [00:07:35] early phases of the Cuban Missile Crisis is You know, McNamara, who's like, right, he runs the Department of Defense at the time. His point is basically like, look, whether or not you have bombs in Cuba or you have bombs like in Russia, the situation has not changed from a military standpoint. Like you can fire an ICBM. It has exactly the same implications for the U. S. And so his, his basically his argument in the opening phases of the Cuban Missile Crisis is. Yeah. Which is actually pretty interesting, right? Because that's true. But like, Kennedy can't just go to the American people and say, well, we've already had missiles pointed at us. Some more missiles off, you know, the coast of Florida is not going to make a difference. Yeah. And so like that deep politics, and particularly the politics of the Kennedy administration being seen as like weak on communism. Yeah. Is like a huge pressure on all the activity that's going on. And so it's almost kind of interesting thinking about the Cuban Missile Crisis, not as like You know us about to blow up the world because of a truly strategic situation but more because of like the local politics make it so difficult to create like You know situations where both sides can back down [00:08:35] successfully. Basically. Yeah [00:08:36] Ben: The the one other thing that my mind goes to actually to your point about it model UN in schools. Huh, right is Okay, what if? You use this as a pilot, and then you get people to do these [00:08:49] Tim: simulations at [00:08:50] Ben: scale. Huh. And that's actually how we start doing historical counterfactuals. Huh. Where you look at, okay, you know, a thousand schools all did a simulation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In those, you know, 700 of them blew [00:09:05] Tim: up the world. Right, right. [00:09:07] Ben: And it's, it actually, I think it's, That's the closest [00:09:10] Tim: thing you can get to like running the tape again. Yeah. I think that's right. And yeah, so I think it's, I think it's a really underused medium in a lot of ways. And I think particularly as like you know, we just talk, talk like pedagogically, like it's interesting that like, it seems to me that there was a moment in American pedagogical history where like, this is a good way of teaching kids. Like, different types of institutions. And like, but it [00:09:35] hasn't really matured since that point, right? Of course, we live in all sorts of interesting institutions now. And, and under all sorts of different systems that we might really want to simulate. Yeah. And so, yeah, this kind of, at least a whole idea that there's lots of things you could teach if you, we like kind of opened up this way of kind of like, Thinking about kind of like educating for about institutions. Right? So [00:09:54] Ben: that is so cool. Yeah, I'm going to completely, [00:09:59] Tim: Change. Sure. Of course. [00:10:01] Ben: So I guess. And the answer could be no, but is, is there connections between this and your sort of newly launched macroscience [00:10:10] Tim: project? There is and there isn't. Yeah, you know, I think like the whole bid of macroscience which is this project that I'm doing as part of my IFP fellowship. Yeah. Is really the notion that like, okay, we have all these sort of like interesting results that have come out of metascience. That kind of give us like, kind of like the beginnings of a shape of like, okay, this is how science might work and how we might like get progress to happen. And you know, we've got [00:10:35] like a bunch of really compelling hypotheses. Yeah. And I guess my bit has been like, I kind of look at that and I squint and I'm like, we're, we're actually like kind of in the early days of like macro econ, but for science, right? Which is like, okay, well now we have some sense of like the dynamics of how the science thing works. What are the levers that we can start, like, pushing and pulling, and like, what are the dials we could be turning up and turning down? And, and, you know, I think there is this kind of transition that happens in macro econ, which is like, we have these interesting results and hypotheses, but there's almost another... Generation of work that needs to happen into being like, oh, you know, we're gonna have this thing called the interest rate Yeah, and then we have all these ways of manipulating the money supply and like this is a good way of managing like this economy Yeah, right and and I think that's what I'm chasing after with this kind of like sub stack but hopefully the idea is to build it up into like a more coherent kind of framework of ideas about like How do we make science policy work in a way that's better than just like more science now quicker, please? Yeah, right, which is I think we're like [00:11:35] we're very much at at the moment. Yeah, and in particular I'm really interested in the idea of chasing after science almost as like a Dynamic system, right? Which is that like the policy levers that you have You would want to, you know, tune up and tune down, strategically, at certain times, right? And just like the way we think about managing the economy, right? Where you're like, you don't want the economy to overheat. You don't want it to be moving too slow either, right? Like, I am interested in kind of like, those types of dynamics that need to be managed in science writ large. And so that's, that's kind of the intuition of the project. [00:12:04] Ben: Cool. I guess, like, looking at macro, how did we even decide, macro econ, [00:12:14] Tim: how did we even decide that the things that we're measuring are the right things to measure? Right? Like, [00:12:21] Ben: isn't it, it's like kind of a historical contingency that, you know, it's like we care about GDP [00:12:27] Tim: and the interest rate. Yeah. I think that's right. I mean in, in some ways there's a triumph of like. It's a normative triumph, [00:12:35] right, I think is the argument. And you know, I think a lot of people, you hear this argument, and it'll be like, And all econ is made up. But like, I don't actually think that like, that's the direction I'm moving in. It's like, it's true. Like, a lot of the things that we selected are arguably arbitrary. Yeah. Right, like we said, okay, we really value GDP because it's like a very imperfect but rough measure of like the economy, right? Yeah. Or like, oh, we focus on, you know, the money supply, right? And I think there's kind of two interesting things that come out of that. One of them is like, There's this normative question of like, okay, what are the building blocks that we think can really shift the financial economy writ large, right, of which money supply makes sense, right? But then the other one I think which is so interesting is like, there's a need to actually build all these institutions. that actually give you the lever to pull in the first place, right? Like, without a federal reserve, it becomes really hard to do monetary policy. Right. Right? Like, without a notion of, like, fiscal policy, it's really hard to do, like, Keynesian as, like, demand side stuff. Right. Right? And so, like, I think there's another project, which is a [00:13:35] political project, to say... Okay, can we do better than just grants? Like, can we think about this in a more, like, holistic way than simply we give money to the researchers to work on certain types of problems. And so this kind of leads to some of the stuff that I think we've talked about in the past, which is like, you know, so I'm obsessed right now with like, can we influence the time horizon of scientific institutions? Like, imagine for a moment we had a dial where we're like, On average, scientists are going to be thinking about a research agenda which is 10 years from now versus next quarter. Right. Like, and I think like there's, there's benefits and deficits to both of those settings. Yeah. But man, if I don't hope that we have a, a, a government system that allows us to kind of dial that up and dial that down as we need it. Right. Yeah. The, the, [00:14:16] Ben: perhaps, quite like, I guess a question of like where the analogy like holds and breaks down. That I, that I wonder about is, When you're talking about the interest rate for the economy, it kind of makes sense to say [00:14:35] what is the time horizon that we want financial institutions to be thinking on. That's like roughly what the interest rate is for, but it, and maybe this is, this is like, I'm too, [00:14:49] Tim: my note, like I'm too close to the macro, [00:14:51] Ben: but thinking about. The fact that you really want people doing science on like a whole spectrum of timescales. And, and like, this is a ill phrased question, [00:15:06] Tim: but like, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it. Are you saying basically like, do uniform metrics make sense? Yeah, exactly. For [00:15:12] Ben: like timescale, I guess maybe it's just. is an aggregate thing. [00:15:16] Tim: Is that? That's right. Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's a good critique. And I think, like, again, I think there's definitely ways of taking the metaphor too far. Yeah. But I think one of the things I would say back to that is It's fine to imagine that we might not necessarily have an interest rate for all of science, right? So, like, you could imagine saying, [00:15:35] okay, for grants above a certain size, like, we want to incentivize certain types of activity. For grants below a certain size, we want different types of activity. Right, another way of slicing it is for this class of institutions, we want them to be thinking on these timescales versus those timescales. Yeah. The final one I've been thinking about is another way of slicing it is, let's abstract away institutions and just think about what is the flow of all the experiments that are occurring in a society? Yeah. And are there ways of manipulating, like, the relative timescales there, right? And that's almost like, kind of like a supply based way of looking at it, which is... All science is doing is producing experiments, which is like true macro, right? Like, I'm just like, it's almost offensively simplistic. And then I'm just saying like, okay, well then like, yeah, what are the tools that we have to actually influence that? Yeah, and I think there's lots of things you could think of. Yeah, in my mind. Yeah, absolutely. What are some, what are some that are your thinking of? Yeah, so I think like the two that I've been playing around with right now, one of them is like the idea of like, changing the flow of grants into the system. So, one of the things I wrote about in Microscience just the past week was to think [00:16:35] about, like sort of what I call long science, right? And so the notion here is that, like, if you look across the scientific economy, there's kind of this rough, like, correlation between size of grant and length of grant. Right, where so basically what it means is that like long science is synonymous with big science, right? You're gonna do a big ambitious project. Cool. You need lots and lots and lots of money Yeah and so my kind of like piece just briefly kind of argues like but we have these sort of interesting examples like the You know Like framing a heart study which are basically like low expense taking place over a long period of time and you're like We don't really have a whole lot of grants that have that Yeah. Right? And so the idea is like, could we encourage that? Like imagine if we could just increase the flow of those types of grants, that means we could incentivize more experiments that take place like at low cost over long term. Yeah. Right? Like, you know, and this kind of gets this sort of interesting question is like, okay, so what's the GDP here? Right? Like, or is that a good way of cracking some of the critical problems that we need to crack right now? Right? Yeah. And it's kind of where the normative part gets into [00:17:35] it is like, okay. So. You know, one way of looking at this is the national interest, right? We say, okay, well, we really want to win on AI. We really want to win on, like, bioengineering, right? Are there problems in that space where, like, really long term, really low cost is actually the kind of activity we want to be encouraging? The answer might be no, but I think, like, it's useful for us to have, like, that. Color in our palette of things that we could be doing Yeah. In like shaping the, the dynamics of science. Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:01] Ben: I, I mean, one of the things that I feel like is missing from the the meta science discussion Mm-Hmm. is, is even just, what are those colors? Mm-Hmm. like what, what are the, the different and almost parameters of [00:18:16] Tim: of research. Yeah. Right, right, right. And I think, I don't know, one of the things I've been thinking about, which I'm thinking about writing about at some point, right, is like this, this view is, this view is gonna piss people off in some ways, because where it ultimately goes is this idea that, like, like, the scientist or [00:18:35] science Is like a system that's subject to the government, or subject to a policy maker, or a strategist. Which like, it obviously is, right? But like, I think we have worked very hard to believe that like, The scientific market is its own independent thing, And like, that touching or messing with it is like, a not, not a thing you should do, right? But we already are. True, that's kind of my point of view, yeah exactly. I think we're in some ways like, yeah I know I've been reading a lot about Keynes, I mean it is sort of interesting that it does mirror... Like this kind of like Great Depression era economic thinking, where you're basically like the market takes care of itself, like don't intervene. In fact, intervening is like the worst possible thing you could do because you're only going to make this worse. And look, I think there's like definitely examples of like kind of like command economy science that like don't work. Yes. But like, you know, like I think most mature people who work in economics would say there's some room for like at least like Guiding the system. Right. And like keeping it like in balance is like [00:19:35] a thing that should be attempted and I think it's kind of like the, the, the argument that I'm making here. Yeah. Yeah. I [00:19:41] Ben: mean, I think that's, [00:19:42] Tim: that's like the meta meta thing. Right. Right. Is even [00:19:46] Ben: what, what level of intervention, like, like what are the ways in which you can like usefully intervene and which, and what are the things that are, that are foolish and kind of. crEate the, the, [00:20:01] Tim: Command economy. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Right. Right. And I think like, I think the way through is, is maybe in the way that I'm talking about, right? Which is like, you can imagine lots of bad things happen when you attempt to pick winners, right? Like maybe the policymaker whoever we want to think of that as like, is it the NSF or NIH or whatever? Like, you know, sitting, sitting in their government bureaucracy, right? Like, are they well positioned to make a choice about who's going to be the right solution to a problem? Maybe yes, maybe no. I think we can have a debate about that, right? But I think there's a totally reasonable position, which is they're not in it, so they're not well positioned to make that call. Yeah. [00:20:35] Right? But, are they well positioned to maybe say, like, if we gave them a dial that was like, we want researchers to be thinking about this time horizon versus that time horizon? Like, that's a control that they actually may be well positioned to inform on. Yeah. As an outsider, right? Yeah. Yeah. And some of this I think, like, I don't know, like, the piece I'm working on right now, which will be coming out probably Tuesday or Wednesday, is you know, some of this is also like encouraging creative destruction, right? Which is like, I'm really intrigued by the idea that like academic fields can get so big that they become they impede progress. Yes. Right? And so this is actually a form of like, I like, it's effectively an intellectual antitrust. Yeah. Where you're basically like, Basically, like the, the role of the scientific regulator is to basically say these fields have gotten so big that they are actively reducing our ability to have good dynamism in the marketplace of ideas. And in this case, we will, we will announce new grant policies that attempt to break this up. And I actually think that like, that is pretty spicy for a funder to do. But like actually maybe part of their role and maybe we should normalize that [00:21:35] being part of their role. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. [00:21:37] Ben: I I'm imagining a world where There are, where this, like, sort of the macro science is as divisive as [00:21:47] Tim: macroeconomics. [00:21:48] Ben: Right? Because you have, you have your like, your, your like, hardcore free market people. Yeah. Zero government intervention. Yeah, that's right. No antitrust. No like, you know, like abolish the Fed. Right, right. All of that. Yeah, yeah. And I look forward to the day. When there's there's people who are doing the same thing for research. [00:22:06] Tim: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah when I think that's actually I mean I thought part of a lot of meta science stuff I think is this kind of like interesting tension, which is that like look politically a lot of those people in the space are Pro free market, you know, like they're they're they're liberals in the little L sense. Yeah, like at the same time Like it is true that kind of like laissez faire science Has failed because we have all these examples of like progress slowing down Right? Like, I don't know. Like, I think [00:22:35] that there is actually this interesting tension, which is like, to what degree are we okay with intervening in science to get better outcomes? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, as, [00:22:43] Ben: as I, I might put on my hat and say, Yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe this is, this is me saying true as a fair science has never been tried. Huh, right. Right? Like, that, that, that may be kind of my position. Huh. But anyways, I... And I would argue that, you know, since 1945, we have been, we haven't had laissez faire [00:23:03] Tim: science. Oh, interesting. [00:23:04] Ben: Huh. Right. And so I'm, yeah, I mean, it's like, this is in [00:23:09] Tim: the same way that I think [00:23:11] Ben: a very hard job for macroeconomics is to say, well, like, do we need [00:23:15] Tim: more or less intervention? Yeah. Yeah. [00:23:17] Ben: What is the case there? I think it's the same thing where. You know, a large amount of science funding does come from the government, and the government is opinionated about what sorts of things [00:23:30] Tim: it funds. Yeah, right. Right. And you [00:23:33] Ben: can go really deep into that. [00:23:35] So, so I [00:23:35] Tim: would. Yeah, that's actually interesting. That flips it. It's basically like the current state of science. is right now over regulated, is what you'd say, right? Or, or [00:23:44] Ben: badly regulated. Huh, sure. That is the argument I would say, very concretely, is that it's badly regulated. And, you know, I might almost argue that it is... It's both over and underregulated in the sense that, well, this is, this is my, my whole theory, but like, I think that there, we need like some pockets where it's like much less regulated. Yeah. Right. Where you're, and then some pockets where you're really sort of going to be like, no. You don't get to sort of tune this to whatever your, your project, your program is. Yeah, right, right. You're gonna be working with like [00:24:19] Tim: these people to do this thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think there actually is interesting analogies in like the, the kind of like economic regulation, economic governance world. Yeah. Where like the notion is markets generally work well, like it's a great tool. Yeah. Like let it run. [00:24:35] Right. But basically that there are certain failure states that actually require outside intervention. And I think what's kind of interesting in thinking about in like a macro scientific, if you will, context is like, what are those failure states for science? Like, and you could imagine a policy rule, which is the policymaker says, we don't intervene until we see the following signals emerging in a field or in a region. Right. And like, okay, that's, that's the trigger, right? Like we're now in recession mode, you know, like there's enough quarters of this problem of like more papers, but less results. You know, now we have to take action, right? Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. That would be, that would be very interesting. And I think that's like, that's good, because I think like, we end up having to think about like, you know, and again, this is I think why this is a really exciting time, is like MetaScience has produced these really interesting results. Now we're in the mode of like, okay, well, you know, on that policymaker dashboard, Yeah. Right, like what's the meter that we're checking out to basically be like, Are we doing well? Are we doing poorly? Is this going well? Or is this going poorly? Right, like, I think that becomes the next question to like, make this something practicable Yeah. For, for [00:25:35] actual like, Right. Yeah. Yeah. One of my frustrations [00:25:38] Ben: with meta science [00:25:39] Tim: is that it, I [00:25:41] Ben: think is under theorized in the sense that people generally are doing these studies where they look at whatever data they can get. Huh. Right. As opposed to what data should we be looking at? What, what should we be looking for? Yeah. Right. Right. And so, so I would really like to have it sort of be flipped and say, okay, like this At least ideally what we would want to measure maybe there's like imperfect maybe then we find proxies for that Yeah, as opposed to just saying well, like here's what we can measure. It's a proxy for [00:26:17] Tim: okay. That's right, right Yeah, exactly. And I think a part of this is also like I mean, I think it is like Widening the Overton window, which I think like the meta science community has done a good job of is like trying to widen The Overton window of what funders are willing to do. Yeah. Or like what various existing incumbent actors are willing to [00:26:35] do. Because I think one way of getting that data is to run like interesting experiments in this space. Right? Like I think one of the things I'm really obsessed with right now is like, okay, imagine if you could change the overhead rate that universities charge on a national basis. Yeah. Right? Like, what's that do to the flow of money through science? And is that like one dial that's actually like On the shelf, right? Like, we actually have the ability to influence that if we wanted to. Like, is that something we should be running experiments against and seeing what the results are? Yeah, yeah. [00:27:00] Ben: Another would be earmarking. Like, how much money is actually earmarked [00:27:05] Tim: for different things. That's right, yeah, yeah. Like, how easy it is to move money around. That's right, yeah. I heard actually a wild story yesterday about, do you know this whole thing, what's his name? It's apparently a very wealthy donor. That has convinced the state of Washington's legislature to the UW CS department. it's like, it's written into law that there's a flow of money that goes directly to the CS department. I don't think CS departments need more money. I [00:27:35] know, I know, but it's like, this is a really, really kind of interesting, like, outcome. Yeah. Which is like a very clear case of basically just like... Direct subsidy to like, not, not just like a particular topic, but like a particular department, which I think is like interesting experiment. I don't like, I don't know what's been happening there, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Natural, natural experiment. [00:27:50] Ben: Totally. Has anybody written down, I assume the answer is no, but it would be very interesting if someone actually wrote down a list of sort of just all the things you [00:28:00] Tim: could possibly [00:28:00] Ben: want to pay attention to, right? Like, I mean, like. Speaking of CS, it'd be very interesting to see, like, okay, like, what fraction of the people who, like, get PhDs in an area, stay in this area, right? Like, going back to the, the [00:28:15] Tim: health of a field or something, right? Yeah, yeah. I think that's right. I, yeah. And I think that those, those types of indicators are interesting. And then I think also, I mean, in the spirit of like it being a dynamic system. Like, so a few years back I read this great bio by Sebastian Malaby called The Man Who Knew, which is, it's a bio of Alan Greenspan. So if you want to ever read, like, 800 pages about [00:28:35] Alan Greenspan, book for you. It's very good. But one of the most interesting parts about it is that, like, there's a battle when Alan Greenspan becomes head of the Fed, where basically he's, like, extremely old school. Like, what he wants to do is he literally wants to look at, like, Reams of data from like the steel industry. Yeah, because that's kind of got his start And he basically is at war with a bunch of kind of like career People at the Fed who much more rely on like statistical models for predicting the economy And I think what's really interesting is that like for a period of time actually Alan Greenspan has the edge Because he's able to realize really early on that like there's It's just changes actually in like the metabolism of the economy that mean that what it means to raise the interest rate or lower the interest rate has like very different effects than it did like 20 years ago before it got started. Yeah. And I think that's actually something that I'm also really quite interested in science is basically like When we say science, people often imagine, like, this kind of, like, amorphous blob. But, like, I think the metabolism is changing all the [00:29:35] time. And so, like, what we mean by science now means very different from, like, what we mean by science, like, even, like, 10 to 20 years ago. Yes. And, like, it also means that all of our tactics need to keep up with that change, right? And so, one of the things I'm interested in to your question about, like, has anyone compiled this list of, like, science health? Or the health of science, right? It's maybe the right way of thinking about it. is that, like, those indicators may mean very different things at different points in time, right? And so part of it is trying to understand, like, yeah, what is the state of the, what is the state of this economy of science that we're talking about? Yeah. You're kind of preaching [00:30:07] Ben: to the, to the choir. In the sense that I'm, I'm always, I'm frustrated with the level of nuance that I feel like many people who are discussing, like, science, quote, making air quotes, science and research, are, are talking about in the sense that. They very often have not actually like gone in and been part of the system. Huh, right. And I'm, I'm open to the fact that [00:30:35] you [00:30:35] Tim: don't need to have got like [00:30:36] Ben: done, been like a professional researcher to have an opinion [00:30:41] Tim: or, or come up with ideas about it. [00:30:43] Ben: Yeah. But at the same time, I feel like [00:30:46] Tim: there's, yeah, like, like, do you, do you think about that tension at all? Yeah. I think it's actually incredibly valuable. Like, I think So I think of like Death and Life of Great American Cities, right? Which is like, the, the, the really, one of the really, there's a lot of interesting things about that book. But like, one of the most interesting things is sort of the notion that like, you had a whole cabal of urban planners that had this like very specific vision about how to get cities to work right and it just turns out that like if you like are living in soho at a particular time and you like walk along the street and you like take a look at what's going on like there's always really actually super valuable things to know about yeah that like are only available because you're like at that like ultra ultra ultra ultra micro level and i do think that there's actually some potential value in there like one of the things i would love to be able to set up, like, in the community of MetaScience or whatever you want to call it, right, [00:31:35] is the idea that, like, yeah, you, you could afford to do, like, very short tours of duty, where it's, like, literally, you're just, like, spending a day in a lab, right, and, like, to have a bunch of people go through that, I think, is, like, really, really helpful and so I think, like, thinking about, like, what the rotation program for that looks like, I think would be cool, like, you, you should, you should do, like, a six month stint at the NSF just to see what it looks like. Cause I think that kind of stuff is just like, you know, well, A, I'm selfish, like I would want that, but I also think that like, it would also allow the community to like, I think be, be thinking about this in a much more applied way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:08] Ben: I think it's the, the meta question there for, for everything, right? Is how much in the weeds, like, like what am I trying to say? The. It is possible both to be like two in the weeds. Yeah, right and then also like too high level Yeah, that's right. And in almost like what what is the the right amount or like? Who, who should [00:32:31] Tim: be talking to whom in that? That's right. Yeah, I mean, it's like what you were saying earlier that like the [00:32:35] success of macro science will be whether or not it's as controversial as macroeconomics. It's like, I actually hope that that's the case. It's like people being like, this is all wrong. You're approaching it like from a too high level, too abstract of a level. Yeah. I mean, I think the other benefit of doing this outside of like the level of insight is I think one of the projects that I think I have is like We need to, we need to be like defeating meta science, like a love of meta science aesthetics versus like actual like meta science, right? Like then I think like a lot of people in meta science love science. That's why they're excited to not talk about the specific science, but like science in general. But like, I think that intuition also leads us to like have very romantic ideas of like what science is and how science should look and what kinds of science that we want. Yeah. Right. The mission is progress. The mission isn't science. And so I think, like, we have to be a lot more functional. And again, I think, like, the benefit of these types of, like, rotations, like, Oh, you just are in a lab for a month. Yeah. It's like, I mean, you get a lot more of a sense of, like, Oh, okay, this is, this is what it [00:33:35] looks like. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to do the same thing for manufacturing. Huh. Right. [00:33:39] Ben: Right. It's like, like, and I want, I want everybody to be rotating, right? Huh. Like, in the sense of, like, okay, like, have the scientists go and be, like, in a manufacturing lab. That's right. [00:33:47] Tim: Yeah. [00:33:48] Ben: And be like, okay, like, look. Like, you need to be thinking about getting this thing to work in, like, this giant, like, flow pipe instead of a [00:33:54] Tim: test tube. That's right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, [00:33:57] Ben: unfortunately, the problem is that we can't all spend our time, like, if everybody was rotating through all the [00:34:03] Tim: things they need to rotate, we'd never get anything done. Yeah, exactly. [00:34:06] Ben: ANd that's, that's, that's kind of [00:34:08] Tim: the problem. Well, and to bring it all the way back, I mean, I think you started this question on macroscience in the context of transitioning away from all of this like weird Cuban Missile Crisis simulation stuff. Like, I do think one way of thinking about this is like, okay, well, if we can't literally send you into a lab, right? Like the question is like, what are good simulations to give people good intuitions about the dynamics in the space? Yeah. And I think that's, that's potentially quite interesting. Yeah. Normalized weekend long simulation. That's right. Like I love the idea of basically [00:34:35] like like you, you get to reenact the publication of a prominent scientific paper. It's like kind of a funny idea. It's just like, you know, yeah. Or, or, or even trying to [00:34:44] Ben: get research funded, right? Like, it's like, okay, like you have this idea, you want yeah. [00:34:55] Tim: I mean, yeah, this is actually a project, I mean, I've been talking to Zach Graves about this, it's like, I really want to do one which is a game that we're calling Think Tank Tycoon, which is basically like, it's a, it's a, the idea would be for it to be a strategy board game that simulates what it's like to run a research center. But I think like to broaden that idea somewhat like it's kind of interesting to think about the idea of like model NSF Yeah, where you're like you you're in you're in the hot seat you get to decide how to do granting Yeah, you know give a grant [00:35:22] Ben: a stupid thing. Yeah, some some some congressperson's gonna come banging [00:35:26] Tim: on your door Yeah, like simulating those dynamics actually might be really really helpful Yeah I mean in the very least even if it's not like a one for one simulation of the real world just to get like some [00:35:35] common intuitions about like The pressures that are operating here. I [00:35:38] Ben: think you're, the bigger point is that simulations are maybe underrated [00:35:42] Tim: as a teaching tool. I think so, yeah. Do you remember the the paperclip maximizer? Huh. The HTML game? Yeah, yeah. [00:35:48] Ben: I'm, I'm kind of obsessed with it. Huh. Because, it, you've, like, somehow the human brain, like, really quickly, with just, like, you know, some numbers on the screen. Huh. Like, just like numbers that you can change. Right, right. And some, like, back end. Dynamic system, where it's like, okay, like based on these numbers, like here are the dynamics of the [00:36:07] Tim: system, and it'll give you an update. [00:36:09] Ben: Like, you start to really get an intuition for, for system dynamics. Yeah. And so, I, I, I want to see more just like plain HTML, like basically like spreadsheet [00:36:20] Tim: backend games. Right, right, like the most lo fi possible. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's helpful. I mean, I think, again, particularly in a world where you're thinking about, like, let's simulate these types of, like, weird new grant structures that we might try out, right? Like, you know, we've got a bunch [00:36:35] of hypotheses. It's kind of really expensive and difficult to try to get experiments done, right? Like, does a simulation with a couple people who are well informed give us some, at least, inclinations of, like, where it might go or, like, what are the unintentional consequences thereof? Yeah. [00:36:51] Ben: Disciplines besides the military that uses simulations [00:36:56] Tim: successfully. Not really. And I think what's kind of interesting is that like, I think it had a vogue that like has kind of dissipated. Yeah, I think like the notion of like a a game being the way you kind of do like understanding of a strategic situation, I think like. Has kind of disappeared, right? But like, I think a lot of it was driven, like, RAND actually had a huge influence, not just on the military. But like, there's a bunch of corporate games, right? That were like, kind of invented in the same period. Yeah. That are like, you determine how much your steel production is, right? And was like, used to teach MBAs. But yeah, I think it's, it's been like, relatively limited. Hm. [00:37:35] Yeah. It, yeah. Hm. [00:37:38] Ben: So. Other things. Huh. Like, just to, [00:37:41] Tim: to shift together. Sure, sure, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess another [00:37:44] Ben: thing that we haven't really talked about, but actually sort of plays into all of this, is thinking about better [00:37:50] Tim: ways of regulating technology. [00:37:52] Ben: I know that you've done a lot of thinking about that, and maybe this is another thing to simulate. [00:38:00] Tim: Yeah, it's a model OSTP. But [00:38:04] Ben: it's maybe a thing where, this is actually like a prime example where the particulars really matter, right? Where you can't just regulate. quote unquote technology. Yeah. Right. And it's like, there's, there's some technologies that you want to regulate very, very closely and very tightly and others that you want to regulate very [00:38:21] Tim: loosely. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that's actually, you know, I think it is tied to the kind of like macro scientific project, if you will. Right. Which is that I think we have often a notion of like science regulation being like. [00:38:35] literally the government comes in and is like, here are the kind of constraints that we want to put on the system. Right. And there's obviously like lots of different ways of doing that. And I think there's lots of contexts in which that's like appropriate. But I think for a lot of technologies that we confront right now, the change is so rapid that the obvious question always becomes, no matter what emerging technology talking about is like, how does your clock speed of regulation actually keep up with like the clock speed of technology? And the answer is frequently like. It doesn't, right? And like you run into these kind of like absurd situations where you're like, well, we have this thing, it's already out of date by the time it goes into force, everybody kind of creates some like notional compliance with that rule. Yeah. And like, in terms of improving, I don't know, safety outcomes, for instance, it like has not actually improved safety outcomes. And I think in that case, right, and I think I could actually make an argument that like, the problem is becoming more difficult with time. Right? Like, if you really believe that the pace of technological change is faster than it used to be, then it is possible that, like, there was a point at which, like, government was operating, and it could actually keep [00:39:35] pace effectively, or, like, a body like Congress could actually keep pace with society, or with technology successfully, to, like, make sure that it was conformant with, sort of, like, societal interests. Do you think that was [00:39:46] Ben: actually ever the case, or was it that we didn't, we just didn't [00:39:50] Tim: have as many regulations? I would say it was sort of twofold, right? Like, I think one of them was you had, at least, let's just talk about Congress, right? It's really hard to talk about, like, government as a whole, right? Like, I think, like, Congress was both better advised and was a more efficient institution, right? Which means it moved faster than it does today. Simultaneously, I also feel like for a couple reasons we can speculate on, right? Like, science, or in the very least, technology. Right, like move slower than it does today. Right, right. And so like actually what has happened is that both both dynamics have caused problems, right? Which is that like the organs of government are moving slower at the same time as science is moving faster And like I think we've passed some inflection [00:40:35] point now where like it seems really hard to craft You know, let's take the AI case like a sensible framework that would apply You know, in, in LLMs where like, I don't know, like I was doing a little recap of like recent interoperability research and I like took a step back and I was like, Oh, all these papers are from May, 2023. And I was like, these are all big results. This is all a big deal. Right. It's like very, very fast. Yeah. So that's kind of what I would say to that. Yeah. I don't know. Do you feel differently? You feel like Congress has never been able to keep up? Yeah. [00:41:04] Ben: Well, I. I wonder, I guess I'm almost, I'm, I'm perhaps an outlier in that I am skeptical of the claim that technology overall has sped up significantly, or the pace of technological change, the pace of software change, certainly. Sure. Right. And it's like maybe software as a, as a fraction of technology has spread up, sped up. And maybe like, this is, this is a thing where like to the point of, of regulations needing to, to. Go into particulars, [00:41:35] right? Mm-Hmm. . Right, right. Like tuning the regulation to the characteristic timescale of whatever talk [00:41:40] Tim: technology we're talking about. Mm-Hmm. , right? [00:41:42] Ben: But I don't know, but like, I feel like outside of software, if anything, technology, the pace of technological change [00:41:52] Tim: has slowed down. Mm hmm. Right. Right. Yeah. [00:41:55] Ben: This is me putting on my [00:41:57] Tim: stagnationist bias. And would, given the argument that I just made, would you say that that means that it should actually be easier than ever to regulate technology? Yeah, I get targets moving slower, right? Like, yeah, [00:42:12] Ben: yeah. Or it's the technology moving slowly because of the forms of [00:42:14] Tim: the regulator. I guess, yeah, there's like compounding variables. [00:42:16] Ben: Yeah, the easiest base case of regulating technology is saying, like, no, you can't have [00:42:20] Tim: any. Huh, right, right, right. Like, it can't change. Right, that's easy to regulate. Yeah, right, right. That's very easy to regulate. I buy that, I buy that. It's very easy to regulate well. Huh, right, right. I think that's [00:42:27] Ben: That's the question. It's like, what do we want to lock in and what don't we [00:42:31] Tim: want to lock in? Yeah, I think that's right and I think, you [00:42:35] know I guess what that moves me towards is like, I think some people, you know, will conclude the argument I'm making by saying, and so regulations are obsolete, right? Or like, oh, so we shouldn't regulate or like, let the companies take care of it. And I'm like, I think so, like, I think that that's, that's not the conclusion that I go to, right? Like part of it is like. Well, no, that just means we need, we need better ways of like regulating these systems, right? And I think they, they basically require government to kind of think about sort of like moving to different parts of the chain that they might've touched in the past. Yeah. So like, I don't know, we, Caleb and I over at IFP, we just submitted this RFI to DARPA. In part they, they were thinking about like how does DARPA play a role in dealing with like ethical considerations around emerging technologies. Yep. But the deeper point that we were making in our submission. was simply that like maybe actually science has changed in a way where like DARPA can't be the or it's harder for DARPA to be the originator of all these technologies. Yeah. So they're, they're almost, they're, they're placing the, the, the ecosystem, the [00:43:35] metabolism of technology has changed, which requires them to rethink like how they want to influence the system. Yeah. Right. And it may be more influence at the point of like. Things getting out to market, then it is things like, you know, basic research in the lab or something like that. Right. At least for some classes of technology where like a lot of it's happening in private industry, like AI. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [00:43:55] Ben: No, I, I, I think the, the concept of, of like the metabolism of, of science and technology is like really powerful. I think in some sense it is, I'm not sure if you would, how would you map that to the idea of there being a [00:44:11] Tim: research ecosystem, right? Right. Is it, is it that there's like [00:44:17] Ben: the metabolic, this is, this is incredibly abstract. Okay. Like, is it like, I guess if you're looking at the metabolism, does, does the metabolism sort of say, we're going to ignore institutions for now and the metabolism is literally just the flow [00:44:34] Tim: of [00:44:35] like ideas and, and, and outcomes and then maybe like the ecosystem is [00:44:41] Ben: like, okay, then we like. Sort of add another layer and say there are institutions [00:44:46] Tim: that are sure interacting with this sort of like, yeah, I think like the metabolism view or, you know, you might even think about it as like a supply chain view, right? To move it away from, like, just kind of gesturing at bio for no reason, right? Is I think what's powerful about it is that, you know, particularly in foundation land, which I'm most familiar with. There's a notion of like we're going to field build and what that means is we're going to name a field and then researchers Are going to be under this tent that we call this field and then the field will exist Yeah, and then the proper critique of a lot of that stuff is like researchers are smart They just like go where the money is and they're like you want to call up like I can pretend to be nanotech for a Few years to get your money Like, that's no problem. I can do that. And so there's kind of a notion that, like, if you take the economy of science as, like, institutions at the very beginning, you actually miss the bigger [00:45:35] picture. Yes. Right? And so the metabolism view is more powerful because you literally think about, like, the movement of, like, an idea to an experiment to a practical technology to, like, something that's out in the world. Yeah. And then we basically say, how do we influence those incentives before we start talking about, like, oh, we announced some new policy that people just, like... Cosmetically align their agendas to yeah, and like if you really want to shape science It's actually maybe arguably less about like the institution and more about like Yeah, the individual. Yeah, exactly. Like I run a lab. What are my motivations? Right? And I think this is like, again, it's like micro macro, right? It's basically if we can understand that, then are there things that we could do to influence at that micro level? Yeah, right. Which is I think actually where a lot of Macro econ has moved. Right. Which is like, how do we influence like the individual firm's decisions Yeah. To get the overall aggregate change that we want in the economy. Yeah. And I think that's, that's potentially a better way of approaching it. Right. A thing that I desperately [00:46:30] Ben: want now is Uhhuh a. I'm not sure what they're, they're [00:46:35] actually called. Like the, you know, like the metal, like, like, like the [00:46:37] Tim: prep cycle. Yeah, exactly. Like, like, like the giant diagram of, of like metabolism, [00:46:43] Ben: right. I want that for, for research. Yeah, that would be incredible. Yeah. If, if only, I mean, one, I want to have it on [00:46:50] Tim: my wall and to, to just get across the idea that. [00:46:56] Ben: It is like, it's not you know, basic research, applied [00:47:01] Tim: research. Yeah, totally. Right, right, right. When it goes to like, and what I like about kind of metabolism as a way of thinking about it is that we can start thinking about like, okay, what's, what's the uptake for certain types of inputs, right? We're like, okay, you know like one, one example is like, okay, well, we want results in a field to become more searchable. Well what's really, if you want to frame that in metabolism terms, is like, what, you know, what are the carbs that go into the system that, like, the enzymes or the yeast can take up, and it's like, access to the proper results, right, and like, I think that there's, there's a nice way of flipping in it [00:47:35] that, like, starts to think about these things as, like, inputs, versus things that we do, again, because, like, we like the aesthetics of it, like, we like the aesthetics of being able to find research results instantaneously, but, like, the focus should be on, Like, okay, well, because it helps to drive, like, the next big idea that we think will be beneficial to me later on. Or like, even being [00:47:53] Ben: the question, like, is the actual blocker to the thing that you want to see, the thing that you think it is? Right. I've run into far more people than I can count who say, like, you know, we want more awesome technology in the world, therefore we are going to be working on Insert tool here that actually isn't addressing, at least my, [00:48:18] Tim: my view of why those things aren't happening. Yeah, right, right. And I think, I mean, again, like, part of the idea is we think about these as, like, frameworks for thinking about different situations in science. Yeah. Like, I actually do believe that there are certain fields because of, like, ideologically how they're set up, institutionally how [00:48:35] they're set up, funding wise how they're set up. that do resemble the block diagram you were talking about earlier, which is like, yeah, there actually is the, the basic research, like we can put, that's where the basic research happens. You could like point at a building, right? And you're like, that's where the, you know, commercialization happens. We pointed at another building, right? But I just happen to think that most science doesn't look like that. Right. And we might ask the question then, like, do we want it to resemble more of like the metabolism state than the block diagram state? Right. Like both are good. Yeah, I mean, I would [00:49:07] Ben: argue that putting them in different buildings is exactly what's causing [00:49:10] Tim: all the problems. Sure, right, exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But then, again, like, then, then I think, again, this is why I think, like, the, the macro view is so powerful, at least to me, personally, is, like, we can ask the question, for what problems? Yeah. Right? Like, are there, are there situations where, like, that, that, like, very blocky way of doing it serves certain needs and certain demands? Yeah. And it's like, it's possible, like, one more argument I can make for you is, like, Progress might be [00:49:35] slower, but it's a lot more controllable. So if you are in the, you know, if you think national security is one of the most important things, you're willing to make those trade offs. But I think we just should be making those trade offs, like, much more consciously than we do. And [00:49:49] Ben: that's where politics, in the term, in the sense of, A compromise between people who have different priorities on something can actually come in where we can say, okay, like we're going to trade off, we're going to say like, okay, we're going to increase like national security a little bit, like in, in like this area to, in compromise with being able to like unblock this. [00:50:11] Tim: That's right. Yeah. And I think this is the benefit of like, you know, when I say lever, I literally mean lever, right. Which is basically like, we're in a period of time where we need this. Yeah. Right? We're willing to trade progress for security. Yeah. Okay, we're not in a period where we need this. Like, take the, take, ramp it down. Right? Like, we want science to have less of this, this kind of structure. Yeah. That's something we need to, like, have fine tuned controls over. Right? Yeah. And to be thinking about in, like, a, a comparative sense, [00:50:35] so. And, [00:50:36] Ben: to, to go [00:50:36] Tim: back to the metabolism example. Yeah, yeah. I'm really thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. [00:50:39] Ben: Is there an equivalent of macro for metabolism in the sense that like I'm thinking about like, like, is it someone's like blood, like, you know, they're like blood glucose level, [00:50:52] Tim: like obesity, right? Yeah, right. Kind of like our macro indicators for metabolism. Yeah, that's right. Right? Or like how you feel in the morning. That's right. Yeah, exactly. I'm less well versed in kind of like bio and medical, but I'm sure there is, right? Like, I mean, there is the same kind of like. Well, I study the cell. Well, I study, you know, like organisms, right? Like at different scales, which we're studying this stuff. Yeah. What's kind of interesting in the medical cases, like You know, it's like, do we have a Hippocratic, like oath for like our treatment of the science person, right? It's just like, first do no harm to the science person, you know? [00:51:32] Ben: Yeah, I mean, I wonder about that with like, [00:51:35] with research. Mm hmm. Is there, should we have more heuristics about how we're [00:51:42] Tim: Yeah, I mean, especially because I think, like, norms are so strong, right? Like, I do think that, like, one of the interesting things, this is one of the arguments I was making in the long science piece. It's like, well, in addition to funding certain types of experiments, if you proliferate the number of opportunities for these low scale projects to operate over a long period of time, there's actually a bunch of like norms that might be really good that they might foster in the scientific community. Right. Which is like you learn, like scientists learn the art of how to plan a project for 30 years. That's super important. Right. Regardless of the research results. That may be something that we want to put out into the open so there's more like your median scientist has more of those skills Yeah, right, like that's another reason that you might want to kind of like percolate this kind of behavior in the system Yeah, and so there's kind of like these emanating effects from like even one offs that I think are important to keep in mind [00:52:33] Ben: That's actually another [00:52:35] I think used for simulations. Yeah I'm just thinking like, well, it's very hard to get a tight feedback loop, right, about like whether you manage, you planned a project for 30 years [00:52:47] Tim: well, right, [00:52:48] Ben: right. But perhaps there's a better way of sort of simulating [00:52:51] Tim: that planning process. Yeah. Well, and I would love to, I mean, again, to the question that you had earlier about like what are the metrics here, right? Like I think for a lot of science metrics that we may end up on, they may have these interesting and really curious properties like we have for inflation rate. Right. We're like, the strange thing about inflation is that we, we kind of don't like, we have hypotheses for how it happens, but like, part of it is just like the psychology of the market. Yeah. Right. Like you anticipate prices will be higher next quarter. Inflation happens if enough people believe that. And part of what the Fed is doing is like, they're obviously making money harder to get to, but they're also like play acting, right? They're like. You know, trust me guys, we will continue to put pressure on the economy until you feel differently about this. And I think there's going to be some things in science that are worth [00:53:35] measuring that are like that, which is like researcher perceptions of the future state of the science economy are like things that we want to be able to influence in the space. And so one of the things that we do when we try to influence like the long termism or the short termism of science It's like, there's lots of kind of like material things we do, but ultimately the idea is like, what does that researcher in the lab think is going to happen, right? Do they think that, you know, grant funding is going to become a lot less available in the next six months or a lot more available in the next six months? Like influencing those might have huge repercussions on what happens in science. And like, yeah, like that's a tool that policymakers should have access to. Yeah. Yeah. [00:54:11] Ben: And the parallels between the. The how beliefs affect the economy, [00:54:18] Tim: and how beliefs [00:54:19] Ben: affect science, I think may also be a [00:54:21] Tim: little bit underrated. Yeah. In the sense that, [00:54:24] Ben: I, I feel like some people think that It's a fairly deterministic system where it's like, ah, yes, this idea's time has come. And like once, once all the things that are in place, like [00:54:35] once, once all, then, then it will happen. And like, [00:54:38] Tim: that is, that's like how it works. [00:54:40] Ben: Which I, I mean, I have, I wish there was more evidence to my point or to disagree with me. But like, I, I think that's, that's really not how it works. And I'm like very often. a field or, or like an idea will, like a technology will happen because people think that it's time for that technology to happen. Right. Right. Yeah. Obviously, obviously that isn't always the case. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's, there's hype [00:55:06] Tim: cycles. And I think you want, like, eventually, like. You know, if I have my druthers, right, like macro science should have like it's Chicago school, right? Which is basically like the idea arrives exactly when it should arrive. Scientists will discover it on exactly their time. And like your only role as a regulator is to ensure the stability of scientific institutions. I think actually that that is a, that's not a position I agree with, but you can craft a totally, Reasonable, coherent, coherent governance framework that's based around that concept, right? Yes. Yeah. I think [00:55:35] like [00:55:35] Ben: you'll, yes. I, I, I think like that's actually the criteria for success of meta science as a field uhhuh, because like once there's schools , then, then, then it will have made it, [00:55:46] Tim: because [00:55:47] Ben: there aren't schools right now. Mm-Hmm. , like, I, I feel , I almost feel I, I, I now want there to b

american death chicago ai kids science washington speaking phd thinking russia russian creative congress progress world war ii defense generation mba natural color idea oxford civil war cuba inflation scientists sort dynamic fed clock regulation machines cuban gdp epa great depression guiding cs rand macro mm metabolism nih reasonable chevron html hm indicators darpa mcnamara manhattan project xcom larp cuban missile crisis overton nsf widening rfi keynes keynesian icbm nikita khrushchev normalized hippocratic alan greenspan ifp reams great american cities tim hwang ada palmer benis science science pitt rivers museum ben it tim yeah ostp presidium ben so tim is ben one ben well ben right zach graves tim right

047 Ben Reale - Small Habits, Big Results: How to Make Running a Habit

The Passionate Runner

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 4, 2023 46:52

Episode SummaryBen Reale is the Founder of the personal training group, Condition One Fitness & Nutrition. He's a Marathon runner, licensed attorney, and a former Marine Officer who has led more than 6,000 one-on-one training sessions and 600 small group classes. He is an expert in thoroughly evaluating someone to determine their ‘movement baseline,' incorporating individualized corrective strategies into specific training programs as needed. Today, Whitney and Ben talk about making exercise a habit and how to overcome and work around all the potential life obstacles that can get in the way of making running a habit. They touch on rewards, ‘gaming your brain,' and everything that supports making running a habit, like good eating, good sleeping, rest days, and strength training.Episode SponsorRunner Click Pro – https://pro.runnerclick.com/Key Takeaways01:00 – Whitney Heins welcomes Ben Reale to the show who shares his unique career trajectory, including his time as a personal trainer and a Marine09:44 – Habit formation and making sustainable changes by taking it slow15:39 – The power of consistency and overcoming life obstacles20:35 – Finding your ‘Why,' outcome-based goals, and behavior-based goals32:00 – The effectiveness of rewards and ‘gaming your brain'40:16 – Bright spots and other tools for making running a habit46:41 – Whitney thanks Ben for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can connect with himTweetable Quotes“I think that the big takeaway is that if people are in that situation and they've come up with a Plan A and a Plan B, and they gotta get thirty minutes in, or whatever they're trying to accomplish for a run, if it's consistently not happening, then it's like, ‘Hey, that's ok. It's just feedback that you have to change your plan because it's not working.' And I think that's a powerful piece too because being able to break away and almost from a 30,000 foot view just look down on it and say, ‘Well this is not working so I need to change it' is important.” (16:32) (Ben)“I think at the end of the day, if it is a priority to you, you're gonna find a way to get it done in some way, shape or form.” (19:50) (Ben)“So a lot of times we'll break things down in terms of outcome-based or behavior-based goals. And so, if your outcome is to run the NYC Marathon, that's great. We can delve into why you want to do that, but then we also want to take into account the behavior-based goals that are gonna be required to ultimately get you to your outcome.” (24:45) (Ben)“I think the rewards can be the most effective when you have intention behind them and some specificity.” (32:23) (Ben)“Maybe you're training for a race, maybe you've got a nagging injury, maybe you're trying to institute strength training into your program. Looking at your bright spots on either a weekly or monthly basis and then picking out what went really well that's specifically related to something that's difficult and then asking. ‘how can I do more of that,' is key.” (40:30) (Ben)“I think, generally speaking, if you're trying to change something, whether it be lifestyle, nutrition, fitness, if you're trying to get started with running, break things down as small as possible and think about what you can do on your worst day.” (44:28) (Ben)Resources MentionedWhitney's LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-heins-02ba3b5The Mother Runners Club – https://www.themotherrunners.com/Ben's Website –

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Finding Your Purpose: Life Lessons from Moana

The Shift To Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2023 34:45

No matter what age you are, there are many lessons that can be learned from Disney's Moana. From the #ancestorwisdom passed on from Moana's grandmother, to Moana's journey of #findingpurpose, and Maui's struggle with #overcomingego, each character teaches the audience something different about life. Today, hosts Ben and Paige Easter talk about the life lessons they learned while watching Moana.Moana spends the majority of the movie thinking that Maui is the hero. After all, he is a demigod and she is just a teenage girl. Unfortunately for Moana, Maui is less ready to actually do what it takes to be a hero as he is still caught up in his own ego. There are elements of #facingyourshadow when Maui encounters Tomatoa, a crab that is essentially a metaphor for pride. Maui is almost defeated by Tomatoa had it not been for Moana. Similarly, in the final battle, Maui is unable to defeat Te Ka, losing his most prized possession, his magic hook, in the attempt. In the end, it is Moana who chooses to step up and return the heart to Te Ka, quelling her rage and transforming her back into Te Fiti.If Moana had listened to her father and not left the island, or if she had listened to Maui and given up, the world would have plunged into darkness. This is why it is so important to follow your own path and learn how to listen for that full body yes when figuring out what you are meant to do. When you can connect with your heart, that is how you can get beyond your ego and begin #accessing creativity.Quotes“For Maui, the thing that he's most afraid of is being insignificant, being unloved and unworthy. And so when he acts out of that and he takes the thing, he becomes no one's hero. And that's the thing that he's most afraid of.” (14:52-15:07 | Ben)“So often, especially when we're dealing with building a business or something like that, there is the tendency to want to do it for status, for glory, to prove your worthiness to the world.” (16:43-16:55 | Ben)“The job is not to discover what is the purpose for your life or whatever, but to listen to your full body and connect to your heart. And that is the way that we turn the destructive nature of the ego into the life giving nature of creation.” (21:00-21:16 | Ben)“The message of Moana is, connect with your heart. And so, what grandmother is doing every time she's teaching Moana is she's listening to her and she's inviting her to listen to her own heart, rather than tell her what to do.” (24:25-24:37 | Ben) “At the end it is Moana that realizes actually she doesn't need anybody, she's the hero.” (25:00-25:04 | Paige)LinksConnect with Ben and Paige:Website: https://lucidshiftcoaching.com/Lucid Shift Coaching IG: https://www.instagram.com/lucid_shift_coaching/Project Candlelight: https://airtable.com/shr5p0P2793RtRk2kPodcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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How to Become an Effective Negotiator

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2023 48:39

Are You an Amateur Negotiator? Join Ben from Innovate Podcast and Darren A. Smith with their talk on how to become an effective negotiator. Learn useful tools like the squaredance for negotiating and disregard bad practices like running to PowerPoint first. Read on to discover the basics of effective negotiation that you can start using today. You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: What else could we do? What could I explore? What do you want from me? Could we talk about a contract that's 50 years long? No, we can't, Darren. Alright, what about one's five years long maybe? Okay. Could we talk about improving the quality, and reducing the packaging? Could we work together on blah, blah, blah? There're a million things we could talk about. Now. None of them might bridge the gap between a 10-pound case and an eight-pound case. But let's try. Ben: Welcome to the Innovate Podcast, a show where we discuss, dissect, and attempt to rebuild the world of product and category within consumer goods. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Darren a Smith a veteran of the grocery industry with over 3o years of experience, I think working either for retailers or advising manufacturers and brands. Darren and I briefly crossed paths as buyers and category managers at Sainsbury back in the very early naughts, which we may discuss in a moment. But Darren, welcome to the Innovate Podcast. Delighted you can join us. How are you? How are you today? Negotiating is a key business skill Darren A. Smith: Hey, Ben. I'm good. We're in process of moving house, not today, but in the next couple of weeks, so I am struggling with that process. There's a reason it's stressful. Ben: So yeah, you just thought you'd add another huge seismic life event onto the already kind of generational economic challenges that we're facing. Darren A. Smith: That's absolutely true. I think we just squeezed in for the interest rates went through the roof. Ben: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a joking matter actually. Yeah. Okay, cool. Good. So, Darren, just for the benefit of the listeners, I guess a natural place to start would just be to introduce yourself, talk through your kind of background from Sainsbury through to now and just talk about what you're focusing on with your current business MBM, if that's okay. Darren A. Smith: Of course. So I started Sainsbury in 1990 and at that point, I was the assistant. Now that's the important part. I was the assistant cottage cheese buyer. I wasn't even the real one. I didn't even know what cottage cheese was at the rightful age of 19. So that's where I started. Then I took on various buying roles for the next 13 years. My last real job was looking after the fruit team for Sainsbury, where I decided that actually I wanted to go and see if I could do something by myself, set up MBM, and ever since we've worked on soft skills training. Ben: Okay, awesome. Darren A. Smith: For the last past 20 years now. Ben: So soft skills training, I guess that could be quite broad. It's clearly focused on people. What are kind of the key areas that you focus on in terms of developing skills? Darren A. Smith: The key ones that people want are how do I get the most out of my time — time management. How do I get the most out of my people — people management, leadership skills, and how do I get the most out of my deals, particularly in the industry that you and I are in? So it's negotiation predominantly. It's time management and it's people management skills. They're the three. There are a number of other soft skills. The bit I really like is Jack Ma, recently the chairman of Alibaba said that with the progress of AI, soft skills is the only way forward. Love it. Ben: Right. Awesome. Darren A. Smith: Which is great. So we can try and process data really quickly and be analysts, but ultimately it's about how you and I interact about the teams we build and about how we lead people is the future.

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Jade O'Brien: stock broker to teacher, reflections on finance and education, women in finance

Ben Yeoh Chats

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2023 87:37

Jade O'Brien was a stock broker (equity sales) for over 7 years. She then retrained as a teacher and has taught in both the state sector and the private sector in the UK. Jade used to pitch me stock ideas and speak about the investment world. I was very curious on why she decided to change careers to become a teacher. We chat about what drove Jade to the world of finance. What she viewed as the pros and cons, and what it is like as a woman in a male dominated world and advice she has. Jade outlines her experience of finance which has many positives as well as challenges, and what might have changed over the decade. (Ben) So what would you say to women wanting to make it in the city or in financial services? Do it. Give it a go. I mean, I'm speaking for myself here and I have read that the imposter syndrome feeling is very common within women in finance. But then again, I think, well maybe that imposter syndrome is for everyone in finance but men can hide it better. So I would say do it. Everybody feels insecure and doesn't really know what's going on at times. To have the confidence to go for it and also to not necessarily feel like you need to follow my path of giving up finance and becoming a teacher. I don't think that's something you need to do if you are genuinely interested in finance and you want to get to the top. I think it's definitely possible. We discuss the factors that made Jade change her jobs. How we might think about death and how she found teacher training. We chat on how we might “value” teaching and why it's hard to rate teachers. Why some people ask for more homework, and others ask for less homework and how both views can have merit. We address: The importance of mentors the funding situation in UK state supported schools A glimpse of teacher training Differences between state and private schools in the UK Why she thinks teacher quality in both state and private settings are similar Why teaching class can feel private Views on SEN (special education) policy Streaming (where it might work, where it might fail and why she changed her mind) What Jade's perfect class size is, and why Her views on uniforms School start times School food Exercise The importance of gratitude This was an amazing long form conversation addressing many of the debates within education today. Transcript and Video available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2023/2/2/jade-obrien-from-stockbroker-to-teacher-being-a-woman-in-finance-schools-and-teaching-podcast

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029 Ben Reale - Small Habits, Big Results: How to Make Running a Habit

The Passionate Runner

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 28, 2022 47:42

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DGS 193: The Renter Experience In Property Management With Ben Doherty

#DoorGrowShow - Property Management Growth

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2022 46:42

Leasing is one of the hardest aspects of property management. What if you had a way to offload some or all of your tasks related to leasing? Today, property management growth expert Jason Hull chats with Ben from Sunroom. This service allows property managers to offload leasing to leasing professionals who care about property managers, owners, and tenants. You'll Learn… [01:26] Offloading Leasing: What is Sunroom? [09:01] ShowMojo, Tenant Turner, vs. Sunroom, oh my! [016:35] Better ways to do Property Showings [020:23] How Sunroom Vets Tenants Better [24:21] Integrating with Other PM Software [31:30] Net Promoter Scores for Property Management and Leasing [37:12] Learning to LET GO as a PM Entrepreneur Tweetables “Some of y'all entrepreneurs are control freaks. Let's be real, and you need to let go of some of this stuff and let somebody else do it a little bit better.” “We have a lot of egos as entrepreneurs. We think our way is the best way all the time, and we need to see that maybe somebody else could do this better.” “Property managers tend to do best if they just convince owners to do pets. You're going to get more tenants, you're going to get more money.” “One of the biggest time sucks for a property management company is dealing with prospective tenants.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Ben: So what we do is we partner with property management companies and become their leasing arm. So if you're a newer property management company, you're focused on growing doors and you just mainly want to focus on that, right? One of the most important things is you got to get leasing. If you don't get leasing, you're not going to lease the doors quickly, which then your owner investors are not going to be happy about that. [00:00:22] Jason Hull: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the # DoorGrowShow. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not bebecause you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. [00:01:19] Jason Hull: All right. Ben, welcome to the #DoorGrowShow. [00:01:24] Ben: Thanks for having me, Jason. [00:01:26] Jason Hull: Good to have you. So Ben, why don't we start by you giving us a little bit of your background, qualify yourself. You've done some cool stuff and I'm in the market where you did some of this cool stuff. We just realized in the green room that we're practically neighbors in Austin, market downtown, and I'm up in Round Rock. Ben, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the, I guess technology space. [00:01:49] Ben: Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. First of all, I mean we-- me and my co-founder Zach, we started working on Sunroom in right around 2017. And, the way that we had originally had the idea was, just being a renter for a decade and having a lot of interesting experiences trying to look for a place to lease. But prior to starting Sunroom, Zach and I had started a company called Favor Delivery, which is a small little delivery company here in Texas that grew to become the market leader in delivery. And we sold to H-E-B in early 2018. [00:02:27] Jason Hull: And for people that aren't familiar with H-E-B, because I moved from California just before the pandemic because I wanted to get away from California and the taxes and it's poor political culture. But anyway, so I moved here, Austin and H-E-B was all over the place. I'm like, what a weird name. What is this place? But it's one of the, like America's top grocery chains. It's consistently rated as like one of the biggest and the best. So for those that are not in Texas, they are probably not familiar with H-E-B, but H-E-B is the, like one of the leading grocery stores, and it dominates everything. [00:03:05] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:03:06] Jason Hull: I'm sure in grocery sales, it beats out Walmart, like it beats out any of the stuff that I'd heard about before and I'd never heard of H-E-B. And they offer delivery service. [00:03:15] Ben: Yeah. H-E-B is an impressive company. And the crazy thing is they've been around for 115 years. [00:03:21] Ben: Wow. [00:03:21] Ben: They are the top employer in Texas. And when they acquired us, it was the only acquisition they've ever had in their history as a company. And even crazier than that, when we combined workforces at the time, we had the largest workforce of independent contractors. We grew to, now they're at a hundred thousand delivery drivers in Texas. [00:03:44] Ben: Oh, wow. [00:03:44] Ben: And H-E-B had a similar amount of employees. So when we combined workforces, it just became this really massive workforce supporting grocery and delivery of all foods. So yeah, it was a cool marriage that we had there. [00:04:00] Jason Hull: Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. That's interesting history. So I've seen the Favor name when I'm doing delivery from H-E-B, so I was like what's this relationship? [00:04:11] Ben: Yeah. So I can elaborate a little bit more too about, how we picked Sunroom. We had, like I said, I mean my co-founder Zach and I, we're actually best friends from high school and so we go way back. I think what you were saying about you wanting to support property manager entrepreneurs, I think that's a good mission because I just tip my hat off to any entrepreneurs who get any businesses working because we definitely know how hard that is. But anyways, our journey towards Sunroom was just having a lot of, I would call interesting experiences as a renter. And then we started calling-- once we were interested in the rental space-- we started making a lot of phone calls to, different rental listings. And we started asking the agents and property managers, "Hey, why are you doing this?" "why are you doing these leases?" And, we kept hearing the same thing, which was like, "oh, we don't-- I don't really want to be doing this lease. I'm just doing this lease. I'm helping this investor client buy more homes and so now I'm looped into to renting this place." And every once in a while you'd come across a property manager who really loved leasing, but a lot of the property managers we talked to too would be like, "yeah, I'm really focused on growing my door count. And these things are just something we have to do to get more properties in the door." And Zach and I saw that as an opportunity of: wow. No wonder why the experience is not that great for renters. A lot of the folks who are doing these leasing are not that excited about doing it. And so then that's how we started working on Sunroom. [00:05:29] Jason Hull: Cool. So let's talk about then what-- you talked about the problem that you saw in the marketplace and experience wasn't super good, but a lot of owners and maybe even property managers aren't even super excited about taking care of the tenant experience. So it's not like their highest priority. Like, "I want to get more doors, I want to have more properties managed," so they're like, "what's my competitive advantage?" So when they're picking tools and software, they're usually-- they're trying to figure out: "how do I get some sort of leg up on the competition," so to speak, or "how can this lower my operational cost?" and these kind of things. One of the biggest time sucks for a property management company is dealing with prospective tenants. [00:06:13] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:06:14] Jason Hull: These are not people that are paying them and they call them the most, and-- [00:06:17] Jason Hull: yeah. [00:06:18] Jason Hull: --This is like the "garbage of phone calls," I've heard one of my guests call it. [00:06:21] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:06:22] Jason Hull: So tell me about what does Sunroom do and how does it do it, and what's the benefit. [00:06:27] Ben: Yeah, sure. So what we do is we partner with property management companies and become their leasing arm. So if you're a newer property management company, you're focused on growing doors and you just mainly want to focus on that, right? One of the most important things is you got to get leasing. If you don't get leasing, you're not going to lease the doors quickly, which then your owner investors are not going to be happy about that. And also I would argue equally as important is that renter does have a great experience because, that is really the beginning of your relationship with them, and what we've noticed of working with a lot of different property managers is that, when the renter goes into the home and they're really happy with their experience that led up to that point, they're a lot more-- how do I put this? They're a lot more quiet when they get into the home, right? They're just happy overall, which is going to reduce your maintenance requests and honestly going to make it more likely that they renew the next year, right? because that is just really first, and I would just say first impressions are, everything in life a lot of times. [00:07:27] Ben: And so I think, leasing really is that first impression for that property manager. To come back around to what we do, yeah, we partner with the property management companies and make it so that they don't even need to have any leasing agents on staff. And we can really do the entire process of getting the home leased. But at the same time, we give the property manager the power over key decisions, right? Things like actually approving the applications, that's still going to be up to the property manager to make sure they choose the right applicant. And obviously if they want to use their lease that they prefer, there's all different ways that we allow them to customize what they want their leasing experience to be like. But at the end of the day, we're really doing the legwork for them and we have a combination of people and tech to do that. [00:08:12] Ben: Got it. So [00:08:14] Jason Hull: this combination of people and tech... are you able to do this in every market or is this like a local thing that needs to be done [00:08:21] Ben: locally? [00:08:23] Ben: Yeah, great question. [00:08:24] Ben: So we started out just doing this in Austin and have partnered with several different property managers here. In town. But now we're expanding across the us. And I believe we're up to seven different markets at the moment. But pretty rapidly expanding to cover more markets. [00:08:41] Ben: Got it. What's [00:08:42] Jason Hull: the biggest limitation in expansion for those that you don't cover yet? [00:08:46] Ben: We call ourselves a leasing only brokerage, so we're actually-- we're a real estate brokerage in each of these states. And so that's a blocker to getting set up in a lot of these places is actually establishing our brokerage in each one of these states. [00:08:59] Ben: Got it. [00:09:00] Jason Hull: Okay. Cool. I think a lot of property managers, they're aware of certain pools like ShowMojo and Tenant Turner and Rently and Knock Rentals and Turbo Tenant, so how does Sunroom differentiate from all these tools and these systems are already out there? [00:09:20] Ben: Yeah, so some of those systems and tools you mentioned, I do think those-- they do improve the renter experience and at the same time. They do make it so that it's a little less work for the property manager to lease those properties. But at the end of the day, if you're a property management owner you're still going to need a leasing agent on your team. Or you're going to have to overextend the property manager that you have in order to use those, utilize those tools. Sunroom just takes it the next step where we have similar tools and systems. Obviously I'm biased, but I would argue they're better than those, but-- [00:09:55] Ben: You should argue that. [00:09:57] Ben: We take it a step further. You don't even really need to have a leasing agent on staff in order to really execute everything you need to do for leasing. Whereas all these other tools or systems they're definitely completely reliant on still having somebody there behind the scenes catching the errors or all all the holes in those systems. And, if anybody has tried to. Integrate those different systems and tools, what they'll find is that they were built in a way that they had a focused goal. And there's a lot of different holes in that system. And I'm sure as operators see that, I think that's a big difference with what we're building, is that what we build, we actually use to operate. And so we're able to see all the different gaps and holes that those systems leave. And really between our systems and our team, we're able to fill in the gaps that those systems leave out. [00:10:46] Jason Hull: All right. So I think people listening by now are like, "the wheels are turning a little bit," and they're like, "okay, how's this actually play out?" So could you walk us through step by step what-- how this process works with the property manager and the tenant from beginning to [00:11:01] Ben: finish? Yeah, sure. So it usually starts within one of the property managers, property management softwares, right? [00:11:09] Ben: We see commonly property managers are using App Folio or Buildium, so let's use App Folio for example. You have a property manager on your team that you have a home where the renter didn't renew. And it's a property that you're going to need to get leased. At that moment, if you were partnered with us, you would open up the Sunroom portal. We would already essentially have that home synced within our system. Because we're able to really pull data from App Folio and the Buildiums of the world. From there, they just really submit the property to us and say, "Hey, this home's coming up for lease." we would normally already have all of their settings. As a part of our onboarding, we're going to get them all set up in our system. So things like knowing what their tenant criteria is. Things like knowing when is this home actually available? When would you like us to touch the property? And then as soon as they submit the property to us, we actually will go out and touch the property. So we have boots on the ground. Those boots on the ground are going to get professional photography. They're going to set up a self showing lock system if that's what the property manager would like to. And then we're going to actually install a yard sign as well. And, we take pictures to really document everything that we do there. And then, we'll take it a step further, we'll get the marketing description written and then we'll get it listed online, and we do that entire process in an average about 48 hours. [00:12:28] Ben: Nice. [00:12:29] Jason Hull: Awesome. Yeah, that's very cool. So you actually have people come out-- swarm of people, and they get all this stuff done, right? In the description, getting it listed, doing all this stuff. Okay. [00:12:39] Jason Hull: Yeah, [00:12:40] Ben: and that's where our background in Favor obviously comes into play is that, I think if you think about Favor, there's a great consumer experience where the customer can order food, but then there's all these boots on the ground that actually go get the food and make sure that all happens in a timely manner. Leasing is similar in the sense that you need to have a great consumer experience for the renter to be able to see what they're shopping for and do the things they they need to do to see if they want to, lease that property. But then you're going to need boots on the ground to actually, handle the listing side of things. [00:13:09] Ben: Very cool. [00:13:10] Jason Hull: So is this totally Uber-like in that you're just pulling anybody in, or I'm sure you have criteria for the photographers and for all these different people that you're bringing in to do these [00:13:22] Ben: little pieces. [00:13:23] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. We don't just hire any random person. I'd say it's definitely not Uber-like in that I think, we use-- it's technology enabled so that we can do those things quickly and can measure how fast we do them, right? I think just the fact that we know we get those properties set up in an average of 48 hours, I think is... [00:13:42] Ben: Yeah. [00:13:42] Ben: ...more than your average property manager would know, but we know that the tasks we're doing are tech enabled, but no we care a lot about those people that we choose and we try to find folks that have a lot of experience with real estate photography and then we teach them the other aspects of what we're trying to get done at that property. [00:14:00] Jason Hull: Awesome. Yeah. Very cool. When a property is going to become vacant, are they able to leverage a system or does it have to be totally empty and rent ready and everything [00:14:11] Ben: else? [00:14:12] Ben: No. So yeah, no, they're able to use the system. It sounds like you're asking about pre-leasing. [00:14:19] Ben: Yeah. [00:14:20] Ben: Okay. Yes, pre-leasing can be really important I think in some markets. Yeah, that's definitely something we support. And let's say it's tenant occupied and we need to act and do an escorted showing, we have different agents on the ground that we partner with that are some of the most active in the area touring homes and renters. And so we'll tap into that network to do some. [00:14:40] Jason Hull: Got it. Okay. Now what if they want get the property listed, they want to get photos, but there's a bunch of ugly furniture in there and ugly stuff. Do you guys let maybe-- BoxBrownie I've had on the show before-- digital editors and they're like, removing all this [00:14:55] Ben: stuff? [00:14:55] Ben: Yeah. [00:14:56] Ben: Take the photos. [00:14:56] Ben: Yeah, we do have digital editing in that regard, but depending on the degree of how much that home is messed up. That's also something that we do is that if we go out to a home and we think it's not show ready we'll document that and share it back with the property manager. And I think we've seen property managers really love that aspect of what we do because oftentimes they have a tough time holding the make ready folks accountable or let's say they're doing a renovation on the property. In particular, I can't tell you how many times that a property manager said, "Oh yeah, this was supposed to be done. And then when we went out there we were able to collect evidence that it wasn't right. That's also part of our system is that if the home is not actually ready to be marketed, and then, we're going to gather that information, share it back with the property manager, and then essentially remind them until that's resolved and as soon as it's resolved, then we can make the listing active. But it's a pretty valuable system and checks and balances that we have in place there. [00:15:55] Jason Hull: Got it. So you'll communicate with them. Then the property manager can send out maintenance, get things taken care of, dealt with, and then report back to you and you're checking in with them, "Hey, is this ready yet? Is this ready yet?" And then they're like, "we got it ready." And then... [00:16:08] Jason Hull: exactly. [00:16:08] Jason Hull: Proceed. [00:16:10] Jason Hull: Exactly. [00:16:10] Jason Hull: So you've sent up the people, you've got the photos, you got like maybe a lockbox on, you got the yard sign, you've got the description. It's posted online. It's probably pushed out to multiple channels. [00:16:19] Jason Hull: That's right. [00:16:20] Jason Hull: Then next come the showings, right? And scheduling and all this. So how does that work and are you doing one-off showings? Are you doing open house model? What would it be found to be the most efficient? What comes next? [00:16:35] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So what we do is we usually set these properties up with a self showing system, and then renters are able to go tour the properties seven days a week from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM and, we also have, a support team available those same hours, so 84 hours, we're ready to quickly text back any renters or answer any phone calls if, folks are having a tough time actually, accessing the home for any particular reason. Our system is really good. I'd say renters have a really good experience touring homes. Like any system, we're dealing with real world stuff. Sometimes maybe it could be a really humid day and maybe the maybe the door frame swells a bit or something, right? So maybe the door gets a little stuck. So the renter needs a little help to understand how to get in. Those are all things that I think us, having support team there available to talk to them and actually pick up the phone. I think is a really important thing. So that's just one of the many ways that we support tours. But I'd say one of the most important pieces of tours is actually collecting that tour feedback and sharing it with the owner after the fact. And so we have a really great system in place for that as well where a lot of renters will leave feedback just right within the place that they tour. And then we're actually able to take that feedback and then give it to display it on a webpage where then the property manager is able to share that webpage directly with their owner so they can actually watch the tours that are coming in and the tour feedback in real time. And we white label that for them. So you can imagine as a property manager, you just share this white label page with your logo and the owner's able to get a bird's eye view of how their home is performing on the market. [00:18:21] Ben: Got it. [00:18:22] Jason Hull: So could this be a scenario that the owner says, "I don't need to do this," and like the property manager says, "you need to do this. Like it'll get you more rent. People will have an issue with this place if you don't fix this or change this," and the owner's like, "no." And then they say, "look at the page, here's the white label page. It's got our brand, our logo, XYZ property management, and it says like, consistently feedback. Like the floor is too gross, or whatever." [00:18:47] Ben: Yeah, "I would rent this home, but does it come with a fridge?" Just one way I've seen owners trying to cut some costs is like not putting refrigerators in the home. And then they see, three out of the five renters that tour the home mentioned "Hey, there's no fridge." [00:19:00] Ben: "have to buy a fridge and I'll go somewhere else." [00:19:03] Ben: Yeah, exactly. And that page really helps the property manager make their case to the owner and also show to them like, "Hey, we really are showing this property and this really is what the renters are saying. [00:19:14] Ben: Cool. [00:19:15] Jason Hull: Yeah, that's really cool. I like the feedback loops. So then, what's the next steps? You're doing showings, you're doing tours. Then I guess people are being pushed to apply when they're doing these tours by the system? [00:19:27] Ben: Yeah, so we have a system, both to pre-qualify renters and to actually have them apply. As soon as they apply we're able to display those applications to the property manager. And we use the same page that we use to display tour feedback and also tracking the tours and the leads and everything. We use that same page then to actually show the applications to the property managers and to their owners. Because I know every property manager seems to have a different deal with each owner, right? Some of 'em, they want to run the application past their owner beforehand, or sometimes they're just the ones reviewing it. But either way, we display that information there so that both the property manager and the owner, are able to review the application before they decide to approve or not. [00:20:14] Ben: Got it. So [00:20:14] Jason Hull: they can either show this white label page that has the list of all the applicants or could they just say, "here's the one we recommend," and show that person's information? [00:20:22] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:20:23] Ben: Yeah. It's usually the latter. Because it's trying to make it simpler. Yeah. It's usually just showing the one that they recommend. And at that point, we would've already done all of the vetting for that application. Even the manual steps of doing a verification of rental history, for example or a verification of employment. And we've actually seen just our application processing service. We've seen that to be so popular that we actually broke that out as something that a property manager could partner with us just on application processing, and that's also cool because we have a lot of tech to catch fraudulent renters. I'm sure you've probably heard about how fraud is on the rise especially with us entering recession. And I think it's just more likely that renters are going to try to fake pay stubs. Even some go as far as trying to fake their identity in different ways to try to get approved for a home that really are beyond their means. And so we've really, we've invested a lot into our application processing system. Doing things like being able to get their pay stubs directly from their payroll provider instead of having a way for them to upload their pay stubs, which could be photoshopped or something like that. [00:21:35] Ben: Yeah. [00:21:35] Ben: And then let's say a renter doesn't even have a job, or let's say a renter's, a self-employed or something, we have a way of actually pulling bank statements directly from their bank, instead of just receiving those bank statements and getting it uploaded. All that tech helps to really reduce the amount of fraud. And as for property managers as well, it's less work to actually investigate all those documents. [00:21:59] Jason Hull: That's just technology and stuff a property manager can't do directly. They don't have the ability to pull directly from the bank their pay stubs, and it's not going to say, "here, let me give you my login to my bank account," and to pull directly from the employer. They don't usually have that ability really effectively either. There needs to be technology involved. [00:22:18] Ben: Yeah. [00:22:19] Ben: So we-- [00:22:20] Ben: --so what [00:22:20] Jason Hull: about-- [00:22:20] Ben: oh, go ahead. [00:22:20] Ben: I was just going to say, yeah, we recognize that you know most of what we've been talking about here is called our full service leasing, right? Where we actually become the leasing arm. But let's say, you've got leasing agents on your team and you think they're rock stars. You're happy with what's going on with your leasing. We could plug in and just do the application processing. We call that service, we call that Sunscreen, is what we call it. The idea is the quirky tagline that I came up with is, "Don't get burned by bad renters." [00:22:47] Jason Hull: I like it. Little bit of sunscreen. [00:22:51] Ben: Yeah, exactly. [00:22:52] Ben: Okay. [00:22:53] Jason Hull: So one of the questions I think some people will be asking is, what about pets? It's like a whole nother beast. Outside, inside pets and running pets and having pets, all this kind of stuff. Property managers tend to do best if they just convince owners to do pets. You're going to get more tenants, you're going to get more money. How do you deal with the pet side of [00:23:11] Ben: things? [00:23:12] Ben: Yeah, so at this point I'm sure most property managers have heard of pet screening.com. I think they're a great company. And so we actually integrate their data into our system. So if you're already signed up for pet screening.com. You can provide the pet screening.com login, and then we're able to pull that information into the application packet. So it's something that the owner and the property manager can consider as a part of the overall application. And, obviously pet screening.com does a really good job verifying things like our emotional support animal documentation. Is that legit? There's fraud around ESA documents. And that's just one of the pieces that they do. But yeah, that's something that we recommend whenever anyone is accepting pets. [00:23:57] Ben: Very [00:23:58] Jason Hull: cool. I like pet screening.com that I've had them on the show. I had another company that may be interesting to integrate with too on the show called our pet policy.com and they take things a step further on the protection side of things after the screening. So they go step beyond. So that might be interesting for you to take a look at integrating with as well. [00:24:20] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:24:20] Jason Hull: Ourpetpolicy.com, they seem like a good group of people over there as well. So real quick, going back, you had mentioned AppFolio, Buildium, do you integrate with Rent Manager? Do you integrate with I don't know, there's some other things and some of these tools [00:24:35] that [00:24:35] Ben: people are using? [00:24:37] Ben: Yeah. Great question. So it's pretty easy for us to get key information plugged into these softwares. And the reason is when someone partners with us, if you think about it, we really need to touch that property management software right when the home is when the home's coming up for lease, right? It needs to be listed. And then once the home gets leased, that's when that information needs to get back in the property management software again. So usually the way that our structure is, it doesn't really matter too much, which property management software you're. The system would be the same, where you would essentially create a user for us. [00:25:15] Ben: So then once the home is getting leased, we know who's signing the lease. We're going to get their information set up within whatever property management software you use and make sure that it's set up for ongoing rent payments and things like that. It essentially, if you're using a property management software, but then you're going to use someone for leasing. But then once the home gets leased, it's going to be as if you had leased it through those other systems. And it's seamless in that way. [00:25:39] Ben: Yeah. Very cool. So [00:25:40] Jason Hull: you're PM [00:25:41] Ben: software agnostic. [00:25:42] Ben: Exactly. Yes. That's a much more succinct way of saying it. Thanks. [00:25:47] Jason Hull: So that just means I've been doing this probably a long time. All right. So you've, you mentioned your solution. You've got the sunscreen that can be, pulled out just separately or if they're using the full leasing service. You've done the pre-qualification, you've got the applicant they can send over the white label thing to the owner. If the owner's like, "I really need to see what info you got." And you've tested out their pay stubs and their bank-- [00:26:11] Jason Hull: right [00:26:12] Jason Hull: --stuff, and you've maybe connected the pet screening.com. What happens next? You've got [00:26:17] Ben: a good applic-- [00:26:18] Ben: Yes. Yeah, so the property manager, the owner accepts the application. And at that point, we're going to reach out to the renter, say, "congrats, you've been accepted. Please now pay the security deposit." And as soon as they pay security deposit, then the owner or the property manager is able to connect their bank account, and that money will just automatically get deposited in whatever account that you specify. And then from a lease perspective, from really from the beginning of the process, we would've asked that you provide the preferred lease that you would like for us to use. We're going to get that lease drafted up and we're going to send it over to both the renter and the property manager. For some property managers, they like to review one last time before it gets sent to the renter. So we can fulfill that ask. And then the lease is going to get signed. And as soon as the lease gets signed, we will then dispatch our people back out to the property, do one final walkthrough, and also remove our yard sign and remove any other things that we had, any lock boxes or things like that we got setup. But we do one thing where we will leave a combo lockbox out at the property so that we can facilitate the renter actually moving in. So that's really the final and last step for our system, is facilitating to the renter actually getting the keys so that they have a smooth move in. And then the last step after all of that is we're going to survey the renter and make sure they had a great experience through the whole the whole leasing process. [00:27:51] Jason Hull: And what's-- before we move on, because I'm curious like what difference you're noticing with these surveys, but let's say they don't accept somebody. What's the process? What happens to the rejects, so to speak? The tenants that didn't pass because a lot of times they're following up and bugging the property manager, "Hey, did you accept me? What's going on?" This sort of thing. What do you do? [00:28:11] Ben: Yeah. So first of all, we shield the property manager from having to deal with all of that stuff. And I think for the position we're in, I think the natural thing is I think we would do what any other good property manager would do. We'd see if there's any other listings within that property manager that the renter would qualify for. First and foremost, we're going to recommend that of " There are these other listings for the same property manager" or, " do you like that?" And if the renter is not interested in any of those homes, then I think we would look broader to other listings that that are amongst our partners and say, "Hey, renter, maybe it would be better if you lease this property." [00:28:48] Jason Hull: Yeah. That helps get the other properties filled. That's great. [00:28:53] Ben: Yeah. [00:28:53] Ben: Okay. [00:28:53] Ben: And the renter's really happy too, because they don't have to pay an application fee again, so they're able to reuse their application. [00:29:00] Jason Hull: Nice. Now what if you have two property managers in the same market and you get an applicant for one, are they completely segregated from being able to apply it to the other, or if they're in the Sunroom system, [00:29:13] Ben: they can... [00:29:14] Ben: Great question. Yeah. So we don't want to restrict where renters can apply, right? because that just doesn't make sense. But we have come across the scenario, it's been rare where renters have applied to multiple properties. And so what's really cool about our system is that we have a little disclaimer for the property manager where they can see, "hey, this renter's actually applied for multiple properties," and that way it's clear to them of " Hey, look, this renter is serious about your property, they are, they're hedging their bets," which, that's a common scenario especially in a hot market is if property managers are collecting multiple applicants on a single property, you can bet that the renters-- they know that. And so they're also applying to multiple properties. So I think we do our best to try to mitigate those scenarios. And I think one of the best ways to mitigate those scenarios is really just processing applications quickly and then, and working to get the renter and answer quickly around if they're accepted or denied. And, in most cases, I think renters are willing to tell you which one's their first choice. And so if you're able to process the application really quickly and drive it to decision, it doesn't happen too often where the owner comes back and wants to accept the renter and they've already decided to go somewhere else. It does occasionally, we try to mitigate that. [00:30:28] Ben: Got it. [00:30:28] Jason Hull: Okay, cool. So going back to the other path, I'm actually drawing this all out. I've got like a flow [00:30:34] Ben: chart going on here. [00:30:36] Ben: Sounds good. Keep [00:30:37] Jason Hull: track. [00:30:38] Jason Hull: So you surveyed the renter at the end, like you've got somebody in the property. [00:30:43] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:30:43] Jason Hull: They've got a lockbox there. I think that's very cool. They can just go and "Can I move in on this day?" "Yep, here's the lockbox. You've got a code or however it works." And they can go get in. [00:30:52] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:30:52] Jason Hull: And you don't have to show up. They can be there with their new U-Haul when they need to be there. That's super annoying, I think for property managers sometimes. And then afterwards you survey the renter. So I'm curious about the results of this. What's been the shift that people have noticed in the experience? This is why you started this in the beginning. You weren't having a great experience. Some people probably were like, "Drive to our office and you might get a key." Some people are like, "we can meet you maybe this day." It was like a mess. So what sort of feedback are you seeing on these surveys and what sort of shift are property management companies that are working with you noticing with your process versus trying to do this on their [00:31:30] Ben: own? [00:31:30] Ben: Yeah, great question. We collect what I would I consider a very important metric and I'm curious if it's come up before in this podcast. It's something called a net promoter score. Yeah. Have you discussed that before? I'm happy to-- [00:31:44] Ben: we [00:31:44] Jason Hull: haven't really focused on that. But yeah, I think a lot of people are familiar. So net promoter score is when it says "on a scale of maybe zero to 10 or one to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company?" So a lot of people see this, the quick survey on software, different things like this. [00:32:00] Ben: Yeah, that's right. And so when the net promoter score rank actually comes out, the scale is actually a minus a hundred to a plus 100. You could Google about how that works, but you're right. As a renter, what we would be asking them is, "how likely are you to recommend leasing a property to a friend through Sunroom or through x property management company?" And what we found is we just have a really good net promoter score. So if you could google this around, but the average net promoter score amongst property managers is a seven. And that's not on the zero to 10 scale. That's on the minus a hundred to the plus 100 scale, and. For the renters who lease a property through us, we have a 52 net promoter score. [00:32:42] Ben: Nice. [00:32:43] Ben: Yeah. So it's like what I said at the very beginning these renters are just a lot happier when they get in the home. For the property managers, they're seeing less really noisy renters when they first move in. I think that's a common thing that property managers are used to is that when a renter first moves in, that can be when they're talking the most or they're the noisiest. And so I think just anecdotally, property managers have said that, "Hey, these renters are just happier. They're just not causing as much commotion when they first move. And some of that has to do with our process too, right? Allowing renters to even self tour homes, it's a no pressure thing where they're able to really understand what they're buying before they move in. So I believe that helps as well. [00:33:24] Jason Hull: This is the nerd in me coming out. So there's this really book called _Innovating Analytics_. And they put out this idea, basically the idea of the next generation of net promoter. They have used a lot of data to showcase and it's a little dry, but there's a lot of data to showcase the fundamental flaws of net promoter score, which is, has advantages over doing nothing, right? But then they talk about a new sort of score, which is the word of mouth index. And so we've incorporated that a bit into our business. It basically asks a second question, "how likely are you to discourage others from utilizing that?" Because what they found, just because somebody is not a true promoter, as they categorize them on the high end, like they choose like maybe a seven, eight, or nine or something, does not mean they're actually going to go hurt your business. And so a lot of big companies, they found were spending a lot of money to try and mitigate the people and pay attention to people and help the people they thought were detractors or people that would hurt their business when most of them really wouldn't. Just because it was a two or a three. They found that does not necessarily mean they're actually going to go actively try and destroy your business or hurt you. They just aren't going to tell people about it, because some people just don't want to talk about other businesses. Right? . So then asking a secondary question, how likely are you to tell others not to use this business or whatever. Then it gives you the true people to focus on mitigating or solving challenges for. Really interesting idea, but then they talk about the challenge of mainlining, where if they answer one question one way, first question, they'll answer it the same way, but it's backwards. Because they're just in the mode of answering questions like a zombie and they'll do it the wrong way or read it the wrong way. We've even seen this, so you have to put some questions in between and so it just complicates. But it's a really interesting book. You and I can geek out sometime and show you how I built this out so that it would work effectively, but it helps us identify which people are actually detractors that we need to take care of and focus on, and which people, they never rate anything positively and they're just, but they're quiet, which is fine. [00:35:25] Jason Hull: Oh that's [00:35:25] Ben: fascinating. I'll have to check that out. [00:35:28] Jason Hull: I know, it's pretty nerdy. So_ Innovating Analytics_ is by Larry Freed F R E E D which is an interesting book. Cool. We've asked a lot of questions. You've explained the process. I think we've covered how it works unless we missed anything. But what else do people, property managers coming to you, what other concerns or things could we address here on the podcast before we wrap that they might have? Or what are the big FAQ questions that they ask before they're willing to explore giving up the leasing arm their business? [00:36:00] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of the questions just evolve around how they can still control the process. And so we've invested an incredible amount into giving them those controls, right? Like I think the key is, the way we look at it is look like we're going to be the best at doing this leasing legwork. It's all we do. And we've built technology to really hold ourselves accountable to really high standards. But at the end of the day, like we still want you to have control over who's the right tenant for this property? Or, "how would you like the that application process to go?" For example. And I think we've worked hard to streamline the areas and that, we just realized, hey, this is the best way to do this. But also we recognize that hey, these property managers, they have pride to process for a reason, right, for their particular market that might be the right thing to do. And so we've invested a lot in creating different settings and things like that, that can make it so that they get to use it the way they would like. [00:37:03] Ben: Cool. So it's [00:37:04] Jason Hull: really a lot of the big concerns are just about the flexibility. "Do I have to go all in and use everything that you offer?" [00:37:10] Jason Hull: Right. [00:37:11] Jason Hull: "Or can I do, some of this and maybe I'll give up pieces later--" because some of y'all entrepreneurs are control freaks. Let's be real. [00:37:18] Jason Hull: Yes. [00:37:18] Jason Hull: And you need to let go of some of this stuff and let somebody else do it a little bit better. We have a lot of egos, entrepreneurs. We think our way is the best way all the time and we need to see that maybe somebody else could do this [00:37:31] Ben: better. [00:37:31] Ben: But we've also, from [00:37:32] Jason Hull: experience-- [00:37:33] Jason Hull: I'm guessing you're going to say that Sunroom probably does it better than what most property managers are doing. [00:37:39] Ben: Better NPS scores? [00:37:41] Ben: Yeah. I would just say that, some of the property managers that we've seen are the most excited to partner with us are definitely probably the ones listening to your podcast or it's the ones that want to grow. And, we have some great examples of that, right? There's one property manager that we started working with in Austin a couple years ago, and they started with 300 doors. And now I believe they're up to 800 doors. And so by them being able to just, focus on other things, they were able to grow pretty quickly. And because we recognize this and we're starting to set up in these new markets, we actually just this week launched a new program specifically for trying to find these property management companies that are really focused on growth. And so we actually launched this new growth program. That we just put on our website where property managers can apply for the program. And essentially this program if we accept them will actually give them-- and they partner with us-- we'll give them $10,000 to grow their business. And they can, they could use that money for-- or I'd say up to 10,000-- they can use that money for helping them grow. And really the only terms of it is that you're willing to partner with us on leasing to do that. And so we have different ideas of really how to use that money to grow. I know a lot of entrepreneurs already have those ideas and so that's why we yeah, we set up this new program. [00:39:02] Jason Hull: Awesome. We should chat because we're really good at growing property management companies and yeah, I think there would be a good-- there. We'll chat later. We've also negotiated with most of the top vendors where we've got a hit list, but a lot of the top vendors we're negotiating best in class discounts just for our mastermind members. [00:39:21] Ben: There you go. [00:39:21] Jason Hull: So maybe that's something you and I can do with the Sunroom as well. So [00:39:25] Jason Hull: Yeah . [00:39:26] Jason Hull: If you're open, that's-- [00:39:27] Jason Hull: yeah. Cool. [00:39:28] Jason Hull: We've got some big players on board already for some of these things, but I think it'd be really cool to see this is something new and I think it's innovative and it seems really exciting. So we'll we'll chat afterwards, cool. Is there anything else you want people to know before we go and if The last thing maybe is how do they find you? And how do they get in touch and how do they start working with Sunroom? [00:39:49] Ben: Yeah. Just go to our website, Sunroomleasing.com. Fill out a little form. Be happy to have, someone from our sales team reach out and have a conversation and kind of explain more of these details about what we do. I'm an engineer at heart, so I think for some people, maybe I went into too much detail. But at the same time, knowing I've talked to a lot of property managers they love the details. If you want even more details yeah, go to our website, sunroomleasing.com. Reach out to us and someone from our sales team would love to dig into those details with you. [00:40:18] Jason Hull: Perfect. I think the last big question everybody would have is be, is going to be what does it cost? Is this affordable? Can we do this? That sort of question. So-- [00:40:29] Jason Hull: yeah. [00:40:29] Jason Hull: Anything to say about that? [00:40:31] Ben: Yeah, so we're going to charge, similar to what I would say like other leasing agents would. So we're going to charge like a percentage of first month's rent. That percentage of first month's rent that we charge. It's going to be different depending on the market and depending on what kind of volume that you have. Normally, the way we are setting this up is that we usually make it so that the property manager can still make good money on leasing while still utilizing us for all of it. Property managers can charge a percentage of first month's rent to their owners. That could be different by market. We're usually going to charge, call it 10- 20% less than that so that they're able to still make money on the leasing, but still know that they have a best in class service for that happening. And so that's just for full service. For Sunscreen, that's actually free for property managers to use. And we just charge the renter an application fee. And so that's really the easiest way. If we said a lot of stuff today, people are like, "wow that's a little scary to adopt that big of a, have a company owning leasing." a great way to start to just build a relationship with us and start seeing what we could do would be to start utilizing our application processing system, which, really, it's going to be a really a low risk thing. Even if want to test out having us do one application on one listing or something, we'd be happy to do that. [00:41:48] Ben: That's the [00:41:49] Jason Hull: gateway drug. A little bit of Sunscreen, and then you're going to be like, "I want a whole room. I want the Sunroom now." [00:41:54] Jason Hull: There you go. There you go. [00:41:55] Jason Hull: "I don't want to deal with this anymore. I'm tired of putting the Sunscreen on. Yeah. Okay. [00:41:59] Jason Hull: There you go. [00:42:00] Jason Hull: Cool. [00:42:01] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:42:01] Jason Hull: All right. Ben, it's been great having you on the show. Check out Sunroomleasing.com and then if you come up with some major developments or big shifts or changes, we'd love to have you back on the show. So thanks for being [00:42:12] Ben: here. [00:42:13] Ben: Thanks so much, Jason. And yeah, we'll have to meet up in Austin sometime. [00:42:16] Ben: All right. [00:42:18] Jason Hull: All right. Cool. Thanks, Ben. [00:42:20] Jason Hull: Alright. Everybody, if you've been listening to this, we appreciate you listening to our podcast. We would really appreciate it if you left us a review in exchange. If you got value from this, that would mean a lot to us at DoorGrow and my team. We have been innovating and creating a lot of new stuff at DoorGrow. We've got some really cool stuff coming out. So if you have not been familiar with DoorGrow for a while, we've got some really cool things coming down that we are working on. You should get connected to do a sales call. Check us out at doorgrow.com. Reach out to us. You can reach out to us on any social media. And we would love to connect with you and share with you. We just released the DoorGrow Code, which is the first roadmap that really showcases how to go from zero to a thousand doors in as short of time period as possible. It shows you which things you need to do at which stage, at which door levels, and what questions you have, what major problems you have at each stage, and what you need to do in order to do things in the right order to get to the next level. [00:43:22] Jason Hull: So if you've been at a similar door count for the last year or maybe two years or three years, maybe even kind feeling stuck or maybe even backsliding a little bit because of property selling off or whatever. We have clients that are adding a lot of doors. Andrew Rocha just chimed in on one of our mastermind calls. He's one of our clients. He added like 50 doors in the last month. We've got clients. One of our clients added 310 doors in a year. We've got another client that added a hundred in gosh, they've doubled their doors. Like we've got clients that are growing really rapidly and they're not spending any money on advertising. I want you to be clear, like our methods are not focused on SEO, pay per click, content marketing, pay-per-lead lead services, social media marketing. Our methods are what really work in the marketplace, and most of them are zero cost, like they cost nothing. It just costs time and effort, and it actually takes less time and less effort than doing cold lead marketing like seo, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, or pay per lead services that exist in the property management space. So I highly recommend you check this out if you're wanting to grow. And we are now helping really significantly. We've built out the best systems and processes and we've been stacking the best coaches in the industry. If you've heard of certain coaches in the industry, we might have them on as experts in our program. We'll be announcing more of that later, but we've got some of the best in the industry that we've brought on as coaches. So it's not the Jason Show. I've got an amazing team of people coaching and we have systems for operations. We have systems for process. We have systems for sales, and our clients are crushing it. Nobody in the marketplace is doing all that DoorGrow's doing or can compete with us. And so if you think you know DoorGrow and you've looked at us or judged us in the past, it might be time to take a new look because your competitors might be working with us or they might work with us, and you're going to wish that it had been you. [00:45:33] Jason Hull: So until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:45:37] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow! [00:46:05] Jason Hull: At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

america ceo california texas learning google reach drive uber real estate walmart seo fill let go property favor realtors integrating esa heb faq integrate ppc sunscreen leasing property management xyz u haul renter round rock net promoter score sunroom appfolio bensounds buildium jason hull ben you ben doherty ben there ben oh ben so ben thanks doorgrow rently

Institutional Experiments with Seemay Chou [Idea Machines #47]

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 1, 2022 73:50

Seemay Chou talks about the process of building a new research organization, ticks, hiring and managing entrepreneurial scientists, non-model organisms, institutional experiments and a lot more! Seemay is the co-founder and CEO of Arcadia Science — a research and development company focusing on underesearched areas in biology and specifically new organisms that haven't been traditionally studied in the lab. She's also the co-founder of Trove Biolabs — a startup focused on harnessing molecules in tick saliva for skin therapies and was previously an assistant professor at UCSF. She has thought deeply not just about scientific problems themselves, but the meta questions of how we can build better processes and institutions for discovery and invention. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Seemay Chou Links Seemay on Twitter (@seemaychou) Arcadia's Research Trove Biolabs Seemay's essay about building Arcadia Transcript [00:02:02] Ben: So since a lot of our conversation is going to be about it how do you describe Arcadia to a smart well-read person who has never actually heard of it before? [00:02:12] Seemay: Okay. I, I actually don't have a singular answer to this smart and educated in what realm. [00:02:19] Ben: oh, good question. Let's assume they have taken some undergraduate science classes, but perhaps are not deeply enmeshed in, in academia. So, so like, [00:02:31] Seemay: enmeshed in the meta science community.[00:02:35] [00:02:35] Ben: No, no, no, no, but they've, they, they, they, they they're aware that it's a thing, but [00:02:40] Seemay: Yeah. Okay. So for that person, I would say we're a research and development company that is interested in thinking about how we explore under researched areas in biology, new organisms that haven't been traditionally studied in the lab. And we're thinking from first principal polls about all the different ways we can structure the organization around this to also yield outcomes around innovation and commercialization. [00:03:07] Ben: Nice. And how would you describe it to someone who is enmeshed in the, the meta science community? [00:03:13] Seemay: In the meta science community, I would, I would say Arcadias are meta science experiment on how we enable more science in the realm of discovery, exploration and innovation. And it's, you know, that that's where I would start. And then there's so much more that we could click into on that. Right. [00:03:31] Ben: And we will, we will absolutely do that. But before we get there I'm actually really [00:03:35] interested in, in Arcadia's backstory. Cuz cuz when we met, I feel like you were already , well down the, the path of spinning it up. So what's, there's, there's always a good story there. What made you wanna go do this crazy thing? [00:03:47] Seemay: So, so the backstory of Arcadia is actually trove. Soro was my first startup that I spun out together with my co-founder of Kira post. started from a point of frustration around a set of scientific questions that I found challenging to answer in my own lab in academia. So we were very interested in my lab in thinking about all the different molecules and tick saliva that manipulate the skin barrier when a tick is feeding, but basically the, the ideal form of a team around this was, you know, like a very collaborative, highly skilled team that was, you know, strike team for like biochemical, fractionation, math spec, developing itch assays to get this done. It was [00:04:35] not a PhD style project of like one person sort of open-endedly exploring a question. So I was struggling to figure out how to get funding for this, but that wasn't even the right question because even with the right money, like it's still very challenging to set up the right team for this in academia. And so it was during this frustration that I started exploring with Kira about like, what is even the right way to solve this problem, because it's not gonna be through writing more grants. There's a much bigger problem here. Right? And so we started actually talking to people outside of academia. Like here's what we're trying to achieve. And actually the outcome we're really excited about is whether it could yield information that could be acted on for an actually commercializable product, right. There's like skin diseases galore that this could potentially be helpful for. So I think that transition was really important because it went from sort of like a passive idea to, oh, wait, how do we act as agents to figure out how to set this up correctly? [00:05:35] We started talking to angel investors, VCs people in industry. And that's how we learned that, you know, like itch is a huge area. That's an unmet need. And we had tools at our disposal to potentially explore that. So that's how tr started. And that I think was. The beginning of the end or the, the start of the beginning. However you wanna think about it. Because what it did, was it the process of starting trove? It was so fun and it was not at all in conflict with the way I was thinking about my science, the science that was happening on the team was extremely rigorous. And I experienced like a different structure. And that was like the light bulb in my head that not all science should be structured the same way. It really depends on what you're trying to achieve. And then I went down this rabbit hole of trying to study the history of what you might call meta science. Like what are the different structures and iterations of this that have happened over, over the history of even the United States. And it's, hasn't always been the same. Right? And then I think [00:06:35] like, as a scientist, like once you grapple with that, that the way things are now is not how they always have been. Suddenly you have an experiment in front of you. And so that is how Arcadia became born, because I realize. Couched within this trove experiment is so many things that I've been frustrated about that I, I, I don't feel like I've been maximized as the type of scientist that I am. And I really want to think in my career now about not how I fit into the current infrastructure, but like what other infrastructures are available to us. Right? [00:07:08] Ben: Nice. [00:07:09] Seemay: Yeah. So that, that was the beginning. [00:07:11] Ben: and, and so you, you then, I, I, I'm just gonna extrapolate one more, more step. And so you sort of like looked at the, the real, the type of work that you really wanted to do and determined that, that the, the structure of Arcadia that you've built is, is like perhaps the right way to go about enabling that. [00:07:30] Seemay: Okay. So a couple things I, I don't even know yet if Arcadia is the right way to do it. So I [00:07:35] feel like it's important for me to start this conversation there that I actually don't know. But also, yeah, it's a hypothesis and I would also say that, like, that is a beautiful summary, but it's still, it was still a little clunkier than the way you described it and the way I described it. So there's this gap there then of like, okay, what is the optimal place for me to do my science? How do we experiment with this? And I was still acting in a pretty passive way. You know, I was around people in the bay area thinking about like new orgs. And I had heard about this from like ju and Patrick Collison and others, like people very interested in funding and experimenting with new structures. So I thought, oh, if I could find someone else to create an organization. That I could maybe like help advise them on and be a part of, and, and so I started writing up this proposal that I was trying to actually pitch to other people like, oh, would you be interested in leading something like this? [00:08:35] Like, and the more that went on and I, I had like lots and lots and lots of conversations with other scientists in academia, trying to find who would lead this, that it took probably about six months for me to realize like, oh, in the process of doing this, I'm actually leading this. I think and like trying to find someone to hand the keys over to when actually, like, I seem to be the most invested so far. And so I wrote up this whole proposal trying to find someone to lead it and. It came down to that like, oh, I've already done this legwork. Like maybe I should consider myself leading it. And I've, I've definitely asked myself a bunch of times, like, was that like some weird internalized sexism on my part? Cause I was like looking for like someone, some other dude or something to like actually be in charge here. So that's actually how it started. And, and I think a couple people started suggesting to this to me, like if you feel so strongly about this, why aren't you doing this? And I know [00:09:35] it's always an important question for a founder to ask themselves. [00:09:38] Ben: Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's really clutch. I appreciate you sort of going into the, the, the, the, the, the, like, not straight paths of it. Because, because I guess when we, we put these things into stories, we always like to, to make it like nice and, and linear and like, okay, then this happened and this happened, and here we are. But in reality, it was it's, it's always that ambiguity. Can, can I actually ask two, two questions based on, on that story? One is you, you mentioned that. In academia, even if you had the money, you wouldn't be able to put together that strike team that you thought was necessary. Like why can, can you, can you unpack that a little bit? [00:10:22] Seemay: Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of reasons why one of the important reasons, which is absolutely not a criticism of academia, in fact, it's maybe like my support of the [00:10:35] mission in academia is around training and education. That like part of our job as PIs and the research projects we set up is to provide an opportunity for a scientist to learn how to ask questions. How to answer those, how to go through the whole scientific process. And that requires a level of sort of like openness and willingness to allow the person to take the reigns on that. That I think is very difficult if you're trying to hit like very concrete, aggressive milestones with a team of people, right. Another challenge of that is, you know, the way we set up incentive structures around, you know, publishing, like we also don't set up the way we, you know, publish articles in journals to be like very collaborative or as collaborative as you would want in this scenario. Right. At the end of the day, there's a first author, there's the last author. And that is just a reality. We all struggle with despite everyone's best intentions. And so that inherently now sets up yeah. [00:11:35] Another situation where you're trying to figure out how you, we, this collaborative effort with this reality and. Even in the best case scenario, it doesn't always feel great. Right? Like it just like makes it harder to do the thing. And then finally, like it just, you know, for the way we fund projects in, in academia, you know, this wasn't a very hypothesis driven project. Like it's very hard to lay out specific aims for it. Beyond just the things we're gonna be trying to like, what, what, what is our process that we can lay [00:12:08] Ben: Yeah, it's a [00:12:09] Seemay: I can't tell you yeah. What the outcomes are gonna be. So I did write grants on that and that was repeatedly the feedback. And then finally, there's, you know, this other thing, which is that, like, we didn't want to accidentally land on an opportunity for invi innovation. We explicitly wanted to find molecules that could be, you know, engineered for products. Like that was [00:12:35] our hypothesis. If there is any that like. By borrowing the innovation from ticks who have evolved to feed for days to sometimes over a week that we are skipping steps to figure out the right natural product for manipulating processes in the skin that have been so challenging to, you know, solve. So we didn't want it to be an accident. We wanted to be explicitly translational quote unquote. So that again, poses another challenge within an academic lab where you, you have a different responsibility, right? [00:13:05] Ben: Yeah. And, and you it's there there's like that tension there between setting out to do that and then setting out to do something that is publishable, right? [00:13:14] Seemay: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the, the hard things that I'm always trying to think about is like, what are things that have out of the things that I just listed? What are things that are appropriately different about academia and what are the things that maybe are worth a second? [00:13:31] Ben: mm. [00:13:32] Seemay: they might actually be holding us back even [00:13:35] within academia. So the first thing I would say is non-negotiable that there's a training responsibility. So that is has to be true, but that's not necessarily mutually exclusive with also having the opportunity for this other kind of team. For example, we don't really have great ways in academia to properly, you know, support staff scientists at a, at a high level. Like there's a very limited opportunity for that. And I, you know, I'm not arguing with people about like the millions of reasons why that might be. That's just a fact, you know, so that's not my problem to solve. I just, I just see that as like a challenge also like of course publishing, right? Like I think [00:14:13] Ben: yeah, [00:14:14] Seemay: in a best case scenario publishing should be science should be in the driver's seat and publishing should be supporting those activities. I think we do see, you know, and I know there's a spectrum of opinions on this, but there are definitely more and more cases now where publishing seems to be in the [00:14:35] driver's seat, [00:14:36] Ben: yeah, [00:14:36] Seemay: dictating how the science goes on many levels. And, you know, I can only speak for myself that I, I felt that to be increasingly true as I advanced my career. [00:14:47] Ben: yeah. And just, just to, to make it, make it really explicit that it's like the, the publishing is driving because that's how you like, make your tenure case. That's how you make any sort of credibility. Everybody's gonna be judging you based on what you're publishing as opposed to any other. [00:15:08] Seemay: right. And more, I think the reason it felt increasingly heavy as I advanced my career was not even for those reasons, to be honest, it was because of my trainees, [00:15:19] Ben: Hmm. [00:15:20] Seemay: if I wanna be out. Doing my crazy thing. I have a huge responsibility now to my students, and that is something I'm not willing to like take a risk on. And so now my hands are tied in this like other way, and their [00:15:35] careers are important to me. And if they wanna go into academia, I have to safeguard that. [00:15:40] Ben: Yeah. I mean, it suggests. Sort of a, a distinction between sort of, regardless of academia or not academia between like training labs and maybe focused labs. And, and you could say like, yes, you, you want trainees in focus. Like you want trainees to be exposed to focused research. But like at least sort of like thinking about those differences seems really important. [00:16:11] Seemay: Yes. Yeah. And in fact, like, you know, because I don't like to, I don't like to spend too much time, like. Criticizing people in academia, like we even grapple with this internally at Arcadia, [00:16:25] Ben: Yeah. [00:16:25] Seemay: like there is a fundamentally different phase of a project that we're talking about sort of like new, creating new ideas, [00:16:35] exploring de-risking and then some transition that happens where it is a sort of strike team effort of like, how do you expand on this? How do you make sure it's executed well? And there's probably many more buckets than the, just the two I said, but it it's worthy of like a little more thought around the way we set up like approvals and budgets and management, because they're too fundamentally different things, you know? [00:17:01] Ben: Yeah, that's actually something I, I wanted to ask about more explicitly. And this is a great segue is, is sort of like where, where do ideas come from at Arcadia? Like how, you know, it's like, there's, there's some spectrum where everybody's from, like everybody's working on, you know, their own thing to like you dictating everything. Everything in between. So like, yeah. Can you, can you go more into like, sort of how that, that flow works almost? [00:17:29] Seemay: So I might even reframe the question a little bit to [00:17:35] not where do ideas come from, but how do ideas evolve? Because it's [00:17:39] Ben: please. Yeah. That's a much better reframing. [00:17:41] Seemay: because it's rarely the case, regardless of who the idea is coming from at Arcadia, that it ends where it starts. and I think that that like fluidity is I the magic sauce. Right. And so by and large, the ideas tend to come from the scientists themselves. Occasionally of course, like I will have a thought or Che will have a thought, but I see our roles as much more being there to like shepherd ideas in the most strategic and productive direction. And so we like, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about like, well, what kind of resources would this take? And, you know, Che definitely thinks about that piece as well as, you know, like what it, what would actually be the impact of this if it worked in terms of like both our innovation, as well as the knowledge base outside of Arcadia Practically speaking, something we've started doing, that's been really helpful because we've gone. We've already gone through different iterations of this too. Like we [00:18:35] started out of like, oh, let's put out a Google survey. People can fill out where they pitch a project to us. And that like fell really flat because there's no conversation to be had there. And now they're basically writing a proposal. Yeah. More streamlined, but it's not that qualitatively different of a process. So then we started doing these things called sandboxes, which I'm actually really enjoying right now. These are every Friday we have like an hour long session. The entire company goes and someone's up at the dry erase board. We call it, throwing them in the sandbox and they present some idea or set of ideas or even something they're really struggling. For everybody to like, basically converse with them about it. And this has actually been a much more productive way for us to source ideas. And also for me to think collaboratively with them about like the right level of like resources, the right sort of inflection points for like, when we decide go or no, go on things. And so that's how we're currently doing it. I mean, we're [00:19:35] like just shy of about 30 people. I, this process will probably break again. once we hit like 50 people or something, cuz it's actually just like logistically a lot of people to cram into a room and there is a level of sort of like, yeah, and then there's a level of formality that starts to happen when there's like that many people in the room. So we'll see how it goes, but that's how it's currently working today. [00:20:00] Ben: that's that's really cool. And, and, and so then, then like, let's, let's keep following the, the evolutionary path, right. So an idea gets sandboxed and you collectively come to some conclusion that it's like, okay, like this idea is, is like, well worth pursuing then what happens. [00:20:16] Seemay: So then and actually we're like very much still under construction right now around this. We're trying to figure out like, how do, how do we think about budget and stuff for this type of step? But then presumably, okay, the person starts working on it. I can tell you where we're trying to go. I, I'm not sure where there yet, where we're trying to go is turning our [00:20:35] publications into a way to like actually integrate into this process. Like, ideally I would love it as CEO, if I can be updated on what people in the order are doing through our pub site. [00:20:49] Ben: Oh [00:20:50] Seemay: And that, like, I'm not saying they publish every single thing they do every day. Of course, that's crazy, crazy talk, but like that it's somewhat in line with what's happening in real time. That that is an appropriate place for me to catch up on what they're doing and think about like high level decisions and get feedback and see the feedback from the community as well, because that matters, right? Like if, if our goal is to either generate products in the form of actual products in the world that we commercialize versus knowledge products that are useful to others and can stimulate either more thought or be used by others directly. Like I need to actually see that data in the form of like the outside world interacting with their releases. Right. [00:21:35] So that's what we're trying to move towards, but there's a lot of challenges associated with that. Like if a, if a scientist is like needing to publish very frequently, How do we make sure we have the right resources in place to help them with that? There may be some aspects of that, that like anyone can help with like formatting or website issues or, you know, even like schematic illustrations to try and just like reduce the amount of friction around this process as much as possible. [00:22:00] Ben: And I guess almost just like my, my concern with the like publishing everything openly very early. And this is, this is almost where, where I disagree with with some people is that there's what, what I believe Sahi Baca called like the, the like Wardy baby problem, where ideas, when you're first sort of like poking at them are just like really ugly and you like, can't even, you can't even, like, you can barely justify it to [00:22:35] anybody on your team who like, trust you let alone people who like don't have any insight into the process. And so. Do do you, do you worry at all about like, almost just being like completely demoralized, right? Like it's just, it's so much easier to point out why something won't work early on than why it will. [00:22:56] Seemay: Yeah, totally. Yeah. [00:22:59] Ben: how do you [00:22:59] Seemay: Well, I mean, yeah, no, I think that's a hard, hard challenge. I mean, and, and people, and I would say at a metal level, I get, I get a lot of that too. Like people pointing out all the ways Arcadia [00:23:09] Ben: Yeah, I'm [00:23:10] Seemay: or potentially going to fail. So a couple things, I mean, I think one is that just, of course I'm not asking our scientists to. They have a random thought in the shower, like put that out into the world. right. Like there's of course some balance, like, you know, go through some amount of like thinking and like, you know, feedback with, with their most local peers on it. More, more in terms more than anything, like [00:23:35] just to like make sure by the time it goes out into the world that you're capturing precious bandwidth strategically. Right. [00:23:41] Ben: Yeah, [00:23:41] Seemay: On the other hand though, like, you know, while we don't want like that totally raw thing, we are so far on the, under the spectrum right now in terms of like forgiveness of some wards. And, and it also ignores the fact that like, it's the process, right? Like ugly baby. Great. That's that's like, like the uglier the better, like put it out there because like you want that feedback. You're not trying to be. trying to get to some ground truth here. And rigor happens through lots of like feedback throughout the entire process, especially at the beginning. And it's not even like that, that rigor doesn't happen in our current system. It's just that it doesn't make it out into the public space. People do share their thoughts with others. They do it at the dry erase board. They share proposals with each other. There's a lot of this happening. It's just not visible. So I mean, the other thing just like culturally, what I've been trying to like emphasize at [00:24:35] Arcadia is like process, not outcomes that like, you know, talking about it directly, as well as we have like an exercise in the beginning of thinking about like, what is the correct level of like failure rate quote unquote, and like what's productive failure. And just like, if we are actually doing like high risk, interesting science that's worth doing fundamentally, there's gotta be some inherent level of failure built in that we expect. Otherwise, we are answering questions. We already know the answer to, and then what's the fucking point. Right? [00:25:05] Ben: Yeah, [00:25:06] Seemay: So it almost doesn't matter what the answer to that question is. Like people said like 20%, some people said 80%, there's a very wide range in people's heads. Cuz there's this, isn't not a precise question. Right. So there's not gonna be precise answers, but the point is like the acceptance of that fact. Right? [00:25:24] Ben: Yeah. And also, I, I think I'm not sure if you would agree with this, but like, I, I feel like even like failure is a very fuzzy concept. In this, in this context, [00:25:35] right? [00:25:35] Seemay: totally. I actually really hate that word. We, we are trying to rebrand it internally to pivots. [00:25:42] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I also, I also hate in this context, the idea of like risk, right? Like risk makes sense when it's like, you're getting like cash on cash returns, but [00:25:54] Seemay: right. [00:25:54] Ben: when [00:25:55] Seemay: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can redefine that word in this case to say like, it's extremely risky for you to go down this safe path because you will be very likely, you know, uncovering boring things. That's a risk, right? [00:26:13] Ben: Yeah. And then just in terms of process, I wanna go one, one step further into the, sort of like the, the like strike teams around an idea. Is it like something like where, where people just volunteer do do they get, like how, how, how do you actually like form those teams? [00:26:30] Seemay: Yeah. So far there has not been like sort of top down forcing of people into things. I [00:26:35] mean, we are a small org at this point, but like, I think like personally, my philosophy is that like, people do their best work when they're, they feel agency and like sort of their own deep, inner inspiration to do it. And so I try to make things more ground up because of that. Not, not just because of like some fuzzy feeling, but actually I think you'll get the best work from people, if you'd set it up that way. Having said that, you know, there are starting to be situations where we see an opportunity for a strike team project where we can, like, we need to hire someone to come. [00:27:11] Ben: Mm-hmm [00:27:12] Seemay: because no one existing has that skill set. So that that's a level of like flexibility that like not everybody has in other organizations, right. That you have an idea now you can hire more people onto it. So I mean, that's like obviously a huge privilege. We have to be able to do that where now we can just like transparently be like, here's the thing who wants to do it? You know? [00:27:32] Ben: yeah, yeah. [00:27:35] That's, that's very cool. [00:27:36] Seemay: One more thing else. Can I just say one more thing about that [00:27:39] Ben: of course you can see as many things as you [00:27:40] Seemay: yeah. Actually the fact that that's possible, I feel like really liberates people at Arcadia to think more creatively because something very different happens when I ask people in the room. What other directions do you think you could go in versus what other directions do you think this project should go, could go in that we could hire someone from the outside to come do. Because now they like, oh, it doesn't have to be me. Or maybe they're maybe it's because they don't have the skillset or maybe they're attached to something else that they're working on. So making sure that in their mind, it's not framed as like an either or, but in if, and, and that they can stay in their lane with what they most wanna do. If we decide to move forward on that, you know? Cause I, I think that's often something that like in academia, we don't get to think about things that way. [00:28:30] Ben: Yeah, absolutely. And then the, the people that you would hire onto a [00:28:35] project, would they, like, so say, say, say the, the project then ends it, it reaches some endpoint. Do they like then sort of go back into the, the pool of people who are, are sandboxing? How do, how does that [00:28:49] Seemay: So we, So we haven't had that challenge on a large scale yet. I would say from a human perspective, I would really like to avoid a situation where like standard biotech companies, you know, if an area gets closed out, there's a bunch of layoffs. Like it would be nice to figure out how we can like, sort of reshuffle everybody. One of the ways this has happened, but it's not a problem yet is like we have these positions called arcade scientists, which is kind of meant for this to allow people to kind of like move around. So there's actually a couple of scientists that Arcadia that are quote unquote arcade it's meant to be like a playful term for someone who's a, a generalist in some area like biochemistry, [00:29:35] generalist computational generalist, something like that, where their job is literally to just work on like the first few months of any project. [00:29:44] Ben: oh, [00:29:45] Seemay: And help kind of like, de-risk like, they're really tolerant of that process. They like it. They like trying to get something brand new off the ground. And then once it becomes like more mature with like clear milestones, then we can hire someone else and then they move on to like the next thing, I think this is a skill in itself that doesn't really get highlighted in other places. And I think it's a skillset that actually resonates with me very much personally, because if I were applying to Arcadia, that is the position that I would want. [00:30:14] Ben: I, I think I'm in the same boat. Yeah, that, and that's, that's critical is like, there aren't a lot of organizations where you sort of like get to like come in for a stage of a project. In research, like there, it it's generally like you're, you're on this project. [00:30:29] Seemay: And how often do you hear people complain about that in science of like, oh, so and so they're, they're [00:30:35] really great at starting things, but not finishing things. It's like, well, like how do we capitalize on that then? [00:30:39] Ben: yeah. Make it a feature and not a bug. Yeah, no, it's like, it it's sort of like having, I I'm imagining like sort of just different positions on a, a sports team, for example. And, and I feel like I, I was thinking the other day that that analogies between like research organizations and sports teams are, are sort of underrated right. Like you don't expect like the goal to be going and like, like scoring. Right. And you don't, you don't say like, oh, you're underperforming goalie. You didn't score any goals. [00:31:08] Seemay: Right. That's so funny. I like literally just had a call with Sam Aman before this, where, where we were talking about this a little bit, we were talking about in a slightly different context about a role that I feel like is important in our organization of someone to help connect the dots across the different projects. What we were sort of like conceptualizing in my call with him as like the cross pollinators, like the bees in the organization that like, know what get in the [00:31:35] mix, know what everyone's doing and help everybody connect the dots. And like, I feel like this is some sort of a supportive role. That's better understood on sports teams. Like there's always someone that's like the glue, right? Maybe they're not the MVP, but they're the, the other guy that's like, or, you know, girl, whatever, UN gendered, but very important. Everybody understands that. And like, it's like celebrated, you know, [00:31:58] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, and, and the trick is, is really seeing it more like a team. Right. So that's like the, the overarching thing. [00:32:07] Seemay: And then I'll just like, I don't know, just to highlight again though, how like these realities that you and I are talking about that I think is actually very well accepted across scientists. We all understand these different roles. Those don't come out in the very hierarchical authorship, byline of publications, which is the main currency of the system. And so, yeah, that's been fascinating to like, sort of like relearn because when we started this publishing experiment, [00:32:35] I was primarily thinking about the main benefit being our ability to do different formats and in a very open way. But now I see that this there's this whole other thing that's probably had the most immediate impact on Arcadia science, which is the removal of the authorship byline. [00:32:52] Ben: Mm. So, so you don't, you don't say who wrote the thing at all. [00:32:57] Seemay: We do it's at the bottom of the article, first of all. And then it's listed in a more descriptive way of who did what, it's not this like line that's like hierarchical, whether implicitly or explicitly and for my conversations with the scientists at Arcadia, like that has been really like a, a wonderful release for them in terms of like, thinking about how do they contribute to projects and interact with each other, because it's like, it doesn't matter anymore that that currency is like off the table. [00:33:27] Ben: Yeah. That that's very cool. And can, can I, can I change tracks a little bit and ask you about model organisms? [00:33:34] Seemay: sure [00:33:34] Ben: [00:33:35] so like, and this is, this is coming really from my, my naivete, but like, like what, what are model organisms? And like, why is having more of them important? [00:33:47] Seemay: So there's, this is super, super important for me to clarify there's model organisms and there's non-model organisms, but there's actually two different ways of thinking about non-model organisms. Okay. So let me start with model organisms. A model organism is some organism that provides an extremely useful proxy for studying typically like either human biology or some conserved element of biology. So, you know, the fact that like we have. Very similar genetic makeup to mice or flies. Like there's some shortcuts you can take in these systems that allow you to like quickly ask experimental questions that would not be easy to do in a human being. Right. Like we obviously can't do those kinds of experiments there.[00:34:35] And so, and so, so the same is true for like ASIS, which can be a model for plants or for like biology more generally. And so these are really, really useful tools, especially if you think about historically how challenging it's been to set up new organisms, like, think about in the fifties before we could like sequence genomes as quickly or something, you know, like you really have to band together to like build some tools in a few systems that give you useful shortcuts in general, as proxies for biology now. [00:35:11] Ben: can I, can I, can I just double click right there? What does it mean to like set it up? Like, like what, what does it mean? Like to like, yeah. [00:35:18] Seemay: Yeah. I mean, there's basic anything from like Turing, right? Like you have to learn how to like cultivate the organism, grow it, proliferate it. Yeah. You gotta learn how to do like basic processing of it. Like whether it's like dissections or [00:35:35] isolating cell types or something, usually some form of genetics is very useful. So you can perturb the system in some controlled way and then ask precise questions. So those are kinda like the range of things that are typically challenging to set up and different organisms. Like, I, you can think of them as like video game characters, they have like different strengths, right? Like different bars. Some are [00:35:56] Ben: Yeah. [00:35:59] Seemay: fantastic for some other reason. You know, whether it's cultivation or maybe something related to their biology. And so that's that's model organisms and. I am very much pro model organisms. Like our interest in non-model organisms is in no way in conflict with my desire to see model organisms flourish, right. That fulfills an important purpose. And we need more, I would say, non-model organisms. Now. This is where it gets a little murky with the semantics. There's two ways you could think about it. At least one is that these are organisms that haven't quite risen to the level of this, the [00:36:35] canonical model organisms in terms of like tooling and sort of community effort around it. And so they're on their way to becoming model, but they're just kinda like hipster, you know, model or model organisms. Maybe you could think about it like that. There's a totally different way to think about it, which is actually how Arcadia's thinking about it, is to not use them as proxy for shared biology at all. But focus on the biology that is unique about that organism that signals some unique biological innovation that happened for that organism or plate of organisms or something. So for example, ticks releasing a bunch of like crap in their saliva, into your skin. That's not a proxy for us, like feeding on other, you know, vertebrates that is an innovation that happened because ticks have this like enormous job they've had to evolve to learn, to do well, which is to manipulate everything about your [00:37:35] circulation, your skin barrier, to make sure it's one blood meal at each of its life stages happen successfully and can happen for days to over a week. It's extremely prolonged. It can't be detected. So that is a very cool facet about tech biology that we could now leverage to learn something different. That could be useful for human biology, but that's, it's not a proxy, right? [00:37:58] Ben: Yeah. And so, so I was gonna ask you why ticks are cool, but I think that that's sort of self explanatory. [00:38:05] Seemay: Oh, they're wild. Like they, like, they have this like one job to do, which is to drink your blood and not get found out. [00:38:15] Ben: and, and I guess like, is there, so, so like with ticks, I I'm trying to, to frame this, like, is there something useful in like comparing like ticks and mosquitoes? Do they like work by the same mechanisms? Are they like completely different [00:38:30] Seemay: yeah. There's no, there's definitely something interesting here to explore because blood [00:38:35] feeding as a behavior in some ways is a very risky behavior. Right. Any sort of parasitism like that. And actually blood [00:38:42] Ben: That's trying to drink my blood. [00:38:44] Seemay: Yes. That's the appropriate response. Blood feeding actually emerged multiple times over the course of evolution in different lineages and mosquitoes, leeches ticks are in very different clouds of organisms and they have like different strategies for solving the same problem that they've evolved independently. So there's some convergence there, but there's a lot of divergence there as well. So for example, mosquitoes, and if you think about mosquitoes, leaches, and tick, this is a great spectrum because what's critically different about them is the duration of the blood [00:39:18] Ben: Mm, [00:39:19] Seemay: feed for a few seconds. If they're lucky, maybe in the range of minutes, leaches are like minutes to hours. Ticks are dazed to over a week. Okay. So like temporally, like they have to deal with very different. For, for mosquitoes, they tend to focus on [00:39:35] like immediately numbing of the local area to getting it out. Right. Undetected, Lees. They they're there for a little bit longer, so they have very cool molecules around blood flow like that there's a dilation, like speeding up the amount of blood that they can intake during that period. And then ticks have to deal with not just the like immediate response, but also longer term response, inflammation, wound healing, all these other sensations that happen. If, imagine if you stuck a needle in yourself for a week, like a lot more is going on, right? [00:40:08] Ben: Yeah. Okay. That, that makes a lot of sense. And so, so they really are sort of unique in that temporal sense, which is actually important. [00:40:17] Seemay: Yeah. And whether it's positive or not, it does seem to track that duration of that blood meal at least correlates with sort of the molecular complexity in terms of Sliva composition from each of these different sets of organisms. I just list. So there's way more proteins in other molecules that [00:40:35] have been detected int saliva as opposed to mosquito saliva. [00:40:39] Ben: And, and so what you're sort of like one of your, your high level things is, is like figuring out which of those are important, what mixture of them are important and like how to replicate that for youthful purposes? [00:40:51] Seemay: Yeah. Right, exactly. Yeah. [00:40:54] Ben: and, and, and are there other, like, I mean, I, I guess we can imagine like farther into Arcadia's future and, and think about like, what do you have, like, almost like a, like a wishlist or roadmap of like, what other really weird organisms you want to start poking at? [00:41:13] Seemay: So actually, so that, that is originally how we were thinking about this problem for non-model organisms like which organisms, which opportunities and that itself has evolved in the last year. Well, we realized in part, because of our, just like total paralysis around this decision, because [00:41:35] what we didn't wanna do is say, okay, now Arcadia's basically decided to double down on these other five organisms. We've increased the Canon by five now. Great. Okay. But actually that's not what we're trying to do. Right. We're trying to highlight the like totally different way. You could think about capitalizing on interesting biology and our impact will be felt more strongly if it happens, not just in Arcadia, but beyond Arcadia for this to be a more common way. And, and I think like Symbio is really pushing for this as a field in general. So we've gone from sort of like which organisms to thinking about. Maybe one of our most important contributions is to ask the question, how do you decide which organism, like, what is even the right set of experiments to help you understand that? What is the right set of data? That you might wanna collect, that would help you decide, let's say for example, cuz this is an actual example. We're very interested in produce diatoms, algae, other things, which, [00:42:35] which species should you settle on? I don't know. Like there's so many, right? Like, so then we started collecting like as many we could get our hands on through publicly available databases or culture collections. And now we are asking the meta question of like, okay, we have these, what experiments should we be doing in a high throughput way across all of these to help us decide. And that itself, that process, that engine is something that I think could be really useful for us to share with the worlds that is like hard for an individual academic lab to think about. That is not aligned with realities of like grants and journal publications and stuff. And so, yeah. Is it like RNA seek data sets? What kind of like pheno assays might you want, you want to collect? And we now call this broadly organismal onboarding process. Like what do you need in the profile of the different organisms and like, is it, phenomics now there's structural [00:43:35] prediction pipelines that we could be running across these different genomes depending on your question, it also may be a different set of things, but wouldn't it be nice to sort of just slightly turn the ES serendipity around, like, you know, what was around you versus like, can we go in and actually systematically ask this question and get a little closer to something that is useful? You know, [00:43:59] Ben: Yeah. [00:43:59] Seemay: and I think the amazing thing about this is. You know, I, and I don't wanna ignore the fact that there's been like tons of work on this front from like the field of like integrative biology and evolutionary biologists. Like there's so much cool stuff that they have found. What I wanna do is like couple their thinking in their efforts with like the latest and greatest technologies to amplify it and just like broaden the reach of the way they ask those questions. And the thing that's awesome about biology is even if you didn't do any of this and you grabbed like a random butterfly, you would still find extremely cool stuff. So that's the [00:44:34] Ben: [00:44:35] Right. Yeah. [00:44:36] Seemay: like, where can we go from here now that we have all these different technologies at our disposal? [00:44:41] Ben: Yeah. No, that's, that's extremely cool. And I wanted to ask a few questions about Arcadia's business model. And so sort of like it's, it's a public fact, unlike a lot of research organizations, Arcadia is, is a for-profit organization now, of course, that's that's a, you and I know that that's a legal designation. And there's like, I, I almost think of there as being like some multidimensional space where it's like, on the one hand you have like, like the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, which is like, is nominally a for-profit right. In the sense of [00:45:12] Seemay: Yeah. [00:45:13] Ben: not a, it's not a non-profit organization. And then on the other hand, under the spectrum, you have maybe like something like a hedge fund where it's like, what is like the only purpose of this organization in the world is to turn money into more money. Right. And so like, I, I guess I'd love to know like how you, how you think about sort of like where in that domain you [00:45:34] Seemay: [00:45:35] Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. This [00:45:38] Ben: and like how you sort of came to that, that [00:45:41] Seemay: Yeah. This was not a straightforward decision because actually I originally conceived of the Arcadia as a, a non-profit entity. And I think there were a lot of assumptions and also some ignorance on my part going into that. So, okay. Lemme try and think about the succinct way to tell all this. So I [00:45:58] Ben: take, take, take your time. [00:46:00] Seemay: okay. I started talking to a lot of other people at organizations. Like new science type of organizations. And I'll sort of like refrain from naming names here out of respect for people. But like they ran into a lot of issues around being a nonprofit, you know, for one, it, it impacted sort of like just sort of like operational aspects, maintaining a nonprofit, which if, if you haven't done it before, and I learned like, by reading about all this and learning about all this, like it maintaining that status is in and [00:46:35] of itself and effort, it requires legal counsel. It requires boards, it requires oversight. It requires reporting. There's like a whole level of operations [00:46:45] Ben: Yeah. And you always sort of have the government looking over your shoulder, being [00:46:49] Seemay: Yep. And you have to go into it prepared for that. So it also introduces some friction around like how quickly you can iterate as an organization on different things. The other thing is that like Let's say we started as a nonprofit and we realized, oh, there's a bunch of like for-profit type activities. We wanna be doing the transition of converting a nonprofit to a for-profit is actually much harder than the other way around. [00:47:16] Ben: Mm. [00:47:17] Seemay: And so that sort of like reversibility was also important to me given that, like, I didn't know exactly what Arcadia would ultimately look like, and I still dunno [00:47:27] Ben: Yeah. So it's just more optionality. [00:47:29] Seemay: Yeah. And another point is that like I do have explicit for profit interests for [00:47:35] Arcadia. This is not like, oh, I like maybe no. Like we like really want to commercialize some of our products one day. And it's, it's not because we're trying to optimize revenue it's because it's very central to our financial experiment that we're trying to think about, like new structures. Basic scientists and basic science can be, can capture its own value in society a little bit more efficiently. And so if we believe the hypothesis that discovering new biology across a wide range of organisms could yield actionable lessons that could then be translated into real products. Then we have to make a play for figuring out how this, how to make all this work. And I like also see an opportunity to figure out how I can make it work, such that if we do have revenue, I make sure our basic scientists get to participate in that. You know, because that is like a huge frustration for me as a basic scientist that like we haven't solved this problem. [00:48:35] Like basic science. It's a bedrock for all downstream science. Yet we some have to have, yeah, we have to be like siloed away from it. Like we don't get to play a part in it. And also the scientists at our Katy, I would say are not like traditional academic scientists. Like I would, I, my estimate would be like, at least a third of them have an intentional explicit interest in being part of a company one day that they helped found or spin out. And so that's great. We have a lot of like very entrepreneurial scientists at Arcadia. And so I I'm, I'm not shying away from the fact that like, we are interested in a, for profit mission. Having said all of that, I think it's important to remember that like mission and values don't stem from tax structure, right? Like you, there are nonprofit organizations that have like rotten values. And there are also for-profit organizations that have rotten values, like that is not the [00:49:35] dividing line for this. And so I think it puts the onus on us at Arcadia though, to continuously be rigorous with ourselves accountable to ourselves, to like define our values and mission. But I don't think that they are like necessarily reliant on the tax structure, especially in a for-profit organization where there's only two people at the cap table and their original motivating reason to do doing this was to conduct a meta science experiment. So we have like a unique alignment with our funders on this that I think also makes us different from other for-profit orgs. We're not a C Corp, we're an LC. And actually we're going through the process right now of exploring like B Corp status, which means that you have a, a fundamental, like mix of mission and for profit. [00:50:21] Ben: Yeah. That was actually something that I was going to ask about just in, in terms of, I think, what sort of like implicitly. One of the reasons that people wonder about [00:50:35] the, the mixture of like research and for profit status is that like the, the, the time scales of research is just, are just long, right? Like, like re, re research research takes a long time and is expensive. And if, if you're like, sort of answering to investors who are like really like, primarily looking for a return on their investment I feel like that, I, I mean, at least just in, in my experience and like my, my thinking about this like that, that, that's, that's my worry about it is, is that like so, so what, like having like, really like a small number of really aligned investors seems like pretty critical to being able to like, stick to your values. [00:51:18] Seemay: Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, there were actually other people interested in funding, our Arcadian every once in a while I get reached out to still, but like me Jud and Sam and Che, like we went through the ringer together. Like we went on this journey together to get here, to [00:51:35] decide on this. And I think there is, I think built in an understanding that like, there's a chance this will fail financially and otherwise. Um, but, but I think the important case to consider is like that we discussed is like, what would happen if we are a scientific success, but a financial failure. What are each of you interested in doing. and that that's such an important answer. A question, right? So for both of them, the answer was we would consider the option of endowing this into a nonprofit, but only if the science is interesting. Okay. If that is, and I'm not saying that we're gonna target that end goal, like I'm gonna fight with all my might to figure out another way, but that is a super informative answer, right? Because [00:52:27] Ben: yeah, [00:52:27] Seemay: delineating what the priorities are. The priority is the science, the revenue is [00:52:35] subservient to that. And if it doesn't work fine, we will still iterate on that like top priority. [00:52:42] Ben: Yeah, it would also be, I mean, like that would be cool. It would also be cool if, if you, I mean, it's just like, everybody thinks about like growing forever, but I think it would be incredibly cool if you all just managed to make enough revenue that you can just like, keep the cycle going right. [00:52:58] Seemay: Yeah. It also opens us up to a whole new pocket of investments that is difficult in like more standard sort of like LP funded situations. So, you know, given that our goal is sustainability now, like things that are like two to five X ROI are totally on the table. [00:53:22] Ben: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. [00:53:24] Seemay: actually that opens up a huge competitive edge for us in an area of like tools or products that like are not really that interesting to [00:53:35] LPs that are looking to achieve something else. [00:53:38] Ben: yeah, with like a normal startup. And I think that I, I, that that's, I think really important. Like I, I think that is a big deal because there's, there's so many things that I see And, and it's like the two to five X on the amount of money that you could capture. Right. But like the, the, the amount of value that you create could be much, much larger than that. Right. Like, and this is the whole problem. Like, I, I, I mean, it's just like the, the thing that I always run into is you look at just like the ability of people to capture the value of research. And it just is very hard to, to like capture the whole thing. And often when people try to do that, it ends up sort of like constraining it. And so you're, you're just like, okay, with getting a reasonable return then it just lets you do so many other cool things. [00:54:27] Seemay: yeah. I'm yeah. I think that's the vibe. [00:54:32] Ben: that is an excellent vibe. And, and speaking [00:54:35] with the vibe and, and you mentioned this I'm, I. Interested in both, like how you like find, and then convince people to, to join Arcadia. Right. Because it's, it's like, you are, you are to some extent asking people to like play a completely different game. Right? Like you're asking people who have been in this, this like you know, like citations and, and paper game to say like, okay, you're gonna like, stop playing that and play this other thing. And so like, yeah. [00:55:04] Seemay: yeah. It's funny. Like I get asked this all the time, like, how do you protect the careers or whatever of people that come to Arcadia? And the solution is actually pretty simple, even though people don't think of it, which is you Don. You don't try and convince people to come. Like we are not trying to grow into an infinitely large organization. I don't even know if we'll ever reach that number 150. Like I was just talking to Sam about like, we may break before that point. Like, that's just sort of like my cap. We may find that [00:55:35] 50 people is like the perfect number 75 is. And you know, we're actually just trying to figure out like, what is, what are the right ingredients for the thing we're trying to do? And so therefore we don't need everybody to join. We need the right people to join and we can't absorb the risk of people who ultimately see a career path that is not well supported by Arcadia. If we absorb that, it will pull us back to the means. because we don't want anyone at Arcadia to be miserable. We want scientists to succeed. So actually the easiest way to do that is to not try and convince people to do something they're not comfortable with and find the people for whom it feels like a natural fit. So actually think, I think I saw on Twitter, someone ask this question in your thread about what's like the, oh, an important question you asked during your interviews. And like one of the most important questions I ask someone is where else have you applied for jobs? [00:56:35] And if they literally haven't applied anywhere outside of academia, like that's an opportunity for me to push [00:56:43] Ben: Mm. [00:56:44] Seemay: I'm very worried about that. Like, I, I don't want them to be quote unquote, making a sacrifice that doesn't resonate with where they're trying to go in their career. Cuz I can't help them AF like once they come. Arcadia has to evolve like its own organism. And like, sometimes that means things that are not great for people who wanna be in academia, including like the publishing and journal bit. And so yeah, what I tell them is like, look, you have two jobs at Arcadia and both have to be equally exciting to you. And you have to fully understand that there both your responsibility, your job is to be a scientist and a meta scientist. And that those two things have to be. You understand what that second thing is that your job is to evolve with me, provide me with feedback on like, what is working and not working [00:57:35] for you and actively participate in all the meta science experiments that we're doing around publishing translation, technology, all these things, right? Like it can't be passive. It has to be active. If that sounds exciting to you, this is a great place for you. If you're trying to figure out how you're going to do that, have your cake and eat it too, and still have a CV that's competitive for academia in case like in a year, you know, like you go back, I, this is not the place for you. And I, I can't as a human being, like, that's, I, I can't absorb that because like, I like, I can't help, but have some empathy for you once you're here as an individual, like, I don't want you to suffer. Right. And so we need to have those hard conversations early before they join. And there's been a few times where like, yeah, I think like I sufficiently scared someone away. So I think it was better for them. Right? Like it's better for [00:58:25] Ben: Yeah, totally. [00:58:25] Seemay: if that happens. Yeah, it's harder once they're here. [00:58:29] Ben: and, and so, so the like, The, they tend to be people who are sort of like already [00:58:35] thinking, like already have like one foot out the door of, of academia in the sense of like, they're, they're already sort of like exploring that possibility. So they've so you don't have to like get them to that point. [00:58:48] Seemay: Right. Yes. Because like, like that's a whole journey they need to go on in, on their own, because there's so many reasons why someone might be excited to leave academia and go to another organization like this. I mean, there's push and pull. Right. So I think that's a challenge, like separating out, like, like what is just like push, because they're like upset with how things are going there versus like, do they actually understand what joining us will entail? And are they, do they have the like optimism and the agency to like, help me do this experiment. It does require optimism. Right. [00:59:25] Ben: absolutely. [00:59:25] Seemay: So like sometimes like, you know, I push people, like what, where else have you applied for jobs? And they, if they can't seem to answer that very well I say, okay, let me change [00:59:35] this question. You come to Arcadia and I die. Arcadia dissolves. It's, it's an easier way of like, it's like, I can own it. Okay. Like I died and like me and Che and Jed die. Okay. Like now what are you gonna do with your career? And like, I is a silly question, but it's kind of a serious question. Like, you know, just like, what is, how does this fit into your context of how you think about your career and is it actually going to move you towards where you're trying to go? Because, I mean, I think like that's yeah. Another problem we're trying to solve is like scientists need to feel more agency and they won't feel agency by just jumping to another thing that they think is going to solve problems for them. [01:00:15] Ben: Yeah, that's a really good point. And so, so this is almost a selfish question, but like where do you find these people? Right? Like you seem to, you seem to be very good at it. [01:00:26] Seemay: Yeah. I actually don't I don't, I, I don't know the answer to that question fully because we [01:00:35] only just recently said, oh my God, we need to start collecting some data through like voluntary surveys from applicants of like, how do they know about us? You know? It seems to be a lot of like word of mouth, social media, maybe they read something that I wrote or that Che wrote or something. And while that's been fine so far, we also like wanna think about how we like broaden that reach further. It's definitely not through their, for the most part, not through their institutes or PIs that I know. [01:01:03] Ben: Yeah, I, but, but it is, it is like, it sounds like it does tend to be inbounds, right? Like it tends to be people like reaching out to you as opposed to the other way around. [01:01:16] Seemay: Yeah. You know, and that's not for lack of effort. I mean, there have been definitely times where. We have like proactively gone out and tried to scout people, but it does run into that problem that I just described before of like, [01:01:29] Ben: Yeah. [01:01:30] Seemay: if you find them yourself, are you trying to pull them in and have they gone through their own [01:01:35] journey yet? And so in some of those cases, while it seemed like, like we entertain like conversations for a while with a couple of candidates, we tried to scout, but ultimately that's where it ended was like, oh, they like, they need to go on their own. And like, sort of like fully explore for a bit, you know, this would be a bit risky. But it hasn't, you know, it hasn't been all, you know a failure like that, but it, it happens a lot. [01:01:58] Ben: Yeah, no, I mean that, that, frankly, that, that squares with my, my experience sort of like roughly, roughly trying to find people who, who fit a similar mold. So that that's, I mean, and that, that suggests a strategy, right. Is like, be like, be good at setting up some kind of lighthouse, which you, you seem to have done. [01:02:17] Seemay: The only challenge with this, I would say, and, and we are still grappling with this is that sort of approach does make it hard to reach candidates that are sort of like historically underrepresented, because they may not see themselves as like strong candidates for such and such. And [01:02:35] so now we're, now we have this other challenge to solve of like, how do we make sure people have gone through their own process on their own, but also make sure that the opportunity is getting communicated to the right people and that they like all, everybody understands that they're a candidate, you know, [01:02:53] Ben: Yeah. And I guess so , as long as we're recording this podcast, like what, what is that like, like if you were talking to someone who was like, what does that process even look like? Like what would I start doing? Like what would you, what would you tell someone? [01:03:08] Seemay: Oh, to like explore a role at Arcadia. [01:03:11] Ben: yeah. Or just like to like, go through that, like, like to, to start going through that [01:03:16] Seemay: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess like, there's probably a couple of different things. Like, I mean, one is just some deep introspection on like, what are your priorities in your life, right? Like what are you trying to achieve in your career? Beyond just like the sort of ladder thing, like what's the, what are the most important, like north stars for you? And I think [01:03:35] like for a place like Arcadia or any of the other sort of like meta science experiments, That has to be part of it somehow. Right. Like being really interested and passionate about being part of finding a solution and being one of the risk takers for them. I think the other thing is like very pragmatic, just like literally go out there and like explore other jobs, please. Like, I feel like, you know, like, like what is your market value? You know? Like what [01:04:05] Ben: don't don't [01:04:05] Seemay: Yeah. Like, and like go get that information for yourself. And then you will also feel a sense of like security, because like, even if I die and Arcadia dissolves, you will realize through that process that you have a lot of other opportunities and your skillset is highly valuable. And so there is like solid ground underneath you, regardless of what happens here, that they need to absorb that. Right. And then also just. Like, trust me, your negotiations with me will go way better. If you come in [01:04:35] armed with information, like one of my goals with like compensation for example, is to be really accurate about making sure we're hitting the right market val

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Philanthropically Funding the Foundation of Fields with Adam Falk [Idea Machines #45]

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2022 65:27

In this conversation, Adam Falk and I talk about running research programs with impact over long timescales, creating new fields, philanthropic science funding, and so much more. Adam is the president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which was started by the eponymous founder of General Motors and has been funding science and education efforts for almost nine decades. They've funded everything from iPython Notebooks to the Wikimedia foundation to an astronomical survey of the entire sky. If you're like me, their name is familiar from the acknowledgement part of PBS science shows. Before becoming the president of the Sloan Foundation, Adam was the president of Williams College and a high energy physicist focused on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory. His combined experience in research, academic administration, and philanthropic funding give him a unique and fascinating perspective on the innovation ecosystem. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Links - The Sloan Foundation - Adam Falk on Wikipedia - Philanthropy and the Future of Science and Technology Highlight Timestamps - How do you measure success in science? [00:01:31] - Thinking about programs on long timescales [00:05:27] - How does the Sloan Foundation decide which programs to do? [00:08:08] - Sloan's Matter to Life Program [00:12:54] - How does the Sloan Foundation think about coordination? [00:18:24] - Finding and incentivizing program directors [00:22:32] - What should academics know about the funding world and what should the funding world know about academics? [00:28:03] - Grants and academics as the primary way research happens [00:33:42] - Problems with grants and common grant applications [00:44:49] - Addressing the criticism of philanthropy being inefficient because it lacks market mechanisms [00:47:16] - Engaging with the idea that people who create value should be able to capture that value [00:53:05] Transcript [00:00:35] In this conversation, Adam Falk, and I talk about running research programs with impact over long timescales, creating new fields, philanthropic science funding, and so much more. Adam is the president of the Alfred P Sloan foundation, which was started by the eponymous founder of general motors. And has been funding science and education efforts for almost nine decades. They funded everything from IP. I fond [00:01:35] notebooks to Wikimedia foundation. To an astronomical survey of the entire sky. If you're like me, their name is familiar from the acknowledgement part of PBS science shows. Before becoming the president of the Sloan foundation. Adam was the president of Williams college and I high energy physicist focused on elementary particle physics in quantum field theory. His combined experience in research. Uh, Academic administration and philanthropic funding give him a unique and fascinating perspective on the innovation ecosystem i hope you enjoy this as much as i did [00:02:06] Ben: Let's start with like a, sort of a really tricky thing that I'm, I'm myself always thinking about is that, you know, it's really hard to like measure success in science, right? Like you, you know, this better than anybody. And so just like at, at the foundation, how do you, how do you think about success? Like, what is, what does success look like? What is the difference between. Success and failure mean to [00:02:34] Adam: you? [00:02:35] I mean, I think that's a, that's a really good question. And I think it's a mistake to think that there are some magic metrics that if only you are clever enough to come up with build them out of citations and publications you could get some fine tune measure of success. I mean, obviously if we fund in a scientific area, we're funding investigators who we think are going to have a real impact with their work individually, and then collectively. And so of course, you know, if they're not publishing, it's a failure. We expect them to publish. We expect people to publish in high-impact journals, but we look for broader measures as well if we fund a new area. So for example, A number of years ago, we had a program in the microbiology of the built environment, kind of studying all the microbes that live in inside, which turns out to be a very different ecosystem than outside. When we started in that program, there were a few investigators interested in this question. There weren't a lot of tools that were good for studying it. [00:03:35] By 10 years later, when we'd left, there was a journal, there were conferences, there was a community of people who were doing this work, and that was another measure, really tangible measure of success that we kind of entered a field that, that needed some support in order to get going. And by the time we got out, it was, it was going strong and the community of people doing that work had an identity and funding paths and a real future. Yeah. [00:04:01] Ben: So I guess one way that I've been thinking about it, it's just, it's almost like counterfactual impact. Right. Whereas like if you hadn't gone in, then it, the, it wouldn't be [00:04:12] Adam: there. Yeah. I think that's the way we think about it. Of course that's a hard to, to measure. Yeah. But I think that Since a lot of the work we fund is not close to technology, right. We don't have available to ourselves, you know, did we spin out products? Did we spin out? Companies did a lot of the things that might directly connect that work to, [00:04:35] to activities that are outside of the research enterprise, that in other fields you can measure impact with. So the impact is pretty internal. That is for the most part, it is, you know, Has it been impact on other parts of science that, you know, again, that we think might not have happened if we hadn't hadn't funded what we funded. As I said before, have communities grown up another interesting measure of impact from our project that we funded for about 25 years now, the Sloan digital sky survey is in papers published in the following sense that one of the innovations, when the Sloan digital sky survey launched in the early. Was that the data that came out of it, which was all for the first time, digital was shared broadly with the community. That is, this was a survey of the night sky that looked at millions of objects. So they're very large databases. And the investigators who built this, the, the built the, the, the telescope certainly had first crack at analyzing that [00:05:35] data. But there was so much richness in the data that the decision was made at. Sloan's urging early on that this data after a year should be made public 90% of the publications that came out of the Sloan digital sky survey have not come from collaborators, but it come from people who use that data after it's been publicly released. Yeah. So that's another way of kind of seeing impact and success of a project. And it's reached beyond its own borders. [00:06:02] Ben: And you mentioned like both. Just like that timescale, right? Like that, that, that 25 years something that I think is just really cool about the Sloan foundation is like how, how long you've been around and sort of like your capability of thinking on those on like a quarter century timescale. And I guess, how do you, how do you think about timescales on things? Right. Because it's like, on the one hand, this is like, obviously like science can take [00:06:35] 25 years on the other hand, you know, it's like, you need to be, you can't just sort of like do nothing for 25 years. [00:06:44] Adam: So if you had told people back in the nineties that the Sloan digital sky survey was going to still be going after a quarter of a century, they probably never would have funded it. So, you know, I think that That you have an advantage in the foundation world, as opposed to the the, the federal funding, which is that you can have some flexibility about the timescales on what you think. And so you don't have to simply go from grant to grant and you're not kind of at the mercy of a Congress that changes its own funding commitments every couple of years. We at the Sloan foundation tend to think that it takes five years at a minimum to have impact into any new field that you go into it. And we enter a new science field, you know, as we just entered, we just started a new program matter to life, which we can talk about. [00:07:35] That's initially a five-year commitment to put about $10 million a year. Into this discipline, understanding that if things are going well, we'll re up for another five years. So we kind of think of that as a decadal program. And I would say the time scale we think on for programs is decades. The timescale we think of for grants is about three years, right? But a program itself consists of many grants may do a large number of investigators. And that's really the timescale where we think you can have, have an impact over that time. But we're constantly re-evaluating. I would say the timescale for rethinking a program is shorter. That's more like five years and we react. So in our ongoing programs, about every five years, we'll take a step back and do a review. You know, whether we're having an impact on the program, we'll get some outside perspectives on it and whether we need to keep it going exactly as it is, or adjust in some [00:08:35] interesting ways or shut it down and move the resources somewhere else. So [00:08:39] Ben: I like that, that you have, you almost have like a hierarchy of timescales, right? Like you have sort of multiple going at once. I think that's, that's like under underappreciated and so w one thing they want to ask about, and maybe the the, the life program is a good sort of like case study in this is like, how do you, how do you decide what pro, like, how do you decide what programs to do, right? Like you could do anything. [00:09:04] Adam: So th that is a terrific question and a hard one to get. Right. And we just came out of a process of thinking very deeply about it. So it's a great time to talk about it. Let's do it. So To frame the large, the problem in the largest sense, if we want to start a new grantmaking program where we are going to allocate about $10 million a year, over a five to 10 year period, which is typical for us, the first thing you realize is that that's not a lot of money on the scale that the federal government [00:09:35] invest. So if your first thought is, well, let's figure out the most interesting thing science that people are doing you quickly realize that those are things where they're already a hundred times that much money going in, right? I mean, quantum materials would be something that everybody is talking about. The Sloan foundation, putting $10 million a year into quantum materials is not going to change anything. Interesting. So you start to look for that. You start to look for structural reasons that something that there's a field or an emerging field, and I'll talk about what some of those might be, where an investment at the scale that we can make can have a real impact. And And so what might some of those areas be? There are fields that are very interdisciplinary in ways that make it hard for individual projects to find a home in the federal funding landscape and one overly simplified, but maybe helpful way to think about it is that the federal funding landscape [00:10:35] is, is governed large, is organized largely by disciplines. That if you look at the NSF, there's a division, there's a director of chemistry and on physics and so forth. And but many questions don't map well onto a single discipline. And sometimes questions such as some of the ones we're exploring in the, you know, the matter to life program, which I can explain more about what that is. Some of those questions. Require collaborations that are not naturally fundable in any of the silos the federal government has. So that's very interdisciplinary. Work is one area. Second is emerging disciplines. And again, often that couples to interdisciplinary work in a way that often disciplines emerge in interesting ways at the boundaries of other disciplines. Sometimes the subject matter is the boundary. Sometimes it's a situation where techniques developed in one discipline are migrating to being used in another discipline. And that often happens with physics, the [00:11:35] physicist, figure out how to do something, like grab the end of a molecule and move it around with a laser. And suddenly the biologists realize that's a super interesting thing for them. And they would like to do that. So then there's work. That's at the boundary of those kind of those disciplines. You know, a third is area that the ways in which that that can happen is that you can have. Scale issues where, where kind of work needs to happen at a certain scale that is too big to be a single investigator, but too small to kind of qualify for the kind of big project funding that you have in the, in the, in the federal government. And so you're looking, you could also certainly find things that are not funded because they're not very interesting. And those are not the ones we want to fund, but you often have to sift through quite a bit of that to find something. So that's what you're looking for now, the way you look for it is not that you sit in a conference room and get real smart and think that you're going to see [00:12:35] things, other people aren't going to see rather you. You source it out, out in the field. Right. And so we had an 18 month process in which we invited kind of proposals for what you could do on a program at that scale, from major research universities around the country, we had more than a hundred ideas. We had external panels of experts who evaluated these ideas. And that's what kind of led us in the end to this particular framing of the new program that we're starting. So and, and that, and that process was enough to convince us that this was interesting, that it was, you know, emergent as a field, that it was hard to fund in other ways. And that the people doing the work are truly extraordinary. Yeah. And that's, that's the, that's what you're looking for. And I think in some ways there are pieces of that in all of the programs that particularly the research programs that. [00:13:29] Ben: And so, so actually, could you describe the matter to life program and like, [00:13:35] and sort of highlight how it fits into all of those buckets? [00:13:38] Adam: Absolutely. So the, the, the matter of the life program is an investigation into the principles, particularly the physical principles that matter uses in order to organize itself into living systems. The first distinction to make is this is not a program about how did life evolve on earth, and it's actually meant to be a broader question then how is life on earth organized the idea behind it is that life. Is a particular example of some larger phenomenon, which is life. And I'm not going to define life for you. That is, we know what things are living and we know things that aren't living and there's a boundary in between. And part of the purpose of this program is to explore that it's a think of it as kind of out there, on, out there in the field. And, and mapmaking, and you know, over here is, you [00:14:35] know, is a block of ice. That's not alive. And, you know, over here is a frog and that's alive and there's all sorts of intermediate spaces in there. And there are ideas out there that, that go, you know, that are interesting ideas about, for example, at the cellular level how is information can date around a cell? What might the role of. Things like non-equilibrium thermodynamics be playing is how does, can evolution be can it can systems that are, non-biological be induced to evolve in interesting ways. And so we're studying both biotic and non biotic systems. There are three strains, stray strands in this. One is building life. That is it was said by I think I, I find men that if you can't build something, you don't understand it. And so the idea, and there are people who want to build an actual cell. I think that's, that's a hard thing to do, but we have people who are building in the laboratory little bio-molecular machines understanding how that might [00:15:35] work. We, we fund people who are kind of constructing, protocells thinking about ways that the, the ways that liquid separate might provide SEP diff divisions between inside and outside, within. Chemical reactions could take place. We funded businesses to have made tiny little, you know, micron scale magnets that you mix them together and you can get them to kind of organize themselves in interesting ways. Yeah. In emerge. What are the ways in which emergent behaviors come to this air couple into this. And so that's kind of building life. Can you kind of build systems that have features that feel essential to life and by doing that, learn something general about, say the reproduction of, of, of, of DNA or something simple about how inside gets differentiated from outside. Second strand is principles of life, and that's a little bit more around are [00:16:35] there physics principles that govern the organization of life? And again, are there ways in which the kinds of thinking that informed thermodynamics, which is kind of the study of. Piles of gas and liquid and so forth. Those kinds of thinking about bulk properties and emergent behavior can tell us something about what's the difference between life that's life and matter. That's not alive. And the third strain is signs of life. And, you know, we have all of these telescopes that are out there now discover thousands of exoplanets. And of course the thing we all want to know is, is there life on them? We were never going to go to them. We maybe if we go, we'll never come back. And and we yet we can look and see the chemical composition of these. Protoplanets just starting to be able to see that. And they transition in front of a star, the atmospheres of these planets absorb light from the stars and the and the light that's absorbed tells you something about the chemical composition of the atmosphere. [00:17:35] So there's a really interesting question. Kind of chemical. Are there elements of the chemical composition of an atmosphere that would tell you that that life is present there and life in general? Right. I, you know, if, if you, if you're going to look for kind of DNA or something, that might be way too narrow, a thing to kind of look for. Right. So we've made a very interesting grant to a collaboration that is trying to understand the general properties of atmospheres of Rocky planets. And if you kind of knew all of the things that an atmosphere of an Earth-like planet might look like, and then you saw something that isn't one in one of those, you think, well, something other might've done that. Yeah. So that's a bit of a flavor. What I'd say about the nature of the research is it is, as you could tell highly interdisciplinary. Yeah. Right. So this last project I mentioned requires geoscience and astrophysics and chemistry and geochemistry and a vulcanology an ocean science [00:18:35] and, and Who's going to fund that. Yeah. Right. It's also in very emerging area because it comes at the boundary between geoscience, the understanding of what's going on on earth and absolutely cutting edge astrophysics, the ability to kind of look out into the cosmos and see other planets. So people working at that boundary it's where interesting things often, often happen. [00:18:59] Ben: And you mentioned that when, when you're looking at programs, you're, you're looking for things that are sort of bigger than like a single pie. And like, how do you, how do you think about sort of the, the different projects, like individual projects within a program? Becoming greater than the sum of their parts. Like, like, you know, there's, there's some, there's like one end of the spectrum where you've just sort of say, like, go, go do your things. And everybody's sort of runs off. And then there's another end of the spectrum where you like very explicitly tell people like who should be working on what and [00:19:35] how to, how to collaborate. So like, how do you, [00:19:37] Adam: so one of the wonderful things about being at a foundation is you have a convening power. Yeah. I mean, in part, because you're giving away money, people will, will want to come gather when you say let's come together, you know? And in part, because you just have a way of operating, that's a bit independent. And so the issue you're raising is a very important one, you know, in the individual at a program at a say, science grant making program we will fund a lot of individual projects, which may be a single investigator, or they may be big collab, collaborations, but we also are thinking from the beginning about how. Create help create a field. Right. And it may not always be obvious how that's going to work. I think with matter to life we're early on and we're, you know, we're not sure is this a single field, are there sub fields here? But we're already thinking about how to bring our pies together to kind of share the work they're doing and get to share perspectives. I can give you another example from a program Reno law, we recently [00:20:35] closed, which was a chemistry of the indoor environment. Where we were funded kind of coming out of our work in the microbiology indoors. It turns out that there's also very interesting chemistry going on indoors which is different from the environmental chemistry that we think about outdoors indoors. There are people in all the stuff that they exude, there's an enormous number of surfaces. And so surface chemistry is really important. And, and again, there were people who were doing this work in isolation, interested in, in these kinds of topics. And we were funding them individually, but once we had funded a whole community of people doing. They decided that be really interesting to do a project where, which they called home cam, where they went to a test house and kind of did all sorts of indoor activities like cooking Thanksgiving dinner and studying the chemistry together. And this is an amazing collaboration. So we had, so many of our grantees came together in one [00:21:35] place around kind of one experiment or one experimental environment and did work then where it could really speak to each other. Right. And which they they'd done experiments that were similar enough that they, the people who were studying one aspect of the chemistry and another could do that in a more coherent way. And I think that never would have happened without the Sloan foundation having funded this chemistry of indoor environments program. Both because of the critical mass we created, but also because of the community of scholars that we, that we help foster. [00:22:07] Ben: So, it's like you're playing it a very important role, but then it, it is sort of like a very then bottom up sort of saying like, like almost like put, like saying like, oh, like you people all actually belong together and then they look around and like, oh yeah, yeah, [00:22:24] Adam: we do. I think that's exactly right. And yeah. You don't want to be too directive because, you know, we're, we're just a foundation where we got some program directors and, you know, [00:22:35] we, we do know some things about the science we're funding, but the real expertise lives with these researchers who do this work every day. Right. And so what we're trying to see when, when we think we can see some things that they can't, it's not going to be in the individual details of the work they're doing, but it may be there from up here on the 22nd floor of the Rockefeller center, we can see the landscape a little bit better and are in a position to make connections that then will be fruitful. You know, if we were right, there'll be fruitful because the people on the ground doing the work with the expertise, believe that they're fruitful. Sometimes we make a connection and it's not fruitful in that. It doesn't fruit and that's fine too. You know, we're not always right about everything either, but we have an opportunity to do that. That comes from the. Particular in special place that we happen to sit. Yeah. [00:23:28] Ben: Yeah. And just speaking of program directors, how do you, how do you think about, I mean, like [00:23:35] you're, you're sort of in charge and so how do you think about directing them and, and sort of how do you think about setting up incentives so that, you know, good work like so that they do good work on their programs and and like how much sort of autonomy do you give them? Sort of how does, how does all of that work? [00:23:56] Adam: Absolutely. So I spent most of my career in universities and colleges. I was my own background is as, as, as a theoretical physicist. And I spent quite a bit of time as a Dean and a college president. And I think the key to being a successful academic administrator is understanding deep in your bones, that the faculty are the heart of the institution. They are the intellectual heart and soul of the institution. And that you will have a great institution. If you hire terrific faculty and support them you aren't telling them, you know, you as, and they don't require a lot of telling them what to do, but the [00:24:35] leadership role does require a lot of deciding where to allocate the resources and helping figure out and, and figuring out how, and in what ways, and at what times you can be helpful to them. Yeah. The program directors at the Sloan foundation are very much. The faculty of a, of a university and we have six right now it's five PhDs and a road scholar. Right. And they are, each of them truly respect, deeply respected intellectual leaders in the fields in which they're making grants. Right. And my job is to first off to hire and retain a terrific group of program directors who know way more about the things they're doing than I do. And then to kind of help them figure out how to craft their programs. And you know, there's different kinds of, you know, different kinds of help that different kind of program directors needs. Sometimes they just need resources. Sometimes they need, you know, a collaborative conversation. You know, [00:25:35] sometimes, you know, we talk about the ways in which their individual programs are gonna fit together into the larger. Programs at the Sloan foundation sometimes what we talk about is ways in which we can and should, or shouldn't change what we do in order to build a collaboration elsewhere. But I don't do much directing of the work that program directors to just like, I don't, didn't ever do much of any directing of the work that, that that the faculty did. And I think what keeps a program director engaged at a place like the Sloan foundation is the opportunity to be a leader. Yeah. [00:26:10] Ben: It's actually sort of to double click on that. And on, on, on hiring program directors, it seems it like, I, I, I would imagine that it is, it is sometimes tough to get really, really good program directors, cause people who would make good program directors could probably have, you know, their pick. Amazing roles. And, and to some extent, and, and [00:26:35] they, they, they do get to be a leader, but to some extent, like they're, they're not directly running a lab, right. Like they're, they, they don't have sort of that direct power. And they're, they're not like making as much money as they could be, you know, working at Google or something. And so, so like how do you both like find, and then convince people to, to come do that? [00:26:57] Adam: So that's a great question. I mean, I think there's a certain, you know, P people are meant to be program directors are, are not the, usually the place like the Sloan foundation and different foundations work differently. Right. So but in our case are not people who Otherwise, who would rather be spending their time in the lab. Yeah. Right. And many of them have spent time as serious scholars in one discipline or another, but much like faculty who move into administration, they've come to a point in their careers, whether that was earlier or later in their [00:27:35] career where the larger scope that's afforded by doing it by being a program director compensates for the fact that they can't focus in the same way on a particular problem, that, that the way a faculty member does or a researcher. Yes. So the, the other thing you have to feel really in your bones, which is, again, much like being an academic administrator is that there's a deep reward in finding really talented people and giving them the resources. They need to do great things. Right. And in the case, if you're a program director, what you're doing is finding grantees and When a grantee does something really exciting. We celebrate that here at the foundation as, as a success of the foundation. Not that we're trying to claim their success, but because that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to find other people who can do great things and give them the resources to do those great things. So you have to get a great kind of professional satisfaction from. So there are people who have a [00:28:35] broader view or want to move into a, a time in their careers when they can take that broader view about a field or an area that they already feel passionate about. And then who have the disposition that, that, you know, that wanting to help people is deeply rewarding to them. And, you know, say you, how do you find these folks? It's, it's just like, it's hard to find people who were really good at academic administration. You have to look really hard for people who are going to be great at this work. And you persuade them to do it precisely because they happen to be people who want to do this kind of work. Yeah. [00:29:09] Ben: And actually and so, so you, you sort of are, are highlighting a lot of parallels between academic administration and, and sort of your role now. I think it. Is there anything that, but at the same time, I think that there are many things that like academics don't understand about sort of like science funding and and, and this, that, that world, and then there's many things that it seems like science funders don't understand about [00:29:35] research and, and you're, you're one of the few people who've sort of done in both. And so I guess just a very open-ended question is like, like what, what do you wish that more academics understood about the funding world and things you have to think about here? And what do you wish more people in the funding world understood about, about research? Yeah, [00:29:54] Adam: that is, that is great. So I can give you a couple of things. The, I think at a high level, I, I always wish that on both sides of that divide, there was a deeper understanding of the constraints under which people on the other side are operating. And those are both material constraints and what I might call intellectual constraints. So there's a parallelism here. I, if I first say from the point of view of the, of as a foundation president, what do I wish that academics really understood? I, I, I'm always having to reinforce to people that we really do mean it when we say we do fund, we fund X and we don't fund Y [00:30:35] yeah. And that please don't spend time trying to persuade me that Z, that you do really is close enough to X, that we should fund it and get offended. When I tell you that's not what we fund, we say no to a lot of things that are intrinsically great, but that we're not funding because it's not what we fund. Yeah. We as, and we make choices about what to fund that are very specific and what areas to fund in that are very specific so that we can have some impact, right. And we don't make those decisions lightly, you know, for almost any work someone is doing, we're not the only foundation who might fund it. So move on to someone else. If you're not fitting our program, then argue with us and just understand why it is that, that we do that. Right. I think that is that's a come across that a lot. There's a total parallel, which I think is very important for people in foundations who have very strong ideas about what they should fund to understand that, you know, academics are not going to drop what they're doing and start doing something else because there's a [00:31:35] little bit of money available that, you know, is an academic, of course, you're trying to make. Your questions, two ways, things you can support, but usually driven because some question is really important to you. And if, you know, if some foundation comes to you and says, well, stop doing that and do this, I'll find it. You know why maybe that's, you're pretty desperate. You're not going to do that. So the best program directors spend a lot of time looking for people who already are interested in the thing that the foundation is funding, right? And really underst understand that you can't bribe people into doing something that they, that they, that they otherwise wouldn't do. And so I think those are very parallel. I mean, to both to understand the set of commitments that people are operating under, I would say the other thing that I think it's really important for foundations to understand about about universities is and other institutions is that these institutions. Are not just platforms [00:32:35] on which one can do a project, right? They are institutions that require support on their own. And somebody has to pay the debt service on the building and take out the garbage and cut the grass and clean the building and, you know hire the secretaries and do all of the kind of infrastructure work that makes it possible for a foundation such as Sloan to give somebody $338,000 to hire some postdocs and do some interesting experiments, but somebody is still turning on the lights and overhead goes to the overhead is really important and the overhead is not some kind of profit that universities are taking. It is the money they need in order to operate in ways that make it possible to do the grants. And. You know, there's a longer story here. I mean, even foundations like Sloan don't pay the full overhead and we can do that because [00:33:35] we typically are a very small part of the funding stream. But during the pandemic, we raised our overhead permanently from the 15% we used to pay to the 20% that we pay now, precisely because we've, we felt it was important to signal our support for the institutions. And some of those aren't universities, some of those are nonprofits, right? That other kinds of nonprofits that we're housing, the activities that we were interested in funding. And I just think it's really important for foundations to understand that. And I do think that my own time as a Dean at a college president, when I needed that overhead in order to turn on the lights, so some chemist could hire the post-docs has made me particularly sensitive [00:34:16] Ben: to that. Yeah, no, that's, that's a really good. Totally that I don't think about enough. So, so, so I really appreciate that. And I think sort of implicit implicit in our conversation has been two sort of core things. One, is that the way that you [00:34:35] fund work is through grants and two, is that the, the primary people doing the research are academics and I guess it just, w let's say, w w what is, what's the actual question there it's like, is it like, do you, do you think that that is the best way of doing it? Have you like explored other ways? Because it, it, it feels like those are sort of both you know, it's like has been the way that people have done it for a long time. [00:35:04] Adam: So there's, there's two answers to that question. The first is just to acknowledge that the Sloan foundation. Probably 50 out of the $90 million a year in grants we make are for research. And almost all of that research is done at universities, I think primarily because we're really funding basic research and that's where basic research has done. If we were funding other kinds of research, a lot of use inspired research research that was closer to kind of technology. We would be, you might be [00:35:35] funding people who worked in different spaces, but the kind of work we fund that's really where it's done. But we have another significant part of the foundation that funds things that aren't quite research, that the public understanding of science and technology diversity, equity and inclusion in stem, higher ed of course, much of that is, is money that goes into universities, but also into other institutions that are trying to bring about cultural change in the sciences badly needed cultural change. And then our technology program, which looks at all sorts of technologies. Modern technologies that support scholarships such as software scholarly communication, but as increasingly come to support modes of collaboration and other kinds of more kind of social science aspects of how people do research. And there are a lot of that funding is not being given to universities. A lot of that funding is given to other sorts of institutions, nonprofits, always because we're a [00:36:35] foundation, we can only fund nonprofits, but that go beyond the kind of institutional space that universities occupy. We're really looking for. You know, we're not driven by a kind of a sense of who we should fund followed by what we should fund. We're interested in funding problems and questions. And then we look to see who it is that that is doing that work. So in public understanding some of that's in the universities, but most of it isn't and [00:37:00] Ben: actually the two to go back. One thing that I wanted to to ask about is like It seems like there's, if you're primarily wanting to find people who are already doing the sort of work that is within scope of a program, does it, like, I guess it almost like raises the chicken and egg problem of like, how, how do you, like, what if there's an area where people really should be doing work, but nobody is, is doing that work [00:37:35] because there is no funding to do that work. Right. Like this is just something that I struggled with. It's not right. And so, so it's like, how do you, how do you sort of like bootstrap thing? Yes. [00:37:46] Adam: I mean, I think that the way to think about it is that you work incrementally. That is if, if once, and I think you're, you're quite right. That is in some sense, we are looking for areas that. Under inhabited, scientifically because people aren't supporting that work. And that's another way of saying what I said at the beginning about how we're looking for maybe interdisciplinary fields that are hard to support. One way you can tell that they're hard to support is that there isn't a support people aren't doing it, but typically you're working in from the edges, right. There's people on the boundaries of those spaces chomping at the bit. Right. And when you say, you know, what is the work? You can't do what you would do if you add some funding and tell [00:38:35] us why it's super interesting. That's the question you're asking. And that's kind of the question that drives what we talked about before, which is how do you identify a new area, but it's it it's actually to your point, precisely, it's not the area where everybody already is. Cause there's already a lot of money there. Right? So I would say. You know, if you really had to bootstrap it out in the vacuum, you would have to have the insights that we don't pretend to have. You'd have this ability to kind of look out into the vacuum of space and conjure something that should be there and then have in conjure who should do it and have the resources to start the whole thing. That's not the Sloan foundation we do. We don't operate at that scale, but there's another version of that, which is a more incremental and recognizes the exciting ideas that researchers who are adjacent to an underfunded field. Can't th th th th th the, the excitement that they have to go into a new [00:39:35] area, that's just adjacent to where they are and being responsive to that. [00:39:39] Ben: No, that's, and that's, it sort of ties back in my mind to. Y you need to do programs on that ten-year timescale, right? Like, you know, it's like the first three years you go a little bit in the next three years, you do a little bit in, and by like the end of the 10 years, then you're actually in, in [00:39:59] Adam: that new. No, I think that's exactly right. And the other thing is you can, you know, be more risky or more speculative. I like the word speculative better than risky. Risky makes it sound like you don't know what you're doing. Speculative is meant to say, you don't know where you're going to go. So I don't ever think the grants we're funding are particularly risky in the sense that they're going to, the projects will fail. They're speculative in the sense that you don't know if they're going to lead somewhere really interesting. And this is where. The current funding landscape is really in the federal funding. Landscape is really challenging because [00:40:35] the competition for funding is so high that you really need to be able to guarantee success, which doesn't just mean guarantee that your project will work, but that it will, you know, we will contribute in some really meaningful way to moving the field forward, which means that you actually have to have done half the project already before that's, what's called preliminary data playmate. As far as I'm concerned, preliminary data means I already did it. And now I'm just going to clean it up with this grant. And that is, that's a terrible constraint and we can, we're not bound by that kind of constraint in funding things. So we can have failures that are failures in the sense that that didn't turn out to be as interesting as we hoped it would be. Yeah. I, [00:41:17] Ben: I love your point on, on the risk. I, I, I dunno. I, I think that it's, especially with like science, right? It's like, what is it. The risk, right? Like, you're going to discover something. You might discover that, you know, this is like the phenomenon we thought was a [00:41:35] phenomenon is not really there. Right. But it's, it's still, it's, it's not risky because you weren't like investing for, [00:41:43] Adam: for an ROI. Can I give you another example? I think it was a really good one. Is, is it in the matter of the life program? We made a grant to a guy named David Baker, the university of Washington and hated him. And so, you know, David Baker. And so David Baker builds these little nanoscale machines and he has an enormous Institute for doing this. It's extraordinarily exciting work and. Almost all of the work that he is able to do is tool directed toward applications, particularly biomedical applications. Totally understandable. There's a lot of money there. There's a lot of need there. Everybody wants to live forever. I don't, but everybody else seems to want to, but, so why did, why would, why do we think that we should fund them with all of the money that's in the Institute for protein engineering? Which I think is what it's called. It's because we actually funded him to do some basic science.[00:42:35] Yeah to build machines that didn't have an application, but to learn something about the kinds of machines and the kinds of machinery inside cells, by building something that doesn't have an application, but as an interesting basic science component to it, and that's actually a real impact, it was a terrific grant for us because there's all of this arc, all of this architecture that's already been built, but a new direction that he can go with his colleagues that that he actually, for all of the funding he has, he can't do under the content under the. Umbrella of kind of biomedicine. And so that's another way in which things can be more speculative, right? That's speculative where he doesn't know where it's going. He doesn't know the application it's going to. And so even for him, that's a lot harder to do unless something like Sloan steps in and says, well, this is more speculative. It's certainly not risky. I don't think it's risky to fund David bay could do anything, but it's speculative about where this particular [00:43:35] project is going to lead. [00:43:36] Ben: Yeah, no, I like that. It's just like more, more speculation. And, and you, you mentioned just. Slight tangent, but you mentioned that, you know, Sloan Sloan operates at a certain skill. Do you ever, do you ever team up with other philanthropies? Is that, is that a thing? [00:43:51] Adam: Yeah, we, we do and we love, we love co-funding. We've, we've done that in many of our programs in the technology program. We funded co-funded with more, more foundation on data science in the, we have a tabletop physics program, which I haven't talked about, but basically measuring, you know, fundamental properties of the electron in a laboratory, the size of this office rather than a laboratory. You know, the Jura mountains, CERN and there we, it was a partnership actually with the national science foundation and also with the Moore foundation we have in our energy and environment program partnered with the research corporation, which runs these fascinating program called CYA logs, where they bring young investigators out to Tucson, Arizona, or on to zoom lately, but [00:44:35] basically out to Tucson, Arizona, and mix them up together around an interesting problem for a few days, and then fund a small, small kind of pilot projects out of that. We've worked with them on negative emission science and on battery technologies. Really interesting science projects. And so we come in as a co-funder with them there, I think, to do that, you really need an alignment of interests. Yeah. You really both have to be interested in the same thing. And you have to be a little bit flexible about the ways in which you evaluate proposals and put together grants and so forth so that, so that you don't drive the PIs crazy by having them satisfy two foundations at the same time, but where that is productive, that can be really exciting. [00:45:24] Ben: Cause it seems like I'm sure you're familiar with, they feel like the common application for college. It just, it seems like, I mean, like one of the, sort of my biggest [00:45:35] criticisms of grants in general is that, you know, it's like you sort of need to be sending them everywhere. And there's, there's sort of like the, the well-known issue where, you know, like PI has spend some ridiculous proportion of their time writing grants and it. Sort of a, like a philanthropic network where like, it just got routed to the right people and like sort of a lot happened behind the scenes. That seems like it could be really powerful. Yeah. [00:46:03] Adam: I think that actually would be another level of kind of collective collaboration. Like the common app. I think it would actually in this way, I love the idea. I have to say it's probably hard to make it happen because pre-site, for a couple of reasons that don't make it a bad idea, but it just kind of what planet earth is like. You know, one is that we have these very specific programs and so almost any grant has to be a little bit re-engineered in order to fit into because the programs are so specific fit into a new foundations [00:46:35] program. And the second is. We can certainly at the Sloan foundation, very finicky about what review looks like. And very foundations have different processes for assuring quality. And the hardest work I find in a collaboration is aligning those processes because we get very attached to them. It's a little like the tenure review processes at university. Every single university has its own, right. They have their own tenure process and they think that it was crafted by Moses on Mount Sinai and can never be changed as the best that it possibly ever could be. And then you go to another institution, that thing is different and they feel the same way. That is a feature. I mean really a bug of of the foundation, but it's kind of part of the reality. And, and we certainly, if, if what we really need in order for there to be more collaboration, I strongly feel is for everyone to adopt the Sloan foundation, grant proposal guidelines and review practices. And then all this collaboration stuff would be a piece of cake.[00:47:35] It's like, [00:47:35] Ben: like standards anywhere, right. Where it's like, oh, of course I'm willing to use the standard. It has to be exactly. [00:47:41] Adam: We have a standard we're done. If you would just, if you would just recognize that we're better this would be so much simpler. It's just, it's like, it's the way you make a good marriage work. [00:47:51] Ben: And speaking of just foundations and philanthropic funding more generally sort of like one of the criticisms that gets leveled against foundations especially in, in Silicon valley, is that because there's, there's sort of no market mechanism driving the process that, you know, it's like, it, it can be inefficient and all of that. And I, personally don't think that that marketing mechanisms are good for everything, but I'd be interested in and just like. Sort of response to, to [00:48:23] Adam: that. Yeah. So let me broaden that criticism and because I think there's something there that's really important. There's the enormous discretion that [00:48:35] foundations have is both their greatest strength. And I think their greatest danger that is, you know what, because there is not a discipline that is forcing them to make certain sets of choices in a certain structure. Right. And whether that's markets or whether you think that more generally as, as a, as a kind of other discipline in it, disciplining forces too much freedom can, or I shouldn't say too much freedom, but I would say a lot of freedom can lead to decision-making that is idiosyncratic and And inconsistent and inconstant, right? That is a nicer, a more direct way to say it is that if no one constraints what you do and you just do what you feel like maybe what you feel like isn't the best guide for what you should do. And you need to be governed by a context which assure is strategic [00:49:35] consistencies, strategic alignment with what is going on at other places in, in ways that serve your, you know, that serve the field a commitment to quality other kinds of commitments that make sure that your work is having high impact as a, as a funder. And those don't come from the outside. Right. And so you have to come up with ways. Internally to assure that you keep yourself on the straight and narrow. Yeah. I think there's some similar consideration about which is beyond science funding and philanthropy about the necessity of doing philanthropic work for the public. Good. Yeah. Right. And I think that's a powerful, ethical commitment that we have to have the money that we have from the Sloan foundation or that the Ford foundation, as of the Rockefeller foundation as are in it, I didn't make that money. What's more Alfred P Sloan who left us this money made the money in a context in which lots of people did a lot of work [00:50:35] that don't have that money. Right. A lot of people working at general motors plants and, and, you know, he made that work in a society that support. The accumulation of that fortune and that it's all tax-free. So the federal government is subsidizing this implicitly. The society is subsidizing the work we do because it's it's tax exempt. So that imposes on us, I think, an obligation to develop a coherent idea of what using our funding for the public good means, and not every foundation is going to have that same definition, but we have an obligation to develop that sense in a thoughtful way, and then to follow it. And that is one of the governors on simply following our whims. Right? So we think about that a lot here at the Sloan foundation and the ways in which our funding is justifiable as having a positive, good [00:51:35] that You know, that, that, that attaches to the science we fund or, or just society in general. And that if we don't see that, you know, we, we think really hard about whether we want to do that grant making. Yeah. So it's [00:51:47] Ben: like, I, and I think about things in terms of, of, of like systems engineering. And so it's like, you sort of have these like self-imposed feedback loops. Yes. While it's not, it's not an external market sort of giving you that feedback loop, you still there, you can still sort of like send, like to set up these loops so [00:52:09] Adam: that, so my colleague, one of the program directors here, my colleague, Evan, Michelson is written entire book on. On science philanthropy, and on applying a certain framework that's been developed largely in used in Europe, but also known here in this state, it's called responsible research and innovation, which provides a particular framework for asking these kinds of questions about who you fund and how you fund, what sorts of funding you do, what [00:52:35] sorts of communities you fund into how you would think about doing that in a responsible way. And it's not a book that provides answers, but it's a book that provides a framework for thinking about the questions. And I think that's really important. And as I say, I'm just going to say it again. I think we have an ethical imperative to apply that kind of lens to the work we do. We don't have an ethical imperative to come up with any particular answer, but we have an ethical imperative to do the thinking and I recommend Evan's book to all right. [00:53:06] Ben: I will read it recommendation accepted. And I think, I think. Broadly, and this is just something that, I mean, sort of selfishly, but I also think like there's a lot of people who have made a lot of money in, especially in, in technology. And it's interesting because you look at sort of like you could, you could think of Alfred P Sloan and, and Rockefeller and a lot of [00:53:35] in Carnegie's as these people who made a lot of money and then started, started these foundations. But then you don't see as much of that now. Right? Like you have, you have, you have some but really the, the, the sentiment that I've engaged with a lot is that again, like sort of prioritizing market mechanisms, a implicit idea that, that, like anything, anything valuable should be able to capture that value. And I don't know. It's just like, like how do you, like, have you [00:54:08] Adam: talked to people about, yeah, I think that's a really interesting observation. I think that, and I think it's something we think about a lot is the, the different, I think about a lot is the differences in the ways that today's, you know, newly wealthy, you know, business people, particularly the tech entrepreneurs think about philanthropy. As relates to the way that they made their money. So if we look at Alfred [00:54:35] P Sloan, he he basically built general motors, right? He was a brilliant young engineer who manufactured the best ball bearings in the country for about 20 years, which turned out at the nascent automobile industry. As you can imagine, reducing friction is incredibly important and ball bearings were incredibly important and he made the best ball-bearings right. That is a real nuts. And, but nothing sexy about ball-bearings right. That is the perspective you get on auto manufacturer is that the little parts need to work really well in order for the whole thing to work. And he built a big complicated institution. General motors is a case study is the case study in American business about how you build a large. In large business that has kind of semi-autonomous parts as a way of getting to scale, right? How do you get general motors to scale? You have, you know, you have Chevy and you have a Buick and you're a [00:55:35] Pontiac and you have old's and you have Cadillac and GMC and all, you know, and this was, he was relentlessly kind of practical and institutional thinker, right across a big institution. And the big question for him was how do I create stable institutional structures that allow individual people to exercise judgment and intelligence so they can drive their parts of that thing forward. So he didn't believe that people were cogs in some machine, but he believed that the structure of the machine needed to enable the flourishing of the individual. And that's, that's how we built general motors. That does not describe. The structure of a tech startup, right? Those are move fast and break things, right? That is the mantra. There. You have an idea, you build it quickly. You don't worry about all the things you get to scale as fast as you can with as little structure as you can. You [00:56:35] don't worry about the collateral damage or frankly, much about the people that are, that are kind of maybe the collateral damage. You just get to scale and follow your kind of single minded vision and people can build some amazing institutions that way. I mean, I think it's, it's been very successful, right? For building over the last decades, you know, this incredible tech economy. Right? So I don't fault people for thinking about their business that way. But when you turn that thinking to now funding science, There's a real mismatch, I think between that thinking about institutions and institutions don't matter, the old ones are broken and the new ones can be created immediately. Right? And the fact that real research while it requires often individual leaps forward in acts of brilliance requires a longstanding functioning community. It [00:57:35] fires institutions to fund that research, to host that research that people have long, you know, that the best research is actually done by people who were engaged in various parts of very long decades, careers doing a certain thing that it takes a long time to build expertise and Eva, as brilliant as you are, you need people around you with expertise and experience. There's a real mismatch. And so there can be a reluctance to fund. Th the reluctance to have the commitment to timescales or reluctance to invest in institutions to invest in. There's a I, I think has developed a sense that we should fund projects rather than people and institutions. And that's really good for solving certain kinds of problems, but it's actually a real challenge for basic research and moving basic research forward. So I think there's a lot of opportunity to educate people. And these are super smart people in the tech sector, right. About the [00:58:35] differences between universities and which are very important institutions in all of this and star tech startups. And they really are different sorts of institutions. So I think that's a challenge for us in this sector right now. [00:58:48] Ben: What I liked. To do is tease apart why, why is this different? Like, why can't you just put in more nights to your research and like come up with the, come out with the, like the brilliant insight faster. [00:59:01] Adam: Yeah. I mean, these people who are already working pretty hard, I would say, I mean, you, you know, you're of course, you know, this really well, there are different, I mean, science has, you know, has different parts of science that work on different sorts of problems and, you know, there's, there are problems. Where there's a much more immediate goal of producing a technology that would be usable and applicable. And those require a diff organism organizing efforts in different ways. And, you know, as you well know, the, the national, you know, [00:59:35] the, the private laboratories like bell labs and Xerox labs, and so forth, played a really important role in doing basic research that was really inspired by a particular application. And they were in the ecosystem in a somewhat different way than the basic research done in the universities. You need both of them. And so it, it's not that the way that say the Sloan foundation fund sciences, if everybody only funded science that way, that would not be good. Right. But, but the, the, the big money that's coming out of the, the newly wealthy has the opportunity to have a really positive impact on basically. Yeah, but only if it can be deployed in ways that are consistent with the way that basic sciences is done. And I think that requires some education and, [01:00:22] Ben: and sort of speaking of, of institutions. The, like, as I know, you're aware, there's, there's sort of like this, this like weird Cambridge and explosion of people trying stuff. And I, I guess, like, in addition [01:00:35] to just your, your thoughts on that, I'm, I'm interested particularly if you see, if you see gaps. That people aren't trying to fill, but like, you, you, you think that you would sort of like want to, to shine spotlights on just from, from, from your, your overview position. [01:00:52] Adam: I mean, that's a great question. I, I'm not going to be able to give you any interesting insight into what we need to do. I do think I'm in great favor of trying lots of things. I mean, I love what's going on right now that people are, you know, the, that people are trying different experiments about how to, to fund science. I think that I have a couple of thoughts. I mean, I do think that most of them will fail because in the Cambrian explosion, most of things fail. Right. That is that's if they all succeeded people, aren't trying interesting enough things. Right. So that's fine. I think that there is a, I think that a danger in too much reinventing the wheel. And I, you know, one of the things I, you know, when notice is, is [01:01:35] that you know, some of the new organizations, many of them are kind of set up as a little bit hybrid organizations that they do some funding. And, but they also want to do some advocacy. They're not 5 0 1 they maybe want to monetize the thing that they're, that they're doing. And I think, you know, the, you know, if you want to set a bell labs set up bell labs, there aren't. Magic bullets for some magic hybrid organization, that's going to span research all the way from basic to products, right. And that is going to mysteriously solve the problem of plugging all of the holes in the kind of research, you know, research ecosystem. And so I think it's great that people are trying a lot of different things. I hope that people are also willing to invest in the sorts of institutions we already have. And and that there's a, that there is kind of a balance. There's [01:02:35] a little bit of a language that you start to hear that kind of runs down, that it kind of takes a perspective that everything is broken in the way we're doing things now. And I don't think that everything is broken in the way we do things. Now. I don't think that the entire research institution needs to be reinvented. I think. Interesting ideas should be tried. Right. I think there's a distinction between those two things. And I would hate to see the money disproportionately going into inventing new things. Yeah. I don't know what the right balance is. And I don't have a global picture of how it's all distributed. I would like to see both of those things happening, but I worry a little bit that if we get a kind of a narrative that the tech billionaires all start to all start to buy into that the system is broken and they shouldn't invest in it. I think that will be broken, then it will be broken and we'll [01:03:35] miss a great opportunity to do really great things, right? I mean, the, you know, the, what Carnegie and Rockefeller left behind were great institutions that have persisted long after Carnegie and Rockefeller. We're long gone and informs that Carnegie and Rockefeller could never have imagined. And I would like that to be the aspiration and the outcome of the newly wealthy tech billionaires. The idea that you might leave something behind that, that 50 or a hundred years from now, you don't recognize, but it's doing good right. Long past your own ability to direct it. Right. And that requires a long-term sense of your investment in society, your trust in other people to carry something on after you to think more institutionally and less about what's wrong with institutions, I think would be a [01:04:35] helpful corrective to much of the narrative that I see there. And that is not inconsistent with trying exciting new things. It really isn't. And I'm all in favor of that. But the system we have has actually produced. More technological progress than any other system at any other point in history by a factor that is absolutely incalculable. So we can't be doing everything wrong. [01:04:58] Ben: I think that is a perfect place to stop. Adam. Thanks for being part of idea machines. And now a quick word from our sponsors. Is getting into orbit a drag. Are you tired of the noise from rockets? Well, now with Zipple the award-winning space elevator company, you can get a subscription service for only $1,200 a month. Just go to zipple.com/ideamachines for 20% off your first two months. That's zipple.com/ideamachines.

Managing Mathematics with Semon Rezchikov [Idea Machines #44]

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2022 57:16

In this conversation, Semon Rezchikov and I talk about what other disciplines can learn from mathematics, creating and cultivating collaborations, working at different levels of abstraction, and a lot more! Semon is currently a postdoc in mathematics at Harvard where he specializes in symplectic geometry. He has an amazing ability to go up and down the ladder of abstraction — doing extremely hardcore math while at the same time paying attention to *how* he's doing that work and the broader institutional structures that it fits into. Semon is worth listening to both because he has great ideas and also because in many ways, academic mathematics feels like it stands apart from other disciplines. Not just because of the subject matter, but because it has managed to buck many of the trend that other fields experienced over the course of the 20th century. Links Semon's Website Transcript [00:00:35] Welcome back to idea machines. Before we get started, I'm going to do two quick pieces of housekeeping. I realized that my updates have been a little bit erratic. My excuse is that I've been working on my own idea machine. That being said, I've gotten enough feedback that people do get something out of the podcast and I have enough fun doing it that I am going to try to commit to a once a month cadence probably releasing on the pressure second [00:01:35] day of. Second thing is that I want to start doing more experiments with the podcast. I don't hear enough experiments in podcasting and I'm in this sort of unique position where I don't really care about revenue or listener numbers. I don't actually look at them. And, and I don't make any revenue. So with that in mind, I, I want to try some stuff. The podcast will continue to be a long form conversation that that won't change. But I do want to figure out if there are ways to. Maybe something like fake commercials for lesser known scientific concepts, micro interviews. If you have ideas, send them to me in an email or on Twitter. So that's, that's the housekeeping. This conversation, Simon Rezchikov and I talk about what other disciplines can learn from mathematics, creating and cultivating collaborations, working at different levels of abstraction. is currently a post-doc in mathematics at Harvard, where he specializes in symplectic geometry. He has an amazing ability to go up, go up and down the ladder of [00:02:35] abstraction, doing extremely hardcore math while at the same time, paying attention to how he's doing the work and the broader institutional structures that affect. He's worth listening to both because he has great ideas. And also because in many ways, academic mathematics feels like it stands apart from other disciplines, not just because of the subject matter, but because it has managed to buck many of the trends that other fields experience of the course of the 20th century. So it's worth sort of poking at why that happened and perhaps. How other fields might be able to replicate some of the healthier parts of mathematics. So without further ado, here's our conversation. [00:03:16] Ben: I want to start with the notion that I think most people have that the way that mathematicians go about a working on things and be thinking about how to work on things like what to work on is that you like go in a room and you maybe read some papers and you think really hard, and then [00:03:35] you find some problem. And then. You like spend some number of years on a Blackboard and then you come up with a solution. But apparently that's not that that's not how it actually works. [00:03:49] Semon: Okay. I don't think that's a complete description. So definitely people spend time in front of blackboards. I think the length of a typical length of a project can definitely. Vary between disciplines I think yeah, within mathematics. So I think, but also on the other hand, it's also hard to define what is a single project. As you know, a single, there might be kind of a single intellectual art through which several papers are produced, where you don't even quite know the end of the project when you start. But, and so, you know, two, a two years on a single project is probably kind of a significant project for many people. Because that's just a lot of time, but it's true that, you know, even a graduate student might spend several years working on at least a single kind of larger set of ideas because the community does have enough [00:04:35] sort of stability to allow for that. But it's not entirely true that people work alone. I think these days mathematics is pretty collaborative people. Yeah. If you're mad, you know, in the end, you're kind of, you probably are making a lot of stuff up and sort of doing self consistency checks through this sort of formal algebra or this sort of, kind of technique of proof. It makes you make sure helps you stay sane. But when other people kind of can think about the same objects from a different perspective, usually things go faster and at the very least it helps you kind of decide which parts of the mathematical ideas are really. So often, you know, people work with collaborators or there might be a community of people who were kind of talking about some set of ideas and they may be, there may be misunderstanding one another, a little bit. And then they're kind of biting off pieces of a sort of, kind of collective and collectively imagined [00:05:35] mathematical construct to kind of make real on their own or with smaller groups of people. So all of those [00:05:40] Ben: happen. And how did these collaborations. Like come about and [00:05:44] Semon: how do you structure them? That's great. That's a great question. So I think this is probably several different models. I can tell you some that I've run across. So during, so sometimes there are conferences and then people might start. So recently I was at a conference and I went out to dinner with a few people, and then after dinner, we were. We were talking about like some of our recent work and trying to understand like where it might go up. And somebody, you know, I was like, oh, you know, I didn't get to ask you any questions. You know, here's something I've always wanted to know from you. And they were like, oh yes, this is how this should work. But here's something I don't know. And then somehow we realized that you know, there was some reasonable kind of very reasonable guests as to what the answer is. Something that needed to be known would be so I guess now we're writing a paper together, [00:06:35] hopefully that guess works. So that's one way to start a collaboration. You go out to a fancy dinner and afterwards you're like, Hey, I guess we maybe solved the problem. There is other ways sometimes people just to two people might realize they're confused about the same thing. So. Collaboration like that kind of from somewhat different types of technical backgrounds, we both realized we're confused about a related set of ideas. We were like, okay, well I guess maybe we can try to get unconfused together. [00:07:00] Ben: Can I, can I interject, like, I think it's actually realizing that you are confused about the same problem as someone who's coming at it from a different direction is actually hard in and of itself. Yes. Yes. How, how does, like, what is actually the process of realizing that the problem that both of you have is in fact the same problem? Well, [00:07:28] Semon: you probably have to understand a little bit about the other person's work and you probably have to in some [00:07:35] way, have some basal amount of rapport with the other person first, because. You know, you're not going to get yourself to like, engage with this different foreign language, unless you kind of like liked them to some degree. So that's actually a crucial thing. It's like the personal aspect of it. Then you know it because maybe you'll you kind of like this person's work and maybe you like the way they go about it. That's interesting to you. Then you can try to, you know, talk about what you've recently been thinking about. And then, you know, the same mathematical object might pop up. And then that, that sort of, that might be you know, I'm not any kind of truly any mathematical object worth studying, usually has incarnations and different formal languages, which are related to one another through kind of highly non-obvious transformation. So for example, everyone knows about a circle, but a circle. Could you could think of that as like the set of points of distance one, you could think of it as some sort of close, not right. You can, you can sort of, there are many different concrete [00:08:35] intuitions through which you can grapple with this sort of object. And usually if that's true, that sort of tells you that it's an interesting object. If a mathematical object only exists because of a technicality, it maybe isn't so interesting. So that's why it's maybe possible to notice that the same object occurs in two different peoples. Misunderstandings. [00:08:53] Ben: Yeah. But I think the cruxy thing for me is that it is at the end of the day, it's like a really human process. There's not a way of sort of colliding what both of, you know, without hanging out. [00:09:11] Semon: So people. And people can try to communicate what they know through texts. So people write reviews on. I gave a few talks recently in a number of people have asked me to write like a review of this subject. There's no subject, just to be clear. I kind of gave a talk with the kind of impression that there is a subject to be worked on, but nobody's really done any work on it that you're [00:09:35] meeting this subject into existence. That's definitely part of your job as an academic. But you know, then that's one way of explaining, I think that, that can be a little bit less, like one-on-one less personal. People also write these a different version of that is people write kind of problems. People write problem statements. Like I think these are interesting problems and then our goal. So there's all these famous, like lists of conjectures, which you know, in any given discipline. Usually when people decide, oh, there's an interesting mathematical area to be developed. At some point they have a conference and somebody writes down like a list of problems and the, the conditions for these problems are that they should kind of matter. They should help you understand like the larger structure of this area and that they should, the problems to solve should be precise enough that you don't need some very complex motivation to be able to engage with them. So that's part of, I think the, the trick in mathematics. You know, different people have very different like internal understandings of something, but you reduce the statements or [00:10:35] the problems or the theorems, ideally down to something that you don't need a huge superstructure in order to engage with, because then people will different, like techniques or perspective can engage with the same thing. So that can makes it that depersonalizes it. Yeah. That's true. Kind of a deliberate, I think tactic. And [00:10:51] Ben: do you think that mathematics is. Unique in its ability to sort of have those both like clean problem statements. And, and I think like I get the sense that it's, it's almost like it's higher status in mathematics to just declare problems. Whereas it feels like in other discipline, One, there are, the problems are much more implicit. Like anybody in, in some specialization has, has an idea of what they are, but they're very rarely made lightly explicit. And then to pointing out [00:11:35] problems is fairly low status, unless you simultaneously point out the problem and then solve it. Do you think there's like a cultural difference? [00:11:45] Semon: Potentially. So I think, yeah, anyone can make conjectures in that, but usually if you make a conjecture, it's either wrong or on. Interesting. It's a true for resulting proof is boring. So to get anyone to listen to you, when you make problem, you state problems, you need to, you need to have a certain amount of kind of controllers. Simultaneously, you know, maybe if you have a cell while you're in, it's clear. Okay. You don't understand the salary. You don't understand what's in it. It's a blob that does magic. Okay. The problem is understand the magic Nath and you don't, you can't see the thing. Right? So in some sense, defining problems as part of. That's very similar to somebody showing somebody look, here's a protein. Oh, interesting. That's a very [00:12:35] similar process. And I do think that pointing out, like, look, here's a protein that we don't understand. And you didn't know about the existence of this protein. That can be a fairly high status work say in biology. So that might be a better analogy. Yeah. [00:12:46] Ben: Yeah, no, I like that a lot that math does not have, you could almost say like the substrate, that the context of reality. [00:12:56] Semon: I mean it's there, right? It's just that you have to know what to look for in order to see it. So, right. Like, you know, number theorists, love examples like this, you know, like, oh, everybody knows about the natural numbers, but you know, they just love pointing out. Like, here's this crazy pattern. You would never think of this pattern because you don't have this kind of overarching perspective on it that they have developed over a few thousand years. [00:13:22] Ben: It's not my thing really been around for a few thousand years. It's pretty [00:13:25] Semon: old. Yeah. [00:13:27] Ben: W w what would you, [00:13:30] Semon: this is just curiosity. What, what would [00:13:32] Ben: you call the first [00:13:35] instance of number theory in history? [00:13:38] Semon: I'm not really sure. I don't think I'm not a historian in that sense. I mean, certainly, you know, the Bell's equation is related to like all kinds of problems in. Like I think grease or something. I don't exactly know when the Chinese, when the Chinese remainder theorem is from, like, I I'm, I'm just not history. Unfortunately, I'm just curious. But I do think the basic server very old, I mean, you know, it was squared of two is a very old thing. Right. That's the sort of irrationality, the skirt of two is really ancient. So it must predate that by quite a bit. Cause that's a very sophisticated question. [00:14:13] Ben: Okay. Yeah. So then going, going back to collaborations I think it's a surprising thing that you've told me about in the past is that collaborations in mathematics are like, people have different specializations in the sense that the collaborations are not just completely flat of like everybody just sort of [00:14:35] stabbing at a place. And that you you've actually had pretty interesting collaborations structures. [00:14:43] Semon: Yeah. So I think different people are naturally drawn to different kinds of thinking. And so they naturally develop different sort of thinking styles. So some people, for example, are very interested in someone had there's different kinds. Parts of mathematics, like analysis or algebra or you know, technical questions and typology or whatnot. And some people just happen to know certain techniques better than others. That's one access that you could sort of classify people on a different access is about question about sort of tasting what they think is important. So some people. Wants to have a very kind of rich, formal structure. Other people want to have a very concrete, intuitive structure, and those are very different, those lead to very different questions. Which, you know, that's sort of something I've had to navigate with recently where there's a group of people who are sort of mathematical physicists and they kind of like a very rich, formal structure. And there's other [00:15:35] people who do geometric analysis. Kind of geometric objects defined by partial differential equations and they want something very concrete. And there are relations between questions about areas. So I've spent some time trying to think about how one can kind of profitably move from one to the other. But did Nash there's that, that sort of forces you to navigate a certain kind of tension. So. Maybe you have different access is whether people like these are the here's one, there's the frogs and birds.com. And you know, this, this is a real, this is a very strong phenomenon and mathematics is this, this [00:16:09] Ben: that was originally dice. [00:16:11] Semon: And maybe I'm not sure, but it's certainly a very helpful framework. I think some people really want to take a single problem and like kind of stab at it. Other people want to see the big picture and how everything fits. And both of these types of work can be useful or useless depending on sort of the flavor of the, sort of the way the person approached it. So, you know, often, you know, often collaborations have like one person who's obviously more kind of hot and kind [00:16:35] of more birdlike and more frog like, and that can be a very productive. [00:16:40] Ben: And how do you make your, like let's, let's let's date? Let's, let's frog that a little bit. And so like, what are the situations. W what, what are the, both like the success and failure modes of birds in the success and failure modes of [00:16:54] Semon: frocks. Great, good. This is, I feel like this is somehow like very clearly known. So the success so-so what frogs fail at is they can get stuck on a technical problem, which does not matter to the larger aspect of the larger university. Hmm. And so in the long run, they can spend a lot of work resolving technical issues which are then like, kind of, not really looked out there because in the end they, you know, maybe the, you know, they didn't matter for kind of like progress. Yeah. What they can do is they can discover something that is not obvious from any larger superstructure. Right. So they can sort of by directly [00:17:35] engaging with kind of the lower level details of mathematical reality. So. They can show the birds something they could never see and simultaneously they often have a lot of technical capacity. And so they can, you know, there might be some hard problem, which you know, no one, a large perspective can help you solve. You just have to actually understand that problem. And then they can remove the problem. So that can learn to lead opened kind of to a new new world. That's the frog. The birds have an opposite success and failure. Remember. The success mode is that they point out, oh, here's something that you could have done. That was easier. Here's kind of a missing piece in the puzzle. And then it turns out that's the easy way to go. So you know, get mathematical physicists, have a history of kind of being birds in this way, where they kind of point out, well, you guys were studying this equation to kind of study the typology of format of holes instead of, and you should study, set a different equation, which is much easier. And we'll tell you all this. And the reason for this as sort of like incomprehensible to mathematician, but the math has made it much easier to solve a lot of problems. That's kind of the [00:18:35] ultimate bird success. The failure mode is that you spend a lot of time piecing things together, but then you only work on problems, which are, which makes sense from this huge perspective. And those problems ended up being uninteresting to everyone else. And you end up being trapped by this. Kind of elaborate complexity of your own perspective. So you start working on kind of like an abstruse kind of, you know, you're like computing some quantity, which is interesting only if you understand this vast picture and it doesn't really shed light on anything. That's simple for people to understand. That's usually not good. If you develop a new formal world that sort of in, maybe it's fine to work on it on this. But it is in the, and partially validated by solving problems that other people could ask without any of this larger understanding. That's [00:19:26] Ben: yeah. Like you can actually be too, [00:19:31] Semon: too general, almost. That's very often a [00:19:35] problem. So so you know, one thing that one bit of mathematics that is popular among non mathematicians for interesting reasons is category. So I know a lot of computer scientists are sort of familiar with category theory because it's been applied to programming languages fairly successfully. Now category theory is extremely general. It is, you know, the, the mathematical kind of joke description of it is that it's abstract nonsense. So, so that's a technical term approved by abstract now. this is a tech, there are a number of interesting technical terms like morally true, and the proof by abstract nonsense and so forth, which have, I think interesting connotation so approved by abstract nonsense is you have some concrete question where you realize, and you want to answer it and you realize that its answer follows from the categorical structure of the question. Like if you fit this question into the [00:20:35] framework of categories, There's a very general theorem and category theory, which implies what you wanted, what that tells you in some sense of that. Your question was not interesting because it had no, you know, it really wasn't a question about the concrete objects you were looking at at all. It was a question about like relations between relations, right? So, you know, the. S. So, you know, there's this other phrase that the purpose of category theory is to make the trivial trivially trivial. And this is very useful because it lets you skip over the boring stuff and the boring stuff could actually, you get to get stuck on it for a very long time and it can have a lot of content. But so category theory in mathematics is on one hand, extremely useful. And on the other hand can be viewed with a certain amount of. Because people can start working on kind of these very upstream, categorical constructions some more complicated than the ones that appear in programming languages, which, you know, most mathematicians can't make heads or tails of what they're about. And some of those [00:21:35] are kind of not necessarily developed in a way to be made relevant to the rest of mathematics and that there is a sort of natural tension that anyone is interested in. Category theory has to navigate. How far do you go into the land of abstract nonsense? So, you know, even as the mathematicians are kind of viewed as like the abstract nonsense people by most people, even within mathematics is hierarchy continues and is it's factal yeah. The hierarchy is preserved for the same reasons. [00:22:02] Ben: And actually that actually goes back to I think you mentioned when you're, you're talking about the failure mode of frogs, which is that they can end up working on things that. Ultimately don't matter. And I want to like poke how you think about what things matter and don't matter in mathematics because sort of, I think about this a lot in the context of like technologies, like people, people always think like technology needs to be useful for, to like some, [00:22:35] but like some end consumer. But then. You often need to do things to me. Like you need to do some useless things in order to eventually build a useful thing. And then, but then mathematics, like the concept of usefulness on the like like I'm going to use this for a thing in the world. Not, not the metric, like yeah. But there's still things that like matter and don't matter. So [00:23:01] Semon: how do you think about, so it's definitely not true that people decide which mathematics matters based on its applicability to real-world concerns. That might be true and applied with medics actually, which has maybe in as much as there's a distinction that it's sort of a distinction of value and judgment. But in mathematics, So I said that mathematical object is more real in some sense, when it can be viewed from many perspectives. So there are certain objects which therefore many different kinds of mathematicians can grapple with. And there are certain questions which kind of any mathematician can [00:23:35] understand. And that is one of the ways in which people decide that mathematics is important. So for example you might ask a question. Okay. So this might be some, so here's a, here's a question which I would think is important. I'm just going to say something technical, but I can kind of explain what it means, you know, understand sort of statements about the representation theory of of the fundamental group of a surface. Okay. So what that means is if you have any loop in a surface, then you can assign to that loop a matrix. Okay. And then if you kind of compose. And then the condition of that for this assignment is that if you compose the loops, but kind of going from one after the other, then you assign that composed loop the product of his two matrices. Okay. And if you deformed the loop then the matrix you assign is preserved under the defamation. Okay. So that's the, that's the sort of question was, can you classify these things? Can you understand them? They turn out to be kind of relevant to differential equations, to partial, to of all different kinds to physics, to kind of typology. Hasn't got a very bad. So, you know, progress on that is kind of [00:24:35] obviously important because it turns out to be connected to other questions and all of mathematics. So that's one perspective, kind of the, the, the simplest, like the questions that any mathematician would kind of find interesting. Cause they can understand them and they're like, oh yeah, that's nice. Those are that's one way of measuring importance and a different one is about the. Sort of the narrative, you know, mathematics method, you just spend a lot of time tying making sure that kind of all the mathematics is kind of in practice connected with the rest of it. And there are all these big narratives which tie it together. So those narratives often tell us a lot of things that are go far beyond what we can prove. So we know a lot more about numbers. Than we can prove. In some sense, we have much more evidence. So, you know, one, maybe one thing is the Remont hypothesis is important and we kind of have much more evidence for the Riemann hypothesis in some sense, then we have for [00:25:35] any physical belief about our world. And it's not just important to, because it's kind of some basic question it's important because it's some Keystone in some much larger narrative about the statistics of many kinds of number, theoretic questions. So You know, there are other more questions which might sound abstruse and are not so simple to state, but because they kind of would clarify a piece of this larger conceptual understanding when all these conjectures and heuristics and so forth. Yeah. You know, like making it heuristic rigorous can be very valuable and that heuristic might be to that statement might be extremely complex. But it means that this larger understanding of how you generate all the heuristics is correct or not correct. And that is important. There's also a surprise. So people might have questions about which they expect the answer to be something. And then you show it's not that that's important. So if there are strong expectations, it's not that easy to form expectations in mathematics, but, [00:26:30] Ben: but as you were saying that there, there are these like narrative arcs. [00:26:35] Do something that is both like correct and defies the narrative. [00:26:39] Semon: That's an interesting, that means there must be something there, or maybe not. Maybe it's only because there was some technicality and like, you know, the technicality is not kind of, it doesn't enlighten the rest of the narrative. So that's some sort of balance which people argue about and is determined in the end, I guess, socially, but also through the production of, I don't know, results and theorems and expect mathematical experiments and so forth. [00:27:04] Ben: And to, to, so I'm gonna, I'm going to yank us back to, to the, the, the collaborations. And just like in the past, we've talked about like how you actually do like program management around these collaborations. And it felt like I got the impression that mathematics actually has like pretty good standards for how this is. What [00:27:29] Semon: do you mean by program management? Meaning [00:27:31] Ben: like like you're like, like how, like [00:27:35] how you were basically just managing your collaborators, like you you're talking about like how, what was it? It was like, you need to like wrangle people for, for. I, or yeah, or like, yeah. So you've got like, just like how to manage your collaborators. [00:27:51] Semon: So I guess [00:27:54] Ben: we were developing like a theory on that. [00:27:56] Semon: Yeah, I think a little bit. So on one hand, I guess in mathematics and math, every, so in the sciences, there's usually somebody with money and then they kind of determined what has. Is [00:28:08] Ben: this, is this a funder or is this like [00:28:10] Semon: a, I would think the guy pie is huge. So yeah, in the sciences, maybe the model is what like funding agencies, PI is and and lab members, right. And often the PIs are setting the direction. The grant people are kind of essentially putting constraints on what's possible. So they steer the direction some much larger way, but they kind of can't really see the ground to all right. And [00:28:35] then a bunch of creative work happens at lowest level. But you know, you're very constrained by what's possible in your lab in mathematics. There aren't really labs, right. You know, there are certainly places where people know more. Other places about certain parts of mathematics. So it's hard to do certain kinds of mathematics without kind of people around you who know something because most of the mathematics isn't written down. And [00:28:58] Ben: that, that statement is shocking in and of itself. [00:29:01] Semon: The second is also similar with the sciences, right? Like most things people know about the natural world aren't really that well-documented that's why it pays to be sometimes lower down the chain. You might find something that isn't known. Yeah. But so because of that, people kind of can work very independently and even misunderstand one another, which is good because that leads to like the misunderstanding can then lead to kind of creative, like developments where people through different tastes might find different aspects of the same problem. Interesting. And the whole thing is then kind of better that way. And then [00:29:34] Ben: [00:29:35] like resolving, resolving. The confusion in a legible way, [00:29:40] Semon: it sort of pushes the field. So that's, but also because everyone kind of can work on their own, you know, coordination involves, you know, a certain amount of narrative alignment. And so you have to understand like, oh, this person is naturally suited to this kind of question. This person is naturally suited to this kind of question. So what are questions where both people are. First of all, you would need both people to make progress on it. That gives you competitive advantage, which is important, extremely important in kind of any scientific landscape. And secondly if you can find a question of overlap, then, you know, there's some natural division of labor or some natural way in which both people can enlighten the other in surprising ways. If you can do everything yourself and you have some other person, like write it up, that's sort of not that phonic club. So yeah, so there's, and then there's like, kind of on a [00:30:35] larger, but that's like kind of one on a single project collaboration to do larger collaboration. You have to kind of, you know, give you have to assign essentially you have to assign social value to questions, right? Like math, unlike sort of the math is small enough that it can just barely survive. It's credit assigning system almost entirely on the basis of the social network of mathematicians. Oh, interesting. Okay. It is certainly important to have papers refereed because like it's important for somebody to read a paper and check the details. So the journals do matter, but a lot happen. So, you know, it doesn't have the same scaling. The biology or machine learning has in part, because it's a small, [00:31:20] Ben: do you know, like roughly how many mathematicians. I can, I can look this [00:31:25] Semon: up. I mean, it depends on who you count as a mathematician. So that's the technique I'm asking you. The reason, the reason I'm asking [00:31:35] that is because of course there's the American mathematical society and they publish, like, this is the number of mathematicians. And the thing is like, they count like quite a lot of people. So you actually have the decision actually dramatically changes your answer. I would say there are on the order of the. Tens of thousands of mathematicians. Like if you think about like the number of attendees of the ICM, the international Congress of mathematicians, like, and then, you know, the thing is a lot of people, so it depends on like pure mathematicians, how pure, you know, that's going to go up and down. But that's sort of the right order of magnitude. Okay. Cause which is a very small given that [00:32:12] Ben: a compared to, to most other disciplines then, especially compared to even. Science as a whole like research [00:32:20] Semon: has a whole. Yeah. So yeah, I think like if you look at like, you know, all the, if you say like, well look at the Harvard Kennedy school of business, and then they have an MBA program, which is my impression is it's serious. [00:32:35] And then you also look at like all the math pieces. Graduates and like the top 15 kind of us schools are kind of like, you know, I think the MBAs are like several times lecture. Yes. So that's, maybe I was surprised to learn that [00:32:50] Ben: that's also good. Instead of [00:32:51] Semon: like, you can look at the output rate, the flow rate, that's a very easy way to decide. Yeah. But yeah, so you have to, yeah. So kind of you, there's like kind of, depending on how, if you can let go. There are certain you have to, if you want to work with people, you have to find you, there's not, you can't really be a PI in mathematics, but if you are good at talking to people, you can encourage people to work on certain questions. So that over time kind of a larger set of questions get answered, and you can also make public statements to the and which are in some ways, invitations, like. If you guys do these [00:33:35] things, then it'll be better for you because they fit into a larger context. So therefore your work is more significant that you're actually doing them a service by explaining some larger context. And simultaneously by sort of pointing out that maybe some problem is easy or comparatively, easy to some people that you, you might not do. So that helps you if then they solve the problem because you kind of made a correct prediction of like, there is good mathematic. Yeah. So this is some complicated social game that, you know, mathematicians are not like, you know, they're kind of strange socially, but they do kind of play this game and the way in which they play this game depends on their personal preferences and how social they are. [00:34:13] Ben: And actually speaking of the social nature of mathematics I get the impression that mathematics sort of as a discipline is. It feels much closer to what one might think of as like old academia then many other disciplines in the sense that my, my impression is [00:34:35] that your, your tenure isn't as much based on like how much grant money you're getting in. And It's, it's not quite as much like a paper mill up and out [00:34:46] Semon: gay. Yeah. There's definitely pressure to publish. There, the expected publishing rate definitely depends on the area. So, you know, probability publishers more, in some ways it's a little bit more like applied mathematics, which has more of a kind of paper mill quality to it. I don't want to overstate that. But so there is space for people to write just a few papers if they're good and have got a job. Yeah. And so it's definitely true as I think in the rest of the sciences, that kind of high quality trumps quantity. Right. Then, you know, but modular, the fact that you do have, you do have to produce a certain amount of work in order to stay in academia and You know, in the end, like where you end up is very much determined on the significance of your work. Right. And if you're very productive, consistently, certainly helps with people are kind of not as [00:35:35] worried. But yeah, it's definitely not determined based on grant money because essentially there's not that much grant money to go around. So that makes it have more of this old-school flavor. And it's also true that it's still not, it's genuinely not strange for people to graduate with like just their thesis to graduate from a PhD program. And they can do very well. So long as they, during grad school learn something that other people don't know and that matters. That seems that that's helpful, but so that allows for, yeah, this. You know, th this there's this weird trick that mathematicians play, where like proofs are kind of supposedly a universal language that everyone can read. And that's not quite true, but it tries to approximate that ideal. But everyone has sort of allowed to go on their own little journey and the communities does spend a lot of work trying to defend that. What, [00:36:25] Ben: what sort of, what, what does that work [00:36:27] Semon: actually look like? Well, I think it's true that it is actually true that grad students are not required to like publish a paper a year. Yeah, [00:36:35] that's true. And that's great that people, I think, do defend that kind of position and they are willing to put their reputation on the line and the kind of larger hiring process to defend that SAC separately. It's true that, you know, You know, work that is not coming out of one of the top three people or something is can still be considered legitimate. You know, because like total it's approved, it's approved. No one can disagree with it. So if some random person makes some progress, you know, it's actually very quickly. If, if people can understand it, it's very quickly kind of. And this allows communities to work without quite understanding one or other for awhile and maybe make progress that way, which can be [00:37:18] Ben: helpful. Yeah. And and most of the funding for math departments actually comes from teaching. Is that [00:37:26] Semon: yeah, I think that a lot of it comes from teaching. A certain chunk of it comes from grants. Like basically people use grants to, in order to teach less. Yeah. That's more or [00:37:35] less how it works. You know, of course there's this, as in, you know, mathematics has this kind of current phenomenon where, you know, rich individuals like fund a department or something or they fund a prize. But by and large, it seems to be less dependent on these gigantic institutional handouts from say the NSF or the NIH, because that the expenses aren't quite yet. But it does also mean that like, it is sort of constrained and you know, it can't, you know, like big biology has like, kind of so much money, maybe not enough, not as much as it needs. I mean, these grant acceptance rates are extremely low. [00:38:13] Ben: If it's, for some reason, it's every mathematician magically had say order of magnitude more funding [00:38:21] Semon: when it matters. Yeah. So it's not clear that they would know what to do with that. There is, I thought a lot about the question of, to what degree does the mathematics is some kind of social enterprise and that's maybe true of every research [00:38:35] program, but it's particularly true in mathematics because it's sort of so dependent on individual creativity. So I've thought a lot about to what degree you could scale the social enterprise and in what directions it could scale because it's true that kind of producing mathematicians is essentially an expensive and ad hoc process. But at the same time, Plausibly true that people might be able to do research of a somewhat different kind just in terms of collaborations or in terms of like what they felt to do free to do research on if they had access to different kind of funding, like math itself is cheap, but the. Kind of freedom to say, okay, well, these next two years, I'm going to do this kind of crazy different thing. And that does not have to fit with my existing research program that could, that you have to sort of fight for. And that's like a more basic stroke thing about the structure of kind of math academia. I feel like [00:39:27] Ben: that's, that's like structurally baked into almost the entire world where there's just a ton of it's, it's [00:39:35] very hard to do something completely different than the things that you have done. Right? People, people, boat, people. Our book more inclined to help you do things like what you've done in the past. And they are inclined to push against you doing different things. Yeah, [00:39:50] Semon: that's true. [00:39:50] Ben: And, and sort of speaking of, of money in the past, you've also pointed out that math is terrible at capturing the value that it creates in this. [00:40:02] Semon: Well, yeah. You know, math is, I mean, it may be hard to estimate kind of human capital value. Like maybe all mathematicians should be doing something else. I don't really know how to reason about that, but it's definitely objectively very cheap. Just in the sense of like all the funding that goes into mathematics is very little and arguably the [00:40:21] Ben: sort of downstream, like basically every, every technical anything we have is to some extent downstream. Mathematics [00:40:32] Semon: th there is an argument to be made of that kind. You know, [00:40:35] I don't think one should over I think, you know, there are extreme versions of this argument, which I think are maybe not helpful for thinking about the world. Like you shouldn't think like, ah, yes, computer science is downstream of the program. Like this turning thing. Like, I don't really know that it's fair to say that, but it is true that whenever mathematicians produce something that's kind of more pragmatically useful for other people, it tends to be. It tends to be easy to replicate and it tends to be very robust. So there are lots of other ideas of this kind and, you know, separately, even a bunch of the value of mathematics to the larger world seems to me to not even be about specific mathematical discoveries, but to be about like the existence of this larger language and culture. So, you know, neural network people now, you know, they have all of these like echo variant neural networks. Yeah. You know, that's all very old mathematics. But it's very helpful to have kind of that stuff feel like totally, like you need to have those kinds of ideas be completely explored [00:41:35] before a totally different community can really engage with them. And that kind of complete kind of that sort of underlying cultural substrate actually does allow for different kinds of things, because doing that exploration takes a few people a lot of time. So in that sense, then it's very hard to like you know, yeah. What you do well, most mathematicians do things which will have no relevance to the larger world. Although it may be necessary for the progress of the sort of more useful basal things. Like the idea of a manifold came out of like studying elliptic functions historically and manifolds are very useful idea. And I looked at functions are or something. I mean, they're also useful, but they maybe less well known. Certainly I think a typical scientist does not know about them. Yeah. It came out, but it did come out of like studying transformation laws for elliptic functions, which is a pretty abstruse sounding thing. So, but because of that, there's just, there's no S it's very hard to find a way for mathematicians to kind of like dip into the future. And because like, you can have a startup. You know, like it's not going to be industrially useful, but it is [00:42:35] clearly on this sort of path in a way that you kind of, it's very hard to imagine removing a completely. Yeah. [00:42:42] Ben: So, no, I like it also because it's, again, it's, it's sort of this extreme example of some kind of continuum where it's like, everybody knows that math is really important, but then everybody also knows that it's not a. Immediately [00:43:02] Semon: applicable. Yeah. And there's this question of, how do you kind of make the navigation that continuum smoother and that has you know, that's like a cultural issue and like an institutional issue to some degree, you know, it's probably true that new managers do know lots of stuff, empirically they get hired and then they get, they like, their lives are fine. So it seems that, you know, people recognize that but the, you know, various also in part too, because mathematicians try to kind of preserve this sort of space for [00:43:35] people to explore. There is a lot of resistance in the pure mathematics community for people to try to like try random stuff and collaborate with people. And, you know, there is probably some niche for you know, Interactions between mathematically minded people and kind of things which are more relevant to the contemporary world or near contemporary world. And that niches one where it's navigation was a little bit obscure. It's not There aren't, there are some institutions around it, but it's, it doesn't seem to me to be like completely systematized. And that's in part because of the resistance of the pure mathematics community. Like historically, I mean, you know, it's true that like statistics, departments kind of used to be part of pure mathematics departments and then they got kicked out, probably they left and they were like, we can make more money than you. No, seriously. I don't know. I mean, there's like, I don't know the history of Berkeley stats department isn't famously one of the first ones that have this. I don't know the detailed history, but there was definitely some kind of conflict and it was a cultural conflict. Yeah. So these sorts of cultural [00:44:35] issues are things that I guess anyone has a saying, and I, I'm kind of very curious how they will evolve in the coming 50 years. Yeah. [00:44:42] Ben: To, to change the subject just a bit again the, can you, can you dig into how. Do you call them retreats? Like when, when the, the thing where you get a bunch of mathematicians and you get them to all live in a place [00:44:56] Semon: for like, so there's this interesting well that's, there are things with a couple CS there. Of course they're there. That's maybe. So there are kind of research programs. So that's where some Institute has flies together. Post-docs maybe some grad students, maybe some sort of senior faculty and they all spend time in one area for a couple of months in order to maybe make progress on some kind of idea of a question. So, yeah. That is something that there are kind of dedicated institutes to doing. In some sense, this is one of the places where like kind of external [00:45:35] funding has changed the structure of mathematics. Cause like the Institute of advanced study is basically one of these things. Yes. This Institute at Princeton where like basically a few old people, I mean, I'm kind of joking, but you know, there's a few kind of totemic people like people who have gone there because they sort of did something famous and they sit there. And then what the Institute has done yesterday actually does in mathematics is it has these semester, longer year long programs. We're just house funding for a bunch of people to space. Been there spent a year there or half a year there, where to fly in there for a few weeks, a few times in the year. And that gets everyone together in one area and maybe by interacting, they can kind of figure out what's going on in some theoretical question, a different thing that people have done in much more short term is there's like a, kind of an interesting conference format, which is like, reminds me a little bit of like unconferences or whatnot, but it's actually kind of very serious where people choose you know, hot topic. In a [00:46:35] kind of contemporary research and then they like rent out a giant house and then they have, I don't know, 20 people live in this house and maybe cook together and stuff. And then, you know, everyone there's like every learning center is like a week long learning seminar where there's some people who are like real experts in the area, a bunch of people who don't know that much, but would like to learn. And then everyone has to give a talk on subjects that they don't know. And then there's serious people. The older people can go and point out where some, if there is a confusion and yeah, everyone. So there's like talks from nine to five and it's pretty exhausting. And then afterwards, you know, everyone goes on a hike or sits in the hot tub and talks about life and mathematics and that can be extremely productive and very fun. And it's also extremely cheap because it's much cheaper to rent out a giant house than it is to rent out a bunch of hotels. So. If you're willing to do that, which most mathematicians are and a story, [00:47:25] Ben: like, I don't know if I'm misremembering this, but I remember you telling me a story where like, there were, there were two people who like needed [00:47:35] to figure something out together and like they never would have done it except for the fact that they just were like sitting at dinner together every night for, for some number of nights. [00:47:45] Semon: I. I mean, there are definitely apocryphal stories of that kind where eventually people realize that they're talking about the same thing. I can't think of an example, right? I think I told you, you asked me, you know, is there an example of like a research program where it's clear that some major advance happened because two people were in the same area. And I gave an example, which was a very contemporary example, which is far outside of my area of expertise, but which is this. You know, Peter Schultz Lauren far kind of local geometric language and stuff where basically there was at one of these at this Institute in Berkeley. They had a program and these two people were there and Schultz was like a really technically visionary guy and Fargo talked very deeply about certain ideas. And then they realized that basically like the sort of like fart, his dream could actually be made. And I think before that [00:48:35] people didn't quite realize like how far this would go. So that's kinda, I just gave you that as an example and that happens on a regular basis. That's maybe the reason why people have these programs and conferences, but it's hard to predict because so, you know, I don't really, like, I wish I could measure a rate. Yes. [00:48:50] Ben: You just need that marination. It's actually like, okay. Oh, a weird thought that just occurred to me. Yeah. That this sort of like just getting people to hang out and talk is unique in mathematics because you do not need to do cause like you can actually do real work by talking and writing on a whiteboard. And that like, if you wanna to replicate this in some other field, you would actually need that house to be like stocked with laboratory. Or something so that people could actually like, instead of just talking, they could actually like poke at whatever the [00:49:33] Semon: subject is. That would [00:49:35] be ideal, but that would be hard because experiments are slow. The thing that you could imagine doing, or I could imagine doing is people are willing to like, share like very preliminary data, then they could kind of both look at something and figure out oh, I have something to say about your final. And I, that I don't know to what degree that really happens at say biology conferences, because there is a lot of competitive pressure to be very deliberate in the disclosure of data since it's sort of your biggest asset. Yeah. [00:50:05] Ben: And is it, how, how does mathematics not fall into that trap? [00:50:11] Semon: That is a great question. In part there is. So I'm part, there are somewhat strong norms against that, like, because the community is small enough. If it's everyone finds out like, oh yeah, well this person just like scooped kind of, yeah. There's a very strong norm against scooping. That's lovely. It's okay. In certain contexts, like if, if, if it's clear for everyone, like somebody [00:50:35] could do this and somebody does the thing and it's because it was that it's sort of not really scooping. Sure. But if you, if there is really You know, word gets around, like who kind of had which ideas and when people behave in a way that seems particularly adversarial that has consequences for them. So that's one way in which mathematics avoids that another way is that there's just like maybe it's, it's actually true that different people have kind of different skills. It is a little bit less competitive structurally because it isn't like everyone is working at the same kind of three problems. And everyone has like all the money to go and like, just do the thing. And [00:51:16] Ben: it's like small enough that everybody can have a specialization such that there are people like you, you can always do something that someone else can't. [00:51:24] Semon: Often there are people, I mean, that, that might depend on who you are. But yeah, often people with. It's more like it's large enough for that to be the case. Right? Like you [00:51:35] can develop some intuition about some area where yeah. Other people might be able to kind of prove what you're proving, but you might be much better at it than them. So people will be like, yeah, why don't you do it? That's helpful. Yeah. It's that's useful. I mean, it certainly can happen that in the end, like, oh, there's some area on everyone has the same tools and then it does get competitive and people do start. Sorry. I think in some ways it has to do with like a diversity of tools. Like if, if every different lab kind of has a tool, which like the other labs don't have, then there's less reason to kind of compete. You know, then you might as well kind of, but also that has to do with the norms, right? Like your, the pressure of being the person on the ground is that's a very harsh constraint. That's not. Premiere. I mean that my understand, I guess, that is largely imposed by the norms of the community itself in the sense that like a lot of like an NIH grants are actually kind of determined by scientific committees [00:52:35] or committees of scientists. So, [00:52:38] Ben: I mean, you could argue about that, right? Because [00:52:41] Semon: don't, [00:52:42] Ben: is it, is it like, I mean, yes, but then like, those committees are sort of mandated by the structure of the funding agencies. Right. And so is it which, and there's of course a feedback loop and they've been so intertwined for decades that I'm clear which way that causality runs. [00:53:02] Semon: Yeah. So I remember those are my two guesses for how it's like one, there's just like a very strong norm against this. And you don't, you just don't, you know, if you're the person with the idea. And then you put the other person on the paper because they like were helpful. You don't lose that much. So it's just, you're not that disincentivized from doing it. Like in the end, people will kind of find out like, who did what work to some degree, even though officially credit is shared. And that means that, you know, everyone can kind of get. [00:53:35] [00:53:35] Ben: It seems like a lot of this does is depend on, on [00:53:38] Semon: scale. Yeah. It's very scale because you can actually find out. Right. And that's a trade-off right. Obviously. So, but maybe not as bad a trade off in mathematics, because it's not really clear what you would do with a lot more scale. On the other hand, you don't know, like, you know, if you look at, say a machine learning, this is a subject that's grown tremendously. And in part, you know, they have all these crazy research directions, which you, I think in the end kind of can only happen because they've had so many different kinds of people look at the same set of ideas. So when you have a lot of people looking at something and they're like empowered to try it, it is often true that you kind of progress goes faster. I don't really know why that would be false in mathematics. [00:54:23] Ben: Do you want to say anything about choosing the right level of Metta newness? Hmm. [00:54:28] Semon: Yeah. You're thinking about, I guess this is a, this is like a question [00:54:35] for, this is like a personal question for everyone almost. I mean, everyone who has some freedom over what they work on, which is actually not that many people you know, You in any problem domain, whether that's like science, like science research or whether that's like career or whatnot, or even, you know, in a company there's this kind of the, the bird frog dichotomy is replicated. What Altitude's. Yeah. So for example, you know, in math, in mathematics, you could either be someone who. Puts together, lots of pieces and spend lots of time understanding how things fit together. Or you can be someone who looks at a single problem and makes hard progress at it. Similarly, maybe in biology, you can also mean maybe I have a friend who was trying to decide whether she should be in an individual contributor machine learning research company, or. And that for her in part is Metta non-metro choice. So she [00:55:35] really likes doing kind of like explicit work on something, being down to the ground as a faculty, she would have to do more coordination based work. But that, like, let's see, you kind of have more scope. And also in many cases you are so in many areas, but not in all doing the. Is a higher status thing, or maybe it's not higher status, but it's better compensated. So like on a larger scale, obviously we have like people who work in finance and may in some ways do kind of the most amount of work and they're compensated extremely well by society. And but you need people you need, you know, very kind of talented people to work with. Yeah, problems down to the ground because otherwise nothing will happen. Like you can't actually progress by just rearranging incentive flows and having that kind of both sides of this be kind of the incentives be appropriately structured is a very, very challenging balancing act because you need both kinds of people. But you know, you need a larger system in which they work and there's no reason for that [00:56:35] system. A B there's just no structural reason why the system would be compensating people appropriately, unless like, there are specific people who are really trying to arrange for that to be the case. And that's you know, that's very hard. Yeah. So everyone kind of struggles with this. And I think because in sort of gets resolved based on personal preference. Yeah. [00:56:54] Ben: I think, I think that's, yeah. I liked that idea that the. Unless sort of by default, both like status and compensation will flow to the more Metta people. But then that ultimately will be disastrous if, if, if taken to its logical conclusion. And so it's like, we need to sort of stand up for the trend. [00:57:35]

Scientific Irrationality with Michael Strevens [Idea Machines #43]

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2022 63:07

Professor Michael Strevens discusses the line between scientific knowledge and everything else, the contrast between what scientists as people do and the formalized process of science, why Kuhn and Popper are both right and both wrong, and more. Michael is a professor of Philosophy at New York University where he studies the philosophy of science and the philosophical implications of cognitive science. He's the author of the outstanding book “The Knowledge Machine” which is the focus of most of our conversation. Two ideas from the book that we touch on: 1. “The iron rule of science”. The iron rule states that “`[The Iron Rule] directs scientists to resolve their differences of opinion by conducting empirical tests rather than by shouting or fighting or philosophizing or moralizing or marrying or calling on a higher power` in the book Michael Makes a strong argument that scientists following the iron rule is what makes science work. 2. “The Tychonic principle.” Named after the astronomer Tycho Brahe who was one of the first to realize that very sensitive measurements can unlock new knowledge about the world, this is the idea that the secrets of the universe lie in minute details that can discriminate between two competing theories. The classic example here is the amount of change in star positions during an eclipse dictated whether Einstein or Newton was more correct about the nature of gravity. Links Michael's Website The Knowledge Machine on BetterWorldBooks Michael Strevens talks about The Knowledge Machine on The Night Science Podcast Michael Strevens talks about The Knowledge Machine on The Jim Rutt Show Automated Transcript [00:00:35] In this conversation. Uh, Professor Michael And I talk about the line between scientific knowledge and everything else. The contrast between what scientists as people do and the formalized process of science, why Coon and popper are both right, and both wrong and more. Michael is a professor of philosophy at New York university, where he studies the philosophy of science and the philosophical implications [00:01:35] of cognitive science. He's the author of the outstanding book, the knowledge machine, which is the focus of most of our conversation. A quick warning. This is a very Tyler Cowen ESCA episode. In other words, that's the conversation I wanted to have with Michael? Not necessarily the one that you want to hear. That being said I want to briefly introduce two ideas from the book, which we focus on pretty heavily. First it's what Michael calls the iron rule of science. Direct quote from the book dine rule states that the iron rule direct scientists to resolve their differences of opinion by conducting empirical tests, rather than by shouting or fighting or philosophizing or moralizing or marrying or calling on a higher power. In the book, Michael makes a strong argument that scientist's following the iron rule is what makes science work. The other idea from the book is what Michael calls the Taconic principle. Named after the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who is one of the first to realize that very sensitive measurements can unlock new [00:02:35] knowledge about the world. This is the idea that the secrets of the universe that lie into my new details that can discriminate between two competing theories. The classic example, here is the amount of change in a Star's position during an eclipse dictating whether Einstein or Newton was more correct about the nature of gravity. So with that background, here's my conversation with professor Michael strengthens. [00:02:58] Ben: Where did this idea of the, this, the sort of conceptual framework that you came up with come from? Like, what's like almost the story behind the story here. [00:03:10] Michael: Well, there is an interesting origin story, or at least it's interesting in a, in a nerdy kind of way. So it was interested in an actually teaching the, like what philosophers call that logic of confirmation, how, how evidence supports or undermines theories. And I was interested in getting across some ideas from that 1940s and fifties. Scientists philosophers of science these days [00:03:35] look back on it and think of as being a little bit naive and clueless. And I had at some point in trying to make this stuff appealing in the right sort of way to my students so that they would see it it's really worth paying attention. And just not just completely superseded. I had a bit of a gear shift looking at it, and I realized that in some sense, what this old theory was a theory of, wasn't the thing that we were talking about now, but a different thing. So it wasn't so much about how to assess how much a piece of evidence supports a theory or undermines it. But was it more a theory of just what counts as evidence in the first place? And that got me thinking that this question alone is, could be a important one to, to, to think about now, I ended up as you know, in my book, the knowledge machine, I'm putting my finger on that as the most important thing in all of science. And I can't say it at that point, I had yet had that idea, but it was, [00:04:35] it was kind of puzzling me why it would be that there would, there would be this very kind of objective standard for something counting is evidence that nevertheless offered you more or less, no help in deciding what the evidence was actually telling you. Why would, why would this be so important at first? I thought maybe, maybe it was just the sheer objectivity of it. That's important. And I still think there's something to that, but the objectivity alone didn't seem to be doing enough. And then I connected it with this idea in Thomas Kuhn's book, the structure of scientific revolutions that, that science is is a really difficult pursuit that I've heard. And of course it's wonderful some of the time, but a lot of. requires just that kind of perseverance in the face of very discouraging sometimes. Oh, it's I got the idea that this very objective standard for evidence could be playing the same role that Coon Coon thought was played by what he called the paradigm bar, providing a kind of a very objective framework, which is also a kind of a safe framework, [00:05:35] like a game where everyone agrees on the rules and where people could be feeling more comfortable about the validity and importance of what they were doing. Not necessarily because they would be convinced it would lead to the truth, but just because they felt secure in playing a certain kind of game. So it was a long, it was a long process that began with this sort of just something didn't seem right about these. It didn't seem right that these ideas from the 1940s and fifties could be so, so so wrong as answers to the question. Philosophers in my generation, but answering. Yeah, no, it's, [00:06:11] Ben: I love that. I feel in a way you did is like you like step one, sort of synthesized Coon and popper, and then went like one step beyond them. It's, it's this thing where I'm sure you'd go this, this, the concept that whenever you have like two, two theories that seem equally right. But are [00:06:35] contradictory, that demand is like that, that is a place where, you know, you need more theory, right? Because like, you look at popper and it's like, oh yeah, that seems, that seems right. But then there's you look at Kuhn and you're like, oh, that seems right. And then you're like, wait a minute. Because like, they sort of can't both live in the broom without [00:06:56] Michael: adding something. Although there is something there's actually something I think. Pop Harrington about Koons ideas now. And there's lots of things that are very unpopped period, but you know, Papa's basic idea is science proceeds through reputation and Koons picture of science is a little bit like a very large scale version of that, where we're scientists now, unlike in Papa's story by scientists, we're all desperately trying to undermine theories, you know, the great Britain negative spirits. And with, with, they just assume that that prevailing way of doing things, the paradigm is going to work out okay. But in presuming that they push it to its breaking point. And [00:07:35] that process, if you kind of take a few steps back, has the look of pop and science in the sense that, in the sense that scientists, but now unwittingly rather than with their critical faculties, fully engaged and wittingly are, are taking the theory to a point where it just cannot be sustained anymore in the face of the evidence. And it progresses made because the theory just becomes antenna. Some other theory needs to be counted. So there's at, at the largest scale, there's this process of that, of success of reputation and theories. Now, Coon reputation is not quite the right word. That sounds too orderly and logical to capture what it's doing, but it is nevertheless, there is being annihilated by facts and in a way that's actually quite a period. I think that interesting. [00:08:20] Ben: So it's like, like you could almost phrase Coon as like systemic pop area. Isn't right. To like no individual scientist is trying to do reputation, but then you have like the system eventually [00:08:35] refutes. And that like, that is what the paradigm shift [00:08:37] Michael: is. That's exactly right. Oh, [00:08:39] Ben: that's fast. Another thing that I wanted to ask before we dig into the actual meat of the book is like, wow, this is, this is almost a very, very selfish question, but like, why should people care about this? Like, I really care about it. There's some, and by this, I mean like sort of the, like theories of how science works, right? Like, but I know, I know many scientists who don't care. They're just like, I tried to, I talked to them about that because then they're like, like I just, you know, it's like I do, I do. I think, [00:09:12] Michael: you know, in a way that, and that's completely fine, you know, people to drive a car, you don't know how the engine works. And in fact the best drivers may not have very much mechanical understanding at all. And it's fine for scientists to be a part of the system and do what the system requires of them without really grasping how it works most of the time. 1, 1, 1 way it becomes important is when people start wanting.[00:09:35] Science might not be improved in some ways. So there's a few, there's always a little bit of that going on at the margin. So some string theorists now want to want to relax the standards for what counts as a, as a acceptable scientific arguments so that the elegance or economy of an explanation kind of officially count in favor of a theory as well as, as well as the empirical evidence in the fashion sense. Or there's, there's quite a bit of, of momentum for reform of the publishing system and science coming out of things like the replicability crisis, the idea that actually that, you know, it's talking about science as a game, but science has been gamified to the point where it's being gamed. Yes. And so, you know, there a certain kind of ambitious individual goes into science and yeah, not necessarily. One who has no interest in knowledge, but they, once they see what the rules are, they cannot resist playing those rules to the, to the limit. And what you get is a sequence of scientists sometimes call it the least publishable unit. That's tiny little [00:10:35] results that are designed more to be published and cited in advance of scientist's career than to be the most useful, a summary of research. And then you, and you get time to simply then even worse, choosing their research direction, less out of curiosity, or the sense that they can really do something valuable for the world at large then because they see a narrower and shorter term opportunity to make their own name. Know that's not always a bad thing, but you know, no system of no system of rules, as perfect as people explain the rules more and more that the direction of science as a whole can start to veer a little bit away. Now it's a complicated issue because you changed the rules and you may lose a lot of what's good about the system. Things that you may, it may all look like it's very noble and, and so on, but you can still lose some of what's good about the system as well as fixing what's bad. So I think it's really important to understand how the whole thing works before just charging in and, and, and making a whole series of reforms. [00:11:34] Ben: [00:11:35] Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. It's like, what are the, what are the actual, like core pieces that, that drive the engine? [00:11:42] Michael: So that's the practical, that's the practical side of the answer to your question. You might, people should care. I thing it's a fascinating story. I mean, I love these kinds of stories. Like the Coon story, where we're at turn, everything turns out to be working in completely different way from the way it seems to be working with that ideology turns out to be not such a great guide to the actual mechanics of the thing. Yeah, [00:12:03] Ben: yeah, no, I mean, yeah. I think that I like that there are some people who just like, think it's fascinating and it's like also just. My, my bias has also the, like how it sort of like weaves between history, right? Like you have to like, really like, look at all of these like fascinating case studies and be like, oh, what's actually going on there. So actually to build on two things you just said could, could you make the argument that with the ref replicability crisis and [00:12:35] like sort of this idea of like P hacking, you're actually seeing, you're seeing what you like th the, the mechanisms that you described in the book in play where it sort of, it used to be that looking at P values was like, like having a good P value was considered sufficient evidence, but then we like now see that, like, having that sufficient P value doesn't, isn't actually predictive. And so now. Everybody is sort of starting to say like, well, maybe like that, that P felt like the using P value as evidence is, is no longer sufficient. And so, because the, the observations didn't match the, the, like what is considered evidence it's like the, what is considered evidence is evolving. Is that like, basically like a case, like, [00:13:29] Michael: exactly. That's exactly right. So the, the whole, the significance testing is one of these, it's a [00:13:35] particular kind of instanciation of the sort of broadest set of rules. We, this whole rule based approach to science where you set up things. So that it's very clear what counts as, as publishable evidence, you have to have a statistically significant results in that P P value testing and stuff is the, is the most widespread of kind of way of thinking about statistical significance. So it's all very straightforward, you know, exactly what you have to do. I think a lot of. Great scientific research has been done and that under that banner, yeah. Having the rules be so clear and straightforward rather than just a matter of some, the referees who referee for journals, just making their own minds up about whether this result looks like a good mind or not. It's really helped science move forward. And given scientists the security, they need to set up research the research programs that they've set up. It's all been good, but because it sort of sets up this very specific role it's possible to, for the right kind of Machiavellian mind to [00:14:35] look at those rules and say, well, let me see. I see some ways, at least in some, in some domains of research where there's plentiful data or it's fairly easy to generate. I see ways that I can officially follow the rules and yet, and technically speaking, what I'm doing is publishing something that's statistically significant and yet. Take a step back. And what happens is, is you may end up with a result, know there's the John you need is one of the, one of the big commentators on this stuff has result. Most published research is false in the title of one of his most famous papers. So you need to step back and say, okay, well, the game was working for a while. It was really, we had the game aligned to people's behavior with what, with what was good for all of us. Right. But once certain people started taking advantage of it in certain fields, at least it started not working so well. We want to hang on to the value we get out of having [00:15:35] very clear objective rules. I mean, objective in the sense that anyone can make a fair judgment about whether the rules are being followed or not, but somehow get the alignment back. [00:15:46] Ben: Yeah. And then, so it's like, so, so that game, that game went out of whack, but then sort of like there's. The broader metagame that is like that that's the, the point of the consistent thing. And then also sort of you, you mentioned string theory earlier, and as I was reading the book, I, I don't think you call this out explicitly, but I, I feel like there are a number of domains that people would think of as science now, but that sort of by your, by, by the iron law would not count. So, so string theory being one of them where it's like very hard, we've sort of reached the limit of observation, at least until we have better equipment. Another [00:16:35] one that came to mind was like a lot of evolutionary arguments were sort of, because it's based on something that is lot like is in the past there there's sort of no way to. To gather additional evidence. W would you say that, like, it's actually, you have a fairly strict bound on what counts as science? [00:16:59] Michael: It is, it is strict, but I think it's, it's not my, it's not in any way. My formulation, this is the way science really is now. It's okay. The point of sciences to is to develop theories and models and so on, and then to empirically test them. And a part of that activity is just developing the theories and models. And so it's completely fine for scientists to develop models and string theory and so on and, and develop evolutionary models of that runway ahead of the evidence. Yeah. I, you know, there where, where, where it's practically very difficult to come up with evidence testimony. I don't think that's exact that in itself is not [00:17:35] unscientific, but then that the question of course immediately comes up. Okay. So now what do we do with these models and, and The iron rule says there's only one, there's only one way to assess them, which is to look for evidence. So what happens when you're in a position with string theory or see with some models and evolutionary psychology in particular where, where it's there's there just is no evidence right now that there's a temptation to find other ways to advance those theories. And so the string theorists would like to argue for string theory on the ground of its it's unifying power, for example, that evolutionary psychologists, I think relying on a set of kind of intuitive appeal, or just a sense that there's something about the smile that sort of feels right. It really captures the experience of being a human being and say, I don't know, sexually jealous or something like that. And that's just not, that is not science. And that is not the sort of thing that. In general published in scientific journals, but yeah, the [00:18:35] question that's come up. Well, maybe we are being too strict. Maybe we, if we could, we would encourage the creation of more useful, interesting illuminating explanatorily powerful models and theories. If we allowed that, allowed them to get some prestige and scientific momentum in ways other than the very evidence focus way. Well, maybe it would just open the gates to a bunch of adventure, idle speculation. Yeah. That was way science down and distract scientists from doing the stuff that has actually resulted in 300 years or so of scientific progress. [00:19:12] Ben: And, and, and your argument would be that like for the ladder, that is well don't [00:19:21] Michael: rush in, I would say, you know, think carefully before you do it. [00:19:25] Ben: No, I mean, I find that that very another, another place where I felt like your framework, [00:19:35] I'm not quite sure what the right word is. Like sort of like there was, there was some friction was, is with especially with the the, the Taconic principle of needing to find like, sort of like very minute differences between what the theory would predict. And the reality is sort of areas you might call it like, like complex systems or emergent behavior and where sort of being able to explain sort of like what the fundamentally, just because you can explain how the building blocks of a system work does like, makes it very hard to make. It does not actually help you make predictions about that system. And I I'm I'm do you have a sense of that? How, how you expect that to work out in with, with the iron rule, because it's, it's like when there are, there are just like so many parameters that you could sort of like, argue like, well, like we either we predicted it or we didn't predict it. [00:20:34] Michael: Yeah, [00:20:35] no. Right. So, so sometimes the productions are so important that people will do the work necessary to really crank through the model. So where the forecast is the best example of that. So getting a weather forecast for five days time, you just spend a lot of money gathering data and running simulations on extremely expensive computers, but almost all of, almost all of science. There just isn't the funding for that. And so you'd never going to be able to make, or it's never going to be practically possible to make those kinds of predictions. But I think these models are capable of making other kinds of predictions. So I mean, even in the case of, of the weather models, you can, without, without, without being able to predict 10 days in advance, as long as you relax your demands and just want a general sense of say whether that climate is going to get warmer, you can make, do with a lot with, with, with many fewer parameters. I mean, in the case of, in a way that's not the greatest example because the climate is so complicated that to, to [00:21:35] even, to make these much less specific predictions, you still need a lot of information and computing power, but I think most, most science of complex systems hinges on hinges on relaxing the, the demands for, for. Of the specificity of the prediction while still demanding some kind of prediction or explanation. And sometimes, and sometimes what you do is you also, you say, well, nevermind prediction. Let's just give me a retrodiction and see if we can explain what actually happened, but the explanation has to be anchored and observable values of things, but we can maybe with some sort of economic incident or evolutionary models are a good example of this weekend. Once we've built the model after the fact we can dig up lots of bits and pieces that will show us that the course of say, we, we, we never could have predicted that evolutionary change would move in a certain direction, but by getting the right fossil evidence and so on, we can see it actually did [00:22:35] move in that direction and conforms to the model. But what we're often doing is we're actually getting the parameters in their model from the observation of what actually happened. So there are these, these are all ways that complex system science can be tested empirically one way or [00:22:52] Ben: another. Yeah. The, the thing that I guess that I'm, I'm sort of hung up on is if you want, like, if you relax the specificity of the predictions that you demand it makes it harder than to sort of compare to compare theories, right? So it's like w the, you have, you know, it's like Newton and Einstein were like, sort of were drastically different models of the world, but in re like the reality was that their predictions were, you need very, very specific predictions to compare between them. And so if, if the hole is in order [00:23:35] to get evidence, you need to re lacks specificity it makes it then harder to. Compare [00:23:41] Michael: theories. No, that's very true. So before you, before you demand, is that theories explain why things fall to the floor when dropped then? Good. Einstein let's go. Aristotle looks. Exactly. Yeah. And one reason physics has been able to make so much progress is that the model, all Sara, the models are simple enough that we can make these very precise predictions that distinguish among theories. The thing in that in complex systems sciences, we often, often there's a fair amount of agreement on the underlying processes. So say Newton versus Einstein. There's what you have is a difference in the fundamental picture of space and time and force and so on. But if you're doing something like economics or population ecology, so that looking at ecosystems, animals eating one another and so on. [00:24:35] That the underlying processes are in some sense, fairly uncontroversial. And the hard part is finding the right kind of model to put them together in a way that is much simpler than they're actually put together in reality, but that still captures enough of those underlying processes to make good predictions. And so I think because the prob that problem is a little bit different. You can, the, the that's, it's less, the, the situation is less a matter of distinguishing between really different fundamental theories and Mora case of refining models to see what needs to be included or what can be left out to make the right kinds of predictions. In particular situations, you still need a certain amount of specificity. Obviously, if you, if you really just say, I'm not going to care about anything about the fact that things fall downwards rather than up, then you're not going to be able to refine your models very far before you run out of. It's to give you any further guidance. That's, that's [00:25:35] very true. Yeah. But typically that complex systems kinds of models are rather more specific than that. I mean, usually they're too specific and they give you, they, they, they say something very precise that doesn't actually happen. Right. And what you're doing is you're trying to bring that, that particular prediction closer to what really happens. So that gives, and that gives you a kind of that gives you something to work towards bringing the prediction towards the reality while at the same time not demanding of the model that already make a completely accurate prediction. [00:26:10] Ben: Yeah. But that makes sense. And so sort of to like another sort of track is like what do you think about like theory free? Predictions. Right? So so like the extremity exam question would be like, could a, like very large neural net do science. Right. So, so if you had no theory at all, but [00:26:35] incredibly accurate predictions, like sort of, how does that square with, with the iron rule [00:26:41] Michael: in your mind? That's a great question. So when I formulate the iron Roy, I build the notion of explanation into it. Yeah. And I think that's functioned in, in an important way in the history of science especially in fields where explanation is actually much easier than prediction, like evolutionary modeling, as I was just saying. Now when you have, if you have the, if you, if your, if your model is an effect, then you're on that, that just makes these predictions it looks, it looks like it's not really providing you with an explanatory theory. The model is not in any way articulating, let's say the causal principles, according to which the things that's predicting actually happen. And you might think for that reason, it's not, I mean, of course this thing could always be an aid there's no, it's not it almost anything can have a place in science as a, as a, as a tool, as a stepping stone. Right. So could you cook, but quickly [00:27:35] you say, okay, we now have we now have we've now finished doing the science of economics because we've found out how to build these neural networks that predict the economy, even though we have no idea how they work. Right. I mean, I don't think so. I don't think that's really satisfying because it's not providing us with the kind of knowledge that science is working towards, but I can imagine someone saying, well, maybe that's all we're ever going to get. And what we need is a broader conception of empirical inquiry. Yeah. That doesn't put so much emphasis on an explanation. I mean, what do you want to do. To be just blindsided by the economy every single time, because you insist on a explanatory theory. Yeah. Or do you want, what do you want to actually have some ability to predict what's going to happen to make the world a better place? Well, of course they want to make the world a better place. So we've, I think we've focused on building these explanatory theories. We've put a lot of emphasis, I would say on getting explanations. Right. But, [00:28:35] but scientists have always have always played around with theories that seem to get the right answer for reasons that they don't fully comprehend. Yeah. And you know, one possible future for science or empirical inquiry more broadly speaking is that that kind of activity comes to predominate rather than just being, as I said earlier, a stepping stone on the way to truly explanatory theories. [00:29:00] Ben: It's like, I sort of think of it in terms of. Almost like compression where the thing that is great about explanatory theories is that it compresses all, it just takes all the evidence and it sort of like just reduces the dimension drastically. And so I'm just sort of like thinking through this, it's like, what would a world in which sort of like non explanatory predictions is like, is fully admissible. Then it just leads to sort of like some exponential [00:29:35] explosion of I don't know, like of whatever is doing the explaining. Right? Cause it just, there there's never a compression. From the evidence down to a theory, [00:29:47] Michael: although it may be with these very complicated systems that even in an explanatory model is incredibly uncompressed. Yeah, exactly. Inflated. So we just have to, I mean, I think it's, it's kind of amazing. This is one of my other interests is the degree to which it's possible to build simple models of complicated systems and still get something out of them, not precise predictions about, about, about what's going to happen to particular components in the system. You know, whether, whether this particular rabbit is going to get eaten yeah. Tomorrow or the next day, but, but more general models about how say increasing the number of predators will have certain effects on the dynamics of the system or, or you know, how the kinds of the kinds of things that population ecologists do do with these models is, is, is answer questions. So this is a bit of an example of what I was saying earlier [00:30:35] about making predictions that are real predictions, but but a bit more qualitative, you know, will. Well one of the very first uses of these models was to answer the question of whether just generally killing a lot of the animals in an ecosystem will lead the the prey populations to increase relatively speaking or decrease. It turns out, but in general they increase. So I think this was after this was in the wake of world war one in Italy George, during world war one, there was less fishing because it's just a sailor, but we're also Naval warfare, I guess, not, maybe not so much in the Mediterranean, but in any case there was, there were, there was less fishing. So it was sort of the opposite of, of killing off a lot of animals in the ecosystem. And the idea was to explain why it was that certain just patterns and that increase in decrease in the populations of predator and prey were served. So some of the first population ecology models were developed to predict. So it's kind of a, and these are tiny. These, this [00:31:35] is, I mean, here you are modeling this ocean. That's full of many, many different species of fish. And yet you just have a few differential equations. I mean, that look complicated, but the amount of compression is unbelievable. And the fact that you get anything sensible out of it at all is truly amazing. So we've kind of been lucky so far. Maybe we've just been picking the low-hanging fruit. But there's a lot of that fruit to be had eventually though, maybe we're just going to have to, and, you know, thankfully there're supercomputers do science that way. Yeah. [00:32:06] Ben: Or, or, or developed sort of a, an entirely different way of attacking those kinds of systems. I feel like sort of our science has been very good at going after compressible systems or I'm not even sure how to describe it. That I feel like we're, we're starting to run into all of these different systems that don't, that sort of aren't as amenable [00:32:35] to to, to Titanic sort of like going down to really more and more detail. And so I, I I'd always speculate whether it's like, we actually need like new sort of like, like philosophical machinery to just sort of like grapple with that. Yeah. [00:32:51] Michael: When you modeling, I mean, festival, they might be new modeling machinery and new kinds of mathematics that make it possible to compress things that were previously incompressible, but it may just be, I mean, we look at you look at a complicated system, like the, like in an ecosystem or the weather or something like that. And you can see that small, small differences and the way things start out can have big effects down the line. So. What seems to happen in these cases where we can have a lot of compression as that, those, although those small, those there's various effects of small, small variations and initial conditions kind of cancel out. Yeah. So it may be, you change things [00:33:35] around and it's different fish being eaten, but still the overall number of each species being eaten is about the same, you know, it kind of all evens out in the end and that's what makes the compression possible. But if that's not the case, if, if these small changes make differences to the kinds of things we're trying to predict people, of course often associate this with the metaphor of the butterfly effect. Then I dunno if compression is even possible. You simply, well, if you really want to predict whether, whether there's going to be an increase in inflation in a year's time or a decrease in inflation, and that really every person that really does hinge on the buying decisions of. Some single parent, somewhere in Ohio, then, then you just need to F to, to figure out what the buying decisions of every single person in that in the economy are in and build them in. And yet at the same time, it doesn't, it, it seems that everyone loves the butterfly effect. [00:34:35] And yet the idea that the rate of inflation is going to depend on this decision by somebody walking down the aisles of a supermarket in higher, that just doesn't seem right. It does seem that things kind of cancel out that these small effects mostly just get drowned out or they, they kind of shift things around without changing their high-level qualitative patents. Yeah. Well, [00:34:56] Ben: I mean, this is the diversion, but I feel like that that sort of like touches right on, like, do you believe in, in like the forces theory of history, more like the great man theory of history, right? And then it's like, and people make arguments both ways. And so I think that. And we just haven't haven't figured that out. Actually split like the speaking of, of, of great man theory of history. The thing, like an amazing thing about your book is that you, you sort of, I feel like it's very humanistic in the sense of like, oh, scientists are people like they do like lots of things. They're [00:35:35] not just like science machines. And you have this, like this beautiful analogy of a coral reef that you, that, that scientists you know, contribute, like they're, they're, they're like the living polyps and they build up these they're, they're sort of like artifacts of work and then they go away and it, they, the new scientists continue to build on that. And I was sort of wondering, like, do you see that being at odds with the fact that there's so much tacit knowledge. In science in the sense that like you F for most fields, I found you probably could not reconstruct them based only on the papers, right? Like you have to talk to the people who have done the experiments. Do you see any tension [00:36:23] Michael: there? Well, it's true that the, the metaphor of the coral reef doesn't doesn't capture that aspect of science. It's very true. So I think on the one hand that what's what is captured by the metaphor is the idea that the, [00:36:35] the, what science leaves behind in terms of, of evidence that can is, is, is interpreted a new every generation. So each new generation of scientists comes along and, and, and, and sort of looks at the accumulated fact. I mean, this is going to sound it, this is, this makes it sound. This sounds a little bit fanciful, but you know, in some sense, that's, what's going on, looks at the facts and says, well, okay, how shall I, what are these really telling me? Yeah. And they bring their own kind of human preconceptions or biases. Yeah. But none of these break-ins the preconceptions and biases are not necessarily bad things. Yeah. They look at it in the light of their own mind and they are reinterpret things. And so the scientific literature is always just to kind of a starting point for this thought, which, which really changes from generation to generation. On the other hand, at the same time, as you just pointed out, scientists are being handed certain kinds of knowledge, [00:37:35] which, which are not for them to create a new, but rather just to kind of learn how to just have a use various instruments, how to use various statistical techniques actually. And so there's this continuity to the knowledge let's, as I say, not captured at all by the reef metaphor, both of those things are going, are going on. There's the research culture, which well, maybe one way to put it. It's the culture, both changes stays the same, and it's important that it stays the same in the sense that people retain their, know how they have for using these instruments until eventually the instrument becomes obsolete and then the culture is completely lost, but it's okay. Most of the time if it's completely lost. But on the other hand, there is this kind of always this fresh new re-interpretation of the, of the evidence simply because the the interpretation of evidence is is a rather subjective business. And what the preceding generations are handing on is, is not, is, should be seen more as a, kind of [00:38:35] a data trove than, as, than a kind of a body of established knowledge. But [00:38:43] Ben: then I think. Question is, is it's like, if, what counts as evidence changes and all you are getting is this data trove of things that people previously thought counted as evidence, right? Like, so you know, it's like, they all, all the things that were like, like thrown out and not included in the paper doesn't like that make it sort of harder to reinterpret it. [00:39:12] Michael: Well, there's, I mean, yeah. The standards for counselors, evidence, I think of as being unchanging and that's an important part of the story here. So it's being passed on, it's supposed to be evidence now of course, some of it, some of it will turn out to be the result of faulty measurements, all these suspicious, some of that even outright fraud, perhaps. And so, and so. To some extent, that's [00:39:35] why you wouldn't want to just kind of take it for granted and they get that, that side of things is not really captured by the reef metaphor either. Yeah. But I think that the important thing that is captured by the metaphor is this idea that the, what, what's the thing that really is the heritage of science in terms of theory and evidence, is that evidence itself? Yeah. It's not so much a body of knowledge, although, you know, that knowledge can, it's not that it's, it's not, it's not that everyone has to start from scratch every generation, but it's, it's this incredibly valuable information which may be, you know, maybe a little bit complicated in some corners. That's true, but still it's been generated according to the same rules that or, you know, 10 to. by the same rules that we're trying to satisfy today. Yeah. And so, which is just as [00:40:35] trustworthy or untrustworthy as the evidence we're getting today. And there it is just recorded in the animals of science. [00:40:41] Ben: So it's much more like the, the thing that's important is the, like the, the process and the filtering mechanism, then the, the, the specific artifacts that yeah. [00:40:55] Michael: Come out, I'll make me part of what I'm getting at with that metaphor is the scientists have scientists produce the evidence. They have their, an interpretation of that evidence, but then they retire. They die. And that interpretation is not really, it doesn't need to be important anymore enough and isn't important anymore. Of course, they may persuade some of their graduate students to go along with their interpretation. They may be very politically powerful in their interpretation, may last for a few generations, but typically ultimately that influence wanes and What really matters is, is, is the data trove. Yeah. I mean, we still, it's not, as you, as you said, it's not perfect. We have to regard it with that [00:41:35] somewhat skeptical eye, but not too skeptical. And that's the, that's the, the real treasure house yeah. Of [00:41:43] Ben: science and something that I was, I was wondering, it's like, you, you make this, this really, you have a sentence that you described, you say a non event such as sciences non-rival happens, so to speak almost everywhere. And I would add, like, it happens almost everywhere all the time, and this is, this is wildly speculative. But do you think that there would have been any way to like, to predict that science would happen or to like no. There was something missing. So like, could, could we then now, like, would there be a way to say like, oh, we're like, we're missing something crucial. If that makes sense, like, could we, could we look at the fact that [00:42:35] science consistently failed to arrive and ask, like, is there, is there something else like some other kind of like like intellectual machinery that also that has not arrived. Did you think, like, is it possible to look for that? [00:42:51] Michael: Oh, you mean [00:42:52] Ben: now? Yeah. Or like, like, or could someone have predicted science in the past? Like in [00:42:57] Michael: the past? I, I mean, okay. I mean, clearly there were a lot of things, highly motivated inside. Why is thinkers. Yeah. Who I assume I'd have loved to sell the question of say configuration of the solar system, you have that with these various models floating around for thousands of years. I'm not sure everyone knows this, but, but, but, but by, you know, by the time of the Roman empire, say that the model with the sun at the center was well known. The muddle with the earth at the central is of course well known and the model where the earth is at the center, but then the [00:43:35] sun rotates around the earth and the inner planets rotate around the sun was also well known. And in fact was actually that this always surprises me was if anything, that predominant model in the early middle ages and in Western Europe, it had been kind of received from late antiquity from that, from the writers at the end of the Roman empire. And that was thought to be the, the kind of the going story. Yeah. It's a complicated of course, that there are many historical complications, but I, I take it that someone like Aristotle would have loved to have really settled that question and figured it out for good. He had his own ideas. Of course, he thought the earth had to be at the center because of its that fit with his theory of gravity, for example, and made it work and having the Senate, the city just wouldn't wouldn't have worked. And for various other reasons. So it would have been great to have invented this technique for actually generating evidence that that in time would be seen by everyone has decisively in favor of one of these theories, the others. So they must have really wanted it. [00:44:35] Did they think, did they themselves think that something was missing or did they think they had what they needed? I think maybe Aristotle thought he had what was needed. He had the kind of philosophical arguments based on establishing kind of coherence between his many amazing theories of different phenomena. Know his. Falling bodies is a story about that. The solar system, as of course, he would not have called it the, the planets and so on, and it all fit together so well. And it was so much better than anything anyone else came up with. He may have thought, this is how you establish the truth of, of of the geocentric system with the earth at the center. So now I don't need anything like science and there doesn't need to be anything like science, and I'm not even thinking about the possibility of something like science. Yeah. And that, to some extent, that explains why someone like Aristotle, who seemed to be capable of having almost any idea that could be had, nevertheless did [00:45:35] not seem to have, sort of see a gap to see the need, for example, for precise, qualitative experiments or, or, or even the point of doing them. Yeah. It's, you know, that's the best, I think that's the most I can say. That I don't, I let myself looking back in history, see that people felt there was a gap. And yet at the same time, they were very much aware that these questions were not being said, or [00:46:04] Ben: it was just it just makes me wonder w w some, some period in the future, we will look back at us and say like, oh, that thing, right. Like, I don't know, whatever, like, Mayans, right? Like how could you not have figured out the, like my antigenic method? And it's just it, I, I just find it thought provoking to think, like, you know, it's like, how do you see your blind spots? [00:46:32] Michael: Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm a philosopher. And we in, in [00:46:35] philosophy, it's still, it's still much like it was with Aristotle. We have all these conflicting theories of say you know, justice. What, what really makes the society just to what makes an act. Or even what makes one thing cause of another thing. And we don't really, we don't know how to resolve those disputes in a way that will establish any kind of consensus. We also feel very pleased with ourselves as I take it. Aristotle's are these really great arguments for the views? We believe in me, that's still sort of quite more optimistic maybe than, than we ought to be. That we'll be able to convince everyone else. We're right. In fact, what we really need and philosophers, do you have this thought from time to time? There's some new way of distinguishing between philosophical theories. This was one of the great movements of early 20th century philosophy. That logical positivism was one way. You can look at it as an attempt to build a methodology where it would be possible to use. [00:47:35] And in effect scientific techniques to determine what to, to adjudicate among philosophical theories, mainly by throwing away most of the theories as meaningless and insufficiently connected to empirical facts. So it was a, it was a brutal, brutal method, but it was an idea. The idea was that we could have, there was a new method to be had that would do for philosophy. What, what science did for, you know, natural philosophy for physics and biology and so on. That's an intriguing thought. Maybe that's what I should be spending my time thinking about, please. [00:48:12] Ben: I, I do want to be respectful of your time, the like 1, 1, 1 last thing I'd love to ask about is like, do you think that and, and you, you talked about this a bit in the book, is that, do you think that the way that we communicate science has become almost too sterile. And sort of one of my, my going concerns [00:48:35] is this the way in which everybody has become like super, super specialized. And so, and sort of like once the debate is settled, creating the very sterile artifacts is, is, is useful and powerful. But then as, as, as you pointed out as like a ma as a mechanism of like, actually sort of like communicating knowledge, they're not necessarily the best. But, but like, because we've sort of held up these like sterile papers as the most important thing it's made it hard for people in one specialization to actually like, understand what's going on in another. So do you think that. That, that, that we've sort of like Uber sterilized it. You know, it's like, we talked earlier about people who want to, to change the rules and I'm very much with you on like, we should be skeptical about that. But then at the same time you see that this is going [00:49:35] on. [00:49:35] Michael: Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, there's a real problem here, regardless, you know, whatever the rules of the problem of communicating something as complicated as scientific knowledge or the really, I should say the state of scientific play because often what needs to be communicated is not just somebody that's now been established beyond any doubt, but here's what people are doing right now. Here's the kind of research they're doing here are the kinds of obstacles they're running into to communicate, to, to put that in a form where somebody can just come along and digest it all easily. I think it was incredibly difficult, no matter what the rules are. Yeah. It's probably not the best use of most scientists time and to try to present their work in that way. It's better for them just to go to the rock face and start chipping away at their and little local area. So what, what you need is either for a scientist to take time out from time to time. And I mean there exists these publications review [00:50:35] publications, which try to do this job. That's true. So that people in related fields, you know, typically in the typically related fields means PhD in the same subjects. They're usually for the nearest neighbors to see what's going on, but often they're written in ways that are pretty accessible. I find. So then you create, you create a publication that simply has a different set of rules. The point here is not to in any way to evaluate the evidence, but simply to give a sense of the state of play for. To reach further a field, you have science journalists or what's going on with newspapers and magazines right now is because it's not very good for serious science journalism. And then you have scientists and people like me, who, for whatever reason, take some time out from what they usually do to really, really look kind of a self-standing project to explain what's going on those activities all to some extent, take place outside the narrow narrow view of the [00:51:35] iron rule. So, and I think, I think it's, it's going okay. Given the difficulty of the task. It seems to me that that the, the, the knowledge of the information is being communicated in a, in a somewhat effective, accessible way. I mean, not that if anything, the real, the real, the real barriers to. Some kinds of fruitful, interdisciplinary thinking, not just that it's hard for one mind to simply take on all this stuff that needs to be taken on no matter how effectively, even brilliantly it's communicated the world is just this very complicated place. Yeah. You know, one, one thing I'm interested in historically not, I mean, just, I find fascinating is that fruitfulness of certain kinds of research programs that came out of came out of finding serious wars, like in particular, the second world war, you threw a bunch of people together and they had to solve some problem, like [00:52:35] building at a bomb , it's usually something, something horrendous or a a device, the device for the guns and bombers and so on that would allow that. To rather than having to bit very skillfully. I forget the word for it. You know, you kind of have to put your guide ahead of where the enemy fighter so by the time that your, your, your bullets get there, the plane arrives at the same time, but they built these really sophisticated analog computers basically would do the job. So the Ghana, some, you know, some 19 year olds, like just pointed the plane again. Yeah. And a lot of problems to do with logistics and weather forecasting. And so on this, these, these, the need to have that done through together, people from very different areas in engineering and science and so on and resulted in this amazing explosion. I think if knowledge [00:53:35] it's a very, it's a very attractive period in the history of human thought. When you go back and look at some of the things people were writing in the late forties and fifties, Computers, how the mind works. And so on. And I think some of that is coming out from this, this kind of almost scrambling process that that happened when, when these very specific kind of military engineering problems are solved by throwing people together who never normally would have talked to one another. Maybe we need a little bit of that. Not the war. Yeah. But [00:54:08] Ben: I have a friend who described this as a serious context of use is it is a thing. And it's, I, I mean, I'm, I'm incredibly biased towards looking at that period. Okay. But [00:54:20] Michael: I guess it's connected to what you're doing. [00:54:23] Ben: Absolutely. Is I do you know who. Yeah. So, so he actually wrote a series of memoirs and I just there reprinting it. I wrote the forward to it. So that's, [00:54:35] so I'm like, I agree with you very strongly. And it is it's. I find, I always find that fascinating because I feel like there's, there's like this. I mean, there's this paradigm that sort of got implemented after world war II, where do you think like, oh, like theory leads to applied science leads to leads to technology, but you actually see all these, these places where like, trying to do a thing makes you realize a new theory. Right. And you see similar thing with like like, like the steam engine, right? Like that's how we get thermodynamics is it's like what, like that's a great piece of work that's right, right. Yeah. So that's, I mean, like that, that absolutely plays to my biases that like, yeah, we. Like not, not doing interdisciplinary things for their own sake. Like just being like, no, like let's get these people that are rude, but like having very serious contexts of use that can like drive people having [00:55:32] Michael: problem to solve. It's not just the case [00:55:35] of kind of enjoying kind of chatting about what you each do. And then just going back to the thing you were doing before. Yeah. Feeling, feeling enriched. Yeah. But otherwise I'm changed it. It's interesting [00:55:46] Ben: though, because the incentives in that situation sort of like now fall outside of the iron rule right. Where it's like, it's like, you don't care. Like you don't care about like, I mean, I guess to some extent you could argue like the thing needs to work. And so if it works, that is evidence that your, your theory is, is [00:56:09] Michael: correct. That's true. But, you know, but I think as you're about to say, engineering is not science and it's not it's the own rule is not overseeing engineering. It's the it's engineering is about making things that work and then about producing evidence for, or against various ideas. That's just a kind of a side effect, [00:56:27] Ben: but then it can sort of like, I guess it can like spark those ideas that people then sort of like take, I [00:56:35] was like, I mean, in my head, it's all of this, like I think of what would I call like phenomena based cycles where like, there's, there's like this big, like cyclical movement where like you discover this like phenomena and then you like, can theorize it and you use that theory to then do like, I dunno, like build better microscopes, which then let you make new observations, which let you discover new phenomena. [00:57:00] Michael: It's really difficult to tell where things are going. Yeah. I think the discovery of plate tectonics is another good example of this sea, of these, all of these scientists doing things that, that certainly not looking into the possible mechanisms for continental drift, right. But instead, getting interested for their own personal reasons and doing things that don't sound very exciting, like measuring the magnet, the measuring the ways that the orientation of the magnetic field has changed over past history. By looking at the, by basically digging up bits of rock and tests, looking at the orientations of the, [00:57:35] of the iron molecules or whatever, and the lock and, you know, it's, I mean, it's not, it's not completely uninteresting, but in itself it sounds like a kind of respectable, but probably fairly dull sideline and geology. And then things like that. We're developing the ability to meet very precise measurements of the gravitational field. Those things turn out to be. Key to understanding this, this amazing fact about the way the whole planet works. Yeah. But nobody could have understood in advance that, that they would play that role. What you needed was for a whole bunch of, that's not exactly chaos, but I kind of I kind of diversity that might look almost, it might look rather wasteful. Yeah. That's very practical perspective to, to blossom. Yeah. This is, [00:58:29] Ben: I, I truly do think that like, moving forward knowledge involves like being almost like [00:58:35] irresponsible, right? Like if you had to make a decision, it's like, it's like, should we fund these people who are going in like measuring magnetic fields just for, for funsies. Right. And it's like, like, like from, from like a purely rational standpoint, it's like, no, but yeah, [00:58:51] Michael: the reason that sort of thing happens is cause a bunch of people decide they're interested in. Yeah, persuade the students to do it too. And you know, whether they could explain it to the rest of the world, actually that's another, there was also a military angle on that. I don't know if you know that, but the, the, some of the mapping of the ocean floors that was also crucial to the discovery of plate tectonics in the fifties and sixties was done by people during the war with the first sonar systems who nobody's supposed to be, you know, finding submarines or whatever, but decided, Hey, it would be kind of interesting just to turn the thing on and leave it on and sort of see what's down there. Yeah. And that's what they did. And that's how some of those first maps started being put together. [00:59:35] That's [00:59:36] Ben: actually one of the, one of my concerns about trying to do science with, with like no networks is. How many times do you see someone just go like, huh, that's funny. And like, like so far you can't like computers. Like they can sort of like find what they're setting out to find or like they have a, or they, they almost have like a very narrow window of what is considered to evidence. And perhaps like through, through your framework the, the thought of like, huh, that's funny is like you're someone's brain, all of a sudden, like take something as evidence that wasn't normally like supposed to be evidence. Right. So it's like, you're doing like one set of experiments and then you just like, notice this like completely different thing. Right. And you're like, oh, like maybe that's actually like a different piece of evidence for something completely different. And then it opens up a rabbit hole. [01:00:31] Michael: Yeah. This is another one of those cases though, with.[01:00:35] Sort of the, some kind of creative cause it, and they do think it's incredibly important that scientists not get distracted by things like this. On the other hand, it would be terrible if scientists never got distracted by things like this. And I guess I, one thing I see with the iron rule is it's is it's a kind of a social device for making scientists less distracted. Well, not putting the kind of mental fetters on that would, would make it impossible for them ever to become distracted. [01:01:05] Ben: And maybe perhaps like the, like the, the distraction and like saying, oh, that's funny. It's like the natural state of human affairs. [01:01:12] Michael: Well, I think so. I think if we, we would all be like Aristotle and it turns out it was better for science fair, actually a little bit less curious and yeah. And it's interesting and variable and we had actually our, so [01:01:24] Ben: one could almost say that like the, the iron rule, like w w would you say it's accurate that like the iron rule is absolutely. But so [01:01:35] is breaking in the sense that like, like if, if like somehow there, like you could enforce that, like every single person only obeyed it all the time science, like we, we actually, we make serendipitous discoveries. And so it's like in order to make those, you need to break the rule, but you can't have everybody running around, breaking the rule all the [01:01:57] Michael: time. All right. Put it a little bit differently. Cause I see the rule list is not so much, it's not so much a rural for life. And for thinking is for, for sort of publishing activity. So you don't, you're not, you're not technically breaking the rule when you think. Huh? That's funny. And you go off and start thinking your thoughts. You may not be moving towards. Yeah. It has the kind of scientific publication that, that satisfies the role. But nor are you breaking. The F, but if all scientists can, as it were live to the iron rule, not just in there, not just when they took themselves to be playing a game in every way that they thought about [01:02:35] they, they, they thought about the, the point of their lives as, as kind of investigators of nature. Then, I mean, that's, people are just not like that. It's hard to imagine that you could really, that would ever really happen. Although, you know, to some extent, I think our science education system does encourage it. Yeah. But if that really happened, that would probably be disastrous. We need, it's like the pinch of salt, you know, if you only want to pinch, but without it, it's not good. Yeah. That [01:03:06] Ben: seems like an excellent place to end. Thank you so much for being part of idea missions. [01:03:35]

There Ain't No Business Like No Business

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2021 26:49

Show notes:Links:Bold Badgers NFTMantis scooterRidwellWrite for HoneybadgerTranscript:*note - this is an unedited automatically generated transcript with about 80% accuracy*Josh: So we really are we doing this, uh, super quick. Do we need to like speed up our voices? ArtificiallyBen: The chipmonk episode.Starr: There you go. No, we should just, we should slow them down. So it'll um, we can just record a minute episode and then we'll take minutes to listen to it.Josh: Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's what we've been doing all along. That's our life hack is it takes us minutes to record these episodes and you listened to them in minutes.Starr: Yeah. So that's the, um, so I'll fill in our listeners. We, um, we miss our normal recording day on Friday, and so we're making it up on a Monday, which means like we're jam packed in with a bunch of other stuff. Um, so this may be a little shorter than usual and I'm sorry. I know you just have to have all of us all the time and we're just giving it all we can right now.Josh: Yeah, it'll be just as off topic though. So, um,Starr: I would thank God.Ben: Yeah. Speaking, speaking of off topic, I have, I have a public service announcement to make. As, as you know, I've been getting more into the electric vehicles scene, uh, personal mobility, micro mobility, all that kind of fun stuff. And I, you know, a few months ago bought an electric scooter. It's a mantis for those who are curious, who are in the know, uh, and I've been really enjoying that, like riding back and forth to work and goofing off and that sort of thing. But the thing that's, the public service announcement is, uh, wear a helmet. If you're going to ride one of these pillars. I just, this past week saw two different people riding on scooters, similar to mine, like higher powered scooters, mixing it up with traffic, like on mile per hour roads and not wearing a helmet. And I just thought that is insane. Like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, yeah, you should definitely wear a helmet if you're going to ride electric scooter at miles an hour, just saying that's my PSA.Josh: I did go for, I went for a, my first ride on an EBI bike, um, last week and I must confess I did not wear a helmet. And, uh, I have to say it was, you know, it was kind of fun. Like, you know, little dangerous, there was no traffic. Like there was very little traffic, so in my defense.Ben: Okay. That's a plus. Do you remember what kind of bike your Rover's like a super ? Like one of those modelsJosh: I have, I have a very bad memory for names of things and I was told, but, uh, no, I don't know, but actually I was, it was with, uh, it was the bike of, uh, Mike Perrin, who is a friend of the show and creator of sidekick. So I'm sure he will, uh, hopefully listen to this and, and let us know. And then we can fill everyone in the next week. MaybeBen: I think, I think he has a super . It's a, and that's a pretty sweet,Josh: It's like the super it's like one of the fastest ones on the market, he said, yeah, cool. Or something like that.Ben: I'm going to have to get down to Mike's house and borrow some of his bikes. AndJosh: It was a lot of fun. I'd never, I'd never done that before. And I, I get the appeal now.Ben: Yeah. So when, when I got my scooter, Mike was like, I don't know, scooters. They're kind of, uh, I don't exactly what he tweeted, but he's like, yeah, they're kind of sketchy because they're not very stable and stuff and he's right. They are integrated stable compared to the bikes, but it's still a lot of fun. So I just wear a full face helmet to counteract the wobbliness. Yeah.Starr: Did y'all know I have a, an electric bike? No, it's called a Peloton.Josh: You were so smug with that one.Starr: It's the perfect bike for me because it doesn't move. Um, it's like all the, got all the nice things about the bike, like the workout, but you don't go anywhere. You don't have to Dodge any traffic. Uh, don't have to wear a helmet screen.Josh: Yeah. Those sound, those do sound seriously though. Those, those, uh, look pretty, pretty nice.Ben: Yeah. I have, I have a low-tech Peloton. It's just a trainer. I brought my bike on.Josh: Is your bike on it? Yeah. Yeah. But I like, I don't know the what, from what I've heard of the Peloton , uh, those they've got all the bells and whistles right star.Starr: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, really it's um, it's not so much about the actual bike for me. It is, as it is about having some like super enthusiastic person, like, um, playing really good music and just being like, you've got this, you were born for greatness and just like saying stuff like that at me. Um, while I'm like trying to, you know, read them a little bit,Josh: You say that, but like, you know, like I, I try to, you know, give that experience to Katelyn, for instance, my wife and she just like, she hates like, she's like get, get out of here.Starr: I think, I think it's easier. I think it's a little easier when there's not like an actual person there, you know, Just hire a social exerciseBen: That started out live, get, you know, the, uh, the motivational speaker guy lives in a, down by the river. I'm just, I'm just thinking about Chris Farley, like standing by your exercise bike. You can do it. You've got this.Josh: If we could get a, yeah. If we could get that, um, on the Peloton, I would subscribe like if he was one of the trainers, I mean, like, you know,Ben: So just bring him back from the dead, have him record some such the Peloton and then, yeah, that'd be awesome. I miss Chris Farley.Starr: So Ida likes to ride the Peloton too, that she's not big enough for it. Um, but she is a, her, her feet can touch the pedals. Um, but they can't reach all the way down. So she's kinda like kicks the pedal down and then catches it on the way back up. And so she asked me to put on a little video so she can do it to the music too. Yeah. Oh, I need to give an update about my, um, about the printing press. I know everybody's like waited, waiting the press breath about thatJosh: Date. I thought, yeah. I didn't know. There was news so, well, IStarr: Mean, the news is I have given up on it. I went down to Tacoma. I went down to see it and it worked and everything, and I just really got a sense for like how big and heavy it was going to be. And, um, then I started, I measured it and I started actually trying to figure out how I would get it into my building. Um, because like, it's just, my, my office is in the backyard. It's, uh, it's, we're having our backyard redone soon, but right now it's just all bumpy and lumpy. And so it's like trying to like roll this thing. I would have to construct like a, a path out of plywood. I'd have to build a ramp up to my, um, the doorway, um, then to actually get it into the location where it's going to be. I would have to completely like dismantle all my shelving and, um, then like re assemble it once I had put the thing in place. And so if I ever wanted to move it again, I'd have to like completely take down all my shelving. I was just like, this is too much. Like, this is, um, like I can't, I can't justify this on it. Like I'm, I'm waking up early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep. Cause I'm like, how the hell am I going to like move this thing? It's like, no, that's not a good hobby for me right now.Ben: That's too bad. Have you looked into typewriters?Starr: I mean, quite the same thingJosh: I would get into typewriters though. Just like aside,Starr: I am looking into smaller, into a smaller press. They have smaller like desktop ones that are a couple of hundred pounds. Um, not, not like a thousand and looking into that sad,Ben: sad to hear it didn't work out, but I let's get pictures of that in any one. If you get a small one, that'd be kind of fun.Starr: Yeah. I just have to, I, uh, I almost saw him this weekend, but somebody swooped in before me. And so now I'm just going to have to wait like six months until another one pops up. Cause like it's, they're not very, there's not a very liquid market. It's not like in a, I guess, I guess there is a liquid market, I guess, I guess they just kind of get snapped, snatched up and then like, there's just not any of them. Yeah.Josh: Do you still get to like, do you have to do like type setting and stuff?Starr: Yeah. You do like, um, there's a couple ways to do it. Like you can do it the old school way where you have like the lead type and you like, um, you know, put it letter by letter and do like a composing stick and do all that. Um, I probably wouldn't do that just because I'm not sure I have the time and patience. Um, so there's a, an updated way to do it where, um, you can, um, you know, send a PDF off and they'll make a, uh, a plate for you and it's plastic and then you just use that. So, um, yeah. And you can make them yourself too. It's just, you know, takes more equipment and more, you know, you know how I'm work and stuff.Josh: Maybe you could get like a specialized, d printer to like printer plates for you.Starr: Cool. Do you use like, uh, um, people to use like a, a Glowforge like a laser cutter cool. Or laser engraver?Josh: That's a, that's a fun hobby. That sounds, that sounds like fun.Starr: Oh yeah. Oh, I went down the rabbit hole of reading all about laser engravers too. Like there's like this cheap one from China that you can get for like bucks. And then like, it's apparently got good internals, but like, you really have to soup it up. And so like that's some people's whole personality is they just do that.Josh: Nice before we get off the topic of a paper and things that interface with paper. Um, I like ordered something off of Amazon that I was like, I don't know why I was like this excited about it arriving. Like maybe I'm just like extreme, like my, you know, I'm extremely bored and needed something to look forward to. But like Amazon basics, paper, shreds, shredder, sharpening, and lubricate, lubricant sheets. And I get all, I'm not going to say that again. I hope you like got that. Um, I did not know that this existed though. Cause like I have like a paper shredder. It's like a cheap, you know, a cheap one, but like I never, like, I never oil it cause don't like just, I don't know how, okay. Like just the thought of like getting a, like a bottle of oil or something and like trying to like dump it.Josh: Like I just, I don't know. So I like was like trying to figure out like, how do you oil these things? And it turns out they make sheets of paper that had the oil like in them and you just run them through the shredder. I didn't know. Like maybe everyone knows this. I did not know this was a thing. And uh, I mean it's like the perfect, it's like the perfect, uh, lubricant solution for your shredder because, um, you just, you know, it's like shredding a piece of paper, which is fun in and of itself. Like who doesn't like shredding paper. So pro tip, you don't needStarr: Waiting. How do they work? Um,Josh: My shredder might be too far gone from the lack of oiling, but I'm going to like, wait and see. Oh no, we'll wait and see. Luckily I did get the cheap one. So now that I'm like an expert on shredder maintenance, um, my next shredder maybe I'll even upgrade or something.Starr: I actually, um, I bought an Amazon basic shredder. That is, uh, it's a, it's a fairly big one, um, for home use, but it's, it's uh, Amazon basics and it's actually really good.Ben: That is a cross cut. Cause that's the key feature right there.Starr: I, I think the cross cuts. Yeah. SeeBen: Mine. Mine's a cheapo one that just does stripsJosh: And that's, I mean that's the strips. Yeah.Ben: Gotta have the crossover.Starr: Yeah. They can always go in the strips back together.Josh: Yeah.Ben: I was a little disturbed to find out though. My, my local trash and recycling facility, uh, our city requests that you not put shredded paper in the recycle, uh, I don't know why they can't handle the recycle shredded paper, but yeah. So if, if all the stuff that I shred, it has to go in the trash, which seems kind of wrong, you know, it's like it's paper cause then recycle. Right. ButJosh: That's because I'm pretty sure recycling is a big scam and none of it actually works. Like you think it does because like Kaylin, like Katelyn knows all about recycling and I am constantly trying to like be a good person and recycle things and she's like, no, that's not recyclable. Like you can't like, that's going to actually like, that's going to like make the recycling people mad because like they have to sort through this and like, you know, take it out before they can actually like repurpose. So yeah, it seems like there's very, uh, relatively little that is actually recyclable. At least in my experience. So farStarr: We subscribed to an additional recycling service, um, read well. And uh, yeah. So they like, you can't recycle, um, just a normal city was like, when you can't put like plastic bags or any sort of like plastic film stuff. Right. So like they take that and um, like they'll take, uh, like fabric stuff, like clothes, um, and like batteries and light. And then they have like a rotating category where um, like once every three months or whatever, it's like, you can put your old electronic devices in there and they'll like, you know, have those recycled and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty nice.Josh: Yeah. Cause I'm everything I hear lately about like just normal recycling, just as depressing. Like it's like, I don't know. I hear like, you know, half the recycling isn't even like being taken care of taken,Starr: You know, like they're like shippingJosh: It to other countries or burying it in landfills anyways. It just it's like, yeah, it's kind of sad. It doesn't make me want to recycle.Ben: Cool. Let's see. Maybe, maybe my municipality then is forward-looking because they know there's going to put in the landfill. So there's just saving a step, right? Yeah. Just put it in the trash. Cause we're going to put out the trash anyway. Right?Josh: Yeah. And thenBen: They actually did that for a styrofoam. We used to have a regular styrofoam collection event. Like every month you could go down to city hall and you could dump your old styrofoam and they would take care of it. And then like, you know what, we just can't even cost effectively handle styrofoam anymore. So don't even, it's not even worth driving down to the city hall to drop it off. Just put it in your trash. It's like, oh, that's so sad.Starr: Well, the, the rebel also does styrofoam. Like it's um, that's cool. It's it's not included in the base like price, but they give you a big bag and they're like, okay, whenever you're done with filling up this giant bag, like it'll cost, I don't know, five or $ to recycle it.Josh: Okay. Well we got to remember put it in the show notes cause I'm going to look at it too. Okay. Sure. I mean, it does seem like I'd rather the city, like if the city like legitimately can't handle it and they're just like secretly like just trashing it anyway. It's like, it's better just to acknowledge the problem so that a real solution, hopefully it can, you know, like maybe like something like this, like people can start to, you know, pay extra for it or, or whatever. But like, it just seems like ignore, like just pretending, like just, just so everyone can feel good. Like, you know, just keep the people, you know, let them feel like they're recycling when they're not, does not seem like a solution that's going to like solve any problems.Ben: But you know, what's, what's free to recycle the bits that you send to Honeybadger. We recycle those things all day long. You send us those, those API bits and they get efficiently recycled right away.Starr: I thought y'all were going to recycle those into NFTs.Josh: Oh yes. We don't. Don't uh, can'tBen: Spill the beans yet. Yeah. LikeJosh: Tell everyone our new business strategy. I think already I put that on Twitter already that we're pivoting into crypto and Airtraq and it's going to be a side business. Yes.Starr: It might confuse people. There's already like a Honeybadger coin or something out there.Josh: Yeah. And there's also like multiple Badger NFTs by the way. SoBen: Yeah, just a little delight.Josh: That was like a brave badgers. Brave badgers on Salada. I think there's one.Ben: Yeah. Put that in the show notes. Make sure people check it out. Not officially endorsed by Honeybadger, but still cool. IStarr: Think we should put out our own line of pugs.Josh: Yes. Yeah. I mean like I'm surprised pugs. Aren't like, so someone's rolling an NFT for pugs, to be honest.Starr: I wasn't making it come back. I hear.Ben: Yeah. If we're going to, if we're going to go retro, like let's go all the way. Retro let's skip the whole collectible cards and stuff and go straight to playing cards. Right. I'll play for the two cards with different batteries on them. Yeah.Starr: I thought you were going to say to me, light bulbs or something.Josh: Absolutely. I've been, I'm curious. Have you learned anything about, uh, crypto or NFTs lately?Ben: You know, no, I haven't really, I I've been, I've been watching people in my Twitter feed and it's, it's funny, there's this, there's this arc that I see, like their first tweet is like, what is this crypto stuff? And then their next tweet is like, this crypto stuff is crazy. And then a little bit later, there's another tweet. It's like, I'm going to look into this crypto set because I want to understand it. And then a little bit later there's like, Hey, check out this NFC I just bought. And then a little bit later, their final tweet is like, here, come join this, this core community and get into my mint.Josh: And, and they have a new Twitter avatar that has like laser eyes.Ben: Yeah. It's kinda, it's crazy. So, so I've like, I've seen this again and again and again, I'm like, okay, I'm not, I'm afraid. I don't wanna investigate the Nazis becauseStarr: So R oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to get, I'm going to get so much hate over this, but our, um, our NFTs just like, um, MLM for like tech rose.Ben: Yes, totally. They areJosh: Essentially,Starr: That's like, I've got, I've like, I'll just tell my I'm essentially. I've got my sensory over here. My essential oils.Josh: Yeah. Well spring as well. I mean like, technically I think you probably could code a MLM on Ethereum, so I'm sure it's already been done, but maybe that, you know, maybe, maybe we should just go for it. Just go full a full billing. There you go.Starr: That's it. Everybody you heard it. We're going full villain now.Josh: Crypto villain. Yeah. I I've checked it out as well. A little bit. Um, I bought a, uh, an FTE on Solano just to see. And, um, actually I did not follow the pattern that you, uh, that you described Ben:, but I also did not let myself do this publicly, which I think is a big key. Like you people know, like you can create anonymous identities on the internet. Um, it's still possible. And then you can go explore, you know, like NFTs or whatever, and you don't have to like have laser eyes on your main Twitter profile. Um, but you know, I went and looked at it and uh, I'm still, I'm like still learning. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to update my, you have the whole crypto scene is a little bit, you know, a little bit dated. Like I checked it out, like after Bitcoin got, you know, it was starting to get popular and stuff, read some white papers, but I think it's, I mean, it's, you know, it's not going away regardless, so it's good to keep your view current at least. But, um, I am not, uh, you know, bought into, I have an eight in as the kids say,Ben: Well, I mean, back to the two lips, I think I'll just wait until the crash happens. Right. And then I'll have a bias of nice to have thoseJosh: Do that. Yeah. That's the, that's the cycle. I mean, you know, it's going to happen. That happens like in every, every, it seems like every new application of blockchain that, you know, comes out that goes through the same, like boom and bust cycle, um, and then levels out to, uh, you know, fairly regular boom and bust cycle.Ben: I mean, you know, confessional here, but I'm actually a laggard when it comes to tech stuff. Like I'm pretty late on the adoption curve for a lot of things. Like, you know, my car is pretty old, my TV's kind of old, you know, I'm not really sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's just kinda, it's kinda weird. I'm in the tech world, but like, I don't really jump in on things like that. I'll just wait,Starr: That's pretty normal. Right. There's like, um, I don't know. There's I saw some, I forget where I saw somebody say it was like, there's two types of tech people. One has the newest of everything all the time. And the other one is like still working on like a, a PC.Josh: Yeah. Whatever.Starr: Yeah. I don't know about y'all, but like, I don't really know a lot of like tech people who have like, um, like voice assistance in their home.Josh: Yeah. I like that as much as like the consumer more than just regular consumers. Yeah.Ben: That's because we know it's like I write software. I know how bad it is.Josh: Yeah. Yeah. That's why I don't like having them. So I don't trust, I don't trust software, but I don't know, like the block, the whole blockchain thing. Like, I, I, you know, I kind of get the, like the future application argument, like there's something here. Like I think it is like that idea of having like very easy, like making contracts easier, for instance, or giving software, the ability, like making it easier to write applications that are built on like contracts or, or even like financial applications. Like the whole idea of like, like code being able to hold its own its own actual currency or money. Um, because it's like, you know, it's just bits. Like that is interesting. Like, I don't know, you know, I'm not enough of a futurist to be able to like see the future where, you know, that's like ubiquitous, but like it is, I can see that aspect of it. It's interesting. But like the whole, like, yeah. I'm not like collecting a bunch of, uh, NFTs in the meantime.Ben: Yeah. I think smart contracts. The idea is interesting. I think, you know, the stuff that's being loosely called web three, I think that's kind of stuff is interesting, but the, but the whole I'm going to buy a smart contract thing that represents a JPEG and then I'm gonna hold on to it and it's going to be worth a million bucks. That part of it doesn't really appeal to me. Like, yeah, I guess I'm just not yet.Josh: Well, you're also not an art. You're not like an art collector either. I would assume that's true. I don't think you have a house full of priceless art. I would, that would be my guess. I mean, I don't want to like, yeah, like over assume, but I mean, like, I think that's the kind of person that this would, this definitely like appeals more to like the collector and, uh, I'm, I'm also not a collector. So, um,Ben: Um, I do have one, I do have one piece of art in my house, so I'm not a complete, you know, Rube, but, uh, but yeah, I am not, I'm not a collector. Yeah.Starr: I think the big, um, like, like I'm thinking about how like Bitcoin and stuff has been around and, you know, blockchain has been around for over a decade at this point. Right. Um, and like still now, like, you know, it looks a lot, I don't know, to me, just from the outside, it looks very similar to what it did back then. It's like, it's like, um, a bunch of people, very excited about it and what it means, and this kind of like vague way, um, that like seems like, you know, it'll pan out in the future, but we're not quite sure how yet. And like, I'm wondering if the big, um, I'm wondering if the thing that like blockchain is actually successful at is in, um, being very like evocative to a certain type of person, um, making a certain type of, you know, developer or a tech person, like feel a certain way. Like I wonder if that's the main success of blockchain, because that seems to be like, mostly what I'm seeing is like a bunch of people, you know, excited a bunch of people. Um, I don't know, like, like wanting to discuss the future of things and you know, being smart about it. And it's like, I wonder if that, um, that process is the whole reason that it stuck around. I don't know.Ben: It's good, good point.Josh: There's definitely some interesting stuff out there. Um, and some very, I mean, like, I think it's undeniable that there are some very people that have thought all this stuff up, like yeah. But yeah, I don't know. You're right. It's, it's been around a lot. Like the, it seems like the adoption curve as much longer on this one. If, if it is going to be the, you know, the next big thing, I don't know. It does. I don't know. It'll be interesting. But I figured in the meantime, like keeping, keeping an eye on, let's just try to learn more about it. But, um, I'm not really the, I try to avoid situations where I just like dive in and become a like true believer. So I'm, I'm learning from afar.Ben: I'll just go buy some GME. That'll go to fix.Starr: I dunno. I'm just going to go for AMC, myself. Like the movies, like the movies have been around forever.Ben: Well, confession time I actually bought some AMC. Oh yeah. When the whole GME thing was going crazy and AMC got part of it. I went and bought some AMC. Cause I'm like, you know what, thinking about it. It's like, I wasn't really interested in the main stock thing, but I was thinking, okay, pandemics going to go away some point, right. People are gonna get back out and they're going to go to movies again. Right. It's going to be, and I'm actually, I think I'm doing pretty good on the whole AMC purchase. We'll see how it goes. Pandemic didn't end yet, but I can still close the fingers.Josh: I mean, as a futurist, I do expect more things to become MIMA fide. So if you can like predict those trends, then go, you know, get in early because, uh, everything's going to be a meme on the blockchain. Eventually.Ben: That's a good thing. Our business is based on a meme now. We're, we're, we're totally with it.Josh: Yeah. All right. We're finally with it on the whole meme thing.Starr: Well, as the present test, I think you should just enjoy it while you can.Josh: You mean all the mains or I don'tStarr: Really know. I just want to get, it seemed like a pithy thing to sayBen: It's apropos. Yeah. Yeah.Josh: Well, we discussed like, no, like I think we, I think we actually discussed like nothing related to the business this time and that is, you know, that's moving forward.Ben: This is our Seinfeld episode, the episode aboutJosh: Speed. Oh, speaking of Seinfeld, we finished the last, the final episode of Seinfeld, um, that like a couple nights ago. And it like, cause we've been like Kayla and I have been like going through it, like for like years at this point, like just slowly, like, cause it's not every night you want to watch Seinfeld. Like it's, it's gotta be like a Seinfeld night. So we finally, like, we didn't realize we were like at the end. Um, and it was kind of a, it was a little bittersweet moment kind of likeStarr: At the end of real Seinfeld when it aired. So, and you just heard that green day song starts swelling. It's something I'm predictive of your life. I know. So enjoy it while you can enjoy it while you can.Starr: You've been listening to founder quest. If you want to give us a review, go to wherever you do that and do that. I don't know. I've never been given a podcast or review, to be honest. I don't know how you do it. Um, so I may just be sending you out to nowhere. Um, and yeah, if you're interested in writing for us, we are usually looking for authors and stuff for a blog. Um, check out honeybadger.io forward slash blog and look for the right press link and learn all about, you know, all about that. And we will see you next week. See ya. See ya. Bye.

god tv amazon founders china pandemic speaking startups bitcoin nfts pc mine brave saas developers retro psa seinfeld amc api ethereum peloton dodge mlm tacoma rover elixir chris farley bootstrap gme honey badger solano jpeg no business lifestyle business fte rube ebi mima software as a service salada glowforge ben it ben you josh it josh yeah josh you ben so josh well josh oh ben well josh so josh there micropreneur josh do

Our Ops Are Smooth Like A Jar Of Skippy

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 3, 2021 36:27

Show Notes:Links:MicromortNoblesse obligeJosh's dotfilesGitHub Code SpacesFull Transcript:Ben:Yeah. I've been holding out for the new MacBook Pros. The M1 is pretty tempting, but I want whatever comes next. I want the 16-inch new hotness that's apparently supposed to be launching in November, but I've been waiting for it so patiently for so long now.Josh:Will they have the M2?Ben:Yeah, either or that or M1X. People are kind of unsure what the odds are.Starr:Why do they do that? Why did they make an M1 if they can't make an M2? Why do they have to keep... You just started, people. You can just have a normal naming scheme that just increments. Why not?Josh:M1.1?Ben:That would be awesome.Starr:Oh, Lord.Josh:Yeah, it would.Ben:M1A, Beachfront Avenue.Starr:So last week we did an Ask Me Anything on Indie Hackers, and that was a lot of fun.Josh:It was a lot of fun.Starr:I don't know. One of the most interesting questions on there was some guy was just like, "Are you rich?" I started thinking about it. I was like, "I literally have no idea." It reminded me of when I used to live in New York briefly in the '90s or, no, the early '00s. There was a Village Voice article in which they found... They started out with somebody not making very much money, and they're like, "Hey, what is rich to you?" Then that person described that. Then they went and found a person who had that level of income and stuff and they asked them, and it just kept going up long past the point where... Basically, nobody ever was like, "Yeah, I'm rich."Josh:Yeah. At the end, they're like, "Jeff Bezos, what is rich? What is rich to you?"Starr:Yeah.Josh:He's like, "Own your own star system."Starr:So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself because I went to fill up my car with gas the other day and I just didn't even look at the price. The other day, I wanted to snack, so I just got a whole bag of cashews, and I was just chowing down on those. I didn't need to save that. I could always get another bag of cashews.Ben:Cashews are my arch nemesis, man. I can't pass up the cashews. As far as the nut kingdom, man, they are my weakness.Starr:I know. It's the subtle sweetness.Ben:It's so good. The buttery goodness.Starr:Yeah, the smoothness of the texture, the subtle sweetness, it's all there.Ben:That and pistachios. I could die eating cashews and pistachios.Josh:There you go. I like pistachios.Ben:Speaking of being rich, did you see Patrick McKenzie's tweet about noblesse oblige?Josh:No. Tell me.Ben:Yeah, we'll have to link it up in the show notes. But, basically, the idea is when you reach a certain level of richness, I guess, when you feel kind of rich, you should be super generous, right? So noblesse oblige is the notion that nobility should act nobly. If you have been entrusted with this respect of the community and you're a noble, then you ought to act a certain way. You got to act like a noble, right? You should be respectful and et cetera. So Patio was applying this to modern day, and he's like, "Well, we should bring this back," like if you're a well-paid software developer living in the United States of America, you go and you purchase something, let's say a coffee, that has basically zero impact on your budget, right? You don't notice that $10 or whatever that you're spending. Then just normalize giving a 100% tip because you will hardly feel it, but the person you're giving it to, that'll just make their day, right? So doing things like that. I was like, "Oh, that's"-Josh:Being generous.Ben:Yeah, it's being generous. Yeah. So I like that idea.Josh:That's cool.Ben:So-Starr:So it's okay to be rich as long as you're not a rich asshole.Ben:Exactly. Exactly. That's a good way to bring it forward there, Starr.Starr:There you go. I don't know. Yeah. I think there's some historical... I don't know. The phrase noblesse oblige kind of grates at me a little bit in a way that I can't quite articulate in this moment, but I'll think about that, and I will get back with you.Josh:Wait. Are you saying you don't identify as part of the nobility?Starr:No.Ben:I mean, I think there's a lot of things from the regency period that we should bring back, like governesses, because who wants to send your child to school in the middle of a COVID pandemic? So just bring the teacher home, right?Starr:Yeah. That's pretty sexist. Why does it have to be gendered? Anyway.Ben:Okay, it could be a governor, but you might get a little misunderstanding. All of a sudden, you've got Jay Inslee showing up on your doorstep, "I heard you wanted me to come teach your kids."Josh:I don't know. I'll just take an algorithm in the home to teach my kids, just entrust them to it.Starr:Yeah. Oh, speaking of bringing things back, I told y'all, but I'll tell our podcast listeners. On Sunday, I'm driving to Tacoma to go to somebody's basement and look at a 100-year old printing press to possibly transport to Seattle and put in my office for no good reason that I can think of. It just seems to be something that I'm doing.Josh:Do you like that none of us actually asked you what you were intending to do with it? I was like, "Yeah, just let me know when you need to move it. I'm there." I just assumed you were going to do something cool with it, but ... Yeah.Starr:I appreciate that. I appreciate the support. I'm going to make little zines or something. I don't know.Josh:Yeah. If I get a lifetime subscription to your zine-Starr:Okay, awesome.Josh:... that would be payment.Starr:Done. Done.Josh:Cool.Ben:Yeah, sign me up, too. I'll be there.Starr:Well, I appreciate that.Ben:I mean, who could resist that invitation, right, because you get to... If you get to help with moving that thing, you get to see it, you get to touch it and play with it, but you don't have to keep it. It's somebody else's problem when you're done with the day, so sounds great to me.Starr:There you go. Well, I mean, if you read the forums about these things, this is one of the smaller ones, so people are just like, "Ah, no big deal. No big deal. It's okay." But I was happy to hear that there's no stairs involved.Ben:That is the deal-breaker. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But it-Ben:If you ever get the friend helping you to move their piano, you always ask, "Okay, how many flights of steps," right?Starr:Yeah. Oh, I just thought of something I could do with it. I could make us all nice business card to hand out to nobody.Ben:Because we're not going anywhere.Josh:I just think of my last six attempts at having business cards. They're all still sitting in my closet, all six boxes of-Starr:I know. People look at you like, "What, really, a business card? What?"Josh:Yeah, like all six generations.Starr:Yeah.Ben:I hand out one or two per year. Yeah, just random people and like, "Hey, here's my phone number." It's an easy way to give it to somebody.Josh:Just people on the street?Ben:Exactly. Like a decent fellow, "Here you go." Thank you.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's like, "I've got 1000 of these. I got to justify the cost somehow."Josh:We got to move these.Starr:We could start invoicing our customers by snail mail. I could print a really nice letterhead.Ben:I think we have a few customers who would be delighted to receive a paper invoice from us because then they would have an excuse to not pay us for 90 days.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Isn't owning a printing press like owning a truck, though? Once people know you have it, everyone wants to borrow it.Starr:It's going to be pretty hard to borrow for a 1000-pound piece of iron.Josh:Well, they're going to want to come over and hang out in your basement and do their printing. This is the Pacific Northwest, like-Starr:It's their manifestos.Josh:Yeah. They got to print their manifestos, lists of demands.Starr:They don't want the establishment at Kinko's to be able to see.Josh:Right.Ben:I don't know. It's got to put you on a special kind of watch list, though, if you have a printing press in your home, right? All of a sudden, some people are really interested in what you're up to.Josh:It's like a legacy watch list.Ben:I'm just flashing back to, yeah, in the 1800s when cities, towns would get all-Starr:There you go.Josh:Well, yeah, because they're like-Ben:The mob would come out and burn down the printing press building and stuff.Josh:If you wanted to be a propagandist back then, you had to buy a printing press and then you get put on a watch list. That just never went away. They're still looking for those people. They just don't find as many of them these days.Starr:Yeah. It's so inefficient. It's not the super efficient way of getting the word out, though, I hear, unless you want to be one of those people handing out leaflets on the side of the road.Josh:Well, you could paper windshields in parking lots.Starr:Oh, there you go. Yeah.Josh:Yeah, that's how they used to do it.Starr:No, look at my beautifully hand-crafted leaflet that you're going to throw in the gutter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think you just settled on what your next adventure's going to be after Honeybadger. You're ready to put this business aside and focus on printing up flyers for your local missing cat.Starr:There you go. There you go. Band flyers, that's big business.Josh:But you could get into fancy paper. That's a whole thing up here. It's pretty cool, actually.Starr:Yeah. I don't know. Really, I was like, "Oh, it'd be cool to have a big thing to tinker with." I'm learning about myself that I like having just a big physical project going on, and I'm pretty... Like, I built this backyard office, and that took up two years of my time. Ever since then, I don't have a big physical thing to work on, so I'm thinking this might fill that niche, that niche, sorry. I read a thing that's like don't say niche, Americans. Niche.Ben:I don't know, Starr. Maybe you should think of the children and then think about 50 years from now when you're dead and Ida's cleaning out the house and she's all like, "Why is there this printing press?"Starr:Oh, there you go.Josh:Have to move it.Starr:They'll just sell it with the house.Ben:There you go.Starr:Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, is that it is wider than the doorway, so I would either have to dissemble it partially or take out the door. I put the door in, so I know how to take it out, so there is a good chance the door's coming out because I have less chance of messing something up if I do that one. But we'll see.Ben:Echo that.Starr:Well, thank you.Josh:You should've put one of those roll-up doors in there.Starr:I should've, yeah.Josh:Those are cool.Starr:What was I thinking?Josh:You really did not plan ahead for this.Starr:Yeah. I mean, walls are really only a couple of thin pieces of plywood, and you can just saw through it.Josh:Just a small refactor.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that would-Josh:Did y'all see that someone listened to every episode of this podcast in a row?Starr:I know. I feel so bad. I feel so bad for them.Josh:Speaking of-Starr:We're sorry. We're so sorry.Ben:I was feeling admiration. I'm like, "Wow, that's impressive," like the endurance of it.Starr:I just think we would've made different decisions.Ben:I don't know. But not-Josh:Maybe it's pretty good. I haven't gone back and gone through it all and never will, but-Ben:Well, I mean, not only did they say they listened to every episode, but then they were eager for more. They were like, "When are you getting done with your break?" So I guess-Starr:There you go.Ben:... that net it was positive, but-Josh:We must not be too repetitive.Ben:Must not.Starr:Stockholm syndrome.Josh:We're sorry.Ben:Well...Starr:I'm sorry. I don't have anything informative to add, so I'm just going to be shit-posting this whole episode.Ben:Well, I've had an amazing week since we last chatted. I kept reflecting on how I couldn't remember anything that I did over the past whatever months. Well, this past week, I can remember a whole bunch of things that I did. I've been crazy busy and getting a bunch of little things knocked out. But today, today was the capstone of the week because I rolled over our main Redis cluster that we use for all of our jobs, all of the incoming notices and whatevers. Yeah, rolled over to a new Redis cluster with zero downtime, no dropped data, nobody even noticed. It was just smooth as-Starr:Oh my God.Josh:I saw that.Starr:Awesome.Ben:It's going pretty good.Starr:Just like butter?Ben:Just like butter.Starr:They slid right out of that old Redis instance and just into this new... Is it an AWS-managed type thing?Ben:Yeah, both of them were. They all went on the new one, but... Yeah.Josh:It's, what, ElastiCache?Ben:Yep. Smooth like a new jar of Skippy.Josh:I saw that you put that in our ops channel or something.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, that's the topic in our ops channel.Josh:So it's the subject or the topic, yeah. We're making ops run, yeah, like a jar of Skippy.Starr:Why isn't that our tagline for our whole business?Ben:I mean, we can change it.Starr:I don't know why that's making me crack up so much, but it is.Josh:Skippy's good stuff.Starr:Oh my gosh.Josh:Although we-Ben:Actually-Josh:... usually go for the Costco natural brand these days.Ben:Well, we go for the Trader Joe's all-natural brand that you have to actually mix every time you use it. I prefer crunchy over creamy, so, actually, my peanut butter's not that smooth, but... You know.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. But, yeah, I love our natural peanut butter, except for the whole churning thing, but you can live with that.Starr:We're more of a Nutella family.Ben:Ooh, I do love a Nutella.Josh:Ooh, Nutella.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's good stuff.Josh:We made pancakes the other day, and I was putting Nutella on pancakes. I did this thing, like I made this... We have one of those griddles, like an electric griddle, and so I made this super long rectangular pancake, and then I spread Nutella on the entire thing, and then I rolled it so that you have this-Starr:You know what it's called, Josh.Josh:What is it called?Starr:That's called a crepe.Josh:So it's a crepe, but it's made out of a pancake.Starr:It's a Texas crepe.Ben:Texas crepe.Josh:Yeah, a Texas-Starr:A Texas crepe.Ben:Yes.Josh:Is it really a Texas crepe because that's... Yeah, so, I-Starr:Oh, no, I just made that up.Ben:That sounds perfect, yeah.Josh:Well, it is now.Ben:Yeah, it is now.Josh:It is now, and I highly recommend it. It's pretty amazing.Ben:Throw some Skippy on there and, man, now it's a... That's awesome.Josh:Peanut butter's also good on pancakes.Starr:That's why people listen to us, for our insights about business.Ben:Yeah, there was this one time, speaking of pancakes and peanut butter...Josh:How did we get on pancakes? Like, oh, yeah, ops.Ben:This one time, I went over to dinner at some person's house, and I didn't know what dinner was going to be, but we got there and it was breakfast for dinner, which I personally love. That's one of my favorites.Starr:I knew that about you.Ben:So they're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Hope you don't think it's weird, but we're having breakfast for dinner." I'm like, "No, no, I love it." So eggs and bacon and waffles, and so I'm getting my waffle and I'm like, "Do you have some peanut butter," and they're like, "Oh my goodness, we thought you would think that was way too weird, and so we didn't have the peanut butter." They whipped it out from in the counter. It's like, "Oh, shew, now we can have our peanut butter, too." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, peanut butter on waffles, yeah."Josh:Everyone had their hidden peanut butter.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that's how you level up a friendship.Ben:There you go. So, yeah, the week was good. The week was good. Bugs got fixed, things got deployed, and, yeah, just a whole-Josh:Yeah, you had a bunch of PRs and stuff for little things, too, which-Ben:Yeah. And got some practice with the whole delegating thing, got Shava doing some stuff, too. So, yeah, just all-around super productive week.Josh:Nice. I got Java to run in a Docker container, so my week's going pretty good.Ben:And that took you all week?Starr:What do those words mean? I don't...Josh:Yeah.Starr:Was your audio cutting out? I don't know. I just heard a bunch of things I don't understand.Josh:Well, for your own sake, don't ask me to explain it.Starr:Yeah, it's like better not looked at.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Why would you subject yourself to that sort of torture, Josh?Josh:Oh, well, because running Java on an M1 Mac is even worse.Starr:Oh my Lord.Josh:Well, actually, running it, period. But, yeah, like just our Java package. I mean, I've spent half this podcast ranting about our packaging, so I don't need to get too deep into it. But every time I release this thing, it's like it just doesn't work because I've forgotten my... I've changed my system, and Java and Maven package repository are just like that. So I figure if I can make some sort of reproduceable development environment using Docker, then in two years everything will just be smooth as a jar of Skippy.Ben:Skippy. Yeah, yeah.Starr:Well, I had a chance to-Josh:I reckon.Starr:I had a chance to dig into some numbers, which is one of my favorite things to do, and so... I don't know. There was this question that was just bothering me, which was... Well, let me just back up. So we've had some success, as you guys know, in the past year. We've almost doubled our rate of new user sign-ups, not new user sign-ups, like conversion to paid users. We've doubled our paid user conversion numbers, rate, whatever you call it. And so, obviously, revenue from users has gone up as well, but since we are a... Our plans are basically broken down by error rates, right? So what happens when people upgrade is they get too many errors for their plan. It says, "Hey, you should upgrade if you want to keep sending us errors," and they do.Starr:I had this weird situation where it's like I wasn't sure... In our system, revenue from users was coming just from whatever plan they picked when they signed up, and so I was wondering, "Well, what if they sign up, and then a week later they upgrade? That's going to be counted under upgrade revenue instead of new user revenue," which, really, it really kind of should be. So I got to digging, and I found that it doesn't really make that big of a difference. Some people do upgrade pretty quickly after converting, but they don't... It's not really enough to really change things.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Then, also, just sort of offhand, I took a little sneak peek. I've been running this experiment to see if lowering our error quota for our basic, our free plan, it would increase conversions. So I took a little sneak peek at the data. It's too soon to know for sure, but so far the conversion rate, I think, is going to end up being higher, which is what I would expect, so that's good, and-Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah. And when we're done, I'm going to look at sign-ups just to make sure that they are still in line.Ben:Yeah. Anecdotally, I've seen a smaller window from trial to paid conversion. Well, not trial, but freemium to paid conversion. I've seen people who are signing up, getting on the basic plan, and then within some short time period they're actually going to a team plan.Josh:Oh, that's good to know.Ben:That's happening more often than it was, so... Yeah. So that's-Josh:Cool.Ben:I'm just saying the same thing Starr said but without real data.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we need a little bit more time to see how things pan out, too, because it's... One thing I figured out that I will share with our readers, our readers, I'm used to doing the blog posts, I'll share with our listeners that I figured out that you really have to pay attention to, on free plans especially, is comparing conversion rates between time periods. So if you make a change and then you wait for a month of data to come in and you're like, "Okay, let's look at the conversion rate for the past month after the change with the conversion rate for the time period before the change," that is really an apples to oranges comparison because on the one hand you've had people who have maybe had a year to upgrade versus people who've had a month to upgrade. So you have to be really careful to make it apples to apples, right, where you only compare... If you have a month worth of users on one side, you compare it to a month worth of users on the other side, and you only count the conversions that happened in that time period.Josh:Makes sense.Starr:Yeah. So, anyway, that's just my little freebie data analysis thing for our listeners.Josh:We should have Starr's weekly data science tip.Starr:Starr's data corner.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Love it.Josh:Yeah. We could move the podcast to segments. We've never done segments. We could introduce segments if we need to spice things up on FounderQuest.Ben:Yeah. Totally. Well, speaking of spicing things up, I had a brilliant idea this morning.Starr:Oh, I want to hear it.Ben:Yeah. So one of the things that I keep an eye on is how much we spend on hosting because that's a good chunk of our expenses. We always want to make more money, and one way to make more money is to have fewer expenses. So I had this brilliant idea on how to cut expenses. We can chop our AWS bill in half by just not running everything redundant.Starr:There you go.Josh:Brilliant.Starr:Would you say the AWS is the sixth Honeybadger employee?Ben:Yeah, pretty much.Josh:Yes. That's a good way to put it, actually.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, in the early days, before we were paying ourselves a full salary, I remember we budgeted 25% for Starr, 25% for Ben, 25% for Josh, and 25% for hosting.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't think we ever exceeded the 25%, which is good. That would be a bit high. So, yeah, AWS is like our sixth employee.Starr:Yeah, it's funny because do we even have other expenses?Josh:No.Ben:I mean, salaries is definitely the biggest one, and our health insurance is not cheap either.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Advertising.Starr:I was thinking like marketing, advertising. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Advertising and marketing, that's the next one.Starr:That's the next 25%.Josh:Can we make AWS our seventh and eighth employee, too?Ben:Eventually may. Yeah, I did some... Oh. Oh. So I told you my great success that I had this morning. Well, your comment just now about AWS made me think about the one failure, just amazingly huge failure that I had also this week, migrating a bunch of data from Redis to DynomoDB. So we have this situation where it's one of those seemed like a good idea at the time kind of thing where we're doing a bunch of counting of people and individuals that hit errors, and we're counting that in Redis. I'm like, "Okay, great," because Redis has this INCRBY and it's easy and it's atomic and, boom, you're done, and I just never paid much attention to it until a few weeks ago, and I was like, "Yo, you know what? That's actually a lot of data in there, and we're keeping that forever, and so it's probably better to put it someplace that's not Redis." So I'm like, "Ah, I know. I'll do DynamoDB because it has an increment thing and...Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I put a table together, and I wrote a migration script, and I migrated a bunch of data. It took two days. It's great. Everything is beautiful. Had buckets of data inside DynomiteDB, and then I went to go query it, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't query it that way because I don't have the right index." Well, that sucks. All right. So you can't create a local index on DynomiteDB without recreating the table. I'm like, "Okay, well, that sucks. I just lost two days worth of data migration but oh well." So dump the table, recreated it with the index, and started redoing the data migration, and I'm like, "Yeah, it might take two days, no problem." So I check on it every half-day or so, and it's not going to be getting done after two days. Three days go by, and I'm checking the work backlog, and I was like, "It's just flat."Ben:Turns out because of that local index, now Dynamo can't really write fast enough because the way they do the partition throttling and stuff because we have some customers who have huge chunks of data. So their partitions are too big for Dynamo to write very quickly. Hot partition keys is the problem. So I just gave up. I'm like, "All right, fine." Drop the table again, recreated it, and now we're just double writing so that, eventually, given six months from now or so, it'll be there and I can replace that thing in Redis.Josh:Nice.Ben:So this is my life, the ups and the downs. So, yeah.Josh:And just waiting six months.Ben:And just waiting six months.Josh:Yeah. That's funny, but that is kind of a pattern in the business. In some cases, we need to just wait for the data to populate itself, and we just have to basically wait our retention period because data tends to turnover and then we can drop the old database or whatever.Ben:Yeah. Yep. But, luckily, nobody noticed my big fail, so it's all good. It didn't impact the customers.Josh:I didn't notice.Ben:So, yeah, busy weekend.Starr:I noticed, but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be nice.Ben:Thank you, Starr. Appreciate that.Starr:Yeah, I [inaudible].Josh:Starr was over there just quietly shaking her head.Ben:Just judging. Just judge-Starr:No, sorry.Ben:So, Josh, I'm going to get back to this Java thing because I'm curious. I remember, I don't know, a year ago or something, we're kind of like, "Maybe we should just not when it comes to Java anymore." So I'm curious what prompted this renewed activity to do a new release.Josh:Well, I don't know. I figured... I don't know. Didn't we say we were just not going to do any releases?Ben:Yeah, it just-Josh:It's not high on my list of development. We're not spending a bunch adding stuff to it, but there are dependency updates that have been getting merged in. I merged the Dependabot PRs and stuff. There's something else. There might be some small PR or something that someone submitted that was sitting there on release, and I just can't handle just unreleased code sitting on the pane. So it's just one of those things that's been sitting on my backlog halfway down the list just gnawing at me every week, so I figured I'd dive in and at least get some sort of quick release, relatively quick release process down so we can just continue to release dependency updates and stuff, like if there's a security update or something, so...Ben:Yeah.Josh:Some people still do use it, so I want to make sure they're secure.Ben:Make sure they're happy. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But, yeah, that's a good point. We are not treating all platforms as equal because we just don't have the resource, so we need to focus on the stuff that actually is making us money.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, it's tough when very few of our customers are actually using that for it to get a whole lot of priority.Josh:That said, we have already put a lot into it, so as far as I know, it works well for the people that have used it.Starr:So are y'all encouraging our customers to do more Java?Josh:Yes, switch to Java. Then switch to SentryBen:Ride a wave.Josh:... or something.Ben:So I've been contemplating this new laptop showing up, right, whenever Apple finally releases it and I get to get my hot little hands on it. I've been thinking, well, the one big downside to getting a new laptop is getting back to a place where you can actually work again, right, getting all your things set up. Some people are smart, like Josh, that have this DOT file, this repo, on GitHub, and they can just clone that, and they're off to the races. I'm not that smart. I always have to hand-craft my config every time I get a new machine. But I'm thinking-Josh:Oh. Take the time.Ben:So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to that part, but GitHub has released Codespaces, and so now I'm thinking, "Ooh, I wonder if I could get all our repos updated so that I could just work totally in the cloud and just not even have a development set-up on my machine." Probably not, but it's a fun little fantasy.Josh:Well, then you could have any little... You could work on your iPad.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't even need a laptop. Then I could save the company money. That's brilliant, Josh.Josh:Yeah. You could work at the library.Starr:Yeah. It's like, "So your main ops guy, I see he's primarily working from a five-year-old iPad."Ben:At a library.Starr:In a library.Josh:An iMac.Starr:When he gets paged, he has to run to the nearest Starbucks and get that wifi.Josh:Yeah. I got to say, having your DOT files all ready to go and all that is pretty good. Also, I've got my Brewfile, too, so all of my Homebrew stuff is automated in that.Ben:Well, that's clever. I never even thought of that.Josh:It does make it very quick to bootstrap a new machine.Ben:Yeah. Maybe I should take this as initiative to actually put my stuff into DOT files repo and get to that point.Josh:Careful, though, because you might... I've had four computers between your current one and now, so you might end up switching more often because it's easier to do it.Ben:Appreciate that warning. That's good.Josh:Yeah. Speaking of the M1s, I love the M1 MacBook Air that I have. But the battery has been... I don't know what happened, but the battery was fantastic, I don't know, first few months. Ever since then, it's been kind of like it hasn't been lasting. I've been surprised at how fast it's draining, and I go and look at, whatever, the battery health stuff, and it says that health is down to 86% and the condition says it's fair, which does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.Josh:It has 50 cycles, so I think it might be defective, and that sucks because otherwise this machine is maybe one of the best Macs I've had. I guess... Yeah. I've had a few compatibility issues with the architecture, but it's not too bad. I mean, I'm not a Java developer at least, so...Ben:Yeah, I think you need to take that in for a service because that is way soon for that kind of degradation.Josh:Yeah. I might need to do something.Ben:That's a bummer.Josh:Yeah. I don't know. I might have to ship it in because I think our local Portland Apple Store is shuttered currently.Ben:All those protests?Josh:Yeah. It's got eight fences around it and stuff. Downtown Portland's a little rough these days.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Well, I mean, you can always take the trip out to Seattle.Josh:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or there's other... I forget. There's an Apple Store that's not too far outside of Portland. It's where I bought this, so I could take it down there.Starr:Yeah. I'm sad now because I bought my second MacBook from that store in Portland.Josh:Yeah? It's a good store.Ben:Speaking of you coming out to Seattle, I was thinking the other day that maybe we should do a company-wide get-together sometime soon. Be fun to see everybody again in-person.Josh:It would be. Now that we're all vaxxed, we're all super vaxxed. I don't know that Starr is even down for that, though. I'm just looking at Starr.Starr:I don't know. Like, I-Josh:You don't look like you're too stoked on that idea.Starr:I don't know. I'm just-Josh:What with Delta lurking.Starr:The problem is, Josh, is that you have not been reading nursing Twitter.Josh:Uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:So I don't know. Yeah, it's doable. Currently, I think the CDC just released a thing that said vaccine efficiency of preventing COVID infections... It's very good still at preventing bad, I don't know, disease, health problems, whatever, keeping people out of the hospital. It's very good at that. With Delta, it's about 65% effective at preventing infections, and so if you get infected, you can transmit it to other people.Josh:Right.Starr:Yeah. So it's not impossible. It's just like we're just back to this fricking calculus where every possible social interaction you just have to run it through your spreadsheet and your risk analysis and... Ugh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's like, "Are you worthy of the hassle? No. Sorry, can't make it."Starr:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, "Okay, so what's the probability that meeting with you is going to send my child to the hospital? Okay, that's low enough. Sure."Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's just such a weird world.Josh:Wouldn't it be funny if when you get into your car in the morning, it reads out the probability of you dying in a car accident?Starr:Oh, yeah. Do you know about millimorts?Josh:No.Starr:Oh, you should go Google millimorts. A millimort is a one in a million chance that you will die, and so there's tables and stuff that you can find online that have different activities and what the number of millimorts is about them. So you can compare, and you can be like, "Okay, so going skydiving has this many millimorts as driving so many miles in a motorcycle."Josh:That's awesome. Okay, we have to link this in the show notes because I want to remember to look this up-Starr:Okay. I'll go find it.Josh:... so that I can depress people.Starr:I think there was a New York Times article, too.Ben:Yeah, I totally have to see this because I just signed up for a motorcycle training course and I'm going to get my endorsements so that I know exactly what kind of risks... Though that's probably part of the course, where they try to scare you out of actually getting your endorsement. They probably...Josh:By the way, I'm really glad my morbid humor or my morbid joke landed because for a minute there-Starr:Oh, I'm sorry, it's a micromort.Josh:Oh, a micromort. Okay.Starr:I was like, "Isn't milli 1000?"Josh:Minimort, like-Starr:Milli is 1000.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, that grated at me. I know. My old chemistry teachers are just giving me an F right now.Ben:Yeah, I got to see that.Josh:Well, I'm sure you'll be all right, Ben. I mean, the risk of a motorcycle is much higher than a car, but you just can't think about that all the time because the fun... I'm sure the fun is much...Ben:[inaudible].Josh:It's worth it.Ben:It's worth every hazard. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. The risk is worth the reward.Ben:Yesterday, I just hit 250 miles on the odometer on my scooter, so loving that. It's a lot of fun.Josh:That's cool.Starr:That's a lot of miles for a scooter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:I guess you just love to scoot.Ben:I love to scoot. Well, there you go, Starr. There's our happy ending after that slight dip there.Starr:That slight delay into reality.Josh:I like the dark humor. I don't know. It's always a gamble, though, with depending on... Yeah. But I think, Starr, you're always down to get dark.Starr:Oh, yeah. I'm down with the darkness. All right. Well, should we wrap it up?Ben:Let's wrap it.Starr:Okay. This has been a very witchy episode of FounderQuest, so if you liked it, go give us a review and... Yeah, if not, just keep listening to us. Make it a hate listen. You got to have a couple of those in your line-up.

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The Nazi Lies Podcast Ep. 3: The Jewish Talmud Exposed

The Nazi Lies Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2021 52:33

Mike Isaacson: Da j00z! [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: At the core of nazi lies is antisemitism. Since the Second World War it has disguised itself in many guises–Rothschilds, Soros, Bildebergs, lizard people. At its core is an all-powerful entity controlling the masses and aiming to destroy the nation through the corruption of culture and politics, which remains at the heart of fascist conspiracy theory. One of the ur-texts of Jew hatred in the 21st century is David Duke's book “Jewish Supremacism,” which makes the claim that not only do Jews control the world, but that our religion teaches us to do so. Today, we're joined by Ben Siegel who has his master's in Religion, the Hebrew Bible, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the Claremont School of Theology. (Wow, that's a mouthful.) Welcome to The Nazi Lies Podcast, Ben. Ben Siegel: Thanks for having me Mike. I'm grateful for the opportunity to trash a Jew hater's biblical scholarship. Mike: [laughs] Very good. Okay, so before we get into Duke's book, let's talk a bit about how Judaism works, because it's very unlike Christianity. Can you give us a rundown of how Jewish law and Jewish morality works? Ben: Sure. I'll do my best. Now the Jewish legal system, known in Hebrew as halakha, is a comprehensive framework that informs the behaviors of religious, and also frequently secular, Jews. It takes as its starting point the written text, the Torah, the biblical books of Genesis through Deuteronomy, from which it derives 613 mitzvot, meaning laws or commandments, as authoritative God-given instruction on how to live an observant Jewish life. So from those texts, considered the written Torah, what's called the oral Torah is derived. This comprises successive centuries worth of interpretation of the written Torah by rabbis. The earliest of these is the Mishnah, which was compiled early in the second century of the common era, and the Gemara, rabbinical commentary on the Mishnah that was put together between the second and fifth centuries CE. These commentaries were collected to produce the Talmud. Now one in the Galilee region of Israel between 300 and 350 CE, known as the Jerusalem Talmud, and the second far more extensive Talmud compiled in Babylon in about 450 to 500 CE. This is the Babylonian Talmud. This is the one that people tend to cite most. It's really these long, extensive discourses weighing legal arguments on virtually every topic that was relevant to Jews during these periods, from personal and communal religious devotion to economic regulations to laws concerning marriage, dietary restrictions, relations with non-Jews; you name it. Now the Talmud is upheld to this day by most Jewish communities across the world as the basis for living an appropriate Jewish life in accordance with halakha and in accordance with God's will and vision for the world. Halakha informs Jewish ethics to a great deal as much as it undergirds legal and political concerns–a concern for ethical treatment of one's community and one's neighbors, stemming from the collective memory of slavery in Egypt, an ethics of solidarity, really, righteousness, compassion, and justice, in effect. Mike: Okay, so Duke takes aim at our self-description as the chosen people. This is commonly misinterpreted. What does it mean when the Jews say we are the chosen people? Ben: As the old saying goes, “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” So there's this notion that God selected the Israelites for a particular theological mission, to live according to His laws, and to be a light unto nations, inspiring other people through their example. But there's also this idea that the Jews chose God. That Abraham and his descendents embraced monotheism through a special and unique relationship with the deity. Chosenness in this sense isn't indicative of inherent ethnic or racial superiority, as Duke argues. I'd feel safe saying he's projecting his own white supremacist views onto the Jews here. Mike: You don't say. Ben: [laughs] Yeah, I do. Mike: Okay, so another thing that David Duke derides is our holidays. Specifically, he describes Purim and Pesach as a celebration of the slaughter of gentiles, which I find absolutely laughable. Do you want to clear that one up? Ben: This would absolutely be hilarious if it weren't so malicious. Pesach celebrates the liberation of the Israelite people from slavery and oppression in Egypt. Recalling the ten plagues during the seder does recognize the suffering inflicted upon the Egyptians to make this happen. But this isn't a joyful moment. It's typically somber. The recitation of each plague is followed by dripping a drop of wine from our cups onto our plates to signify how we ourselves are diminished by the Egyptians' suffering. There's also a similarly warped misinterpretation of Purim going on here, where we celebrate the prevention of genocide against us. So in the Purim story, Haman had ordered the Jews put to death. The Megillah Esther makes it clear that the 70,000+ Persians killed at the end of the book are those sent by Haman to slaughter the Jews. And the Jews were only able to defend themselves because king Ahasuerus gives them permission to pick up swords. And to be frank, Mike, defense against genocide seems to a pretty legitimate cause for merrymaking. Mike: Yeah, no, for sure. It's a really fun holiday if you've ever celebrated it, you know. It's a lot of dress up… I've heard it described as basically a combination of Halloween and New Years all wrapped into one. It's really fun. Ben: Sure, if you like to drink and scream, Purim is the holiday for you. Mike: There you go. [laughs] Okay, so now let's get into the nitty gritty. So, David Duke cites a whole bunch of scriptures to make the Jews out to be haters of all things goyishe, or non-Jewish, with scriptural references that appear to justify unscrupulous behavior towards them. First of all, before we get into that, what does the word “goy” mean? Ben: Well it would be prudent to acknowledge that the term “goy” changes meaning slightly over time. In the biblical text, it means nation or people, not nation in the modern sense of Westphalian nation-states, but more as a homogenous ethnic identity. The Israelites were recognized as a goy here. Most notably, Exodus 19 where God promises Abraham that he will make his people “goy gadol,” a great people, Exodus 19:6. As we enter into the rabbinic period, where the Jews in the diaspora are negotiating Jewish identity as a minority population, goy predominantly takes on the meaning of non-Jew as a distinguishing marker. This interpretation of “goy” has persisted to this day, and is perhaps the most commonly recognized usage of the term. I have seen discussions among antisemites who misinterpret it as meaning “cattle,” based on connotations in Talmudic texts. But these texts offer a strict binary worldview where “Jew” is seen as akin to human, whereas non-Jews are aligned with animals. I think it's important to make the distinction that this framework is a legal one not necessarily a political one. Post exilic diaspora Jews did not have the kind of social power needed to foster political programs that affected the disenfranchisement of other groups typically associated with rhetorics of dehumanization. Mike: Okay, so kind of on that point, Duke points to a number of decontextualized passages from Jewish scripture which describe gentiles in various negative ways: barbarians, animals, animal-fuckers. And I've got a few passages here which I've provided to you in advance. So there's Gemara Kiddushin 68a, Yebamoth (and correct me on any of these pronunciations) Yebamoth 98a, Baba Mezia 114a-b, Abodah Zarah 22a-b, and Baba Mezia 108b. Can you give us a little exegesis? Ben: I'd be happy to, but first I want to talk about how Duke sourced these texts. There's been some commentary on him plagiarizing Kevin McDonald who is an evolutionary psychologist working out of Cal State University-Long Beach. He uses the same arguments and the citations. But it also appears that Duke took many of the translations of these texts from a book by Elizabeth Dilling, who was a far-right political activist in the 1930s, noted antisemite, who went to Nazi Germany and spoke very highly of what she saw there. So with these translations that he's using, I think it's important that we take it with an enormous grain of salt, first of all. Mike: Right. Ben: But also the thing I've noticed most about non-Jews who rage against the Talmud is that they haven't read the damn thing. And frankly, I haven't read all of it either. It's an enormous body of text. And in that body of text there are, you know, rabbis disagreeing with each other. So one view may be held, and the exact opposite view is going to be upheld a line down. Just worth noting for when we're looking at these texts that are obviously cherry-picked. Mike: Right. Ben: The first one you mentioned, Kiddushin 68a, it's from a tractate that deals with rules pertaining to marriage and engagement laws. Now what Duke says about this is the Talmud denotes gentiles as animals. So here it's forbidding the betrothal of an Israelite to a Canaanite maidservant. One thing, there's no Canaanites in third century Persia at this time, so this is purely a hypothetical situation. But it's really this legal justification for not marrying non-Jews because of the potential for them to influence a Jew's worship in a negative way, so that they won't follow halakha. And there's definitely a discussion here of identifying them as like an animal, but it's not a similar dehumanization that we see in typical nazi rhetoric of like “Jews are cockroaches” or “Jews are vermin.” It's like, here is this category of thing that is not us, and we cannot mix with that. Does that make sense? Mike Yeah, I guess. Does the issue of her being a maidservant matter in a subordinate position to the person? Ben: Some rabbis argue yes; some rabbis argue no. But really it's more that who she is, based on this identity, is making the betrothal ineffective. It's not considered valid. Mike: Okay, so like– Ben: Yeah. Mike: Go ahead. Ben: No, go right ahead. Mike: Okay, yeah continuing right along, let's go to Yebamoth 98a? Ben: Yeah, Yebamoth deals with rules of yibbum. This is what's commonly known as levarite marriage, where the brother of a man who died without children is permitted and encouraged to marry the widow. What Duke has this translated as is that all gentile children are animals. It doesn't say anything of the sort here. It's saying that the children of gentiles don't have a father. They don't have a patrilege. Like the offspring of a male gentile is considered no more related to him than the offspring of donkeys or horses. It's just a way of saying that the rabbis don't care who the kid's dad is. It's like, they couldn't be bothered. Mike: I see. Ben: They're not interested in the patrilege of non-Jews. They're really more concerned with Jewish family ties. Mike: Okay, so moving along, there's two passages from Baba Metzia, one is 114a-b and one is 108b. Ben: Mmhmm. Baba Metzia discusses civil matters. That is property, law of usury, other issues such as lost property and damages done to it. So the issue here is again, categorizing– Duke takes issue with the categorizing of goyim as non-human. And again, it comes down to the same thing. It's less that they are not recognized as human, and more that it is an issue of ritual purity because they don't adhere to the same religious standards. Therefore, they necessarily can't contaminate certain Jewish sacred spaces. Mike: That's probably– Ben: And– Mike: Go ahead. Ben: Yeah, sorry go ahead. Mike: I was gonna say, it's probably also worth noting that like many Jews, I would venture even to say most Jews, probably don't follow a lot of these laws. [laughs] Ben: Yeah, many of them aren't even aware of them. You know, you can spend your entire life studying these texts and maybe come across it once. You know, there are thousands of these tractates. Mike: And last in this category was Abodah Zarah 22a-b. Ben: Mmhmm. [laughs] This one's funny. Duke says gentiles prefer sex with cows. What the text is actually saying is that the animal of a Jew is more appealing to gentiles than their own wives. [laughs] So, I don't know if this intentionally, you know, throwing some shade gentiles and their own marriage relations, but it seems more in keeping with a concern that's held by the Talmudic sages of how do you ensure that an animal that you are sacrificing is ritually pure. That means it has no blemishes; it is handicapped in any way; but very importantly, that it has not had any sexual relations with anybody. So Abodah Zarah, literally meaning “foreign worship” or “strange service,” it deals with how to live with people who don't adhere to the same religious convictions. And the concern of beastiality is kind of a big, overarching theme in this text to the point that there are many discussions of concern about whether or not you can purchase a sacrificial animal from a goy. Some rabbis say no; some say yes. Interestingly enough, there is one narrative in the text, where a goy named Dama– The rabbis go to him, and purchase a red heifer which is like a really big omen in the bible. It's like huge. That's like primo sacrifice. And he is upheld as a righteous goy and as someone who would never shtup his cow. So what's really interesting here is that you've got these two different voices in the text that are both preserved as authoritative. One, there is the concern that the goy will engage in beastiality. The other is this one goy Dama who is upheld as an example of righteousness in regards to being able to buy, you know, a sacrificial animal for him. Of course, Duke isn't going to look at this text because it doesn't serve his overall purpose as vilifying the Jewish people as anti-goy. Mike: And before we continue, I want to inform our listeners that shtup is a Yiddish word for “having sex with.” Ben: Yeah, literally it means “push,” but yeah, it means sex. Mike: Alright so, Duke also makes the claim that there are different laws that Jews follow when it comes to dealing with the goyim. So he specifically points to Gittin 57a, Abadoh Zarah 67b, Sanhendrin 52b, Sanhedrin 105a-b and 106a-b. Can you explain what's going on in those passages? Ben: Sure, so my understanding of his gripe with Gittin 57a is what is the punishment for Jesus in the next world, saying that he will be boiled in excrement. He's going to be punished in boiling poop, and that anyone who mocks the word of the sages will be sentenced to boiling excrement. This was his sin, as he mocked the words of the sages. And the Gemara comments come and see the difference between these sinners of Israel and the prophets of the nations of the world as Balaam, who was a prophet, wished Israel harm whereas Jesus the Nazarene, who was a Jewish sinner, sought their wellbeing. So there is this, kind of– There's some antagonism towards Jesus in the text because of its function as– Jesus's function and Christianity's function as a counter-claim to the inheritance of Abraham and of Isaac and Jacob. So there's some theological competition going on here. Mike: And what about Abodah Zarah 67b? Ben: Mmhmm. “The halakha from the case of gentiles that require purging. Vessels that gentiles used for cooking that the Torah requires that one purge through fire and ritually purify before they may be used by Jews.” You know, he seems to be indicating that– Duke seems to be indicating that the text is saying that goyim are dirty. But this isn't an argument for, like, hygienic cleaning. The ancient Israelites and Talmudic sages didn't have a germ theory of disease. What they're talking about is purifying these vessels for religious purposes, specifically. They have to be rededicated for their sacred use because they may have come in contact with forbidden food, with non-kosher food. Mike: Right, so this is about the laws of kashrut, right? Ben: Yeah, precisely. And again this is Abodah Zarah which is all about how do we do our religion properly with all of these other influences around us. Mike: Right, okay so Sanhendrin 52b. Ben: Yeah, this is another Jesus one. So Duke says that the person being punished in this text is Jesus, and he sees this as an anti-Jesus text. But the text doesn't mention Jesus whatsoever. It's a general rule for capital punishment by strangulation which is outlined in Leviticus. So this is one of your big nazi lies. He doesn't mention– They don't mention Jesus here. Mike: Is this one of the ones where he mentions Balaam or something? Ben: I believe so. Mike: Okay, can you talk about who Balaam is, because Duke misidentifies him as Jesus. Ben: Yeah he does that a lot. So in the book of Numbers, Balaam is a prophetic figure, identified in the text as a false prophet, who goes to send a curse against the Israelite people, and he is himself cursed for it and put to death. So he's kind of like this figure of those who would seek the destruction the Jewish people. He's a big bad. Mike: Right, and since he's in the book of Numbers which is the Torah, right? Ben: Yeah. Mike: Yeah, I mean, that would mean that this is, like, well before Jesus's time, right? Ben: Absolutely. Mike: Like there's no way this would have been Jesus. Ben: For sure. Granted, there are certain Christian interpreters of the text who see Hebrew bible references to Jesus throughout. Mike: Right. Ben: So they kind of see Jesus as foreshadowed in so much. Mike: Alright so, moving on, Sanhendrin 105a-b? Ben: So this one's interesting because it says that Balaam was a diviner by using his penis. [both laugh] And he's one who engaged in beastiality with his donkey. So what Duke takes to be a condemnation of Jesus, because he's misidentified Jesus with Balaam, is really kind of like textbook Talmudic condemnation of a big bad goy. Now here's a guy who sought the destruction of the Jewish people. In the book of Numbers he's got this talking donkey who prevents him– who tries to stop him from going forward with his mission. And we know that he was bad because, according to the Talmud, he had sex with his donkey. There's this major preoccupation with bestiality in the Talmud, and it is weird as hell. But it's there, and we've got to deal with it. [laughs] Mike: Okay, and Sanhendrin 106a-b. Ben: Again, this one's not about Jesus, but rather about Balaam who has been misidentified with Jesus. I think this is– this kind of misidentification is just indicative of Duke not doing his homework. My understanding is that he took these from Dilling, and he never fact-checked to see if, you know, this is what the text says or this is what the text identifies. You know, this is bad scholarship on his part which is probably to be expected from this guy who defrauded his own his own white supremacist organization and has a fake degree. Mike: Right, and he even says in the book that he's not doing anything original, that it's just collected from other sources. Ben: Right. Mike: Well, since we're on the subject of Jesus, we may as well go with the rest of the passages that I have here. So Sanhendrin 90a. I'm kind of skipping around here. Ben: Yeah this one's all about prohibition against idol worship. And you said this one is Jesus-related? Mike: That's what he said, yeah. About Christianity and Jesus, yeah. Ben: I don't find much to do with Jesus in this text. Jesus isn't mentioned in this one. It's primarily about idol worship and people who prophesize with regards to it. Maybe he's trying to say that, like, the preoccupation with idol worship is a condemnation of Christianity, but I'm just not seeing where he's getting Jesus out of this. Mike: Okay then, on that same subject Shabbat 116a. Ben: Yeah, holy books in Babylonian temples. Now is this the one where he says a goy can't read the text? Mike: It might be, yeah. Or a Christian can't read the text. Ben: Yeah, oh no, this is a really particular one. Again this one is just– There's a lot of rhetorical violence against those who do the religion improperly or don't treat the sacred texts as they should. You know, these are practices and artifacts that are very important to the Jewish people, so they hold them in very high regard. Mike: So I guess moving along, Duke refers to a number of passages in the Bible that he takes to mean that Jews are preoccupied with racial integrity. (Projection much?) He points specifically to Sanhendrin 59a, Deuteronomy 7:2-6, Ezra 9:1-2 and 9:12, Leviticus 20:24, and Nehemiah 13:3. So what do these passages say and what do they actually mean? Ben: With Sanhedrin 59a, which Sanhedrin primarily deals with criminal law, it says that “A gentile who engages in Torah study is liable to receive the death penalty. As it is stated: ‘Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.'” This is from Deuteronomy 33:4. “Indicating that it is an inheritance for us, and not for them.” So there is one sage, a rabbi Yokhanon who is arguing that goyim who study Torah, you know, they're liable to be put to death. You know, they expose themselves to capital punishment. He's arguing this because they view the Torah with such high esteem; it is their most sacred text. They want to preserve it. Now this text is followed a line or two down by a counterargument. It says, “You have therefore learned that even a gentile who engages Torah study is considered like a high priest.” So you've got one argument saying that a goy who studies Torah is liable to be put to death, and another that says that they have an incredible status, that studying Torah gives them very high regard. But this again is one of those instances where Duke does not consider that might undermine his central thesis that Jews are bad, are always bad, and will always be bad. Mike: Okay, so what about the Deuteronomy passages? Ben: Deuteronomy is fascinating. We could do a whole discussion of that book in and of itself because it is–Deuteronomy in Greek means “second law”–but it is kind of a later law code that is arguably the result of a very kind of reactionary sect of Israelite theology that does not see coexistence with people who don't worship YHWH as possible. And rhetorically, what they are saying is when the Israelites get to the promised land, they are to commit genocide against the peoples of the land. Don't intermarry with them because that could lead to apostasy, that could lead to illicit worship. You know, their daughters will lead you to serve other gods. The sense here is that Israel is a holy people, God has chosen them to be special unto him, and if they allow this foreign influence to affect them, that will be undermined. Mike: Okay, and what about the Ezra text? Ezra 9:1-2 and 9:12. Ben: Yeah, there's some scholarship to indicate that Ezra and Nehemiah represent one scholarly tradition. So after the Babylonian empire was defeated by the Persian empire, the Persians allowed the community of Israelites that had been taken into exile, the golah community, to return to the land, to rebuild the temple, and to reestablish rule. So one of the concerns of the returning community is this very specific idea that the reason they were exiled in the first place is because God is punishing them for worshipping other gods. And that sense also undergirds the theology of the book of Deuteronomy. So their solution is that, to prevent that from ever happening again, they have to divorce from the non-Israelite wives that they had married that might lead them into temptation. Now this is the view of the returning community, not the community that had stayed in the land of Israel during that time. So these would have been the intelligentsia, the priestly class, the aristocracy, skilled laborers, so it's not a normative view, but it kind of becomes normative because it becomes the dominant voice of the text, if that makes any sense. But they are saying that for the sake not just of religious purity but also to establish power for themselves, you know, the returning community has a claim to power in the land, not just because they have, you know, they have a connection to it where they are before the exile, but they are supported by the Persian imperial power. They're making this new claim of identity and religiosity to assert that power. Mike: Okay and what about Leviticus 20:24? Ben: “You shall inherit their land” (“Them” being the Canaanites.) “that I will give unto you to possess it, a land that flows with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God that separated you from other people.” So this is God telling the Israelites that they will be given the promised land because God has chosen them, has separated them. The word “kodesh,” to be holy, also means separate. So it's really a theological category, not an ethnic one. You know, the Israelites are separate from these people and are given the land because of their adherence to the covenant at Sinai, not because they are of a particular ethnic or racial background. Mike: Okay, so we talked a little bit about kind of the somewhat genocidal tendencies I guess. And so David Duke talks about massacres perpetrated by Jews in the bible. He points to Deuteronomy 20:10-18, Isaiah 34:2-3. and Joshua 6:21 and 10:28-41. And when I mentioned Joshua to you, you kind of rolled your eyes at it. Ben: Yeah. Mike: So I guess let's start with Joshua then. Ben: Yeah, I do. Good. Joshua's a fascinating text. Scholars pretty much agree that it has no, or little to no, basis in historical fact. You know, one of these is that, these texts Joshua 6:21, is the destruction of the city of Jericho which according to archeological records happened several hundred years prior to when this narrative is supposed to have taken place. But what's being discussed here in 21 is the devotion of the city to the Lord, the destruction of every living thing in it. So, you know, this is absolutely a genocidal text. It's a purification of the land by the sword and by flame. So typically in war in the ancient near east, you could take slaves, you could take cattle as war booty. But what is being done here is the destruction of all of that, saying that everything belongs to God, and as such it must be destroyed and sacrificed unto him. But it's also seen as a kind of justice because here are these, for lack of a better word, pagans who stand in the way of the Israelite mission, and who may also tempt the Israelites to turn away from the path of God. So it's absolutely this violent, theologically motivated holy war, genocidal slaughter, maintained in the text. And I do think it's important to wrestle with these notions. You know, whether or not it actually happened, it's still– It's there, and it informs a great deal of thinking. It informed the colonization of the New World, whereby settlers from Europe saw themselves as Israelites and the indigenous people here as Canaanites. Robert Allen Warrior is an indigenous scholar who's done a lot of work on this. But then, the Joshua narrative also informed many of the early Zionists, and they saw themselves as, as Rachel Haverlock called the Joshua generation. Like, Ben Gurion assembled a number of different people to do bible studies on the book of Joshua. It is a text of settler colonialism and can be used to justify that kind of political programme. Mike: Okay so back to Deutero– Ben: If that's what you're trying to do, Joshua is a good place to pull from. Mike: Okay so back to Deuteronomy, 20:10-18. What's being said in there? Ben: “When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open its gates, all the people shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage in battle, lay siege to the city.” And the ban, or kherem, is in effect there. So destroy, destroy, destroy, and leave nothing because everything is for God. It's the same scenario– In this instance, the people in the land are given the opportunity to surrender, otherwise they are subject to the sword. It's very similar to the kind of warfare described in other texts from the ancient near east, whether they're Assyrian or Babylonian. So it's not uncommon to see this kind of siege warfare described, and it's not necessarily unique to the Israelite people. Mike: Right, I mean, yeah, I mean that was one of the things that happened to the Israelite people, at least in engaging the Romans, right? Ben: Yeah, precisely. Mike: Okay, what about Isaiah 34:2-3? Ben: This one's interesting because it's not actually a narrative of slaughter. It's a prophetic oracle delivered against the people of Edom, the Edomites, for betraying the Israelites to the Babylonians and assisting in their imperial endeavors. It's saying that, you know, you will be destroyed. You know, the corpses of your people will lay in the street. So it's not an actual thing that happened. It's part of a type of prophetic literature called oracles against the nations where the prophet of a particular book will condemn a specific people on God's behalf. Keep in mind that the prophets aren't really seen as their own agents. They're the agents of God; they speak God's word. So God through Isaiah is saying, here's what's going to happen to you because of your betrayal. Mike: Okay, so this next part is probably going to need a trigger warning or something. So there's some really strange passages that he cites about rape and virginity that I honestly haven't looked at because by the time I got to these passages I was just tired of him being wrong every time I checked the passages he cited. So he cites Kethuboth 11b, Sanhedrin 55b and 69a-b, Yebamoth 57b, 58a, and 60b. So let's start with Kethuboth. Ben: Right, yeah, so here he's– The issue is Bath Sheeba, when she gave birth to Solomon, whether or not she was six years old, or whether or not she was an earlier age. It's not saying that six-year-olds are appropriate– or that six is an appropriate age for sexual relations with a girl. It's arguing at what age a child can conceive. Like when is conception possible? And it's saying that because Bath Sheeba gave birth to Solomon when she was six, it's somewhere around that time. Yeah, this whole discourse is really gnarly. Mike: Okay, so what about Sanhendrin 55b? Ben: So here it's about a girl who is three years and one day whose father has arranged for her to be married, and betrothal is through intercourse. It's concerning the legal status of the intercourse with her, if it's like full-fledged sex. Really here the text is examining forbidden sexual acts that cause ritual impurity and calamity. And prior to this specific quotation is a broader context of unwitting beastiality, like beastiality that you didn't know you did. It's not justifying sex with minors; it says that the act renders the man ritually impure and liable to be put to death. Lucky for the child, I guess lucky, is that they're exempt from execution because they're a minor. Small condolence I guess. Mike: Okay so it's basically saying the opposite of what David Duke said. Ben: Yeah. Mike: Okay, what about 69a-b? Ben: I mean, this is probably a discussion of the legal ramifications of this act. Mike: Yeah this is actually, this says exactly what you were talking about earlier. So “A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabitated with her, she becomes his.” Blah blah blah. Ben: Yeah, because it's Yebamoth– It's Yebamoth, right? Mike: No this is Sanhendrin. Ben: Oh Sanhendrin. So this is, yeah, criminal law. So this is the liability of criminal punishment, but also these rabbis debated everything. What is the likelihood that a three-year-old is going to be married to someone who then dies and then has to be– Again they have the option to be married to their brother so that the dead brother's lineage doesn't end. They're really negotiating, like, every possible eventuality that might happen just in case. You know, all of these are hypothetical situations. And, you know, they're gross. Some of them are just really fucked up. Mike: [laughs] Yeah Jews like to talk about a lot of weird hypotheticals. Alright so now onto the Yebamoth one. So 57b. Ben: Yeah, Yebamoth 57b. This one I've got, “A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired by marriage in coition.” So yeah, the sex act is technically allowed. It's not condoning it. But because three-year-old girls cannot become pregnant, it's still technically forbidden because it's a waste of seed in non-procreative sex. So it's saying that she can't conceive via sexual intercourse, so it's really forbidden because sex in this worldview is not for pleasure; it's purely for procreation. So if you are wasting sperm engaging in this sex act, it's a bad thing. Not going to lie, this one's fucked up. Mike: Yeah, what about 58a? Ben: Um, doesn't say anything about minors. Mike: Really? Ben: Just, yeah, I didn't see anything about minors in this one. Mike: What about rape? Ben: Most likely. Let me just take a closer look. Mike: Or virginity or something? Ben: Yeah, do you have a quote on this one? Mike: Not sure. I mean, I don't have quotes on any of these because again I stopped looking at them. Ben: Yeah, and a lot of it is just like– It's kind of he said, she said. I don't know. I don't take David Duke's reading of these in good faith, and I don't think we can. Mike: This is a weird passage. There's something about “Through betrothal alone a woman is not entitled to eat.” This is so strange. Ben: I mean I would lie if I said that I understood the majority of Talmudic literature. Mike: Right. Ben: You know, people can spend seven years reading this entire work all the way through. The law of tamurah. Mike: Yeah, and, I mean, even– David Duke doesn't even necessarily quote these passages. He just references them. And I guess, like you said, he probably pulls them from other sources without reading them. Ben: Yeah, I– With this, I can't even tell, like, what he's arguing. Like, what is the– What issue is he taking here? Mike: Yeah, I would suggest that our listeners read this passage and try to figure out what the fuck David Duke has a problem with. Ben: Yeah exactly. Yeah [sarcastically] read David Duke's book. You'll have fun. Mike: Yeah, no don't read David Duke's book, but you can read the Talmud, that's pretty good. Ben: Spend seven years reading the whole thing. You can do it, a daf a day. Mike: Alright, do you have any notes on Yebamoth 60b? Ben: So this is where the Gemara cites another ruling related to who is considered a virgin. And it's not condoning sex with a three-year-old. It says that in the event of that happening, she remains a virgin because her hymen grows back. Like if it's through a sex act with an adult man or if her hymen is ruptured by wood. You know, she's still considered a virgin because it grows back. I don't know if that's medically true. Mike: Yeah, I was– Ben: Sounds like bullshit, but the issue here is virginity as it relates to being able to determine paternity in the long run. Mike: Okay, alright, so Judaism has changed a lot since these texts were written. So what can we say about the ethos of Judaism now as it relates to these texts? Ben: Right, obviously most Jews aren't concerned with the majority of the issues we've addressed here today. You know, they don't spend a lot of time thinking about beastiality, thank goodness. But I think if there is a single Jewish ethos, it's an affirmation of being the people of Israel, literally meaning “to wrestle with God,” Yis-ra-el. Engagement in argument over Torah are so central to our people's identity that even secular atheist Jews still contend with these issues. So as many different types of Jews as there are and how many different ways they approach the text, there still profoundly, proudly participating in a longstanding tradition that's engaging with and arguing with the tradition. I think that's the modern Jewish ethos, and it's much the same as the ancient but adapted to the current context: How do we live a good life? Mike: Word, well Ben Siegel, thank you so much for coming on The Nazi Lies Podcast and taking the time to do the tedious work of debunking David fucking Duke. [both laugh] You can catch Ben on Twitter and Facebook at Anarcho-Judaism. Ben: Mike it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. [Theme song]

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Does Thinking Still Count As Working?

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2021 36:35

Show notes:Links:Write for usMaybeJosh Pigford Flu dataFull transcript:Ben:And today we don't have Starr, because Starr is on vacation this week, fireside chat.Josh:I will be on vacation next week, and the week after.Ben:Nice.Josh:I don't know if you saw, I extended my vacation.Ben:I didn't see this.Josh:Yeah. So, surprise!Ben:Two weeks back to back. That's a record.Josh:Yeah. I decided I'm feeling it and I don't think a week is going to be enough. So just thought I'd go for it.Ben:Yeah, I get that. I get that. It's funny, I was looking... We started this vacation calendar, recently, since we are looking at transitioning away from Basecamp, where our vacation calendar was, we are now putting a vacation calendar in Google calendar, because we use G Suite for all of our stuff. And I set up this vacation calendar, and I noticed that Starr put one on there, and then Josh put on a vacation and then Kevin put on a vacation. And then, Ben Findley, just week after week after week, it's like everybody's taking a vacation. I was like, all right, so I put myself on vacation.Josh:Yeah, you got to put yourself in there. Yeah.Ben:I did. Yeah. I added myself yesterday, for the week after Ben Findley's vacation.Josh:I don't know if you went and... I went in and just put a bunch of vacations for the rest of the year for-Ben:I saw that.Josh:... myself. Yeah.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:I mean, they might change, but I figured, if I at least put them in there, that'll force me to think about it and decide. Because that's been an ongoing problem, I always wait too long and then, finally, take the vacation when I just desperately need it, and I want to avoid that cycle, like we're supposed to be. This is supposed to be sustainable.Ben:This is a calm company. It means, lots of vacations.Josh:Yeah. We should be calm if we're running a calm company.Ben:I like that idea of putting on these dates tentatively and just planning on it. I might try that.Josh:Yeah. You should just plan them out. Also, yeah, I put our traditionally long winter vacation on there too, which I think is currently the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, which we can always move that around or sometimes we do the Hack week or whatever.Ben:Yeah. I've come to cherish that tradition. I like having that-Josh:It's nice.Ben:Knowing that's going to be downtime. You know?Josh:Yeah.Ben:I mean-Josh:I like the first week of the year off is kind of... there's something about that, where you don't have to go back to work the day after New Year's or whatever. That feels really nice.Ben:I mean, in reality, we're still on call. So if something broke, were going to work, but, yeah, it is nice not having that expectation of showing up and doing actual productive stuff.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. It's the low bandwidth mode.Ben:Yeah. It's also this past winter when we did that, I used that to just experiment with some stuff, work-related stuff like Elasticsearch and whatever, so that's kind of fun. It's a tinkering... even if we don't do an official Hack Week, it's still a good time to do some tinkering and get some of those creative juices going.Josh:Read some books on computer science or something like that, get excited about it again.Ben:Well, going through the SOC 2 compliance thing, the type two for the first time audit, one of the things that I came across that was new was this continuing education tracking thing. So the auditor wants evidence that we're actually doing continuing education for our employees. We always do conferences and stuff, but 2020 was a bad year for conferences, and we've never really tracked continuing education. We just like, "Yeah, let's do this conference," or whatever, and it's kind of ad hoc. And now it's like, "Oh, we need to track this, it's a good idea to plan something." So yeah, digging out those old computer science books or taking a course or doing a conference. Got to do it.Josh:Which is, well, you got to do it, but it's also, to me, that's one of my favorite things to do. I really like learning, so even in my spare time, that's what I like to do.Ben:Same.Josh:So I realized even with, yeah, my perfect workweek is a couple of hours maximum a day of doing the day-to-day things that you have to do, and then spend the rest of the day reading or learning something or working on improving your skills.Ben:Yep. Yeah. I to-Josh:That's what makes me happy.Ben:I don't try to do that every day, I like the idea, but I try to do that on Fridays. Friday to me is like the decompression day, I'm cruising into the weekend now. And so I try to put aside all the normal stuff and just something kind of interesting. Before we got on this morning, I was playing with some Docker stuff, not that we use Docker, but maybe we will someday, and just fiddling with it. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think it's kind of fun.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I like that.Ben:Until we get one of those customer requests that come in, I'm like, "Oh, I have to do some actual work now." And so, love our customers, but sometimes they can be kind of inconvenient, legitimate complaints about things need to be fixed.Josh:Or when there's an ops emergency, and so I drop everything and fix it. You had some of that going on this week. I know.Ben:But with both you and Starr got to experience those ops emergencies. It was actually a funny, so Starr, is on vacation, but the Starr was still on call for part of that time.Josh:The first night. Yeah. Because she had scheduled me to take over, was it yesterday? Whatever day it was-Ben:But in the morning.Josh:... but it was the night before. Yeah. It was like-Ben:Yeah, so I imagine in the future she might schedule you to swap a bit earlier, but-Josh:Yeah. I feel bad, because she said that, I guess, they had to get up early for a road trip and it's like 2:00 AM or something, or actually it was like 4:00 AM, I think, by the time the alerts died down.Ben:Yeah. The bad part was that there wasn't really anything to do. There was this spike in memory usage on our Redis Cluster, but it resolved itself, but only after sending some alerts saying, "Hey, somebody better pay attention to this," because that's a critical part of our infrastructure.Josh:Well, I mean, that's happened to me a few times. I mean, that's usually my on-call experience to be honest, and if it's worse than that, there's a good chance I'm waking you up anyways. But I mean, that's part of... You have a system well-architected, at least to the point, where if there is something, it does usually resolve itself, but still you need someone to sit up with it and babysit it until it does, just to make sure. And I mean, it would be totally unfair that you're the one who builds the system and also has to babysit it all the time, so our on call schedule is like a babysitter rotation.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that, because I was looking at this vacation schedule, it's like, "Oh, when should I take vacation?" So I went and looked at the PagerDuty rotation to try and schedule my vacation away from my rotation on PagerDuty, so I didn't have to swap. And PagerDuty has changed their UI a little bit since the last time I looked at it, and I logged in and it's like, "When are you on call next?" And it says, "You're always on call." Because I'm the-Josh:Because you're level one.Ben:I'm the backup schedule. Yeah.Josh:I know, and that's a problem. I've been thinking about that, so you're not the only one worried about that, but, yeah.Ben:It was just kind of funny. I mean, it hasn't been a quality of life issue for a long time, because we've had so few problems, but still I am that backup. If it goes, what is it, more than half an hour or something, then I get woken up. But it was just kind of funny to see, you're always on call.Josh:Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd say that's the major downside of our business is just the nature of that. And also just the nature of expertise. I feel like when I leave, it's much harder on the team, solving a lot of the customer support issues that come up related to our libraries and things. And I mean, that's part of the reason we've wanted to bring more people in the business, but then you end up with more people in the business, and then you're tied to a management role that you can't leave too. So there's trade-offs there.Ben:Yes. It's the struggle of all the bootstrap SaaS operators that are small like us, how do I get time away when I'm the solo founder? Or maybe it just two co-founders, how do we take a break? Justin has talked about this with their customer support for Transistor. They felt like they were always just having to stay on top of that, and they could never take a break. And so, they hired someone to help out with that. And having Kevin around has really helped spread the rotation out, and he's taken up a lot of the ops stuff and gotten familiar with it. So-Josh:Yeah. He's taken an interest in it, which is good.Ben:Yeah. It's been great for me.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. It's a hard problem to solve, because, I mean, yeah, you could add people, but then you got to pay those people, and so your profitability takes a hit, so it's a balance.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, I think, I don't know about you, I prefer to stay small. I don't think... I've moved past the idea of I want to have a company with tons of employees or whatever. I think that actually would make... I wouldn't be as happy with that situation, probably, as with our current situation, with a few employees and small team. We probably spend a lot more time trying to solve these problems than larger companies do, because they just throw people at it. But yeah, I feel like-Ben:That just introduces a different set of problems, right?Josh:It does.Ben:You really just have to pick which set of problems you want. Do you want to be tied to the business? Or do you want to deal with the layers of management and the people problems that come with not being tied, personally, to the business?Josh:Yeah. So, yeah-Ben:Yeah.Josh:I don't know, over time though, I think I tend towards wanting to spend less time on the business or at least, when I say, on the business, I mean, less time on those things that I just have to be doing and don't want to be doing. I want to try to always be doing the things I want to be doing. And yeah. I mean, I know just general management stuff does not fall into that bucket of what I want to be doing.Ben:It's not your dream in life to be a manager.Josh:Nope. It's not even my dream in life to be traveling the world 200 days a year or something, and preaching the gospel or something.Ben:Yeah. I've thought about that recently too. Looking at companies that get really big, whether they take a bunch of money or not regardless, but they turn into tens and then hundreds of employees. And I think about what would that be to be a CEO of that kind of company? And I'm just like, I just don't know that I would really enjoy that. There would be a certain set of excitement, yes, no doubt, about having that kind of business.Ben:I can think of right now about Tobi at Shopify, because I remember when Tobi started at Shopify, and watch that grow. And just thinking about, it's got to be pretty fun and in some ways to be Tobi, to be on top of this organization and doing these cool things and seeing the impact that you're making. And they've gone public, there's a whole lot of cool stuff there, but there's also a lot of annoying stuff there. That come along with those cool things. And it's like, ah, I think I'm happy where I am. I don't think I need to be the CEO of Shopify or something that size to have that fulfillment in my career right now.Josh:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that you find new ways to guard your time and it just becomes even more, that's why no one can reach the CEO, usually. But, I mean, it's all... Yeah. It just puts you in an even more critical position. The pressure and responsibility must still be pretty, it just must be massive. But-Ben:It must be.Josh:Yeah. I guess, I don't really know, because I've never been in that position. I'm just guessing.Ben:Right, right. And life phases might change somethings and maybe when the kids are grown and gone, maybe you'll feel like, ah, I want a new challenge, something bigger. I think you see that a lot with founders, like us, who build something, sell it. And they're like, "Huh, let me try a bigger swing. Let me try..." Like Josh is doing right now, he did it did Baremetrics, he sold that, and now he's building out Maybe, and I think he's definitely thinking bigger scope kind of stuff.Josh:It looks like it. Yeah.Ben:Or you can just go buy a ranch somewhere and just chill, right?Josh:Right. Well, I think it's kind of... I mean, yeah, those aren't unsimilar to me. I mean, I think the big point is or the major thing is, if you're financially set and you can, again, do whatever you want to do, then, yeah, go do it. But again, even, say, if we sold the business and didn't have to work another day in our lives, we could just go buy that ranch and just kick back on it. If I decided to go and start another company, I wouldn't want to start a company that is going to demand my time and involvement, like most companies do.Josh:I'd probably try to go start another Honeybadger or something, maybe, you could go larger scale, but something that solves for those problems. Yeah, and I don't know what that looks like, but I feel like some companies of the future are kind of like... The ones that GitLab, that take a more open source approach. I don't know exactly what being in charge of GitLab is like, but I'm sure it's not a walk in the park either, but experimenting with new ways to spread responsibility around. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And maybe the answer is, that's a scenario where you do have to take a bunch of money, so you can get those employees to make that lift, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. I think if we sold Honeybadger and we did something new, I think it has to be different in some dimension or otherwise, why did you sell?Josh:Yeah. It would have to be.Ben:And so maybe it's a different audience. Maybe it's a different size. Maybe it's venture backed versus doing it from scratch. I think it would have to be different in some significant way for it to be interesting enough to actually do versus just spending the rest of my retirement tinkering or whatever.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I guess, getting to that critical point with employees is the thing that's hard, going from what we have, which is kind of like where we're so small that we have things we have to still be here for, but we can just disconnect whenever we want to, for the most part, like take a week off if we want to, and just do customer support or be on call. But jumping from that to the point where, say, you have 50 employees or something and you're the CEO, and you can just be like, "Okay, everyone, I'm going to be gone for a week, carry on." Which I think you can do when you have other people managing people.Josh:But in between that, there's a very... it's like if you're growing out your hair, there's that weird, you know, the annoying stage where your hair, just like you hate it. And it's like, it just doesn't work. And you're... Yeah, it just seems like that exists when you're trying to grow a business where it's hard with 10 people, all 10 of those people are looking to you for leadership on a regular basis. And you're still connected to the major centers of the business.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't really thought of it that way, and that makes total sense to me. There's those growing pains that you would get going from one phase to another.Josh:And I guess, I'm not sure, having been doing what we're doing as long as we have, I'm not convinced that I want to go through that pain that I know is there to get to that stage where I know that we probably would be in another... we'd be back in the position where we could probably have more freedom, or hire a CEO then to just run the business, which people do.Ben:Well, I mean, I wonder, so two thoughts that I have. I wonder, if you're a venture back startup, if you start from scratch with a bunch of money in the war chest, do you avoid some of those growing pains? Because you can just, right out of the gate, hire a bunch of people, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:So I wonder that, and then the follow on-Josh:Good thought.Ben:Yeah, I have no idea. And the follow on thought is, well, like in our situation, we've been around for a long time, we have profitable business, we're great, what if we take on an investment now, and then that gives us that money to hire a bunch of people? To help you accelerate through that growing pain phase, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:If you had one or two people here and there that's painful, but if you add 10 or 20 people, I don't know, maybe that's a different kind of pain, but maybe it's a better kind of pain. Because it's like ripping the band-aid off, because you did all done at once.Josh:Yeah. No, that's a good point. Yeah. That's something that I hadn't factored in, in that line of thinking. So, yeah, I think he could be right, that that is a common use of funding and capital investment and all that.Ben:Yeah. I would be open to that idea, if we had figured out the sales machine. If we could say, "Oh, we can deploy X amount of people, and we know that X amount of revenue would come in, because we'd be doing these Y activities."Josh:Totally.Ben:But we haven't quite got there yet. We have a really strong inbound, but we don't really have an outbound or we don't have a process even for dealing with inbound sales, because everything right now is hands-off, right?Josh:It's not scalable. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're doing this to ourselves, to some extent, just in our own lack of knowledge or experience in those areas, but that's part of the learning process. So-Ben:Yeah, you're right.Josh:... we are... I think it's smart though, to be focusing on those areas now, to open up those possibilities in the future. So that if we change our minds and realize that we could scale the business to a point where we can, again, have the same thing that we have now only potentially better because we don't have those, even the small responsibilities, that drag us back in, on a regular basis.Ben:Yeah, yeah. We're still choosing to grow slow and to keep it pretty calm, keep that calm company.Josh:Yeah. That's the point of calm-Ben:Right. If we take it big chunk of money, we could hire the VP of Marketing, the VP of sales, the VP of engineering, right? And then we could-Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:... presumably step back once we got these people set on the, here's the goal, now get it, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:But, yeah, that would be a less calm company, for sure.Josh:Yeah.Ben:At least for a while.Josh:Yep. And even if that's to the extent that that's possible, yeah, I don't know, I mean, you still have to build the idea of the calm company into that business. Otherwise, you'll just end up with 30 to 50 people that are chaotic and-Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:... calling you all the time or emailing you. Yeah. So I guess I'll revise my statement, it's like, I'm not willing to grind it out to get to the next level. If that's what it comes down to, I'm happy, let's just stay where we are for... I'm fine, we run the business as an asset and try to build the lifestyle aspect of it more than anything else. But if we can find a way to scale the business and then maybe invest in it so that we can accelerate the jump, or a hair faster, so to speak.Ben:I like that.Josh:I'm terrible at metaphors. I feel like this one might actually be working, but Starr's the metaphor person. So I feel like I'm really on... I'm going to risky position right now.Ben:Better stop while you're ahead, right?Josh:Yeah.Josh:No more metaphors for the rest of the day.Ben:I think that the hair growth thing works, just have to take care of not to offend all of our bald listeners, you know?Josh:Right. Yeah. So I went to a Starbucks this week and did some work inside of it-Ben:Whoa.Josh:... without a mask.Ben:Wow. That's brave.Josh:I still did the distancing stuff just because it seems smart. I wasn't hugging everyone, but, yeah, they've got it all posted, it's like, if you're vaccinated, the mask is optional. Plus I was drinking a beverage, so... But yeah, I had a Zoom session at the Starbucks, and it was a novel experience.Ben:Very nice. Yeah. I went to a Target this week for the first time in a long time, and yeah, I just put my mask on out of habit. It's like, get out of the car, put the mask on, go in the store, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:And I'm walking around and I don't know, maybe a quarter of the people there didn't have masks, it's like, oh yeah, it's not required anymore, really. I'm vaccinated. I'm like, huh, cool. And I'll just get a long my way, but it's like, I have to get used to this new reality of not having to wear a mask.Josh:That not everyone... Yeah. Although I still suspect that a large portion of the people that are going to take them off or aren't going to wear them are the people that were always not wearing them.Ben:Yeah. Although I will say, if I were still doing mass transit every day, like I used to do, I would definitely be still wearing a mask, if it was any time cold or flu season-Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I'm not going back to that prehistoric animal way of not covering myself during germy season.Josh:Well, there's that flu statistics that I guess have been coming in from the CDC, since the season is coming to an end 2020, 2021 or whatever, and it seems the whole social distancing. Masking situation, hand-washing really drastically improved that situation. I don't know, I forget what the numbers were, but it was ridiculous.Ben:Yeah, it's dropped like 99% or something crazy.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Something like that.Ben:It's nuts.Josh:Which is-Ben:It's awesome.Josh:... wild. Give it a little time for the data to get worked out, I guess, because just seems prudent. But I mean, either way, it seems like it's a massive thing.Ben:Yeah. I would definitely need to normalize mask wearing during germs, no doubt.Josh:Yeah. Yep. I'm cool with never getting sick again.Ben:Totally. Well, and on that note, this fall kids will actually be going to school, and it'll be an exciting adventure. All those, snot nosed punks running around getting each other sick again.Josh:Yeah. That'll be the real test. That's just going to knock us out. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter's, Tatum's starting kindergarten in the fall.Ben:Wow.Josh:And that'll be her... We did preschool at home. So yeah, that's going to be wild.Ben:First school experience, huh?Josh:Yes.Ben:Yeah, that's-Josh:I'm entering a new stage. I feel like, a new phase.Ben:Yeah. It's bittersweet. You're like, oh, that's so exciting. And it's like, oh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, yeah. I remember those days with fondness.Josh:What's also going to be weird, because it's going to force me to start interacting with other parents in the community, which I think that's my biggest thing right now is like, oh, no, I-Ben:You better watch out, next thing you know, you'll be the president of the PTSA. You'll be organizing bake sales, and-Josh:Yeah, we're definitely going to be the... I think we'll be the weird parents, in our area, anyway.Ben:It's funny. I've noticed this, this arc, your first kid goes into kindergarten and you're so into PTA and PTSA. You're like, "I'm going to take care of all the things. I'm going to volunteer in the classroom." And you're really engaged and involved and it's so good. And then over time you start to back off a bit. It's like, "Oh, I don't really need to do all the things, there are other people that help," you know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:And then by the time they get to the tail end and they get close to graduation from high school, you're just like, "I don't even care what they're doing anymore. Educate yourself, kid. You figure it out."Josh:Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean I had to basically educate myself, so you can.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Totally. It's funny seeing the new wave of parents come in every year to the PTA, and then all of a sudden they go out, again, as the new wave comes in.Josh:And you having been there for a while, that sounds kind of like, oh no metaphors. Like if you go to a gym regularly and every New Year's, like the first two weeks of January, that's what it sounds to me.Ben:Yep. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.Josh:Because everyone comes in and is just super dedicated, and then over the next couple of weeks, it's just, they all filter out again and you're back to the same 10 people in the afternoon or whatever.Ben:Right. Yeah. And all the regulars get annoyed because of it. They're like, "Oh, all these people crammed in one place."Josh:Yeah. All this exuberance is just... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. So gym, that's a open question for me right now. So I still have a gym membership. I haven't canceled it, but I haven't been since the beginning of the pandemic. And even though I'm a 100% vaccinated, and I'm feeling invincible, still, the gym is one place I'm like, I don't know. I still feel kind of uncomfortable at that. Still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to keep that membership, because I really enjoy going, but I don't know, I don't really want to wear a mask while I'm exercising, that just sucks.Josh:Yeah, that was mine too, I just didn't... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And wiping down everything, I'm not a super sweaty person, so I'm not the kind of person that really needs to wipe down the equipment as soon as I'm done with it, because it's like, I just touch it. I didn't have a bath on it. And so I'm just... I don't know. I don't even know if they have a kitchen cleaning procedure that you have to do now, because, again, I haven't been to the gym, but I don't know. It's tough.Josh:I haven't been to the gym, because I got my home gym in 2019, the end of 2019, and so it's been that long. But I do sweat and I was used to just wiping down the equipment in between, it's not that bad. Especially if you... you can even carry a towel with you if you want, but most gyms have the whatever clothes-Ben:Yeah. Wipes.Josh:... and spray bottles and stuff. It's not the end of the world, but the mask thing, yeah, the idea of working out in a mask does not appeal to me. Even though it could be a plus for some people, like the people that are training for high altitudes and stuff. Some people wear the mask on the treadmills and I'm sure those people are like, "Sweet, that's just extra challenge."Ben:Right, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I'm still doing the home stuff and it's just not as-Josh:You should-Ben:... awesome.Josh:... give it a try.Ben:Yeah. I guess I should. I should call them and say, "Hey, what's the deal down there?"Josh:I mean, I figure from what has been reported, the vaccines are very effective.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:And I mean, I understand the hesitancy, give it some time, obviously, that's prudent, the wait and see approach is completely valid. But after that, I mean, if you're immune, you're immune. So at some point you have to start-Ben:Living again.Josh:Yeah. Getting back out there, putting yourself back out there. But I mean, it's not a bad thing to be cautious, so I understand.Ben:Yeah. Just get back in the habit, I guess.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, to be fair, I'm also not at the gym with a bunch of people spitting in my face. So just to be clear, I'm giving this advice from my bunker.Ben:Yeah. You've got the sweet home gym set up. I'm jealous.Josh:Yeah. Actually, I've reduced my routine a little bit lately, and I've actually been doing more yoga and flexibility things, because I always go really hard with the weightlifting, and I'm not getting any younger. And so injuries are more frequent, and so I've been doing two days, two days a week right now just to keep up the major lifts and stuff, but kind of taking a little bit of a break.Ben:Have you done any of the Apple Fitness stuff?Josh:Yeah, I did one of the yoga sessions on it, when I was just... because I did yoga last year, when I had some injury stuff, and it was good, and I should have just kept doing it. And so, that's why I tried when I first started getting back into it this year, and it was really good. It was a little intense though for a beginner like me. So I've been doing this more beginner training, learning the actual postures and stuff. But then my plan is just to use the Apple Fitness stuff after that, because they seem like they have a lot of good just general-Ben:Yeah. I really like the Apple Fitness stuff. I've done some of the yoga. I didn't do the 30 minute stuff. I did the 10 minutes stuff, because I'm a super beginner, and so I did the really easy yoga, which was great for me. And I've done their high intensity stuff, which was pretty good. I'm not really an aerobics kind of person. I run and I ride, I figure I get enough aerobics that way. But when it was raining and cold and stuff, I just did the high intensity stuff, and that was pretty cool. I really liked that. And I've done their cycling, which is okay, but it's geared, at least the ones that I did, were geared towards being on a indoor cycling machine where you can adjust the intensity easily and stuff.Ben:I'm not, I'm on my own bike on a trainer, where the wheel is propped up and it's on that little roller. And so a lot of the instructions in the thing were, "Okay, let's dial up the resistance." And it's like, "Well, okay, I don't have that good of a setup here. I can't just dial up the resistance." So I had to alter it a bit, but it was still nice.Josh:You got to get your weighted boots on.Ben:I mean, but they do have trainers like mine that actually do have remote control, and so you can do that, but I don't have one. But anyway, I really enjoyed them. The fitness things are cool, and they're set into 30, 20, 10 minute intervals. And so you can like, "Oh, what kind of workout do I want today?" Yeah, I really like it.Josh:Yeah. I like the high intensity stuff for cardio a lot. And otherwise , yeah, I don't know, I could get into running, I think, but I really like walking, so I'll go for super long walks. But again, time is sometimes a factor that... sometimes I'll even just go for the afternoon and just start walking and end up back home at dinner time or something like that. I like that, but I've never been like going out too much. I've gone through a few running phases, but it never really stuck. So I like the high intensity stuff, because as far as I understand, it gives you some of the same benefits without having to run for an hour or something.Ben:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I too love long walks.Josh:Yep. I think that's a great way to spend some of your just general workweek. That's the good alternative to sitting and grinding away at the desk-Ben:No doubt.Josh:... for eight hours a day or whatever. This morning I was wrestling with my kids and stuff. And I was picking them up individually and lifting them up and then throwing them on the bed. And then I was like, "Okay, now I have to go, I have to go back to work." And they're like, "No, no. We just, we want one more." So I was like, "Okay, I've got one more." So I picked them both up, one in each arm. And I do, basically, a lateral raise with them. And as I do this, I don't know what they weigh, but Tatum's over 50 pounds, and of course they're unbalanced, but my entire upper body, just like... I hadn't done any stretching or anything, so my entire upper body just cracks all over, and Caitlin, she's like, "Are you okay?" Apparently it was like, she was concerned for me. So, yeah, I realize, man, it's not the good old days anymore.Ben:You're getting up there in years.Josh:Not that out there, but at the age where you start to notice these things, right?Ben:Yeah.Josh:But I'm not past the point of trying.Ben:So did you do anything this week? I didn't do a whole lot actually. Well, I mean, I did responding to those urgent issues-Josh:Like working, you mean?Ben:Yeah.Josh:I did not get a whole lot of work done this week no. Yeah, no, you're good. I figure, yeah, I mean, again, yeah, I'm ready for a break, so I've been trying my best, but-Ben:You're coasting into that vacation.Josh:Yeah, it's been a struggle.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:But I mean, I think, we need to learn not to feel bad about that. Having a "unproductive" week. And I mean, if I'm... Yeah, honestly, I did things this week, it just wasn't as much work things. Dealt with things at home, read some books, that sort of stuff, that's still being productive, right?Ben:Totally. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.I thought a lot about our project that we mentioned last week on the podcast about working together with Kevin on, I had spent a fair amount of time thinking about that. And that's one of the things that you can do on those long walks, it can still be working.Josh:Thinking.Ben:Thinking.Josh:Yeah, thinking is totally work.Ben:Thinking is totally work, so I did a lot of thinking this week, and responding to urgent stuff, but also, nearly, nearly done on the compliance thing. I think I have 11 out of 150 evidence requests left to complete. So-Josh:Wow.Ben:... yeah, it's almost there. Next week, I'll be actually talking to the auditors and-Josh:Awesome.Ben:Yeah. It's almost done. That's nice.Josh:And you've got ideas for making it easier next year.Ben:Yep. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So, yeah, just plugging away.Josh:So I guess we're cruising.Ben:Yeah, no worries. Well, I guess we can wrap it.Josh:Yeah, wrap it.Ben:They're getting a good one. This has been FounderQuest. We're still coming at you mostly every week, and we really enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, hope you give us a review at iTunes or wherever you can review podcasts, because I never do that, so I have no idea. But if you're into that, please do, and, yeah, check out Honeybadger, of course, because we love having more customers. And I guess we'll see y'all next time.Josh:Catch you later.

ceo new year founders google marketing zoom thinking startups target starbucks hack cdc saas developers educate shopify ui pta basecamp masking dealt elixir soc docker bootstrap honey badger gitlab transistor wipes g suite lifestyle business elasticsearch software as a service pagerduty apple fitness baremetrics ptsa ben it ben you josh it josh yeah josh you josh no ben so josh well josh oh ben well ben right micropreneur links write josh not

Will Working Together Ruin Our Anarchist Workflow?

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2021 39:09

Show notes:Links:TwistHook RelayBen Orenstein TupleWrite for HoneybadgerFull transcript:Starr:So Ben is joining us today from his car. It's bringing back fun memories. I recorded, I think the voiceover for our very first demo video in my car.Ben:Oh yeah? Nice. So as you may recall, I have a two story building that I lease one of the rooms, and the downstairs is a wine tasting room. Well with the pandemic, the company that had the wine tasting room, they closed shop. They stopped leasing, because who's going to go to a wine tasting room during a pandemic, right? Well they're leasing the space to a new tenant that's going to take that space. Apparently hey, we're getting back, things are reopening, let's taste wine again, but the new tenant wants to have a new door put in. So I got to the office today and they're like, "Yeah, we're putting in a new door." And then I'm like, "Cool." Didn't even think much of it. But then a few minutes later, there's all this drilling going on. I'm like, "Oh, I think probably the car is a better place to record today."Josh:Well at least you'll have some new friends soon.Ben:True, true.Starr:Yeah. Well I'm glad you made it, at least. And so what's up? I missed a week of the podcast and you guys invested our entire Honeybadger savings account into Bitcoin.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And I'm not sure that was the most prudent investment decision, y'all. I just wanted to say that.Ben:Yeah, the timing could have been better.Josh:Yeah, we really pulled a Roam Research on that one.Starr:Oh yeah. What do you mean by that?Josh:They invest in Bitcoin, apparently.Starr:Oh, they do? Okay.Ben:Of course they do.Starr:Of course. It's just a dip. You're supposed to buy the dips, Josh. It's just what, like a 30% dip? 40% dip?Josh:I wasn't watching it, but I read that it had recovered pretty quickly too.Starr:Oh. I have no idea. I didn't even follow it.Josh:As it does.Starr:I don't even follow it.Josh:Yeah. I just read random people's opinions.Starr:There you go.Josh:I forget where we left it last week, but I just wanted to state for record that I think I mentioned I made some accidental money in Bitcoin back when I was learning about block chain technology, but I have not bought any Bitcoin since, nor do I intend to, and I do not really view it as an investment asset.Starr:This is not investment advice.Josh:I just need to state my opinions for the future so I can look back on them with regret. If I don't say what I actually think, I'm never going to have anything to regret.Starr:There you go.Josh:I'm just going to commit.Starr:So you've decided to die on this no intrinsic value hill.Josh:Right. I'll let you know if I change my mind.Starr:Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, I don't really check. Last week y'all did the interview with Mike, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, it was a good conversation.Starr:Yeah. I don't really pay attention to it, except occasionally I'll look at the chart. It's the same with GameStop. Occasionally I'll look at the GameStop chart and then just see what wild stuff people are saying about it. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, GameStop was hovering at about 150 for a while, but now it's up to like 170-ish, 180. Something like that. Yeah. I peek at it every now... it's on my watch list when I log into my brokerage account, so I just see it. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool." And then I move on and check out my real actual stock portfolio.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. I'm not going to buy it. It's like a TV show for me.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:Yeah. To be fair, I really don't have much of an opinion either way. I still don't understand it, so I don't know. I just feel like I probably shouldn't be buying it.Starr:That's really good advice. I don't understand anything though, so what am I supposed to do, Josh? Huh? Huh?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Just buy the index fund.Starr:Yeah. I don't even understand that.Josh:I don't understand that either though, if you really think about it.Ben:That's actually, there was a good thread or so on Twitter. I don't know if it was this week or last week, but basically the idea was if you feel really confident in your own ability, in your own business, given that, you're probably spending most of your time in that business, right? We spend most of our creative time in Honeybadger because that's where we feel the most potential is. So you're investing basically all of your personal capital in this one business. How do you diversify that risk? Or do you diversify the risk? Do you double down? Maybe do you take investment to diversify, and so you buy out? Let someone do a secondary and so you take some cash off the table? If you did that, then where would you put the money? Do you just go, "Okay, I'm going to go buy Bitcoin. I'm going to go buy an index fund," or whatever. And if you do that, is that a better use of your money than having just kept the equity and just plowing more time into your business? Right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's an interesting thought exercise. It's like, "Hm." The whole investment mindset of your business is interesting to me.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. I think I saw that conversation, or maybe I saw a similar conversation where they were talking about even just 401Ks and for founders who are already fairly... have at least made it in whatever sense that means. Is it the best financial move to keep maxing out your 401K versus investing in your ability to generate revenue in your business?Starr:So a little bit of real talk here. If you are a founder who's made it, maxing out your 401K isn't really a blip on your financial radar.Josh:It's not a big... yeah. That was kind of the same thought I had. It's not like you're putting 50% of your income into it.Starr:Yeah. What is it, like 20 grand? Something like that?Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's a good chunk of change, but still. It's not like...Josh:Yeah. I don't know.Starr:Yeah, that's interesting. I think I'm just going to go all in on Pogs. I think they're due for a comeback. I think that's going to be how I diversify.Josh:But I think it's probably a good move to invest in yourself if you have the ability to build businesses. That definitely seems like a good investment, in any case. Probably still have a 401K. I tend to do everything, except Bitcoin.Ben:A 401K is a nice backstop. Just keep stocking money away, and later it will be there, hopefully. But in the meantime, really, really spend your time and your energy on making your business even more profitable. Speaking of making your business more profitable, so this past week or two weeks, I've been working on our SOC 2 type two audit, so I'm doing the evidence collection.Starr:Oh yeah?Ben:So that in this case means I take a bunch of screenshots of settings, like the AWS console and G-suite console to show yeah, we have users, and yes, we have login restrictions, et cetera. All the 150 different things that you're supposed to check off the list when you do the audit. And as I've been going through this process taking all these screenshots, honestly it's getting a bit tedious, and it's surprisingly time consuming. And so I'm like, "You know, there are services for this sort of thing. Let me check them out." And so in the past three days, I've had conversations with Vanta, Secureframe, and Drata. These are three providers that what they do is they provide almost SOC 2 in a box. Basically they help you connect all of your systems and get the evidence that you need for an auditor in a more automated fashion. So for example, they'll plug into your AWS account and they'll pull out information about your security groups, your application firewall, your AIM, all the access permissions, all that kind of stuff, and pack that up into a nice little format that the auditor can then look at and like, "Yeah, they're good on all these different requirements." So you don't have to take screenshots of security groups.Ben:And I hadn't really looked at them before because I was like, "I don't know if I just want to spend that kind of money," but actually sitting back and looking at it, looking at the time that I'm spending on this and the amount of time I'm paying our auditors to audit all these screenshots that I'm taking, actually I think it would be cheaper to go with one of these services, because your audit is a bit more streamlined because the auditor knows how that data is going to come in and it's an easy format to digest, et cetera. But the thing is that after having gone through some of the sales pitches from these vendors, I'm thinking I really wish I would have started with these back the first time, because I think it would have been much easier just from the get go. So I think I've been doing the SOC compliance on hard mode, unfortunately, but lessons learned.Starr:With my experience, that just seems to be how projects are. You do it one time and you don't really know what you're doing, and you just push your way through it, and then eventually you figure out how to do it better and easier and all that. Because when something is new to you, you don't know what you can safely ignore. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Well plus you're pumping up the value of FounderQuest.Starr:Oh, that's true. We got a lot of content out of that.Ben:That's true.Starr:At least $100 worth.Josh:That's useful knowledge. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, so I think the short version is if you are interested in doing SOC2 compliance and you have no idea what you're doing, talk to these vendors first and maybe just start with them. They will help you, because they have customer success people like SaaS does. They have people on staff who are there to help you have success with their product. And if you don't get compliant, then you're going to stop using their product, so they're going to help you try and get there. And it's still pricey. It's still going to be five figures a year, but it will definitely save you some time and maybe even save you some money.Josh:Nice.Ben:Yeah. So next year, our audit should just be smooth as silk.Starr:Just butter.Josh:Love it.Starr:So if we-Josh:What are you going to do with all that extra free time?Ben:I made an executive decision.Starr:Oh really? What's that?Ben:Yes. The executive decision is we're going to have more teamwork at Honeybadger.Starr:That's ironic.Josh:Instead of what? What we have now, which is anarchy?Ben:We pretty much do have anarchy, I think. We are coordinated, we do make our plans, and we do have things we want to get done, but yeah, we are very independent at Honeybadger. We work independently. You might even say we're kind of siloed. We go off in the corner and do our own thing for most of the time. And I was chatting with Kevin about this, and I think we're going to try an experiment. So I think we're going to try to actually work together.Starr:Kevin is our developer.Starr:Yeah, so you all are going to be developing features together. Are you going to pair program? Are you going to use Tuple?Ben:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there.Starr:Are you going to mob program?Ben:Pair programming, that's maybe too advanced for us, I think. Maybe actually we'll chat in Slack a little bit here and there and maybe have a Zoom call.Josh:Yeah, so you're talking about you're both going to work on the same project at the same time.Ben:Right. Right.Josh:Mostly independently, but coordinating.Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think that still can fit into our anarchy model.Starr:Yeah. It still seems a little bit independent.Josh:It's more like mutual aid or something.Starr:There you go. We should make a conference talk about mutual aid development.Josh:Right.Starr:That would go over well.Ben:Using NATO as a model for your development process. Yeah, so we'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to it. I think I've been feeling a little lonely. I don't know if it's the right word, but maybe just off doing my own thing. I was like, "Oh, I think it will be nice to have some collaboration, some coordination." Maybe we'll even get to a level of synergies.Starr:Synergies.Starr:That's a blast from the past.Josh:Yeah, I think it's a good idea.Ben:Yeah, so more to come on that. We'll keep you posted. It's a bigger project. May not have results for a couple months. Don't really want to spill the beans on what it is right now. Competitive information. Don't want to leak it to all of our competitors.Starr:I like that. I like that. It's going to keep people on the hook for the next episodes.Josh:Totally.Ben:But yeah. That was my week.Josh:Yeah. Well my week, I took some time off, had some family stuff going on, so I was not very productive this week, but what I did work on was I've been working on this little guide for Hook Relay. I'd love to get the marketing machine, the fly wheel going on that at least, so we can be moving that along with everything else. And so yeah, working on some content and such.Starr:What is Hook Relay?Josh:Well you tell us what Hook Relay is, Ben. It's your baby.Ben:It's my baby. Yeah. So Hook Relay is a tool for managing web hooks. So you can record web hooks as they go out. In our case, to Honeybadger, we send a lot of web hooks, and so we built Hook Relay to help track all that web hook action. So we logged as pay loads that can go and diagnose issues that are happening, or maybe replay them as necessary, and of course it also handles inbound web hooks. So if you were handling, let's say, a post pay load request from GitHub about some activity that happens in your GitHub account, you handle that web hook and we can give you a place to store that, and then you can replay that, send it, forward it onto somewhere if you want, or just store it.Josh:Yeah. I think one of my favorite things about Hook Relay is just the visibility that it gives us into what's happening with the hooks, because otherwise we never had a dashboard. I guess we could have built one internally to see what the activity was and what's failing, what's actually... what requests are... because you're connecting to thousands of different people's random domain URLs, basically. It's really nice even for debugging and things like troubleshooting to be able to see what's going on, in addition to all the other cool things that it gives you out of the box.Starr:So you might say it's even like turnkey reliability and visibility for web hooks. For all your web hook needs.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, we modeled it on Stripes web hooks because we loved-Starr:I'm holding up a box up. I'm holding the TurboLinks box up and gesturing at it with my hand.Ben:Vanna White style.Josh:We should do our own channel, do our own infomercials.Ben:Yeah, I really wanted experience of Stripe. If you set up web hooks in Stripe, you can go and you can see all the web hooks they've sent you. You can see the pay loads, you can see whether they were successfully delivered or not, and I wanted that experience for our own web hooks, and also I thought it would be cool if developers could just have that without having to build the infrastructure. And so if you're building an app that send a bunch of web hooks on behalf of your customers, well now you can give your customers visibility into that web hook activity without having to build that tracking yourself.Josh:Yeah. That's pretty cool. So basically this content guide I'm working on is how to build web hooks into your application, including all the reliability and stuff that Hook Relay gives you for free. And the idea is that if that's what you're doing and you just want to save some time, Hook Relay will be a large chunk of that. You've just got to sign up. So I think it will be useful to everyone, even if they don't become a customer. If you're going to build your own back end and handle all the retries, build dashboards, and all that. But if you want it all turnkey, then Hook Relay is a big chunk of that work just done of you.Starr:So is this live? So can people go and sign up now?Ben:Yeah.Josh:Hook Relay, yes. It is.Josh:Hookrelay.dev.Ben:Yeah. In fact, we have enough customers now that it's actually paying for itself.Starr:What?Ben:Yes. So sweet.Josh:It's wild. That's wild.Starr:That's amazing.Ben:So Josh, is your guide going to have... are you going to dive deep into the architecture of here's how you build a whole web hook system, and so we're going to show you all the stuff behind the curtain so you can build your own? And then, "Oh, by the way, if you want it just done for you, here it is." Or are you going to just keep it more high level?Josh:I'm starting more high level. Yeah, I was planning on it being more high level. More like a high level architecture thing, or specification. Like these are the parts that you'll need to build, but you're going to have to solve some things, because it's not going to be specific to one system. It's not going to be like, "This is how you build web hooks for Ruby and Sidekick, or if you're going serverless." It will have suggestions on stacks or technologies to use for the back end, for instance, but yeah. I was thinking of leaving that to the user to figure out, but just showing the things you need to think about that a lot of people don't think about until they encounter the problems that might arise, like retrying and all the error handling that you add later, and validation for security reasons and things.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Starr:This is giving me flashbacks to a whole two or three year process after we first launched.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It was just like, "Oh, crap. There's an edge case here that we didn't think of because we're not used to doing web hooks at this scale." And that just went on for like three years.Josh:Yeah. And it's nice having the two products because Hook Relay came out of Honeybadger and it's basically part of our web hook system. This is basically just documenting Honeybadger's web hook system for other people who might want to replicate that or whatever.Ben:Totally. I think that will be cool. A great piece of content, a great piece of SEO juice. And if you did decide to go deep into the technical side, like if you explain the entire infrastructure that we're building, that would actually be kind of cool too because you could maintain your technical documentation for the system internally and use it as a piece of content for marketing.Josh:That could be cool. Yeah. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, I was thinking just because I want to get something out there. I'm thinking it will help with both, having a resource for people who are already on the site to see this is basically how you will implement this. It's kind of like an implementation guide, really. But then also SEO. It should help get us in more search results.Ben:Yeah.Josh:And I also want to credit Ben Orenstein and and Tuple. They have a great pair programming guide which was an inspiration for this idea. I just really liked the format that they used, and I just think it's a great idea if you have a product that's highly targeted or focused on one specific thing and doing it really well. I think it's maybe even a great alternative to a blog, for instance. You can get some of the same benefits of having a blog, but without actually having to create a blog with a lot of different variety of topics and things.Ben:Speaking of the blog, I was talking to Harris, our sales guru, about our blog strategy, and I said, "Yeah, it's basically like a flypaper strategy. We want it to attract developers that come and see the content and they love it and they're like, 'Oh, let me check out this Honeybadger thing.'" Not particularly novel, but I like the flypaper idea.Starr:That's a good metaphor. And also for a long time, I poo-pooed SEO because in my mind, SEO was very scammy. I don't know. I learned about SEO in the days of link farming and all that, and I just didn't want to be involved in that. So I'm just like, "We're just going to put out good content and that will be enough." And it is, yes, but also I've looked at some metrics since then that make it clear that the majority of good things that happen because of our blog actually are people entering through search queries. That really outweighs people sharing articles and doing stuff like that, which I guess is obvious that it would be that way, but my own bias against search just made me not see that for a while. So maybe trying to pick some possible low hanging fruit. We've tried to make our site search engine friendly, but we having really done any explicit SEO type activities.Josh:Yeah. I went through recently through our documentation and just tweaked just small things on a bunch of pages, like headlines and some of the meta tags and stuff, but mostly headlines and content on page was what I was focusing on. And I wasn't using any particular tool to measure before and after results, but it does seem like it bumped us up in some of the results for people searching for more general terms like Ruby error tracking, for example, which are typically pretty competitive terms. But I think we rank pretty well for some of those terms these days. I think we've been around enough and we're one of the options that come up. So it does seem like if you already target the terms, it actually does what they say it does, which is good to know. You've just got to pay attention to it.Ben:So the moral of story is there is some value in SEO.Starr:I guess so.Josh:Yeah. Well and I think documentation sites. Your documentation, I think it's a great place to optimize SEO because a lot of times, especially for those... maybe not for the long tail searches. A blog is great for that, like what you were talking about with the flypaper, Ben. But for people who are actually searching for what you do, I think a lot of times documentation pops up first in a lot of cases when I'm searching for things, so don't overlook it like we did.Starr:Yeah. Well this week, I guess the main thing I did was I got our authors lined up for the next quarter of intelligence briefings. So if you haven't been playing along at home, we're having some intelligence briefings created. Basically everything that's going on in a certain language community for the quarter, and this grew out of Josh's need because he's basically in charge of our client libraries. And we have libraries in a variety of languages, so keeping up with those languages and what's going on is a real pain in the ass, so we were going to make these guides originally for him, but then also we were like, "This would be really great content to publish."Starr:And I've already got this system with authors who want to write about programming languages, and so let's see if we can make some authors make these summaries. And so far, yeah, I'm pretty happy. We had four or five of them created, and we're not publishing them because they were for a previous quarter, and this is just a trial run to see if the results are okay, and I think they were. I think the results were pretty good. We go some feedback from you two, and I updated my process and updated the template that all the authors are using, and so we should be getting round two done. I'm setting the deadline a week after the end of the quarter. My hope is if they get them to me then, then I'll have a week to get them up on our blog or wherever, and then they won't be too out of date by the time people see them.Josh:Yeah. That's cool. I'm excited to see the next batch. My favorite thing from the reports were the ones where they wrote some original content summarizing things or sections or whatever. That was super useful because there's a little bit of a story element to it that's specific to the quarter or whatever that you don't really get from just... if you just aggregate everything, all the weekly newsletters and what happened on Reddit and what happened on Twitter. If you just dump that all in a document, it's a bit of overload, so it's nice to have the summary the story of what the community was interested in.Starr:Oh yeah. Definitely.Josh:Here are some articles that they talked about.Starr:That's the whole idea, is to have somebody who knows the community explain to you what's going on, as opposed to... if I wanted a bunch of links, I could just write a little script to scrape links from places.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And it wouldn't be very useful. What's useful is having people who know the environment being like, "Hey, this is what's going on. This is why it's important." And yeah, so that's going to be something I guess I need to look for explicitly when I get this round of things of reports back.Josh:Start calling them secret agents or something instead of authors.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Or detectives.Starr:Operatives. Yeah. Assets.Josh:As our detective service investigators.Ben:I think having that analysis of why this news is important or why these things are important that they've collected is really handy, because the links are great. Like you said, I could just write a script to collect them, but having someone with that context in the community saying, "Okay, and it's important because, and this is why you should pay attention," I think that's really helpful to someone who's maybe not as deep into that every day.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Yeah. And also knowing what to surface, because there was one report that it really seemed to just dump every single link or article that was discussed or was in a newsletter or whatever, and I think it's more helpful if it's on a quarterly level, if you know what is actually the important things that you really want to know about.Starr:Yeah, that's true. I just made a note for myself to go back and explicitly just mention that to people, because I realized I didn't put it in the instructions anywhere. I put like, "Here's where a description of the content goes," but I didn't really put what I want inside that description, I realized.Josh:Yeah.Starr:So I'm going to do that.Ben:We're iterating in real time here.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. This is where the work gets done.Josh:Yeah. Well and pretty soon, we'll have hopefully some good examples that we can show future authors, or detectives, or whatever we're calling them.Starr:Oh, definitely. Definitely. I'm going to call them authors because they're already in the blog system as authors and it just seems like-Josh:Agents?Starr:I don't know. I've got to be able to talk to these people with a straight face.Ben:You could call them research specialists, but then you might have to pay them more.Starr:There you go.Josh:Research. Yeah. Yeah.Starr:I don't know. I think I'm paying pretty well. Honestly, I think I'm paying pretty well for looking at... I don't know. How many weeks is a quarter? 12? 12 weeks of newsletters and just telling me what's going on. I think I'm paying pretty well.Josh:Yeah. You don't need to talk to them with a straight face though. You need to talk to them with sunglasses on, smoking a cigarette in a diner.Starr:Oh that's right. Yeah.Josh:Or a dive bar somewhere.Starr:Those people aren't smiling. Those people aren't smiling. Oh, that's right. I can do that. I just realized that it's two weeks since my second vaccine, so I'm ready to go out and recruit secret agents.Josh:Ready to party.Starr:Yeah. I'm very anxious talking with people in public now, but that's not a topic for this conversation.Josh:Yeah. We'll ease back into it.Starr:Oh yeah. Yeah, we're going to have dinner with my sister in law on Saturday, and I'm just like, "Okay Starr, you can do this. You can do this."Josh:Cool.Starr:Yeah, and I guess the other thing that we did this week is we are doing a trial run of Twist as a replacement for Basecamp messages, the message board on Basecamp. And yeah, so basically the long and short of it is the whole Basecamp BS just left a bad taste in my mouth in particular. I think you all's a little bit, or maybe you're neutral. I don't care. That sounded really harsh.Ben:You can be honest with us. We can take it.Starr:No, I didn't mean to sound that harsh. I just mean I'm not trying to put my opinions onto you, is what I'm saying. I just felt gross using Basecamp. Also if I'm being honest, I never really enjoyed Basecamp as a product. It's got a couple things that just really rubbed me the wrong way.Josh:We were having some vague conversations in the past. We have posed do we really want to keep this part of what we're using Basecamp for? And we were already using a subset of it, so yeah. It wasn't totally out of the blue.Starr:Yeah. And we were using maybe 20% of Basecamp, just the message boards feature.Josh:And the check ins, which apparently we all disliked.Starr:And the check ins, which nobody liked but we all kept using for some reason. Ben is like, "Can I turn off the check ins?" And I'm like, "I thought you were the only reason we were doing the check ins, it's because I thought you liked them."Ben:I think I was the only reason we were doing the check ins.Josh:It's because... yeah.Ben:Yeah, because I remember when I started it I was like, "Yeah, I really don't know what's going on," because back to that siloed, independent, off in the corner thing, I was like, "It would be nice to know what people are doing." But yeah, lately I've been like, "This is just a drag." So I'm like, "Would anybody be upset if this went away?" And everyone is like, "Please take it away."Josh:Everyone is just passively aggressively answering them.Ben:Everyone hated it.Josh:It wasn't that bad, but-Ben:I get it.Josh:Kevin used them too, but yeah.Ben:So I finally gave everyone permission to tell me that it was not okay, and now we no longer do it.Starr:There you go. And we're just like, "While we're at it, just ditch Basecamp." So yeah, so we've been trying a new system called Twist. Twist is, essential it's... I don't know, it's like threaded discussions. I figured this out on my own. I'm very proud of myself. So you have lots of threads, and you twist them together to make yarn or something or some sort of textile, so I bet you that's why it's called Twist.Josh:Beautiful sweater.Starr:Yeah. A beautiful sweater. The tapestry that is Honeybadger. And so far, I've really been enjoying it. I find the UI to be a lot better. There was one bug that we found that I reported, so hopefully that will get fixed. It doesn't really bother me that much. Yeah, it's amazing sometimes how the UI of an application can just be like, "Oh, ah. I'm having to parse less information just to do my task."Josh:It's much nicer.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It does feel like a lot less friction for our use case.Josh:Yeah. Well we talked about that, just the structure. The way that you structure conversation and organization things in a management tool like that makes a big difference. In Basecamp, we would create Basecamps for whatever. They call them Basecamps, right? They're the projects.Starr:They're like projects. I don't know.Josh:We'd create different ones, different projects for each project, but then there's five of us, so we'd basically just add everyone to every single project that is in there. But all the conversation is siloed off in each project, and with Twist, it's just much more of a fluid... it uses what, like channels? But yeah, it just seems like it's all together. It's kind of like a combination of Slack and a threaded message board or something, to me.Starr:Yeah, or like Slack and email or something.Josh:Slack and email. Yeah. It's a nice combo.Starr:Yeah. It has inbox, which I like, where it shows you any unread messages, and so you can just easily just go and scan through them, and it's all in the same page. It's a single page application, so you don't have to click out to a completely new page and then come back to the inbox and do all that. Basecamp had a similar feature, but it's like a timeline and it had a line down the middle of the screen and then branches coming off of either side of it. And for some reason, I started using the inbox in Twist and it was just like, "Oh, this is so much better." For some reason I think having things on different sides of the screen just doubled the amount of background processing my brain had to do to put it all together. And yeah, so I don't know. I do like it. Also, it's got mark down. It's got mark down.Josh:The mark down editor is so nice. It reminds me a lot of just using GitHub, the editor on GitHub, with the mark down mode and preview. And you can drag and drop images into the... I don't know if you knew that, into the mark down editor, like you can on GitHub, and it automatically inserts the image tag and uploads it for you.Starr:Yeah, it's all really slick. So I don't know. I imagine in maybe another... I've got vacation next week, so maybe after that we'll get together and compare notes. But I don't know, it seems like people like it so far.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, it's been good. It's interesting-Josh:If I had to decide today, it's a keeper for me.Ben:Yeah, I would go ahead and switch.Starr:Oh yeah, me too.Ben:It's interesting to me, you alluded to this, Starr, as you were talking about comparing it to your products and how they approach... it's interesting to me the UI, even if it's the same kind of functionality, how much different takes on the user experience can make a different experience for the user. How it just feels different. Like, "Oh yeah, it's basically doing the same thing, but it just feels better for whatever. My mentality or our business." Fill in the blank there, but I thought about that many times. Honeybadger versus competitors. It's like, "Yeah, they're doing basically the same thing, but we do have differences in how we approach the UI and different use patterns that we think are more emphasized by our UI versus the others." And sometimes it's just a matter of personal preference. It's like, "Oh, this just feels better to me." One night I tried Python before I tried Ruby, and Python is like, "Oh, that's interesting," but then Ruby really clicked my brain. It's like, "Oh, it just feels better." And I'm sure other people have the opposite experience, but I don't know. It's weird to me and fun to think about the human part of these products. Josh:Yeah. And it's surprising, the strong opinions that people pick up just based on those experience things when they're basically the same, if they're doing the same thing. Some people, they either love it or hate it based on that.Starr:Yeah, that's true. Maybe it all goes back to whatever business apps you used in childhood. It's just whatever your mom made you for lunch, you're always going to love that.Josh:Yeah. It's like a nurture thing, nature versus nurture. You were exposed to these apps when you were young, and so it's just what you're drawn to.Starr:Yeah. I remember putting my little friend's contact details into Lotus Notes.Josh:Right. I had to program Lotus Notes.Ben:I got my first dev job because I knew Lotus Notes.Starr:Oh, nice.Josh:Lotus Notes was an important precedent at the time, I think.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It was the bomb. You could do some pretty serious stuff.Starr:Yeah. I kept having these jobs that weren't technically dev jobs, but ended up being dev jobs just because I knew how to write V basic macros for Excel. I'm sure a lot of people had that experience.Josh:The thing I remember doing in Lotus Notes was setting it up to ingest email from the outside world into whatever, the system. And thinking about it now, that project I've done over and over and over since then.Starr:It's Basecamp.Josh:And I'm still doing that project.Starr:It's Basecamp all over again. Oh no.Ben:If only there was a service that took in emails for you, and then you could just bring them into your app data.Josh:Yeah. I bet in 20 years, we'll be writing programs to accept email.Ben:Process emails, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. When is this stuff going away? Technology changes all the time. When is email going away? They've been killing it for years. It's like fricking Rasputin. When is it going away?Ben:It's the cockroach of protocols.Starr:There you go.Josh:After the singularity, they'll still have to have a way to import it directly into your consciousness, and yeah, I don't know.Starr:Yeah. I hope the spam filtering is really good then.Starr:All right, well it was great talking with y'all.Ben:Likewise.Starr:Yeah. So this has been FounderQuest. Go to the Apple podcast and review us if you want. If you're interested in writing for us, we are always looking for fresh, new talent. Young authors looking to make their mark on the world of technical blog posts for SAS companies. And yeah, just go to our blog and look for the write for us page. I don't currently have any openings, but who knows? People flake out. So if you're interested in writing these reports for us too, get in touch. These quarterly intelligence briefings, if you want to be an agent for our intelligence service. All right, so I'll see y'all later.

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Understanding Bitcoin From a Developer's Perspective

Play Episode Listen Later May 21, 2021 50:53

Show notes:Links:Mike MondragonCRDTShip of TheseusExceptional CreaturesShiba Inu Full Transcript:Ben:I'm just gonna dive on in there. I'm so eager. I'm so excited. It's actually weird because Starr is the one that typically starts us off. Josh:Yeah. I thought we were just going to start with our just general banter, and then not introduce the guest until 30 minutes later.Ben:By the way.Josh:It is also our tradition.Ben:Yeah. Well we're getting better at this thing.Josh:Where we say, "Oh, by the way, if Starr doesn't sound like Starr..."Ben:Right, yes. Today Starr doesn't sound like Starr because today's star is Mike Mondragon instead. Welcome Mike.Josh:Hey Mike.Mike:Hey.Ben:Mike is a long time friend of the show, and friend of the founders. Actually, Mike, how long have we known each other? It's been at least 10, maybe 15 years?Mike:Probably 2007 Seattle RB.Ben:Okay.Josh:Yeah. I was going to say you two have known each other much longer than I've even known Ben.Ben:Yeah.Josh:So you go back.Ben:Way back.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Because I think Ben and I met in 2009.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Or something.Mike:Okay.Ben:Yeah, Mike and I have been hanging out for a long time.Mike:Yeah.Ben:We've known each other through many, many different jobs, and contracts, and so on. It's been awesome.Josh:Yeah, Mike, I feel like I've heard your name since... Yeah, for the last, at least, 10 years just working with Ben. You've always been in the background. And we've realized this is the first time we've actually met face to face, which is crazy. But it's great to... Yeah.Mike:Yeah.Josh:... have a face to put with the little... What is it, a cat avatar? Is a cat in your avatar? You've had that avatar for a really long time I feel like.Mike:Yeah, that's Wallace.Josh:Okay.Mike:So I'm Mond on GitHub and Twitter, and that cat avatar is our tuxedo cat, Wallace. And he is geriatric now. Hopefully he'll live another year. And if you remember in that era of Ruby, all of the Japanese Rubyists had cat icons. And so that was... I don't know. That's why Wallace is my icon.Josh:Yeah. Nice.Ben:So, so do Wallace and Goripav know each other?Mike:No, no, they don't. They're like best friends, right? They had to have met at Seattle RB.Ben:Yeah. Internet friends.Mike:Internet friends, yeah.Ben:Yeah. So, Mike is old school Ruby, way back, way back, yeah. But the other funny thing about the old Rubyists, all those Japanese Rubyists, I remember from RubyConf Denver... Was that 2007? Somewhere around there. I remember going to that and there were mats and a bunch of friends were sitting up at the front, and they all had these miniature laptops. I've never seen laptops so small. I don't know what they were, nine inch screens or something crazy.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I was like, "How do you even type on that thing?" But it's a thing. So I guess... I don't know. I haven't been to Japan.Mike:There are laptops that you could only get in Japan and they flash them with some sort of Linux probably.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Okay. I wonder how long it took them to compile C on there.Mike:Yeah. So, about the orbit with the founders. So, I think I'd put it in my notes that I... And I consider myself a sliver of a Honeybadger in that I did have a conversation with Ben about joining the company. And then in 2017, I did do a little contracting with you guys, which is ironic in that... So we're probably going to talk about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin protocol is, essentially, on a four-year timer. And in 2017 was the last time that we were building up to, I guess, an explosive end to that cycle. And I had just been working at Salesforce at Desk.com, And I left because of Bitcoin. And then this year, four years later, I, again, just left Salesforce, but I just left from Heroku. And I didn't leave so much because of Bitcoin, I just got a better opportunity, and I'm a principal engineer at Okta, and I'm in the developer experience working on SDKs, primarily, the Golang SDK.Mike:So I think one of the things that they were happy about was that I had experience carrying the pager, and knowing what that's like, and they wanted to have an experienced engineer that would have empathy for the engineers to main the SDK. So I'm really excited to be here, because I'm not going to be carrying the pager, and it is the fun programming. What I imagine, listening to the founders, about the kind of fun programming that you guys get to do, working with different languages and whatnot. So, obviously right now, I'm starting out with Golang. We don't have a Ruby SDK, because OmniAuth provider is the thing that most people use. But, there's also PHP, and some Java, so I'm just looking forward to being able to do a bunch of different languages.Josh:Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. We don't know anything about SDK teams, Honeybadger. But yeah, it sounds like we have very similar jobs at the moment. So that's cool. We'll have to trade tips at some point. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I'm excited that you're there, because I'm definitely going to hit you up on the SAML stuff, because SAML's a pain in the tuchus yeah, I'm sure you'll have some insights from your time there.Mike:Well, that was how I was even open-minded to talking to Okta, was the recruiter had contacted me and I think actually it was the recruiter... I don't know the structure of how this works, but a lot of companies have a prospecting recruiter. And I think that a veteran oriented prospecting recruiter contacted me. And so being a veteran, I'll usually entertain those cold calls. And so then when I was at Desk, I wrote... So Desk was a big Rails monolith. I wrote a microservice to break some of the SSO off of the monolith itself. And in writing the API documentation that was on desk.com, I actually used Okta as one of the examples as a SSO identity provider using SAML. So yeah, I have had a little bit of experience from the outside of Okta with SAML. And so maybe I'll have more experience here to answer your questions.Ben:Yeah. We'll have to have you back and we can just do a whole hour on that. It's a fun world.Josh:After we do an hour on SDKs.Ben:Yeah, and your code that you wrote for us still lives on in Honeybadger.Josh:Yeah. Was it the webpack? That was some of the work, right?Ben:Some of it, yeah.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:And some GitHub integration work.Josh:And the integrations, yeah.Mike:Yeah, well if I remember correctly with the GitHub integration, I did do some GitHub integration, and it tickled your enthusiasm, Ben, and then I think you went in and like refactored that a little bit.Ben:Well, if you have a monolith like Redo that's been around for as long as ours has, things don't... It's like, what was that Theseus' ship, it's goes around the world but you replace things as it goes, and it's never the same app, right?Mike:Yeah, that's the thing, we had discussed this in the prelude around just software engineering in general and how hard it is to maintain a monolith, especially as a company grows and as developers come rolling into a project, you get all of these... Over time you get engineers with different goals, different techniques, different styles of touching your code base, to the point that it becomes very hard to maintain a project. And I think, I don't know if we're going to talk about Heroku at all, but I think that Heroku suffers from a little bit of that, where there's very few original Heroku that are involved in the runtime at least. And I just came from being on the runtime in the control plane. And, definitely, the code base there is... There's maybe one or two people that are still around that have touched that code base from the beginning.Ben:Yeah, let's dive into that, because that's fascinating to me. I know that there's been chatter on Twitter recently that people feel that Heroku is stagnated. That they haven't really brought a lot of innovative stuff to market recently. I remember, actually a funny story, I'm going to tell it myself. I can't remember what year this was, it were way... I don't know, I don't know, early 2000s. I was sitting as part of a focus group, and I can't reveal a lot of information because secrecy and stuff. But anyway, I was part of this focus group and I was asked as part of this group, what as a developer working on Ruby applications and Rails applications, what I thought about this new thing called Heroku. And had it explained to me, "Oh, you just get push", and "Blah, blah, blah", and I poo-pooed the idea. I was like, "Nah, I'm not interested", because I already know how to deploy stuff. I've got Mongrel, I got a DVS.Josh:Say Mongrel.Ben:I know how to use SEP, why do I need this? Like Math, never going to catch on. And so don't follow me for investing advice.Mike:Yeah, totally.Josh:I got my Linodes.Mike:Yeah. Or even back then, I wrote all of my own chef, so I got my own recipes I can-Ben:Right, exactly.Mike:... bare metal at will.Ben:Exactly. So, what do you think, you've been at Heroku, you've seen this process of people having to maintain this code base over a long period of time. What are some tips for people who might be a little earlier on the process? Looking down the road, what do you suggest people think about for having a more maintainable application?Mike:That's interesting. I really think that there is not one size fits all, and actually some of the things that are specific to Heroku, and actually to desk.com when I was there previously, that some of the issues actually stem from Salesforce culture and the way that Salesforce manages its businesses. And so, I guess the thing that I've always liked about Rails, specifically, is that the conventions that are used in Rails, you can drop an experienced Rails developer pretty much into any Rails app and they're going to know the basic conventions. And that saves you so much time to ramping up and bringing your experience into a project. Whereas when you get into bespoke software, then you run into well what were the architectural design patterns 10 years ago compared to now? How much drift has there been in libraries and the language, depending.Mike:And so that is... I don't... That's a very hard question to nail down in a specific way. I would just say in spit balling this, conventions are very important, I would say. So as long as you have a conventions using a framework, then I think that you'll get to go a long ways. However, if you start to use a framework, then you get the everything is a nail and I'm going to use my hammer framework on that. Which is its own thing that I've seen in Ruby, where if you start a project with Rails, I don't think everybody realizes this, but you are essentially going to be doing a type of software development that is in the mindset of Basecamp, right? And if you have an app that is not quite like Basecamp, and then you start to try to extending Rails to do something different, then you're going to start running into issues. And I think that... It makes me sad when I hear people talk poorly about Rails, because oftentimes people are just pushing it into a direction that it's not built to do. Whether they're, like in the old days, like monkey-patching libraries, or whatnot.Ben:Yeah, I think we saw that with the rise of Elixir and Phoenix, right? José just got frustrated with wanting to do some real time stuff. And that really wasn't the wheelhouse for Rails, right? And so he went and built Elixir and Phoenix, and built on top of that. And that became a better hammer for that particular nail than Rails, right? So now if you come into a new project and you're like, "Well, I'm going to do a lot of highly concurrent stuff", well, okay, maybe Rails isn't the best solution. Maybe you should go look at Elixir and Phoenix instead.Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So, with Heroku, I just want to say that it was so awesome to work at Heroku, and the day that I got a job offer to work there, it was like... I still, if I'm having a bad day, I still think about that, and the... I've never used hard drugs, but I would think that somebody that was cocaine high, that's probably what I was feeling when I got the offer from Heroku. I started using Heroku in 2009, and it has a story within our community, it's highly respected. And so I just want to say that I still think very highly of Heroku, and if I was to be doing just a throwaway project, and I just want to write some code and do git push main, or git push Heroku main, then I would definitely do that.Mike:And we were... And I'm not very experienced with the other kinds of competitors right now. I think, like you pointed him out, is it Vercel and Render?Ben:Render. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Yeah. So I can't really speak to them. I can really just speak to Heroku and some of the very specific things that go on there. I think one of the issues that Heroku suffers from is not the technology itself, but just the Salesforce environment. Because at Salesforce, everything eventually has to be blue, right? And so, Heroku, I don't think they ever could really figure out the right thing to do with Heroku. As well as, the other thing about enterprise software is that if I'm selling Salesforce service cloud or whatever, I'm selling, essentially, I'm selling seats of software licenses. And there's no big margin in selling Compute, because if I'm buying Compute, I expect to be using that.Mike:And so, as a salesperson, I'm not incented to sell Heroku that much because there's just not margins for me in the incentive structure that they have at sales within Salesforce. So I think that's the biggest thing that Heroku has going against it, is that it's living in a Salesforce environment. And as, I guess, a owner of Salesforce being that I have Salesforce stock, I would hope that they would maximize their profits and actually sell Heroku. Who knows, maybe a bunch of developers get together and actually buy the brand and spin that off. That would be the best thing, because I think that Salesforce would probably realize a lot more value out of Heroku just by doing that, even if there's some sort of profit sharing, and then not have to deal with all the other things.Ben:Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. The thing about billing, and then selling per user, versus the compute- That's definitely a different world. It's a totally different mindset. And I think Josh that we have now been given a directive step. We should acquire Heroku as part of Honeybadger.Josh:I was going to say, maybe we can acquire it with all of our Doge profits in five or 10 years from now.Mike:Well, yeah. Somebody spin a Heroku coin, a ERC20 token on Ethereum and get everybody to dump their Ethereum into this token.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Get that pot of money together. And then that is the Heroku Foundation. Yeah, exactly.Josh:Okay, yeah.Mike:The Heroku Foundation that buys the Heroku brand. I know that we're laughing about it, but actually this is what is possible today. And, I was telling Ben... Well, let me just say a couple of things about the FounderQuest and how it relates to me, is I've been listening to FounderQuest from the first episode, and I'm an only child, and I like to listen to podcasts. So I'll be on my afternoon walk, and I'll be hearing you guys talk, and I'm having this conversation along with you guys listening to the podcasts.Mike:And so, I think, in January, you guys were talking about, or maybe Ben was talking about, $30,000 Bitcoin, and you guys just had your yucks and laughs about it. And it actually made me think critically about this, because I've been involved with Bitcoin since about 2012, and it's like, "Do I have a tinfoil hat on?" Or what do I think? And so, I'm not joking about this, listening to you guys actually has helped me concretely come up with how I feel about this. And first off, I think, I'm bullish on technology. And this is the first epiphany that I had, is all of us have had a career close to Linux, close to Ruby, building backend services, close to virtualization and orchestration. Fortunately, that's been my interest, and fortunately that's been where our industry has gone. And so, when Bitcoin came out, as technologists, all you ever hear, if you don't know anything about Bitcoin, you just hear currency. And you're thinking internet money, you're not thinking about this as a technologist.Mike:And so that was the thing. I wish that Bitcoin had been talked about as a platform, or a framework.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:And not even called it coin. Because that confuses the issue-Josh:The whole coin thing, just... Yeah.Mike:Yeah, totally. And mining the metaphors-Josh:That alone.Mike:... just totally throws everything off. Because we are talking, we're laughing about it, but this is really possible today. We could come up with a Foundation to buy Heroku with a cryptocurrency, and it would... Yeah. So that's one thing that Ben helped me realize in my thinking around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And I think I'm just bullish on technology. And so to me, again, across our career, there's been so much change. And why would we look at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies any differently than any other kind of technology? Even a hundred dollar bill with all the holograms on it, that is a kind of financial technology. And so we're just talking about a digital technology, we're not talking about coins I guess.Josh:That's the appeal, a lot of the Altcoins, right? They give everyone a way to invest in those companies, whereas before you would have to... Whatever, be an accredited investor or something to be able to get involved. Is that part of the appeal? I'm probably showing what I know about crypto, which is very little, but I'm excited to... Yeah, maybe you can...Mike:Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like these projects are... I'm not a VC, and I'm not an insider, but from what I can see from afar, in Silicon Valley there's a close group of people that have access to all of these ideas. And there's Angel clubs, and VC clubs, and whatnot, that are funding these startups. And to me, I feel like these crypto projects are the same kind of thing, except for they're just available to the public. And so, I think if I was speaking to another technologist that was interested in cryptocurrencies, is you probably need to get your hands on some of the technology in order to get experience with it.Mike:And so if that means you figure out how to maybe mine some coin on your laptop, or whatever, or you actually pay for it, you should at least have some in your possession, and at least learn about the custodial part of it. Also, there's different software libraries now to actually do programming against it, and platforms, I believe. So that'd be another way to at least tickle your curiosity, is by actually touching the technology and not thinking about the value. So yeah.Ben:Yeah. That, to me, that's one of the most interesting things about the whole coin thing. My younger son is really interested in the crypto space, in the coin and in the other parts of a distributed ledger, and what does that mean, and how does that work? And before I heard about NFTs, he was talking about NFTs. And so it's really interesting to me to see this coming from him. Just yesterday, we had a conversation about CRDTs, right? Because we're talking about how do you merge transactions that are happening in distributed fashion? Right? I was like, "Oh yeah", and it's so weird to have my teenage sons' world colliding with my world in this way.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But it's a lot of fun. And I've got to say, Mike, I got to give you back some credit, talking about the whole coin thing. As you've heard, we're pretty coin skeptical here at Honeybadger, the Founders, but you made a comment in our pre-show conversation. And maybe you didn't make this explicitly, but maybe it's just a way that I heard it. But I think... Well what I heard was, and maybe you actually said this, was basically think about this like an index fund, right? You put dollar cost to averaging, right? You put some money into coin, you put a little bit, it's not going to be your whole portfolio, right? But you don't treat it like a gamble, and you just treat it like an investment, like you would other things that may appreciate in value. And of course you may not.Ben:And so, as a result, I decided, "Okay, I can do that. I can put a little bit of my portfolio into coins". So just this week, and this is the funny part, just this week-Josh:I'm just finding this out now, by the way.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Josh is like... I told my wife about this last night and she was like, "What's Josh going to say?" "Like, I don't know". So anyway, just this week I put a little bit of money into Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that was... When did Elon do his thing about Bitcoin? Was that Thursday morning?Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I bought, two hours before Elon did his thing, and Bitcoin lost 15% of its value.Mike:That's awesome.Ben:I'm like, "It's okay. It's okay, I'm just putting-Josh:Yeah, you don't sell, it doesn't matter.Mike:What was your emotion? What was your emotion?Ben:Yeah, totally. Yeah. In fact, my first buy, I used Coinbase. And Coinbase was like, "Oh, do you want to do this periodically?" I'm like, "Yes, I do. Every month". Boom.Mike:Oh.Ben:I went ahead and set that up like so, yeah.Mike:Oh, I did not know you could do that.Ben:I'm in it to win it, man.Mike:You should get a hardware wallet. That's the next thing, is you need to learn how to handle your own custody, so-Josh:Right, yeah. You got to... Yeah.Mike:Not leave it on the exchange. Interesting.Josh:Get those hard drives.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Ben's a veteran indexer though. So you can handle some dips. Some volatility.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Josh:I actually, I did make some money off of Bitcoin back in the day, and probably if I would've just held onto it, I would've made a lot more, of course.Mike:Same.Josh:So I accidentally... Back, I don't know when this was, it was maybe five years ago or something, when Bitcoin was going through one of its first early hype cycles, and I was like, "I'll check it". I was learning about it, of course. And so I went and bought some and I think I ran a blockchain Elixir app that someone made, to see how the transactions work and stuff. Read some books on Bitcoin. But I bought some Bitcoin, I can't remember how much, but just left it. I think this was after Coinbase had launched, I'm pretty sure I bought it through Coinbase. But yeah, I just left it, and then that was when it was in the first huge push of Bitcoin where it went up to 20,000 or something. And I remembered that I had it, and I went and looked and oh yeah, I made five grand or something. I put hardly anything into it initially. So I forget what I actually bought with that money. I just sold it and it's like cool, free money.Mike:So you just sold it this year? Or you sold it...Josh:No, I sold it back-Mike:In 17?Josh:I think I sold it at 20... Yeah, this would have been at 17 that I actually sold it, probably.Mike:Did you report it on your taxes, your capital gains?Josh:I did, yes. Yeah, I did.Ben:That's the benefit of having an accountant, because your accountant reminds you, "You know what? You did have some Bitcoin transactions, you should probably look at those".Josh:Can I say on here that I actually put some of it through a Bitcoin tumbler though, just to see how those work?Mike:Yeah, I mean...Josh:And that was a very small amount of money, but I didn't actually report that on my taxes. Because I think I actually forgot where it was or something.Ben:You'll have to explain what a Bitcoin tumbler is.Josh:So a Bitcoin tumbler... Well, I'll try, and then maybe Mike might explain it better, but a Bitcoin tumbler is basically how you anonymize your Bitcoin transaction. If you have some Bitcoin and you want to buy some drugs on the dark web or something, you go and you send your Bitcoin to this tumbler, and then it distributes it to a bunch of random Bitcoin addresses that it gives you. And then you have those addresses, and they're anonymized, because they've been sent through a bunch of peoples' wallets, or something like that.Mike:Yep. That's basically it.Ben:So it's basically money laundering.Josh:Yeah, it's laundering.Mike:Yeah. But if your privacy... I mean, okay-Josh:Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because part of the appeal of Bitcoin is some people are just like, "Oh yeah, good money, credit card transactions are so... The governments are recording them and stuff, the NSA probably has a database of them". So Bitcoin is anonymous, but it's not. It's not anonymous. And yeah. So that's why people do this, right?Mike:Yeah. Well that, to me, that's if you want to... So the value of Bitcoin, if you want to get bullish on the value of Bitcoin, the traditional outlook is yeah, the silk road was going on and there's all this illegal stuff going on. Therefore it must be bad. But actually, to me, that's the thing, you know it's good if there's illicit stuff going on, because what's the number one currency that's used right now for illicit transactions? It's dirty US dollar bills. And if you're a drug dealer in central South America, you are collecting, dollar bills United States. You're paying some sort of transport probably at 10, 15% cost to get those dollars back to wherever you're going to hold them. And so, if you're using Bitcoin, you're probably not going to pay that fee. So, to me, it's like okay, that actually proves, at least in my mind, that there is value. That it's being used, right?Josh:Yeah. And you also, you don't want to see... Some people are fanatics about cash going away, even just because as more people move to digital transactions, whether it's just through, whatever, traditional networks, or through crypto. People are using less and less cash. And I feel like, whatever... Like Richard Stallman, he pays for everything in cash though, because he thinks that cash is going to go away someday. And that's a problem for privacy, because you do want a way to pay for things in private in some cases.Mike:Yep. I agree.Josh:Yeah.Ben:My only real beef with Bitcoin, well, aside from the whole requiring power plants just to do a transaction, is that there is Badger coin. This company that is named Honeybadger, it's all about Bitcoin. And they have these ATM's in Canada, and we constantly get support requests from people.Mike:Oh really?Josh:Is this the reason that we've been so down on cryptocurrencies in the past?Ben:I think so.Josh:Because ever since the beginning, since people started making coins, Badger coin came out and then it's been our primary exposure to be honest.Ben:It has been, yeah.Josh:Throughout the past... I don't know how many years it's been. Has it been six-Ben:Yeah, six-Josh:... to eight years?Ben:Yeah, something like that. It's been nuts.Josh:I'd say.Mike:You should send them an invoice, and they actually-Ben:Yeah, so what happens is they had these kiosks where you can buy Bitcoin, right? You put your real money in, and you get your fake money out, right? And the name on the top of the kiosk is Honeybadger. So, someone puts in some money, real money, and they don't get their fake money, then all of a sudden they're upset, right?Mike:Yeah.Ben:And so they... For whatever reason, it doesn't go through, right, I don't know how this works, I've never bought Bitcoin at a kiosk. But so, they're like, "Okay, Honeybadger". And so they Google Honeybadger, and the first result for Honeybadger is us. And so they're like, "Oh, here's a phone number I can call". And they call us. And they're like, "Where's my Bitcoin?" That's like, "Uh, I really can't help you with that".Josh:They do.Ben:"You stole my Bitcoin". It's like, "No, that's not us".Josh:Something just occurred to me. I wonder how many of them are just confused over the fact that Bitcoin transactions can take a while to arrive now, right? It's not always instantaneous, where it used to be a lot faster, but now I know that it can take a while to clear. So I wonder how many of those people are emailing us in the span... Maybe that's why they eventually always go away and we don't hear from them again. Maybe it's not that they're getting help, but it's just that their Bitcoins are arriving. Yeah. I have a feeling that there's some sort of... I'm guessing these are mostly regular normies using, and interacting with this very highly technical product and experience, and even if you're walking up to a kiosk, but there's still a highly technical aspect of it that, like you said Mike, people are thinking coin, they're thinking... The way this maps to their brain is it's like dollar bills. So they're looking at it like an ATM. Yep.Mike:Yeah. When it comes to cryptocurrency and the technology, I don't want to have to think about custody, or any of that other kinds of stuff. It'll be successful when it just is happening, I'm not thinking about it. They're already... In some... I don't know all of the different mobile devices, but I do carry out an iPhone. And so, the wallet on iPhone is pretty seamless now, right? And so I'm not thinking about how that technology is working. I had to associate an Amex with it originally, right? But once I've done that, then all I do is click my button to pay. And there you go. And so I do think that the cryptocurrency technology has a long way to go towards that, because if normal people, the non nerds, have to think about it, then it's not going to be useful. Because in the end-Josh:Yeah.Mike:... humans use tools, right? And so, whatever the tool is, they're going to use it especially if it's easy and it makes their life easier.Ben:So what I really want to know, Mike, is what are your feelings about Dogecoin? Are you bullish on Doge?Mike:Well, I'll answer that, but I wanted to come back to the bit about the NFT, and just talking about the possibilities with technology. And I think that you guys could profit from this.Ben:I like where it's going.Mike:You'll have to do some more research. But I think what you could do... See, I love the origin story of Honeybadger. And maybe not everybody knows about the Honeybadger meme from what is... When was this, two thousand...Ben:2012? 2011?Mike:Yeah, okay. So not everybody... Yeah, bot everybody knows about the meme. I guess, just go Google-Ben:I can link it in the show notes.Josh:It's long dead. This meme is long dead.Mike:Is it? Well it's still awesome. I still love it.Josh:It is.Mike:So, there's so many facets of this that I love. The first one is that... Can I name names on competitors-Ben:Of course.Mike:... in the origins? Okay. So the first one was is that Airbrake, an exception reporting service, was doing a poor job with their customer service. And you guys were like, "We're working on this project, we need exception reporting. It's not working". It's like, "Well, can we just take their library, and build our own backend?" Right? And to me, that is beautiful. And in thinking about this episode, in Heroku, the same opportunity lies for an aspiring developer out there where you could just take the Heroku CLI and point it at your own false backend until you figure out all of the API calls that happen. And I don't know, you have that backed by Kubernetes, or whatever orchestration framework is...Mike:There is the possibility that you could do the same Honeybadger story with Airbrake SDK, as there is with the Heroku CLI. So that's the first thing I love about the Honeybadger story, and the fact the name goes along with the fact that Airbrake had poor customer support, and you guys just were like, "F it, we're going to build our own exception reporting service". Now, in the modern context with NFTs is... I have old man experience with the NFTs in that GIFs, or GIFs, and JPEGs, this is BS that people are gouging for profit. However, the technology of the NFT... This is the thing that I think is beautiful, is that... And I'm not sure which of the NFTs does this, but there is the possibility that you could be the originator of a digital object, and then you sell that digital object. And then as that digital object is traded, then you, as the, I guess, the original creator, you can get a percentage of the sales for the lifetime of that digital asset.Ben:Yeah.Mike:And, I'm not sure which of the NFTs allows that, but that is one of the things, that's one of the value propositions in NFT. So what I was thinking is if you guys did an NFT on the shaw of the original Honeybadger Ruby SDK check-in, that this could be the thing that you guys have an experiment with, is you have real skin in the game, you're playing with the technology and see if that works. And, let me know if you do that, because I might try to buy it. So, we'll see.Josh:Well, we've already got a buyer, why wouldn't we?Mike:Yeah, so..Ben:Indeed, yeah.Josh:See I was thinking maybe you could own various errors or something in Honeybadger.Mike:Yeah, I mean... Whatever digital signature you want to... Whatever you want to sign, and then assign value to.Josh:Yeah, we could NFT our Exceptional Creatures.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Have you seen that, Mike? Have you seen that project?Mike:Yep, yep.Josh:Okay.Mike:I'm well aware of that. Yep.Ben:Yeah. I'm thinking what about open source maintainers, right? Let's say you have this project and someone really wants a particular feature, right? Or they're really happy about a particular feature that you've already done, right? You can sell them that shaw, that commit, that put it into name, right?Mike:Yeah, totally.Ben:You are the proud owner of this feature. Thank you.Mike:Yeah, totally. Yeah, I was hoping that I would come with some ideas. I hope someday in the future that I run into somebody and it's like, "Oh, we heard that podcasts were where ideas were free ideas that were worth a lot of money were thrown about. And I did this project, and now I'm retired. Thank you, Mike". Honeybadgers.Josh:Wait, so Ben are you saying that, so as a committer, so say I commit something to Rails, submit a PR, so then I own that PR once it's merged and it would be like I could sell that then to someone? Is that along the lines of what you're saying?Ben:No, I'm thinking the owner of the project. So, if you commit something to Rails, and you're really excited about it, and you for some reason want to have a trophy of that commit-Josh:Right.Ben:... on a plaque on the wall, right? Then the Rails core group could sell you that token.Josh:Okay. Gotcha.Ben:That trophy, that certificate, like, "Yep. This is your thing. Commissioned by..." It's like naming a star, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:You buy the rights to a star, and it's fake stuff, right? We're naming stars. But that's the same idea.Josh:Yeah. So you could use that same idea to incentivize open-source contribution. So if you make the PR to Rails and it gets merged, you get this NFT for the PR merge, which you could then actually profit for if it was... Say it was, I don't know, turbo links or something, whatever. Years later, when it's a huge thing and everyone in Rails is using it, maybe Mike's going to come along and be like, "Hey, I'll buy... I want to own the PR for turbo links".Ben:Right.Josh:Yeah. And of course then, you, as the owner, would also profit from any sale between parties later on too. You'd get that little percentage.Mike:Yeah. Well, so when somebody comes up with committer coin, just remember me, I want to airdrop of some committer coin.Josh:We have a name. We've got a name for it. Commit coin.Ben:I've got a new weekend project ahead of me.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Cool. Well, that helps me understand NFTs.Ben:Yeah, I really like the idea of being able to sell ownership rights to a digital asset. That I think a good idea. I don't know that the current implementation that we see on the news is a great implementation of that idea. Buying the rights for a copy of a JPEG, it feels kind of sketchy to me. But maybe there's some sort of, I don't know, PDF document that has some sort of value for some reason. And you can give that, sell that to someone. And to me, it's not so much about the profit, or the transaction, it's the ownership. You can say I am the owner of this thing. Yeah, there can be copies all over the place, but I'm the person that has the ownership, quote unquote, of this thing.Josh:Yeah, yeah. But then you've got to define value Ben. What is value? Okay, so, what makes a PDF more valuable than a JPEG?Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Bring this back to Dogecoin, and value propositions, and whatnot. What is valuable? When you're talking about the value of a JPEG, this reminded me of a conversation I was having with my son. He's 10 years old and he wanted some money to buy, I don't know what it was, and old man voice came out of me and it's like, "That's BS. I don't think that's valuable". And he looked at me and he was like, "It's valuable to me". And it's like, "Oh, you just put a dagger in my heart. I'm killing your dream". And one person's value may not be another person's value. So, on the Dogecoin, that's interesting. Dogecoin is very interesting to me, because I feel like I'm in a quantum state with a Dogecoin where it is a joke, but at the same time it apparently it has value.Mike:And I don't know where I stand on that threshold. I know how to trade Dogecoin. And I know the behavior of Dogecoin, and the behaviors, from a trading standpoint, has changed substantially in the last six months. Before it was a pump and dump kind of thing. Well, actually, you know what? When Dogecoin was first created, its purpose was highlighted by the community. People in podcast land don't realize this, but I'm wearing a 2017 Dogecoin shirt from when the Dogecoin community sponsored the number 98 NASCAR. And the thing of the community was like, "Oh, we have all this money, and we're just being altruistic and we're giving it away". And so they were exercising their belief with this currency, right?Mike:And from then, till now, there was a bit of a cycle to Dogecoin where you could, if you acquired Dogecoin for say under a hundred Satoshis, this is the Dogecoin BTC pair, that was actually a good buy. Just wait for the next pump when somebody does something, and Dogecoin goes over 200, or 300 Satoshis, and then you dump it. And that's basically what I did on this in the last six months. I had a small bag of Dogecoin waiting for the next pump and dump. And I actually did that, but it kept on getting pumped, and then it would stabilize. And then now we're at the point where apparently Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are saying that there's value to it.Mike:And to me, I actually put a lot of credence to that, because these are two public persons that they cannot... If they're pumping things in the public domain, then they have risk, right? And so you can't be those two people, and be pumping, and not run the risk of the FTC of the United States government coming in and saying, "Hey, why were you doing this?" So there's the, I guess for me, a small bit of a guarantee that maybe there is something to Dogecoin.Josh:Yeah. See, the way I think, when you first started you were saying it is a joke, but you're in this dual state, and my initial or immediate thought was it is a joke, but this is the internet, and the internet loves to make silly things real.Mike:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Especially these days.Ben:Yeah. It's pretty funny for all those people that made a bunch of money on GameStop, right? Yeah.Mike:Yeah. Well that's the thing, is in Dogecoin, Doge is, of itself, from a meme from the same time period as Honeybadger, right? The Iba Shinu doggie, right? So, the other thing I don't understand, or the thing that I understand but I don't know how to quantify it for myself, is that, to me... So there's no pre-mine on Dogecoin. There's no one person that owns a lot of Dogecoin from the beginning. Whereas if we're talking about Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the founder, or one of the founders of Ethereum, they pre-mined Ethereum, and there's a ton of Ethereum that's owned by the founders. Whereas you compare that to, say, Litecoin, Charlie Lee cloned Bitcoin and created Litecoin. He sold all of his Litecoin. I believed in him when he said he's sold it all. He's a software engineer, just like us. He was Director of Engineering at Coinbase.Mike:He doesn't seem like he's wearing tinfoil hat out there, doing conspiracies. So when he says that he sold his coin in 2017, all of his Litecoin, I totally believe that. Yet today, he is the chairperson of the Litecoin foundation. And so, to me... I actually do have, I placed some value in the benevolence of Litecoin and Dogecoin, because there's not any one person that actually controls it. I guess Charlie Lee, he probably has a stronger voice than most. But he doesn't control the levers.Josh:Not financially.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Yeah. And so then with Dogecoin... So Dogecoin, it'll be awesome if it gets above a dollar, but the structure of Dogecoin will be such as they cannot maintain that.Josh:Right.Mike:Because it's an inflation-Josh:There's no cap, right?Mike:Right.Josh:Yeah.Mike:It's inflation. And so, I don't know the number, I think it's a million Dogecoin are minted every day. So, 10 years from now, if Dogecoin is worth a dollar still, then that means Bitcoin will be worth a lot more than that. So I guess that'd be awesome if Dogecoin stays a dollar. However, the point I'm trying to make is actually there is value in having an inflationary currency, especially if we're talking about living in the structure of our current financial... The way that our current financial markets work, where there is an inflation.Mike:And so if I want to be transacting with a digital currency, I don't want to have to be, say, like having an Argentina kind of moment where my one Dogecoin is worth $5 American today, and then maybe only $3 American a week from now. So to me, I think there is value in Dogecoin in that it's inflationary, and that it will not be as susceptible to speculation bubbles as other currencies. And so, I don't know if that answers your questions on the value of Dogecoin, but those are a couple of reasons why I think that Dogecoin is valuable. Now, am I going to be holding a big bag of Dogecoin in 2022? Probably not. Just to be honest.Ben:We're all about honesty at Honeybadger. I love the episodes where we have to have a disclaimer, this is not financial advice. Please consult competent professionals before investing, et cetera, et cetera. Mike, it has been a delight to have you with us. We appreciate your counterbalance to our coin pessimism that we have amongst the Honeybadger fan base.Josh:Yeah, I think we needed this.Ben:Yeah.Josh:We really needed this.Ben:We really did.Josh:So thank you.Ben:It's been good.Mike:Yeah. Oh, I got one more idea out there. Hopefully, somebody can run with this, is I've been trying to get motivated to do some experimentation with the Bitcoin lightning network. We didn't really talk about these a layer two solutions for scaling, but I think that there is a lot of potential in coming up with an interesting project that lays within the Litecoin* network, it has its value in and of itself, but there's a secondary value of being a note on the Litecoin* network where if there's transactions going through your node, let's say, I don't know how you'd instrument this, but let's say that Honeybadger actually was... That you guys were taking your payments across your own lightning node, then all of the transactions that are going across the lightning network, you're getting a small fee, right? So I think that there's the possibility of a micropayments kind of play there, like for instance, paying by the exception. I mean, literally-*Editor's note from Mike - "in my excitement talking about the Lighting Network I slipped and said Litecoin a couple of times between Lightning Network. Lightning Network is a layer 2 protocol that is primarily intended for scaling Bitcoin and that was what I meant. However, Lightning can be implemented to run on top of Litecoin and Ethereum."Josh:That has come up that has come up in the past, I think at one point.Mike:You can't do micro payments on a credit card.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Right? But you can do micropayments on lightening network. And I'm not selling you guys on this, but I'm saying that there's going to be some nerd out there that it's like, "Oh my God micropayments are here, I can do micropayments on lighting network". And then they're going to do well on that product, but then they're also going to do well on the commission that they're earning on payments going through their node.Josh:This could be used for usage base software as a service billing model.Ben:Totally. And then you get the skim off the top, just like a good affiliate does.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it. All right. All right, Mike, we're going to have to do some scheming together. Well, any final words, any parting words besides go by all the Dogecoin that you can?Mike:Yeah. Don't put all your money into the cryptocurrencies. Yeah.Josh:Seems like good advice.Ben:Be smart

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Kicking The Tires On Basecamp Alternatives

Play Episode Listen Later May 14, 2021 38:23

Show notes:Links:Threads.comBlueyVogmaskTwistIt’s a Southern ThingIf I had a front porchFull transcript:Josh:How y'all doing?Ben:I'm doing.Starr:Yeah, about the same.Ben:I've been riding my scooter to work all week.Starr:Oh, how's that?Ben:It's a lot of fun. Got a little electric kick scooter and top speed about 25 miles per hour. I was concerned about it being able to get up the hill that I have to go back up on my way home. It does drag a bit on that hill. I only got a single motor. Guess I should have gone with the dual motor. Otherwise it's fun. It's nice to be out in nature, I guess, air quotes, because you're still on the road and you're still a victim of cars and stuff. Being able to see the sun coming up over the hills and down to the valley and while you're just feeling the wind on your face, it's all good.Josh:It sounds nice.Ben:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, sounds awesome. I don't know. It seems terrifying to me, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun.Ben:It helped that I have done a lot of bike riding on roads for the past several years, so I'm already comfortable with the idea of mixing it up with cars and weaving in and out of traffic and realizing that people aren't going to see me and things like that. I think if I had just gone from driving a car straight to riding a scooter in the bike lane, that would be a little more terrifying.Starr:Yeah, that makes sense.Josh:Next you're going to have to upgrade to one of the electric skateboards or a Onewheel or something, just remove the handle bars.Ben:Right, right, right. Get one of those Onewheel things.Josh:This is leading up to-Ben:Totally.Starr:We're just working up to hoverboards. I mean I commute to my backyard office, so maybe I should get a zip-line or something from the main house.Ben:I like that, yeah.Starr:... then I could be extreme.Josh:We want a zip-line at our place out into the forest.Starr:That would be fun.Ben:You could do a zip-line from your deck to the sandbox, send the kids out to play.Josh:The kids would love it. Well, I was thinking more for myself though. Screw the kids. They don't need a zip-line.Starr:There you go. That's actually not a bad idea. We're going to get-Josh:That would be cool though.Starr:... a deck in the fall.Josh:Oh, nice.Starr:I had thought it would be fun to put a fireman pole on one side or something so kids could slide down it. It's raised up a little bit but not that much. It's like a kid's sliding size.Ben:That would be totally awesome. That would-Josh:We have been loving our new deck that we have had for a month and a half or something now. It's a new deck. If you have a really old, rickety deck, a new one is a big upgrade. Also ours is a little bit larger, too, so it's like a bigger house almost.Starr:Oh, that's great. We don't even have a deck it's just like a little stairway.Josh:I think you're going to like it, Starr.Starr:I think so, too. I know, deck life. It's going to be covered. I was just like-Josh:It's just the small things.Starr:I know. All I want is to be able to go out on a nice evening or something and sit and drink a cup of tea and be outside.Ben:And think about all-Josh:I was going to say, where do you drink the sweet tea in the summer if you don't have a front porch?Starr:Yeah, that's the main problem with houses up here in the Northwest is there's not real front porches. We have one that's like a weird nod at a front porch. It's like somebody maybe had seen a front porch once when they were... They were like, "Oh, maybe I'll try and do that from memory," without really knowing what it's supposed to be like.Josh:Some of the ones in Portland have them, but they're boxed in usually, and they're the older houses-Josh:... like the old Craftsmans or whatever.Starr:The stately grand dames.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Well, here in Kirkland we're destroying all those old houses and putting in-Starr:Thank God.Ben:... townhouses.Josh:Hell, yeah.Ben:I drove by one this morning. This morning was the first morning since I got my scooter that I actually didn't ride the scooter because it was raining and the ground was wet. I was like, "Ah, I don't want to deal with that this morning." So I just drove. I drove past this house that... Well, yesterday it was a house. Today, it's a pile of sticks because they sold the lot, and they're going to split it into probably, I don't know, four lots and put in some townhouses. It's always a sad thing, but people got to have a place to live.Starr:Yeah, it's a shame. They tore down a house on my block, too, except it was a condemned house. It looked like a gingerbread fairy house that you'd find on just a random stroll in the woods where you'd go inside and you'd find just a delicious meal laid out on the table just waiting for you. So I'm a little sad it's gone just for, I guess, the storytelling aspects, the mythology of it. I guess it's probably best not to just have a condemned structure hanging out.Josh:I still do feel like Ida's is missing out with your telling of that story. I feel a little sad for you all.Starr:I know. I know.Ben:You're totally missing the threat possibility there. Like, "Don't misbehave or I'll send you over to the gingerbread house."Starr:Oh my god, yeah. Yeah, lots of great ways to traumatize my child.Ben:Speaking of traumatizing children, I was going through Twitter the other day, and the Washington State Department of Health had a tweet. I don't remember what the tweet was, but they had a GIF embedded in it. It was Stimpy from Ren & Stimpy as a scene from the show. I was like, "That's from the Department of Health? My generation is now in charge."Starr:With the Twitter account at least.Ben:We're now putting in-Josh:Yeah, exactly.Ben:That was the weirdest... It's like, "I'm an adult." That was a weird, weird experience.Josh:It is kind of strange when the people in charge start looking more and more like you until you realize they're just like-Ben:They're just little kids, just like I am.Josh:Then you wonder why the hell they're in charge.Starr:I'm getting like Paul Ryan listening to a Rage Against the Machine vibe from this.Josh:That's what I'd be playing if I was in charge of the Department of Health's-Starr:There we go.Josh:... Twitter account.Starr:I think this week has all been a little bit... I don't know. We're all maybe a little bit having a hard time focusing. I know I have a little bit just. It seems like that happens every spring as soon as the weather gets nice and it stops being nice, then it gets nice and it stops being nice. You're waiting by the door with your kayak. You just got to get the jump on it before everybody else gets to the lake.Josh:Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Also allergies have been kicking in lately.Starr:Oh my god, yeah.Josh:I was really on top of it this year, but then I ran out of my Zyrtec or whatever. It was on the list to replenish the supply or whatever, but I procrastinated and missed a few days. That's a huge mistake.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:That was this week. Now I switched to Claritin, so we'll see how... That's the big news of my week.Starr:Oh my gosh. I'm getting vaccinated later today, my second dose.Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Congrats.Starr:I think I'm still going to keep wearing the KN95 respirators outside, though, just for the allergies.Josh:It's probably a good call.Ben:I was helping a neighbor with some yard work and doing a bunch of weeding and had the weed whacker out, and there's just dirt flying everywhere. I'm like, "Man, I should really wear a mask." Like, how ironic. I've got like, I don't know, a thousand masks in my house, and I'm not wearing one as I'm doing all this dusty stuff.Josh:That's a good thing to do.Starr:Oh, this is reminding me, I need to stock up before fire season.Ben:A few years ago when we had the really bad fire season, we got some Vogmasks. This was before the world knew that you were supposed to wear masks. Vogmasks are fantastic. They're a fabric mask that have the filtering stuff on the inside and highly recommend. I'll put a link in the show notes.Starr:Cool.Ben:Good stuff. When the pandemic hit, of course, they were out of stock immediately because everybody and their brother wanted one, but they've been back in stock. They're nice masks. They're really nice.Starr:Well, one thing that we have been doing is casually just checking out alternatives to Basecamp for our internal company's message board. I don't know. I feel like we're just perusing the alternatives. Honestly, it's been a little bit difficult finding just a system out there that's just a simple thread and message board without a million complex adjustments for running a forum that has thousands of people. Somebody on Twitter yesterday recommended Threads. I don't know. I think we're currently evaluating that one but no decisions yet.Josh:Is that like Twitter threads? You just-Starr:Oh, yeah, just Twitter threads.Josh:We do all of our communicating but just public threads.Starr:No, we're just going to use Twitter stories. We're just going to take some pics of ourselves in different-Josh:If we're trying to go to the opposite direction of Basecamp, we could just... Well, I guess this is like Basecamp, just do all of our communication via thought leadership.Starr:There you go.Ben:What if we did all of internal communication via TikTok?Starr:Okay, I'm getting this. I'm on board with this. We're just going to be influencers. Whoever's the most influential is going to-Josh:You know what? If our employees don't like it, too bad. You're getting a Twitter account, and it's getting verified.Starr:Yeah, they can interpret our really random TikTok video and try and figure out what it means. That's how they'll discover our disapproval.Ben:On the Basecamp thing, though, it was interesting as I was looking at it this week and realizing that the only thing that we use in Basecamp is messages along with the files. We sometimes attach files to our messages.Josh:Or email forwards.Ben:Yeah, occasionally we do an email forward. But we don't-Starr:Usually we do calendars, but we also have Google calendar.Ben:And Slack.Josh:And Notion.Ben:And notion. So we don't do to-dos. We don't do hill charts. We don't really use the project management side of the project management software that we're using. As I was looking at alternatives this week, I looked at monday.com and ClickUp and, I don't know, a few different ones. They're all these project management things. It's like, well, we don't really manage projects. We do that via chat or via a Zoom call every once in a while or via Notion. We don't use a project management tool for that. So it's like, yeah, all we really need are threads, conversations.Starr:It's the sort of thing where you could just do it in email, but it's nice having that archival ability, the ability to go back and check things out and not have it dependent on, "Oh, maybe I deleted that message by accident or whatever."Josh:Well, you could do it in Slack, but then you end up with the weird history aspect of it, and you'd have to have some sort of... You have to create a channel for it with the rules so it doesn't end up being just a chat. You have to say, "The rule of this channel is every message is a thread or a post or whatever."Starr:You kind of have to do it manually.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I did look at Twist. That was pretty cool, pretty close, but it also has chat. It's like, "well, I don't want a second chat since we already use Slack." We're not going to ditch Slack.Starr:Basecamp has chat, too.Ben:Right, and we don't use that. I guess you could use Twist. Twist is pretty nice.Starr:I think we need threaded messages, we need everything to be archived, and we need some way to see what people have been writing on lately, see what the latest activity is. That's basically it. I don't even use notifications. I get them, but I don't really... Usually by the time I see them... That's not my process. I don't look at my notifications and be like, "Oh, I'd better check this out." I check out the messages at a set set time basically.Ben:Then, like you said, the forum software, like the discourse, and it's just way, way too much. It's like, "Yeah, we get it." We just need a message board. We don't need all the dials and knobs. It's totally a dials and knobs application. I saw it in the settings, and I was like, "Whoa, okay. I'm just going to back away slowly."Starr:It could be fun, I don't know, if we want to be passive aggressive, we could shadow ban people. We could just do all sorts of fun things.Ben:But I suppose we don't have the hard requirements supporting BBCode.Starr:Isn't that a negative requirement? Supporting BBCode, I think that's a detriment. But we do have a chance to maybe, I don't know, maybe... One thing that I've always really... This really annoyed me about Basecamp is that it doesn't support Markdown, and everything we use supports Markdown, so everything I have is in Markdown. So if I write something in my personal notes, it's going to be in Markdown. If I want to transfer that to Basecamp, I got to manually format it, which is just like, "What am I? What is this? Who do you think I am?"Josh:That's my number one gripe with Basecamp, like the editor, is just a WYSIWYG editor that... I constantly... even just when I'm writing and I want to make a list and I just type a dash like I normally... in most things these days, and it just doesn't do anything in Basecamp. Then I remember, "Oh, I have to get my mouse and click on the bullet." It's a huge hassle.Ben:I can imagine your quality of life being dramatically affected by that.Josh:Yeah.Starr:You know we're developers when we're complaining about things like that.Josh:This is why I'm wearing wrist braces.Starr:Or dual wrist braces.Ben:I totally get what you're saying. I want to be able to type star, space, stuff, stuff, stuff and I get a list. Yeah, totally.Starr:It looks like threads.com, it does support Markdown, which is nice. I don't know. I haven't really played around with it a ton. Some aspects of its design, I'm not super happy. I wish the column widths were a little wider and stuff, but also I don't like certain aspects of Basecamp's design. So it's kind of a toss up for me.Ben:I did an export of our Basecamp content, and I got to say their export is fantastic. They give you an HTML page that links to a bunch of other pages per topic or project or team, whatever they call it, and the files are there. It's really well done. So I think if anyone's looking for inspiration on doing exports in their app, they should totally look at Basecamp. They nailed it. It's actually usable. You get this zip file. You open it up and bam, you can just browse through all your stuff.Starr:That's pretty great. I guess I should declare, I think maybe I started this casual looking for alternatives just because I've seen a lot of stuff online about people are angry at Basecamp. It's like, I'm not really angry at them. Well, this isn't really the point. I'm sad and disappointed in them. But also a lot of the reason why I think they have had our business and they had my business, I've stored personal stuff in a personal Basecamp account, it's just because they're trustworthy. That feeling of trustworthiness has gone down a few pegs for me.Starr:Also, I just kind of felt gross logging in there. If you haven't been keeping up with this, part of the deal is they were making fun of people's names and stuff. I don't know. Are they making fun of my name? I've got a weird name. Are they going through my stuff making fun of it? I know they have access to pretty much everything that I put into Basecamp. I don't know. Even if they're not doing that now, are they going to do that in the future? Because it seems like they're going in that direction. I don't know. It seems like they're shutting down people trying to hold them internally accountable for that sort of thing. I don't know. It's just like a gross feeling. I'm just sad about the whole thing.Josh:I personally I kind of doubt that that's like... I got the feeling that the list was more of an artifact from the past, and it had stuck around for too long. I didn't get the feeling that they're condoning that sort of activity really, but I get what you're saying. Also for me, a big factor of it, it's not even just that I'm mad at them or something, they did lose 30% of their company, and they're supporting two products now, one of which is a major infrastructure product but basically is like email. So they have operation overhead and stuff. They did just lose 30% of their company including their, what, head of strategy but basically head of product. So I just wonder, where is the product going from here? It was already, I felt, a little bit stagnating. I don't know. I think they've been working on the next version of it is what I heard. I don't know. It just seems like there are questions about just the stability from that nature, too.Ben:I'm probably in a third place from you two and I probably care the least. I'm like, "Eh, it's a message board. They can make fun of my name." Okay. I had that happen when I was 10. People do that. It's like, "Oh, get on." I have a hard time getting up the energy to care, I guess.Starr:Don't mistake me. I'm not like up in arms about it. This is more like a passive viewing. It's like, "Oh, I got to go on Basecamp and check my things. Uh, I just feel kind of crummy about it." This is-Ben:It's one of those friction things in your life you just don't need. Yeah, absolutely.Starr:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Absolutely.Starr:I'm like, this is a message board. Like, should I be having to deal with this just to go check some messages? It's ridiculous.Josh:I think all of us are really just talking these are passing thoughts we have using the product in light of the drama of the past few weeks.Starr:If we end up staying on it, I'm not going to be super upset. I'll probably get over it. I don't know. It just seems like it might be nice to try something different especially if we can get that sweet Markdown.Ben:I've been surprised that there are so few products that are just about this one use case of the simple messages. I expected there to be tons of things to try and no.Starr:Of course, in our company Notion, there's now a design document-Ben:Of course.Starr:... for a simple-Josh:Because we're going to build our own.Ben:We're going to build our own, of course. What does any good tech team do when they're frustrated with the 20 solutions on the market? They build solution number 21.Starr:Of course.Ben:Maybe we'll build that. The code name for that project is Budgie. I named it Budgie because I went to do the Google search, I'm like, "What's a communicative type of animal? What's a social animal?" I can't remember the search I did, but the first thing that got turned up was like, the most social birds. I don't know. So there's this list of birds, and budgie was the number one bird. So I'm like, "Okay, cool." Then I was like, "Well, what kind of domains are available?" Because of course when you start a project, you have to buy the domain. Before you do anything else, you got to buy that domain. Surprisingly, and perhaps not surprisingly in retrospect, every variant of budgie is taken, of course, budgie.com but also budgie.app and budgieapp.com. I'm like, "Wow. How many...?" And they're all for sale. None of them are actual products. They're all parked, and they're for sale. I'm like, so a bunch of people have had this idea about what's a social animal. I guess budgies are really popular for pets, and so they're looking for the ad opportunities with people looking for, "How do I take care of my budgie?" Anyway, just kind of a diversion.Starr:That's interesting. The first thing that pops into mind when I heard that... I like the name. It's a cute name. There's this really good Australian kids' cartoon called Bluey, and there's an episode where they find a little budgie that's injured, and it dies. So the kids have to come to terms with that. I don't know. It's just like, "Little budgie died."Josh:Bluey is one of the best cartoons ever, by the way.Starr:Yeah, Bluey. Oh, I'm glad you like it, too.Josh:It's so good.Starr:It's super good. It's super good. Basically the whole cartoon is just these kids... They're dogs but they're kids. They're just making up games to play with each other. How it works is the kids watching the show see it and that makes them want to play that game, too. So it's just not dumb TV. It gets them doing stuff outside of the TV, which is kind of nice.Josh:That's a really good analysis of the show. I hadn't thought about that aspect of it, but come to think of it, my kids totally imitate them.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:Climbing all over us.Starr:I now have to play every game in that show, and I've got to know them by name and what the rules are.Josh:One of the things we like about it is just they really got the sibling dynamic down. It is like our kids to a tee. It's pretty funny. Now that I think about it, maybe it's like our kids have now become the characters in the show.Ben:It's a good thing I watch the Simpsons.Josh:Oh, no. Actually we do watch the Simpsons.Starr:Is the Simpsons still on?Josh:It's on Disney+.Starr:Oh my gosh.Ben:Yeah, it is still a thing.Josh:They're still making it, too, right?Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.Starr:Wow. I don't know. I don't even know about that.Josh:We don't watch much of the Simpsons with them yet, a three and four-year-old.Josh:I don't know if I'm quite ready for a couple little Bart and Lisas.Ben:You put that off as long as you can. Well, I actually did a little bit of work this week. I was working on something, I don't know what. I noticed one of the tests was running kind of long like it was just stuck. I don't usually watch tests. I don't usually run the tests actually. I just let our CICB run the tests. I don't even worry about it. But this morning for some reason, I don't know, I was working on something, and I happened to be running the tests. I noticed one of the tests was just stuck. Like, that's weird. So I did a little investigation.Ben:It turns out that a number of our tests do some domain name server resolution because, for webhooks, when someone puts in their webhook, we want to verify that the destination is not like a private thing. They're not trying to fetch our EC2 credentials and stuff like that. So it does some checks like, is this is a private IP address? Does this domain name actually resolve, blah, blah, blah? Also for our uptime checks. Obviously, people are putting in domains for that, too. It turns out that, I don't know, maybe it was my machine, maybe it was the internet being dumb, whatever, but the domain name resolution was what was holding up the test. This happens, as you can imagine, in a variety of ways in our tests. This one test that I was running, which was only, I don't know, seven or eight tests, it was taking a minute or two minutes to run. Then I fixed this so that it stopped doing the domain name resolution, and it took two seconds.Josh:Wow.Ben:So a slight improvement to our test suite there. A quality of life improvement.Josh:Did you benchmark overall? Because that's got to be a huge improvement if it's doing that everywhere.Ben:Well, it's not doing that everywhere. I did do a push, so I have to go and check and see what GitHub... see if it dropped that time.Josh:Well, it might have been whatever was wrong with your DNS resolution in the first place that was causing it to be extra slow. Would it be faster if DNS was fast?Ben:Yeah, it could have been. I actually did some tests on my laptop at the time. I'm like, "Is my DNS resolution slow?" No.Josh:So it's-Ben:The test... I don't know what the deal was.Josh:It was just resolving a bunch of actual URLs in the test.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, that's bad. So nice work. You reminded me that I did some work this week, too.Ben:OhJosh:Very important work, I must say. I added a yak to our Slack bot to where-Josh:... if you mention the word "yak" when you're interacting with the Slack bot now it will return... You should do it in Slack, just whatever Badger bot. Say Badger bot yak me, it-Starr:Okay, I'm doing it.Josh:Okay, do it.Starr:Oh, sorry. It was the wrong channel. Hold on.Josh:You got to do it in general, I think.Starr:Come on Badger bot. Oh my god. It's a little text space yak.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Awesome.Josh:This came about because earlier this week I was just passively mentioning in chat that I'm just yak shaving. My entire life is yak shaving. That just got us talking about, why don't we have some representation of that in our chat, in our Slack? Obviously, I had to stop everything I was doing and build that right away. Of course, there were some escaping issues that came up as a result of that, so obviously I had to deploy a few hot fixes.Ben:The whole episode amuses me. I love it. I would do exactly the same thing. But also what amuses me is that we already have, as part of Slack, GIPHY, and you could just dump a picture of a yak in there. But you're like, "No, that's good enough. I must have an ASCII yak.Josh:It's got to be an ASCII yak, yeah.Ben:This is great. I love technology.Josh:I kind of miss Hubot where it would just automatically... if you just mention it. Maybe I should change our Slack bot so that it does that. So if you say "yak," a wild yak appears. By the way, that's what the text at the bottom of the ASCII yak says, a wild yak appears. I just wish it would pop up if someone just mentions it in a chat, like if they're talking about it just because-Josh:It's listening to everything, right?Starr:That would be fine.Ben:We used to have Hubot, and every time you said "ship," it would show the ship-Josh:The ship, the squirrel. But I definitely would like... annoying at times, but overall I'd say it was worth it.Ben:Totally worth it.Starr:Yeah, definitely. I do remember sometimes where things were on fire, and it's just popping up funny GIFs, and it's like, "Not now. Not now Hubot, not now.Ben:Sit in the corner. Should have had that command. Like, "Go away for a while."Josh:Or just make it a separate... Maybe we should just make this a separate bot that you don't have to have any ops channel. Maybe this'll be our next product.Starr:Oh, there you go. It's like when you mention yak, it turns into an Oregon trail-type hunting scene, and you have to shoot the very slow pixel at it.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). I do love this aspect of our business of being... I assume it's like a side effect of being small. I don't know. I'm sure large teams also do this, I didn't spend a day on this, but spend a day just doing something completely useless. I like that we can do that-Ben:Yes, it is.Josh:... and the total lack of responsibility, to be honest.Starr:Is there a total lack of responsibility? I don't know. I don't know.Ben:I think you could argue that there is a total lack of responsibility.Josh:Maybe relatively.Starr:Maybe.Josh:I think we're speaking relatively.Starr:Relatively? Well, there's responsibility to customers. I don't know. Do they count? Nah.Ben:Speaking of being a small company, just because of a recent acquisition of one of our competitors, I had gone to look at what some of our other competitors, what status they were, and I was just blown away with how many employees our competitors have. It's really amazing.Starr:What are they doing with all those people? Are they paying...? Do they have a professional volleyball team or something?Josh:Not in the past year.Starr:Well, they play over Zoom.Josh:It's a professional pong league now.Starr:There you go.Ben:We have five employees. The competitor that has the closest number of employees comes in at a hefty 71. Then the largest number that I found was 147 employees. That's impressive.Josh:With the competitor, the first one that you mentioned with the 70 something employees, and I assume over $100 million in funding, were they the ones that were recently bragging on Twitter about how much more usage they have than everyone else?Ben:I don't know because I don't remember seeing that bragging.Josh:They were. It was kind of funny. Yeah, you would probably be the major player.Starr:That's something I definitely learned throughout the course of running this business is that a company that has tens or, I don't know, hundreds of, did you say $100 million, that's a lot-Josh:It's a lot.Starr:... of funding can do more work than three people even if those three people are very, very good. It's-Ben:That's right.Starr:They can do more work, and that's all right. We're just going to have our little garden patch over here. It doesn't matter if ConAgra is a mile down the road. They can do their thing. We can do our thing.Ben:As long as they don't let their seeds blow into our farmland, right?Starr:Oh, yeah, definitely. Let me just ask you a question. When it comes to buying your strawberries for your traditional summer strawberry shortcake, are you going to go to that wonderfully, just delightful artisanal farm down the road, or are you just going to slide over to ConAgra and, I don't know, get some of their strawberry-shaped objects?Ben:I got to say, I love roadside fruit stands. Those are the best. When cherry season happens here in Washington, going and grabbing a whole mess of cherries from some random person that's propped on the side of a road, I mean it's awesome.Starr:My favorite ones are the ones have no... if you stop and think about it... I used to live in Arkansas. One time I was walking by and there was this roadside fruit stand just with oranges. It was like, "Hold up. Hold up. Oranges don't grow in Arkansas. What is this?" I don't know if he just went to Costco and just got a bunch of oranges or maybe he did the Cannonball Run from Florida straight up-Josh:Road trip.Starr:... and was selling oranges all the way up. There was some explaining to do.Ben:I didn't realize until I was saying it, but it really does sound ridiculous that you're going to go and get some fruit items from some random person on the side of the road. But I love roadside fruit stands. They're great.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:I don't know. In this day and age probably, yeah.Josh:Maybe things should be more like that. Maybe that would solve some problems.Ben:Well, coming back to the front porch thing, do you know that country song, If the World Had a Front Porch?"Starr:No, I don't.Ben:Definitely have to link it up in the show notes. It's all about if the world had a front porch like we did back then, then things would be different. People would be more friendly. We'd be chatting with our neighbors. Things would just be overall good.Starr:Yeah, totally.Josh:We'd all know each other.Starr:Is that true? Is that true?Ben:I got to say, I grew up in the Deep South. I did not have a front porch and none of my friends had a front porch because we all lived in the same neighborhood and all the houses were the same, but we were all still pretty friendly-Starr:Oh, there you go.Ben:... even though we didn't have front porches.Starr:Well, I had a front porch and people were assholes, so I think the correlation between front porches and nice people is weak.Ben:The song If I had a front porchJosh:.Isn't it more like a metaphor? I don't know.Starr:You could say the internet's the world's front porch and look how great that's worked out.Josh:If you just build a front porch-Starr:I'm sure it's a nice song. I don't mean to make fun of the song. I'm sure it's a good song.Josh:You build a front porch that the entire population of the world could fit on, just see how that goes. That's what we-Starr:It's like, "Oh, shit. We deforested the Amazon to get the wood for this."Ben:We should name our little message board product Front Porch.Starr:Front porch, ah, that's nice. You could have add-ons to that. Like for upgrades, you could get the rocking chair or the whittling knife.Ben:Yeah, and the sweet tea-Starr:The sweet tea, yeah.Ben:... or the mint julep.Starr:Can I ask you a question? Was sweet tea a thing when you were a kid?Ben:Yes.Starr:Do people refer to it as like, "Oo, sweet tea," as a saying?Ben:No.Starr:Okay, that-Ben:They'd just refer to is as tea.Starr:Okay, thank you.Ben:There was no other tea. It was just that.Josh:But it was sweet.Ben:Yeah, it was sweet, of course.Starr:Yeah, of course. It's-Ben:That's the only tea that existed. None of this Earl Grey hot business, no, no, no.Starr:I just noticed, I don't know, around 2007 everybody started talking about sweet tea. It's like, "What? What's this?" Ben:Yeah, totally. It's a Southern Thing, on YouTube, their channel, is pretty funny. They go into the sweet tea thing quite a bit. If you want some additional context, do some research on that whole aspect. You can go and watch that YouTube channel. I'll have to link it up in the show notes.Starr:Yeah, I'll check that out. Well, would you gentlemen like to wrap it up? I think I've got to start... I'm going to be Southern here. I'm fixing to get ready to think about going to my vaccine appointment.Ben:Jeet yet? You know that joke? Have you heard that?Starr:I haven't heard that joke. What?Ben:It's like, oh man, two southern guys, one's like, "Jeet yet?"Starr:Ah, did you eat yet? Okay, yeah.Ben:"No. Y'want to?"Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Josh:Did you eat yet?Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Ben:Oh, good times. Sometimes I miss the South but not during the summer.Starr:One of my favorite words, I think it might be a local Arkansas word, is tump. It's a verb, tump. It's the action of tipping something over and dumping out its contents. The perfect use case is a wheelbarrow. Like, you tump out the wheelbarrow. I'm sorry. Tump out the wheelbarrow.Ben:Totally.Josh:I am learning so much on this episode, by the way-Starr:There you go.Josh:... about the South.Josh:It's great. I'm learning more about-Josh:This is your second vaccine appointment, right?Starr:Yeah, it's the second one.Josh:Second and final. Well, for now.Starr:So I'm ready for it to hit me. I'm like, "Bring the storm.Josh:Yes, it hit me.Starr:Bring it on."Josh:Mine was like a 48-hour ordeal, but back to normal now. I feel great.Starr:That's good. You got your super powers.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, good luck with that.Starr:Thank you. Maybe one day we'll be able to have a conclave in person again, although I might need the support of a therapist or something because just like... I mean I like y'all, but I don't know if I'm over the droplets yet.Ben:You can still wear masks.Starr:Okay, that's good. Thank God, okay. All right, I will talk to y'all later.

tv amazon founders tiktok health google disney man washington zoom australian oregon south startups portland arkansas southern honestly kicking ip saas developers simpsons threads twist bart slack costco alternatives thank god northwest nah screw github notion html rage against the machine badger tires basecamp kirkland gif deep south bluey dns oranges elixir gifs urls paul ryan bootstrap oo front porch earl grey giphy cannonball run lifestyle business markdown stimpy lisas budgie ascii jeet software as a service washington state department ec2 tump wysiwyg conagra claritin onewheel zyrtec ben it benas ben you josh it josh yeah josh you josh one ben there ben oh ben so josh how josh well josh oh ben well benon ben right hubot josh so micropreneur josh not

Differentiating Your Amazon and Native Website Strategies

Up Next In Commerce

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2021 42:20

If done correctly, a two-headed strategy of driving sales on Amazon and your native website could yield huge dividends. But what does that kind of strategy look like, and how can you create a scenario where one builds off of another?The answer lies in assortment and pathways into the brand experience. Ben Knox is a bit of an expert in this area and he’s here to share his expertise. Ben earned his stripes working on Red Bull’s ecommerce strategy, and now serves as the vice president of ecommerce and growth at Super Coffee. According to Ben, brands need to come up with an assortment strategy that allows customers to get what they want, when and where they want it, but also leads them back to the type of brand experience you want them to have. He also details how beneficial a subscription model can be, if done right. Plus, he gives some tips on how to get the most out of your texting strategies and what is going on in the wild west of customer acquisition.Main Takeaways:Assorted Assets: When you sell on Amazon, as well as natively on your website, you need to decide on an assortment strategy and how each site can build off each other. Whether that is only placing a select assortment of products on Amazon, or having a full assortment across channels, but offering more subscriptions and sales on your website, it’s crucial to have pathways back to your branded channels.Gotta Flex: If you offer subscriptions, you can only achieve true customer success if you offer flexibility. Even if it means that your customers can cancel a subscription ten minutes after they sign up, those are the kinds of options you need to offer. Doing so allows your customers to feel unburdened and that the experience is risk-free, which makes them more inclined to sign up.Text Me: There are benefits to separating your text strategies in order to maintain the relationship you want with your customers. Having separate text numbers for subscription management and branded content will help customers differentiate the experiences they are having and allow you to cultivate a true VIP experience with those who opt into the branded company channel.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone, and welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host Stephanie Postles, co-founder and CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show, we have Ben Knox joining us. He's the Vice President of ecommerce and growth at Super Coffee. Ben, welcome.Ben:Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.Stephanie:I'm really excited to have you on. So, you have a very long background in ecommerce. I feel like you're a veteran when I was looking through your profile. And I was hoping you can start there and go into where you've been and how you got here.Ben:Absolutely. I think that's a great foundational question. I started my career at Red Bull at the headquarters in Los Angeles. And looking back on it, couldn't be more thankful of a place to start my career. Obviously, one of the most exciting and powerful brands that CPG has seen in the United States, if not worldwide over the past several decades. So learned a lot there. Started in brand marketing, rotated into corporate strategy, eventually distribution, before finding my way into a special project on ecommerce and at Red Bull at the time And even today, the entirety of ecommerce really relates to Amazon.Ben:For one reason or another, Red Bull only wants to sell merchandise and things like that in a direct consumer way. Everything else is for retail and Amazon would be considered there. So, that was my first experience in ecommerce was leading global Amazon strategy for Red Bull starting in the United States and then, exporting that to Western Europe which was a really exciting opportunity. Great way to learn ecommerce from really the best and brightest, Amazon. Spent a lot of time in Seattle, working with the vendor team there and the related marketing teams. But eventually was really interested in going deeper in particular on direct consumer, paid media, things like that. And so, found my only real opportunity to do that was to leave that great brand, leave the company and join what ended up being several other startups and companies since where I've gotten deeper.Stephanie:Cool. So what does your day to day look like at Super Coffee and what is Super Coffee?Ben:Yeah, absolutely. Super Coffee is an enhanced Coffee Company playing really in almost all consumer packaged goods coffee categories. So, we have bottled coffees, can coffees that really tastes like delicious frappuccinos but don't have any of the calories sugar or carbs and other added positive ingredients, functional ingredients for health. And we also sell similar super espresso product. It's like a double shot espresso, more portable, more on the go, less liquid, same performance.Ben:But also, as of last year, we've moved into ground coffee with added vitamins and antioxidants, k-cup coffee pods and then, previous to that we had been selling creamer, super creamer, similar profile, very decadent, indulgent, but high on health, low on sugar and calories and all that working together as one stop coffee shop for the health minded consumer.Stephanie:That's awesome. And then I saw... so the company was started by three brothers. Right? Was it when you were in college?Ben:Yeah, Jordan as the youngest brother, Jordan DeCicco and his brothers Jake and Jim, his two older brothers, founded the company together. Jordan actually formulated the first Super Coffee in his dorm room and enjoyed it himself and then was sharing it with his former basketball team players. He was a college athlete and got an insight that there's really nothing like this out there.Ben:They didn't enjoy... they enjoyed the flavor and the taste of Starbucks drinks and cafe drinks, but not the way it made them feel, nor the sugar and the calories. And they also liked the idea of energy drinks, but again, not great ingredient profiles and tons of sugar and those things too. So they didn't want to put that in their body and that's really why they started Super Coffee. And, like mentioned, Jordan formulated it in his dorm room for the first time, and then, slowly but surely convinced his brothers to join in on his mission of disrupting the coffee industry. And now, five, if not six years later, here we are and and it's really amazing what they've accomplished.Stephanie:Yeah, it's definitely huge progress. I saw that they were on Shark Tank back in 2017 and then, now recently, they received investment from like big NBA stars and NFL quarterbacks. And then, I think most recently, the company is valued at like 200 million in June or something which blows my mind for something that started in a dorm room. That's amazing.Ben:Yeah, let's not forget J.Lo and A-Rod are our investors and partners in the company and it's no big deal.Stephanie:No big deal, J-Lo. What is up, girl? So, obviously, this company is awesome, which is why you're there, what does your day to day look like as the VP of ecommerce and growth? What do you do?Ben:Yeah, it's varied. So overseeing the sales division of ecommerce so, the actual divisional P&L for Shopify, Amazon, and then, that long tail of third party online retailers. Thrive Market is really awesome standout, actually a new partner of ours, early this year and really great partners so far. So really excited to go deeper on that relationship. Walmart.com is in the mix there as well. So, that's from a sales, divisional responsibility. That's what we're working with. But then, also responsible for the 3PL, whose services all of our ecommerce order fulfillment, the 3PL also services our Amazon business, so is basically, [inaudible] and inbound logistics to Amazon for FBA. And they also do some managed services for us. On top of that, also responsible for overseeing all of our acquisition or retention marketing efforts to really drive both of those two strong horses.Stephanie:Cool. So, what is the breakout between selling on Amazon, selling on your site, selling on other websites, what does that breakout look like? Are you favoring one area right now? Has it changed in the last year?Ben:No, it's the... the really interesting thing about it for us and it's funny now, having done this with a few different brands, it's so brand specific, where your consumers desire to shop from you and for us, we really maintain a very consistent mix so what you might often see is a brand, start strip consumer, then they start moving into Amazon and customers just shift in to Amazon, because everybody has a Prime account these days. It's very easy, very dependable, great return policies, all that so there's a lot of trust there. You're already doing a lot of shopping there. So oftentimes, you'll just find your customer base moving to Amazon in that somewhat uncontrollable way.Ben:There's definitely things that you can do to maintain a more healthy mix. And I would say a lot of those, factors and criteria are in place at Super Coffee and so as a result, we maintain a really healthy mix, let's call it 60%, Shopify, 40%, Amazon, and both both scaling pretty consistently against each other and maintaining that mix and we expect that to continue this year.Stephanie:So what are some neat tricks with selling with Amazon because we've had a lot of smaller brands on here, DTC players who... we've, of course, talked about Amazon creating a white label version of their product and we've also had a couple people be like, there's nothing to worry about as long as your product is strong. How do you guys think about selling on Amazon? And what opportunities are there that maybe people are missing?Ben:Yeah. So, there's many ways to skin a cat there and again, it's very brand dependent on what's right for us. Our context is we really are a retail brand first. So we're now, I think, in over 30,000 outlets across the United States, approaching 60 to 65% ACV so we're getting pretty ubiquitously available. But obviously, nothing compared to a Red Bull that, at the time I left the company over 300,000 outlets, so you can stumble and buy a Red Bull no matter where you are.Ben:Super Coffee is a bit earlier in that lifecycle, but still predominantly retail brand. I think in relative to our category, we really want the consumer to be able to have perfect availability of our products and to be able to purchase our products, when, where, how often, from whom they like. And so from, this is leading into an assortment strategy, from an assortment perspective, maybe another brand might have only select assortment on Amazon and then, to get the full brand experience, you have to go to the website. So, that's a natural path toward toward direct consumer.Ben:There's other ways that we do it. However, we provide the best subscription experience and discount on our website. So, we actually offer subscription on a limited basis. And when we do only the 5% funding amount on Amazon, whereas our website is 15% and so, naturally loyalists, people who are really engaged with the brand will come over to us. And there's other things like special bundles and different content and things like that the website offers that Amazon simply can't.Stephanie:Are you oftentimes finding your customers on Amazon and then, speaking to them in a way that brings them to your website afterwards, top of funnel, they come there and then, you pull them in to create a loyal customer base and retain them?Ben:Yeah, there's a master design for that to occur. It's almost though in practice a bit of pushing a boulder uphill, in that people are demonstrating an intent to purchase somewhere, and there's something there, right? And so, if they are starting to buy on Amazon, that's really an Amazon customer, most likely and then, the factors that would drive somebody from Amazon to our website are a bit more natural and gradual per se. That being said, we do nurture that behavior but it's not a really aggressive, offensive strategy that I would say we've unlocked. Even though I would like to say that we've unlocked that as a massive arbitrage opportunity on the platform, we do find that people tend to stay where they start.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, what would the ideal state look like to you, if you were to make it into the perfect funnel? How would you have it work, if you could just choose?Ben:Semi-limited assortment on Amazon, full assortment, full experience on the direct consumer website. And then, different mechanics and communication strategies in between that Amazon experience, that trial opportunity into the direct consumer experience. Again, slightly different for us, since we're beverage and consumable, or really on the go and post product, retail product, but a brand that's maybe less oriented in that way, could more aggressively attack that type of opportunity.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. And how do you guys think about subscriptions? Because that was a thing that I feel like everyone wanted everyone to have subscriptions to their products? And then, I feel like a lot of people realize, okay, that's actually not best for our customers, because they don't need a subscription for whenever we have t-shirts or something so we are going to drop that from their offering. And now, it seems like it's making a comeback, but only with certain products. So how did you guys think about that as part of your customer retention strategy?Ben:Yeah, subscriptions for us are paramount, I would say. So, again, a very consumable product. Ideally, we are 50 to 100% of your coffee consumption, obviously, when you're on the go on the weekends, you're out with friends, things like that, pop into coffee shops, you can't avoid that, of course, but relative to... especially, from being at home and through the pandemic in the last nine months, we really want to be that one source coffee solution for you at home, irrespective of your on the go behaviors. And so, for that, subscription, works perfectly on that repeat purchase behavior.Ben:And it's great because you don't have to recruit or remind that shopper to come back and buy every single time they're running low. It's actually right... it's going to happen anyways. But then, we give them the opportunity to say, Hey, not right now, I'm not quite through my last order or we give them the opportunity to say, Hey, I blazed through that order. Let me get my next one, ASAP. So there's that opportunity to modulate on the consumer side of things, that makes it an ideal situation.Ben:I think the technology is not quite there yet to make that a perfect experience, that 30 day cadence is not always perfect for the amount of units in a case and the amount of units in a case is going to last you longer or less time than it would, me. So it's not perfect, but we are working on communication strategies and software and technology to help improve that subscription experience for our customers.Stephanie:Yeah, I think that flexibility is key, I even think about something like Stitch Fix where they say you can pause the orders, you can start it up again, you can take a vacation from it, whatever you need to do. And, I think that feels very risk free like you mean, I can just try it once and then, pause it for three months, and then, try it again? And it's just so different from how it was, I would even say a year ago, where it felt very, cut and dried, you're in it or not. You can get six months in or you can't have it at all, which shows so much has changed a lot.Ben:You're committed. Yeah, we offer ultimate flexibility. You can add a subscription to cart, checkout and then, go and log into your account and cancel that subscription, five minutes later and while that's not ideal, it's okay. That's okay. And really, it's more modeling less than, in a way, the function of subscription itself, we're modeling a loyalty program, in a sense. And so, if our subscription customers get 15%, every order, don't really care if they're actually on a subscription that auto bills them, or they're managing that bill on their own. So, we find ways to incentivize and give rewards and give backs regardless of the way that they are actually going about that.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. So, what are some of the biggest driving forces with the program that work well? Is it just the cost savings that usually attracts people and then, something else, once they're in it or what do those incentives look like?Ben:Yeah, it's the cost savings and then, the stated flexibility, the money back guarantee, things like that get them in and interested. Thereafter, one of the things that we invested in six or nine months ago, was basically text message based subscription management. And so essentially, three days before re-bill, an automated text will go out and say, hey, your order of, fill in the blank, is set to ship in three days, would you like to make any changes? Gives the opportunity to opt out, cancel, gives the opportunity to say, ship it right away. Thank God, you messaged me. I'm ready for it now.Ben:They can add products that are not even subscribable. So, they can add season or one time products to try, things that might not even be subscribable. They can modify quantity. They can do all kinds of stuff. It's just as easy as a text message back and forth. So, that's the experience that we're trying to create both at managing and an automatic and dynamic concierge experience for the customer. To really make that experience carefree, really feel like they have as much control as they want over the experience and to steer away from what you were mentioning, which is the old history of you opt into a subscription, you get a deal. And then, you try to go log in and cancel, you can't even figure out how to cancel the dang thing and that's not-Stephanie:Call our customer service representatives and [inaudible].Ben:My gosh, yeah. Email us or okay, that's crazy. So that's not the business that we're in. We're in it to spread positivity, create a great connection with our consumers because now, they're not just buying from us on our website. They're buying from us in stores and they have family members and friends and that kind of experience goes a long way and, the opposite experience also goes a long way.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. What did it look like after you implemented the SMS stuff? And then, all of a sudden, the customers can easily just be like, and cancel. What did the results look like? Was there anything surprising there?Ben:Yeah. So you'd think, okay, you're would go through the roof. And because you give somebody such an easy way to cancel, it's almost a fear mindset rather than an opportunity mindset and what it actually did for us is it didn't increase cancels, but it decreased cx inbound. So, it actually decreased our costs on the customer service, customer experience side of things, because customers could then, choose their own adventure, right? And self service.Ben:And, philosophically, we haven't gotten the data yet until a software, right? The customer has a great experience, doesn't have to email support, all of that back and forth, they're probably more likely to come back later because there's less thrash, less risk of a negative experience. So all in all, great from that perspective, and great from the perspective of allowing people to increase quantities, add new products, things like that. So AOB subscription has also increased.Stephanie:That's awesome. Is there anything else that you do in the text message arena where you're like, this is also working well, or another way that you communicate with your customers outside of just your orders coming up from a subscription standpoint?Ben:Yeah, we do. We do marketing blogs so to... the other part of our text message strategy, and I like calling it a text strategy, not an SMS strategy.Ben:It's pretty much what everybody calls it, but I even see it sometimes where companies or brands, call it that to consumers. And I see it printed on packaging or it's like, send us an SMS. I don't know if any consumer knows what an SMS is.Stephanie:Calling on a landline.Ben:Yeah. Exactly. So, relative to that, it's actually two separate softwares that power it, which we would like to synthesize over time. So two separate phone numbers that these communications come from. So, we let people know that this is your subscription phone number and then, this is the Super Coffee personality brand phone number. And on that second one, we really nurture that as a VIP audience and so, when we do a product launch, things like that, we let people know if they want early access to the new products or early access to, let's call it a Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale, or what have you, you're going to get a 24 hours heads up, to everybody else, to get that early access if you're opted into our text message database.Ben:And so, that's largely how we use it, get early access to things like that product launches, seasonal products and then, the occasional motivational marketing push, things like that that are more conversational, less, we're trying to sell you something. And, I think that's the direction that we want to continue to go deeper on, is driving personalization, driving value, as opposed to asking so much. I think that's something that the industry is striving for as well.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. It definitely is a tricky channel to where you see a lot of people doing it wrong. And I can see brands being hesitant to even try it out because they probably have experienced something not so great themselves. And they're like, I just don't want to get it wrong. Because I mean, I'm sure you get the random text where you're like, I don't need that coupon right now. I'm in bed, watching Bachelor, which, Ben, I know, you're doing the same thing. I just don't need that right now. It's unhelpful.Ben:There's this... I don't know, who invented it is probably decades, if not 100 years old but this concept of, I think Gary Vaynerchuk might have popularized it, but this concept of give twice, or give three times or five times before you ask for anything. So, it's all about that, giving value and that can be modeled through social media, that can be modeled through email marketing, and that certainly, I think, should be modeled in text messaging but it's tough as marketers or as business owners, business operators, as soon as you stop being consumer, sometimes it's hard not to become incentivized as the business owner and want to sell, sell, sell.Ben:I think sometimes as the business owner or the operator, it's easy to forget what it's like being a consumer and slip into that sales mindset. But I think it's important for us to all, empathize as much as possible with being on the other end and really think about what you would like to receive from a brand as opposed to just another sort of promo?Stephanie:Yeah, I definitely agree that as a business owner, seeing all this data, it's easy to slip into that mindset to, you people like that and, especially, if you're being measured by certain KPIs, and you're like, well, if I send out three random poems or jokes and my boss sees that, they're going to wonder what I'm doing and I can explain it versus my marketing message, which is very kosher and by the books, might not perform as well, but less explaining, just-Ben:Yeah, exactly. So, I think depending on where you are in your organization, or who's listening to this, doing this correctly could require a lot of education upward or throughout the organization. And it's tough, because it's a long term thing. And it's building trust with the consumer, but you also have to build trust internally, to give yourself that runway to operate like this. So there's no silver bullet here, but something to strive for, for sure.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. So what do you see right now, when it comes to the customer acquisition landscape. What has so far 2021 looked like? Is it very different than prior years?Ben:Yeah, it's interesting, I think... two things happened last year and people started spending more time on the Internet and on their devices as a result of the pandemic. So in a way, there's now more reach, more impressions, for sure. And then, there is definitely a surge of people buying more heavily online in certain categories than they ever were before. But I think, we're moving toward the back end of that and reverting to a new mean or a new normal. And, now we've also had nine months for advertisers and brands to catch up to starting to sell and advertise on the internet. And so, there's a crowding from the brand side of things and certainly over the last... [inaudible] always but even now, in starting the year, things are just continuing to escalate and get more expensive on CPM and CPR basis.Ben:So putting increasing pressures on cost per acquisition, and overall customer acquisition costs for a brand new business that might have been previously very reliant on paid digital advertising to find new customers. And so, at least what we're focusing on is diversifying, not only just in channel, so testing obviously, other advertising channels to acquire customers. But diversifying away from paid and more into owned and earned and shared, obviously, longer term investments, things like Content Marketing blog, or let's say, diving deep and building an organic presence on TikTok, which is a buzzword and everyone's very interested in right now.Ben:Pinterest is another area. Pinterest is really the third search engine of the internet, I would say, behind Amazon and Google. So that's something that's been hiding in plain sight for a long time and strategies like that to nurture a healthier upper funnel and then, Paid may be more of converting, retargeting remarketing engine, than a prospecting engine is probably the best way forward. from our perspective currently.Stephanie:Yeah, and I think that's a really good viewpoint, especially when you think about what's happening around the privacy rules and what people have relied on for a long time when it came to Facebook ads and like what IOS is coming out with, it seems like a lot is changing but brands are going to have to rethink how they find new customers just like you're mentioning.Ben:100%.Stephanie:Crazy. So, when you're talking about, right now, there's also a lot of crowding from the brands who popped up, who either came online that weren't or a lot of brand new DTC companies that all started last year, a lot of them did, how do you think about making sure that Super Coffee shows its value in a way when there's a lot of other coffee players popping up and keto brands and butters that you add to your coffee, it feels like the space is getting very saturated. How do you know keep showcasing your value and why you're so different than a lot of other brands?Ben:Yeah. 100%. We tested so many different creative strategies, and this is... we'll talk about paid advertising for a second. Ultimately, we've come down to a few key creative formats or messaging strategies on the paid side that work really well for us. One that we continue to own is is a comparison style ad, which is putting us up against a really sort of delicious looking, we'll call it a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts cafe drink with foam and cream and swirl and things like that. And then, putting our product directly next to it, and saying, hey, everything about this... these two things are the same, actually, except for and then we flashed through the nutritional profile, the calories, the sugar, the carbs, that works really well. And, that's not only driving value for us, from an ecommerce perspective, but that's driving global value for us all the way, through the omni channel environment. So we're really happy about that type of communication and that creative strategy, very hard working. That side of things-Stephanie:It's hard too because you're instantly anchoring yourself to a brand that everyone already knows about. So you don't even have to explain, it tastes like this, it's got its own, you don't even have to worry about that when you anchor yourself to a larger brand like that.Ben:Exactly. It's interesting. It's a strategy that has being successfully used by the Magic Spoons of the World, maybe a bit easier, right? Because we've all known for a long time now that cereal is not good for us but we love it, right? I grew up on cereal. I'm from the Midwest and I subsisted off the cereal. So when I learned Magic Spoon came out and Catalina Crunch and different brands like this, it was like, no brainer. I'm ready to try that because I've been dying to eat cereal for a decade and I told myself I couldn't anymore. That's a great comparison.Ben:Ours, we were comparing it against a bottled product in the past. But less household penetration on those types of products, what we really found success in is actually comparing it to the cafe drinks, actually looks like they get an indulgent frappuccino from Starbucks and maybe less people actually, these days are getting frappuccinos than they did so it's moving toward that sterile example, as opposed to bottled or canned coffee drinks, we might still in a way not know that those are super unhealthy for us.Stephanie:What are some other creatives like that that you guys are leaning into?Ben:Yeah, otherwise, we really lean into UGC style creative, raw stuff, really focused on the product this year. So our product, we do have packaging that really distinguishes ourselves from the category, a lot of white in our packaging, we have that Angular slash to our packaging that really stands out. And what we found is really just a standard iPhone style photo, tightly cropped bottle or can is oriented such that the user can actually read it, if they're scanning through the feed. And, with some situational context that could feel like it's a real person, right? It could actually be real UGC, could be manufactured, etc.Ben:Either way, it gives that sense of, okay, I learned that this product in comparison to this other drink is a lot healthier for me. And then, okay, on my second impression from the brand, I'm seeing that this is actually a real thing that exists in the world. I can see myself holding and consuming this product. Let me click through and give it a try. So, that's the funnel, oversimplified, how we think about things currently but both of those creative styles have been very hard working for us historically.Stephanie:That's such an important shift. I've even seen personally like when I'm on Instagram or Tiktok, and I see people using something or they have something in their room, where I'm like, it's like my living room right now. But I don't remember thinking that way, a couple years ago, where I was looking for that more, I really want something to look formal and official. It's already the real deal if you spend a lot of money on it, where now I mean, our best performing ads for Mission are, I'll be walking around with the iPhone, doing the ad and that movement, and organic look does way better than anything that we've actually produced in a formal fashion.Ben:Totally. Yeah. People are turning off the advertising these days. The more polished it looks, the worse it performs, in a way, which is so ironic.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. So, what channels are you most excited to... I mean, I know you mentioned like TikTok and Pinterest but then, everyone's talking about TikTok, where are you guys zooming in on for this coming year that you're really excited about?Ben:Yeah, we started investing pretty heavily in podcast advertising, as of the start of the year. So we're advertising on shows like Armchair Expert and Pod Save America and Sibling Rivalry and a whole basket of great shows that have partners that represent our brand and are a great fit for our audience. So that's been going quite well. And that's exciting, because it's supportive of the total business, again, maybe moving from a singular ecommerce mindset to more of an omnichannel view on on the world and the market.Ben:So that's been great, we'll continue to invest there and work that into our ongoing marketing mix, a bit more upper funnel. And then, I think, yeah, as I mentioned, really thinking through a Content Marketing Strategy holistically as an upper funnel driver and obviously, there's different distribution channels, but really owning an editorial calendar, owning our perspective, leveraging our partners, and then, distributing that in the channels that are applicable, and really bringing all that to the world of Super Coffee to life, through our partners and through content, I think, is going to be our bleeding edge this year. And really write the ship relative to upper funnel, mid funnel, bottom funnel, and create that healthy balance that all of us are looking for in this industry.Stephanie:One thing I have been thinking about lately is how... in the next coming years, all these brands are turning into essentially, like media companies creating content, and everyone's going to be trying to pull the consumer back to their blogs, to their hubs, and it's like, instead of just going to Instagram feeds and seeing it on there, you're going to be pulling people back to your websites. I mean, how do you think about that landscape because it feels crazy, thinking about hundreds of brands going to be like, come back to my blog to see content that we're creating. And you have to kind of go in a million different places to find it.Ben:Yeah, I think it just puts an increasing pressure on, I will say quality, quality is in the eye of the beholder, right. So, it's, again, like we mentioned quality from designer or creative director of yesteryear is perfect, polished detail dialed whereas quality these days is on a YouTube channel or TikTok account and from a mobile phone and not really produced and published and polished. I think it's quality, it's relatability, it's authenticity and above and beyond all that, it's having something to say, that really speaks to somebody and makes them feel like they're engaging with a personality, engaging something that means something to them, that makes them feel a certain way. And so, it'll just put an increasing pressure on that confusing definition of quality for the consumer, to really create that connection and say, hey, it's worth subscribing to us directly, as opposed to all these other 100 brands that offer X, Y and Z to you. In order to do that, you're going to stay focused and attention on us and not the rest of them.Stephanie:Yeah, I think about the amount of newsletters that popped up last year where obviously, that whole industry is very much democratized. And now, anyone can make a newsletter and charge for it and I subscribed to quite a few of them. But then, now, I'm like, whoa, what'd I do? I mean, now they're coming in, I'm having to send them into different categories and filter them so you don't hit my inbox. And it makes me think that could be an eventual future for brands too, if you don't figure out how to write something, create something that someone is eager to open and actually wants to hear what you have to say and doesn't just drift over to a corporate create marketing message over time.Ben:Yes, exactly. It just all goes back to giving and creating value and it's dependent on the brand and the Tim Ferriss mindset, which is tools, tips, practices, all of that he gives his audience, that's why you go listen to Tim Ferriss. It's contextually different for a brand or for another personality in a podcast or what have you. So, it's all about knowing what you want to say, knowing what you have to give and share to the world and then, give it as much of that as possible.Stephanie:I agree. All right. Let's shift over to the Lightning Round and Lightning Round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. And, this is where I ask a question and you give an answer under 30 seconds.Ben:Wow. Okay. Exciting.Stephanie:What one thing from 2020 do you hope sticks around throughout 2021?Ben:Wow, not much.Stephanie:I know, that's a hard question.Ben:Well, I think, this is going to be a firm answer but a lot of people are of the belief that COVID accelerated transic technology, transic consumer behavior that would have otherwise taken 10 years to happen so, I think, as a digital marketer, as an ecommerce professional, I think thankful and excited for all the change relative to consumer behavior and online commerce that happened in 2020 and I don't think we are going backward on that so excited and thankful for it and excited for what's next.Stephanie:I like that. What's your favorite resource or resources to stay on top of, like the ecommerce industry as a whole?Ben:There's great podcast like yours. I'm not talking to other podcasts because I was on it, DTC podcasts, I think it's Pallet House labs and speaking to these others, they've got really great newsletters as well.Stephanie:Cool. Sounds good.Ben:[inaudible]. Yeah, they're killing it.Stephanie:What one thing do you not understand that you wish you did?Ben:I feel like I wish I understood almost...I don't feel like I understand anything, ever, in a way especially in this industry, everything is always changing and you would speak to somebody, you had such high confidence over something that you feel like you don't know anything about and that's just the constant feeling that you'll have and so, I think, always maintaining an extreme curiosity over things, continuous learning. You'll never know it all so I think that's in the DNA of somebody successful in this industry in ecommerce and digital is, that needs to be a big thing.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. What's the last purchase you made online that you normally would not have, online prior to 2020?Ben:Well, I'm a new dog dad.Stephanie:Congrats. What's the dog's name and what kind of dog is it?Ben:Her name is Honey because she's so sweet and she's rescue pup, about six months old and we think she's a lab mixed with jindo which is a Korean breed.Stephanie:Okay. I'm like, I know what kind of dog that is.Ben:It's almost like a Siberian Husky that's more slender.Stephanie:Okay. So you bought that offline or you bought something for her online?Ben:I buy everything for her on the internet now. I never bought the pet category before in my life and certainly not online so that's opening me up to just a completely different world of industry and I think, the number one ecommerce category is vitamins and supplements, number two is pet supplies, number three might be pet food and over 50% of pet products are bought online so pet is the most endemic ecommerce category there is besides vitamins and supplements.Stephanie:Yeah. All right, Ben. Well, this whole conversation has been a blast, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge. Where can people find out more about you and Super Coffee?Ben:Yeah, Super Coffee is easy, drinksupercoffee.com or just type us in the search bar, Super Coffee in Google or Amazon, they'll find your way to us. Myself, really the only place I exist is on LinkedIn. That really means in any social profiles. I don't have a newsletter or a blog myself but feel free to find me on LinkedIn and make a connection and reach out and love to connect.Stephanie:Perfect. Thanks so much, Ben.Ben:No, thanks, Stephanie. It's been great.

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第1155期:Favorite Celebrities

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2021 4:32

Ben: Hey let's talk about some like celebrities you like, or someone you know.Hana: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. My favorite singer is Taylor Swift.Ben: Really?Hana: Mm-hmm.Ben: Wow, why do you like Taylor Swift?Hana: First I like her songs, but mainly I like her look you know. That red lips and white skin and blonde hair. Kind of typical American.Ben: Albino, yeah.Hana: When I saw her for the first time I was like, "Wow, she's gorgeous."Ben: Wait you mean, you saw her picture on the internet or in the news or you saw her in concert?Hana: No, I think it was on YouTube. Again, YouTube.Ben: YouTube, okay.Hana: Yes she was, at that time she was still singing like country music but yeah I thought she's amazing.Ben: I have an interesting fact about her actually.Hana: What?Ben: So apparently, she is from right outside of my hometown actually.Hana: Oh wow.Ben: Yeah that's where she was born and then she was doing music around there first and she got kind of big somehow. I don't know how. I'm not really interested in her.Hana: Okay.Ben: She's cute but I don't really like her music. But yeah that's where she got started somewhereby my hometown apparently.Hana: I mean she's like the typical woman figure you know? Girly style and nice skin and her movement and her songs is like girl, all American girl.Ben: That's true.Hana: So that's why I like her. How about you?Ben: I have a lot of bands that I like but I recently saw this movie that I really like. Do you know the actor, Edward Norton.Hana: No.Ben: He's getting really popular. He's been popular for awhile. He does all different types of movies like crime dramas, like action, thrillers, science fiction. He's very, how would you say, he can do many different types of roles.Hana: Right.Ben: So I recently saw, it's an old movie of his but it's called Fight Club. It's him and Brad Pitt. Have you heard of it?Hana: Maybe.Ben: Fight Club, yeah.Hana: I think I've seen it. I don't really remember.Ben: It's old. It's from like 1998, 1999 but it's still a really good film I think. I think if I was to talk about a celebrity that I liked definitely Edward Norton. His acting is really good I think.Hana: Is he English or is he American? Where's he from?Ben: He's from the U.S. Yeah he's American for sure. Yeah what about you? Do you have any actors or actresses that you like?Hana: Yes, my favorite actor is, oh gosh, I can't remember his name. You know the guy from-Ben: Maybe I can help you.Hana: Notting Hill. The guy from the Love Actually.Ben: Oh, he's that British guy.Hana: The British guy with you know the eyes.Ben: Hugh Grant.Hana: Hugh Grant yes. That's the guy. Yeah, I like him.Ben: Why? Can I ask? He's kind of like a romantic comedy star but why do you like his acting?Hana: He looks sweet.Ben: Okay so he looks sweet.Hana: I'm like Brad Pitt or other celebrity male celebrities, he's not like super handsome. He looks kind of ordinary guy and kind of makes me feel like nice.Ben: Okay.Hana: The clothes I guess.Ben: Yeah, yeah that's true. I don't think I've ever seen a movie with him.Hana: Have you ever seen? No?Ben: No, I'm just not like a ... You said he's in Love Actually, he's like a romantic comedy guy, right?Hana: Yes, yeah. I like-Ben: Romantic comedies. Oh really? What's your favorite romantic comedy?Hana: I can't think of any now. Probably romantic, yeah, Love Actually. Okay I can't think of anything now but how about you?Ben: How about me what?Hana: Do you like romantic comedies?Ben: No, not really. But there is one I do like it's called My Best Friend's Wedding.Hana: Okay.Ben: I believe Julia Roberts is in that one.Hana: Yeah.Ben: Do you know who she is?Hana: Yeah. She is famous, yeah.Ben: Yeah that's kind of a good ... That's like a 90's classic romantic comedy I think. Have you seen it?Hana: I think I have.Ben: Okay.Hana: Yeah, yeah I think so.

american english british weddings celebrities taylor swift brad pitt fight club julia roberts love actually edward norton my best friend girly bendo ben it ben oh ben so ben how

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 13, 2021 33:48 Transcription Available

In his consulting practice, Ben Mosior teaches Wardley Mapping, a tool for visualizing strategic intent. In this conversation, we dive into Wardley Maps: what they are and how they can help us make better strategic decisions. Listen to the show Download episode 57 Show notes Learn Wardley Mapping @HiredThought on Twitter The Phoenix Project by Kevin Behr Leading Edge Forum Wardley maps: Topographical intelligence in business by Simon Wardley The Art of War by Sun Tzu How to Read a Wardley Map video Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links. Read the transcript Jorge: Ben, welcome to the show. Ben: Thank you for having me, Jorge. Jorge: I'm excited to have you here. For folks who might not know you, would you mind please telling us about yourself? About Ben Ben: So, I started out my career in systems administration, which I'll very lovingly describe as telling computers how to do things. And I actually worked for the state of Pennsylvania for a while. I worked in higher education to basically learn how to deploy lots of systems and actually we ran a whole library network for the entire state. We also did some local things for the school that we were based at. And, I was learning about all sorts of technical concepts, like configuration management and all this kind of stuff. And eventually I wandered my way into the world of DevOps. Which, DevOps is like a word that it's a portmanteau: development operations. And there are a lot of different meanings that people load it up with. The one that I tend to see as being most foundational for me is 'viewing the divide between development and operations and what it takes to get two groups of people to work together.' So, I had this experience where I started to realize that, oh! Turns out if you are just managing the computers, that's not enough to create value at the end of the day for the people that you're here to serve. So, I went to a DevOps days conference in Pittsburgh. I met Kevin Behr who wrote The Phoenix Project. Long story short, I find myself like thrust into this world of like, hey! Systems thinking! Global thinking! Like let's actually not just focus on our local part. Let's see how the local part fits into the whole thing. And gradually what that ended up doing is it actually took me out of the world of computers and into the world of humans. Like the human side of it. It turns out you can't just have one or the other; you have to have both. And long story short, I've just had a lot of weird experiences working on the social and the technical. So, the socio-technical aspects of these organizations that we all work in. I left the state. I started working for a corporation. I gradually found myself running my own startup, my own little kind of software development company with a couple of friends. Eventually I ended up in consulting and I really don't know how I ended up there from the beginning to getting to that point. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. But I found myself running into weirder and weirder ideas about how to make sense of things inside socio-technical systems. So that led me to a network of people on Twitter who just kept feeding me all these weird ideas and eventually, I ended up learning about Wardley mapping, which is a thing that I care a lot about because I spend a lot of time teaching people about it. But roughly I think it's very aligned with what The Informed Life is all about. It's about making sense of things. It's about sharing that experience with others and collectively creating coherence so that you all can act meaningfully together. So that's kind of the arc of my career. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm doing what I do, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Wardley Maps Jorge: I love this phrase, "collectively creating coherence," and you mentioned Wardley maps as a way of achieving that. What are Wardley maps? Ben: So Wardley maps are an invention of Simon Wardley. And Simon Wardley is a kind person who works currently for The Leading Edge Forum. He's a researcher. He basically wanted to design a tool that would rid the world of parasitic consultants. And so, he sat down and that was his purpose for designing this tool. It came from his interest in trying to basically do a good job as a CEO. He has a journey, like there's actually a book that he's written, which you can find on Medium, where he basically talks through his whole career arc about, you know, he was an "imposter CEO." He thought that maybe he was missing the all-important lessons of how to do strategy, that kind of stuff. And what he ended up discovering is that not many people actually have this figured out, and there are no real secrets. And so, he felt like he had to go out and find his own. That led him to studying military history, led him to understanding, in particular, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and integrating that into Eastern philosophies of strategy and long story short, what he brought back to the world was a way of making individuals more capable of making sense of their environment and thinking through what to do about it. And based on his intent to rid the world of parasitic consultants. His whole idea is that if you equip executive leaders with the capability of making sense of the world for themselves, then they won't need consultants as much. Consultants won't be a crutch anymore. Maybe you'll bring them in to help you challenge and refine ideas, but you don't need a consultant in order to come up with a strategy. So, concretely, Wardley mapping is a visual way of representing systems: its users, its needs, its capabilities, its relationships between all those three things. And then it's also positioning those things in a way that helps their qualities become more apparent. So, there's this thing that Simon Research called "Evolution." It's basically how do things evolve and get better or die under the pressures of supply demand competition, and what you get is like things start out new, uncertain, high risk, high failure, but with a high potential for future value. But then as they evolve, they get better. You know, someone's always like looking at these weird ideas and trying to make them better because capitalism basically suggest there's money to be made. So, someone out there is going to try to make it better. And over time, if the idea is worth investing in, it will continue to get better, more known, more boring, more predictable, and the value of it will be more concrete. And eventually, if it evolves to a certain extent, it becomes an invisible part of our everyday lives. And so, Simon says, look, you want to represent the systems that we're a part of both in terms of their parts and relationships, but also in terms of how evolved each of those parts are. Because what that does is it sets you up to understand the implications of those qualities. New stuff is going to be high failure, old stuff that everybody understands, that's just part of everyday reality like power in the wall. It is going to be less surprising; it's going to be less failure. And so that means that depending on the context, depending on the part of the system we're looking at, we need to have a different way of approaching it. And I think that's the entire point. By making visual artifacts — by talking about our systems visually — we can come together, look at a specific part of it, appreciate its qualities, and then together determine what our collective intent is about that part of the system. And I don't think that's just for executives. I think that's for anyone who is making decisions at any level of the organization. Jorge: If I were someone who's listening in, I'd be desperately wanting to look at one of these things. You've described it as a visual artifact. And I'm wondering if we could give a shot at trying to describe one for folks who are listening. Ben: Absolutely. And what I'd suggest is if you are in a situation where you are listening and you can pull something up in a new browser tab or something like that, go to learnwardleymapping.com and scroll down until you see a funny looking diagram. You'll see a video down there called "How to Read a Wardley Map," or depending on when you're listening to this episode, maybe you'll have to search a little bit harder. Maybe look into the reference section of the site a little bit. But you'll find an artifact with an X and a Y axis. So, the Y axis will be labeled the "Value Chain" and the X axis will be labeled "Evolution." and the X axis will have four segments. Four sections within it. And these correspond to those four stages of evolution. We have different labels for these stages. It can just be one, two, three, or four. Simon likes to say Genesis, Custom-Built, Product, and Commodity. But you can also look at it through like a knowledge lens or a practice lens. There are these different lenses that you can look at that same evolution and use different words to describe it. There's an evolutionary characteristics cheat sheet that you can use to get a deeper appreciation for evolution. Thinking about this visual, it's about what goes on this Y axis and X axis space. And what you have at the very top is who's being served by the system. Who benefits, who is getting value from it. Underneath that is usually a set of needs. So, what the user needs from the system, and these are connected by relationships. Needs relationships. So, X depends on Y. Citizens depend on pandemic safety, for example, or users depend on the dashboard in your SASS application or whatever it ends up being, right? And then underneath that is yet more components. Yet more parts of the map. And these are the capabilities that the system has within it that all add up to produce this set of benefits for the user. And all of them have those relationships. X depends on Y, Y depends on Z, and so on and so forth. And so, by making an artifact like this together, what you really quickly start to see is that inside your organization, or even inside your own head, there are things you ought to know that you don't know. And it's really a kind of a mechanical, "how does this work?" kind of question. And by discussing it together, and instead of talking at each other, talking past each other, you talk through an artifact that you're constructing together? That specifically describes these dimensions. You'll be able to more carefully and articulately describe what the system is and therefore more carefully and articulately described what your intent is with respect to that system. Wardley Maps vs other systems diagrams Jorge: There are many different types of systems diagrams. How is a Wardley map different from other ways of visualizing systems? Ben: That's a really good question. And it's one that I get a lot of the time and the blunt answer is, it's not all that different with respect to the benefits that working in any visual methods will get you. I mean, when you're in a meeting and you're not actually looking at something together? It can be very, very hard to make sure you're talking about the same thing. can be very, very hard to make sure that you're understood. But when you're using a visual thing, any sort of visual thinking tool, that gets a lot easier. What Wardley mapping brings to the table, however, is two additional things to the visual side of it. One is this evolution concept that we've been talking about, which has its own implications for, hey! If something is high failure, we should approach it in a way that makes that failure safe. Versus something is boring, totally known, hey! Maybe we should approach this with an expectation that we should reduce the deviation. We should make it as knowable and portable as possible. So, like the approach that we take towards that thing is different. So, appreciating those qualities is really important because otherwise you end up doing things like building stuff that you don't need to build. You might outsource things that you shouldn't outsource. And roughly it's just a way of bringing capitalism and the implications that capitalism has to the forefront of your decision-making. Now that's one thing. The second thing is the strategic thinking process. Simon Wardley describes a process for sitting with your understanding of the system that breaks that, that sort of understanding down into five steps, only one of which is making the map. The first is Purpose. It's why we all do what we do. It's the reason we're getting out of bed, showing up to do the work. It's the purpose of the entire system. It's the moral imperative... it's the view of aesthetic truth and beauty that we are trying to imagine for the future through the work that we do every day. that's Purpose. The second thing is Landscape, and that's making maps. That's making these visual artifacts of the competitive landscape to understand the circumstances that we're playing in, that we're dealing with right now. Who else is there? It's not just us, right? It's the wider market. And then the third thing is Climate. These are the patterns that more or less dictate the rules of the game. It's things like everything will evolve from stage one of evolution to stage four, over time. And so, what does that imply is a worthy question. But Simon has a whole table of like, I don't know, 30 or 40 of these different rules of the game that one by one you can learn to appreciate over time. The fourth thing is Doctrine. And these are the universal principles that we choose to apply inside our organization. Things like always focus on user needs. So, it's about how you equip your organization to be the best that it can be to actually be able to participate strategically in the wider market. In the wider competitive landscape. And then finally, it's the question of what you would do given what you know. It's the integration of everything that we've already discussed — the purpose, the specific landscape that you're in, the rules of the game, those climatic patterns, and the training of your organization. The doctrinal principles that you always apply. It's the synthesis of all those things that enables you to start thinking about what moves to make. Should we do this, or should we do that? And that is entirely about how to spend the precious, limited time, attention, all of scarce resources that you have at your disposal? Where do you put that? How do you decide how to invest all that in a way that makes sense? I think the most common mistakes that organizations make is they spread that investment too wide. They don't be intentional about what they're doing, and the result is they don't make progress quickly. They don't actually achieve what they set out to achieve. And you have an organization full of individuals just showing up to work every day, not really connecting to that bigger purpose, not really making a difference in the world. And it's a system that actively trains you, that what you do doesn't matter. So, those are the five factors of Simon's strategy cycle. That's what Wardley mapping brings in addition to being just a visual method. It brings this idea of how to pay attention and appreciate and understand the implications of capitalism, and that's evolution. And then the second thing is it brings the strategic thinking process to apply to the visual artifact with others. Example of a Wardley Map Jorge: Can you give us an example of a Wardley map being used to make strategic decisions? Ben: Yeah, absolutely. I often use Wardley mapping for myself, although a lot of the times, the map never leaves my head, just because if you do this so many times, you start building up an intuition for it. But the one that I often like to share because it certainly deeply impacted me especially because it involved my family, is COVID-19 pandemic related health and safety. And so, I made a map a little while ago, and it was broadly about citizens... sort of citizens of various countries, right? I'm in the United States. That's what I'm focused on. Citizens need health. And so, at the top of my map, those are the first things that are shared. And then I framed it this way: I said there are two ways, two different capabilities that the system has that produces health. And one is prevention, and one is treatment. So, sometimes there's shorthand in these maps. Part of the fun is like trying to find words that very concretely and concisely describe a very vast phenomenological experience. So just roll with me — prevention and treatment is about: either you prevent yourself from getting COVID-19, or you treat the issue once you have it. Looking at these two different sides of the Wardley map, underneath prevention you have a lot more novelty. So, this chain seems to be way more towards the left side of the map, the stage one and two side of evolution. They're uncertain, they're more unknown, they're more risky, and yet the payoff could be really huge if we get it right. So, prevention, I wrote, needs things like mask wearing and things like social distancing. And what I noticed here is that these are things that feel like they should be much more evolved. They really ought to be more ubiquitous. Like the way I would hope things to be is that the obvious effective thing, like wearing a mask, is something that you would do as a citizen, in a country to prevent the spread of the virus. And I think it would be really interesting to dig into why these things are less evolved. But for whatever reason, they're less evolved. Mask-wearing, social distancing... these are things that are really, really hard for people to do, and I think it has something to do with the entanglement of like the social side of it. Like people need to see other people. The problematic and contradictory messaging that they're getting, the emergent nature of conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination and why those things have come about. And it's a really, really kind of deep rabbit hole that you'd go into and dig into if you wanted to explore that more deeply. But for me, I just wanted to emphasize these two things in my situation. That, in our house, we will be wearing masks and we will be social distancing. And because those things are less evolved, we may actually have to do some of our own research to figure out how to effectively do that. And so that led us to things like, The New England Institute of Complex Systems. I think I'm getting that wrong. There was a really fabulous paper that basically described how to do the New Zealand pod system, but for family units. And so, the social distancing part of that, we could actually like do some research and find some new cutting-edge things that we could try and apply. For a while, we were actually able to form a household unit with our upstairs neighbors. We all had collective rules that we were following based on this cutting-edge research. That was our experiments that we had to run because this thing was so less evolved. Now, so that's the prevention side of it. The treatment side of it is a little bit more straightforward because it's all about what to do within the context of the existing medical system. Treatment is more towards the right of the map because generally treatment disease and is something that's, largely more evolved. And underneath treatment, you have things like diagnosis, care, triage. These kinds of activities that you would expect to happen in a hospital, for example. And so, diagnosis depends on testing. Treatment depends on care, and care depends on personal protective equipment and medical knowledge. And so, you start to appreciate all these different parts of the system that add up to treatment. Then you can have a conversation about how, when PPE isn't available, the part of the system that provides care, enables treatment, and that therefore enables health for the citizens, starts to fall apart. When testing isn't available, the same thing happens. And so, you have this like question when you have the full system, "okay. We've got prevention kind of questions that are more towards the left of the map. You have the treatment side, which is more towards the right of the map. Where do you put your time and attention?" And as an individual? One person with a family? I felt like the best thing we could do is invest our time and attention in the prevention side of it. On the mask wearing and the social distancing. It's really, really hard for us to do something with testing and PPE and things like that. So, it just wasn't an option for us. So very practically, just by having the whole system in front of us, we were able to make more informed decisions. And frankly, I share this with other people and saw what they thought. And that made it better. Because then we could refine and expand our awareness of what was and wasn't actually happening out in the wider world. So, any biases we had about how things worked, could get checked at the door. And we could actually work together on designing something better together. Collaborative map-making Jorge: The way that sounds to me is like, the artifacts that we see — these charismatic maps that you were referring to earlier — are the outcome of a process and the real value lies in the process. And it also sounds to me like the value of the process is dependent on the collaborative way in which it comes about, right? Because in the process of making this thing together, you build alignment. You tap into people's diverse knowledge, etc. Is that fair? Ben: That's absolutely fair. And there's always the problem with any methodology that you have to somehow convince other people to do it with you. I never want to underestimate the value of one person paying attention using this method, just to get themselves figured out, to understand why they interact in the way that they do with the system. But yes, like it is enormously valuable to do with another person, or if you're on a team to do it together. And my general advice with any methodology is kind of get past the, "everybody has to learn how to do it." Like, ignore that! And instead, just get started. Just take half an hour, try to understand one simple part of the whole thing. Just get a little bit better every day. And so, I don't think you need to be an expert Wardley mapper. You can start out by making lists. Like one of the first steps of Wardley mapping is who is being served by the system? And so, what you can do right now, today, is in the next meeting that you attend, you can sit there and you can make a list of who is being served by this system. And then you can ask other people what they think. Does this list make sense to you? Is this what you think? What am I missing? Who do you disagree with my inclusion of, on this list? Right? So, it doesn't have to be this like whole thing, this whole like methodology, it's like little parts of it, a little bit by bit every day. Jorge: You said that Simon Wardley's goal with this was to rid the world of parasitic consultants. You're a consultant. Ben: Yes. Jorge: Given that it sounds like the true value in this resides in teams doing it for themselves to get their bearings and figure out where they're going next, what role do you play in that process? Ben: That's a really good question. Because as a consultant, it seems like I am convinced that I have no value by saying that it's an anti-consulting framework. And that's not quite true. There are a lot of different ways we could explore this, but I think I'll start by saying the first thing is consultants are not useless. It's the dependence on consultants in a way that takes away an organization's own agency that I think is problematic. Simon in particular is looking at the example of, maybe one of the big consulting firms coming into an organization, talking with an executive and basically executive delegates the act of creating strategy to that consulting organization. That's probably the exact scenario that Simon is designing against by providing Wardley mapping. I'm playing a little bit of a different game, personally. And whenever I work with other consultants, this is the question, a set of questions that I have for them. It's like, which game are you playing inside this organization? Are you playing the game where you just make money and you go home, like, it's just your job? Are you playing the game where you're trying to reduce harm? And so, your being in the organization is not about creating dependence on you, but it's about you reducing harm inside the organization. And that kind of has this implication, that you're just... you're there in order to watch for those moments where you can do one small thing that helps someone make one huge step forward and kicks off this snowball that turns into an avalanche of ideas and thoughts for them. Or are you actually doing a long-term and extended intervention? And a lot of those games, I have a hard time with, just generally speaking. And so, I tend to focus on: how do I build people up? How do I help them increase their own capability? So that, I'm never building a dependence. It's never a situation where they're going to ask me to come back over and over and over and over and over again about the same thing, because they've delegated something to me. Instead, I want it to be something where if they invite me back, it's because we're going to have a new experience that genuinely stretches them, genuinely helps them grow about new things that we haven't already covered. So, when I come in to teach mapping, it's about enabling the individuals of the organization, which is why I'm not focused just on executives, it's leaders at all levels. How do I help every person that I interact with have a little bit more agency in the decisions that they make every day? And 1) that's just helping them notice the system that they're in, but 2) knowing how to make sense of that system, and then also be able to take action to change it, to shape it. And so, a lot of times my "consulting" ends up looking more like one-on-one sparring or coaching, things along those lines. Sure, I do a lot of Wardley maps too and maybe I'm teaching you how to do that. That's why you brought me in, right? But there are these little opportunities to, on a one-on-one basis, build people up so that they individually have more power in the system that they're in. Jorge: When I was thinking about this role of helping people map the systems they find themselves in and consulting, I was thinking that maybe the role was like a cartographer. But it sounds to me like there is a little bit of cartography involved, but it's cartography in service of learning to do cartography. Ben: I think the worst thing you could do is delegate the cartography to someone else. Because unlike a specialized field like literal map-making — so mapping the physical world — this is different. This is like ontological map-making; this is about understanding what exists inside an organization. And it's not just like what furniture is in the rooms. It's about what ideas are in people's heads. What ontology has the organization created that is not understood in an appropriate way across the organization? And this is one of the things that we often get into where it's like, "well, are you trying to help everyone understand every part of the organization?" No, absolutely not. What we're trying to do is help individuals understand their parts of the organization, but also understand how their parts connect to other parts of the organization and where the shared understandings need to exist. It's really about understanding the boundaries of where different areas of autonomy in an organization overlap, so that collectively they can negotiate along those boundaries. And I think it's just about knowing where to invest your attention in the organization, because if you're doing work heads down 80% of the time, and you're not paying attention to how the overall system is functioning, you're going to immediately run into the problem — that initial career-arc mind-blowing moment that I had — which was, "Oh my gosh, I'm just trying to make the local thing better. And it's actually making it worse for everyone around me!" Trying to see how you and your individual part of the organization fit into a larger whole is what this is all about. It's really about making the organization more intentional at all levels and within all parts. Closing Jorge: That sounds like a great way to summarize this. I love the phrase "ontological map-making." It sounds like a beautiful encapsulation of what this is about. I'm sure that folks are going to be wondering about where they can follow up with you. Where can we point them to? Ben: I am really accessible on Twitter. And so, if you'd like to follow me @hiredthought, you are always welcome to direct message me or reach out. I can also be emailed if you want to go that way: ben@hiredthought.com. And of course, if you want to learn more about Wardley mapping, you can go to learnwardleymapping.com. There's a free book that Simon's written. We've made it available in multiple formats. There's a short introduction video on the homepage that you can just play with and see if you'd like the concepts that you're hearing about. You can decide for yourself whether to dip your toes further. And then I would encourage you to reach out and say hello if you need any help or have any questions. I'm always happy to hear from you. Jorge: That's fantastic. Thank you so much for being on the show. Ben: Thank you so much for having me.

第1149期:Tips for Learning on TV

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2021 3:49

Ben: Hana, you just told me that one way to help with listening and practicing and understanding idioms is through American television dramas. Right? So, TV shows.Hana: Yes.Ben: Yeah. While you were learning English, what are some shows you watched? Something I wanna tell my students they can watch.Hana: My favorite all time is the TV drama called Friends.Ben: Oh, yeah! Yeah.Hana: Have yous seen it before?Ben: Friends is super popular in the U.S. Yeah, yeah.Hana: It is, yes. I mean, first of all, I just love the story.Ben: Okay.Hana: Other than just learning English, it's second purpose, I guess. There was an Italian or there is a character who is playboy and he used to say like, "How you doin'?" Yeah? And, it's interesting is, first, I watched the drama with my first language subtitled.Ben: Oh, right.Hana: Yeah.Ben: So you're watching in English with your language in the subtitles?Hana: Yes.Ben: Okay.Hana: So that I can understand the main concept first.Ben: Right.Hana: And then, gradually, I changed to English subtitles.Ben: Oh, okay. That's a great idea! So, first, to understand the meaning of what's being said, subtitles. Then, to maybe watch it again a second time or even a third time to understand exactly how the English is used in context of the show.Hana: True, yeah.Ben: Okay, that's a great strategy.Hana: That way you can enjoy just watching the movies or dramas and that way you can spend a lot more time, rather than just trying to study English.Ben: Right, so it's more ... a way to enjoy learning English and studying.Hana: Yes.Ben: Actually, you know ... You said Friends, right?Hana: Yep, yep.Ben: So I think Friends is on ... It's so popular, right? And it's all over the internet. I believe it's on YouTube, you can watch it on YouTube and Netflix.Hana: Netflix, yeah.Ben: Yeah, Netflix. One thing that's great about YouTube, I think, is that they have a closed captioning or a subtitling option, so if you can't exactly catch what they're saying while you're listening the first time, you can put the subtitles on like you said.Hana: Yeah, yeah, exactly.Ben: That's a great-Hana: And there are so many websites that shows the transcripts of the ...Ben: That's true. You can read the scripts from the show to follow along, as well.Hana: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben: That's great. So you said you watch Friends, right?Hana: I do.Ben: Are there any others that you've heard of? Friends, I know is popular. Many people know Friends.Hana: Full House.Ben: Full House, yeah!Hana: Full House, yes.Ben: Okay, you know they recently did a revamp, a newer version it.Hana: Yeah, they did. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet but, yeah, it's good. Good, good.Ben: I haven't either. Well, you recommend either Friends or Full House.Hana: One of my friends, he liked a drama called Prison Break.Ben: Oh, that's on Netflix, as well.Hana: Have you ever heard it? Yeah.Ben: Yeah, I have.Hana: He watched like 60 hours or more than that and I asked him, "How's it going? Is it good?" He did understand without subtitles, which is good. And so, I asked him, "So you can speak English now, yeah? Can you use those phrases from the drama?" And he said, "Actually, not." I said, "Why?" It's because the words that they use from the drama. There's a bombing or escaping or something that's not daily life conversations, so that way Friends or Full House that people in daily life.Ben: That's daily English. Yeah, daily life English.Hana: Yeah, so I found it easier to use.Ben: Okay, so you recommend-Hana: Yeah, yeah.Ben: Okay, yeah. That's great. Thank you so much. I think my students would love to watch that kind of drama and learn daily-Hana: Daily, yes.Ben: ... actual phrases you can use. Thanks so much for the tips. Thanks, Hana.Hana: You're welcome.

tv american netflix learning friends english italian full house prison break ben oh ben so ben right

第1149期:Tips for Learning on TV

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2021 3:49

tv american netflix learning friends english italian full house prison break ben oh ben so ben right

第1149期:Tips for Learning on TV

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2021 3:49

tv american netflix learning friends english italian full house prison break ben oh ben so ben right

第1148期:Tips for Learning English

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2021 5:13

Ben: Hana, I'm currently teaching English as a Second Language, and I love for my students to get confident in producing English or increasing their listening ability. I know that you speak English as a second language, but you do such an amazing job and it's inspiring to me, so I love my students to improve and like it, and so because you're a perfect example, what are some strategies you have for my students so I could tell them?Hana: Firstly, I worked on listening, and there are so many websites that are designed for English learners, like here you're listening to, and YouTube or any, you know, so many sites that you can check on. Yeah, like that. I'll probably start with the listening first.Ben: You said, firstly, listening. Why is listening so important?Hana: It's because when you want to communicate, of course, the English as a tool, communication tool, first, you have to understand what the speaker say, so first, I worked on listening. By listening to audio, or the sound, then you can learn vocab and also spelling, and you know the meaning, of course. Eventually, you can move on to the next English skill. That's why I start working on listening first.Ben: What about anything else that you ... have any other strategies?Hana: Personally, I found that learning vocab, and especially idioms, help me a lot.Ben: Yeah, idioms are tough.Hana: Yes, because often I found it difficult to understand what the speaker say. I could hear, I could understand what the single words they say. But sometimes it was hard to sort of grasp the meaning what they're actually saying, so learning idioms or vocab helped me a lot, yeah.Ben: When you learn the idioms, you can understand them. Did you ever use them yourself, when you, like, tried it out in the wild, so to speak, using the idioms you learned.Hana: Yes, I did it gradually. I mean, when I was in high school, I started speaking ... I started studying English when I was in high school. First thing I did was visiting those websites that, like, designed for English speakers, English learners. At the same time, I start watching like American TV dramas and, in that sense, you can sort of understand in what situation you can use those particular phrases or idioms. By learning the idioms and vocab and the settings or the environment, the situation you can use, then you can sort of actually try to use them. At the beginning I was so nervous, but ...Ben: I'm sure. Yeah. I mean it's really difficult to use idioms in any language, but English has so many, I think. Another thing I wanted to ask you about production skills in English is writing. I try to give my students opportunities to write it in class, but in order to be a proficient and excellent English speaker, you need to practice outside of class. What do you recommend to improve student's writing abilities, besides just taking it for a test or for an assignment? What do you recommend?Hana: Yes. They are difficult. I myself have trouble still writing because I'm not a good writer in my native language.Ben: Oh, no.Hana: But I guess just reading will help you, at the start. Reading something, reading text or some passages will help you.Ben: So if you know how to read, it can help you write.Hana: Yes, definitely.Ben: All right.Hana: To learn sort of the template, how will things go and how you make paragraph and stuff. Probably if you want to get better at writing, I would start reading first, reading lots of passages, different kinds of materials first.Ben: That's true, and I agree with that. One thing I wanted to have my students do is actually do like a journal, actually.Hana: Yes,.Ben: Did you ever keep an English journal to help with your writing?Hana: Yes, I did.Ben: Oh, you did?Hana: I did, yeah.Ben: How do you feel that helped you? Was that good, a good idea?Hana: Yes. Because, first, when you write, unlike speaking or talking to somebody, it gives you time to really think about what you want to do, what you want to write, and you can focus on grammar more. That helps to actually talk to somebody maybe a day, right, next day, or you have to write something else in the class, that would help you. So keeping the journal will help you definitely, I think.Ben: Okay. Thank you very much for the tips. I really appreciate it.Hana: You're welcome.

english reading second language american tv learning english ben you ben oh ben so ben how

第1148期:Tips for Learning English

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2021 5:13

english reading second language american tv learning english ben you ben oh ben so ben how

第1148期:Tips for Learning English

The Business of Open Source

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2021 5:13

english reading second language american tv learning english ben you ben oh ben so ben how

Crew Catch Up

DoubleClutch.ca Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 24, 2021 52:04

Managing editors Ben So and Nick Tragianis join Adi in the studio to catch up on a slew of cars, including the BMW M5 Competition, Volvo XC40 Recharge, Jeep Gladiator EcoDiesel, Genesis G80 and more. Also, there's a new Mitsubishi Outlander.

managing mitsubishi outlander genesis g80 ben so

Disrupting the Cloud Storage Market with Ben Golub

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2020 24:52

This conversation covers: The advantages of using a distributed data storage model. How Storj is creating new revenue models for open-source projects, and how the open-source community is responding. The business and engineering reasons why users decide to opt for cloud-native, according to Ben. Viewing cloud-native as a journey, instead of a destination — and some of the top mistakes that people tend to make on the journey. Ben also talks about the top pitfalls people make with storage and management. Why businesses are often caught off guard with high storage costs, and how Storj is working to make it easier for customers. Avoiding vendor lock-in with storage. Advice for people who are just getting started on their cloud journey. The person who should be responsible for making a cloud journey successful. Links: Storj Labs: https://storj.io/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/golubbe GitHub: https://github.com/golubbe TranscriptEmily: Hi everyone. I'm Emily Omier, your host, and my day job is helping companies position themselves in the cloud-native ecosystem so that their product's value is obvious to end-users. I started this podcast because organizations embark on the cloud naive journey for business reasons, but in general, the industry doesn't talk about them. Instead, we talk a lot about technical reasons. I'm hoping that with this podcast, we focus more on the business goals and business motivations that lead organizations to adopt cloud-native and Kubernetes. I hope you'll join me.Emily: Welcome to The Business of Cloud Native, my name is Emily Omier. I'm your host, and today I'm chatting with Ben Golub. Ben, thank you so much for joining us.Ben: Oh, Thank you for having me.Emily: And I always like to just start off with having you introduce yourself. So, not only where you work and what your job title is, but what you actually spend your day doing.Ben: [laughs]. Okay. I'm Ben Golub. I'm currently the executive chair and CEO of Storj Labs, which is a decentralized storage service. We kind of like to think of it as the Airbnb of disk drives, But probably most of the people on your podcast who, if they're familiar with the, sort of, cloud-native space would have known me as the former CEO of Docker from when it was released up until a few years ago. But yeah, I tend to spend my days doing a lot of stuff, in addition to family and dealing with COVID, running startups. This is now my seventh startup, fourth is a CEO.Emily: Tell me a little bit, like, you know, when you stumble into your home office—just kidding—nobody is going to the office, I know. But when you start your day, what sort of tasks are on your todo list? So, what do you actually spend your time doing?Ben: Sure. We've got a great team of people who are running a decentralized storage company. But of course, we are decentralized in more ways than one. We are 45 people spread across 15 different countries, trying to build a network that provides enterprise-grade storage on disk drives that we don't own, that are spread across 85 different countries. So, there's a lot of coordination, a lot of making sure that everybody has the context to do the right thing, and that we stay focused on doing the right thing for our users, doing the right thing for our suppliers, doing the right thing for each other, as well.Emily: One of the reasons I thought it'd be really interesting to talk with you is that I know your goal is to, sort of, revolutionize some of the business models related to managing storage. Can you talk about that a little bit more?Ben: Sure. Sure. I mean, obviously, there's been a big trend over the past several years towards the Cloud in general, and a big part of the [laughs] Cloud is storage. Actually, AWS started with S3, and it's a $90 billion market that's growing. The world's going to create enough data this year to fill a stack of CD-ROMs, to the orbit of Mars and back. And yet prices haven't come down, really, in about five years, and the whole market is controlled by essentially three players, Microsoft, Google, in the largest, Amazon, who also happen to be three of the five largest companies on the planet. And we think that data is so critical to everything that we do that we want to make sure that it doesn't stay centralized in the hands of a few, but that we, sort of, create a more, sort of, democratic—if you will—way of handling data that also addresses some of the serious privacy, data mining, and security concerns that happen when all the data is held by only a few people.Emily: With this, I'm sure you've heard about digital vegans. So, people who try to avoid all of the big tech giants—Ben: Right, right.Emily: Does this make it possible to do that?Ben: Well, so we're more of a back end. So, we're a service that people who produce-consumer-facing services use. But absolutely, if somebody—and we actually have people who want to create a more secure way of providing data backup, more secure way of enabling data communications, video sharing, all these sorts of things, and they can use us and service those [laughs] digital vegans, if you will.Emily: So, if I'm creating a SaaS product for digital vegans, I would go with you?Ben: I would hope you'd consider us, yeah. And by the way, I mean, also people who have mainstream applications use us as well. I mean, so we have people who are working with us who may have sensitive medical data on people, or people who are doing advanced research into areas like COVID, and they're using us partially because we're more secure and more private, but also because we are less likely to be hacked. And also because frankly faster, cheaper, more resilient.Emily: I was just going to ask, what are the advantages of distributed storage?Ben: Yeah. We benefit from all the same things that the move towards cloud-native in general benefits from, right? When you take workloads, and you take data, and you spread them across large numbers of devices that are operated independently, you get more resilience, you get more security, you can get better performance because things are closer to the edge. And all of these are benefits that are, sort of, inherent to doing things in a decentralized way as opposed to a centralized way. And then, quite frankly we're cheaper. I mean, because of the economics and doing this this way, we can price anywhere from a half to a third of what the large cloud providers offer, and do so profitably for ourselves.Emily: You also offer some new revenue models for open-source projects. Can you talk about that a little bit more?Ben: Sure, I mean, obviously I come from an open-source background, and one of the big stories of open-source for the past several years is the challenges for open-source companies in monetizing, and in particular, in a cloud world, a large number of open-source companies are now facing the situation where their products, completely legally but nonetheless, not in a fiscally sustainable way, are run by the large cloud companies and essentially given away as a loss leader. So, that a large cloud company might take a great product from Mongo or Redis, or Elastic, and run it essentially for free, give it away for free, not pay Mongo, Elastic, or Redis. And the cloud companies monetize that by charging customers for compute, and storage, and bandwidth. But unfortunately, the people who've done all the work to build this great product don't have the opportunity to share in the monetization. And it makes it really very hard to adopt a SaaS model for the cloud companies, which for many of them is really the best way that they would normally have for monetizing their efforts. So, what we have done is we've launched a program that basically turns it on its head and says, “Hey, if you are an open-source project, and you integrate with us in a way that your users send data to us, we'll share the revenue back with you. And as more of your users share more data with us, we'll send more money back to you.” And we think that that's the way it should be. If people are building great open-source projects that generate usage and revolutionize computing, they should be rewarded as well.Emily: How important is this to the open-source community? How challenging is it to find a way to support an open-source project?Ben: It's critical. I mean, if you look at the most—I'd start by saying two-thirds of all cloud workloads are open-source, and yet in the $180 billion cloud market, less than $5 billion [unintelligible] going back to the open-source projects that have built these things. And it's not easy to build an open-source project, and it takes resources. And even if you have a large community, you have developers who have families, or [laughs] need to eat, right? And so, as an open-source company, what you really want to be able to do is become self-sustaining. And while having contributions is great, ultimately, if open-source projects don't become self-sustaining, they die. Emily: A question just, sort of, about the open-source ethos: I mean, how does the community about open-source feel about this? It is obvious developers have to eat just like everybody else, and it seems like it should be obvious that they should also be rewarded when they have a project that's successful. But sometimes you hear that not everybody is comfortable with open-source being monetized in any way. It's like a dirty word.Ben: Yeah. I mean, I think [unintelligible] some people who object to open-source being monetized, and that tends to be a fringe, but I think there's a larger percentage that don't like the notion that you have to come up with a more restrictive license in order to monetize. And I think unfortunately a lot of open-source companies have felt the need to adopt more restrictive licenses in order to prevent their product being taken and used as a loss leader by the large cloud companies. And I guess our view is, “Hey, what the world doesn't need is a different kind of license. It needs a different kind of cloud.” And that's, and that's what we've been doing. And I think our approach has, frankly, gotten a lot of enthusiasm and support because it feels fair. It's not, it's not trying to block people from doing what they want to do with open-source and saying, “This usage is good, this is bad.” It's just saying, “Hey, here's a new viable model for monetizing open-source that is fair to the open-source companies.”Emily: So, does Storj just manage storage? Or, where's the compute coming from?Ben: It's a good question. And so, generally speaking, the compute can either be done on-premise, it can be done at the end. And we're, sort of, working with both kinds. We ourselves don't offer a compute service, but because the world is getting more decentralized, and because, frankly, the rise of cloud-native approaches, people are able to have the compute and the storage happening in different places.Emily: How challenging is it to work with storage, and how similar of an experience is it to working with something like AWS for an end-user? I just want to get my app up.Ben: Sure, sure. If you have an S3 compatible application, we're also S3 compatible. So, if you've written your application to run on AWS S3, or frankly, these days most people use the S3 API for Google and Microsoft as well, it's really not a big effort to transition. You change a few lines of code, and suddenly, the data is being stored in one place versus the other. We also have native libraries in a lot of different languages and bindings, so for people who want to take full advantage of everything that we have to offer, it's a little bit more work, but for the most part, our aim is to say, “You don't have to change the way that you do storage in order to get a much better way of doing storage.”Emily: So, let me ask a couple questions just related to the topic of our podcast, the business of cloud-native. What do you think are the reasons that end users decide to go for cloud-native?Ben: Oh, I think there are huge advantages across the board. There are certainly a lot of infrastructural advantages: the fact that you can scale much more quickly, the fact that you can operate much more efficiently, the fact that you are able to be far more resilient, these are all benefits that seemed to come with adopting more cloud-native approaches on the infrastructure side if you will. But for many users, the bigger advantages come from running your applications in a more cloud-native way. Rather than having a big monolithic application that's tied tightly to a big monolithic piece of hardware, and both are hard to change, and both are at risk, if you write applications composed of smaller pieces that can be modified quickly and independently by small teams and scale independently, that's just a much more scalable, faster way to build, frankly, better applications. You couldn't have a Zoom, or a Facebook, or Google search, or any of these massive-scale, rapidly changing applications being written in the traditional way.Emily: Those sound kind of like engineering reasons for cloud-native. What about business reasons?Ben: Right. So, the business reasons [unintelligible], sort of, come alongside. I mean, so when you're able to write applications faster, modify them faster, adapt to a changing environment faster, do it with fewer people, all of those end up having real big business benefits. Being able to scale flexibly, these give huge economic benefits, but I think the economic benefits on the infrastructure side are probably outweighed by the business flexibility: the fact that you can build things quickly and modify them quickly, and react quickly to changing environment, that's [unintelligible]. Obviously, again, you use Zoom as an example. There's this two-week period, back in March, where suddenly almost every classroom and every business started using Zoom, and Zoom was able to scale rapidly, adapt rapidly, and suddenly support that. And that's because it was done in a more—in a cloud-native way.Emily: I mean, it's interesting, one of the tensions that I've seen in this space is that some people like to talk a lot about cost benefits. So, we're going to move to cloud-native because it's cheap, we're going to reduce costs. And then there's other people that say, well, this isn't really a cost story. It's a flexibility and agility, a speed story.Ben: Yeah, yeah. And I think the answer is it can be both. What I always say, though, is cloud-native is not really a destination, it's a journey. And how far we go along with that path, and whether you emphasize the operational side versus—or the infrastructural side versus the development side, it sort of depends on who you are, and what your application is, and how much it needs to scale. And it's absolutely the case that for many companies and applications if they try to look like Google from day one, they're going to fail. And they don't need to because it's—the way you build an application that's going to be servicing hundreds of million people is different than the way you build an application, there's going to be servicing 50,000 people.Emily: What do you see is that some of the biggest misconceptions or mistakes that people make on this journey?Ben: So, I think one is clearly that they knew it as an all or nothing proposition, and they don't think about why they're going on the journey. I think a second mistake that they often make is that they underestimate the organizational change that it takes to build things in the cloud-native way. And obviously, the people, and how they work together, and how you organize, is as big transition for many people as the tech stack that you'd use. And I think the third is that they don't take full advantage of what it takes to move a traditional application to run it in a cloud-native infrastructure. And you can get a lot of benefits, frankly, just by containerizing or Docker-izing a traditional app and moving it online.Emily: What about specifically related to storage and data management? What do you think are some misconceptions or pitfalls?Ben: Right. So, I think that the challenge that many people have when they deal with storage is that they don't think about the data at rest. They don't think about the security issues that are inherent in having data that can be attacked in a single place, or needs to be retrieved from a single place. And part of why we built Storj, frankly, is a belief that if you take data and you encrypt it, and you break it up into pieces, and you distribute those pieces, you actually are doing things in a much better way that's inherent, that you're not dependent on any one data center being up, or any one administrator doing their job correctly, or any password being strong. By reducing the susceptibility to single points of failure, you can create an environment that's more secure, much faster, much more reliable. And that's math. And it gets kind of shocking to see that people who make the journey to cloud-native, while they're changing lots of other aspects of their infrastructure and their applications, repeating the same mistakes that people have been making for 30 years in terms of data access, security, and distribution.Emily: Do you think that that is partially a skills gap?Ben: It may be a skills gap, but it's also, frankly, there's been a dearth of viable other options. And I think that—we frequently when I'm talking with customers, they all say, “Hey, we've been thinking about being decentralized for a while, but it just has been too difficult to do.” Or there have been decentralized options, but they're, sort of, toys. And so, what we've aimed to do is create a decentralized storage solution that is enterprise-grade, is S3 compatible, so it's easy to adopt, but that brings all the benefits of decentralization.Emily: I'm also just curious because of the sort of organizational changes that need to happen. I mean, everybody, particularly in a large organization, is going to have these super-specific areas of expertise, and to a certain extent, you have to bring them all together.Ben: You do. Right. You do have to. And so I'm a big believer in you pick pilot projects that you do with a small team, and you get some wins, and nothing helps evangelize change better than wins. And it's hard to get people to change if they don't see success, and a better world at the end of the tunnel. And so, what we've tried to do, and what I think people doing in the cloud-native journey often do, is you say, “Let's take a small low-risk application or small, low-risk dataset, handle it in a different way, and show the world that it can be done better,” right? Or, “Show our organization that it can be better.” And then build up not only muscle memory around how you do this, but you build up natural advocates in the organization.Emily: Going back to this idea of costs, you mentioned that Storj can reduce costs substantially. Do you think a lot of organizations are surprised at how much cloud storage costs?Ben: Yes. And unfortunately, it's a surprise that comes over time. I mean, you… I think the typical story if you get started with Cloud. And there's not a lot of large upfront costs when your usage is low. So, yeah, so you start with somebody pulling out their credit card and building their pilot project, and just charging themselves directly to charging themselves directly to—you know, charging their Amazon, or their Google, or their Microsoft directly to their credit card, then they move to paying through a centralized organization. But then as they grow, suddenly, this thing that seemed really low price becomes very, very expensive, and they feel trapped. And data, in particular, has this—in some ways, it grows a lot faster than compute. Because, generally speaking, you're keeping around the data that you've created. So, you have this base of data that grows so slowly that you're creating more data every day, but you're also storing all the data that you've had in the past. So, it grows a lot more exponentially than compute, often. And because data at rest is somewhat expensive to move around, people often find themselves regretting their decisions a few months into the project, if they're stuck with one centralized provider. And the providers make it very difficult and expensive to move data out.Emily: What advice would you have to somebody who's at that stage, at the just getting started, whipping out my credit card stage? What do you do to avoid that sinking feeling in your stomach five months from now?Ben: Right. I mean, I guess what I would say is that don't make yourself dependent on any one provider or any one person. And that's because things have gotten so much more compatible, and that's on the storage side by the things that we do, on the compute side by the use of containers and Docker. You don't need to lock yourself in, as long as you're thoughtful at the outset.Emily: And who's the right person to be thinking about these things?Ben: That's a good question. So, you know, I'd like to say the individual developer, except developers for the most part, they have something that they want to build, [laughs] they want to get it built as fast as possible and they don't want to worry about infrastructure. But I really think it's probably that set of people that we call DevOps people that really should be thinking about this, to be thinking not only how can we enable people to build and deploy and secure faster, but how can we build and secure and deploy in a way that doesn't make us dependent on centralized services?Emily: Do you have other pieces of advice for somebody setting out on the “Cloud journey,” in quotes, too basically avoid the feeling, midway through, that they messed up.Ben: So, I think that part of it is being thoughtful about how you set off on this cloud journey. I mean, know where you want to end up, I think this [unintelligible]. You want to set off on a journey across the country, it's good to know that you want to end up in Oregon versus you want to end up in Utah, or Arizona. [unintelligible] from east to west, and making sure your whole organization has a view of where you want to get. And then along the way, you can say, “You know what? Let's course-correct.” But if you are going down on the cloud journey because you want to save money, you want to have flexibility, you don't want to be locked in, you want to be able to move stuff to the edge, then thinking really seriously about whether your approach towards the Cloud is helping you achieve those ends. And, again, my view is that if you are going off on a journey to the Cloud, and you are locking yourself into a large provider that is highly centralized, you're probably not going to achieve those aims in the long run.Emily: And then again, who is the persona who needs to be thinking this? And ultimately, whose responsibility is it to make a cloud journey successful?Ben: So, I think that generally speaking, a cloud journey past these initial pilots where I think pilots are often, it's a small team that are proving that things can be done in a cloud-native way, they should do whatever it takes to prove that something can be done, and get some successes. But then I think that the head of engineering, the Vice President of Operations, the person who's heading up DevOps should be thoughtful, and should be thinking about where the organization is going, from that initial pilot into developing the long-term strategy.Emily: Anything else that you'd like to add?Ben: Well, these are a lot of really good questions, so I appreciate all your questions and the topic in general. I guess I would just add, maybe my own personal bias, that data is important. The cloud is important, but data is really important. And as, you know, look at the world creating enough data this year to fill a stack of CD-ROMs, to the orbit of Mars and back, some of that is cat videos, but also buried in there is probably the cure to COVID, and the cure for cancer, and a new form of energy. And so, making it possible for people to create, and store, and retrieve, and use data in a way that's cost-effective, where they don't have to throw out data, that is secure and private, that's a really noble goal. And that's a really important thing, I think, for all of us to embrace.Emily: Just a couple of final questions. The first one, I just like to ask everybody, what is your favorite can't-live-without software engineering tool?Ben: Honestly, I think that collaboration tools, writ large, are important. And whether that's things like GitHub, or things like video conferencing, or things like shared meeting spaces, it's really the tools enable groups of people to work together that I think are the most important.Emily: Where can people connect with you or follow you?Ben: Oh, so I'm on Twitter, @golubbe, G-O-L-U-B-B-E. And that's probably the best place to initially reach out to me, but then I [blog], and I'm on GitHub as well. I'm not that great [unintelligible].Emily: Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was a great conversation.Ben: Oh, thank you, Emily. I had a great conversation as well.Emily: Thanks for listening. I hope you've learned just a little bit more about The Business of Cloud Native. If you'd like to connect with me or learn more about my positioning services, look me up on LinkedIn: I'm Emily Omier—that's O-M-I-E-R—or visit my website which is emilyomier.com. Thank you, and until next time.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

covid-19 ceo amazon google business advice zoom arizona vice president market microsoft oregon mars utah airbnb operations cloud saas real world disrupting aws github devops s3 docker kubernetes elastic cd roms mongo cloud native redis cloud storage golub aws s3 storj ben it ben you ben oh ben so ben well ben right emily omier emily well humblepod

Our Happy Divorce and a few Covid Survival CoParenting Tips

We Chat Divorce Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2020 52:22

In this episode, we are Frankly Speaking with the co-authors of Our Happy Divorce, Nikki and Ben. Nikki knows how being supported by a strong, loving family can influence the way a person navigates life, love, marriage, and motherhood. Having grown up as a member of the iconic San Francisco 49ers football family, she was thrown into the limelight at a young age. The values her family instilled in her have helped shape who she is today, and she continues to live by them.coparents Ben intimately understands the detriment divorce can cause in the lives of children. The example of his parents’ divorce instilled in him a deep commitment "to do" better by his own kids. Ben is an investor, board member, philanthropist, golfer, and sports enthusiast. But above all, he is a dedicated father and family man who understands the importance of putting his ego aside and his children first. IT WAS NOT PERFECT ... Nikki and Ben define their own personal story with us and discuss what happy looks like today. Inspired by their son, they developed ways to co-parent, step-parent with an emphasis on putting the children first. As they say, “If we can do it, anyone can do it”. As Catherine says, "DIVORCE does not mess your kids up, it is how both parents BEHAVE before, during, and after divorce that can mess your children up." There is a different way to get Divorced. Let’s talk about it… Getting to the “Happy” … We chat about cleaning up the wreckage of the past and forgiveness. How can we stop pointing the finger at our spouse and get honest with ourselves? Do not fool yourself, your children know what is going on. Open discussions about financial settlements and joint custody. Using the Divorce Process to redefine what your life, your finances, and relationship will be like post-divorce. Co-Parenting and Step-parenting survival tips during the pandemic. Want to learn more about Our Happy Divorce? Visit their website at https://ourhappydivorce.com/ Whether you are thinking of divorce/separation, are in the midst of a divorce, or embarking on your new life after divorce, this episode has something to help you. If you have questions for us or a topic you’d like us to cover, contact us at hello@mydivorcesolution.com or visit MyDivorceSolution.com ----more---- Karen Chellew: Welcome to We Chat Divorce. Hello, I'm Karen Chellew, legal liaison, here with Catherine Shanahan, CDFA. We're the co-founders of My Divorce Solution. We're a company whose mission is to change the way people get divorced by providing a different approach, financial clarity, and an online course to help couples develop a transparent plan that will optimize the outcome of their divorce. Karen Chellew: Each podcast we sit down with professionals who provide insight and frank discussion on real people, real situations, and real divorce. Today we welcome Nikki and Ben, co-authors of Our Happy Divorce: How Ending Our Marriage Brought Us Together. That's fantastic. Co-founders Ben Heldfond and Nikki DeBartolo understand that no divorce is ever easy, especially for those involved. Karen Chellew: After nearly a decade together the couple decided to split, and inspired by their son, Asher, to find ways to happily navigate a divorce. Ben and Nikki created Our Happy Divorce, a service empowering and inspiring people to think differently about divorce, co-parenting, stepparenting, and what it means to put kids first. Nikki and Ben describe themselves as ordinary people who have accomplished something extraordinary. They have sidestepped a lot of the booby traps that make most divorces acrimonious. Nikki and Ben say, "If we can do it, you can do it." Thank you. Ben: No truer words have ever been spoken. Karen Chellew: I love that. So first and foremost, I want to say thank you for the beautiful gift you sent of your book, your bookmark. It was awesome. Beautiful gift. And for people who receive that, it's just so inspiring just to open the box and feel the book, so you guys have done a great job. Catherine Shanahan: Aren't you supposed to send that over to me, Karen? Karen Chellew: What, the chocolate? Catherine Shanahan: Yeah. Where'd that go, Karen? Karen Chellew: Everything but the chocolate's on its way. Ben: Everything. Catherine Shanahan: I'll give you my address so I can get one of those. Ben: There you go. That's a deal. We'll get that off to you. Karen Chellew: Oh, that's good. So a service inspiring people to think a different way about divorce. How do you do that? Ben: Well, I think we do it through our story. All this book is is our experience. We're not lawyers, we're not therapists. We just happen to figure out a way to have an acrimonious divorce. We didn't have a roadmap. Collaborative divorce was sort of in the beginning stages, but you know, it was just the two of us. We say if we can do it, anybody can do it because we are two Type A personalities who somehow came to a point of putting the past behind us and not making anybody a villain, and putting our son first. And then everything sort of fell into place. Nikki: Right. It wasn't perfect in the beginning. I think people need to realize that, that we went through some rocky months. Ben: Right. Catherine Shanahan: Yeah, yeah. So that's a really good point, Nikki. Let's talk about that a little bit because if you read anything I write, or if you ever talk to me, or if anyone has gone through our process, they'll hear me say not once, but probably a thousand times because I am a stepmom. I have been divorced and I have raised five children in a blended family, so I am a firm believer that divorce does not mess your kids up. It's how the parents behave before divorce, during divorce, and after divorce that can mess your children up. Catherine Shanahan: However, you call your company or your book The Happy Divorce and I think everybody has to define happy. What is happy, and that can mean something different to everyone, and that's okay. Nikki: Right. Catherine Shanahan: So happy for somebody could be that... as a stepmom I can remember, happy for me sometimes was that my stepchildren went home on Sunday night, and that's okay. Nikki: That's okay. Catherine Shanahan: Because it's exhausting, right? Ben: Yeah, yeah. Nikki: That's totally normal. Ben: Yeah, and Nikki said it took time. I think if you had asked us 13 years ago what happy meant, what our definition of a happy divorce was, it would have been that we could just be in the same room together. Catherine Shanahan: Exactly. Nikki: Or at like an event together or a birthday party together. Ben: And not make everybody feel uncomfortable, but most importantly our son. Catherine Shanahan: Right. Ben: So even today, we know people who have happy divorces, they might not be to the extreme that Nikki and mine are, or they might be better, it's just that you put the kids first. You don't hand the kids the emotional bill to pay for something that they had absolutely no choice in. Catherine Shanahan: Exactly. I think your son said it so cute, and he is... Asher, right? Nikki: Yes. Karen Chellew: Adorable. Catherine Shanahan: Oh, my God. He is so cute. I watched your video clip and he said, "You know, I always wanted siblings. Well, maybe not so much." Ben: After it came, right, yeah. Nikki: And he was like, "Oh, can't they go back?" No. Catherine Shanahan: Yeah, yeah. I thought that was so cute, and it's so true. So his happy was, "I got them." Well, maybe today I don't want them. Ben: Right. Catherine Shanahan: You know, it was so cute, it kind of ties it all up. And so in divorce we say that with our couples when we're negotiating a settlement where we're going through their financial portrait with them, which it's kids and your finances. So what would your happy be? Is your happy keeping the house? Is your happy having the retirement monies? Is your happy having your children three days a week? Every other weekend so you can have your career? Define what your happy is. So I love the title of your book, and it's okay to define that, and to define your co-parenting, because your co-parenting is not the same as my co-parenting. Nikki: No. It's different for everybody. Karen Chellew: And it's okay. Nikki: Yeah. Catherine Shanahan: So how did you come to your happy, the two of you? Nikki: Well... I think it took less work on my part than it did on his. Karen Chellew: Oh, why is that? Nikki: I sort of set out thinking, "How am I going to do this?" My parents are still married after 52 years, so I kind of had the mindset of, "Okay, what am I going to do to make my son's life as close to the way I grew up as possible, but being divorced?" So that was always something that was in my head, and it was sort of ingrained to try to figure out a way to make him... have what I had growing up and not feel slighted. Ben: Yeah. Nikki: [crosstalk 00:07:40] not so much. Ben: And I on the other hand grew up in the complete opposite household of a family of parents who didn't have a happy divorce. So part of it was ingrained in me, being a child of the '80s, well, actually I was born in early '70s, but parents were divorced in the '80s. It was the way it was, right? People got divorced, and it wasn't, "How are we going to get along? How are we going to co-parent?" It's like, "We're going to go to war. I'm going to get my lawyer. You're going to get yours and it's going to be battle." Ben: I also was in a completely different place in my life emotionally. I wasn't a very happy person when I left our marriage. For me, that manifest itself at pointing the finger at Nikki. It was all her fault. It was all her... you know, if only she hadn't done this. If only she should have done... you know. And 'shoulding' all over myself. That's S-H-O-U-L-D, not the other one. Ben: But you know, and then what it took was a realization or clarity to find out what my part was in the relationship. So in order to get to happy, I had to, we had to clean up the wreckage of the past, and we had to get honest about what our part is and understand that it takes two to make a relationship, it takes two to ruin a relationship. Ben: And just like our happy divorce it works that way too. Now it takes four to make it, because we're both remarried. In our book, it doesn't go into what happened, who did what, who didn't do what, because at the end of the day, what we realize is all that stuff doesn't matter. What matters is that we both came to a place of forgiveness, but also admitted what we had done wrong. Karen Chellew: How did you come to a place of forgiveness? What started turning the tide from the anger and resentment, or whatever the negative emotions were? What happened on both of your parts to just start to turn that tide a little bit. Ben: Well, yeah, for me, again, Nikki wasn't as scorned I guess you could say, which is weird for her. Nikki: That's really weird for me. Ben: But you know, I left the house- Nikki: You [crosstalk 00:09:54] the one out for blood. Ben: Right, exactly. I left the house in a way that I look back and I almost cringe, a very dramatic way. I took off my ring. I put it on the bathroom counter with a picture of us torn out and I left. Nikki: Very dramatic. Ben: Very dramatic. Nikki: Like something I would have done. Ben: And I went and I did my research, and I looked for the best shark lawyer, the one who had all the biggest cases in Tampa. Definitely did my research. I called him and explained to him what I wanted, and I wanted to destroy Nikki, and I wanted to embarrass her, and I wanted to show our son what a fraud she was, at least how I saw her. Ben: So he took a very hefty retainer from me, and then he wrote up a manual on how we were going to go about doing what I wanted to accomplish. And I didn't read it for a little bit, and it was in my backpack that I carry everywhere, and I was on a plane back from LA to Tampa, and I pulled it out and I decided to read it. I got two pages into it, and this thing was like 30 pages long. Nikki: That's probably the same thing he gives everybody else. Ben: Right, just different boiler plate. Nikki: Names are just changed. Ben: Exactly. And then all of a sudden I had a moment of clarity, and I saw for the first time in a long time that if I went down this path, continuing to read this War and Peace destruction manual what it was going to lead to, because I knew where it was going to lead to, because I had been down that road. I had been part of my parents divorce down the road. Ben: Or I could try to find a different way and a different path. So I called Nikki when I landed and I said, "I need some time. I need some space." Because I knew I couldn't deal with the divorce in the head space I was in. Karen Chellew: Right. Ben: And probably Nikki too. We weren't ready to start talking about the end until we cleared up the past and found our part. So I called the lawyer and said, "I'm going to find a different way, if you could send back the balance of the retainer," and conveniently there wasn't much left. But it was the best money I ever spent. So then I started working with somebody that I knew, and just went through and found out what my in the relationship was, and my part in the ending of the relationship. And realized about halfway through that I wouldn't want to be married to me either at that time. Ben: I was not in a good place. I was not the father I thought I was, but more importantly I wasn't the husband I thought I was. So then I called Nikki to coffee, and she probably had no idea why I was calling her. Nikki: No. Because I kind of knew this was going on with him, so I mean- Ben: She knew. It was that black sedan that was following me everywhere. Nikki: And I knew that this was the mindset he was in. And I just knew I hadn't gotten to that place. I mean, yes, I was angry and I was sad and I was upset, but I wasn't in the place that he was at. Where I sort of was like, "Let's just get this over with. Let's just fix this... fix it to a point where it's just done." To me, I went at this a totally different way. Nikki: I did hire a lawyer, but it was kind of more like, "What do I do? Here's this divorce, what am I going to do with this?" So mine wasn't, "Let's attack him and let's kill him." Ben: Well, your hardest thing also was that you said it too, it was a, "Fix it." Nikki's a fixer. She wants to get in there and fix everything and not call her a control freak, but control freak. Nikki: I am a control freak. 100% Catherine Shanahan: Were you living together at the time or were you separated in different homes? Nikki: We were in different homes, but not really. At that time- Ben: Somewhere in between there... I was staying in a hotel for about six months, and then I'd come home and- Nikki: Did you really stay in a hotel for six months? Ben: Six months. The biggest most exciting time of my life during that time was when they released a new movie on the On Demand thing at the hotel. Catherine Shanahan: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Ben: Because I'd watched them all. And then I eventually got a place. So we weren't officially divorced yet when I had my own place, but it was when we told our son. He forced our hand to tell him because... Why don't you tell the story about us thinking we were getting over on him. Nikki: Oh yeah. So Ben would come over every morning before Asher would go to school. And you know, he would make sure he was there before he woke up. One morning- Catherine Shanahan: How old was he at the time? Ben: Four? Karen Chellew: Yeah? Ben: Four. Yeah. Nikki: So he comes in my room. Ben is already there. And he looks at me and says, "Hey mom, where did Daddy sleep last night?" And I always thought I did a really good job of messing up the bed thinking like, "Oh, okay." Ben: Yeah. Nikki: And I was like, "What do you mean? Right here." And he's like, "Where did Daddy sleep last night?" And I was like, "Oh, boy. This kid is way smarter than we're giving him credit for, so we need to do something, and it's time for us to sit him down as best we can with someone that young and just say, "Hey, this is what's happening. We love you." That's probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. Ben: Oh yeah. It was hard. But we framed it in a way and were open with him. If anything from our experience, again, not lawyers, not therapists, but through my experience with my parents, my experience with my son and our divorce is the idea that kids are resilient and they'll get over it, or they don't see things... is nonsense. It is absolute nonsense and I can say that from experience on both sides of it, right? "Oh, our kids will get over it. They're resilient. They don't know what's going on." Here a four-year-old who knew- Nikki: Exactly what was going on. Ben: Right. Playing Inspector Clouseau. Knew that I hadn't slept there because my bed wasn't made, my pillows weren't ruffled or whatever he did. So that's another message we try to get across is that, "Don't fool yourself." To me, and staying on my soapbox too much here, but to me, that's justification for behaviors." Karen Chellew: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Nikki: And too, to this day he still claims that he saw boxes, which we never let a box- Ben: At least we thought we didn't. Nikki: But he still says he saw boxes. Catherine Shanahan: You know, I think sometimes even if he didn't see boxes, he probably heard you talk about boxes. Nikki: Right. And in his head, he's like, "Oh yeah." Catherine Shanahan: You can probably remember talking about something in your childhood, but you don't really remember going to Disney World when you were two, but you remember seeing pictures that you went to Disney World when you were two. Nikki: Right. Catherine Shanahan: So you think you remember you were in Disney World when you were two, right? Ben: Yeah. Nikki: It's true. Catherine Shanahan: I'm sure he heard about that or saw that. So he's a smart kid. Like I said, I feel like I know him a little bit from watching the video. Nikki: Yes. Ben: Yeah, he wraps up the book too. He's got a chapter at the end of the book that just puts a bow on it perfectly, because our happy... Your answer, "How does your happy look?" We didn't know it was going to be happy at the time, but you know, I called her to coffee after I'd done this work on myself. The first thing I told her was I was sorry, that I'd done some work myself and I realized that it's no one's fault, it's not her fault, it's not my fault. We equal parts of this and I'm sorry for my part. Ben: I went through some of the things. I wasn't a very good husband. I ignored you, I didn't... blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to apologize again, I already did that. Karen Chellew: Yeah. Ben: You're only getting it once. Catherine Shanahan: Yeah, she's sitting here smiling and she's like [crosstalk 00:17:45]. Ben: She loves it. And so we went through it and then she apologized to me, which was- Nikki: Which was probably the first and only time I've ever apologized. Catherine Shanahan: And you're lucky because we have this recorded [crosstalk 00:17:59]- Ben: Yeah. Catherine Shanahan: You can both listen on repeat. Nikki: Yeah. Ben: And then from that moment on it didn't just all of a sudden become happy, but there was room to move, because then we both genuinely accept each other's apologies, and we told each other we loved each other, and that we committed at that meeting to putting our son first with every decision we made. So our happy looked like not what was in Nikki's bank account or Nikki's family's bank account or what I thought I deserved. Our happy was what was best for our son. Nikki: Right. Catherine Shanahan: Yeah. So you know we like to get real with everyone, and a lot of our viewers come from a wide range, and we deal with a lot of affluent people, but we also deal with people who aren't affluent, or they don't know that they're affluent. Ben: Right. Catherine Shanahan: We do a lot of budgeting and we hone in on financials with everyone. And as a CDFA, I sit down and Karen does a lot of the budgeting with our clients, pre-divorce and post-divorce. So we listen to your story and it sounds great. You afforded him the ability to go through the mucky waters of what he needed to figure out for himself, which is a luxury, because he had that time to do that. Catherine Shanahan: And you blamed her in the beginning and you had all that anger, and you went and hired the bulldog, which oh, my God, we hear so many times people go and hire the bulldog, and only 10% of divorce cases need whatever everybody wants to refer to as the bulldog, and Karen loves to jump in and really get the definition of what a bulldog actually means, because you don't really need a bulldog. But anyway, that's a whole other podcast. Catherine Shanahan: But what did you do with your finances, because a lot of people who have money there, they can't access it during that time. How do you stay in a hotel room if you can't get the money? Did you two have your separate bank accounts, because people can't be happy if they can't get their financials, right? So if somebody out there wants to have a happy divorce, they come to us. Catherine Shanahan: So for example, for us we start with your finances. So we can afford them that time to work through the financials so they don't run to attorneys. You don't need two attorneys gathering your financial data. It's the same data you're collecting. You're paying thousands and thousands... We save people hundreds of thousands of dollars because why are you paying them to gather the same information and go through the packet of information you were asked to gather. Ben: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Nikki: Right. Catherine Shanahan: Why would you both have to do that. So we do that so that they can work through their stuff, right? Ben: Yeah. Catherine Shanahan: So during that time- Ben: I think what's important at least is yes from my experience, and also from this process of writing this book with Nikki and talking with people, it doesn't matter if there are a thousand dollars in the bank or there's a hundred million dollars in the bank, you know for the most part, because what it comes down to is financial insecurity. Ben: And what I think the problem with divorce and why sometimes it goes sideways is because it deals with two of the biggest trigger buttons, I could use a different word, but trigger buttons of our human condition and that's romance and finance, and both those speak directly to ego, right? Catherine Shanahan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Ben: And so our financial settlement was the same as our custody agreement is that we try to as much as possible take ego out of it, and to try to put Asher first. So when it came time to discussing finances, it was, "Okay, what's best for Asher?" Nikki or myself had to make sacrifices, or give more or take less or whatever it was, but it was... Look, it wasn't simple, right? It was easier though when we looked at it through a pair of glasses of what's best for Asher, and you take the ego out of it as much as possible. Nikki: Right. I mean, I think too for him it was about his life. Ben: Right. Nikki: And the way we wanted him to be raised. We wanted him to be raised at both houses as basically as much the same- Ben: As possible. Nikki: Even with rules. With four parents, there's a lot of rules too. Ben: Right. Well, there's a lot of communication. Nikki: Right. Ben: The other thing we did, which... We both had lawyers, so I don't want to say that we did this willy nilly. But we did what's called collaborative and it wasn't- Nikki: We did through. Ben: We did. Nikki: We sort of brought it to our lawyers and said, "Hey, this is what we think we want to do." Ben: Right. So what we've tried, and agreed to try is, "Let's figure out what we can do on our own, and let's go through it with this pair of glasses that we now have of what's best for Asher, try to take ego out of it and see where we go." Nikki: And I think for us too, I mean, I guess couples... One of his biggest things with me was, "Do you have a problem with joint custody of our son?" And obviously if he was not a good guy or had some sort of issues that would be a different story, but I mean obviously I had no problem with that. So that was one of the first things that kind of softened him a little bit. Ben: That was the first question I asked was, "Do you have any problem with doing 50/50 everything with our son from the left shoe to the right shoe?" Nikki: Right. Ben: And she said, "Of course not. You're his dad." So I said with the other stuff we can work it out. And so then we started with that foundation, and then we were on the same page with that. Then we went to some other things like the businesses that we had together. Nikki had a jewelry company that she had started that I owned half of. I had a record label that I had started with her sister, which is kind of weird, but you know, so it wasn't necessarily about how much each one was worth at the time or the balance sheet of the jewelry company versus the record label. Nikki: It was things that he could have been like, "Oh, I'm going to get her because I want my half of that." Ben: Yeah, and I had no desire to be in the jewelry business. But if I was looking at it- Nikki: Why should you be? Ben: Yeah, right. Right, but if I'd been looking at it from a scorned ego standpoint, I was like, "I'm going to take the jewelry business because I know how much it means to her." Nikki: Right. Catherine Shanahan: Well I think it's really great that because you work through... Well, let me back up first. It's because I always say two people, you come together and you get married, it takes two people to get married, and it takes two people to get divorced, you know? Ben: Yup. Catherine Shanahan: And none of it has to do with your children. So you took the time to heal first, and then you made the important decision, so Karen, you know and you can pick up from this, the process that we developed because we're both divorced before we started... We saw how people got divorced, and when I went through my divorce eight years ago I just thought, "Hell, people have to get divorced different. This is just ridiculous." Ben: Yeah. Catherine Shanahan: The way we work is you do your financials first, and then you take your agreement, and we do a lot of negotiated agreements, and when we get to them take this to your attorney, pretty much what you're saying and have them draw up this agreement. You don't need them to talk to each other to tell you what you should do for yourselves, right? Nikki: Yup. Ben: Right. Karen Chellew: You just need to know what you want, and they don't necessarily spend a lot of time helping you figure that out. Catherine Shanahan: And you don't need a judge how to set up visitation for your lifestyle and your child. Ben: Control your own destiny. Nikki: I do all our calendar, well, because I'm that person. Catherine Shanahan: Yeah. Ben: Literally, she prints out... We used to- Nikki: I still use paper. Ben: In the beginning we used to meet at the same coffee shop, the same table, with Nikki's calendars, which are legendary, you know, not an iPhone calendar, not a computer, like the actual calendar printed out and we'd go through the month and you know, "What days are you traveling?" And I'd tell her- Catherine Shanahan: I love that. Ben: And we would do the schedule. And then over time this is sort of how the evolution of our divorce happened. Then now, she just does it. I entrust in her, not that I didn't entrust in her before, well maybe not. Catherine Shanahan: But it works. Ben: But it works. But now she does it, and it's in our shared calendar with Asher. Nikki: He knows where he is. He knows where to go. Ben: And it's 15 days, and if- Nikki: Sports is on there. Anything. Everything's on that calendar. Dinners, everybody can see it. Ben: But the thing that we went to too is again, we tried to see where we agreed or what we could do by ourselves and ended up doing the whole thing, and hashing out the whole settlement over many coffee meetings. It didn't just happen at that one coffee, but same table, same coffee shop, and then we handed it to the lawyers. Catherine Shanahan: I love that. Ben: We said, "Add your 'whereas' and run on sentences and you can get it as [crosstalk 00:27:06] as possible, so you can get paid $450 an hour for somebody to then reread it to try to find a way out of that run-on." Anyways... no offense. Karen Chellew: So I'm going to observe here that during all of those coffee shop meetings and all of those different interactions that the end result that you redefined your relationship as parents of Asher, and as your future. So I think that is fantastic, and I think that's what we try to help our client understand that use the divorce the process, and use that time to redefine what you're going to be like post-divorce, because your kids need to be able to depend on that and rely on that. Karen Chellew: And it's a very important time, and the time you spend fighting and arguing with each other, the less time you spend on creating that new relationship. So I think that's key what you did. Ben: Nobody's ever been happy or survived feeding their kids poison hoping the other one dies. Karen Chellew: Right. Ben: I think that happens a lot in divorces is that... And again, one beautiful thing about this process is when I left that house I was angry, I was going to go to war, I was going to go down the same path as my parents had gone done. But now I realize my parents didn't sit around the table when they got divorced and premeditate how they were going to not get along and how they were going to get us in the middle of that and all that awkwardness, it was just they were so blinded by the things we talked about earlier, the romance, the finance, and egos were hurt so they were blind to it. Ben: I was blind to it. When I left that house and I hired the lawyer and I wasn't talking to Nikki, I wasn't purposely sitting there going, "Hm, how am I going to screw up my kid?" But it's hard. It's hard on them. It was hard on me growing up. Catherine Shanahan: Yeah, well you know, nobody gets married thinking they're going to get divorced. Nikki: No. Ben: No. Catherine Shanahan: And you know, truth be told, myself included, there are times that you sit back and you say you wish your kid didn't have to go between one home and the other. Ben: And he does too. Catherine Shanahan: Nobody wants their child to do that or spend half their Christmas. Then you have more children and you don't want them to have to leave their siblings and all of that. It's not an easy process, and you can't be normal and wonder, "Is my child okay?" Even though they're happy and healthy. We know they are. I mean, my children are thriving, and I'm happy for them. They're doing so well. Catherine Shanahan: I'm remarried. I got married in June. I feel like I have the love of my life and I'm so blessed, and my children love him, so all of that, but we do wonder sometimes. But I think that's okay, and I think that's part of just being healthy human beings. But sometimes, you know, we deal with so many people's emotions they can't see past that. Catherine Shanahan: I think what your son has learned most importantly is the respect, and the reason why you let Nikki take over this whole calendar issue is because you respect her, and she respects you and that's why she does it. For your son to learn how a couple can respect each other is probably the best gift, because that's the best love you can give a partner. Ben: Yeah. Catherine Shanahan: Because you can't fully love someone if you don't respect them. Ben: And you brought up just a good point about co-parents too. And our spouses currently are... Just the other thing, I'm sure you see clients and people who are divorced miserable, but remarried and happy, and yet they still have this hatred towards the other one, and it's just like if you could just take a step back and realize that if you hadn't gotten divorced, and you hadn't gone down that, you wouldn't have met the other person. Ben: And our spouses, Chad and Nadia, there's no question who we were meant to be with. Nikki and Chad, I still... I'm like, "She never looked at me that way. She never grabbed my hand like that." It's like I never think, "What if." And then on the flip side, Nadia- Nikki: It's the same way though. I tell her too. I look at her sometimes and I'm like, "I couldn't be married to him," but she just smiles and loves him. Ben: She loves me, the unconditional love, which means you love the good and the bad just as much. And then Asher gets to see this, and he gets to see healthy relationships, and he gets to see that even though his parents are divorced, and this is the most sobering part about it. A couple years ago we were on a fishing trip and out of nowhere he said, "This divorce is hard on me." And this is like three years ago. Ben: I felt like saying, "You little SOB. You have no idea what a bad divorce is or how hard divorce is." And then it hit me. Even as good as Nikki and I have it, and I don't think... Maybe it could get better if we lived together, but besides that- Nikki: No, it would definitely not get better if we lived together. Karen Chellew: He doesn't know that. He doesn't know that. Ben: So but just the idea of being displaced every couple days, and even though we live seven houses down, I've seen him go, "Oh, I forgot my math book at Mom's. I've got to go down and get it." Nikki: But he even says too, sometimes he'll look at me and go, "You and Dad get along so well. Sometimes I don't understand why you're not married anymore." And I'm like, "We get along really well right now. We were meant to be best friends. We weren't meant to be husband and wife." I go, "You were meant to be here, so that's why we..." 100%. Karen Chellew: That's beautiful. Ben: Yeah, so a lot of kids read Dr. Seuss books as a kid, he was always an animal junkie, so we would read him animal encyclopedias, and he knew every single animal, where they came from, where they lived. And we always knew that we wanted to take him to Africa on a safari. But with the shots and everything... So if anything was going to send our divorce south, and it was if one of the other ones had taken Asher to Africa without the other one. Ben: So this past summer, Nikki and Asher and I went to Africa, just the three of us together on a safari. Nikki: I didn't feed him to any animals. Ben: And I didn't die. There were no lion accidents. Nikki: No accidents. Ben: But it was a great opportunity for our son. Nikki: Yes. Ben: Our spouses, when we told them- Nikki: I mean, we asked them if they wanted. Ben: Right. Nikki: It was this open invitation trip. Ben: But her husband just has this small responsibility of being a sheriff of Hillsborough County, and my wife was raising our two sons and starting a practice of her own, so it just wasn't possible. Nikki: Raising your what? Ben: What? Nikki: Your two sons. Ben: Oh, no, two kids. Well, two sons and daughter. But she has two young kids at home, it just wasn't possible for them to go, but the response, and this is where it really just comes full circle, wasn't, "Are you crazy that you think it's okay for you to go to Africa in the middle of the bush with your ex-wife? Are you nuts?" It was, "Asher will love that. What a great opportunity he has to go to Africa with his parents, and have that experience." Nikki: And day two of our trip he looked at me and he said, "Thank you so much. This is the best trip I could have ever gone on." Karen Chellew: That's awesome. That's awesome. Catherine Shanahan: That's really rare. There's not very many... I don't know anyone... That's really rare and really special. Ben: Yeah, and again- Nikki: And I mean, there are people that still think we're crazy. Ben: Right. And it didn't happen overnight. Nikki: Our families thought we were crazy in the beginning. Ben: I still think they might. Nikki: I think they might too. Ben: But the important thing is, I think we started this conversation with this, and that it didn't happen overnight. Nikki: Right. Ben: And a small example of that is when Nikki married Chad, Nikki called me and said, "I don't think that I feel comfortable with inviting you to the wedding. It's because I don't want people to worry about how Ben's feeling, take away from 'this is my day.'" And I was, "Completely understandable." It wasn't ready. It wasn't the right time. It wasn't about me. It was about Nikki and her day and her second day, her and Chad. Ben: And she's right, all the guests saying, "Oh, the ex-husband's here? This is weird." But again, fast forward about three or four years later, I get married and Nikki and Chad and her whole family are at my wedding, and not like, "Gotcha," like, "Hey, you didn't invite me to yours, I'm going to show everybody I'm a bigger person." Sorry- Nikki: There's something in my ear. Ben: My phone is... So that she came to my wedding. So it's been progress, not perfection. Nikki: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Ben: But it's been progress and it's getting there, and it didn't happen overnight. We've been doing this for 13 years. Catherine Shanahan: That's awesome. Karen Chellew: Yeah. Ben: It's just become more natural. Catherine Shanahan: Yeah, that's really good. Karen Chellew: That is great. So let's pivot to the topic of the day because I think a lot of people will benefit from your perspective on the pandemic and COVID and parenting children through... or co-parenting children who are traveling back and forth, and a lot of what we're hearing is, "I don't know if my son or my daughter or my children are safe at the other parent's house because they're not sheltering in place and they're not making sure everything's taken care of." So we're hearing a lot of that. Karen Chellew: And everybody's just cooped up together, so what can you offer the parents and the kids going through this right now to offer some kind of support? Nikki: I think for us, I mean, obviously we have it a little differently than most divorced couples, but I think in the beginning we sort of sat down and had a conversation, an open conversation. We weren't going to keep anything from Asher. We wanted him to know what was going on in the world, but we were on the same page about what Asher was... You know, in the beginning it was kind of a little bit slower process, "Oh, they can do this. They can do this. They can't do this." Then all of a sudden it was like, "No, you can't do anything." Nikki: So I think it took both of us to try to explain to him too in the beginning like, "Listen, you really can't leave the house. You're not going anywhere. You can get in your car and you can go for a drive, but you can't stop anywhere. You can't talk to your friends. You can't see your friends. You can't do anything." And I think the same went for the two of us. We kind of said, "Listen, what's going on at your house? Where are you going to go? Where am I going?" We kind of got on the same page where we were like, "You have to shut it down." Nikki: I mean, other than the fact that my husband has to go to work, he even tries to shut it down where he goes into work, goes in his office, he sees all of about two people when he goes into work, and that's it, because he doesn't have a choice. Ben: Right. Nikki: But we just decided in the beginning, "Let's shut this down." And so Asher's obviously homeschooled now, or whatever that's called, virtual school, whatever. Ben: It's the new homeschool, yeah. Nikki: That kind of even made a decision too that the days Asher is at Ben and Nadia's house, he comes over to our house by 9:30 in the morning to start school, unless he's got a Zoom class that starts before that, and he does all of his schoolwork at our house until he's done, because- Ben: Otherwise it'd be mayhem with the two young... his brothers and sisters going into- Nikki: Them trying to do their school, and then him trying, you know, conflicts. All they want to do, when he's there they just want to be with him. Ben: Right. Catherine Shanahan: What's the age different? Ben: Four and seven, so- Nikki: And Asher's 16. Ben: Yeah, so [crosstalk 00:39:14]. The other thing is that I think that the way we handle this pandemic and sort of a microcosm of how we handle life in our divorce. We had a conversation. We both agreed upon the rules at both houses that we were going to social distance, we were going to be responsible, we were going to shelter in place. We were going to do all the same things at both houses. And once we did that, all of a sudden, now our sphere of quarantine has widened. Ben: That's why Nikki and I are sitting next to each other right now and not because- Nikki: Because we quarantined together. I see the kids almost every day. Ben: Right. We can go down to her house because Asher's been going back and forth, being the outbreak monkey, so if it was going to be in one house, it was going to be in the other house anyway. Nikki: We're all getting it. If it's in one house, we're all getting it. Catherine Shanahan: What do you do, Ben, if Nadia doesn't agree with Nikki? Ben: About... Catherine Shanahan: Parenting, rules, or where you go? Ben: I think one of the greatest things about Nadia and Chad is we all co-parent together. Nadia's a therapist specializing in kids, so she brings a different perspective. She doesn't try to step on Nikki's shoes. She disagrees with some things we do with Asher, but she says it, and I'm sure Chad does too. She says it, and they say it, but at the end of the day, we're his parents. At the end of the day, we're going to make the ultimate decision, but for the most part, since it's evolved, the four of us usually sit down on the big ticket items. Ben: Nikki and I have different parenting styles. Nadia and I have different parenting styles. Nikki: Chad and I have different parenting styles. Ben: Right, and Nikki and I would have different parenting styles whether we were married or divorced. So it's just about finding the- Nikki: Some sort of common ground with all of us. Ben: Picking your battles. I learned to pick my battles with her. It's not worth the... Catherine Shanahan: Yeah. Ben: So the COVID thing, we ran out of paper towels for just a small example, but you know, I called Nikki, I knew that she probably had 25 cases, and even if she didn't I knew that she would give us one. Nikki: I did give you some. Ben: That's just the way- Catherine Shanahan: Are you hoarding? Ben: She's always been. There is no difference. She's- Nikki: I do not hoard toilet paper. I don't understand the toilet paper thing. I barely have enough toilet paper in the house. Ben: She's been preparing for this thing for what, 45 years? Karen Chellew: So you didn't say, "Asher, when you're at mom's house, just grab toilet paper, throw it in your bag and just run out"? Ben: No, and I go over there and I got caught robbing her pantry. Nikki: Yes, for snacks. And then if you notice my hair is pink. It is not normally pink. This has been a quarantine thing. And his daughter is convinced that her hair is going to be pink too, so I tried once, her hair's darker than mine, so didn't work. So now I've just instead of asking for permission, I'm like, "Okay, well I'm dyeing your daughter's hair pink." Ben: Yeah, I found out after I got home from work yesterday. This is, again, what our life is like today. It truly is. You talk about the byline on the book, but it's also the other one we talk about is finding a different kind of love. That's what we've done over the past 14 years, or however long it's been. I love this woman. I've always loved this woman. I think we kind of got confused with being in love and love. But luckily enough we never lost... We might have lost it for a little bit there, but we got back to it. Ben: Then it's evolved into this thing, you know, that is beyond us, beyond our wildest imagination. Again, if we can do it, and this might sound like French or Latin to some of your listeners right now, it's real, but it was a process. Karen Chellew: That's awesome. Ben: You know, if you're starting out, I don't know what you tell your clients, but take small steps, and that's what we had to do in the beginning is get the small wins, get the softball game where there wasn't an awkward feeling or event at your kid's school where you didn't walk away feeling awkward. That's a win. Nikki: Yup. Ben: That's a small win, and then the wins start piling up. Before you know it you're in Africa and no one's dying. Catherine Shanahan: I love that. We tell our clients you know, "You do not have to tell your children that their mom's an alcoholic, or their dad's an idiot. If they're an idiot or an alcoholic they'll see it for themselves." Ben: Right. Nikki: They will. Catherine Shanahan: Just be the dad or the mom that you want to be because that's what they're going [crosstalk 00:44:09]. Ben: Love that. Catherine Shanahan: Like I said it brings tears to my eyes. Literally I had chills when I watched your video because, you know, I do what I do and Karen can speak for herself, but I know that she does it also, but we do what we do because we're advocates for the children of the parents that we helped, and we've helped over 400 couples already. One day I'm hoping that the children of the parents will stand up and say, "Those women helped my parents divorce a better way," you know? Catherine Shanahan: We don't need attorneys fighting for parents to set a parenting schedule or to help divide assets. That's what you have professionals to do. So we're doing what we're doing to help people divorce a better way. We just need the attorneys to tie it up and put the 'as is' or 'as set forth' or whatever those words are. We don't really care. We just want them to have financial clarity and to help them to set up a co-parenting plan that works for their family. Catherine Shanahan: I'm like Nikki, I like to write paper agendas and put stickers on everything and all that stuff. Nikki: Me too. I love it. Catherine Shanahan: That's how I like it too. Nikki: I just won't get rid of it. Catherine Shanahan: I love hearing your story because I think that's how it should be. Ben: Yeah. Catherine Shanahan: I hope you can come to our Mrs2Me Summit and maybe speak and talk to our attendees. Ben: Oh, we'd love to because that's why we wrote the book. It's not... This is truly an altruism. Nobody wants to spill their... And in the book we talk about our shortcomings. We talk about our failures. We're imperfect, but what we have is real and just for it to be inspirational. We're so happy to do this thing, and then run into people like you guys and others who... Ben: We kind of kept our head down. As silly as it sounds, when we got divorced there was no Facebook or Instagram. There's Myspace, but not a lot of divorced, co-parenting- Catherine Shanahan: Myspace, is that even around? Karen Chellew: I don't remember that. Ben: Right, so we didn't have support groups online to go to. Then even writing the book, it took us four years to write this book because we'd get in a fight, this was my idea and I was- Nikki: [crosstalk 00:46:16] say, "No, I'm not doing your book." Ben: I'm not doing your effing book, blah, blah, blah. Nikki: Yeah. Ben: So then all of a sudden we get the book out and we're starting to do some research, and we see this huge community online. It's not like, "Oh, no, we just launched a book and there's so many other..." It was like, "This is great." Nikki: Like, "This is awesome." Catherine Shanahan: Yeah. Ben: Because these people have the same goal as us and it's to let people know- Nikki: There's a different way. Ben: There's a different way going into it. Not even after they're divorced and it's yucky and all that, but I think I went into it thinking if I get divorced, it's War of the Roses. It's on. This is the only way to go. Nikki: That's the only kind of divorce I ever knew though. Catherine Shanahan: I tell people, "No." They come to us sometimes when they've been the process and we're like, "Oh, my gosh, I wish you would have came here first because you just wait..." I mean, they spent 20, 40,000, and they come with bags of papers. They don't even know what they have. I look at Karen, because the legal process to me is such a crock sometimes. It's not logical thinking, and as a financial I'm like, "What?" So she's like, "It's the process. This is the process." Look at her, she's laughing because I get so annoyed that people spend money for that. Catherine Shanahan: So we're digital. We work nationally, so I just crack up at the process. So I just wish people come here first because it would save them so much angst. It starts couples fighting when they don't even have to fight. Ben: Right. Catherine Shanahan: I said, "Oh, my God," because they get served this nasty language and they say, "Oh, my God, he's going after this," or, "She's going after this." And the couple will say, "I didn't mean that. I didn't mean to do that." So now a war began where the person didn't even mean it. Catherine Shanahan: So when you said you got to work out your stuff first, I was like, "Thank God he came to his senses," because he didn't really want to attack you, but that's how it would have started because like you said, Nikki said, "Yeah, he probably sends that to everybody." That's exactly what that attorney does. And unfortunately they have to send it like that because that's the process. I'm glad you [crosstalk 00:48:28]. Ben: For us, at least for me it was really thin ice. I think that that's the thing is one misstep... I don't know if you guys saw The Marriage Story, but that is a perfect example of one... If she just maybe read that letter in that first meeting, it might have turned out the way it seemed like the movie had ended. And for me, if I hadn't just had that moment of clarity right then or pull it out at the particular time, whatever it was and whenever it happened, who knows, but it's in the beginning, it's just so... It's a powder keg. Ben: To go to people who are aligned with a better outcome will help you, guide you down that path of the right way. We didn't have that, but luckily we got there. Karen Chellew: Kudos. Ben: Someone tell that woman, Scarlet Johansson, "Read the letter." Nikki: Yeah. Catherine Shanahan: Yes, yes. Karen Chellew: Well you guys are great, and I think one of my takeaways from today is first and foremost have the conversation. Try to have as many conversations as you can as rugged as they are, but also what I've noticed from hearing you today is whenever something happens today or yesterday that kind of is a trigger, I see that you assign it to that person, not to your relationship that broke apart years ago. And I think a lot of couples haven't developed the ability to do that whenever the other person does something that's irritating or that creates that trigger, "That's why I divorced him. I hate him. He's a terrible person blah, blah, blah." Karen Chellew: But I see you just saying, "That's Ben." or, "That's Nikki." And we're different and you move on. I think that's key in the ongoing relationship. Nikki: Give it a day [crosstalk 00:50:23] we'll come back to that. Ben: Yeah, I mean, I think Nikki [crosstalk 00:50:26] the same thing is that some of the same buttons that I pushed when we married, I still pushes. She still pushes the same. Like you said about parenting, our parenting skills would be different, our styles would be different if we were divorced or married, same as the personality. Nikki: Right. Ben: But it's a lot easier to accept Nikki today being her best friend than it is being her husband. But it's still, I'll also give it a day when she tells me she's not doing the effing book. I'll let her Italian hot head cool off a little bit. Nikki: Cool off for a minute. Ben: Then I'll come back. Catherine Shanahan: I'll take your roll of paper towels and I'll go home and talk to her tomorrow. Ben: Exactly. Karen Chellew: I love that. Well, thank you both for being with us today and to our listeners, the book is Our Happy Divorce. And your website is ourhappydivorce.com. You're on Instagram. You're on Facebook I believe as well. Ben: Facebook, Twitter, everything @ourhappydivorce. Yeah. Karen Chellew: All right. We're happy to meet you. Nikki: Nice to meet you. Karen Chellew: And we hope to see you soon at Mrs2Me. We'll talk with you a little bit more about that. Nikki: Thank you. Karen Chellew: Thank you again. Have a nice and safe and healthy day. Ben: Yeah, thank you. And thank you for everything you guys do. Thank you. Karen Chellew: Thank you. Have a great day. Bye. Ben: All right, thank you guys so much, and let us know about that whatever... the summit or whatever- Karen Chellew: Yeah, we will. We'll reach out to you. Ben: However you want to use us to help spread the message because it sounds like we're very much aligned. Karen Chellew: Great. Yeah, we'll stay in touch. Ben: Okay. Thank you guys. Karen Chellew: Bye. Catherine Shanahan: Be well. Bye.

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Understanding SaaS Metrics and Forecasting With Ben Murray

The Quiet Light Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2019 38:05

One of the misconceptions people often have about Quiet Light Brokerage is that most of our transactions are e-commerce based. In reality, we have got quite a sizeable number of SaaS deals in our portfolio as well. Today, the Saas CFO Blog founder Ben Murray is here talking about his career, the blog, and his passion for sharing the metrics founders need for better planning and forecasting. Through his blog, Ben shares his passion for organizing the numbers, implementing SaaS metrics, and forecasting. Ben's advice is all about getting the lumps out of the profit and loss. Anyone looking to learn more about the topic both from the acquisition and the ownership side, this is the guy to know and this is the episode to listen to. Episode Highlights: The value in forecasting. Why do it in the first place. Things that proper forecasting might protect your business from. Software recommendations for businesses looking to get started with inputting the financial data. Types of metrics that are important for the owner and potential buyer to dial in on. The Rose Metric. Numbers a potential buyer should be looking for in a healthy acquisition prospect. How deep should the buyer look into the metrics? Warning signs to look for in a business evaluation. The why behind the data. Healthy levels of sustainability in the balance between recurring revenue and sales/marketing expenses. How Ben became so interested in the SaaS arena and why he feels compelled to share his knowledge with his readers. The cash runway forecast model. How to get started in forecasting. Transcription: Joe: Mark one of the misconceptions about Quiet Light Brokerage is that some people think we do; the vast majority of our transactions are e-commerce related when in fact we've got quite a sizeable SaaS component as well. And I understand you had Ben Murray from SaaS CFO on the podcast recently. Mark: Yeah I just recently became familiar with Ben. I was going out and taking a look at some of the people that are writing in this space and just kind of doing some research trying to expand our network in this area and I happened upon Ben's blog and I was absolutely blown away. So Ben is a CFO obviously and specializes in the SaaS arena and talks a lot about the metrics that we want to be able to track in the SaaS world for better forecasting and better planning on the part of SaaS founders. So naturally, I thought I had to have this guy on the podcast. We also sponsored a little ad in his newsletter as well to promote David's webinar. David Newell for those of you that don't know recently did a webinar on how to solve a SaaS business for 6, 7, or 8 figures. We're going to include those in the show notes we'll also make sure that we advertise that in our weekly newsletter if you don't get that; a really, really well received. We've had hundreds of people attend and have had great response from that webinar. We partnered with Ben to help promote that webinar as well. And as I told you Joe just before this call he knows more about SaaS than you and I will ever really know because he lives and breathes this on a day in day out basis. And so we talked a lot about some of the metrics to look at, how to think about some of the metrics, how to calculate some of the metrics in a way that makes sense because we know that we're supposed to be tracking some things like lifetime value, churn, and everything else but how do you actually construct these calculations in a way that makes sense for your business and then forecasting as well. So the topic; I'll be honest, I got a little wide-ranging with my questions because I wanted to ask him every question at once. And it was difficult to stay focused because I wanted to ask every question at once but there's just some really cool nuggets in this podcast including one that you and I talk about all the time and that's cash versus accrual accounting. Joe: Yeah, most people think about it only in terms of e-commerce but SaaS and content they've got to do it as well just to get the lumps out of the P&L. Mark: Yeah I mean look it just comes down to this basic concept accounting; double-entry accounting system has been around for a long time and it's been around for a long time because it works. And so we should be making sure that we're actually paying attention to our books in the proper way and understanding what sort of insights we can pull out of this. Ben talks a lot about the need for forecasting which is something that I'm increasingly growing aware of as being an important tool for business owners. And we talked a little bit about how to do that in the SaaS world in this podcast as well so it's super interesting. And I think for anyone that's interested in SaaS both from an acquisition or an ownership standpoint, Ben is a guy to know, this is a podcast definitely to listen to. Joe: I'm looking forward to listening to it myself. Let's get to it. Mark: All right I have Ben Murray from the SaaSCFO.com, Ben thank you so much for taking the time for a conversation here on SaaS businesses, CFO and everything metric heavy. I'm really excited for this conversation. Ben: Thanks Mark, it's great to be here. Mark: So let's start out pretty simple and give just a quick background on yourself; what you do, and also a little bit about the blog. I found you through your blog the SaaSCFO.com but a little background on yourself so that our listeners know who I'm speaking with. Ben: Sure yeah. My name is Ben Murray and I've been in finance and accounting for the past 20 plus years and my background has been airlines and software specifically SaaS. And so I've been a SaaS CFO for about the last 8 plus years or so. And about 3½ years ago I started blogging at the SaaSCFO.com where I just wanted to share my metrics, models, templates that I've been using and creating over the years and hoping that others will have; they could use those and implement the models and metrics in their businesses right away. Mark: Yeah and look there's a lot of people that write on this material, right? I've come across a lot of different blogs that kind of become this intersection of marketing and metrics and company structure and everything else. Yours is really focused on metrics and metrics from a kind of financial outlook perspective and probably a deeper dive than I found in most other places. So I can definitely really, really appreciate what you're doing here on the blog and some of the information that you share. I want to start off with just kind of a big question, your website title is Ben's post on SaaS metrics and forecast; pretty simple. I want to talk about that second half there and the forecasting side of it. I know a lot of business owners and even buyers who are looking at acquiring a business look at forecasts with a bit of a skeptical eye and wonder well what's the real value on them? Now I think people that are growing businesses at a higher level tend to see the forecasts and see the value in them. But I'd love to pick your brain a little bit about the value in forecasting and creating a good forecasting model and maybe what the foundations are for that. So why don't we start with that first question as why forecast in the first place? I mean isn't it really more wishful thinking or is there a real science behind this. Ben: Yeah there's definitely a science behind it because it really leverages your operational understanding of your business and I really feel you can't forecast until you know where you've been. So really understanding your historical financials, all the metrics around that, and then once you have that then you can put a very good forecast together. But if you don't understand your current financial state it's going to be really hard to create a forecast and obviously, the number one thing is cash, right? Cash is king. So if cash is tight or you think it might be tight you definitely need that forecast to balance resource requests versus cash balances. So that's number one. After that say if you have decent margins then again it's really understanding where your revenue is trending; your margins are trending. And as you scale so you don't get in trouble down the road; if you hire too fast, invest too fast. So forecasts it's definitely I'd say part of science part of intuition but it's really critical I think in any business as you scale and of course just understanding your cash and then the metrics that are coming out of your forecast. Mark: Yeah, what are some common areas that you see people running into with a lack of forecasting; just kind of sticking their finger up in the air and feeling where the wind blowing today as they're growing maybe a rapidly growing business. You already mentioned one, hiring too fast and bringing on too much support staff maybe anticipating more growth in the future. What are some other things that proper forecasting might be able to protect you from? Ben: I think when you create that first financial forecast and you have been forecasting it really exposes areas in your business that are kind of weak data-wise. The number one thing is like booking; tracking your monthly bookings whether that's MRR or ARR basis you need to know when new lows are coming in or new customers are coming in any expansion business churn downgrades. So that sometimes exposes that tracking. You're going to be kind of revenue forecast together. It all starts with your booking patterns. So that's one thing. And then it's just basic stuff. What's your current MRR? What are your current customer accounts? How many paying customers do you have so you can put again that revenue forecast together and then it's just understanding where you spend. You know one big thing that I see with SaaS firms is that they're coding all their expenses to one big bucket. And I think once you reach say a million or two ARR you really have to have more sophistication in your financial forecast than you're coding expenses to buy an apartment because without that you really can't create any SAAS metrics from that. So you really need clarity around your expenses as well to see that quite a bit. Mark: Yeah and so much of this when I give presentations at a conference and I get to the part where I'm talking about keeping good clean accurate verifiable books I get the sense sometimes that it gets glossed over. And I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who say yeah I know my books are important but then when you find out are they actually managing them well we found out that they aren't and because it becomes sort of an afterthought to it. But what you said there at the end I think is so clear. Once you start having good numbers brought in to the business and you're starting to analyze these numbers it brings clarity to the business as well and being able to identify maybe the risks that are actually present in your company that you aren't seeing because you're not looking at the data. A lot of what you're saying here about forecasting, of course, requires keeping track of the numbers in the right way and you need to start somewhere. For somebody that's maybe at the smaller end of the spectrum in a SaaS operation, say sub one million dollars in revenue what sort of recommendations do you have to make sure that the data that they're getting is A. getting input correctly and categorized correctly and B. do you have any recommended software any recommended systems that you would start out with? Ben: Yeah I wrote a post because that was a question I was getting a lot on what SaaS accounting software can you recommend. And of course, when I speak with founders 9 out of 10 times their financials are in QuickBooks . So that's kind of a ubiquitous accounting system out there. And I've seen all sorts P&Ls but really it's good organization to your expense categories. Not having too many. Sometimes you see a QuickBooks P&L and it's 50 expense categories and you've got $5 posted in February and 10 the next month; just too much detail on that where a SaaS company is really 70 to 80% employee wages, benefits, taxes, etcetera. So that's the big thing is getting to know your wages classify them correctly; encoded by department. Then it comes down to travel, rent, commissions, so they're big expense categories that are common within SaaS, advertising, that you want to see those coded and classified correctly and kept track of each month so you're not getting behind and have very lumpy financials. So that would be the big thing is just to clearly categorize P&L by expense category and then obviously the other one is just not applying proper reverec which you can't blame SaaS founders that saved some 1 million but they're not playing proper reverec to their revenue. But eventually, you will need that in order to calculate again good metrics, good gross margin and so forth. Mark: Can you explain that last part a little bit more? Ben: Yeah, about the reverec? Mark: Yes. Ben: So often rates with an MRR business it's not as pronounced where you invoice monthly and recognize monthly but with annual contracts say quarterly, semiannual, annual, multi-year contracts you see a lot of SaaS companies posting that revenue right to their P&L. So, for example, a $12,000 annual contract that should be advertised and recognized over twelve months. They're posting twelve thousand in just one month. You'll see very lumpy revenue that it could be 50 or 100,000 in one month and it's $1,000 a month the next month and I've even seen negative in some months. And with that, you really cannot manage your SaaS business without a proper reverec and that could be finding a SaaS accounter bookkeeper who is familiar with the SaaS business model. But without that, you don't know your gross margins at all. You really don't know what's going on with your business kind of on a good steady run-rate basis. So again under a million, I get it. A million and two and scaling you definitely have to get to that point. Mark: Yeah. And so in our world again we've talked about this a lot on this podcast and pretty much every chance I get. And it's that simple difference between accrual and cash basis counting, right? Instead of saying oh I just got $12,000 in on an annual contract saying well I have an annual contract which means I need to service this client for the full 12 months and that equates out to $1,000 a month which I'm earning as I go along with this contract. It's kind of a foreign concept to a lot of people. But again the importance here is not treating the P&L like a statement of cash flows only and treat it again as a profit and loss statement. I would imagine Ben, this is something I didn't see on your site but I'm sure you've covered because your site is extremely comprehensive, it would make sense at that point to look at your financial statements and understand the balance sheet is going to be important in here as well. What role do you see and let me see if I can back up; I'm kind of all over the place right now but I'll ask this in a very basic way. I know a lot of people are kind of scared or mystified by the balance sheet. How much emphasis do you think people should put on actually getting familiar with the statement like that or do you think it's more important to look at some of the other metrics instead and focus on those? Ben: Yeah I think say as a founder-owner you do need to understand the balance sheet to some extent because the SaaS balance sheet is a little different than others. One obviously is deferred revenue, so in the example, we talked about when you invoice that 12k it's actually posted at the balance sheet as deferred revenue; as a liability, because you have an obligation now to say perform or to service that customer. The second thing with the new reverec standards you now have to capitalize the contract costs that arise when signing contracts with customers, for example, enabling commissions now that becomes an asset on your balance sheet. So that's the second area that's different with SaaS and that's actually new and then, of course, capitalizing software development. You can also capitalize software development once it reaches technological feasibility. And again that's another asset on your balance sheet. Other than that SaaS balance sheets are pretty straightforward but if you're applying the proper accounting you probably will see; you definitely should see deferred revenue and probably capitalized commissions. Mark: Yeah I can kind of hear the collective groan from people listening thinking well I thought we're going to be talking about SaaS metrics here and here we are back in the old accounting stuff but this stuff plays together, right? I mean when we go into some of the other more advanced metrics that you're talking about it depends on having those books done correctly so that you can pull out the right metrics and the right ratios that you're looking for. But let's get into some of those other metrics and just kind of a very basic question here, what do you consider especially forward for companies that 1 million maybe 5 million 10 million and then above as we kind of work up the strata here, what sort of metrics would you generally say are really important for an owner or potentially an acquirer to really dial in on a SaaS business? Ben: Yeah I think once you're past that early stage where you really have to manage your cash flow I mean it's going to be your go-to-market, sales, and marketing efficiency metrics and that's something I'm constantly looking at. So it's really all; it becomes a lot about the go-to-market efficiency. One are your inbound or outbound sales engine and marketing engines and then one metric that's a favorite of mine is cost of ARR, cost of MRR where you're looking at your ARR and MRR bookings and comparing that against your sales and marketing expense to see how much it costs you to acquire one that new dollar or ARR or MRR; that's a big one. And there's a great survey out there, a SaaS survey put out by KeyBank each year that provides those private company metrics so you can compare how you're doing against other SaaS companies who put data into that survey. So it's a great benchmarking tool. But again there are a lot of sales and marketing efficiency metrics that yeah as you're scaling, how efficient are you, how much cash is going to be required to hit your booking plan, and then really just that balance; it comes down to that balance between bookings and sales marketing. Mark: Yeah that's great. Let's talk employees it seems to be one of the costs that seems to kind of spiral out of control with SaaS companies on occasion right? The cost of supporting the clients can be higher and higher. You have something on the blog which I'd just kind of chanced upon which you came up with called the Rose Metric. Can you explain that a little bit? Ben: Yes sure. Again it kind of gets back to the concept that really a SaaS company or any software company is all about the staff; the employees because that's the major expense or as I call merits that investment in the business around your staff. And you see that revenue graph that you metric out there is kind of a general gauge around efficiency which I think is just too high level; too generic. So I want to look at really it's so important that your investing employees, that employees are happy because they are creating that software company; they're creating the product. And really comparing how efficient are we in headcount wages versus the bookings coming in. So it gets you kind of a balance of as we scale what resources do we need to support our bookings plan or rounding plan and just see how efficient we are in acquiring new MRR or ARR against our kind of employee headcount or employee wages. Mark: Yeah it's an interesting piece and again I'd recommend people take a look at the blog and kind of dig into some of these employee metrics. It's one that we don't see as much in our world and I think it's an interesting one to take a look at. From a merger and acquisition standpoint if you're a buyer coming into a business and trying to evaluate it where are you going to begin looking at a company's books? What sort of numbers are you going to be looking at in trying to calculate within that first day as you're trying to see is this a good opportunity and a healthy company? Ben: Yeah obviously the first thing you're going to look at is just are they good books are you inaudible[00:19:12.5] accounting so they're good financial statements. And then after that, it's really understanding the health of the recurring revenue because a lot of valuations are based on almost full of ARR or MRR and then also EBIDTA. So really when I look at it you know it's really looking into that recurring revenue; so the bookings data, what's your gross dollar retention, net revenue retention, how many logos are you losing per month, how many dollars are you losing per month, and churn and dock rates. And then of course if you've got multiple products it's understanding all of those metrics by the product lines. Because that's what you're really buying is the recurring revenue stream and of course any profitability or lack of profitability that goes along with that recurring revenue stream in the form of EBIDTA. So those are the same first things that I dive into is really understanding the revenue streams and then really the business model; what does it take to support that recurring revenue stream? Do you have tech support? Do you have CSMs? What's needed support that revenue? And then, of course, another big thing is to go to market engine; understanding sales and marketing, how they're acquiring customers, how efficient they are, and then of course looking into GNA, RND, the product roadmap etcetera. Mark: Sure absolutely. As far as dealing with a company with weak books like of we're evaluating a company that maybe has this lumpy revenue because they're recording everything on a cash basis. Are there ways that you can suggest that would not involve a whole deconstruction of books but maybe to be able to evaluate a business that has weaker books or weaker data tracking practices? Ben: Yeah if you really can rely on the financials for the revenue stream then you have to really build a backup through their bookings data or their invoicing data. So getting say a couple years of invoicing history of their subscriptions; so dollar amounts, start and end dates, it helps if you knew is this a new logo expansion etcetera so that you can reconstruct what the revenue stream should look like and then get back into you know what kind of expansion are you seeing, churn are they seeing so you can build out that revenue stream if it's not; if they're not [inaudible 00:21:30.3] to the financial statements. Mark: Sure. What would be some warning signs that you would look for an acquisition? Obviously, you said you would really look at the health of the recurring revenue. How trustworthy is it? Also the go-to-market cost as well. What are some things that would be just kind of a deal-breaker for you if you were evaluating a business? Ben: I mean a couple of things would be looking at again I think it's going to be around churn and payback periods. So payback periods are extremely important. So how fast are you paying back those upfront customer acquisition costs. So one looking at their cash balance, of course, are they trying to [inaudible 00:22:10.5] fund working capital through lines of credit or debt that their business model isn't quite working for some reason or the payback period is too long or they have just too much cash tied up in check. And then, of course, new logo acquisition, do they have the go-to-market model proofed out or product-market fit and then again just is churn under control, can they acquire customers but then can they retain them over time. So again those are some of the things that if you see warning flags; you might see some warning flags there that the metrics just as a whole don't add up together. Mark: Right. You mentioned payback periods. This is something that I've ran into a number of times where I see somebody pretty plainly put out there hey my LTV is this my CSC is this so look I'm going to acquire the customer for 80 bucks the lifetime value is $400 and you're going to make a great return on your investment on that. But when you dig into it a little bit deeper you find out that if you take like an 80% cohort, if you're taking a look at the majority of customers the lifetime value is much lower. There are a couple of unicorns in there that are pulling in this really high value. What are some ways that you can recommend dissecting this when you get this kind of flat up numbers of my lifetime value is X and my cost of acquisition is Y so, therefore, you're going to make that killing on this business. How can you sort of dissect that and actually get some better insights there? Ben: Yeah especially with LTV because that can be so sensitive to the denominator or what churn number you're using as the dominator. So you really have to understand what inputs they're putting themselves because that lifetime value can be all over the place. So again you mentioned cohort analysis, are they taking the cohorts, are they using aggregate churn or are you looking at really with check and payback periods you should be looking at it's really a point in time like the cohort analysis that what's the most recent cohorts coming in and the paybacks on those and also lifetime churn from the cohorts say from the past 12 months. So you really have to I think look at the details on the numbers that are building up into those formulas to really prove out what they're saying that they can really claim great numbers. Mark: Yeah, it's one of the reasons that LTV to me I'm not a big fan of that metric on its own I mean it's interesting but I think it's just kind of a live number way. It doesn't color a whole lot when you're looking at it by itself, right? It can really take you to a lot of different factors. Ben: Yeah and I definitely calculate LTV it's interesting because I think SaaS metrics in isolation don't mean much. You kind of have to look at the big picture obviously it's LTV to check but also looking at cost of ARR payback periods. So maybe it's one data point but it's not telling the whole story. So I do look at LTV but again I think say cost of ARR or the payback on that is a much easier way to understand. And LTV I still think is kind of a ballpark because it's always changing and it's such a sensitive calculation that it's not the number to just look at alone. Mark: Yeah. A question I get all the time from people and it's really basic in your world so I apologize for even asking this but people ask me all the time well how am I supposed to calculate my lifetime value, how am I supposed to calculate my churn when I have people that are still; that have been with me from day one? And these numbers sometimes can be difficult to calculate because of that or even people that are dropping off but then coming back on and then dropping off again and then coming back on. Ben: Yeah. I hear that a lot too. Yeah especially if you're a couple of years in you really don't know your lifetime value yet. Again it's just a formula; it's a calculation so it's a ballpark but you don't really know true LTV yet if you've just been around a couple of months or a couple of years. And then the whole dropping off dropping on back on that's where it just becomes almost company-specific that you really just have to define internally what does a new customer mean, when does it really mean that they churn so that everyone within the company understands that. And if you're in any sort of M&A then that's clearly; that you're transparent with how you're actually tracking those stats. Mark: Yeah. And I think that part right there that point is probably the key that I think is so important especially from an acquisition standpoint. If you're looking to acquire a SaaS company and you're just looking at the metrics on the surface how does that seller define those metrics within their own company and why did they set up those rules because with multi churn you can look at that in a number of different ways. You can calculate that number using different approaches the same way with LTV numbers you can use different approaches and get different results. So why did you choose a certain method; why did you choose a certain approach to this? And that's the color I think from an acquisition standpoint that starts to get really important when you're looking at any of these metrics is understanding the why behind what data is being presented and then the rules and applying a sanity test to it. Are these people just giving numbers because that's what they're supposed to pick or are they actually looking at these and using these metrics within their company, yeah just a really good point on your side as far as understanding the metrics and where they're coming from? Moving beyond that cost of acquisition, moving beyond the lifetime value numbers and you've mentioned a few times the going to market costs as well, what are some health levels for the sustainability of ARR or MRR on a SaaS business. Ben: You mean as kind of as far as the balance between recurring revenue and sales marketing expense? Mark: Yes. Ben: Yeah, so healthy levels, the things that I look at and this is probably more mid-market enterprise but usually if you can acquire bookings for $1 of a new ARR for a dollar of sales market expense that's pretty good. So again there are some surveys out there that kind of give you some benchmarks and that's kind of you can say in whole new logo and expansions of course expansion in ourselves should be a lot cheaper than acquisition, maybe that's 30 to 50 cents of sales and marketing expense acquire one net new dollar of ARR. So certainly it's just that you look in and if it's higher you just need to understand from that business why it's taking longer and what's the story behind go to market. Is that a longer sales cycle that's impacting the [inaudible 00:28:48.6] so just different things to really understand their business model. Mark: That's great. I'm going to just take a quick break from some of that heavy metric discussion here because we're throwing around a lot of acronyms right now. How did you get your start in this rollout? You said that you had experience in the airplane industry and then also in the software industry. How did you get to be so passionate about this and kind of digging in as deep as you do? Ben: Yeah well I guess one that you really loved forecasting and financial forecasting though in Excel models and you kind of build-up that tool kit over time and just really enjoy it really understanding the economics of businesses and especially software is so interesting and yeah I did start in the airlines which is also kind of metric intensive and very financially disciplined and I kind of applied that to the SaaS areas. So I just noticed out there a lot of resources on SaaS but it didn't quite I felt go far enough or really just give you the whole story and the template that they were using it kind explained it but then you might have to go do an hour or two of work to recreate what that person did. And so I said; I thought you could be a little different by just providing the exact models, the templates that I'm using and hopefully the bits and pieces of those would be applicable to some people in SaaS that they could incorporate into their business and I received great feedback from readers, subscribers downloading templates that it's helped them out a lot, founders that are trying to do their first forecast. So I just wanted that kind of transparent value exchange out there and it's just really from my kind of on the job experience as a SaaS CFO and just things I encounter every day that are pain points for me that could be pain points for others and just help them out with maybe something with a template that I've used to solve some of those problems. Mark: Yeah you have all these comments on the site from people who have written into about the resources and I love the one here that says great resources that save a lot of time and brain damage to replicate. It's very true. Again there's a really good stuff on here. You brought up forecasting again so I'm going to start to bring this full circle here back to forecasting because we talked about that and it's a topic that I'm personally very interested in as well right now. You have a whole page here on the cash runway model. Can you explain that at a high level and maybe we can get into it a little bit? Ben: Yeah definitely because I have my financial plan out there that I live in Excel every day that I kind of take it for granted that other people can also open up Excel or just dive right in and for a lot of people it's still a little too advanced so with kind of that you could say advanced side of financial planning model. So I tried to create something very basic and it is really inspired by a founder I talked to who said that he got some funding just with a super basic cash forecast. So I thought well how could I take that and just make it super simple say for founders and non-excel people to just start inputting even it really gets to their cash invoicing. So they really could forecast their cash balance and how long that balance is going to last. If they funded it and then they're looking for investments that they could say hey here's my cash invoicing coming up, here's my headcount, here are some other metrics; that major expenses and then just forecast their cash balance in one tab. So that was the genesis of it just trying to really boil down to really something basic that founders and again non-excel people could hopefully use right away. Mark: Yeah. And you have this template available on the site. And you didn't actually answer it's kind of the question I was going to lead into and that is how does somebody get started with forecasting if they don't have the resources for a CFO like yourself what are some basic models that they can put together to start forecasting their cash flow? Ben: Yeah, definitely. I think really it's understanding their invoicing patterns; so what is your cash coming in whether that's funding or just the invoices you're sending out to your customers or their credit card payments they're making online line through your site. So that's really the first step. It's just that cash in. And then it's going to be headcount. Again headcounts the majority of expense for SaaS company so really and I'm quite informal as to how do we easily calculate and forecast that expense. So whether you've got one person 850 cut that into model, forecast that expense out. So the second thing again is headcount. And then any other major expenses, maybe it's rent, maybe it's tradeshow, advertisements, so it's kind of that 80-20 rule start with those big expenses; start with the big invoices as a place to start to put together kind of a basic forecast. Mark: Right then as with all things you can refine that as you go along and improve it and make it more accurate and you can look back to see how accurate was our forecasting and get the insights that you need from there and be able to really plan out what's going on or if you're looking for funding obviously very useful for that as well. This has been really interesting and maybe a little bit of a scattered conversation because I want to talk about everything at once. That's my downfall. I've never really claimed to be the greatest podcast host in the world but there is just so much here to be able to discuss. We are up against the clock at this point though and so I want to give you the chance to kind of round it out and with what you do you obviously have a passion for a lot of this in you being able to help out a lot of people. What are some of the common problems or common questions that you get at the blog and what would you say to SaaS founders currently operating a business right now or those that might be looking to get into this through acquisition? Ben: Yeah I mean the kind of questions or problems that I see really one is just how do you calculate this stuff, how do you calculate these metrics, what are the inputs? And that really comes back to just a nice clean P&L that you take the time; make that investment through your bookkeeper or accountant to really set up a well-organized P&L because that's where all the metrics emanate from. And if you don't have that it's going to be really hard to calculate the metrics and really have that financial transparency to manage your business. So really again it starts with what's your SaaS P&L and I try post on there on my site kind of walking through from bookings down to income; what the major components of the SaaS P&L are and again it's getting good organization and good fundamentals there and then you can build upon it then you can start forecasting then you can calculate metrics. So again it starts with I think a nicely organized SaaS P&L. Mark: You know I had Babak Azad who was with Beach Body; he grew that company into a billion-dollar company and he was talking a lot about the metrics that they use there and I asked him a similar question about how do you get started; how can you start tracking this and his response was just what yours is and that is just start; you just have to start with it right. And your advice to start with a P&L and having that set up correctly. It's what we've been preaching here at Quiet Light Brokerage for a very, very long time. Get those books in order. You want to have those books in order. It doesn't matter if you want to sell or not. As a business owner having good financial records it's irreplaceable. Once you get it you will be so happy that you've had it. But it starts with how you're inputting it. I've run into bookkeepers; maybe you have as well but I run into bookkeepers especially when somebody hires them remotely who kind of don't want to do an accrual basis books because they consider it to be more difficult but it's the proper way to do it and as you said all the metrics derive from there. Alright, one last time Ben where can people find you? What's the best way to contact you? Ben: Sure you can contact me through my site. It's the SaaSCFO.com and then actually later this month I'm launching the SaaS Academy.com. It's an online digital course for SaaS metrics and more so that's coming out soon as well. But definitely my blog you can contact me through to the site. Mark: That's fantastic. Thanks so much for coming on. I hope to have you on in the future. In the future, I'll choose one topic and I'll stick on that for the entire topic but thank you so much for this really good overview episode. I really appreciate it. Ben: Alright thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me. Links and Resources: Ben's Blog The SaaS CFO Ben's Blog post: The ROSE Metric Ben's Software Recommendations David Newell SaaS Webinar

moving healthy blog numbers software types pl cfo saas excel forecasting arr quickbooks beachbody ltv pls csc mrr keybank rnd csms gna quiet light brokerage ben murray mark you saas metrics ebidta david newell mark yeah ben you mark yes joe yeah mark so mark right ben so mark all babak azad

All Eyes on Us

DoubleClutch.ca Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 2, 2019 50:15

It's 2019 and we're back in the studio! We had a bit of a staff shuffle and are introducing Ben So, our new content editor. In the garage are the Mercedes-AMG GLC 63 S, Genesis G70 2.0T Sport, and the Cadillac XT4. We also touch on our Editor's Pick award choices for 2018, and chat briefly about our Car of the Year recipient, the Genesis G70. Other notable test drives include the 2019 BMW X5 and the new Subaru Forester's ability to watch/monitor the driver's eyes and minimize distracted driving.

car subaru forester bmw x5 genesis g70 cadillac xt4 editor's pick ben so mercedes amg glc

Venture Capital Meets Fusion Power with Malcolm Handley [Idea Machines #2]

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 7, 2018 79:55

My Guest this week is Malcolm Handley, General Partner and Founder of Strong Atomics. The topic of this conversation is Fusion power - how it’s funded now, why we don’t have it yet, and how he’s working on making it a reality. We touch on funding long-term bets in general, incentives inside of venture capital, and more. Show Notes Strong Atomics Malcolm on Twitter (@malcolmredheron) Fusion Never Plot Fusion Z-Pinch Experiment. ARPA-e Alpha Program ITER - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. NIF - National Ignition Facility ARPA-e Office of Fusion Energy Science Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air Transcript [00:00:00] This podcast I talk to Malcolm Hanley about Fusion funding long-term bets incentives inside of venture capital and more Malcolm is the managing partner of strong atomics. Strong atomics is a venture capital firm that exists solely in a portfolio of fusion projects that have been selected based on their potential to create net positive energy and lead to plausible reactors before starting strong atomics. Malcolm was the first employee at the software company aside. I love talking to Malcolm because he's somewhat of a fanatic about making Fusion Energy reality. But at the same time he remains an intense pragmatist in some ways. He's even more pragmatic than I am. So here in the podcast. He thinks deeply about everything he does. So we go very deep on some topics. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Intro Ben: Malcolm would you would you introduce yourself? Malcolm: Sure. So I'm Malcolm heavily. I found in strong [00:01:00] atomics after 17 years is software engineer because I. I was looking for the most important thing that I could work on and concluded that that was kind of change that was before democracy fell off the rails. And so it was the obvious most important thing. So my thesis is that climate change is a real problem and the. Typical ways that we are addressing it or insufficient, for example, even if you ignore the climate deniers most people seem to be of the opinion that we're on track that Renewables and storage for renewable energy are going to save the day and my fear as I looked into this more deeply is that this is not sufficient that we are in fact not on track and that we need to be looking at more possible ways of responding to [00:02:00] climate change. So I found an area nuclear fusion that is that it has the potential to help us solve climate change and that in my opinion is underinvested. So I started strong atomics to invest in those companies and to support them in other ways. And that's what I'm doing these days What did founding strong atomics entail? Ben: and he did a little bit more into what founding strong atomics and Tails. You can just snap your fingers and bring it into being Malcolm: I almost did because it was extremely lucky but in general Silicon Valley has a pretty well worn model for how people start startups and I think even the people getting out of college actually no a surprising amount about how to start a company and when you look at Fusion companies getting started you realize just how much knowledge we take for granted in Silicon Valley. On the other hand as far as I can tell the way [00:03:00] that every VC fund get started in the way that everyone becomes a VC is unique. It was really one story for how you start a company and there are n stories for how funds get started. So in my case, I wasn't sure that I wanted to start a fund more precisely. It hadn't even occurred to me that I would start a fund. I was a software engineer and looking for what I could do about climate change. I'm just assuming that I was looking for a technical way to be involved with that. I was worried because my only technical skill is software engineering but I figured hey, but software you can do many things. There must be a way that a software engineer can help. So I made my way to The arpa-e Summit in DC at the beginning of 2016 and went around and talked to a whole lot of people if they're different boots about what they were doing and. My questions for myself was does what you're doing matter. My question for them was how might a software engineer help [00:04:00] and to a first approximation even at a wonderful conference like the arpa-e summit. I think you'd have to say mostly these things are not moving the needle mostly in my terminology. They don't matter and it really wasn't clear how a software engineer could help and then because I was curious because I'd read many things about. Companies claiming that they were working on fusion and they were closed and made an effort to hit every Fusion Booth. I could find and a one of those booths. I said, I'm a software engineer. What can I do and they said well the next time this guy comes to San Francisco, you should organize an audience and he'll give a talk and won't that be fun? So that guy is now one of my science advisors, but that was. The first part of my relationship there. So he came I organized the talk we had dinner beforehand and is like how close is fusion and he says well, it could be 10 years away, but it's actually [00:05:00] in infinite time away. And the problem is we're not funded. So then you say well how much money do you need and it turns out to be a few million dollars you say that's really really dumb here. I am in Silicon Valley my. The company I work for is sauna making collaboration software for task management just raised 50 million dollars in here. These people are credibly trying to save the world and they're short two million dollars. Maybe I can find some rich people who can put some money in the answer was yes, I could find a rich person who is willing to put some money in and Rich. By and large unless they're really excited about the company do not want to put money in directly. They don't want that kind of relationship. So you work through all the mechanics here and you run as you can convince people to put money in but you need to [00:06:00] grease the wheels by making a normal VC structure in this case. And then before, you know it you wind up as the managing partner of a one-person VC fund but single investor. And then you say well, I've had a surprising amount of impact doing this. What should I do? Do I keep looking for that technical way to be involved and my conclusion was there's really no contest here. I could go back to my quest of how how is the software engineer? Can I help climate change or look? I've already put four million dollars into Fusion four million dollars of other people's money, but companies have four million dollars that. Born kinda half without me and several of them are doing way better making way more progress than they would have without me. And now I have all these contacts in the fusion industry. I can build a team of advisers. I'm in all of these internal discussions about [00:07:00] what's coming next in federal funding programs, and I'm invited to conferences and that kind of thing and it was. So obvious that the way to keep making an impact on climate change was to keep doing what I was doing. So that ends with my now taking the steps towards being what I call a real VC. Someone who goes out and really raises the next Fund in a much more normal way with multiple LPS and a much more significant amount of money. Ben: Got it Malcolm: Ray's right now in the baby if you see they VVC or. Ben: So you invest in babies? Malcolm: No. No, I'm the baby. That's and Tina that raises a whole bunch of questions. Why did you structure the venture as a vc firm? Ben: So one is why did you decide to structure it as a VC fund instead of say a philanthropic organization if you just wanted to redirect money. Malcolm: The short answer is [00:08:00] because I can get my hands on way more money. If this is a for-profit Enterprise, so my all P was very generous and trusting and also very open-minded and part of the four million dollars that I mentioned before actually was a donation. It was a gift to the University of Washington to support Fusion research there because. That particular project that we wanted to support was still an academic project for the others. The companies were our for-profit companies and there's just no good case to say to someone who has money. You should give money to support these for-profit things in a way that gets you know profit if they actually work you can tap a lot more money if you offer people a profit motive. And I think you create a stronger chain of [00:09:00] incentives. They are encouraged to give more money. I am more encouraged to look after that money. I have a share of the profit with my fund if it ever makes a profit and and finally you get a more traditional control structure. I don't yet have. At an actual Equity stake in these companies because we did a convertible note or a y combinator safe, but I sit on the board of the companies. They all know that my investment will turn into voting equity in the future and it's just a much cleaner setup. So I think there were no downsides to doing it this way and a lot of upsets the bigger question, which I. Contemplated the beginning of all of this was even for for-profit money is a fund the right vehicle or other other [00:10:00] options that I should pursue. That's something that I spent a lot of time looking into it after creating the first fund what other options are there, right? (Alternate structures) So one approach is you say, well there are four or however many companies here. I like what they're doing, but they're. Really annoyingly small by Annoying. I mean they are inefficient in terms of how they spend their money and their potentially leaving Innovation on the table. So the companies that I've invested in are all about four people maybe six, but that kind of size and they have one or two main science people in each company those. Interacts with other scientists a few times a year a conferences those scientists at the conference's are of course not completely trust to love each other. They are all competitors working at different companies [00:11:00] each convinced that they're going to crush the other guys and that's the extent of their scientific collaboration unless they have a couple of academics universities that they're close to. And when I think about my background in software, I never worked in a team that small I had many more people that I could turn to for help whenever it was stuck. So one thing we looked at seriously was starting a company that would raise a bunch of money and buy these four or so companies. We would merge them all into one. This is called the Roll-Up. And we'd move everyone to one place. They would certainly have a much larger pool of collaborators. They would also have the union of all of their equipment right? So now when someone had a new idea for an approach to Fusion, they wanted to test instead of needing to contemplate leaving [00:12:00] their job starting a new company raising money buying. Or scrounging a whole lot of equipment and then yours later doing the experiment. They could practically go in on the weekend and do the experiment after validating their ideas with their co-workers. Right? I think there's a lot to recommend this and it was seductive enough that I went a long way down this path in the end of the the complexities killed. And made it seem like something that wasn't actually a good idea when you netted everything. Complexities of Roll-Ups Ben: Can you go into a little more detail about that? Yeah, which complexities and how did you decided it was not a good idea, Malcolm: right? So it's much harder to raise money for because you're doing something much less traditional as I guess that's not necessarily harder in some ways. If you come to the market with a radically new idea. You're so novel that you. [00:13:00] Breakthrough everyone's filters and maybe you have an easier time raising money seen it go both witness. Yeah, and my existing investors was not enthused about this. So I would have certainly had to work past some skepticism there on top of that you have to convince all of these companies to sell to you and that looks really hard. The CEO of one of the companies told me look I'm a lone cowboy. I think he said and made it very clear that he was used to executing independently and didn't want to be part of larger company. Potentially. I could have bought his independence by offering him enough money that he couldn't refuse but that's not really the way you want to build your team. Other companies were enthusiastic but it would getting [00:14:00] the majority of these benefits would have required people moving. Yeah people and companies and these companies have connections to universities. Of course, the people have families they have whole lives. It wasn't clear that people wanted to move. It really looked as if everyone was really excited about a roll up that happened where they lived. Yeah on top of that. These people are cordial to each other at conferences. And at least think they wanted to collaborate more but they're also pretty Fierce competitors. So you also had to believe that when these people were all brought into one company. They would actually collaborate rather than get into status contests and fights and that kind of thing. Not to mention all the more subtle ways in which they might fail to collaborate and it really big wake-up call for me was when the [00:15:00] two technical co-founders one of my companies started fighting these people had known each other for decades. They were best men at each other's weddings. They had chosen to found the company together. No asshole VC had bought two companies include them together and force them to work together. This was their choice. And it got to the point where still they could not work together. I went down I spent two days at the company watching the team Dynamic interviewing each person at the company one-on-one and made the recommendation that the company fire one of the founders. So you look at that and then you're like, well these people say they're happy to cooperate with everyone at these other companies to I really believe that so. Huge caution, I think yeah other people cautioned me that the [00:16:00] competitive factors would be reduced. So I had one guy who went through YC not doing Fusion just a regular software startup say look when we were doing way see we were in the same year as Dropbox and it was clear the Dropbox was crash. And if we had known that actually we were part of some big roll up and we were going to share and dropboxes success. We would not have worked as hard on our little company as we did wanting to match their success. Yeah. (Holding companies and how they worked) So eventually I looked at the third model the first model being the VC fund at the second model being the roll up. The third model was a holding company and this is meant to be a middle ground where we would have a company that would invest in the various Fusion companies that we wanted to support. They would not be combined. I [00:17:00] guess. I'm neglected to mention several of the other advantages that we would have gotten with the holding with the roll up in addition to a unified team of scientists. We would have had the pool of Hardware that I did mention right we would also been able to have other infrastructure teams. For example, we could have had a software team that worked on modeling or simulation software that all of the different Fusion teams could use so the idea with the holding company was we would still be able to centralize things that made sense centralist right things where you could benefit by sharing. But we would have these companies remaining as separate companies. They could raise money from other people if they wanted to or we couldn't provide the money when they needed it. They wouldn't have to move they would be independent companies. But the first thing that we would do is say a condition of taking money from us is [00:18:00] you will give all of your experimental data and enough. Of the conditions of your experiments to us so that we can run our own simulations using our own software right and match them against your experimental results. We would of course encourage them to use our modeling software as well. But that's harder to force. So the idea was software is something that really can be shared right? We would encourage them to share it and by having access to their. Their detailed data, we would be able to validate what they were doing and being much more informed investors than others so we could make better investment decisions. We could tell who was really succeeding and who might be struggling or failing so we couldn't make better investment decisions than other investors, which would help us. It would also help the companies [00:19:00] because our decision to investor to continue to invest would be a more credible signal of success or the value creation and they could use that to to shop it around to raise money from other people. So to the benefits there would be still internalizing some of the externalities while keeping people with their independence, but allowing resource sharing and better signal. For further support raise so much more flexible sharing sharing where it made sense and not where it didn't and then in an optional way later later on we might have said, well, it turns out that the number of our companies need the same physical equipment may be pulsed Power Equipment, which is a large part of the expense for these companies so we could have bought that. Set it up somewhere and then said you're welcome to come and do experiments on our facility and you could imagine that over time. They would decide that the [00:20:00] facility was valuable enough that someone from the company moved there. And then maybe they do all their new hiring their and the company's gradually co-locate but in a much more gradual much smoother way than. In the roll-up where we envision seeing a condition of this purchase is you move right having just talked up the the holding company's so much. Obviously I decided I didn't like that either because that's not what I'm doing one of the death blows for the holding company was doing a science review of the four companies that I've invested in so far. Plus several other approaches by this point I built a team of four science advisors. We put all of these seven or so approaches past the advisors for basic feedback is this thing actually a terrible [00:21:00] idea and we haven't realized yet or what are the challenges or is this an amazing thing that we should be backing and the feedback that we got was that one of them was? And should definitely be back right for a bunch of them. The feedback was waiting to see another one. Was it an even more precarious position because of execution problems to more that received favorable feedback did not and still do not have companies associated with them but feedback was positive enough that we. Pay people to work on them inside basically shall companies so that we own the IP if something comes to that but what did we not so sorry just to interrupt right now. They're in universities right now. They're dormant. They're dormant. Okay a common theme in Fusion is someone does some [00:22:00] work gets some promising results and then for one reason or another fails to get. Funding to continue that it sometimes the story is then the Republicans got into power and cut the funding or they got less funding than they wanted. So they bought worse equipment and they wanted and therefore they weren't able to achieve the conditions that they wanted but they still did the experiment because of the bad conditions that got bad results. So they definitely didn't get any more money from that a whole host of reasons. The promising work doesn't continue. Yeah, so in both of those cases there are promising results and no one is working on this got it. Yeah another sad Fusion story. So so bunch of things came out of that science review, but what did not come out of it was oh yes here. We have a pool of for companies that are all [00:23:00] strong and deserve. And have enough overlap that that some sort of sharing model makes sense on top of that. It was becoming clear that even a holding company was sufficiently novel pitch as to make my life even more difficult for fundraising. Yeah, so it just. Didn't look like something that was worth taking that fundraising hit for given that the benefits for seeming to be more theoretical or in the future than then in the present Alternate Structures Ben: So with a VC fund to my understanding you are sitting on already given capital and your job is. To deploy it I'm going to use air quotes as [00:24:00] quickly as possible within a certain limit of responsibility. Would you ever consider something where you do something there there these private Equity firms that will have a thesis and the look for companies that meet these a certain set of conditions and only then. Will they basically exert a call option on promised money and invest that and it seems like that's that's another structure that you could have gone with. Did you consider anything like that at all? Malcolm: Right edit your description of a VC fund and yes, we may I please one is you're not sitting on a pool of money that is in your bank account. Some of the money is in your bank account, but there's a distinction between the money that is committed and the money that is raised. [00:25:00] So you might say I want to have a VC fund that has 40 million dollars over its lifespan if you wait until you have raised. All 40 million then the deals that you'd identified at the beginning that you are using to support the raising of your fund will likely be gone. It can take a long time to raise even a moderately sized fund. Yeah, unless you're one of those individuals leading very Charmed lives where in weeks they raise their entire fun, but for the rest of us the fundraising process can be 6-12 months that kind of thing so, You have a first close where you've identified or where you have enough and money committed to justify saying this fund is definitely happening. Right [00:26:00] we're going to do this even then maybe your first clothes is 15 million dollars. You don't need all 15 million dollars to start making your Investments right now. So you have 15 million dollars. Right, but over the life of the fund you do Capital calls when your account is too low to keep doing what you're trying to do. Right? So the LPS get penalized heavily if they fail to produce the money that they have committed within a certain amount of time after you're calling it got it you could in principle call all the money at the beginning but you damage your friends metrics if you do that. Got it. Funds are. Graded through their internal rate of return and I remember exactly how this is calculated. (Internal Rate of Return (IRR) ) But part of that is how long you actually have the money. So if you got the money closer to when you're going to spend it or invest it, you look better got it. So that's the first edit. The [00:27:00] second edit is I wouldn't say my job is to deploy the money as quickly as possible. Mmm. My job is to deploy the money for the best results possible. I measure results in terms of some combination of profit to my investors and impact on the world. Right because they think Fusion is well aligned to do both. I think these prophets are pretty consistent. So I'm not trying to spend my money as quickly as I can. I'm trying to support a large enough portfolio of companies for as long as I can. Large portfolio of companies because they want to mitigate the risk. I want to include as many companies in the portfolio. So that promising ideas do not go unsupported. That's the impact and also so that the company that succeeds if when ultimately does is in my fund so [00:28:00] that my investors get a return got it and then I want to support them for as long as I can because the longer I'm supporting them. The larger return my investors get rather than that later value creation accruing to later investors. Got it. Also. longer. I can support them the greater the chance that the company has of surviving for long enough and making enough progress that it can then raise from other investors investors who probably will know less about fusion and be less friendly to Fusion. Why not start the Bell Labs of Fusion Ben: okay, there's there's a bunch of bunch of bookmarks. I want to put there the first thing is one more question about possible structures. So a problem that you brought up consistently is the efficiency gains from having people all in the same place all sharing equipment all sharing code all sharing knowledge that. Does not happen [00:29:00] when you have a bunch of companies, why are you so focused on sort of starting with companies as or groups of people who have already formed companies as as the basic building blocks. So for example, you could imagine a world where you create the Bell Labs a fusion where you literally just start from scratch. Hire people and put them all in the same place with a bunch of equipment and aren't working together without having to pull people who have already demonstrated their willingness to go out on their own and start companies. Malcolm: Yeah, great question and the bell Labs diffusion is an analogy of it gets thrown around a fair amount including to describe what I was trying to do. Although I agree. It's slightly. I think there are two answers to that question. One is [00:30:00] by the point that I was really considering this. I already had invested in for companies. So partly the answer is path dependence got it and partly the answer. Is that by the time I was clearly seeing the problems with the rollout especially but also the holding company it was. It didn't seem as if just starting a company from scratch was really going to change that some people make the argument that actually the best plasma physicists aren't in companies at the moment. They are in Academia or National Labs because the best ones don't want to risk their reputation and a great job for a two-bit company that's going to have trouble. And therefore the if you could come along and create a credible [00:31:00] proposition of the legitimate company that will do well fundraising and prove that it will do well at fundraising by endowing it with a lot of money in the beginning you may then hire those people right? I know some people who are convinced that this is possible. You still have to deal. The asshole complex that is common with infusion. These people have had their entire careers which are long because they are all old or they're in PHD programs basically to become quite sure of the approach that they want to take for Fusion, right? So it was difficult to find a team of four. Experienced knowledgeable and open-minded advisors for my science board and not all of those people are able to be hired for any price. I think if you want to actually stock a [00:32:00] company with these people you need more people right and they all need to be able to be hired and you still need to convince them to move and you still need to convince them to work on each other's projects. So it I think it's an interesting idea. I have real concerned about the lack of competition that you would get about all the areas that I just mentioned and on top of that when I looked into the situation around the software sharing and the hardware sharing more closely. I became less convinced that this is actually available. What's that on the software side many people don't even believe that it's possible in a reasonable time frame to create simulation software that [00:33:00] can sufficiently accurately simulate the conditions used by a whole range of different approaches to Fusion at the moment. We. Many different pieces of software or yeah codes as the physics Community calls them that they're each validated and optimized for different conditions different temperatures different densities different physical geometries of the plasma that kind of thing. There are some people who believe that we can make software that spans a sufficiently large range of these parameters. As to be useful for a family of fusion approaches. There are even people who claim to be working on them right now. Yeah, and when you dig more deeply you discover, yeah, they're working on them, but they haven't accomplished as much of that unified solution [00:34:00] as they think they have is they say they have so you talk to other people who use these and they're like, yes. Yes, I think those people really have the. I think they might be the people who can do this. They're not there yet. So the notion of spinning up a team of software engineers and plasma physicists and numerical experts and so forth to try to do that came to seem like a bigger lift with much more dubious payback in the relevant time frame than I had initially thought similarly on the hardware side. It is really costly in many ways to reconfigure physical equipment for one experiment and then reconfigure it for another experiment is really bad when you have to move things between locations as well or move a team to a site and configure everything there and then do your experiments for a month, but [00:35:00] it's still bad even. All the people and all the equipment are in when se you get to the most consistent results. If you can leave everything set up and you want to be able to keep going on Saturday or keep going on Monday because you weren't quite done with those through experiments. So to what degree can you really share these results these certain not these results. She killed to what degree can you really share this equipment? Yeah, definitely to some degree to a large enough to agree to justify. Spinning up a whole company. I'm not convinced got it on top of that. If I were to start a company doing this, I would need to find a CEO build up a whole team that I don't have to build when I'm investing in other companies, right? Should I be that CEO of many people assumed that I showed her that I wanted to or something like that. I think it's a really hard sell for [00:36:00] investors that I'm the best person to run this company on the other hand. It wasn't actually clear who should do it. Incentives: How do you measure impact and incentivize yourself? Ben: Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. I want to [00:37:00] go back to you're talking about incentives previously both that your incentives are to both have impact and make money for your shareholders. Yeah, I want to ask first. How do you measure impact for yourself in terms of your incentives you. I mentioned something along the lines of company's existing that would not otherwise exist. So like how it's pretty easy to know. Okay. I've like made this much money. It's a little harder to say. Okay, I've had this much impact. So how do you personally measure that? Malcolm: Yeah, the clearest example of impact so far is another project called fuse annoyingly. Annoyingly the same name is spelt differently. So this is the fusion z-pinch experiment Fu [00:38:00] Ze at the University of Washington. And it's the group that we donated to (Fusion Z-Pinch Experiment. https://www.aa.washington.edu/research/ZaP) it is all four of the companies that have given money to so far are supported by our pennies Alpha program (ARPA-e Alpha Program:https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=arpa-e-programs/alpha ) its Fusion program and all four of them got less money than. Rpe would have liked to have given them. So the time that I became involved with the fuse project they were behind schedule on their rpe milestones and we made them a donation that enabled them to hire an extra two people for the rest of the life of the project that enabled them to catch up with their milestones and become the. Most successful of the fusion programs that are P of fusion projects that are PE has [00:39:00] when I say most successful what I mean is they are hitting their Milestones they are getting very clean results. So there they have a simulation that says as they put more and more current through their plasma. They will get higher temperatures and higher densities basically. Better and better Fusion conditions and that at a certain point they will be making as much energy as they're putting in at a point beyond that they will actually be getting what we call reactor relevant game getting a large enough increase in energy through their Fusion that they could run a reactor off that this and the way we plot their progress is. We look at the increase in currents that they're putting through their pastor and check that they are getting results that match their theoretical results for them. It's especially clean because they have this theoretical concern this theoretical curve [00:40:00] and their experimental results keep falling very close to that curve. So it's a really nice story because the connection between the money that they got. From strong atomics and the people that they hired and the results that they were able to the progress they were able to make with those additional people and the scientific validity of what they were doing is clear at every step. Yeah. So so that's one way that I can see the impact of what I'm doing another way. That's more. Is by being involved in the field and trying to make sure that it all makes sense to me. I wind up having insights or coming to understandings the turn out to be helpful to everyone. So I spent a long time [00:41:00] wondering about the economics of fusion. Companies are understandably mainly focused on getting Fusion to work and they don't spend that much time thinking about the competitive energy Market that they're likely to be selling into 15 or 20 years from now and what that means for their product. I spend time thinking about that because I want to convince myself that the space matters enough to justify my time. So I went through the stock process. And came to the conclusion that the ways that the companies were calculating their cost of energy were wrong. They were assuming that the reactors would be operating more or less continuously and they would be able to sell all of the electricity that they made whereas the reality is likely to be that for five or hours or so every day. No one [00:42:00] will buy their electricity because wind and solar producing cheaper electricity. See, right. So the conclusion that I've come to is well so scratch that so the companies often conclude that they need to be demand following they need to make their reactors able to ramp up and down according to what the demand is right that has other problems because the reactors are so expensive to build and so cheap to run. That ramping your reactor down to follow the demand doesn't actually save you any money. And so it doesn't make the electricity any cheaper. So I worked through all of this and came to the conclusion, which I think most people in the fusion space agree with know that you actually need to have integrated thermal storage. Your reactor is producing typically hot molten salts. Anyway, right and rather than turning that into [00:43:00] electricity. You should store the bats of hot molten salt and then run the reactor continuously and ramp up and down the turbine that is used to go from hot molten salts to electricity interesting turbines are cheap. They have low fixed costs. So you can much more affordably ramp them up and down plus if you were going to be demand following you were already going to be ramping your turbine up and. All I'm saying is keep the turbine demand following right make the reactor smaller so that it can run continuously. Right which is the most efficient way to use a high Capital cost good and then have a buffer of molten salt. So that's the that's a kind of insight that have come to by working through the economics and overall the investment case for Fusion. That I hope will help all the companies not just the ones I'm [00:44:00] investing in. Incentives for LPs Ben: so those are those are your incentives is that combination of impact profit and you also have LPS because of the VC fund structure. Where do you see there? What are their incentives in terms of what they want to see out of this? All right out of your firm Malcolm: my current LP is anonymous and so there's a limit to what I can say about their incentives sure, but they care about climate change. They basically by into my argument that climate change is real and worth mitigating, right and. Fusion is a promising and underinvested potential mitigation. Does the profit motive increase impact? Ben: And to go a [00:45:00] little farther into that this is just a comment about impact investing as a whole so the question is could they get a better return? By tape putting that money into a this definitely putting you on the spot, but I think you could probably make an argument that they might get a better return just on the money putting the money in some other investment vehicle. And so they probably want to see that same impact that you want to see and. I guess the the thing that I'm interested in is does having the profit motive actually increased impact and if so how Malcolm: regarding the potential for profit. When [00:46:00] I started doing this, I thought it was really a charity play. I guess more politely only in Impact play but set up in a for-profit structure so that if it happened to make a profit then the people who had enabled it to happen would be able to share in that profit right as I have. Looked at the space more closely and refined my argument or arguments in this area. I have come to believe that there's a meaningful potential for profit here. This is all hinges on what you think on the chance that you were saying for Fusion working. It's very clear that if you shouldnt Works in a way that is economically competitive. The company that gets there will be immensely valuable assuming that [00:47:00] it manages to retain and say p and that kind of thing. So I've taken stabs figuring out the valuation of one of these companies the error bars are huge. So I got numbers around 25 billion for my low-end valuation closer to a trillion for the high-end. It's really hard to say, but the numbers are big enough on the profit if it works side right that it really boils down to do I think it's going to work that is a hard thing to put numbers on but by investing in a portfolio of them you increase your chances. Risk, Timescales, and Returns vs. Normal Firms Ben: something I know from other VC firms is that. You have to they have to limit their risk. They don't make as risky Investments because of their LPS because they feel they have this financial duty [00:48:00] to return some amount to their LPS in a certain amount of time right? I do you worry about those same pressures. Have you figured out ways around them ways to extend those time scales. Malcolm: I don't think I'm going to be subject to the same pressures because anyone who gives me money is going to be expecting something very different. Yeah, so instead of being subject to those pressures. I think that the same psychology manifests for me as limiting my pool of investors. So it's a real problem. It just plays out differently. Got it. That's it. A few things are different for me because I'm pitching the fund differently a normal fund cannot look at a space and say it's really important that something works in this space, but [00:49:00] it's not clear which company might succeed because there's real science risk, right so normally. Normally the investors to Silicon Valley can decide that this company or these two companies should be the winner and they can all agree that they're going to put all their money in there and they can anoint a winner it will win because it's getting all the money shorter than major Scandal that does not work for in when investing in companies with a heavy science risk. That's why I think you need to invest in a portfolio of companies and a normal fun has trouble doing that because they are obliged by their investment thesis that their investors have signed off on to spread their money out across different different sectors. Okay. So again, that doesn't make life. Magically easy [00:50:00] for me. It means I need to find investors who are on board for doing something different specifically investors who are wealthy enough that they are diversifying their Investments by investing in other funds or Vehicles besides mine and are not expecting diversity from me. But having found those investors, I will then be in a much better position because I can concentrate. In one sector and really solve that or at least strongly supported Is Money the limiting reagent on fusion? Ben: got it that makes a lot of sense. I want to shift and talk about Fusion itself. Okay a little bit more. So I'm sure you've seen the the fusion never plot. I'll put a link up in the show notes. (Fusion Never Plot: http://benjaminreinhardt.com/fusion_never/) So the question is this plot makes it look like if you pour more money in it will go faster. Do you think that's actually the case or is [00:51:00] there something else limiting the rate at which we achieve Fusion Malcolm: if you have to leave the existing spending. Then adding money is a way to make it go faster. But a cheaper alternative is to spend your existing money more wisely the world's Fusion spending and America's Fusion spending to a first approximation all goes in to eat. The international thermonuclear experimental reactor this International collaboration in France. (ITER - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. https://www.iter.org/proj/inafewlines) This thing came about because the next step for a fusion experiment in America and Russia was too expensive for either country to pursue independently, even though everyone's first inclination was surely to keep competing. So became a collaborative [00:52:00] Endeavor and. It's now a collaboration between many countries that things expected to suck up 20 billion or more and has a depressing schedule that ends with Fusion Energy on the grid and 2100. Okay, America puts on the order of a hundred fifty million a year into either directly and say 500 million a year. Into what are called either relevant projects domestic projects where you're trying to learn about something some problem that's relevant either but you're learning in a way that is smaller cheaper better controlled right than a 20 billion dollar massive building where everything is inevitably really complicated the. Other placed in America spends money is on [00:53:00] Neff the national ignition facility, which is really a weapons research facility that is occasionally disguised as an energy research facility. Another way that it's been described to me is the perfect energy research facility what these cynical people meant was it's too small to. (NIF - National Ignition Facility: https://lasers.llnl.gov/) Actually get to ignition or energy Break Even but it's big enough that the people working on it can tell themselves that it might get there. If only they work harder If Only They dedicate the rest of their career to this. So it has large numbers of people who really care about Fusion Energy much more than bombs working on. Because it's the best way that they can see meaning the best funded way that they can see to get there but they don't actually seem to believe that it's [00:54:00] going to get there. They just don't have any choice. So we spent a lot of money on these two programs and that funding would be more than adequate for forgetting to. If we spent it on anything more modern it is not controversial to say that these techniques these two facilities are the best Fusion approaches and experimental setups that we could come up with in the mid-80s the mid-90s when they were being designed that's a fact that's when they were being designed. They've had limited upgrades since but yeah, that's. That's the overall story. What is controversial is weather continuing to support them is the best move. There are people who believe that we need to keep putting money in there [00:55:00] because we're going to learn a lot if we keep doing that science or because if we don't put the money in there, then the money will get pulled and probably stand on bombs or something like that, but it won't come to fusion and so. Better bad money in a fusion than worse money somewhere else, right. My personal view is that eater is such a ridiculous energy project that it harms the entire Fusion field by forcing people to pay lip service. To the validity of its goals that we would be better off admitting that that thing is a travesty and that there are better ways to do Fusion, even if it meant losing the money now, I'm not certain about that. But that's the gamble I would take good news is we probably won't have to take that Gamble and it [00:56:00] looks as if the federal government is becoming much more open to to a yes and approach to funding. The mainstream approaches diffusion if and eater and a variety of projects for alternative approaches and more basic Research into things like tritium handling tritium breeding hardening materials to deal with high-energy neutrons. Lasting longer in the face of high-energy neutrons that kind of thing. So I think there's real momentum towards building a in inclusive program that can support everyone and that is of course the best much as I would take the gamble with killing eater and killing them if they do produce real scientific results, and and if we can have all these things that's a wonderful out. Government Decision Making and Incentives Ben: on that note who ultimately [00:57:00] is the decision maker behind where government Fusion money is spent and what are their incentives? Malcolm: This is America. Is there ever one person who's the decision maker about some Ben: maybe not one person but is it is it Congress is it unelected officials in? Some department. Is it the executive branch? Do you have a sense? Is it some combination of all of them? Malcolm: The money flows through the department of energy a sub-department of the doughy is rpe, which has its 30 million dollar Fusion program and will hopefully have a new and larger Fusion program in the near future. (ARPA-e: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E) There's also the office of Fusion science in an office of Fusion Energy and science ofes that funds a lot [00:58:00] of the mainstream Research into Fusion ( Office of Fusion Energy Science https://science.energy.gov/fes/ ) arpa-e is to my knowledge created by Congress and fairly independent of the doughy, but there's still feuding. I think without describing malice to anyone. It is a great Testament to many people's conviction and political skills that they were able to get America to fund niff and either more or less consistently over decades at a high cost and. Those people are highly invested in those projects continuing. I don't know whether that's because they genuinely believe that that's the best way to spend the money or fear that the money would disappear from Fusion completely [00:59:00] if it stopped or don't think that the Alternatives actually have any scientific credibility or. Are so now trapped by the arguments that they've been making strongly and successfully for decades, but for one reason or another or many reasons, they strongly believe that we need to continue to do these so there is a tension between people who want to fund the Alternatives and the people who want to fund the mainstream fusion Who are the government decision makers? Ben: and who are these people do you have any sense of actually who they are? Like I'm not asking you to name names, but like what is their role? What is their nominal job title? Malcolm: I think it's a bunch of civil servants within the Dewey Congress has a role like cotton Congress gets to decide how much money to provide and that's often attached to a. About how that money will be spent right there have been [01:00:00] Congressional hearings on Fusion the covered either and whether we should continue to fund either it's a lot of different people. What are the roles of Academia, Government, Industry, and Philanthropy? Ben: Okay? Yeah. I'm just really interested in dating you down until I like where we're the incentive structure is set up along those lines in in your mind in sort of an ideal world. what do you see the ideal rolls of the the four Columns of Academia government private investment and philanthropy in making sort of an epic level project like Fusion. Yeah happen. Malcolm: There's a ton of room for government support on this. The federal government has National Labs that have the best computers the best software which is often classified the best testing sites many in many [01:01:00] ways. The only testing site. And lots and lots of experts the one thing that the federal government lacks is a drive to put Fusion Energy on the grid as quickly and as commercially successful as possible. I don't rule out that the federal government could develop that drive but. It seems like a long shot given that there's a lot of disagreement about climate change and energy policy and that kind of thing. So I think that the ideal would be that the federal government supports Fusion research with all of its resources Financial expertise modeling modeling software. Modelling hardware and testing facilities in partnership with Private Industry. So [01:02:00] that Private Industry is providing the drive to get things done. So I imagine a lot of research done at the federal government so that if the current crop of companies bottom out if it turns out that their techniques don't work. We have more Fusion research coming down the pipeline to support a later crop of companies, but we would have companies working closely with the federal government to try to build reactors getting assistance in all those ways from the federal government and providing the drive. The company's would have this. Call of Fusion Energy on the grid that they would be working towards but they would get to use the federal government's resources for the areas that they're focusing on. There are also the areas that the companies are not focusing on areas that are largely common [01:03:00] to all companies and therefore no company views it as on their critical path to demonstrating reactor relevant gain, For example, for example tritium is toxic to humans and difficult to contain. It turns out even hydrogen is difficult to contain it leaks through metal surfaces, but we don't talk about this because hydrogen is. Astonishingly boring and section in small quantities. So we don't care that it leaks out of our containers we do care when tritium leaks out of containers because it's heavily regulated and toxic right? So any Fusion company that's handling Trillium is going to need a way to contain tritium with very low leak rates. Also, the world does not have very much true. You can't actually use tritium as a [01:04:00] fuel for Fusion. You have to breed tritium in your reactor from lithium. So the real inputs to the reactor if it is a deuterium tritium reactor will be do tarian and lithium and you'll be breeding tritium from lithium in your reactor. So we also need to study how we're going to breathe. The tritium right? We're making mathematical calculations about the tritium breeding rate how much tritium we will get out after doing Fusion relative to the amount of tritium. We had before doing fusion and these tritium breeding rates are close to 1 if they're below 1 or really not enough above one. We're screwed, right? So there's important work for academics. And the federal government to do to better understand trillion breathing rates [01:05:00] and what we can do to increase them and write how to make this work. Companies aren't incentivized to look at things on critical path Ben: Right and at the companies are not incentivised to look into that right now because they don't feel like it's on their critical path Malcolm: investors Pope maybe including myself have made it clear to these companies that. What they will reward the companies for is progress on the riskiest parts, right? This is valid you want to work on the Unruh Burning Down the biggest risks that you have, right and everyone perceives that the biggest risk is getting through Fusion conditions. Sorry. In many of these companies are already getting to Fusion conditions, but everyone perceives that the biggest risk is getting Fusion to work getting reactor relevant games from Fusion, right? So compared to that these risks are small and it's [01:06:00] valid to the further, right? If you're a single Company If you're looking from the perspective of a portfolio, which the federal government is best positioned to do which is. Going to be somewhat well position to do then your risks are different you're willing to say I have a portfolio of these companies. I don't care which one succeeds I'm doing what I'm doing, assuming one of them will succeed. Now. What can I do to D risk my entire portfolio, right? You look at it differently and then these problems start to seem critical. So with my second fund one of the things I want to be able to do. Is support academics or maybe for-profit companies that are working on this but the federal government isn't even better fit for this it is perfectly positioned to do this. What does the ideal trajectory for Fusion look like? Ben: I think a good closing question is in your in your Ideal World. would Innovation infusion come into being what would the path look [01:07:00] like? Imagine Malcolm? King of the universe and we started with the world we have today what would happen Malcolm: I think the federal government would do the heavy lifting but it would rely on private companies to really provide the drive. It would the federal government would also support the longer term. Things that are critical but not the highest risks such as the tritium issues today - and perfect. Why do so few people invest in fusion Ben: there anything that I didn't ask that I should have asked about Malcolm: one question that comes up quite often is why so few people invest in Fusion? Yeah and why it is. That I'm the only one with the poor. Ben: Yeah, if you could if it's there's a possible payoff of a trillion dollars, right? And that's even if it takes 20 years the AR are still pretty good. Malcolm: Yeah, the way I think of it [01:08:00] is there's a funnel where. It's like a company's fun offer acquiring customers. But in this case, it's an industry's funnel for acquiring investors and investors are falling out of this funnel at every stage. The first stage is of course, you have to believe in anthropogenic climate change, but we have lots of investors who believe in. Why do you need to believe in climate change to fund fusion Ben: quick question. Why why do you need to believe in that in order to want to fun fusion? Malcolm: Okay, that's a fair point. You don't have to but it's the easiest route. Okay. If you don't believe in climate change, then you have to believe purely infusions potential to provide energy that will be cheaper than fossil fuels, right. I believe a zoo that but it is a higher bar [01:09:00] than I believe the climate change is going to encourage people one way or another to put a premium on clean energy. Got up when I do my modeling. I'm not taking into account carbon taxes or renewable portfolio standards, but it's nevertheless easier to convince yourself to care about the whole thing. If you think that this is an important problem, right? Otherwise you could do it just because you think you can make a whole ton of money, but it is a high-risk way of making money, right? So one way or another let's say you decide you're interested in well. No, I think that's carry on with the. The funnel for a climate change. Yes. Yes, because there are a few more places that they can fall out and these places might apply to an ordinary profit seeking investors as well, but it's less clear. So you've decided you believe in anthropogenic climate change [01:10:00] and you'd like to see what you can do about it. Maybe you then narrow to focusing on energy. That's a pretty reasonable bad energy is something like 70% of our emissions when you track everything back to the root. So perfectly reasonable Pace to focus within energy. There are lots of different ways that you might think you can do something about it. There's geothermal power. There's title power a long range of long tail a large range of long tail. Ways that you can make energy and a lot of people really get trapped in there or they decide they're going to look at the demand side of energy and think about how they can get people to drive less or insulate their buildings better or whatever. And in my opinion most of these people are basically getting stuck on [01:11:00] things that don't move the. Yeah, the don't add up to a complete solution. They are merely incrementally better. So when you look at things that might move the needle on energy, I think that the supply side is way more promising because the demand side is huge numbers of buildings cars people whose habits need to change on and on if you can change the supply side then. It doesn't matter as much if we are insulating our houses poorly driving too much that kind of thing. If we have enough energy we can doesn't matter we can make hydrocarbons. From the raw inputs and energy and we can continue to drive our cars and flat our planes and heat our cart heat our houses that have natural gas furnaces and that kind of thing. Ben: Well, if you have if you have absurd amounts of energy, you can just literally pull carbon out of the air and stick it in concrete right? Malcolm: That's [01:12:00] the other thing. So, I believe that focusing on energy Supply is the right way to go because. With a distributed Grid or not. We have many fewer places that we make energy than where we consume energy and what you said, we're looking at significantly increased demand in the likely or certain case where we need to do atmospheric carbon capture and sequestration. It takes the energy it takes energy to suck the carbon out of the atmosphere and it takes probably. More energy to put it into a form where we can store it for a long time. Right? So I think you need to focus on the energy Supply even within that we have lots of ways of making clean energy that aren't scalable and there's a wonderful book called sustainable energy without the hot [01:13:00] air (Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air https://www.withouthotair.com/ ) that catalogs for the United. All the ways that they could make energy renewably and all the ways that they use energy and is more or less unable to make the numbers add up without throwing new clear in their got it nuclear or solar in the Sahara and then transfer transmitting the energy to to the UK. So that's it. You can probably make Renewables work. If you can start but the problem with Renewables is that well Renewables come in two forms that are the predictable forms like Hydra where we control when we release energy and then the variable Renewables like wind and solar where they make energy when Nature cases for those. We need something to match the demand. That humans have for energy [01:14:00] with the supply that nature is offering and you can try to do that in some combination of three ways. You can over build your Renewables to the point where even on bad days or in Bad seasons, you're making enough energy. You can transmit your energy. You can overbuild you can space shift your energy. By building long distance transmission lines and you can time shifts your energy through storage. Right and it turns out that all three of these have real costs and challenges storage is an area where people get pretty excited. So this is the next point that people fall off. They say wind and solar are doing great. storage isn't solved yet, but gosh it's on these great cost curves and like I can totally see how storage is going to. A solved problem and then Renewables for work and I think there are two problems with that is that these one is [01:15:00] storage actually needs to get a lot cheaper. If you want to scale it to the point that we can use it for seasonal storage. Right? And we need a solution to the seasonal problem. There are places like California the. Vastly more Renewable Power sometimes if you're in the other times of year in California, it's by a factor of 10 or 12. Wow. Yeah, so it's not a day by day. It's Yeah by month and and that's critical because if you are cycling your storage daily just to to bridge between when the Sun's shining and when people need their power you get to monetize your story. Every day you get the entire capacity of your stories roughly right used 365 times a year for the 20 years that your plant is left. Right? If you're cycling it seasonally meaning once a year you get to sell 20 times [01:16:00] the capacity of your storage rather than 20 times 365 times the capacity of your storage. So your storage needs to be one 365th of the price. To hit that same price Target. Yeah. This is a really high bar for storage is economics. So the first problem with betting on storage is it needs to drop in price a lot to really solve the problem. The second problem is lots of people are investing in storage. So if you want your money to make a difference in terms of making you a profit or having an impact on the world. You need to out-compete all those other people working on wind and solar and storage. you're going to play in that space and that leaves something like nuclear. There are compared to Fusion plenty of people investing in various nuclear fission approaches. So again, your company can make a difference your money can make a difference there. [01:17:00] But and it'll be a bigger difference than in wind and solar and storage but a small difference than Fusion. So say you get all the way to I think I want to invest in Fusion. what you now encounter is an industry where everyone you talk to will tell you that their approach is definitely going to work unless they're being really nice and that everyone else is approach is definitely not going to work so. Pretty understandable at that point to give up on the whole Space. So in this is the step before that you have to to get over the hurdle where Fusion is always 10 years way. It's been 10 years away for as long as most of us have been alive, you have to decide that you even want to look at Fusion then you hit the problem where everyone says nasty things about everyone else to a first approximation if you spend a long enough time there you might find a company. The convinces you that they are different that all those other people are crazy [01:18:00] and they're worth investing in but I've talked about why investing in one company is a bad idea to invest in multiple companies. You have to find some advisors or just be Reckless enough that you can so you have to find. Enough advisors who are open-minded or you have to be sufficiently Reckless to just roll a dice on these companies or maybe just sufficiently Rich that you're going to roll the dice on these companies, but it's a real hurdle to find advisors who are experienced and credible and open-minded enough to support investing in a portfolio of these companies. Yes, even then, If you're a regular VC fund which you probably are if you have enough money to do this, right we have the problems that I mentioned earlier where your Charter is to invest in a diverse [01:19:00] set of companies and you can't put enough money in these companies to infusion to support a portfolio of companies. so that is the funnel did ends with as far as I can tell just strong atomics coming out the end as the only fund supporting a portfolio of fusion companies. That's why in my opinion. There are not more people investing in Fusion in general along the way. Outro I got a lot out of this conversation here are some of my top takeaways. There are many ways of structuring organization that's trying to enable Innovations each with pros and cons that depend on the domain. You're looking at Malcolm realize that a VC fund is best for Fusion because of the low return from shared resources and the temperaments of people involved just because there's a lot of money going into a domain. It doesn't mean it's being spent well. I love the way that Malcolm thought very deeply about the incentives of everybody. He's dealing with and how to align them with his [01:20:00] vision of a fusion filled future. I hope you enjoyed that. It's like to reach out. You can find me on Twitter at been underscore Reinhardt. I deeply appreciate any feedback. Thank you.

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Changing How We Do Science with Brian Nosek [Idea Machines #3]