Welcome everyone to Metasode episode 2 and this is my co-host Arnab Deca.
Hello, good morning. It's, well, I can't really believe it's morning.
No, you were supposed to say, and this is my co-host Ilya Benzila because I didn't introduce myself, pay attention dude.
So hold on, hold on. You want me to introduce you and you will introduce me first, like a reflection?
Yeah, I was just playing with it. I thought it would be fun.
Okay. All right. Let's do it.
Okay, dear listeners. Today is January 30th and man. Okay, so here's what Arnab and I have done.
We've recorded a bunch of episodes. So today is January 30th. Four of our episodes have come out,
but we have like six or seven more already recorded. And they will be published up until through, I think, end of March.
This particular Metasode, a reflection on Jake and Jonathan interview, we recorded back in November.
And so what I'm realizing now Arnab is that-
We have too much content.
Oh, well, that's one thing. But second, we are missing an opportunity to reflect on what happened after we published the episode.
Yeah.
So yes, we recorded the interview. Maybe a week later, we did our Metasode recording.
And it's great because our memories are still fresh, so we can reflect pretty well.
But what we miss out on is like Brian's episode, our episode number two came out, what, three weeks ago almost?
Yeah.
And then Brian mentioned us in his Tech Meme Right Home episode, Friday's episode, I think two weeks ago.
Yeah.
And then our downloads just skyrocketed from like 20 to three or 400.
Skyrocketed is a relative term, but yeah, it did grow quite a bit.
But it was exponential growth, man. In order of magnitude.
Yes, it was awesome to see. And I think just on Anchor, it was showing about four or 500, right?
There's more on the other platforms.
So, and one thing that we really missed an opportunity on, I think, is to include Brian's introduction of our episode in his show, in our show.
I want to keep that for posterity, because the way he introduced our show is like, we could just use this as an intro, because he's just so good that he has his radio voice and stuff.
So, let's actually include it here, and then go into the next topic that we have.
No bonus episode for you this weekend, but if you fear missing my voice, guess what? I've got the next best thing.
A couple months ago, I sat down with the hosts of the Metacast podcast. Metacast is the podcast about podcasting.
And for two hours, not only did I tell them about how I do this show in great detail, but basically the majority of the show is me giving them my entire career story.
So, if you've ever been curious about how I got to hear from film school to my dot-com-era startups to my web 2.0-era startups, it's all there.
Check it out.
Final link in the show notes.
Metacast, the podcast about podcasting.
Talk to you on Monday.
One, two, three, done!
So, the other thing that we wanted to include into this episode that we would have missed out on if this didn't happen.
Last weekend, I put together a tent in my backyard so that my kids and I could spend the night sort of camping in Florida.
Florida is a suburbia.
But you are next to the Everglades, right?
I'm next to Everglades, but, you know, Everglades is a river and there are alligators there, so I don't think it's a good idea to go camping there.
No, no, but I mean like in terms of the feel for camping, you are pretty much next to the Everglades, so it makes sense, yeah.
We had these crickets and, you know, the palms.
Yeah, it was very nice.
My younger one, he's four, he goes to bed at eight.
So, obviously, eight is too early for me, but I can't leave him sleeping in a tent by himself because we have, you know, possums, rabbits, all that kind of, you know, life creatures running around, especially the possums.
Possums are kind of scary with their huge teeth, even though they are supposed to be quite friendly and all.
And you're next to the Everglades again, even though there is a wall separating everything.
Yeah, that's actually true because like when I was sleeping in the tent, I was imagining what would happen if an alligator came in, what would I do?
But yeah, that episode is already too long.
So, by the way, I don't think you would do anything.
It's up to the alligator at that point, what they want to do.
Yeah, I think you're right.
Anyway, okay, yeah, let's not.
Let's not make it like a two-hour episode, our first two-hour episode.
Yeah, let's not make it Jonathan's podcast.
Okay, so I had two hours from eight to 10 or so before my older son came to the tent that I basically had to do nothing.
And my younger was sleeping, it's like dark.
So, I put on headphones and started listening to Jonathan Courtney's, the guest of our last episode, a new podcast called The Unscheduled CEO.
Right.
I remember when we recorded the episode back in November, he wanted to do a sub stack, The Unscheduled CEO.
So, what he ended up doing, his sub stack is called howtobusiness.substack.com.
And then in early January, he also launched the Unscheduled CEO podcast, which I only learned about last week when I was writing show notes.
And I was searching for Unscheduled CEO, and then I found that, but I didn't have time to listen to it.
I linked to it in show notes anyway.
Actually, here's what I expected.
So, I listened to the first episode, but I just couldn't stop.
So, I kept binging on Jonathan's show and listened to the second episode.
Right.
Then next day, we had to drive somewhere, and I had spent maybe an hour and a half in the car or so.
So, I listened to his third episode.
Right.
And today, his fourth episode came out, and yeah, I listened to about half of it already.
It's so good.
And so, what we wanted to do here is to record a reaction to Jonathan's episode because there is
something, there is definitely something to react to there.
And well, we are doing this for a reason, right?
Because Jonathan is pretty raw in how he talks about stuff, and he's very transparent.
So, he will also be very transparent.
Yeah.
When I listened to his second episode, which is absolutely amazing.
He talks about work-life balance and stuff.
I commented on his sub-stack that, "Man, this is so great.
I think we will do a meta-sode on your podcast because of just how meta your first episode is."
And he's like, "Yeah, let me do a reaction on your reaction."
And I'm like, "This is a perfect marketing opportunity."
So, why wait?
So, while his memory is fresh, we should just do it now.
So, we are doing a pre-action so that he can react to it.
A pre-emptive reaction?
The summary is, this episode, we have already recorded the whole this fifth episode that you're
listening to, Raoul.
Yeah, the whole next one and a half hours that you'll be listening after this.
The next one and a half hours after we are done with this part.
That was already recorded in November.
And then we learned about this new podcast that Jonathan had talked about in November that he wants
to launch, but had not come out yet.
And so, Ilya listened to it and then I listened to the first two episodes today.
And so, yeah, we thought, okay, let's actually, while our episode for Jake and Jonathan,
the meta-sode is going out in two days on Wednesday.
Today is Monday.
And so, we thought, okay, let's just add a little bit of Jonathan's new podcast in there.
Five to ten minutes, right?
And ten minutes into the recording, we're just starting to discuss it.
We are so Jonathan Corky at this point because that's what his podcast is.
I'll try to summarize this because I listened to more of it than you did.
He wanted to start a podcast where he talks about his business, NGA in Smart,
and how he wants to take it to the next level.
So, it sounds like what they're generating right now in terms of revenue is
more than 5 million euros, but less than 10 million.
And he wants to take it over 10 million dollars.
And what I want to talk about today is the one simple rule
that will double my revenue in 2023.
So, in the first episode, he talks about things like, I think he calls it the 10-12 rule,
where he is only engaged in decisions that will make at least 10 million euros in 12 months.
And previously, and actually his team operates on the other rule, which is 1-12.
They need to make 1 million in 12 months.
So, he is kind of upping his game as a CEO to go to the next level.
And in the second episode, he talks a lot about the work-life balance and how all of that is just
total bullshit and like a stupid concept.
I think that's what he says.
And he reads a lot of comments from his sub stack.
And LinkedIn.
Yeah, it's about one and a half hours long.
And half of it is spent him rumbling about stuff.
And the second half is spent him reading the questions and responding to those questions.
And we can talk a little bit about how he does it because he does it really superbly, in my opinion.
The second episode was really interesting because he was actually reading somebody else's article,
even two articles, and he's absolutely terrible at reading.
And then we like how in the third episode, he's like, "Oh, I listened to how I read the article
in the second episode." And like, boys or guys, it's not going to get better.
It's going to be like the same, like bad reading this time as well.
The first article that he read, that was, I think, the atomic, like how we break down
everything into atomic parts and atomization of life.
Yeah, that was actually pretty well read.
The second one, my God, I think what happened is he was so excited about it
that he kept interacting in every few seconds, at least in the beginning.
But yeah, it was pretty nice.
Do you want to talk a little bit about the live feel?
Because he's clear about it, right?
Like, don't give me feedback about this.
I actually want to talk about Pierce Brosnan, because you haven't listened to that one yet.
No, I haven't listened to the third one yet.
In the third episode, he pulled an interview by Pierce Brosnan.
Okay.
And by the way, dear listeners, if you don't know who Pierce Brosnan is,
according to Jonathan Corky, you are bad people.
So I'm going to explain who he is.
Actually, no, we can be less mean to our listeners.
So we can say that Pierce Brosnan is an actor who played a bunch of James Bond movies, I think in the 90s or early 2000s.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's a kind of nice looking Irish guy.
Maybe that's why Jonathan likes him, because Jonathan is Irish.
And he comments on all the things that Pierce Brosnan says, which is like, compared to his second episode, which was very focused on a specific topic.
The third episode was very entertaining.
Okay, you gave it away.
Because he starts the third episode by saying the first one was like all sorts of chaos.
The second one was better than that.
And maybe the third one is going to get more focused.
The third one is an average of the first two.
Okay.
Yeah.
So the first episode, like when I start listening to it, I actually went to a coffee shop to get some coffee for my wife.
And I listened to, I think, eight minutes of that episode in my car.
And then I actually took a screenshot and I posted it on my Instagram saying that Jonathan podcast is really good.
Eight minutes in, still no content, essentially.
But the rumble is good.
I actually looked at when he started talking about the main topic.
I think it was about 27 minutes in.
Let's play a very small clip of what the first episode feels like.
The first 27 minutes of it.
I'm recording everything live.
There's no editing.
I'm using this Rodecaster Pro 2 thing, which is not fucking working.
Yeah, I've got braces.
They're making noises.
I can hear them in my head, you know.
Let's do it.
Oh, okay.
I'm taking a sip.
Oh, what a piece of ****.
Oh, this is very risky.
Is my mouth making that noise?
Let's see if this works.
Maybe, I don't know how loud it is.
I mean, I literally just figured out how to get the music working.
Please only review it if you're going to give it five stars.
I'm not looking for honest feedback.
I like the live feel.
He's openly saying that this is more like a, I think, a live, unedited stream of consciousness kind of podcast.
It's like a Twitch stream, right?
Yeah, it's like a Twitch stream in audio podcast format.
And I think I like his authenticity in that, like always.
Maybe he does say like, oh, maybe this podcast will make $10 million someday.
But I don't think that's the intention.
The intention for him is to have fun, share his stream of consciousness thoughts.
And it's an interesting topic, like holistically, like, and you and I asked him in our podcast episode last week, too.
Like, how can you be the CEO of a company and be completely unscheduled?
Oh, I don't have a schedule.
Right.
It's very uncommon.
So I think it's a great topic.
And I won't say that I didn't enjoy all the technical problems and all that, which is, again, very authentic on brand for him.
But the actual meat of the episode, I did like.
I do have some disagreements with a few things, but more or less, I think the work life integration that he's talking about that you and I have talked about, to be honest, too.
Right.
Like, this is how we want to shape our lives.
Yeah.
Actually, if you have disagreements with him, you might go to his sub stack, howtobusiness.substack.com.
Yes.
And leave that comment.
And he has a lot of comments there last time I checked.
So he may or may not respond to yours, but he might.
And he's really good at very respectfully, actually honoring the people who ask the question.
Yeah.
No, I think I will comment in there.
I just listened to it like half an hour ago because we were going to record this.
I was like, OK, I have to listen to at least the first two.
And I'm enjoying it.
Yeah.
So coming back to that first episode, the reason why I enjoyed it so much, because it's like I almost want to take half that episode and publish it on ours, just as an example of how people can start podcasts.
Yeah.
Because what he did, he bought this thing.
I checked it out.
It's called the Roadcaster.
Yeah.
Pro, I think.
Yeah.
It's like, it looks like a mixing board.
So it's like a thing with those sliders, like a physical thing you put on your desk with sliders and buttons.
It's a device, not a piece of software.
It costs $800 on Amazon.
So you connect your microphone to it and it has buttons.
You can press buttons and it plays music and some like audio effects that you heard in one of the previous clips.
Wait, wait, which one was your most hilarious one?
The most hilarious one?
Yeah.
Why do you think?
Mine was the one where he said, okay, audience, what do you think?
And all the audience was like, woo!
How was that intro?
Oh, thanks.
Thank you, everybody.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, that was very good.
He was like, thank you.
Thank you.
I really appreciate it.
So he's been so silly in this, but at the same time, it comes across like he's not trying to be silly.
I mean, it's just like his demeanor, right?
And it just comes across so authentic.
So it's like he says he's not trying and he is not trying.
He is not trying what?
To make it polished.
Yeah.
Make it polished.
Make it funny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just like he is funny by nature.
He's also very kind of good natured and very, very nice person, right?
I mean, this is why our episode, if you listen to it, the episode number four, which was the one with Jake and Jonathan.
Well, basically half full of love.
Jake and Jonathan.
Oh, she's as bad as it always was.
So, yeah, the interesting thing that he says at the end is like, thank you for listening.
If you got to this place.
And I'm like, of course you got to this place.
Or at least I got to that place.
Like the very end of the episode.
Yeah.
Because I just enjoyed it so much.
And I think a lot of other people also enjoyed it.
And Jonathan himself, he is, I think, pretty self-aware.
And he is saying in one of the episodes that he thinks this podcast can get big and it will be part of the $10 million play that he is pursuing.
And by episode three, he had a thousand listeners already.
I don't know if he's measuring listeners to downloads.
So, I don't know what metric he's looking at.
Because the plays, the downloads, it's a really inflated metric.
It's like a vanity metric.
It shouldn't be looked at, in my opinion, at all.
We can talk about that in another episode.
So, in episode four, he talks about the performance of episode three.
So, there were 1,500 listeners.
That's a lot.
And he wants to get to 10,000 by end of March.
And that's what he says in his podcast.
Please share this podcast because I will stop doing it if not enough people listen to it.
Please.
I really like what you said.
This is a really good example for somebody who wants to start podcasting.
Don't worry about all the technicalities.
And don't even get yourself an $800 device, right?
If you're just starting out podcasting.
And the $400 microphone.
Yes.
Which he also got in the third episode.
Yes.
Which is a microphone that you want to get.
You were telling me, Ilya.
Like, now I just feel so jealous.
Because if you listen to Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss or whoever else uses SM7B, they just sound nice from the get-go.
You don't know what these people sound otherwise.
And then you listen to Jonathan on this crappy microphone for the first two episodes.
I think it was like a Rode microphone or something.
And then third episode, he just sounds so much better.
My first thought was, like, did he start processing audio?
Because you just can't sound so good.
Yeah.
And then he says that he bought an SM7B.
And, yeah, it makes perfect sense.
And now I'm like, I now have this thing.
Like, I want to sound like him.
But to your point, you know, I shouldn't fixate on the quality.
We have to get the goods.
And if the goods are good, it doesn't matter what the sound quality is.
Exactly.
I, in fact, started feeling like we are doing too much post-processing already.
Yeah.
I mean, his works because his audience is aware of that, his style.
And he's also very openly saying that if you don't like this, don't listen, right?
It's pretty okay.
He's also a better speaker than we are.
Yes.
We want more and more people to listen to us.
So our, I think, appetite for that is much less.
I really like his, essentially, he decided that I want to do a podcast and he started doing it.
And he did it.
Like, the first episode is literally his trial run.
Like, literally.
Like, like the trial run with the equipment that he doesn't know how to use.
And he just, like, pokes around in real time.
Because he doesn't want to spend more time doing post-processing or pre-processing or learning these things.
He's just doing it right at that time.
And I like that.
Yeah.
It was very authentic.
Yeah.
I think 99.9% of people in the world would be embarrassed to do what he did in the first episode.
And actually, if they did this, it would not have worked.
It would have backfired on them.
Yeah.
But maybe because of his personality, because of the brand that he's built, it actually works very nicely.
I agree.
But I think for somebody who's just starting, it would be very easy for them to essentially just cut all of that out.
Which is something that Jonathan doesn't want to take the time in doing that, right?
And it actually adds to his podcast.
So it makes sense.
But if you're somebody just starting out and you just recorded a lot of things and you are trying out the equipment or you have technical problems while doing it, just cut it all out.
It doesn't take much time.
But don't basically fixate on getting it right, getting it perfect from the get-go.
Yeah.
I disagree about it.
I think my thing is get it out, right?
Like, if your content is good, then the rest doesn't really matter.
Yeah.
I think the reason why it works for Jonathan really is, I mean, he's done podcasting.
He's done content production before.
He knows what works kind of story-wise, the way he kind of builds up his stuff.
And so he has the goods, paraphrasing.
Well, actually, quoting Brian, our second guest.
Brian McCullough, who's the first guest, second episode.
Second episode, yes.
Yes.
But anyway.
Because the guest of the first episode was you, who is not a guest.
Right.
Meta guest.
Yes.
So yeah, I think that I really like in his podcast and how he shares openly his numbers of the business.
In the third episode, he was talking about the product, the community of facilitators that they launched.
They were about to launch.
And then in today's episode, episode number four, he's talking about how it made them 80,000 euros.
One thing that I've always liked working with and at places that have been very transparent about everything.
And you and I know early on, I think Amazon, like when you started and when I was there early on, it was very open.
And even now it's pretty open, given like how big of a company it is.
Everything was in metrics in a data warehouse, if you remember.
Yeah.
You want to look at anything, anybody in the company could query for anything and find out.
Unless it was like personal details and something that absolutely needs to be secured.
So yeah.
Yeah.
I really like that.
And some of the other companies I worked at were also like that, where everything was transparent and open.
Yeah.
I am naturally gravitated to things like that.
And I did like that style of his talking about his business inside out.
I really enjoy that.
Yeah.
There was actually another podcast called The Founder's Journey.
The Founder's Journey by Josh Pickford.
He did it maybe three or four or five years ago.
He was talking about his process of starting a startup that eventually I think he sold.
Where he was recording, I think maybe weekly, maybe even more frequently, episodes about how the business went.
And like what they learned last week, all that stuff.
But it was very transparent.
I think he also shared numbers.
Actually, I reached out to Josh on Twitter.
He never responded.
It's a shame.
We would love to have him on our podcast.
So now we have to stop this, Arnav, because it's 29 minutes in.
And the transition is back into the reflection on the Jack and Jonathan episode.
That we recorded two months ago.
So one quick thing.
If you're interested, go listen to Jonathan's new podcast, The Unscheduled CEO.
I think it's pretty fun.
If you don't know him or haven't heard to his podcast before, give it at least like an hour.
And like he says, do it while you're doing dishes or whatever, right?
But don't give up after the first 25, 30 minutes if you don't know his style, right?
Because he's literally like trying to figure out how to use this device to record the podcast.
Yeah, I would say even skip the first episode altogether.
Just go straight to the second episode, because the second episode is really good.
Right.
It's like, I think it will be his most popular episode.
And it will probably be the most structured episode ever that he's ever done.
Or will ever do.
And if you like Apple TV's Severance show, have you watched it, Ilya?
My wife did, she, so I know the story.
Okay, I watched it.
I think I told you to watch it too.
Find some time to watch it at some point.
I loved it.
I do think it's a bit dystopian and extreme.
But yeah, if you liked it, I think that episode's topic would be near and dear to you too.
Right, yeah.
Okay, let's transition back to the originally recorded Jake and Jonathan's Reflection podcast back from November.
Yes.
And actually, from now on, maybe if we have something to talk about, we can insert another half hour to all of our future episodes.
Just like that.
But try to keep it to, I don't know, five minutes.
I mean, today we tried to keep it to, before we started recording, we said we'll keep it to five to ten minutes.
You said this, I didn't even try, because I knew it's not going to work.
On to the Metasode.
Yes.
See you next week.
Or no, see you in five minutes, and then again, see you next week.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Metasode episode two, which is Metacast episode five.
And to have you confused even more, this is my co-host, Arnab Deca.
Hello, and this is my co-host, Ilya.
So you don't dare pronounce my last name, do you?
Best I love.
Right.
That's not actually hard.
Yeah.
We should probably talk a little bit about this episode and Metasode and all that and explain what's going on.
Yeah, let's do it.
Because I think it's finally sinking into our heads now, after a few episodes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Do you want to give your version first?
Sure.
Yeah.
So what's happening is, we originally started recording this podcast, which is Metacast,
because it's a podcast about podcasts, with the idea that we'll have people who run podcasts or have run podcasts and bring them on the show as guests.
And we'll do it every two weeks.
I think in our third episode, one of the episodes anyway.
I think it was the fourth episode.
Fourth episode with Jake and Jonathan.
They said, it's probably a better idea to do it weekly.
And we decided, okay, actually, that makes sense.
And we kind of, we probably have chemistry.
You folks who are listening to it will decide better.
But we felt we have some chemistry.
And we thought, okay, so maybe we should do one episode in between that is a reflection on our episode with the guests.
And we'll call that a meta-sode.
So these meta-sode episodes are going to be a podcast about a podcast about a podcast.
The podcast, podcast, podcast.
Yes.
That's the right one.
I'm sure no one is confused anymore.
But Ilya, do you want to give your take?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that everything is super clear for everybody right now.
So one thing that we should warn our listeners about is that those meta-sodes,
even though we do have specific topics we want to cover,
we want to talk about the things that went well, the things that we learned from the previous recording.
But also, we will go on tangents.
And hopefully those will be fun because, you know, one thing actually I learned from the Jake and Jonathan episode.
Remember, I think it was Jake who said that at some point we just decided that we don't care what other people think.
We just do what's fun for us.
Well, I guess we are not that extreme.
But I would like to borrow some of that.
So if you go on some tangents because they're interesting to us, there will certainly be people who will like that as well.
But there will be people who are off-put by that.
And yeah, if you're one of those people, just listen to our interview episodes.
Yeah, and we'll clearly call it out in the title that this is a meta-sode.
And yeah.
But I think it's also going to be interesting for people who are like us, who are starting the podcast journey.
Because we'll be discussing how we schedule these interviews, what went right, what went wrong, our whole process about it.
So it's kind of like a reflection for ourselves as well as probably good learning for people who are starting their own podcasts.
Yeah.
And also in those meta-sodes, we should talk about how the previous meta-sode recording went.
So it's the meta-sode meta-sodes.
One sec.
And now it's my dog, of course, who doesn't want to stay outside without me.
And now he wants to go out.
Well, I just hope he doesn't fart.
Yeah.
His farts are not that loud, though.
They're smelly, but they're not loud.
So it's okay.
So there was one thing that I wanted to really tell the audience about and tell you about that, that I forgot to mention in our first episode.
When we did the recording with one person for my other podcast, she probably was a little bit hungry.
And all of the belly sounds that she experienced, of her belly asking for food,
they're all on the recording.
And so, yeah, those little sounds, they can be really fun, but they can also be distracting.
So as you know, I do intermittent fasting, right?
So I don't eat until the afternoon.
And most of our recordings are always in the morning, which means you will probably hear a lot of my belly sounds every episode.
The difference with that person was that she was recording on her phone in a sock.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, go listen to the first episode.
And it was positioned at kind of very close to her belly.
Yeah.
So I think, I think with you using a cardioid mic, you have your Blue Yeti in cardioid mode.
It should not pick up the belly sounds.
So that's not advertisement for Blue Yeti.
Like, send it to cardioid mode, forget about the belly sounds in your podcast.
Or farts, for that matter.
Yeah, that's a great point.
Plus, also, I think what you're talking about, the lesson here is, if you regularly have food in the morning, and you're recording a session in the morning, then make sure to have food before that.
Right?
Because my body is also, at this point, I think, used to not having food.
So my stomach is probably not, like, rumbling all around in the mornings as much.
Yes.
The key other lesson here is burps.
You know, I have had a few recordings where people would burp during the recording.
It's not like, you know, it's more like they just, excuse me, kind of thing.
But then they do this in the middle of a sentence.
Right.
And so even if you cut those out, you still hear that hesitation in the middle of the word or, like, the sentence that they were saying.
So I would say, if you want to burp, finish a sentence, burp, wait a little bit, and then continue.
Sounds during the speech, they're really hard to cut.
And I think, and they're fine.
I think most listeners will not even hear them.
But I guess to my trained ear, I just can't help noticing them.
So just in general, like, trying to minimize those external sounds, I think is a good idea.
So they said...
Oh, sorry.
And whenever something does happen, like, sometimes you would have to burp or, like, I don't know, fart.
I don't know, right?
But if you have to do that, you have to do that.
But the point is, take a long pause before, do the thing, and then take a long pause after.
This way, you can edit it out pretty cleanly without making it sound very unnatural or producing, like, a kind of sound.
Right, yeah, ideally, you just re-record the entire sentence, so that you don't actually have to stitch things together, even.
You just, you know, make it sound as if you said it right the first time, and didn't fart in between.
So, this said, can we start this episode with a piece of feedback?
Can you take feedback on that?
You sure?
Yes, let's see, I might fart in your face.
But let's see.
Well, I'm so, I'm so glad you're at the opposite side of the continent.
And for those of you who listened for us for the first time, I'm in Florida, and Arnab is in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is probably, well, if you were in Alaska, you would be a lot farther away.
Yeah, even farther, yeah.
Yeah, but yeah.
This is getting close to the furthest places you could be in, in North America, yeah.
Fartest places?
Yeah.
Okay, so here's, here's the,
feedback I want to give you about the last Metasode recording.
As I was editing, I heard a few noises from your phone of messages.
It sounded like an iMessage.
So it was a sound like ding.
And I think there was a tiny bit of vibration coming as well.
So here's a tip for everybody, but for you in particular, Arnab.
put your phone in the not disturb mode or, you know, airplane mode or just get it out of the room entirely.
Right.
No, I think I did get messages that day.
I think the ding wasn't from me, but there was vibration.
Even in silent mode, I think there's a bit of vibration.
Right?
However, it was, it was on your recording.
Oh, interesting.
I thought the ding was from Jonathan's side, but...
No, no, it was when we recorded the one-on-one Metasode.
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
Got it, got it.
I think I did switch everything to silent.
I like your setup too, where you use the iPhone's focus modes, right?
And like, basically everything disappears.
Yeah, should I talk about that really briefly?
Because I suppose a lot of people struggle with picking up their phone all the time and getting
distracted by notifications and all that.
One thing I did about a month ago, I started using the iOS's focus modes.
Actually, people on Android, I don't know if they can replicate that as well with Android
functionality, I cannot tell.
If I had to guess, Android probably had it like a few years back.
Okay, yeah, and then Apple came, copied what Android does, but made it like 10x better.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so I now have a few focus modes, one of which is a personal mode, where I just have
a few icons on my home screen, like stuff for reading and listening mostly, like Audible
and podcasting app and Kindle, and a couple of messaging apps, like iMessage, Signal, and
Whatsapp, that's pretty much it, and a couple of music apps, like the drum machine and stuff like
that. And I turned off all of the notifications, not even the red circles on the, on the apps,
except for iMessage and the phone, because that's the tool I primarily use for interaction with my
wife when she, you know, when she's not next to me. So I don't want to miss those.
The notification, red circles, that's not a focus mode setting, right? That's just, you just turn it
off for everything all the time.
You can do it in per focus.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah. So I use that, that mode, which means like, if I want to open Instagram or even Gmail, I actually
have to search for that app. Like I have to like type text. So there's a lot of friction there,
but also because there are no notifications and no circles, and I don't even see the icons. I
actually don't look at those. Oh, I should never have to burp.
No. No, it's like as a, was it easy to burp on Commando after you suppress it when it came
naturally?
Like I suppressed it and now I have this kind of burp stuck in, in my body. It didn't come out. Um,
but now I'm so conscious about like the need to burp. I don't know what to do about it. Um,
it'll come when it comes. Yeah. Just let it flow naturally. So yeah, I have that focus mode that
basically I don't get any, almost any notifications during the day. Um, and for the night I use a sleep
mode, which basically shuts my phone off. It becomes almost unusable. It turns on at around 9:00 PM. I
think I just try to stay off screens after eight. I go to bed at 10:00, 10:30 nowadays, so I can wake up at
six to, you know, do some stuff in the morning, have this time for myself while kids are still asleep. Yeah.
And I also have a fitness mode when I just go for a walk, for example, like I don't do my match sport,
but like when I go for a walk, I walk daily. I just turn the outdoor walk on my Apple watch and
then the phone automatically goes into the fitness mode and fitness mode. I have all notifications
disabled except for the phone. So only if somebody calls me, then it will go through. Otherwise I'm
not distracted. So I can actually focus on things around me on life. Yeah. There are, I think a few
more modes you could set up. I think these two or these three are enough for me, but yeah. Um,
you can like customize and add any modes, any focus modes you want. I think.
Yes. I think that personal one, I believe I just created the custom one. I just crafted it from
scratch. Right. I think the function that at least people I talked to don't know about
is that you can create a new set of icons for the home screen and you can have a custom set of icons
for, you know, all of those modes for each of those modes. That's the one I didn't know about because
notifications wise, I basically have everything turned off all the time anyway, like Facebook and
Instagram and recording the podcast, right? That was, I think like maybe a WhatsApp or something like
that. Uh, yeah. But other than that, pretty much everything is turned off. No, in fact, WhatsApp is
turned off too. Maybe it was signal. Anyway, doesn't matter. I have a few things that can send me
notifications like Slack and signal and few things. But what I didn't know that I saw you doing was when
you were in a specific mode, there's only like five things on your screen.
Now it's more, uh, it used to be five, but then I started to doing, I started to do more music. So I added
like a drum, drum machine thing on it. It's, I guess, as a rule on the first screen, outside of the
messaging apps, everything else is, uh, stuff that is very proactive, like audible or Kindle or the drum
machine, they wouldn't try to pull me into the app for me to do some stuff. It's like when I have time,
you know, I read or listen, when I, uh, want to play the guitar, I've turned on the drum machine.
So those are, you know, non-intrusive apps, if it makes sense. Yeah. And actually, actually,
I do have a second screen. I forgot to mention that. So I also have a second screen in my personal
focus that has all of the smart home icons just for easier access to things like the Nest thermostat,
you know, like controlling the temperature. And also it has the Amazon icon also just in case I need
to obsessively compulsively buy something. Like I was like... The Amazon icon is on your like that mode?
Okay. Here's the thing. I have a friend, like he's, he's a very kind of wealthy individual and, um, he
tells me a lot of good stuff. One of the things that he told me is like, why do you spend time on like doing
kind of garbage non-value ad work? Right. And that includes shopping. I'll give you an example.
We bought the Christmas tree a few days ago and we started decorating the tree. And what we realized
is that our Christmas lights no longer work. I guess some fuse burned out and, uh, I couldn't fix it.
So my wife is like, can you go to Home Depot and bring a new ones? Home Depot is about 15, 20 minutes drive,
one way. So it's going to be like an hour, a full hour that I have to spend to go and get like 10 bucks
worth of stuff. And I told her that, you know what? It can probably wait two days.
So we went to Amazon, we found the Christmas lights that we needed. We ordered them. They arrived
yesterday. We put them on the Christmas tree. It saved me one hour. So I started to use Amazon more
for this kind of small stuff that I would normally just go to like a grocery store for. Right.
Instead, I just order it. I know it's not good because it's like all these boxes and stuff,
but man, it's so convenient. Right.
Yeah. And, uh, yeah, and actually a specific, a specific example that my friend was coaching me on,
like I had to drop my car off for like an oil change. And he's like, why don't you get the
contract where they come and pick up your car and, uh, give you a loaner car and then they give you
your car back like at your house. And I'm like, this, this is a good idea. I mean, I haven't done it.
I actually don't know if it even exists. He, he's in Europe and Switzerland. It's where all the rich
people live. Uh, but yeah, but in general, that was a good lesson because I'm like, why did I spend like
two hours of my time, actually more than two hours of my time that I could have spent,
you know, talking to you or recording the podcast or doing the editing or, you know, working or
actually just spending time with my children for like completely like wasted time kind of activity.
I forgot what we started from, uh, but yeah,
you just did it again.
I still have a remnant of a cold from last week left. So coughing up a little bit, but I think
I took your feedback, not to cough in between, take a pause before and after.
Okay. 20 minutes in. And is it was me like talking for 15 minutes out of the first 20.
Let's talk about Jake and Jonathan. Uh, for those of you who haven't listened to the, to the previous
episode, uh, Jake Knapp and Jonathan Courtney, uh, great product design guys who did the Jake and
Jonathan podcast, also known as product breakfast club. And, uh, yeah, we sent them an email.
Actually, let me take a step back. We were looking for the first people to invite on our show.
And Brian McCullough was, uh, probably one of the first people I emailed and he responded right away.
We got him on. That was great. So yeah, it was really awesome that he agreed to talk to us.
Then, then I was, um, I really wanted to get Jake and Jonathan, or at least one of them,
because I really love their show. Uh, they just talk about stuff. I love them.
And then I was looking them up. I found Jake Knapp's website where there was a contact form
and you could request a speaking engagement from him. And one of the fields was like, how much are we
going to pay him for that? I'm like, Oh my God. But, and then I almost actually didn't send the form.
I'm like, uh, like how do I work around that? So what I did is in the notes, you know, whatever,
the message field, I wrote that, you know, we are doing this podcast and, um, I really love their show
and how the rumble about Gandalf and all that stuff. And I told him that we cannot offer any fee
for him talking. So that's just going to be fun. If he wants to fun, you know, why not respond to us?
Yeah. And he responded in a few days and he pulled in, uh, Jonathan Courtney, his, uh, cohost
and it took maybe three or four weeks for us to schedule. And finally we, uh, yeah, we had the
recording that was, that was great. So what were your takeaways from that?
Uh, before we get to the takeaways, I have like three or four, three or four things before the
takeaways. No, no, no. Just one thing before the takeaways. So it was very smooth to schedule,
but I think one, maybe we'll touch upon this again later on, but it was hilarious in the episode. We
talked about it too, that we, you and I talked about like, when can we meet them? Right. Because
one of them is in Berlin, I believe. And Jake is in New York or California.
I think he is in Seattle.
Oh, he's in Seattle. Okay. Anyway. So, so we have Vancouver, Seattle, Florida, and Berlin.
So we were figuring out what would be ideal time slots. Let's figuring out before,
before we send it out to them. And you and I came up with like, I don't know, three,
four weeks of 50 different slots, I think. Right. So we did the doodle thing where you specify the
time slots you're available and other people can choose from those. Yeah. As you said, we had many,
many slots there. Jake didn't even reply, I believe. And Jonathan just picked one slot out of all those.
And then I just responded. I'm like, okay, so it looks like the three of us can do that slot.
Jake, can you make it too? Yeah. And he said, yes. And then, yeah, they showed up on time and
there were no issues. I think we stayed a little bit over. So that was really great.
So by the way, I know you will be looking in your notes in VS code on your computer and you have a
very loud keyboard. So for those of you who don't know Arne, he has this keyboard where like, no matter
how hard he presses the buttons, you will get a headache if you like work next to him. And he also like
pounds them like crazy. That's because he, you know, when he works, like when you work in the office,
he would listen to music with his headphones. He actually doesn't realize how loud he was
on the recording. Don't do it. Yeah. No, I'm very conscious about not using the keyboard in any
meetings at all. And for the, for reference, this is a mechanical keyboard, a DAS keyboard. And I think it's the
cherry green, which gives you the most tactile feedback, but also the loudest ones.
Why do you like loud keyboards?
So it's not the loudness that I like. I don't really care. It's the tactile feedback. And there
are different. So in like mechanical keyboards, there are four or five different flavors of keys that you
can get like blue and brown and green, that sort of stuff. The one I tried four or five of them,
different ones. And the ones that I liked the most, they have the most feedback when you're like typing,
but also happened to make the most noise because of that.
And what do you mean by feedback? Like, how do you experience it?
Uh, so when you like press the buttons, the amount of, uh, feedback that you get back from the keyboard.
So for example, if you have tried, uh, you know, MacBooks, they come with those very shallow keys.
I love them. And in fact, the new ones are a bit better, but let's say the 2019, 2020 versions
where it was almost flat. The butterfly keyboard, that was terrible. Yes. So I, I don't even like
the new Mac keyboards. They're like too shallow for me. I get almost no feedback from them.
So by feedback, you mean like how much like tension or like friction there is when you press the button?
How much, uh, how deep it goes, how much, uh, how much tension you feel out of it.
Oh, interesting. So, so for example, for listeners who are listening, if you're typing on an iPad,
right, with the built-in on-screen keyboard, that would be like zero feedback. I mean, it tries to give
you a haptic feedback a little bit, but that's about it. You don't actually get any physical
feedback. The haptic feedback is your brain kind of being made to believe that there is a physical
touch there. Right. Whereas the MacBook keyboard or maybe a typical laptop keyboard, because the form
factor has to be very shallow. It's made to be like that. Whereas mechanical keyboards are, they have,
they're meant to like give you that feel for, yes, you're hammering away at something.
I know what I'm going to get you for your next birthday. A typewriter.
Yeah. That, that would be fun. I think I, I saw a typewriter somewhere recently. You don't see many
of them anymore. When I was a kid, I was maybe like seven through 12, maybe that age before,
uh, you know, I had a computer. My grandparents had a typing machine, uh, the typewriter, and they
really liked typing on it. That sound, that, that feel, I really love that, that noise that it makes
like, like ding when you do that, or the carrot thing. Yeah. The carriage return. Uh, so that's,
that's really fun. But if you make a typo, well, good luck. Yeah. But I really loved it.
No, I, my dad, my dad had a typewriter too. I also was really fascinated by the mechanical like
interaction of how you press the key and the lever behind the type, the typewriter actually goes with
the ink and like impresses the ink into the paper behind it. Right. I, I love just observing it.
Yeah. And you had to pound really hard for, for this to be like, uh, you know, for the letter to be
really visible and, you know, I mean, I see, you know, right. But some of our listeners might,
might not is that the standard QWERTY keyboard layout, QWERTY being like Q, W, E, R, T, Y on,
in the first, uh, row of, of keys on the keyboard, that layout was designed for typewriters to slow them
down so that people don't type too fast as to not to jam the levers, levers, levers.
And also I think to avoid, uh, typos as much as possible, right. Because you're reducing the
speed you're making. Yeah. And that's why some of the common letters are pretty far, far apart in
the QWERTY layout. Did you experiment with one of the alternative layouts? I did. I did.
So for people, some people may know already, but there are other layouts available for keyboards,
right? Like Devorah, Colmac and all that. And believe it or not, those are way more efficient for
you to type on in today's world where you can like erase things, right? You're in a word processor or
anywhere you're typing. You can pretty much erase it and rewrite it. Whereas in the typewriter world,
that wasn't possible. That's why the QWERTY layout came in, like you said, right? So I did try with
Dvorak and I think I, you programmed a little bit, right? So you may remember, did you ever try Vim or
Emacs? I programmed quite a lot, but not recently. Right, right. So did you try like Vim or Emacs?
What, what was your editor when you were programming? Uh, when I was programming, it was like, I guess back in
the olden days, I was using Visual Studio, the, the non-code version, like the, the old Visual Studio.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you probably didn't feel it as much, but you know about Vim and
Emacs, right? And it's almost like religious how people don't want, if you use Vim, you don't want
to go to Emacs. So I was an Emacs person. If you were to ask me to switch to Vim, it would probably take
like three months of me not doing any productive work, uh, to just to learn the key bindings of Vim.
And like, because it's a completely different way of editing text. Right. So why I said that is
switching from one keyboard layout to another one, it's, you could probably double or triple the amount
of time it would take you like completely unproductive to get used to the new layout.
Okay. I think at this point we lost that English teacher podcaster who was listening to us for the
information about podcasts. Yeah. Uh, but just to close on your original question,
I did try switching to Dvorak. Uh, one of my coworkers was a Dvorak person and he kind of
said, Hey, this is cool. Let's try it out. And I tried to switch. I gave it about two weeks of
completely no productive work. And then I said, yeah, no, this is too much work.
Dvorak sounds like a Serbian name, like Dvorak Milosevic or something.
It might be, I don't know what the origin of it is. It's probably the person who came up with that
layout first. Yeah. Okay, cool. So where were we 10 minutes ago? Uh, what were your takeaways?
Okay. So the first one, I just love the amount of laughs in that episode, right? So you did the,
you shared the raw recordings with me and stitch them together into like one file. And I listened
to them while walking with my dog a couple of times, the amount of laughs and it's all natural.
I just loved it. That episode made me super happy. And I think at the end of the episode,
I already said it, that this kind of like made my day, but when I really listened to it again,
it made my day again. And yeah, that was, I think my biggest takeaway from it.
Cool. Maybe let's, let's share, let's take turns in sharing takeaways.
Yeah. So by the way, I want to plus one, uh, what you just said, that episode was just so light,
so enjoyable. I haven't listened to it yet. Uh, but that the feel of it, by the way,
those laughs are hard to edit because they are the same volume, the same volume as people talking at
the same time that creates a bit of a challenge, but it's, it's worth it. That episode was so good
in terms of loves. Let me ask you a quick question about editing. Um, you, we were four people on
that, uh, that meeting, you had four independent audio tracks. Why did you just, why did you just
crack your, whatever, like your fingers while talking? Yeah. It'll go away. Okay. Let me start
again. No, no, I'll keep giving you feedback in real time. Just go on. Let's keep all this in the
episode, right? Like this, we are learning to. Exactly. Yeah. What do you call it? Like when you
like do these things to your knuckles? Clicking. Yeah. Clicking. Yeah. You just click. I mean,
it was very audible, so people will hear it for sure. Okay. Okay. Cool. Okay. So going back to it.
So you have four independent audio tracks, right? That you downloaded from Squadcast. When you're
editing, uh, are you like stitching them up first and then editing, or are you doing the edits separately?
Cause that'll take a lot more time. So those are four individual tracks in the, uh, you know,
in the, uh, audio software. I use Reaper. They actually are easier to edit when they're independent
because there is a lot of noise, like your finger clicking and stuff like that. Like while you don't
talk, uh, that noise is still recorded. So basically what I do a lot of is I cut out those parts where
like a person is not speaking because if you, if you, if you merge the tracks together, then you lose
that ability to remove those, uh, yeah, those, those noises. And also, uh, things like, like I want
to keep the laughs in, uh, but then if somebody is, yeah, I remember I was looking at this where, um,
Jonathan was saying something and Jake was laughing over Jonathan and because of their setup,
Jonathan was wearing headphones, AirPods. His sound is kind of a little bit kind of boomy and more
like on the low end and more kind of, there's more bass in there. Whereas Jake's sound is brighter
because there are more high frequencies there. Uh, and what happens is that Jake's laughs, laugh overpowers
the, uh, Jonathan's speech, right? But what you actually want to hear is, uh, Jonathan's speech
and Jake's laugh should just be in the background. So I have to actually lower the volume of that particular
laugh. So it's still there, uh, but it's more like ambient laugh, uh, as opposed to like a, you know,
front and center because actually there was, there was one part I was listening to my studio headphones
and I couldn't make sense what Jonathan was saying because of the laugh in the background. So yeah,
it's very long answer to your question. But the point is that actually the more separation you have,
the more control you have over, you know, what you, what you, what you added. And also I think what
happened a little bit is actually, I think we recorded that one in Riverside. We used Riverside
because I think Squadcast, we have whatever the accounts that only supports up to three listeners,
or sorry, up to three, uh, speakers and Riverside supports more. So we just for that particular one,
we used Riverside and some of the audio is out of sync, which means like I have to move things a little
bit around so that, you know, you speak at the right time. Uh, for example, like I give you an example,
there was a point where you were saying something and you haven't finished your phrase yet.
And then Johnton says, Oh yeah. And he starts to talk about it. And it's just so obvious that like,
he couldn't have answered your question without listening to it first. So like, like, it's not
just, you know, the light latency in the call. It's actually, uh, like misaligned audio. And, uh,
again, if you merge things together, you, you cannot control this because there are two people talking
at the same time. And this doesn't happen in Squadcast. I have not seen that happen in Squadcast, no.
Right. So this is becoming a bit of an ad from Squadcast. We should just ask money from them at
some point. We actually emailed the Squadcast guys, and, uh, we are discussing doing an episode with
them. So maybe an episode will come out and well, Squadcast is such a great tool. I'm happy to like
advertise them as long as they retweet our episode. Yeah. No, we also talked about Zoom and Squadcast.
Maybe one episode we should touch upon that too, but not today. Uh, let's get to it later.
Yeah. I was looking at the Zoom pricing and, uh, I think pricing is actually very reasonable. It's
like 15 bucks a month, which is actually cheaper than Squadcast. However, what I don't like about
Zoom is the files are recorded locally, and then you have to ask your guests to upload those files.
And, uh, with you and me, it probably wouldn't be a problem. You know, we can do that, but then like
with busy people, you want them to just finish the recording, leave the meeting and forget about it.
Right? So Squadcast is much more managed in that regard.
So like someday when we get Tim Ferriss, we don't have to email him again asking, hey, by the way,
don't close your browser tab. Don't forget to upload it afterwards and all that. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if the Squadcast, they have to keep their browser open until it uploads,
but, but that's easy, right? That's, that's very easy. It's much easier than
locating the file and like uploading it to Google Drive or something.
Right. It also kind of keeps uploading as you're speaking. So it's not like waiting to do it at the
very end, but it does take a few seconds after. Yeah. Actually, I think if you have a good internet
connection, then it just takes a few seconds after you finish the call for all the recordings to be
available. And actually maybe one pro tip here is you can stop the recording and engage your guests a
little bit more after the recording is stopped because then they are still in the browser window
talking to you and the uploading happens in the background. So that's another way to control for
that. So I actually, I think you interrupted me and I haven't finished saying what I was saying.
Let's get back to your first reflection.
Yes. Yes. Because, because, because I also want to talk about my takeaways.
Oh man, I'm looking at my notes and I think we actually discussed all of the things that we,
that I took away from that. But I think what I really liked about that episode is that we rumbled
a lot. We went to the different topics, just like they do. And that felt so good. It almost like
I had this conception that a podcast is a structured edited piece of content where you like maximize for
like effective communication. It has to be structured, like some tangents are okay, but not too much.
And what these guys did is like just talk about anything for an hour. And that's pretty much how our
episode turned out. We had some specific questions, but overall we went on a lot of tangents. It almost
like legitimized that approach for me. Like it actually feels very good. And I like listening to them. And there are a lot
of other people who like listening to them. So maybe if we actually do something similar,
it's not going to be off putting, at least for some people.
And the worst case is people don't listen to it, which is another takeaway I think from that episode
is do it for yourself first.
So I'm just, if I was Jonathan, you know what I would say, screw them. They don't need such listeners anyway.
So I'm just, I'm just quoting one of the things that he said in one of the 200 episodes.
I'm just kidding. You know, we love, we love all of you.
We cherish every single, I don't know if anybody's listening to it right now, but if you are, we really
love it.
But right now, maybe you're just NSA.
Right. Well,
I mean, there's a recording.
Let's not get there.
Off the record.
Anyway.
NSA, NSA spies, hello.
If you're listening, then please leave us a comment and a five star rating.
Well, I felt like our episode was almost like a, you know how water you put it in any container
and it takes that shape.
I felt like the episode with Brian was very much like how a Brian episode is.
The first episode.
Yes.
Yeah.
Right.
It was like, it was not very rambling, at least from our side.
And it was pretty structured.
Like we were asking questions and he would answer and he was taking us through a story
of the whole, whole, like basically his whole life so far.
Yeah.
He would go on a tangent, but he would always come back.
Yes.
Whereas with Jake and John, it would be like, they go on a tangent.
And I remember John saying like, I forgot what the question was.
And then it didn't matter at that point.
They would go on a tangent and then we would go on another tangent from that tangent.
And like five tangents after we were like, where were we?
But it was also, like you said, it was a very enjoyable episode.
If I may say so myself and the listeners can listen to it and decide, but.
I think you and I could also give ourselves ratings.
Apple didn't check for that.
I don't think Apple checks for that.
So let's just do it.
Right.
Five stars.
I would give ourselves a five stars.
And also if you're listening to this, like while you have nothing to do anyway, while you're
listening, give us a five star rating.
Right.
But yeah, I thought that that episode also went almost exactly like how Jake and Jonathan episodes
go.
Right.
Very fun, but a lot of rambling, a lot of tensions.
Maybe that's the beauty of our podcast because we can adjust to how the other people do their
podcasts and actually have our podcast, our episode have a bit of the feel of what they do.
Like if you listen to our interview with Jake and Jonathan, if you like it, it's like 100% you're
going to like their episodes.
If you listen to Brian's stuff.
Yeah.
It's like more serious.
It's more serious.
It's like maybe water.
That's a little bit ice.
So there is a little bit more structure.
And if you like content delivered in that way, then Brian's episodes will probably resonate a lot.
Right.
And I think in between these different flavors of podcasts, you'll figure out what you like to do.
Because there are some podcasts and podcasters who go really well with more like narrative or
structured kind of episodes.
And there are more like Q and A, like where the questions and answers are not, not like rigidly
decided beforehand.
And like you said, I think this episode gave me the confidence that we could do something like that
too, where we have enough fun things to talk about.
Let's just talk about it.
Yeah.
And actually also not so fun things too.
There was one moment in the Jake and Jonathan episode where I forgot how we ended up there,
but I brought up the article that Jake wrote in 2018 or 2017 when he was leaving Google.
And I think his father had passed away like a year prior to that.
And he, I'm not disclosing any information.
I'm just saying what's in the article.
It's in public domain.
And when I was reading that, I cried, like I literally cried when I was reading the article.
And I shared with a few people, I think I shared with you as well.
I mean, obviously it will not resonate with, uh, with everybody, but like for me,
it resonated on many levels.
And, um, I told Jake about that during the recording.
So, and then we went on a tangent that was, uh, not so happy, but it was also very
compassionate, very honest, very, you know, heartwarming, uh, eye watering.
I think, actually, I think I almost cried while we recorded this.
Like I really had my eyes watering.
Yeah.
So, and then actually I remember that and I'm like, how did I get this back to the fun stuff?
And then somehow we adjusted back.
It's, it's interesting that you mentioned that cause that was the second moment that I
wanted to talk about too.
In fact, it touched me so much that I wrote it down.
This is about 28 minutes in, in our episode number four, if you want to go and re-listen.
Which is probably more like 23 minutes after the edit.
Yeah.
Um, so start about 20 minutes in, and I think you will start to get into that flow of conversation,
but essentially it's the four of us talking about jobs and work and all that.
And their reflections of it, because they both, uh, I mean, Jake was working at Google ventures
and then he left, like you talked about, uh, Jonathan has been running like his own
independent, uh, design studio for 12 years now.
Um, so we were talking about all of that and something that Jake said really, uh, resonated
with me.
Right.
And, and I'll, I'll say it again, what he said is like, he was talking about how work
and typical, like big corporations are essentially all rooted around pushing you.
Everything you do.
There is pushing you towards some sort of movement inside that organization, right?
Like either promotions or product releases or whatever it is, but generally it's more towards
like career movement, uh, rather than like take more responsibility, make more impact.
Yes.
Get to the next level.
Yes.
Get to the next level.
That's always like your imperative.
And to get to the next level, you do other things, which are actually what the customers see,
like you're releasing new things or changing things.
And, but you're doing that.
That your primary objective is to get to the next level.
And there was nothing in there for him.
And that was like, this is like me a hundred percent.
Cause as you may know, listeners, Ilya, you know, obviously I left, uh, I was feeling like
that for a couple of years, right.
As I grew more and more senior, uh, at Amazon.
And I don't know if I'm doing the right thing by saying all this out podcast or not.
But, um, this is kind of, it came very naturally to me that I feel like I'm doing more and more
just for the promotions and movement within the company, both for myself and others,
rather than actually doing stuff for people who are using things off the company.
For customers.
Yes.
And that didn't resonate with me at all.
And when Jake said it, you should go and listen to how Jake said it.
He said it much better than I did.
That was like a hundred percent.
This is exactly what I have been feeling.
Yeah.
So that was my second moment.
If you have a takeaway, let's go for it.
But I also want to know if you had something that you did not like in that episode.
Oh, that's hard.
Because if you start to say what we don't like, well, to be honest, I didn't like Jonathan much.
No, I'm just kidding.
Uh, he knows what this is all about.
Yeah.
No, that, that particular episode, I just enjoyed so much.
Well, I guess one thing I would say I didn't like, I didn't like the John was wearing airpods.
Yeah.
This just sounds so terrible.
And, uh, one thing I noticed in the, you know, in the, in the audio, when I was listening in my
headphones, like studio headphones, and by the way, uh, so I think since we recorded last episode,
I got new headphones.
I got the Audio-Technica MT50X.
I think that's what they're called.
If you just search for Audio-Technica M50, you will see those.
They have like 20,000 reviews on Amazon.
Those are great headphones, 160 bucks, I believe with Bluetooth.
In that headphones, you can hear every single squeak in the audio.
So yeah, I was listening to his recording and when he laughs, there is this clipping sound,
you know, when the volume is kind of too high and the volume starts to kind of clip.
It's like very high frequency, kind of unpleasant, kind of scratchy kind of sound.
You'll probably hear it in the recording.
I mean, in the, in the episode.
So yeah.
And also because of...
You think that's, that's like the airport,
AirPods digitally modifying it because the volume is too different between different segments?
Maybe, yeah, well, if you set, if you set a microphone gain too high,
and then if you laugh, you will probably hear the same kind of clipping
because your voice will be fine.
But that laugh is actually much louder than the voice.
So you will hear those clippings too.
It's just, I guess, AirPods just don't manage that well
because they're not meant for recording.
So yeah, Jonathan created a bunch of problems for us post-production.
I thought you would bring this up when I, when I talked about it.
And this is what I wanted to talk about too, because in the very first episode,
you talked about how you should never use AirPods.
And then two episodes in our guest comes in wearing AirPods.
Yeah.
Well, here's, I guess, the lesson about assumptions.
Because when we started this podcast, we assumed that because our guests are podcasters,
we don't have to coach them on like what equipment to use, what, you know, how they should be recording.
It's almost like you have a perfect guest, somebody who joins you from a studio.
And then there we go.
We have Jonathan and AirPods because these guys actually,
they stopped doing their podcast about two years ago.
And he just didn't have his equipment.
So I think it's fair.
It's fair that he did this.
Yeah, just to be clear, like, I'm just, I'm just kidding.
He will get it.
Like, I'm not trying to, you know, denigrate him or anything.
But yeah, I guess our assumption was that people will have proper equipment.
And this assumption actually was not true for both of the episodes.
Because Brian was in his office with the Blue Yeti mic.
And he did kind of, I think the acoustics of that office is not perfect.
But he does his own stuff in his home studio with that box on his head,
which if you don't know what I'm talking about, listen to the Brian McCulley episode,
where he talks about the Portabooth device.
It's just something, I guess, the lesson I learned here is like,
even if you talk to podcasters, we need to at least mention that they should,
you know, get into their studio, get a good mic, etc.
If they have all of that, yeah.
If they're recording a podcast, they should.
If they're currently podcasting, yeah.
I think it was fair.
It also, I think, really drove home another point that came up in our episode with Brian,
which is no matter what the quality of the audio is, ultimately, it's the content.
Yes.
Right.
And this is what I found in spite of the AirPods and kind of the weird, sometimes
Jonathan would say things and maybe it was just my side of the audio or maybe it was actually in
the source itself, but it would produce a weird twang in the sound and it'll kind of like stretch it
out.
I don't know if all that came out or not, but it was very weird to hear.
But in spite of all that, when I listened to the episode, the raw episode that you shared with me,
right, I loved it.
And this is the meat of it.
The content is what ultimately matters.
We have the good.
Yes.
And if you don't know what we're talking about, listen to the Brian McCullough episodes.
Yes.
Actually, that's one thing I wanted to mention too.
What I like about those metasodes and how we talk about the past stuff, that introduces path
dependence in our story.
So basically, if you listen to this and we just keep name dropping on all of the people who have
been on the show, we talk about the things that we talked about previously, we recap them a little
bit.
But if you want to really dive into those, you would actually have to go back and listen from
the very beginning.
So you get the sense, you get the full story.
You know, and I really liked that in the Ben Thompson's Stratechery blog and podcast.
I'm not familiar with that.
You're not familiar with it?
Yeah.
It's stratechery.com.
It's like a strategy and technology, like Stratechery and I guess archery.
I don't know where the last part comes from.
It's a blog by Ben Thompson.
He is like an analyst.
Every couple of days, he writes a long blog post about stuff that happens in technology.
Like when Epic Games sued Apple for charging whatever the 30% or whatever it was, right?
He would cover this over the course of multiple weeks.
And he would also talk about how COVID impacted the technology, all that.
This stuff is really, really interesting to read and also listen to.
If you have a paid subscription to his blog, you get the same content in the audio format.
So he was actually one of the first people to introduce paid podcasting.
Way before Apple Podcasts, Spotify had paid subscriptions.
So this is really cool.
Actually, I emailed him.
Let's see if he accepts our invitation to talk to be on the show.
Hey, Ben, if you're listening to this, please come over.
We would like to talk to you about the podcasting.
So yeah, but what's interesting about his blog and podcast is that
there is always this reference to the previous stuff that he has done.
So he would like, as I mentioned in, you know, two days ago, and then he would give a quote of this
basically to keep the, you know, the context so that readers aren't completely lost.
But still, if you never skip an episode, if you listen to all of those, you get a much better picture
of what's going on because you're almost like having a conversation with him.
That's just like ongoing.
Whereas if you just listen piecemeal, then you feel like you're missing out.
And I like that to vibe, you know, as a, as a creator, I mean, as a listener, you would be like,
you're manipulating me into listening to all of your stuff.
But as a, as a podcaster, I think it's great because hopefully that will drive more engagement with our
other shows and people will fall in love with our chemistry and subscribe and give us a five-star rating.
It's also very authentic and on brand, right?
I mean, this is an episode talking about previous episodes.
So of course we're going to talk about stuff that came out in previous episodes and this is all fresh
in our mind.
So yeah, makes sense.
Yeah.
Speaking about the last metasode that we did, the first one, which is episode number three,
I recorded that episode using a Blue Yeti mic in my office.
And in the episode, we talk about how the echo is kind of terrible in the room.
So now I just want to follow up on that because I produced that episode and I had to use a D-reverb
filter from, from iZotope, iZotope RX9 suite of software.
Yeah, there is a lot of echo in there, but I think it got suppressed pretty well.
So yeah, actually I think it's not too bad.
So that's why today I'm also recording in my office.
However, I'm using a different mic.
So I bought a new mic during Black Friday.
I bought a Shure MV7, the same one that got stolen from me in San Francisco,
which if you don't know what I'm talking about, listen to the first episode.
So I have the same kind of mic, which I really like.
Fast dependence.
Fast dependence, yeah.
And I cover it with a pop filter on one hand.
There is a foamy thing that absorbs audio on the other.
And I also put my hoodie on top of it to suppress the reflections of the sound.
So I was talking to somebody yesterday.
He told me that you need to suppress the first reflection.
So basically like when you speak the direction that you speak towards the first hard surface
that the sound hits is where it's going to be reflected first.
So basically what you want to do is you want to put something that suppresses that sound from
traveling further in the room.
So even in the spacious room like I have, by suppressing the reverberation of the immediate surface,
I make it matter less that I have this whole kind of big room with empty walls.
However, you know, I ordered myself a big carpet and also some sound panels.
So I have a little project.
I have a little project for the next couple of weeks to put those on the walls and see how it happens.
But yeah, I don't want to be recording in my closet anymore.
I want to graduate from it.
But yeah, that's just a comment I wanted to make.
Because we didn't know what the result of that echo will be.
I think it's fine.
It wasn't too bad.
Actually, as I'm listening to that post-produced episode in my studio headphones,
I don't fully like the sound of it.
I think your sound is fine.
My sound is, there's still a bit of kind of that echo artifact in there.
However, when I listen to that post-produced episode while doing dishes and
while walking and like driving, you can't hear much there.
And I think this is the difference between say something like music and podcast.
Right.
Oh man, like when I got these headphones,
I was listening to Alt-J.
Do you know that band, Alt-J?
No.
They're a British band.
They're very popular actually.
It's Alt-J.
It's like a shortcut on a keyboard for something.
So they have this song called Taro, T-A-R-O,
which is one of my most favorite songs of all time.
It's very kind of nice and mellow.
Really, really good.
I'm going to write that down.
I didn't realize how many artifacts there were in that song.
Some small noises from the guitar and some other things that I would never have noticed.
Actually, I never noticed them.
I listened to that song maybe like 200 times.
I never noticed those until I started listening in silence in my headphones,
in studio headphones, which is important.
And the other thing I noticed there was in one part, there was like a backing,
what do you call it, the backing vocals, like background vocals.
Right.
And I never noticed they were there.
And I'm like, oh my God, this is so, so good.
I think that's the key, right?
Podcasts, most people who are listening to podcasts are probably not putting on their studio headphones
and like sitting down in silence and concentrating just on the podcast.
This is sort of like auxiliary.
You're listening to it while doing something else.
Maybe you're driving, maybe you're walking, maybe you're doing the dishes, whatever it is.
Right.
And you're not going to notice some of those things.
The background sounds as much.
And even if you do, it doesn't matter because you're concentrating on the actual
subject rather than on the quality of the sound.
But when you're listening to music, the quality of the sound is paramount.
It's probably the most important thing.
Well, aside from the music, I mean, of course.
So yeah, I think that's why it makes a big difference.
So one thing I'll mention very quickly.
I attended a Metallica show about a month ago.
Meta-lica.
Yeah, here in Florida, they were doing like a 40 year anniversary
concert in a very small venue, relatively small.
It was maybe like 5,000 people or so, which is very small.
I mean, very small compared to like they were playing like 50,000 stadiums.
Right.
And the energy that I was experiencing in the room, I mean, in the theater
was so just wild.
I just felt that energy kind of flowing through me, through all the people.
I felt like connected with the crowd.
I felt connected with the musicians.
And while I was driving to the show, I was listening to those same songs in my car.
And it's like, I don't know, 10 times less.
So I went to a Foo Fighters concert the first time I went.
Before that, I listened to Foo Fighters once in a while.
Right.
But I was not like, this is not like by any means my favorite band or anything like that.
I went into the concert.
And I think Foo Fighters is widely regarded as one of the best like live performers.
Dave Grohl, basically.
Yes, it's a Nirvana's drummer band.
Yes, yes.
And I came out and it's been like, I don't know, five, six years now.
Foo Fighters has been my top, like basically band since that day.
The energy in a really well done concert is like unparalleled, right?
And this year, actually, I just want to quickly mention, I had tickets to go to their Vancouver
show again, but their drummer passed away like just a month before the tour.
I was really sad because this is the first time I was going to take my daughter to a rock concert
and kind of show her how it works, even though there'll be a few like explicit words in there.
I think she's she's like at that age where she can absorb it at this point.
And I wanted her to experience that energy.
Right.
But we missed out.
And of course, like this is not by any means the saddest part.
The saddest part is such a great drummer.
Like he was amazing.
If you have some time, go check out on YouTube like Dave Grohl and their like duets.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
I think we're at a point where our favorite bands from like the 70s and 80s and also 90s,
some of the people start to die there.
Like AC/DC pretty much doesn't exist anymore.
Because, you know, I think half of the band probably passed away at this point.
But then like folks like Metallica, they are like 60 at this point.
Like maybe another five, 10 years, they will start to just like pass away, which is which makes it very sad.
But you know Mick Jagger and Rolling Stones will keep on going forever.
Yeah, I just don't know how old they are.
Like when I saw, when I saw, I think it was Steve Tyler of Aerosmith.
Yeah.
When I saw his like video clip like in the 90s, he already looked very old.
Yeah, yeah.
I saw one recently on Reddit of a live concert and he sounded like this is past it at this point.
Right. But but yeah, I think the Rolling Stones somehow they keep rolling.
Anyway.
Yeah, Rolling Stones.
Yes.
Let me get to like one last more moment from that episode.
And this was the randomness that they ran things with.
Right.
We asked them many times like, OK, so you did this.
And why did you decide to go that way?
Or why did you not decide to do this?
And some of those decisions that they took, it worked really well and seemed...
Actually, they weren't decisions.
That's the point.
They were just accidents.
Exactly.
But it felt like profound, right?
Like, yeah, this is exactly what you did and it worked really well.
Why did you decide to go that way?
They're like, well, I just sent a message to Jake one day and we just started from there.
The randomness of it all.
And both of them, I felt they didn't want to schedule meetings.
They want to basically just flow with the energy the whole time.
Yeah.
I remember how they said that nobody wanted to do any prep.
Yes.
And this really stuck with me is just how random it was.
But because of the content and the insights that they had and the chemistry they had, it worked really well for them.
Yes.
I just want to say that on this note, I want to say that we love you, Jake and Jonathan.
It made my day and I keep listening to it and it keeps making my day again and again.
And I think if I'm depressed someday, this is the episode I'll turn it on.
And the amount of laughs in there just makes me happy.
Make sure you listen to it on the podcasting apps so you rake up our listen count.
Okay, so last one thing is Jonathan was talking about the unscheduled CEO.
And so he has been running a company for 12 years now.
And it's pretty big at this point, pretty big as in like, I don't know, maybe 40, 50 employees.
I'm sure.
I don't know.
But something like that, I think.
But he doesn't have any meetings.
He doesn't get involved in anything day to day.
And I just found it amazing, right, that he's running a successful company like that.
And it just doesn't go with how I thought about work before.
Right.
He said he's going to produce the unscheduled CEO as a sub stack and we'll kind of link to it.
I really am interested in going back and reading all of that and kind of learning from him.
Yeah, it's interesting because we recorded this episode.
I mean, that episode like two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago.
November 21st, the day after the World Cup started.
So, yeah, actually, we don't know if Jonathan will even produce that sub stack by that point.
But if he did, you will find it in show notes.
And on this note, we got to wrap up.
Please subscribe to our show.
Give us a five star rating.
Well, I guess give us any rating.
If you hated it, like, just give us a one star rating.
We would love your feedback.
But why would you give us a one star rating if you listened up to this point?
Right.
Give us any rating you like as long as it's five stars.
Exactly, right?
Like, we'll give you lots of options there.
Yeah.
But leave us a comment.
I think this thing where we are doing episodes with guests and then doing a reflection episode,
which we are calling Metasodes, we are slowly falling into that rhythm and kind of understanding
how it works.
So we would love to know if you're liking this style or like you want to hear about something else.
Just let us know.
Yeah.
We can talk more about keyboards and dogs and farts.
Anyway.
Bye bye.
Yeah.
Bye.
I don't know.
In the podcast, do you say have a good day?
Have a good day.
You do.
Have a good day if it's a good day.
Yeah.
I guess.
What are the rules, right?
Like, like listener, wherever you are, like whatever you do, we hope you have a great day
today and tomorrow and we hope that every day of your life is a great day.
Unless it's not a great day.
Optionality.
Anyway, I'm stopping the recording now.
See you next week.
Oh, I guess you will hear us next week.