WEBVTT 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:02.840 - Clippy was this annoying little paperclip 00:00:02.840 --> 00:00:04.560 that would offer you suggestions. 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:06.480 Like, oh, did you forget to do this? 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:07.840 Or did you forget to do that? 00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:10.240 - It's like you start writing hello 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:12.000 and then Clippy comes in and says, 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.280 "Hey, it looks like you're writing a letter to your mom." 00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:18.120 - While you're doing like accounting and spreadsheets. 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:20.800 People hated it and Microsoft eventually shut it down. 00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:29.280 - Hello, hello, hello. 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:33.920 This is Arnab, your co-host from the Metacast podcast. 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:36.120 And with me here is Ilya. 00:00:36.120 --> 00:00:39.280 - Hey, I'm Ilya. 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:42.720 I'm Arnab's co-host of the Metacast podcast. 00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:44.360 The podcast about podcasting. 00:00:44.360 --> 00:00:49.280 - And this is a meta-sode with our reflections 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.560 from the last episode, which was an interview 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:56.240 with the Squadcast founders, Zach and Rock. 00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:57.080 - Yes. 00:00:57.080 --> 00:01:00.120 - And I also realized that those meta-sodes, 00:01:00.120 --> 00:01:01.720 they aren't just reflections. 00:01:01.720 --> 00:01:07.800 They are almost like our diary of how we create a Metacast. 00:01:07.800 --> 00:01:12.920 Because we talk a lot about things like what our process was, 00:01:12.920 --> 00:01:16.040 how it changed, what are the different things we learned, 00:01:16.040 --> 00:01:20.440 how keyboards interrupt the recording experience. 00:01:20.440 --> 00:01:25.720 So all of that stuff that isn't always related to the previous recording, 00:01:25.720 --> 00:01:29.560 but it's the stuff that we have learned since our last recording. 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:32.520 All the stuff that came up since our last recording, 00:01:32.520 --> 00:01:33.480 which is kind of interesting. 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:38.280 because if you listen to this a year or two, five years from now, 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:44.920 it would be very interesting to see how that absolutely amazingly sounding great podcast 00:01:44.920 --> 00:01:47.720 evolved over those years, right? 00:01:47.720 --> 00:01:51.400 From that pretty good sounding actually from the first episode. 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:55.240 But yeah, we had a few hiccups here and there and those meta-sodes, 00:01:55.240 --> 00:02:00.600 they actually captured a lot of the, I guess, feedback to ourselves. 00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:01.480 - Right. 00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:07.160 If this is really five years in the future that you're listening to this episode right now, 00:02:07.160 --> 00:02:12.360 I'm assuming that Ilya, you and I are the only people who are listening to this episode, 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:17.320 maybe five years from now, maybe on a rainy day when we're feeling nostalgic. 00:02:17.320 --> 00:02:18.840 Hey, let me listen to this. 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:24.760 But listener, if you're really listening and the year is now 2028, 00:02:24.760 --> 00:02:27.000 please leave us a review. 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:28.920 That would be amazing. 00:02:28.920 --> 00:02:33.320 - It's like year 2028. 00:02:33.320 --> 00:02:34.440 - Yes. 00:02:34.440 --> 00:02:35.080 - Wow. 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:38.120 I still remember how we celebrated year 2000. 00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:40.600 It's like, how come it's like already 2023? 00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:43.960 Every time I write this somewhere in an email or a document, I'm like, 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:47.320 seriously 2023, am I this old? 00:02:47.320 --> 00:02:53.800 - It does feel like those sci-fi days of flying cars, all that, right? 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:57.720 Like when you hear about 2023, it feels like it should be something like that. 00:02:57.720 --> 00:03:04.680 But we're in a very different world right now than what we imagined like say 20 years ago. 00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:10.200 - So we are going on a tangent, but this time I promise we will finish this very quickly. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:16.680 When I was on a vacation a couple of years ago, I had nothing to do one day and I decided to watch 00:03:16.680 --> 00:03:17.640 The Demolition Man. 00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:24.680 It's a movie from mid nineties, maybe late eighties with Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone and Sandra 00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:25.640 Bullock too. 00:03:25.640 --> 00:03:31.400 It's one of those action movies where some criminals and the policemen who captured that criminal, 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:37.880 they got put into a cryogenic prison where they get frozen. 00:03:37.880 --> 00:03:42.120 And then I think 30 or 40 years later, they get unfrozen because that criminal escapes and 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:46.280 the only person who can catch that person is of course a policeman, right? 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:48.600 And Sandra Bullock is the police woman from the future. 00:03:48.600 --> 00:03:50.920 - Oh, I think I've seen this movie. 00:03:50.920 --> 00:03:55.720 When you said the name, I didn't quite get it, but now I think I've seen this movie. 00:03:55.720 --> 00:03:56.440 Yeah. 00:03:56.440 --> 00:03:56.760 - Yeah. 00:03:56.760 --> 00:03:57.400 Okay. 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:01.480 So, and the thing happens, I think in like year 2015 or something. 00:04:01.480 --> 00:04:06.200 Yeah, it might have been 1985 and then the action happens 2015. 00:04:06.200 --> 00:04:09.240 And yes, you have flying cars there. 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:13.720 You have video conferencing with holograms of people and stuff like that. 00:04:13.720 --> 00:04:14.280 - Yeah. 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:19.240 - And I remember I was looking at this and I was just like laughing because some of that 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:24.040 did come to reality, like the video conferencing, but the whole flying cars thing. 00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:25.800 - Yeah, we over imagined the future. 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:31.960 - Every kind of movie that you go back to say from the seventies, eighties, or even nineties, 00:04:31.960 --> 00:04:35.560 that is imagining the year 2015 or 2020s. 00:04:35.560 --> 00:04:43.640 Flying cars is pretty much the first thing that comes in and we are nowhere close to it. 00:04:43.640 --> 00:04:49.640 Actually, maybe it's not a good idea, but regardless, the one thing that we never imagined 00:04:49.640 --> 00:04:53.400 is our cell phones and social network. 00:04:53.400 --> 00:04:59.080 It's crazy how much we, well, I don't know if you want to call it progress or not necessarily, 00:04:59.080 --> 00:05:04.920 but how much advancement we've made in that side that we could not have imagined 15, 20 years back. 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:05.800 - Yeah. 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:07.640 I just hope that the metaverse doesn't happen. 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:18.280 - I want to still enjoy nature in real life, not in my, whatever, VR headset, what do they call them? VR headsets? 00:05:18.280 --> 00:05:19.080 - Yeah. 00:05:19.080 --> 00:05:25.160 So, I mean, to be fair, I took a sabbatical last year before I quit my job last summer. 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:28.680 One of the things I did is I read a few books about VR. 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:37.240 I did experience it a little bit and I think it can be pretty cool in some spaces, especially. 00:05:37.240 --> 00:05:49.240 But I also, when I want to go for a hike, I actually want to go for a hike and not put on my VR headset and imagine that I'm, or not even imagine, 00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:54.920 if it's really realistic, then your brain is made to feel that you're in there, you're immersed in it, right? 00:05:54.920 --> 00:05:59.240 But I think when I come out of it, I would realize it and I would not enjoy it anymore. 00:05:59.240 --> 00:05:59.560 - Yeah. 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:06.280 But also there are energies that are not transferable through, they're not digitizable, you know? 00:06:06.280 --> 00:06:06.440 - Yeah. 00:06:06.440 --> 00:06:09.160 - Anyway, let's, yeah. 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:12.360 - Well, no, no, no, we've got to finish this tension. 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:12.680 - Okay. 00:06:12.680 --> 00:06:23.160 - But I think one thing is really cool is, let's say you want to imagine or get immersed in the ocean world, right? 00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:27.400 So you can go hiking, you want to experience the mountain, sure, go there, hike, right? 00:06:27.400 --> 00:06:28.920 And you'll get the full thing. 00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:34.680 But one thing you cannot do is imagine the ocean world, for example. 00:06:34.680 --> 00:06:39.880 And that's something that things like VR can make it very real. 00:06:39.880 --> 00:06:49.400 Like being able to swim next to a giant squid or a family of whales, listening to their songs, 00:06:49.400 --> 00:06:53.000 and actually being fully immersed in it, right? 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:53.640 - Yeah. 00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:54.520 Yeah. 00:06:54.520 --> 00:06:56.280 That aspect I buy. 00:06:56.280 --> 00:06:57.080 - Yeah. 00:06:57.080 --> 00:06:59.640 - Or like you can travel to space, for example. 00:06:59.640 --> 00:07:00.040 - Yeah. 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:00.280 - Right? 00:07:00.280 --> 00:07:08.120 What I am not in favor of is to replace your regular life, like hikes, like you mentioned, right? 00:07:08.120 --> 00:07:08.440 - Yeah. 00:07:08.440 --> 00:07:10.040 - With the virtual experience. 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:10.440 - Yeah. 00:07:10.440 --> 00:07:11.800 - Because it's not the same. 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:11.960 Yeah. 00:07:11.960 --> 00:07:14.200 So things that are impossible to do in real life. 00:07:14.200 --> 00:07:14.680 - Yes. 00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:16.520 - I think Metaverse is like totally cool for that. 00:07:16.520 --> 00:07:17.000 - Yes. 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:18.760 - Well, VR is cool for that. 00:07:18.760 --> 00:07:19.080 - Yes. 00:07:19.080 --> 00:07:24.600 - The Metaverse thing is like whatever the sim city that you live in, like in your headsets. 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:29.320 - It's also very poorly executed right now. 00:07:29.320 --> 00:07:30.280 But yeah, I agree. 00:07:30.280 --> 00:07:35.240 I don't want to be working inside the Metaverse or having meetings with 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:38.760 you or other people inside the Metaverse right now. 00:07:38.760 --> 00:07:39.480 - Yeah. 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:40.440 Are you ready player one? 00:07:40.440 --> 00:07:41.800 - Yeah. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:49.080 - By the way, disclaimer, we're not affiliated with Meta, Metaverse or any of that. 00:07:49.080 --> 00:07:50.120 We are Metacast. 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:51.160 It's completely separate. 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:52.680 - Right. 00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:53.000 Yeah. 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:58.760 And when we talk about Prime episodes, we are not affiliated with Amazon. 00:07:58.760 --> 00:07:59.400 - Yes. 00:07:59.400 --> 00:08:00.440 - Even though we used to be. 00:08:00.440 --> 00:08:01.160 - Yes. 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:04.200 - But not in the podcasting capacity. 00:08:04.200 --> 00:08:05.400 - Yes. 00:08:05.400 --> 00:08:05.960 Okay. 00:08:05.960 --> 00:08:09.080 Let's go back to the year 2023. 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:12.440 - Yeah, leave us a review. 00:08:12.440 --> 00:08:14.120 I think that's what it was about, right? 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:14.840 - Yes. 00:08:14.840 --> 00:08:17.320 - So we don't have enough reviews just yet. 00:08:17.320 --> 00:08:23.480 So one topic I wanted to suggest you to have in every Metaverse, if applicable, 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:25.880 is giving feedback to each other. 00:08:25.880 --> 00:08:26.920 - Yeah. 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:28.360 - I think we've done it in the past. 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:28.840 - Yeah. 00:08:28.840 --> 00:08:30.760 - But we can do more of it. 00:08:30.760 --> 00:08:32.680 - All right, let's go. 00:08:32.680 --> 00:08:33.400 Bring it on. 00:08:33.400 --> 00:08:33.560 - Yeah. 00:08:33.560 --> 00:08:34.840 Are you ready? 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:35.240 - Yes. 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:36.520 - Are you ready to take feedback? 00:08:36.520 --> 00:08:36.920 - Yes. 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:41.640 - I was born ready for feedback. 00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:42.920 - Oops. 00:08:42.920 --> 00:08:43.720 - Wait, wait. 00:08:43.720 --> 00:08:47.960 I think I moved the spoon while I was saying that. 00:08:47.960 --> 00:08:49.160 - Exactly. 00:08:49.160 --> 00:08:51.320 - I was born ready for feedback. 00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:54.280 - Okay. 00:08:54.280 --> 00:08:56.360 - I don't know which part we should keep the difference. 00:08:56.360 --> 00:08:57.880 - Or both. 00:08:57.880 --> 00:08:59.960 - Or both. 00:08:59.960 --> 00:09:03.160 So here's what I wanted to... 00:09:03.160 --> 00:09:04.920 It's not really a feedback. 00:09:05.480 --> 00:09:07.880 It's more like we need to find a process. 00:09:07.880 --> 00:09:12.200 And that's actually what Zak and Rok also were talking about in our interview. 00:09:12.200 --> 00:09:19.160 What I noticed quite a bit is when any of us start talking when another person hasn't finished yet, 00:09:19.160 --> 00:09:24.200 or we think they finished, but, you know, we start talking and we interrupt them. 00:09:24.200 --> 00:09:25.560 And then you have this, oh, sorry. 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:29.160 Oh, no, you, no, no, you go and all that. 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:36.760 This stuff, when you edit it, remove it from the record, sometimes it sounds weird. 00:09:36.760 --> 00:09:42.600 Because as if something is missing, but you don't want to keep that, you go first, you go first stuff. 00:09:42.600 --> 00:09:50.840 So we need to figure out some signaling mechanism where maybe, you know, raise your hand. 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:52.280 Actually, we do this at work at Google. 00:09:52.280 --> 00:09:53.560 - Yeah, yeah. - So in Google Meet, 00:09:53.560 --> 00:09:55.720 there is a feature to raise your hand. 00:09:55.720 --> 00:10:00.120 And then the etiquette, at least at Google, is that when you see somebody raise their hand, 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:06.040 it means that you finish your thought, you finish what you were talking about, right? 00:10:06.040 --> 00:10:10.120 And then you say, okay, Arnab, I see your hand is raised, you go. 00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:12.120 These days, it's just so commonplace. 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:13.720 I would be just like, Arnab? 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:16.360 And then it would be the signal for you to start asking your question. 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:20.840 And then if multiple people raise their hands, Google Meet actually tracks the order 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:21.640 in which they were raised. 00:10:21.640 --> 00:10:24.360 - Yeah, yeah. - And then you just go in order they were raised. 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:26.520 But Squadcast doesn't have the hand raising feature. 00:10:26.520 --> 00:10:29.480 - We do videos so we could actually raise our hands. 00:10:29.480 --> 00:10:30.200 - Yeah. 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:34.760 Just don't do what one of our colleagues at Amazon used to do where he would raise his hand 00:10:34.760 --> 00:10:36.520 and keep it to rest for five minutes. 00:10:36.520 --> 00:10:40.520 And it would like freak everybody out because it was uncomfortable to see, 00:10:40.520 --> 00:10:42.200 like somebody always holding their hand up. 00:10:42.200 --> 00:10:50.920 - Yeah, the other thing with that is in meetings, I think it's very common to raise hands and like 00:10:50.920 --> 00:10:55.960 basically transfer from me to you that way. 00:10:55.960 --> 00:11:01.960 However, in a podcast, we'll experiment with it, but it might be a bit weird to actually 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:08.040 hear somebody explicitly transferring saying, oh, you want to say something, here you go. 00:11:08.040 --> 00:11:10.280 - We should not explicitly say anything. 00:11:10.280 --> 00:11:12.760 - Right. - It should be just, I see that you raised your hand 00:11:12.760 --> 00:11:15.800 and then maybe I acknowledge it with a nod. 00:11:15.800 --> 00:11:19.400 Yeah. And then you lower your hand because otherwise it would be too weird, I think, 00:11:19.400 --> 00:11:20.840 if you keep it raised for so long. 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:28.200 - By the way, listeners, I've been keeping my hand raised this whole time and Ilya didn't let me talk. 00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:32.120 - Yeah, because we don't have video, right? So I could be passive aggressive. 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:39.080 - Okay. But by the way, when we do record, we do have video. 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:46.680 So yeah, yeah, let's try that out. We'll see how it goes, especially with four people in a recording. 00:11:46.680 --> 00:11:52.040 Like we've done how many, two episodes so far and our next one is also with four people. 00:11:52.040 --> 00:11:56.360 It can be quite tricky to coordinate like who's going to speak next and all that. 00:11:56.360 --> 00:12:05.080 - Yeah. And maybe we could try actually talking to Angela and Annie when we record before the recording. 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:08.040 - Yeah. - And see if we can try out that thing. 00:12:08.040 --> 00:12:09.800 Actually, maybe they already have something like that. 00:12:09.800 --> 00:12:12.840 - Yeah. - And just see how it works. 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:17.960 You know, I know Angela, I work with her. Annie is new to me, but still like, you know, they're very nice and all. 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:21.880 So we can just try things out, experiment in a safe environment. 00:12:21.880 --> 00:12:26.120 - Yeah. - Not that any of our previous guests weren't safe, but this will be. 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:35.640 - By the way, today is the 26th of Jan and we are talking about Squadcast, our reflections, 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:39.720 that the episode that came out last week as your listening listener. 00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:40.760 - In March. 00:12:40.760 --> 00:12:43.400 - Which came out in March. Yes. 00:12:43.400 --> 00:12:44.440 - Yeah. 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:46.760 - But today is 26th of Jan. 00:12:46.760 --> 00:12:51.400 I think the point of this episode is time travel anyway, so why not take it further. 00:12:51.400 --> 00:12:58.520 But we are interviewing with Angela and Annie in a couple of days on 28th of Jan. 00:12:58.520 --> 00:13:00.040 And we're both very excited. 00:13:00.040 --> 00:13:04.520 And I don't want to take this too far because we will talk with them and then we'll have a reflection 00:13:04.520 --> 00:13:10.760 of their episode too. But thanks for introducing me to that podcast, Hearts in Taiwan. 00:13:10.760 --> 00:13:17.240 I am absolutely loving it. I've listened to a lot of new podcasts this year, but that is my highlight so far. 00:13:17.240 --> 00:13:25.000 - Yeah. The interesting thing about us doing that podcast, about podcasting, is that because we do research, 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:33.080 we have to expose ourselves to things that we normally might not have listened to. Like Hearts in Taiwan, 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:38.760 I would have never found this organically. The way I discovered that podcast. 00:13:38.760 --> 00:13:44.280 So I reached out to Mike, who is our head of developer relations at Google Maps Platform, 00:13:44.280 --> 00:13:51.240 and asked him if he knows any podcasters, because by nature, he would be like out there talking to people and all. 00:13:52.200 --> 00:14:03.880 And he said, "Yes, one of them is in my team." And he introduced me to, I mean, I knew Angela, of course, before, but he said, like, if this is her podcast, 00:14:03.880 --> 00:14:12.440 I would have never listened to something about Taiwan. I just don't have a natural interest in Taiwan. I guess it's not surprising that I don't. 00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:21.960 - Yeah. - Then I turned it on and started listening to that podcast. And at some deep level, I can't quite explain it resonated with me so well. 00:14:21.960 --> 00:14:22.440 - Yes. 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:30.200 - Not just their personalities, but also the things I talk about, the parenting. And I think they are second 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:35.880 generation immigrants. I'm a first generation immigrant, but my kids are second generation immigrants. So those 00:14:35.880 --> 00:14:40.840 things, they just were so interesting. And they approached this from their cultural perspective, 00:14:40.840 --> 00:14:48.200 which is different from mine. But for me, it was so kind of mind expanding that, I don't know, 00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:51.800 maybe we should savor this for the next meta. So maybe let's go back to squad cast. 00:14:51.800 --> 00:14:52.360 - Yes. 00:14:52.360 --> 00:14:59.320 - So back to feedback, back to feedback. One thing is those interruptions. So yeah, let's try to maybe raise hands. 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:04.840 - So for the meta swords, I don't think we need that. Like this kind of interruption that you and I have is 00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:10.360 very natural. It sounds natural and I want to keep it that way. But I think when there's three or four 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.240 people, we definitely need that coordination. 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:19.320 - Yeah. Actually, I didn't experience any issues editing our meta swords because also then you and I can 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:27.400 be conscious of that and maybe take a pause, say it again. It's not a big deal. With guests, it's more 00:15:27.400 --> 00:15:34.680 like a continuum of words. We don't re-record stuff there. So the other thing I noticed, 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:40.360 editing, not editing, I was listening to our Jake and Jonathan episode. It came out this week. 00:15:40.360 --> 00:15:44.600 The week we recorded this, it came out a couple of days ago. I was listening to it in my car and 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:53.240 there was just, I speak so fast and there are so many, so much stutter and corrections. And I'm like, 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:59.640 this is, this is really bad. I think I've improved over time, but now I'm actually making a conscious 00:15:59.640 --> 00:16:06.760 effort to speak more slowly, which I think actually will also benefit me in the life outside podcasting, 00:16:06.760 --> 00:16:09.800 which is actually an interesting point that Zach and Rock were also making. 00:16:09.800 --> 00:16:12.600 - Yeah. - That podcasting trains you to speak 00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:17.960 certain way, to listen certain way. And I think this will be one of the benefits I get from doing this show. 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:26.920 - Yes. So I'll tell you what I hear. I don't hear the stutters or stop words and all that. And I think 00:16:26.920 --> 00:16:32.360 we talked about this in our, one of the very first episodes, your brain basically just throws all 00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:36.760 that out, right? If you're engrossed in the content, you're not going to hear all that stuff. 00:16:36.760 --> 00:16:42.680 And I don't, I do think you speak fast sometimes when you're excited, especially, and you are 00:16:42.680 --> 00:16:46.360 excited when you're recording these podcasts. - Especially the Jake and Jonathan. 00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:53.720 - Yes. It was not at a level where it was like, that I don't understand that you're going too fast. 00:16:53.720 --> 00:17:01.480 In my podcast listening app, I have like the speed turned on a little bit, like 1.15 or 1.2x and it 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:07.720 still sounds natural. And one of the listeners also told me that you are fast, but they like it that 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:13.880 way. And it's very natural. If you're consciously trying to slow it down, do that, but don't go like 00:17:13.880 --> 00:17:17.480 overboard with it. I think it's pretty natural what you have going. 00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:25.960 - Yeah. One thing I'll say is I was editing our episodes recently at 2x speed. So basically I just... 00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:35.880 I don't think we mentioned that before. So we are now working with a sound engineer. 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:43.240 Our process has changed. Now what we do is after we record, I download the files, import them 00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:50.520 into the app called Ferrite on the iPad. So I have an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil. Ferrite is like 00:17:50.520 --> 00:17:55.320 a digital audio workstation, but kind of very rudimentary compared to what you get on the computer. 00:17:55.320 --> 00:18:00.600 But with Apple Pencil, it makes it really easy to make edits. And we can talk a little bit more about 00:18:00.600 --> 00:18:05.400 that after I finish and thought about speed. Because of Ferrite's interface, it kind of makes it really 00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:12.520 easy to switch between 1x and 2x speed. So what I do is when you have those transitions between speakers, 00:18:13.240 --> 00:18:19.560 I listen to those on 1x to make sure that I correct it so they sound natural. But when one person is 00:18:19.560 --> 00:18:25.320 talking for a long time, I just listen to it on 2x just to make sure there are no like weird artifacts 00:18:25.320 --> 00:18:31.640 or something like that. And the funny thing I noticed, I was editing, I think it was this quadcast episode. 00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:37.160 Somebody was talking for like a long time. And I think I was asking the question and then I slow it 00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:48.600 down to 1x. And my speech felt to me like that. So just purely from like a cognitive perspective, 00:18:48.600 --> 00:18:53.400 right? So my brain was playing tricks with me. Because I guess I was so used to listening to 00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:59.320 voices on 2x. When slowed down, at normal speed, they felt slowed down. But then if you listen to 00:18:59.320 --> 00:19:04.440 those enough on 1x, it starts to feel natural again. It's just such a weird realization. Yeah. 00:19:04.440 --> 00:19:11.960 You know, I've been learning and doing like Flutter apps, right? I built one recently. And now I'm 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:17.240 building another one. And this was all new to me. I've never done mobile development. So I did one 00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:21.960 course in Udemy. And there's a lot of great content on YouTube, too. But these are all like 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:28.200 36 hours or at least 10 hour long things, right? And I listen to them at like 2x speed. 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:35.240 And so sometimes I go back because I was like, okay, I didn't quite grok it or I need to pay specific 00:19:35.240 --> 00:19:41.480 attention because I'm not getting this thing. So I slow down to 1x and it feels so weird. It's like, 00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:51.000 in my head, the image of that person speaking has become the 2x speed normally. And when I hear 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:56.760 them speak naturally, it feels very weird now. Yeah. I think there's a big difference in how you 00:19:56.760 --> 00:20:03.720 perceive speech when you speed up somebody who narrates like lectures, for example, or audiobooks. 00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:11.640 So people read off a script. And they, I think, intentionally speak at proper pace so that people 00:20:11.640 --> 00:20:17.480 with different, I guess, cognitive abilities in terms of processing speech can understand and people 00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:22.440 who maybe look a bit faster, they can speed it up. So they adjust, right? So audiobooks are usually very, 00:20:22.440 --> 00:20:29.720 very slow for my liking. But when you listen to a dialogue, so at least for me, I can't even do 1.1x. 00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:35.720 Like it has to be at natural speed because if it's just people talking, I want to hear them talk at 00:20:35.720 --> 00:20:42.680 natural pace. The dissonance I had once, I watched Neil Gaiman's Masterclass on masterclass.com 00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:48.760 about writing and comics. That's actually how I learned about Sandman. And yeah, so I listened to 00:20:48.760 --> 00:20:54.840 maybe three hours of his content. I really liked it at 1x because it's really weird to like see a person 00:20:54.840 --> 00:21:00.760 move at a much faster speed too. And also he has a very pleasant voice in a very nice manner. And then 00:21:00.760 --> 00:21:07.080 I listened to my first Neil Gaiman's book, which was Coraline. It's a great book and it was narrated 00:21:07.080 --> 00:21:12.920 by Neil Gaiman himself. And my app had the setting that all of the books play at like 1.3x, I think. 00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:21.080 And it just sounded so weird because his voice was distorted to my ear. So I slowed down to 1x and I was like, 00:21:21.080 --> 00:21:29.000 wow. Okay. So now it sounds good. And obviously it took me 30% more time to listen to that audio book, 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:35.880 but it just felt so good when you hear to the author himself doing this. And he has this kind of manner 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:43.000 that is different from, you know, somebody else reads the book rather than the author. It's his book. 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:48.760 He's very excited about his own book and he reads this such great, I don't know, he does really well. 00:21:48.760 --> 00:21:57.240 Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. By the way, talking about Neil Gaiman, episode number seven of our podcast, 00:21:57.240 --> 00:22:00.600 which was a prime episode, we went to... 7.5. 00:22:00.600 --> 00:22:06.840 7.5. Yes, you're right. Maybe it should have been like 7.7 or something. But anyway... 00:22:10.280 --> 00:22:20.360 Anyway, episode number 7.5 or something between 7 and 8 that came out, we went to depth about Neil Gaiman 00:22:20.360 --> 00:22:27.720 and the Sandman comic books and all that. And you asked me to read or listen to his audio books and 00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:36.920 stuff, right? So I did pick up the audio book and I started watching the show on Netflix and I have a lot of 00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:42.440 stuff to talk about, but we'll reserve it for our next prime episode whenever that comes out. 00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:50.760 Yes, yeah. Finish at least the whole series on Netflix and at least one full audio version of it, 00:22:50.760 --> 00:22:54.440 which covers three comics. Actually, I think it covers the entire Netflix series. 00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:55.240 Okay. 00:22:55.240 --> 00:22:57.880 I mean, the same kind of range of the original books. 00:22:57.880 --> 00:22:58.440 Right. 00:22:58.440 --> 00:23:00.040 So yeah, I'm curious what you will think about it. 00:23:00.040 --> 00:23:00.680 Yeah. Cool. 00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:06.440 I think I'll surprise you with some of my takes on this, but we'll do it in the next prime episode, not now. 00:23:07.560 --> 00:23:12.440 Talking about the other piece of feedback that you and I were talking about is... 00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:21.960 So the way we record our episodes right now, the Metacast podcast with guests is we have a set of 00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:27.960 high-level topics in mind when we sit down with guests because we do some research, we listen to their 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:35.320 podcasts and their work and come up with some things, but we don't have a script of exactly what we're going to talk about. 00:23:35.320 --> 00:23:40.520 And we do go on tangents and I feel like it's been working great. 00:23:40.520 --> 00:23:44.840 We do also have a checklist of things to do, like introduce... 00:23:44.840 --> 00:23:45.960 Which we never use. 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:47.960 Yes. And we were going to talk about... 00:23:47.960 --> 00:23:54.920 You and I have been talking about, like, how can we actually figure out, enforce that checklist? 00:23:54.920 --> 00:23:57.640 Because one thing... 00:23:57.640 --> 00:24:03.480 Actually, Brian mentioned this in our very second episode is when you're recording... 00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:05.960 Very second episode, yes. 00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:07.480 Yes, very second. 00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:09.880 And we were talking about checklists in our very third episode. 00:24:09.880 --> 00:24:16.760 Yes, but Brian mentioned this in the very first episode with a guest. 00:24:16.760 --> 00:24:20.520 To make it easier for listeners, it's episode number two. 00:24:20.520 --> 00:24:22.520 So if you want to listen to it, it's episode number two. 00:24:22.520 --> 00:24:24.360 Yes, with Brian McCullough. 00:24:24.360 --> 00:24:29.400 He mentioned what you are having to do when you're recording a podcast. 00:24:29.960 --> 00:24:34.680 So you are doing so many functions at the same time, right? 00:24:34.680 --> 00:24:43.640 Like, you're trying to keep to a certain agenda, however high level or lose it may be, like in our case. 00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:54.680 You're trying to listen with a lot of attention to what your guest is saying, so that you understand it and have a very nice follow-up conversation about it. 00:24:54.680 --> 00:25:02.840 At the same time, you're thinking about where next you want to go and how you bridge from where you are to there. 00:25:02.840 --> 00:25:05.960 And on top of it, now we have the checklist. 00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:12.680 And I feel like that might be at the gut of us completely forgetting about the checklist. 00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:22.600 And why we bring this up is in our last episode with Squadcast founders, Zach and Rock, we forgot to ask them at the end where people can find them. 00:25:22.600 --> 00:25:28.360 Well, thankfully, they are the founders of Squadcast and it's like all over Squadcast.fm. 00:25:28.360 --> 00:25:30.520 So you won't have a problem with that. 00:25:30.520 --> 00:25:32.600 But we should have at least mentioned Squadcast.fm. 00:25:32.600 --> 00:25:33.880 We didn't even do that. 00:25:33.880 --> 00:25:34.680 Yes. 00:25:34.680 --> 00:25:40.840 And in our intro also, we mentioned them by name, but they themselves didn't say like, 00:25:40.840 --> 00:25:43.080 Hey, this is Zach or this is Rock. 00:25:43.080 --> 00:25:46.600 And so it was a bit abrupt in the beginning. 00:25:46.600 --> 00:25:53.000 So we should also figure out what's our process to like basically use that checklist. 00:25:53.000 --> 00:26:04.440 And I've been thinking like maybe we should just print out like a big sheet, put it like on the wall in front of us or on maybe like an iPad on a secondary display or something like that. 00:26:04.440 --> 00:26:07.240 Something that is big and like hard to miss. 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:07.400 Yeah. 00:26:07.400 --> 00:26:17.960 One thing that I think affects my workflow or at least used to affect is up until this very day until today. 00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:21.480 So I have this foamy, what do you call this? 00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:29.400 It's like a sound absorption thing that I would put around my microphone so that I reduce the echo. 00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:34.680 And that obscured half of my screen when I was doing the recording. 00:26:34.680 --> 00:26:41.800 And also when I would talk, I would turn away from the screen, which also made it difficult for me to track our notes, to track our checklist. 00:26:41.800 --> 00:26:44.360 Like my keyboard would be a little bit removed from me. 00:26:44.360 --> 00:26:48.520 So it's kind of a very ergonomically bad position that I was in. 00:26:48.520 --> 00:26:57.960 So what I did a couple of days ago, I played with the settings of my microphone and also played with the positioning of that foamy thing. 00:26:58.840 --> 00:27:17.960 And I found the settings of like the gain and other parameters for the Shure MV7 that allow me now to actually see my full screen and have my keyboard and my trackpad in front of me so that I actually can properly focus on the screen. 00:27:17.960 --> 00:27:20.440 So maybe next time I'll try to be there. 00:27:20.440 --> 00:27:22.200 Maybe that's what we should do. 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:27.240 Maybe we should appoint who of us is accountable for tracking the checklist. 00:27:27.240 --> 00:27:31.960 Maybe for the next recording, let that be me. 00:27:31.960 --> 00:27:36.440 So I'll be the scheduling Nazi person. 00:27:36.440 --> 00:27:39.000 Not scheduling, checklisting, whatever. 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:40.920 Make sure that we say things that we have to say. 00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:43.240 You will be the check police. 00:27:43.240 --> 00:27:44.920 Check police. 00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:49.000 It's like the Czech Republic police. 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:57.880 Yeah, I was talking to somebody actually the other day and his wife is Slovak, but they live in the Czech Republic. 00:27:57.880 --> 00:28:01.000 And we were talking about the other language, like the Slovak language and the Czech language. 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:01.960 I got it the same. 00:28:01.960 --> 00:28:04.520 So yeah, when I say the Czech police, I have this recency bias. 00:28:04.520 --> 00:28:06.920 You know, I remember him talking about the Czech. 00:28:06.920 --> 00:28:07.720 Czech police. 00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:08.600 Czech language. 00:28:08.600 --> 00:28:09.400 Czech police. 00:28:09.400 --> 00:28:10.920 Cool. 00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:17.240 And I'm happy for you to do it in the next episode because I'm really looking forward to that conversation. 00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:23.720 I know it already that I'm going to be so immersed in that conversation that I would forget about checklists. 00:28:23.720 --> 00:28:25.720 So I can be the distracted one. 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:30.040 Actually, let me put the Google doc right now. 00:28:30.040 --> 00:28:38.680 And I just say Ilya is the Czech police. 00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:39.320 All right. 00:28:39.320 --> 00:28:42.600 I'll put it, I'll put it in red in very big letters. 00:28:42.600 --> 00:28:45.960 And I hope I don't miss that. 00:28:47.160 --> 00:28:51.480 Let's talk about some of the highlights and reflections from the Squadcast episode. 00:28:51.480 --> 00:28:53.720 Let's start with yours first. 00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:55.320 Sure. 00:28:55.320 --> 00:29:06.280 So first thing that I really enjoyed there is there was a lot of passion coming from Zach and Rock about their product, about the users. 00:29:06.280 --> 00:29:10.040 So before we started recording, we actually gave them some feedback about pricing. 00:29:10.040 --> 00:29:16.680 Basically, we have to use a more expensive plan in order to have more people in the recording. 00:29:16.680 --> 00:29:23.640 But because we are doing audio only, a cheaper plan would have sufficed for us if that wasn't restricted. 00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:25.000 So we gave that feedback. 00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:26.680 They listened very, very carefully. 00:29:26.680 --> 00:29:28.600 I almost had flashbacks to Amazon. 00:29:28.600 --> 00:29:42.760 You know how sometimes in some companies you talk to product people and they would try to explain to you why you're wrong for not using their product in the right way or you don't understand the logic for why they did things a certain way. 00:29:42.760 --> 00:29:46.200 And we will not name the companies, but yeah, some companies do that. 00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:52.600 Whereas at Amazon, the product manager would just shut up and listen and ask questions. 00:29:52.600 --> 00:29:54.680 And that's exactly what Zach and Rock did. 00:29:54.680 --> 00:29:55.960 I really, really enjoyed that part. 00:29:55.960 --> 00:29:59.480 As a product manager, I was like, okay, so these people get product. 00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:01.160 And you can see this in their product. 00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:02.520 The product is really good. 00:30:02.520 --> 00:30:03.960 I would say their product is great. 00:30:03.960 --> 00:30:06.760 They made the user experience really, really good. 00:30:06.760 --> 00:30:08.600 And talking to them, I know why. 00:30:08.600 --> 00:30:14.120 And now I understand because the two most important people really care about what they do in their users. 00:30:14.120 --> 00:30:14.680 Yeah. 00:30:14.680 --> 00:30:16.120 And the other thing that's... 00:30:16.120 --> 00:30:17.880 Hand up. 00:30:17.880 --> 00:30:18.680 My hand is up. 00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:24.360 Talking about feedback to Squadcast. 00:30:24.360 --> 00:30:27.640 And going back to our previous thing about checklist. 00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:32.760 Wouldn't it be cool to have that checklist in the Squadcast UX itself? 00:30:32.760 --> 00:30:38.200 And have AI track what you said and actually say, like, don't forget to... 00:30:38.200 --> 00:30:39.480 Actually, that would be great. 00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:43.400 At least, like, check boxes that, yeah, you covered this, this, this, this. 00:30:44.280 --> 00:30:52.680 Yeah, I think you could enter at whatever, five minutes into the recording, show me this message. 00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:54.680 It's 45 minutes, show me that message. 00:30:54.680 --> 00:30:55.400 Yeah. 00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:56.360 Or something like that, right? 00:30:56.360 --> 00:31:01.240 Or even like a simple list of things that we want to cover. 00:31:02.440 --> 00:31:03.000 Yeah. 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:04.440 I would really like to have like a pop-up. 00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:04.440 Pop-up. 00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:07.960 You know, like almost like when you speak with a teleprompter. 00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:13.160 Like, let's say we start the episode and then maybe 30 seconds in, it says, 00:31:13.160 --> 00:31:15.240 "Don't forget to ask their names." 00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:15.640 Yeah. 00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:16.600 Or something, right? 00:31:16.600 --> 00:31:19.320 So basically, everybody probably has their own hiccups that they 00:31:19.320 --> 00:31:21.720 make during the recording, even the professionals. 00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:21.720 Yeah. 00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:25.560 So we have our own, we get too excited, we forget to... 00:31:25.560 --> 00:31:29.720 Actually, I think the problem is like because we chatted with them for so long in the beginning. 00:31:29.720 --> 00:31:30.360 Before, yeah. 00:31:30.360 --> 00:31:37.240 Yeah, we kind of carried over that context, which we fail to recognize that the listeners 00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:38.520 will not have that context. 00:31:38.520 --> 00:31:39.000 Right. 00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:45.320 So do you want to take that feature request and progress it into Skippy that like pops up 00:31:45.320 --> 00:31:48.200 and says, "Hey, sounds like you're five minutes in. 00:31:48.200 --> 00:31:50.360 Have you asked them about the names?" 00:31:50.360 --> 00:31:51.720 You mean Clippy? 00:31:51.720 --> 00:31:52.840 Oh, Clippy. 00:31:52.840 --> 00:31:53.800 Did I say Skippy? 00:31:53.800 --> 00:31:54.040 Yeah. 00:31:54.040 --> 00:31:54.360 Sorry. 00:31:54.360 --> 00:31:55.320 You said Skippy, yeah. 00:31:55.320 --> 00:31:59.480 Skippy is from... 00:31:59.480 --> 00:32:00.600 Where is Skippy from? 00:32:00.600 --> 00:32:02.280 That's the sci-fi book. 00:32:02.280 --> 00:32:04.040 Really good book that I was listening. 00:32:04.040 --> 00:32:05.400 Do you know what I'm talking about? 00:32:05.400 --> 00:32:10.200 No, isn't it like a black and white dog from some kind of cartoon? 00:32:10.200 --> 00:32:10.600 Skippy? 00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:12.280 Snoopy? 00:32:12.280 --> 00:32:13.080 No, okay. 00:32:13.080 --> 00:32:16.840 And Snoop Dogg is a rap guy. 00:32:16.840 --> 00:32:20.280 No, Skippy was from a really fun sci-fi book. 00:32:20.280 --> 00:32:22.040 I'll try to find it and... 00:32:22.040 --> 00:32:22.760 Let's not go there. 00:32:22.760 --> 00:32:23.640 Yeah. 00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:24.440 Yes, let's not go. 00:32:24.440 --> 00:32:25.640 But yeah, Clippy. 00:32:25.640 --> 00:32:31.720 So for those of you who actually don't know who Clippy was, Clippy was a paper clip 00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:37.640 inside the Microsoft Office 95, I think, interface. 00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:38.840 Yeah, something like that. 00:32:38.840 --> 00:32:40.120 Office 98. 00:32:40.120 --> 00:32:43.480 So we studied Clippy quite a bit because when we were working on the chatbot at Amazon, 00:32:44.040 --> 00:32:47.080 we were building something that can assist people. 00:32:47.080 --> 00:32:50.840 So I personally studied everything I could find on Clippy. 00:32:50.840 --> 00:32:55.080 Clippy was this annoying little paper clip that would offer you suggestions. 00:32:55.080 --> 00:32:57.000 Like, oh, did you forget to do this? 00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:58.360 Or did you forget to do that? 00:32:58.360 --> 00:33:03.320 But it was completely out of context and it was so annoying. 00:33:03.320 --> 00:33:06.200 So people hated it and Microsoft eventually shut it down. 00:33:06.200 --> 00:33:10.440 It's like you start writing "hello" and then Clippy comes in and says, 00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:12.520 "Hey, looks like you're writing a letter to your mom." 00:33:13.960 --> 00:33:14.520 Yeah. 00:33:14.520 --> 00:33:18.840 Well, while you're doing like accounting and spreadsheets. 00:33:18.840 --> 00:33:19.080 Yeah. 00:33:19.080 --> 00:33:21.160 That's just how bad it was. 00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:26.040 So yeah, Zach and Rock, add Clippy to Squadcast. 00:33:26.040 --> 00:33:26.120 Yeah. 00:33:26.120 --> 00:33:27.400 Check police. 00:33:27.400 --> 00:33:27.720 Yes. 00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:31.160 But yeah, some stuff like that would be helpful actually to help automate the workflow. 00:33:31.160 --> 00:33:31.800 Yeah. 00:33:31.800 --> 00:33:35.320 So continuing with the topic of feedback, during the recording, 00:33:35.320 --> 00:33:40.040 actually, as we were talking about all the backups and other things that they do to make 00:33:40.040 --> 00:33:45.400 sure that recordings are safe and never lost, you started to have problems with your internet 00:33:45.400 --> 00:33:51.240 connection and we don't know whether it was a Squadcast issue or internet issue because the three 00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:54.200 of us, the remaining three of us didn't have any problems. 00:33:54.200 --> 00:34:00.360 It was only you and yeah, maybe something idiosyncratic, but in any case, so you had this problem 00:34:00.360 --> 00:34:06.120 and they were really, really eager to troubleshoot it in real time. 00:34:06.120 --> 00:34:06.120 Yes. 00:34:06.120 --> 00:34:09.720 They were offering suggestions and they were offering help. 00:34:10.040 --> 00:34:11.400 And we tried a few things. 00:34:11.400 --> 00:34:13.400 We cut it all out from the episode itself. 00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:13.800 Yeah. 00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:15.240 So you will not hear this. 00:34:15.240 --> 00:34:20.360 But that also showed how deeply they care about the product and their users. 00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:21.160 Yeah. 00:34:21.160 --> 00:34:24.440 And being founders, I think that's really important. 00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:30.440 They're still a small company, but at the same time, they're at like 13, 14 people. 00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:34.760 And they're not delegating these things to somebody else saying, "Hey, somebody else will 00:34:34.760 --> 00:34:36.440 look at this afterwards." 00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:38.600 They're actually trying to help real time. 00:34:38.600 --> 00:34:45.960 And I think, yeah, this has happened with my Squadcast usage a few times. 00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:55.240 And so far, my observation is that about an hour into the recording, something goes crap. 00:34:55.240 --> 00:35:01.560 My internet speed says it's like, "Great, you're at like 300 Mbps or 100 Mbps or whatever." 00:35:01.560 --> 00:35:08.600 And that's why that day I left the session, basically restarted. 00:35:08.600 --> 00:35:11.080 Have you tried turning it off and on again? 00:35:11.080 --> 00:35:15.720 Basically, I restarted the browser and came back again and it was fine. 00:35:15.720 --> 00:35:20.440 Today, we are about 44 minutes into this recording, so let's see how it goes. 00:35:20.440 --> 00:35:21.000 Yeah. 00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:23.080 But yeah, that was my highlight. 00:35:23.080 --> 00:35:29.480 I just enjoyed talking to great product people as a product person myself. 00:35:29.480 --> 00:35:30.840 That was really, really good. 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:34.440 And to your point, founders set the tone. 00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:38.680 I guess Steve Jobs is a canonical example of Apple. 00:35:38.680 --> 00:35:46.360 I'm actually so surprised that Apple products still are great for most part, 00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:50.680 unless you start doing things like family sharing in iCloud and stuff like that. 00:35:50.680 --> 00:35:54.360 A lot of those complex things that are afterthoughts. 00:35:54.360 --> 00:35:57.320 But their core things, they're really, really good. 00:35:57.320 --> 00:36:02.680 Especially when you start comparing with other products by other reputable companies, 00:36:02.680 --> 00:36:04.040 including Amazon's actually. 00:36:04.040 --> 00:36:06.840 Like some of those products are pretty shitty. 00:36:06.840 --> 00:36:08.280 Anyway, so what was your highlight? 00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:10.760 Okay, so I've got three. 00:36:10.760 --> 00:36:13.560 They're all small, so let's go one by one. 00:36:13.560 --> 00:36:22.200 The first one was Zach specifically talking about the bootstrapping their business process. 00:36:22.200 --> 00:36:27.640 How they, like right from the beginning, they knew that this is a pretty big idea. 00:36:27.640 --> 00:36:32.360 I think it's hard to have that kind of validation before you start building it, 00:36:32.360 --> 00:36:34.840 before you start seeing traction from customers. 00:36:34.840 --> 00:36:38.440 But they had some sort of a belief and validation already. 00:36:38.440 --> 00:36:42.120 So he, in fact, talks about like almost over-engineering it. 00:36:42.120 --> 00:36:45.960 But they hit the timing exactly right, right? 00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:49.960 Like they came out pretty much a year or so before COVID. 00:36:49.960 --> 00:36:56.280 And during COVID, this whole business of being forced to record remote, essentially, 00:36:56.280 --> 00:36:58.040 from your homes took off. 00:36:58.040 --> 00:37:01.160 And they were right there to be along for the ride. 00:37:01.160 --> 00:37:03.960 Like Zoom was able to benefit from meetings, right? 00:37:03.960 --> 00:37:05.560 And they were just right there. 00:37:05.560 --> 00:37:08.680 I think they launched in 2017 or they started in 2017. 00:37:08.680 --> 00:37:09.160 Right. 00:37:09.160 --> 00:37:11.400 So they had been around for a couple of years. 00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:12.120 A couple of years. 00:37:12.120 --> 00:37:12.520 Yeah. 00:37:12.520 --> 00:37:16.760 And COVID just, I will quote, I think Zach said, it was painful growth. 00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:17.240 Yes. 00:37:17.240 --> 00:37:22.120 So even with that over-engineering, it was still difficult for them to scale, it seems. 00:37:22.120 --> 00:37:22.600 Yeah. 00:37:22.600 --> 00:37:26.760 But still, like, otherwise, if they didn't have that, they would have just failed. 00:37:26.760 --> 00:37:27.320 Yes. 00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:28.920 And they were also very small. 00:37:28.920 --> 00:37:30.760 Maybe just two people at that time still. 00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:31.720 I don't know. 00:37:31.720 --> 00:37:32.200 Yeah. 00:37:32.200 --> 00:37:40.200 But regardless, I love the whole bootstrapping part and the fact that, like, they talked about 00:37:40.200 --> 00:37:45.720 how they took money outside of their paychecks to fund the initial investment into the thing 00:37:45.720 --> 00:37:52.680 and grew it and reached, uh, like basically a revenue with, they gave themselves like a year. 00:37:52.680 --> 00:37:59.000 Uh, and this all touched me because I am sort of trying to do the same thing right now. 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:02.200 So yeah, it was, uh, awesome having that chat. 00:38:02.200 --> 00:38:02.440 Yeah. 00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:04.040 That's the cool thing about our podcast too. 00:38:04.040 --> 00:38:07.640 We get to talk to people who can give us free advice. 00:38:07.640 --> 00:38:08.040 Yes. 00:38:08.040 --> 00:38:08.680 Yeah. 00:38:08.680 --> 00:38:12.760 Even if nobody listens to this, we benefit from this, uh, tremendously. 00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:13.320 Oh yeah. 00:38:13.320 --> 00:38:19.240 And I think aside from learning about these people, talking to them, we are also getting 00:38:19.240 --> 00:38:24.600 exposed to so many different things that we just would not have bothered to like read about 00:38:24.600 --> 00:38:25.560 or understand, right? 00:38:25.560 --> 00:38:27.880 Like, like Taiwan, like the Taiwan thing. 00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:28.040 Yeah. 00:38:28.040 --> 00:38:30.200 Like talking about that podcast. 00:38:30.200 --> 00:38:35.720 I told you already that it has become one of my favorite podcasts, but I also started reading 00:38:35.720 --> 00:38:40.200 about the history of Taiwan and China and there's so much complication there. 00:38:40.200 --> 00:38:40.440 Right. 00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:44.120 And I would not have bothered to read all of that. 00:38:44.120 --> 00:38:49.800 In fact, I was on a dog walk with my wife today and I was telling her about all of this 00:38:49.800 --> 00:38:51.720 and she got really interested in it too. 00:38:51.720 --> 00:38:53.720 So yeah, no, I'm loving it. 00:38:53.720 --> 00:39:00.200 Hopefully after our episode, their listenership of by non-Taiwanese listeners will skyrocket. 00:39:00.200 --> 00:39:00.680 Yes. 00:39:00.680 --> 00:39:01.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:39:01.960 --> 00:39:03.000 By year 2028. 00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:03.640 Yes. 00:39:03.640 --> 00:39:04.360 Yes. 00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:09.560 So if you're in 2028 and listening to it, now go back and listen to the Hearts in Taiwan podcast. 00:39:09.560 --> 00:39:10.920 Yeah. 00:39:10.920 --> 00:39:14.040 The episode with Jane Ho, I think that's her name. 00:39:14.040 --> 00:39:14.680 Yes. 00:39:14.680 --> 00:39:15.720 So they had this author. 00:39:15.720 --> 00:39:17.640 Anyway, let's go back to squadron. 00:39:17.640 --> 00:39:17.960 Yeah. 00:39:17.960 --> 00:39:18.360 Yeah. 00:39:18.360 --> 00:39:21.560 We have to remind ourselves like stay on track. 00:39:21.560 --> 00:39:22.120 Yeah. 00:39:22.120 --> 00:39:25.080 Otherwise, you just go somewhere else all the time. 00:39:25.080 --> 00:39:27.880 We do time travel and space travel. 00:39:27.880 --> 00:39:37.000 Anyway, my second highlight was the shift to video and that conversation. 00:39:37.560 --> 00:39:46.600 And it kind of what Rock said makes common sense, but I think it was pretty insightful still. 00:39:46.600 --> 00:39:54.200 And the takeaway for me was get comfortable and consistent with audio first, because video 00:39:54.200 --> 00:39:58.520 editing is like 4X, 10X, maybe the amount of work. 00:39:58.520 --> 00:40:02.200 And you know it, Ilya, because you've done some video editing in the past. 00:40:02.200 --> 00:40:06.360 But while he was talking about this, I was thinking about it and it makes sense, right? 00:40:06.360 --> 00:40:12.680 Like video editing is going to be so much more complex, because you can't easily chop things 00:40:12.680 --> 00:40:17.400 in and out and actually make it still a smooth video. 00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:18.120 Yeah. 00:40:18.120 --> 00:40:23.240 So I have not done video production at that level of sophistication. 00:40:23.240 --> 00:40:30.040 What I did is like stitching some things, like when I was playing the guitar and stuff 00:40:30.040 --> 00:40:30.840 like that. 00:40:30.840 --> 00:40:36.200 But even then, what I learned, and I think that's what many of the video bloggers do, 00:40:37.160 --> 00:40:39.480 is like if you need to stitch two things together. 00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:46.520 So let's say you and I are talking and I want to cut out maybe a long pause or something that I said. 00:40:46.520 --> 00:40:53.720 So what I do is I show myself on the video up until that moment where I need to cut. 00:40:53.720 --> 00:40:57.880 And then I switch to you listening and nodding your head as I talk. 00:40:58.600 --> 00:41:02.760 And then, but I cut maybe like a few seconds in between, you know? 00:41:02.760 --> 00:41:09.160 So when you watch any of those videos, maybe like interviews that are kind of produced, 00:41:09.160 --> 00:41:13.880 if you see those kind of camera transitions, they are most likely edits. 00:41:13.880 --> 00:41:14.680 Right. 00:41:14.680 --> 00:41:18.680 So what else I noticed people do is like somebody is just talking on camera 00:41:18.680 --> 00:41:22.680 and they change the zoom of the camera. 00:41:22.680 --> 00:41:26.120 So it goes like deeper or like in and out. 00:41:26.120 --> 00:41:29.160 And actually, you see that it's not just a zoom. 00:41:29.160 --> 00:41:31.640 Actually, the video sort of transitions. 00:41:31.640 --> 00:41:34.520 So basically, they take those clips and they make it in different zooms. 00:41:34.520 --> 00:41:37.560 And it looks to you as if it's just a zoom transition. 00:41:37.560 --> 00:41:38.920 It's just a zoom transition. 00:41:38.920 --> 00:41:42.600 Yeah, but in fact, they cut out like the middle parts. 00:41:42.600 --> 00:41:44.040 To me, it's a bit jarring. 00:41:44.040 --> 00:41:47.720 I like when things are just more smooth. 00:41:47.720 --> 00:41:51.880 But some people, actually, people like me, I can't talk smoothly for like five minutes. 00:41:51.880 --> 00:41:54.120 I have to edit myself. 00:41:54.120 --> 00:41:55.800 And it's just so much easier on audio. 00:41:55.800 --> 00:41:59.000 Because imagine on audio, I just cut out that piece and move on. 00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:00.680 But in the video, I have to like figure out. 00:42:00.680 --> 00:42:06.360 Actually, did you look well while nodding your head while listening to me, right? 00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:06.760 Yeah. 00:42:06.760 --> 00:42:08.280 Because it's also a factor. 00:42:08.280 --> 00:42:10.600 You want to make sure that everybody looks well on their video. 00:42:10.600 --> 00:42:14.600 And they don't touch their face or, you know, put fingers on their nose or whatever. 00:42:14.600 --> 00:42:15.320 Yeah. 00:42:15.320 --> 00:42:16.920 Don't pick their noses. 00:42:16.920 --> 00:42:17.720 I didn't do it today. 00:42:17.720 --> 00:42:18.920 Yeah, don't pick their nose. 00:42:18.920 --> 00:42:19.320 Yeah. 00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:20.200 I forgot that expression. 00:42:20.200 --> 00:42:20.920 Yes, pick their nose. 00:42:20.920 --> 00:42:26.840 Actually, today we are recording video just for fun. 00:42:26.840 --> 00:42:30.600 And maybe we will cut a few short clips for social sharing. 00:42:30.600 --> 00:42:32.200 We are not going to publish the entire thing. 00:42:32.200 --> 00:42:34.680 I'm not going to invest time in editing the whole thing. 00:42:34.680 --> 00:42:36.600 But yeah, we are doing an experiment. 00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:39.640 And I didn't shave, but that's okay. 00:42:39.640 --> 00:42:44.120 I don't shave, but I usually trim my goatee. 00:42:44.120 --> 00:42:44.920 What is this called? 00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:45.960 Goatee. 00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:47.080 Goatee. 00:42:47.080 --> 00:42:47.240 Yeah. 00:42:47.240 --> 00:42:51.560 Is it because goats have a little beard? 00:42:51.560 --> 00:42:53.000 Is it why it's called that way? 00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:53.880 I think so. 00:42:53.880 --> 00:42:57.800 And I think it's a French origin, right? 00:42:57.800 --> 00:42:58.040 Okay. 00:42:58.040 --> 00:42:58.600 Yeah. 00:42:58.600 --> 00:42:59.800 I have no idea. 00:42:59.800 --> 00:43:00.040 Okay. 00:43:00.040 --> 00:43:01.480 What's your third one? 00:43:01.480 --> 00:43:07.320 Third and the last one was, I think we are actually, you and I organically already talked 00:43:07.320 --> 00:43:17.640 about is it is the benefits to you as a person, as a speaker and a listener that comes out of podcasting. 00:43:17.640 --> 00:43:25.160 And I'm starting to see that more and more too, is the skills of listening to somebody very intently, 00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:40.120 deeply understand what they're saying, giving them the space to talk about it while thinking two steps ahead and trying to come up with the next set of things to talk about while being in like really engrossing topics. 00:43:40.120 --> 00:43:42.760 That's very hard to do. 00:43:42.760 --> 00:43:49.800 And hopefully I'm getting better and better at it, but yeah, that's a neat skill. 00:43:49.800 --> 00:43:51.480 Yeah. 00:43:51.480 --> 00:43:53.080 I fully agree with you. 00:43:53.080 --> 00:44:06.120 And also I think you and I, we re-listen to our episodes quite a bit, both during production phase, but also after, like every time our episode comes out, I listen to it. 00:44:06.120 --> 00:44:06.600 Yeah. 00:44:06.600 --> 00:44:11.320 And so by that time it's like the fourth or fifth time I listen to it. 00:44:11.320 --> 00:44:17.080 And every time I pick new things from what people say, but also pick things from how I speak. 00:44:17.080 --> 00:44:17.880 Yeah. 00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:21.400 And then I try to incorporate that into the next recording. 00:44:21.400 --> 00:44:21.880 Yeah. 00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:31.640 So it, it not only helps you like cognitively, like listen better and all that, but it also helps you from just like speaking better. 00:44:31.640 --> 00:44:32.440 Yeah. 00:44:32.440 --> 00:44:32.840 Yeah. 00:44:32.840 --> 00:44:37.880 And like, and like, like, like, I say this fucking like all the time. 00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:40.600 I do say like, like quite a lot to like. 00:44:40.600 --> 00:44:40.840 Yeah. 00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:42.200 I need to, I need to unlearn it. 00:44:42.200 --> 00:44:45.560 And actually you hear the final version, right? 00:44:45.560 --> 00:44:52.840 So you don't always hear all of your likes or all of my likes, but when I listen to the original, to the unprocessed one. 00:44:52.840 --> 00:44:53.320 Right. 00:44:53.320 --> 00:44:56.040 And I'm like, oh my God, I need to work on this. 00:44:56.040 --> 00:44:58.200 Actually our sound engineer. 00:44:58.200 --> 00:45:01.480 Oh, by the way, like an hour ago, I didn't finish the topic about the sound engineer. 00:45:01.480 --> 00:45:03.640 By the way, shout out to Misha. 00:45:03.640 --> 00:45:06.200 Do you want to talk about him a little bit too? 00:45:06.200 --> 00:45:07.560 Yeah. 00:45:07.560 --> 00:45:08.200 Yeah. 00:45:08.200 --> 00:45:11.560 So Misha is our sound engineer. 00:45:11.560 --> 00:45:12.440 He's also from Russia. 00:45:12.440 --> 00:45:14.040 Like me, he lives in Germany. 00:45:14.040 --> 00:45:18.520 He was helping me with my Russian podcast back two years ago. 00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:21.800 And yeah, now we are partnering again. 00:45:21.800 --> 00:45:28.760 And so after I do my processing in Parite, I don't cut filler words and all that or breaths. 00:45:28.760 --> 00:45:30.760 I just cut the content. 00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:35.000 I remove the things that shouldn't be said and then send him the audio files. 00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:43.400 And he does all of the equalizers and breaths and he cuts out, you know, the arms, like super 00:45:43.400 --> 00:45:44.920 long pauses, all that. 00:45:44.920 --> 00:45:48.680 So that saves me probably a couple of hours per episode, which is great. 00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:51.480 And also he is sound engineer by profession. 00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:53.080 He actually has education in that. 00:45:53.080 --> 00:45:53.560 Right. 00:45:53.560 --> 00:45:58.040 So he can do things like the way I wouldn't think about. 00:45:58.040 --> 00:46:02.840 Like, for example, when we had, I think it was about the Jake and Jonathan's episode. 00:46:02.840 --> 00:46:07.960 He's like, you guys all kind of in the center channel because you have like the left, 00:46:07.960 --> 00:46:09.400 right channel and the right channel. 00:46:09.400 --> 00:46:11.640 When you listen, your headphones, you have two ears. 00:46:11.640 --> 00:46:12.040 Yeah. 00:46:12.040 --> 00:46:12.760 So it's stereo. 00:46:12.760 --> 00:46:17.080 And I forgot the term. 00:46:17.080 --> 00:46:21.800 I mean, I actually don't know the English term for that because we were talking in Russian, 00:46:21.800 --> 00:46:26.680 but he basically panned us across the left and right kind of spectrum. 00:46:26.680 --> 00:46:30.120 So if you listen to us, I don't remember exactly what it is, but it's something like 00:46:30.120 --> 00:46:34.680 I'm 60% in the left channel and 40% in the right. 00:46:34.680 --> 00:46:36.680 And you're 60% in the right. 00:46:36.680 --> 00:46:38.440 So yeah, there is more of that balance. 00:46:38.440 --> 00:46:41.880 So especially when two people maybe interrupt each other or when people laugh, 00:46:41.880 --> 00:46:43.560 it's actually better perceived. 00:46:43.560 --> 00:46:45.160 That's super cool. 00:46:45.160 --> 00:46:47.880 So it produces like a stereo effect. 00:46:47.880 --> 00:46:48.680 Yeah. 00:46:48.680 --> 00:46:50.040 It produces a bit of a stereo effect. 00:46:50.040 --> 00:46:57.080 It's subtle enough that you don't notice it, but it improves your experience maybe by those, 00:46:57.080 --> 00:47:03.400 you know, five extra percent that you wouldn't be able to really separate, but it just sounds good. 00:47:03.400 --> 00:47:03.880 Yeah. 00:47:03.880 --> 00:47:03.960 Right. 00:47:03.960 --> 00:47:11.000 Now I want to put on my headsets, maybe on a like surround sound mode and listen to that episode again. 00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:12.360 Yeah. 00:47:12.360 --> 00:47:16.040 And maybe here, actually, if you hear yourself more in one year than in the other year. 00:47:16.040 --> 00:47:16.520 Yeah. 00:47:16.520 --> 00:47:20.040 I did have that feeling today when I was listening to the Jake and Jonathan podcast, 00:47:20.040 --> 00:47:27.000 I was driving in the car and obviously I sit on the left because we have right hand drive in, 00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:28.440 what is it, whatever it is. 00:47:29.080 --> 00:47:31.560 In the U.S., we drive on the right side of the road. 00:47:31.560 --> 00:47:35.560 We have left hand drive, but we drive on the right side. 00:47:35.560 --> 00:47:35.800 Yes. 00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:36.520 Yeah. 00:47:36.520 --> 00:47:37.800 It's so confusing. 00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:39.960 Why don't you ride on the right side? 00:47:39.960 --> 00:47:42.200 So, yeah. 00:47:42.200 --> 00:47:46.680 And I had a feeling like my voice was a little bit louder than yours in that recording. 00:47:46.680 --> 00:47:53.720 But then, I don't know, maybe, maybe just my brain is playing tricks on me because 00:47:53.720 --> 00:47:56.280 I know that they're panned and I'm starting to make things up. 00:47:56.280 --> 00:47:58.600 No, I didn't get that feeling. 00:47:58.600 --> 00:48:04.360 And I didn't get that feeling when listening to the other parts of this episode in my AirPods. 00:48:04.360 --> 00:48:05.960 So, I think I was just making it up. 00:48:05.960 --> 00:48:06.840 Maybe. 00:48:06.840 --> 00:48:08.360 So, tangent time. 00:48:08.360 --> 00:48:11.480 Do you actually drive on the left side in Russia also? 00:48:11.480 --> 00:48:14.280 Oh, that's my favorite topic. 00:48:14.280 --> 00:48:17.240 So, brace yourself, fasten your seatbelt. 00:48:17.240 --> 00:48:18.200 All right. 00:48:18.200 --> 00:48:23.320 So, back in the 90s, I mean, we drive on the right side and the steering wheel is supposed 00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:30.440 to be on the left side, just like in most of the world, except for, I guess, UK and a few 00:48:30.440 --> 00:48:31.080 countries in Asia. 00:48:31.080 --> 00:48:32.200 India, yeah. 00:48:32.200 --> 00:48:34.040 Oh, India, right. 00:48:34.040 --> 00:48:34.600 Actually, yes. 00:48:34.600 --> 00:48:39.800 That was very jarring when I moved from India to US, but within a couple of weeks, it was okay. 00:48:39.800 --> 00:48:41.160 But yeah, I'm curious. 00:48:41.160 --> 00:48:42.280 Can I preempt? 00:48:42.280 --> 00:48:47.560 Are you saying that you sit on the right side and drive on the right side? 00:48:47.560 --> 00:48:48.760 Oh my God. 00:48:48.760 --> 00:48:49.960 Yes. 00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:56.200 Back in the 90s, when the borders opened up and people started to import cars, it was a lot 00:48:56.200 --> 00:48:58.520 cheaper to import cars from Japan. 00:48:58.520 --> 00:49:03.720 Because I'm from East Siberia, which is, it's not far east of Russia, but it's like east enough. 00:49:03.720 --> 00:49:08.520 So, it's like much closer to Japan than it is to Europe. 00:49:08.520 --> 00:49:14.680 So, a lot of that secondhand cars, obviously, in the Moscow region, Moscow, St. Petersburg, 00:49:14.680 --> 00:49:18.280 all of that stuff, all of those cities in the West, they were importing the old kind of 00:49:18.280 --> 00:49:21.720 Volkswagen and Renaults and whatever you have in Europe, the kind of the cheaper ones. 00:49:21.720 --> 00:49:24.840 Also more expensive ones, but also a lot of the cheap ones. 00:49:25.560 --> 00:49:30.520 In the eastern part, it was a lot cheaper to import from Japan. 00:49:30.520 --> 00:49:38.680 Because also their system is such that people change cars every few years and they sell them 00:49:38.680 --> 00:49:45.080 off auctions. And for the auctions, they do a lot of testing of the cars. So, actually, 00:49:45.080 --> 00:49:48.680 you could trust the records from the auction because it's an independent auction that tests 00:49:48.680 --> 00:49:53.560 the cars. Unlike, let's say, going to Europe and buying it from somebody who you don't know. 00:49:53.560 --> 00:49:57.480 Right. It's like today's pre-certified kind of process. 00:49:57.480 --> 00:50:03.400 Yeah, but that is kind of fully independent. So, that's just how cars are traded in Japan, 00:50:03.400 --> 00:50:08.760 secondhand cars. And lots of those cars, they started to be imported into Russia. 00:50:08.760 --> 00:50:14.040 So, up until I think the Urals, like from Vladivostok to Ekaterinburg, which is like, 00:50:14.040 --> 00:50:22.440 whatever, five or six time zones. So, those regions have, or used to have mostly right-handed cars 00:50:22.440 --> 00:50:29.720 driving on the right side of the road. And I used to have one of those too. So, back in 2006, 00:50:29.720 --> 00:50:34.920 it was my first car I bought like a year out of college. I remember I paid $607,000 for it. 00:50:34.920 --> 00:50:45.160 Wait, wait, wait. $607,000? $7,000, yes. $6,700. $6,700, yes. 00:50:45.160 --> 00:50:48.680 Yeah, $6,700. Wait, not dollars though. Are you saying an equivalent? 00:50:48.680 --> 00:50:52.200 No, because the transaction was actually made in the US dollars. 00:50:52.200 --> 00:50:54.200 Ha. Okay. 00:50:54.200 --> 00:50:59.160 So, but yeah, because I don't think we can buy Japanese yens with Russian rubles. So, 00:50:59.160 --> 00:51:03.400 I think it was like the intermediate currency was the US dollar. 00:51:03.400 --> 00:51:11.720 Wow. That's also very fascinating. So, you actually buy from Japan. It's not like somebody's importing 00:51:11.720 --> 00:51:13.160 and selling it to you locally. 00:51:13.160 --> 00:51:23.960 So, that's $606,700 is inclusive of the company who bought the car from the auction in Japan, 00:51:23.960 --> 00:51:32.360 right. Transported it on the ship to Russia, to Vladivostok. Then did all of the customs, 00:51:32.360 --> 00:51:38.280 right? Paid customs, all of the customs duties are included in that price too. And then probably 00:51:38.280 --> 00:51:47.160 about 500 bucks or so of that went to the guy who went to Vladivostok on my behalf on an airplane and 00:51:48.440 --> 00:51:52.040 bought the car by being on the phone with me. He was basically like there, choosing the car for me. Like 00:51:52.040 --> 00:51:55.800 a bunch of cars were imported in Russia. There's like a huge area where you have a lot of those 00:51:55.800 --> 00:52:00.760 cars and he was picking the car for me. This is not a friend or anything. This is like a person who 00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:06.040 does this, like a broker. This is a person who does this for living. Yes. Okay. And then he drove that 00:52:06.040 --> 00:52:13.240 car for like four days, I think, because it's 4,000 kilometers. It was like 2,500 miles or so from 00:52:13.240 --> 00:52:20.120 Vladivostok to Irkutsk, where I'm from. So yeah, all inclusive $607. Why do I keep saying this? $6,700. 00:52:20.840 --> 00:52:28.840 So the car was probably sold at the auction for maybe like 3,000 bucks. Yeah. And this was a Nissan, 00:52:28.840 --> 00:52:35.000 like a, actually there's another cool thing about the Japanese cars. There isn't a European or American 00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:41.640 counterpart for that exact model. The chassis are used for many other cars. I think, actually I don't 00:52:41.640 --> 00:52:46.600 know Nissan's that well, but it's like an equivalent of like Toyota Corolla kind of thing, but maybe a 00:52:46.600 --> 00:52:52.280 little bit bigger than Toyota Corolla, but it's that category of cars, like middle class kind of small 00:52:52.280 --> 00:52:57.320 cars, but it was like a station wagon with a lot of what they call this, like a spoiler and all that 00:52:57.320 --> 00:53:03.480 stuff, but it was all made by a manufacturer and it was like a bright red car. I'll actually add an image 00:53:03.480 --> 00:53:08.360 to our newsletter. So if you haven't seen that, like check out the car. I really wanted a Subaru Impreza. 00:53:08.360 --> 00:53:13.720 I'm like a big Subaru fan, but like the only Impreza he had there, because I wanted a manual transmission 00:53:13.720 --> 00:53:18.200 and all of the Japanese cars, like most Japanese cars come with automatic. Wait, what year was this? 00:53:18.200 --> 00:53:25.240 It was the year 2006 and the car was produced in the year 2000. Okay. So it was a six year old car. 00:53:25.240 --> 00:53:31.800 So yeah, that Impreza that he found, it had all of those, like the pedals, you could see too much 00:53:31.800 --> 00:53:36.600 metal on those pedals. And he's like, the guy who was driving this car probably wasn't driving it very 00:53:36.600 --> 00:53:41.560 carefully. So like, I wouldn't recommend buying that particular car. So yeah, that's why I went with that 00:53:41.560 --> 00:53:48.520 Nissan and I drove it for a couple of years. Yeah. Anyway, all of my friends had the right handed cars 00:53:48.520 --> 00:53:54.680 back there. Then I moved to Moscow and I carried this car with me. I basically put it on the train 00:53:54.680 --> 00:54:00.040 and then picked it up later. And in Moscow, it was kind of jarring because just to understand where I'm 00:54:00.040 --> 00:54:07.160 from, it's a kind of mid-sized city, 600,000 people, but most roads are four lanes. So two lanes each way. 00:54:07.160 --> 00:54:14.120 In Moscow, you get this like whatever, six, seven lanes each way. And the speeds are much faster. 00:54:14.120 --> 00:54:18.200 Yeah. So it's much faster speed. You have to change lanes a lot. And when you're on the right, 00:54:18.200 --> 00:54:23.080 it's actually very easy to change to the right because you can see very clearly. But changing to 00:54:23.080 --> 00:54:28.600 the left is kind of annoying because you can't see much. But you drive on the right side of the road 00:54:28.600 --> 00:54:33.320 in Russia. You drive on the right side of the road. Yeah. And the most difficult part, we traveled to my 00:54:33.320 --> 00:54:39.240 wife's parents who lived in the south of Russia. We drove maybe 1,400 kilometers each way in one day. 00:54:39.240 --> 00:54:40.840 1,400 kilometers? 00:54:40.840 --> 00:54:42.920 Yes. So 1,000 miles. 00:54:42.920 --> 00:54:45.000 Wow. That's crazy. 00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:46.840 Yeah. It took us 17 hours. 00:54:46.840 --> 00:54:47.720 Okay. 00:54:47.720 --> 00:54:54.520 I was like 24 or something. So young and crazy. And it was also in the winter. We were going there for 00:54:54.520 --> 00:55:00.360 new years. The difficult part was the narrow two lane roads where you have just one lane each way. 00:55:00.360 --> 00:55:05.560 Yeah. And so when you pass, you have to go on the opposite side of the road. 00:55:05.560 --> 00:55:06.120 Yeah. 00:55:06.120 --> 00:55:09.880 And when you sit on the right and you want to pass a lorry, is it an Australian word? 00:55:09.880 --> 00:55:13.320 Yeah. You can't see what's on the other side. Yeah. 00:55:13.320 --> 00:55:19.080 Yeah. If you have like a big truck or a bus, you can't see anything. You have to use your passenger 00:55:19.080 --> 00:55:24.760 to tell you when it's safe to pass. So yeah. But then I think at some point, maybe 10 years ago or so, 00:55:24.760 --> 00:55:30.040 they passed a law that makes it cost prohibitive to import those cars because you have to pay a lot 00:55:30.040 --> 00:55:31.560 of like extra. Right. 00:55:31.560 --> 00:55:37.640 And it's cheaper to buy European cars or Japanese cars produced in Russia, or I guess that used to 00:55:37.640 --> 00:55:42.120 be produced because I don't think anything is produced these days now, after last year and the 00:55:42.120 --> 00:55:48.040 whole Ukraine situation. But what people were doing after that law was passed, they would cut the car in 00:55:48.040 --> 00:55:58.600 two parts in Japan. So, and then basically they import parts. That's what it was called. 00:55:58.600 --> 00:55:59.560 Are you serious? 00:55:59.560 --> 00:56:00.920 Yes. 00:56:00.920 --> 00:56:01.480 Yes. 00:56:01.480 --> 00:56:05.960 How do you import like half of a car? Or no, you mean like... 00:56:05.960 --> 00:56:07.320 You just import like parts. 00:56:07.320 --> 00:56:08.920 The gearbox. 00:56:08.920 --> 00:56:14.280 Yeah. I don't know how exactly... I suppose they would maybe take the engine out, take the gearbox out, 00:56:14.280 --> 00:56:19.800 and then they cut the... What do you call it? The chassis... Not is it the chassis? Like in two. 00:56:19.800 --> 00:56:22.520 And then they import those as parts, like the engine, the gearbox... 00:56:22.520 --> 00:56:23.480 And it's way cheaper. 00:56:23.480 --> 00:56:28.920 Yeah. And then you don't have to pay... Then you don't import the car. You import parts. 00:56:28.920 --> 00:56:33.320 Yeah. And then it was like a loophole in that law that was passed. 00:56:33.320 --> 00:56:37.880 Wait, wait. And then people assemble it themselves? Or was there like a whole 00:56:37.880 --> 00:56:39.880 industry growing up that does this? 00:56:40.520 --> 00:56:45.080 It's like an end-to-end service, right? It's like the same company. They kind of import and then they 00:56:45.080 --> 00:56:46.280 put it back together. Yeah. 00:56:46.280 --> 00:56:51.640 And it puts it back together so well that you actually don't know if it was done to the car or not. 00:56:51.640 --> 00:56:54.280 I mean, you have to see the customs documents to actually know that it happened. 00:56:54.280 --> 00:56:59.560 But the thing is like, because you don't import it as a car, there is no... Like you don't get the 00:56:59.560 --> 00:57:05.960 document that every... Like a car's passport or whatever it's called. So what they do is they find 00:57:06.600 --> 00:57:13.800 another car that is like the same model, same year more or less, that was like completely 00:57:13.800 --> 00:57:16.440 destroyed in a car crash or something. Right. 00:57:16.440 --> 00:57:21.560 So they create documents as if that car, like the engine was replaced, the gearbox was replaced. 00:57:21.560 --> 00:57:21.800 Right. 00:57:21.800 --> 00:57:25.960 So all of those parts that have actually numbers on them, then like as if that car was like 00:57:25.960 --> 00:57:28.520 refurbished with those new parts. Right. 00:57:28.520 --> 00:57:33.160 And then this basically, this whole thing is like, like gray scheme. 00:57:33.160 --> 00:57:36.040 This is for like reselling it afterwards. 00:57:36.040 --> 00:57:40.920 Otherwise, nobody would buy a car that you don't know the history of, yeah. 00:57:40.920 --> 00:57:44.920 Yeah. But then it's like so much cheaper that you just take the risk. 00:57:44.920 --> 00:57:46.680 It's a very long story. 00:57:46.680 --> 00:57:49.880 That was an amusing detour. 00:57:51.320 --> 00:57:57.640 Yes. Yeah. So like I had an option to buy one of those cars at some point because another thing was 00:57:57.640 --> 00:58:06.120 like you pay the import tax based on the engine volume in cubic centimeters. And even when cars were 00:58:06.120 --> 00:58:11.080 imported through the proper channel, if you want to import like a Ford Mustang or something that has 00:58:11.080 --> 00:58:19.560 5.6 liter engine over there for 4.6, whatever it is, you pay more import tax and customs duty 00:58:19.560 --> 00:58:22.280 than you would pay for the car itself. Right. 00:58:22.280 --> 00:58:27.080 So people were doing this tricky stuff to go around the laws. 00:58:27.080 --> 00:58:33.720 Apparently these kind of shenanigans are also pretty common in the southern parts of US 00:58:33.720 --> 00:58:39.240 because we moved from US to Canada, right? And we brought our car over, imported it. 00:58:39.960 --> 00:58:46.520 After a few years, we were trying to sell it. Every dealer that we went to to sell the car 00:58:46.520 --> 00:58:52.360 was very particular. Like, has it ever been to these certain states, right? Like Alabama, 00:58:52.360 --> 00:58:58.520 Georgia and all that. Because apparently, at least that's what they said is there's a lot of this 00:58:58.520 --> 00:59:04.520 kind of thing going on where the VIN numbers and the engine chassis numbers and all that are just 00:59:04.520 --> 00:59:08.840 swapped out completely without the parts or you can't trust that anymore. 00:59:08.840 --> 00:59:13.960 Interesting. I always thought US was like law abiding country. 00:59:13.960 --> 00:59:14.440 Yeah. 00:59:14.440 --> 00:59:20.200 Well, when I lived in Seattle, do you remember how like people would stand in front of a red 00:59:20.200 --> 00:59:27.800 traffic light, like pedestrian, you know, crosswalk with absolutely no cars on a small road and wait 00:59:27.800 --> 00:59:33.400 until the white light turns on so they can cross? That was just so bizarre to me when I moved there. 00:59:33.400 --> 00:59:40.360 And I remember I was taking this thing, the van pool, where the company pays for the van and then you 00:59:40.360 --> 00:59:44.840 team up with a bunch of your colleagues who live like in your vicinity and you drive that van to work 00:59:44.840 --> 00:59:49.080 back and forth. And then, yeah, it's like free commute. And I remember there was an Indian guy, 00:59:49.080 --> 00:59:56.280 I forgot his name, but he was saying that drivers on the road are so polite and like law abiding, 00:59:56.280 --> 00:59:58.600 like to the extent it feels stupid. 00:59:58.600 --> 01:00:01.720 Yeah. Well, compared to India, yeah. 01:00:01.720 --> 01:00:03.560 Yeah. But then I moved to Florida. 01:00:03.560 --> 01:00:04.040 Yeah. 01:00:04.040 --> 01:00:04.040 Yeah. 01:00:04.040 --> 01:00:10.120 We were here for a month, about a year ago. And yeah, we got a nice car. Yeah, actually, 01:00:10.120 --> 01:00:16.040 that was really cool. We got upgraded to like BMW 3 Series just for free. I had a fast car. And I 01:00:16.040 --> 01:00:21.000 remember, you know, the speed limit is like 65 or something. And I would go 80 usually. But then you 01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:27.960 have people who pass you with speed. Yeah. It feels like they go like 110, maybe 120 miles per hour. 01:00:27.960 --> 01:00:33.480 Right. Some Dodge Charger or something like passes you and your car shakes a little bit because of that 01:00:33.480 --> 01:00:39.320 air that's moving. And you look at your speedometer and you're like 80 miles per hour. So what speed is 01:00:39.320 --> 01:00:45.400 he fucking driving at? Right. And then every time I drive on the highway, I see people cross from the 01:00:45.400 --> 01:00:50.840 leftmost lane to turn right. So basically they just cross five lanes between other cars. 01:00:50.840 --> 01:00:57.480 70, 80 miles per hour. And I'm like, what the is that? Right. So that changed my perspective on the US 01:00:57.480 --> 01:01:05.320 and especially the South. Yeah. I think US is such a big country that there's like pretty much anything 01:01:05.320 --> 01:01:10.360 you take, there's so much variety in there. Right. Like when I lived in New York, I didn't drive much, 01:01:10.360 --> 01:01:20.200 but whatever I did, it was crazy. But Seattle was such a nice place. Vancouver is very similar in terms of like 01:01:20.200 --> 01:01:25.160 traffic and culture to Seattle. So yeah. Have you ever driven in San Francisco in the city yourself? 01:01:25.160 --> 01:01:31.960 Yes. Yes. I mean, San Francisco wasn't that bad, but I think the LA area, that was crazy. Like the 01:01:31.960 --> 01:01:39.400 speed limit is 55. I'm going at say 80 and people are like honking at you and crossing you on the right, 01:01:39.400 --> 01:01:44.200 left, left, left. Somebody's behind you honking. And they're like, I don't know. I think everybody 01:01:44.200 --> 01:01:50.200 just plays the number game. Like you will get a ticket at some point, but you paid and keep doing the 01:01:50.200 --> 01:01:54.840 same thing again. Yeah. What I found really weird when I was driving in the South for the first time, 01:01:54.840 --> 01:02:00.200 we were doing a vacation and I had a car in San Francisco for a few days. During those rush hours, 01:02:00.200 --> 01:02:06.360 nobody would let me exit the parking lot. Like you tried to back up to the road and then people 01:02:06.360 --> 01:02:11.400 would just like honk at you. Like why? Because people would just pass by you very fast, honk at 01:02:11.400 --> 01:02:17.160 you. Yeah. It just felt so rude compared to Seattle for sure. Yeah. But even compared to Florida here, 01:02:17.160 --> 01:02:22.600 for example, like the traffic, like at the mall, for example, in the parking lot, people would always 01:02:22.600 --> 01:02:28.680 let you back up or back out, I think is the right word. But there people were just so rude. I felt 01:02:28.680 --> 01:02:34.360 stressed for the first couple of days. And I think it's the culture. It's the driving culture that you 01:02:34.360 --> 01:02:40.680 go there, you live there. And within a few months, it just becomes the norm and you stop noticing these 01:02:40.680 --> 01:02:46.760 things, which in Vancouver too, there are some bad drivers who like you're trying to take an exit and 01:02:46.760 --> 01:02:52.040 you forgot and you're like late. So you're trying to like take an exit at the last minute. And there 01:02:52.040 --> 01:02:57.240 are a few people who wouldn't let you, but for the most part, everybody's like happy to let you join 01:02:57.240 --> 01:03:04.200 their lane and all that. A really nice driving experience. And in some ways, I feel like the 01:03:04.200 --> 01:03:09.800 more the population and traffic grows, the more these kind of problems basically become worse and 01:03:09.800 --> 01:03:19.860 and worse. Yeah. And I think all these people need is check police. So do we. See you next week. Yes.