Tony Fadell: How to build real taste (and why AI makes it matter more)

You still need humans in the loop. Don't

surrender to the machine. We can use the machines, but don't cognitively surrender because it's so easy to build. The

things that stand out are the things that are really well thought through.

Today in the AI world, I can just make a prompt and all of a sudden it gets [music] spit out. You're building on a really crusty foundation. You're getting

short-term game for very very long-term loss. If you're going to build a real

loss. If you're going to build a real company, can't be throwaway.

One of your colleagues, Herman Hower, that ask him how he decides what is worth building.

I always start from pain. Are there new technologies to solve that pain? Bring

innovation in, revolution [music] in redefine the space.

What's the threshold? What's a sign of, okay, this isn't big enough?

Oh, the iPod wasn't big enough. It took

three generations of the iPod before it became [music] successful. You got to fail a few times till you find your way.

You are so into marketing that piece of building that I think a lot of builders don't think about at all.

The technology is in service of the customer, not [music] we're going to jam the technology down the customer's throat. A customer only sees what they

throat. A customer only sees what they see through the lens of marketing. You

often come back to [music] the value of storytelling for product builders. Too

many times when we're technology led, we talk about the what. We don't talk about the why. The why is storytelling. When I

the why. The why is storytelling. When I

watched Steve, he was honing the story of the iPhone every day. And so when you saw him come on stage, it was just cuz

he had done it a 100,000 times.

Today my guest is Tony Fidel. Tony

doesn't know this, but ever since I started this podcast, [music] he's been near the top of my wish list of people that I've dreamed to have on this podcast. And that's because Tony [music]

podcast. And that's because Tony [music] is the epitome of what most people listening to this podcast want to become. He co-created some of the most

become. He co-created some of the most innovative and beautiful and popular products in history, the iPod, the iPhone, the Nest thermostat. He's also

famous for being part of the legendary team at General Magic. He's co-authored

over 300 patents. He also wrote one of the most important and valuable and inspiring books for builders called Build. Tony is currently an active

Build. Tony is currently an active investor [music] and adviser to deep tech startups with his team at the Build Collective. He was recently named the

Collective. He was recently named the inaugural designer and residence at the MIT Morning Academy [music] of Design.

There's so much gold in this episode. I

could go on and on. I'm going to leave it there. Before we get into it, don't

it there. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out lennispodcast.com for a free year of some of the hottest and most well-crafted AI products in the world, available exclusively to Lenny's

newsletter subscribers. With that, I

newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Tony Fidel.

Tony, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

I have a bazillion questions I want to ask you. I feel like I could fill four

ask you. I feel like I could fill four hours of conversation with all the things that I want to get out of your head. I want to start with uh with the

head. I want to start with uh with the Blackberry.

I was just watching the uh BlackBerry movie recently and it's kind of this journey of the BlackBerry founders and their story and then at the end they were like, "Oh," and this iPhone thing launched and they're like, "No, this is

dumb. It's like no keyboard. It's not

dumb. It's like no keyboard. It's not

serious. Can't do anything with it."

I've always wondered just being on the other side of this, being within Apple building the iPhone. Uh how much did you guys actually doubt that, okay, maybe they have something, maybe we need to

add a keyboard? It was the most heated conversation and it dragged out the longest. There was one one way of

longest. There was one one way of looking at the Blackberry which was that is the market we want to go after and we want to win. And then there's the other

side the flip side of that argument which is only 1% or 2% of mobile phone users at the time had a Blackberry, knew what a Blackberry was. So what about the

other 98% of the people? What would they want? What would they need? Why are we

want? What would they need? Why are we going to go after winning this this very loyal and and and you know um incredibly passionate user base and try to pull

them away from something? And so there was this basically head-to-head competition between a display keyboard or a virtual

keyboard and a physical keyboard. I had

been doing virtual keyboards for a while since General Magic in in the 90s and I knew what handwriting was and and

keyboards were like on these touchcreens and but I was only doing it on a um I was writing software and calibrating them making trying to make them work

with a single touch uh display resistive or what have you. And so I knew what the limitations were of those kinds of things. So I was like, "This is really

things. So I was like, "This is really going to be difficult." And we hadn't, you know, multi-touch was just, you know, was on a big pingpong table. It

like it hadn't been scaled down. So it

wasn't like something in a consumptive form where you could really do user tests with it. And so we set out a set of tests like, okay, how fast can I type this text? How can I how fast can I do

this text? How can I how fast can I do this on a hardware keyboard? And then

how can we do this on the virtual one with multi-touch? And it was a hardware

with multi-touch? And it was a hardware software integration challenge of how we could get this to work. So we were going back and forth and back and forth. Oh

that doesn't quite work in the software.

Oh we need to change this in the hardware. And so this was a

hardware. And so this was a over a set of months would okay the hardware keywords here you know and depends on how pro you know how much you've been using it but it there's this

margin error and we could really understand it. This over time was

understand it. This over time was started way down here and it started to get it, you know, and it got a little faster and a little faster and a little faster and how many errors, not just how fast, but how many errors and how do you

correct the errors and all of those things and at the end of the day I was able to convince myself it wasn't going to be a hardware issue. And I was

convinced at some point that we were good enough. Were we as good as a

good enough. Were we as good as a hardware keyboard? No. But were we good

hardware keyboard? No. But were we good enough? Yes. And then other people came

enough? Yes. And then other people came to that conclusion. But at the same time there were other people who were adamant that the hardware keyboard has to be there and they were unrelenting. And so

it came down to so this was a you know classic like I I say in build the data versus opinion-based decision.

And if you think about it you had data that said there was pros and cons on both sides and what happened was the data was not clear that we should choose one over the

other.

And Steve said, "We are going this way."

Enough other people kind of said, "Yeah, that seems like that's the right thing to do. We're going to get close enough

to do. We're going to get close enough to get there." And then other people were like, "No, my opinion is this." And

guess who wins at the end of the day?

Steve Jobs opinion does. And he was like, "If you're not going to get on board, get out of this room and you can go work on another project, but you're not going to work on this."

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One direction I want to get into here is this idea that you'll talk a lot about about uh micromanaging being actually really uh important and powerful. So,

there's this image that's floating around Twitter that I don't know if you've seen. I'll show it on the screen

you've seen. I'll show it on the screen as I'm describing it and hopefully you can visualize it. It's a functional system versus a dysfunctional system.

basically a company that's doing great versus not great and there's this chart that goes up to more functional that is uh basically unkind truth and then another unkind truth another unkind

truth creates more functional systems uh kind lie followed by kind lie followed by kind lie leads to dysfunctional systems something Steve Jobs is very famous for you in your book you talk

about missiondriven [ __ ] are actually really you want you want a mission driven [ __ ] there are certain types of [ __ ] that are great talk about just the importance of somebody being very direct in what it takes to

build great products.

When you're doing a 1.0 of anything, when you're doing if you're doing anything that matters and it's a 1.0 and it's a new category or it's a new device the world hasn't seen before, you have

very few analoges that you can use to make datadriven decisions. And so if most of your decisions are going to be opinion-based decisions for a 1.0, No,

you have to have one or two or a very very small set of people who are charged with making the opinion-based decisions and can actually get you from point A to

from a a white paper, you know, white blank blank sheet of white paper, whiteboard to an actual 1.0 spec.

Because if you try to do datadriven decisions all the way along, you're you're either not doing a differentiated product because you're taking data from another thing or you're just getting

just [ __ ] data, right? So you're

going to have to figure out how to get opinion-based decisions to happen. And

that means you have to have, you know, for lack of a better word, taste makers.

This is what we are doing. We are the the person or the team who is going to make those opinion-based decisions. Of

course, some people aren't going to like it. And it's be like, I'm sorry. This is

it. And it's be like, I'm sorry. This is

a benevolent dictatorship. This is

what's going to happen and this is the vision and we don't know what we don't know until we ship it and we get opinions from the, you know, the the the users. Now, it's very different when you

users. Now, it's very different when you do this on a in a B2B context versus a B TOC context. And so the hardest

TOC context. And so the hardest environment to work within when when you have these opinion based decision is in a BTOC context because you have to see

these decisions in the full light and you don't consumer does they have to see it in from the marketing from how they discover it in the marketing the key uh

the key feature sets the the ability to use the product all of these different things for them to actually come up with an opinion of what they like and what they don't

like and being able to critique it and if you don't and if you're doing a 1.0 and the world hasn't seen you're not going to get that from consumers ever.

You have to ship it and you have to build the entire kind of ecosystem so those consumers see it in the fullness so that when they do the evaluation and they spend their own money then you're

getting real feedback when it comes to consumer hard atomsbased products with services or not whatever it is you have to build the entire thing and visualize

the entire thing to be able to make those uh uh opinion-based decisions and so you need a small team who's looking at the marketing angles the engineering angles, the the sales angles, all those

different things to go, okay, that's the way we're going. And there's only so many ways you can do it because the rest of the team doesn't see this either. And

so you have to be very articulate about how what that opinion-based decision is made for, why, how it might affect market, how you do it, and make sure the team

understands it. Now, if the team is just

understands it. Now, if the team is just fully against it, well then maybe it has to be unkind. But hopefully if you've done a good job and you really you know have an informed gut and you can

articulate that you can get everybody moving in the same direction even if it is and it's going to be risky right you got to know they got to take risk because most people in those other functions they don't want to take any

risks and so there's someone who's got to be the target right and today you know in many contexts people go and hire consultants right they go and hire okay we're going

to do a user study or we're going to do all this and they don't have the user study doesn't have the full context like I was just describing. They don't go buy the product and they don't what have you and then they get data and that's

because the leader or whoever's in there board maybe it's like we need data to make sure this 1.0 is going to be a success. And I saw this so many times at

success. And I saw this so many times at all these major corporations. So they're

just kind of covering their ass with [ __ ] data and not really doing the hard work of saying I'm going to make this decision and we are going to select this and yes I might be wrong or we as

the opinion-based decision makers are wrong and we will correct it later and we'll take the heat for that. So that's

the you know a great product manager a great person who's leading this thing has to understand that's that's what they have to do if they're really doing something innovative. So what I'm

something innovative. So what I'm hearing here is just the power especially in a consumer product of a singular vision of a singular leader that drives it that is basically relies on their instinct and their taste and

their experience and and and a lot of and but a again a lot of informed judgment from all the experts around asking questions refining prototyping

these kinds of things to then make a decision. So it's not just like I woke

decision. So it's not just like I woke up one morning and you know this is you know now it's we're going this direction. No, it's it there's a lot of

direction. No, it's it there's a lot of work to get to get there.

I want to come back to the idea of micromanaging which a lot of people like to a lot of people that word is is bad and don't be a micromanager. You

advocate for for creating great products. You need to actually be really

products. You need to actually be really micromanaging. Just speak to that. What

micromanaging. Just speak to that. What

people you think miss about the importance and power of micromanaging as a as a leader.

You know, we've heard the term sweat the details.

It's micromanagement of certain details and then there's the kind of hands off of other details. You have to really understand the blend of which things really matter, which things don't. When

I was early on my career, I thought everything mattered and I drove everybody nuts, drove myself nuts, the people hated like and you know the and it became my it became like everybody's

got to do it the way I would do it. It's

like no no no no there's only a few key things mostly for the customer or maybe some certain things from manufacturing or cost or something where it needs to really be very clear or a long-term

vision but then you can delegate other things but certain pieces of it you really need to and when I mean micromanage it means micromanage the decision not necessarily the operations

of doing it making sure you're getting the data like we did with the keyboard on the iPhone to make sure we're getting the right data to help us get the informed gut to make that opinion-based

decision. And so, so it's it's the the

decision. And so, so it's it's the the the the micro specification and delivery of those certain data pieces that you

need. And and maybe it's also to get out

need. And and maybe it's also to get out of a crisis. Or maybe it's a it's a system level thing where you have to worry about this thing at the low level changing up here and here and like like we could do that but only if they do

this and this is like okay guys we're going to fix all of those things at once and you have to micromanage it because everybody wants to find excuses why they can't do that or they can't do that. So

you have to ask why a lot. So it just and but it's all in service of some really key detail that needs to get delivered or some innovation that needs to be delivered. Just like like I said

the keyboard, we had to do the hardware, we had to do the software, we had to do the fil filtering, you know, we had to do how it was how the graphics were done on the screen. So you had all of these layers that had to keep constantly

changing and adjusting and and and sometimes you have to micromanage that because there's just too many variables and someone has to be the orchestrator of this of this huge orchestra of many

different components to kind of make it all come together and be harmonious.

I want to go in a slightly different direction. I want to talk about the Nest

direction. I want to talk about the Nest the thermostat I'm assuming.

Thermostat. Yeah. What versus what the bird a right I Yeah. Uh, man, the uh smoke alarm is is

Yeah. Uh, man, the uh smoke alarm is is that discontinued by the way the smoke alarm. Yeah, I just

alarm. Yeah, I just you just what do you why you want to stab me in the heart like a go?

That was one of the toughest products I and our team and Nest and other people who were on the have ever made their life cuz it's so hard to make something like that. That's there's so many

like that. That's there's so many constraints like that's an ultimate constraint kind of product to actually innovate in. So yes, it unfortunately is

innovate in. So yes, it unfortunately is discontinued, but it was the best product in the space for a decade and no

one changed it. No one invested in it.

It's it is so crazy. It's It like pains me and it pains everyone. People like

they're expiring around me. What do I do? And I'm like, I wish I could tell

do? And I'm like, I wish I could tell you there's something better. No one

replaced it with something better. I

It's It's mindboggling that the number one product with revenue and everything, you're just going to toss it away. Why

do you think that's happening?

Because it was an orphan.

It's an It's just not a big enough business within Google.

No, no, it was Yeah, it was. Yeah, it

was a stepchild. They You really had to pour a lot of love, a lot of a lot of attention, a lot of love to make something that was that crystallin and and it had to be wellformed and nobody

really wanted to put in the effort. So,

they probably like, "Who want to do this? Who who's excited by it?" Nobody

this? Who who's excited by it?" Nobody

was probably excited and they just said, "Yeah, okay, we'll just it's not that big a deal in the end of the day where if it was invested in, I think it would

have been a critical piece of the next generation AI assistant in your home."

I want to hear more about that. And just

on the smoke alarm point, I my favorite feature. I was at an Airbnb once and it

feature. I was at an Airbnb once and it just started instead of just like straight to beeping. It was just like I'm about to make a loud noise like [laughter] it's just warning you that

it's going to get we call it.

I love that feature so much. It's like

it's about to get very loud. Thank you

for telling me.

Oh, it's so good. [laughter]

You know, it's so you don't get PTSD every time because you know when a smoke alarm go well, you're like, "Okay, everyone calm. We're going to do this

everyone calm. We're going to do this now." Especially when we're doing tests

now." Especially when we're doing tests and stuff. We're like, you know, when

and stuff. We're like, you know, when we're because people are supposed to test it or are supposed to test itself like, you know, like everyone stay calm.

It's going to be good, children. Just we

got to do this one thing and we'll get through it. Don't worry.

through it. Don't worry.

That's so good. I was like, thank you so much for telling me.

There was a lot of love and care poured in that thing.

So, I was going to ask specifically about the Nest. Like the Nest thermostat is still the best thermostat out there.

I use it everywhere I go. It's just the best. The app hasn't evolved. Nothing's

best. The app hasn't evolved. Nothing's

changed for a long time. Is it the same reason you just described? It's just not a priority. Step in the heart.

a priority. Step in the heart.

Yeah. You know, the the whole organization was a stepchild for whatever reason. You know, there was

whatever reason. You know, there was cultural mismatch. There was, you know,

cultural mismatch. There was, you know, probably a business mis mismatch. Um, I

think if Nest was uh around and alive today like it was, it would have a whole different thing when like Google and Gemini and Google IO was what yesterday

or the day before. Um, you know, it would have been one of I think some of the centerpieces of what you could do because AI needs context. AI needs a lot of context and in a home you want to

make everything very seamless. Um, and

the way you get best context is by having sensors properly placed around the home that don't necessarily invade privacy, but allow you to pick up a lot

of comingings and goings and who's who in the room and your voice and these kinds of things. Uh, audio I should say, not voice. Um, to be able to give AI's

not voice. Um, to be able to give AI's context so that you can have a anywhere assistant that really knows what's going on.

Is there space for someone to launch the new Nest, do you think?

Oh, for sure. For sure. People keep

asking me what are you gonna get? It's

like, no, absolutely. It's now's the I now's the time if it isn't already happening. I'm actually getting business

happening. I'm actually getting business plans of people who are like, hey, you know, is this interesting to you? Want

to invest in it? You want to come and help us, you know, build it? This is

like Nest 2.0. So, you know, they're trying to do stuff like that at ring. I

don't think very, you know, it not very privacy focused, but that's what they're trying to do. That was our vision in the beginning to tell you the truth. That's

how we we were like, you're going to need lots of context because we remember we the Nest learning thermostat wasn't the Nest AI thermostat. It could have been called that, but we couldn't call it that in 2011 because people would

have freaked out. Now you would have called it the Nest AI thermostat, right?

And people would have bought it. Um, and

so we knew what AI was, right? So since

2010, that was one of the predication piece foundational pieces of the company was AI. And so that's how we were able

was AI. And so that's how we were able to do a lot of the things we were able to do. But it was much you know

to do. But it was much you know obviously not LLMs but smaller stuff and we said okay we can see this world growing and this AI assistant then voice assistance came then then there was

Alexa and all that stuff that happened later on in 2013 145 it's like okay and that was gen one but we could see this kind of blossoming and you know

unfortunately in the fullness of time it takes 15 years more uh you know from the time Nest launched um for that vision to come to fruition. But it is there now

and it and if Nest was if we pitched it that way, we were just too we were just too early.

Let me follow this thread around how to know what what to build and what how you come up with ideas. So I emailed a bunch of people that know you asked them what to ask you. Uh one of your colleagues, Herman Herman Hower. Hermon.

Oh, Herman Hower. Yeah.

Herman Hower. So his question he wanted me to ask you. He said, "Ask him how he decides what is worth building."

Okay. Well, Herman's I've known Herman since 1987, probably before any most of your listeners were even born, but Herman, just for context, Herman was the

creator of Acort computer, which was the Apple 2 of the UK back in the 70s. And

then he created uh with his team the ARM processor. So, Acorn Risk, so ARM means

processor. So, Acorn Risk, so ARM means Acorn Risk Machine from the Acorn computer. And so, he was the founder of

computer. And so, he was the founder of one of the founders of ARM. And so I was talking about process anyway. So that's

so how do so so Herman and I go way way back. So the the thing is how do you

back. So the the thing is how do you solve or figure out what is worthy to be built and what's not. So um the first

thing is I start from pain. I you know some people start from other different directions. I always start from pain.

directions. I always start from pain.

That's what I learned is what are people's pain right now or you can see it on the horizon. they're going to have pain and and not too far away. Um, but

how do you solve for that pain? And

typically those pains were because when those products were created, either it was unintentional consequence or it was a limitation of the technology at the time

it was created and it kind of just it evolved but it never revolutionized itself. And so it just evolved and that

itself. And so it just evolved and that same pain kind of was it, but it gave you enough of a a painkiller for the other problem that having this new pain was worth it.

And so I always kind of start with okay, where's our current pain? And are there new technologies to solve that pain? And

like in the thermostat case, the Nest was we could use AI to learn. So it can learn when you're there, when you're away, what you temperatures you like. So

you don't have to program it. So you can save energy. So the big pain was being

save energy. So the big pain was being either comfortable or saving money because 50% of your energy bill was in this heating and cooling unit that you had you hated the interface. You didn't

know what it was. You just paid the bill. And so it started from that pain

bill. And so it started from that pain and said okay well programmable thermostats weren't innovative but they weren't used like everyone a lot of them had it

because in you know uh the energy company would give you rebates for it but no one knew how to use it because it was arcane it was programming of ECR and so what I said was oh wait a second what

if it could learn your patterns and that was AI and so now let's put that together in a much cooler looking attractive package that costs five to six times times more than the the things

that you're buying today. But that was the that was the crazy opinion-based decision was, okay, yes, it's going to cost $249, but it's going to save you

$800 to $1,200 a year, so it could pay for itself literally within a, you know, a year or two. So that was the kind of that was the big idea. And AI was brought to bear on that old problem and

and hopefully solve it in a new way. So,

so it starts with the pain longtime pain maybe habituated away pain that you have to discover and new technology bonded with that to then to then uh bring

innovation in revolution in and and and then redefine the space in a way which is what we did which is not with just the product but how you installed it you know it was always installed by third

party installers as opposed to yourself how you bought it which was you bought it through the installer you didn't buy it in Best Buy or somewhere else. So, it

was we had to reinvent many different pieces of the puzzle to get Nest to be the Nest. It wasn't just the product. It

the Nest. It wasn't just the product. It

was all the other things. Just like the iPod wasn't the iPod or the I smartphone wasn't the or the iPhone wasn't the phone. It was It was the iPhone plus the

phone. It was It was the iPhone plus the App Store. iTunes plus uh iTunes uh iPod

App Store. iTunes plus uh iTunes uh iPod plus iTunes and then the iTunes music store. So you have to think about the

store. So you have to think about the full the full thing you're trying to build, not just the one piece, even though that's what you might remember.

You have to remember it's it's a it's a system that you're going to innovate with.

So this two-part kind of formula you shared here, the pain and new technologies. The second part is really

technologies. The second part is really interesting. Essentially, it's like

interesting. Essentially, it's like what's the why now? What's like the new tech that has emerged that now allows us to solve this pain. It feels like that's a core part of Okay. It's because it's interesting because when you talked

about the the iPhone keyboard, it was a similar story of like, okay, we can actually sort of do this virtual keyboard for the first time in history, right? Exactly. It could because of

right? Exactly. It could because of multi-touch. That's really what it was.

multi-touch. That's really what it was.

And then we were just on the verge of having fast enough processors, right?

And we were just on the verge. So it

wasn't, you know, if you look at the iPhone or you look Nest iPhone or iPod, you can see where all these technologies were just coming to light. So in the iPod it was just now mass storage that

was portable and battery operated. That

was really what it was. And it was also MP3s or digital music, right? Those were

kind of and we also had um high density.

We were the first products to have lithium ion or lithium prismatic polymer cells. So it was new battery technology,

cells. So it was new battery technology, new new mass storage, portable mass storage and this new uh generation of of

digital music and we had ARM processors, right? And so and the really really low

right? And so and the really really low power. So all of those things had to

power. So all of those things had to come together to do that. Um and then on the iPhone it was the it was multi-touch, but it wasn't just that.

was also the fact that now we had Wi-Fi everywhere and we knew that 3G was coming because we was only 2 and a halfG when that was and that was very slow but

we had Wi-Fi so it was and we had cameras right digital cameras so we had the digital camera we had digital video which was we had YouTube at the time so it was all of those things just on the

verge to say this is what's going to be very different than what just came before it like a blackberry which was really just a texting machine and nothing house.

I'm going to close the loop on the on your advice on finding a great idea. I'm

curious about kind of the flip side of uh when it's still when it's not good enough. So, there's like so many gadgets

enough. So, there's like so many gadgets out there that are solving some pain level. Maybe there's a new technology

level. Maybe there's a new technology that they integrated, but there's still like it's not a big business. It's not a real company. What's kind of what's the

real company. What's kind of what's the threshold? What's like a sign of okay,

threshold? What's like a sign of okay, this isn't big enough?

Well, you know, the iPod wasn't big enough. It took three generations of the

enough. It took three generations of the iPod before it became successful.

everyone look you know well anyone who knows you know if they remember iPod before iPhone because iPhone swallowed everything it's like the black hole of everything but you know iPod the first

generation was only successful with the Mac geeks and the Mac geeks were less than 1% of the market and then the second generation was also that way. So when we

we get we we'd sell everything we'd sell everything we could for the most part in the first quarter and then it would die because it was just the Mac afficados

the loyalists who'd come and buy everything and it wasn't until the third generation where we made it work on Windows did it actually and we had the iTunes music store did it actually start to

take off. So sometimes you have to say

take off. So sometimes you have to say we're on the right thing, but we need to make some changes to get this market going. And that was a real opinion-based

going. And that was a real opinion-based decision to, you know, we the team at the team uh um that I was running, we were really clear that we had to have

Windows connectivity out of the gate or not out of the gate, but just after the first iPod shift. And Steve said, "Over my dead body, no way. This is going to help us sell more Macs." So, and then and then, you know, we're like, "Okay,

we're making the second one. Oh, we're

going to keep it with Mac only. We just

got to fix a few of these things and then all of a sudden it'll take off. And

it was like it didn't take off. So then

it was there's a long story about how that h about how we finally got Windows connectivity, but there was always this skunk works thing project behind the scenes doing that. I did the same thing

with um stylus. Steve never wanted a stylus on the iPhone or the iPad. He

never wanted he never wanted it. He's

like the finger is good enough and we can't do it with the finger. It's like

and I'm like but we're going to have a B2B context and we're going to have forms filling and people are going to write and and he's like I don't care that means we're going to get to like Windows pen because he thought it was going to be like Windows pen which was

you had to use the pen for everything as opposed to using your finger. So it was like I wanted instead of pen dominant I wanted finger dominant but it that's what he was saying but then when we added the stylus which was another skunk

works project all of a sudden it came out it was like well we had to have stylus right and now it's a a big feature of the product not everyone uses it but it is a big feature for certain

professionals who who really want that and artists and hobbyists and stuff and so sometimes you have to have those skunk works things that even if the opinion-based uh leader doesn't like it you're

that seems like the right thing. Maybe

not right now, but it's going you can see it on the horizon. So, you just keep working on those things. So, but we had, like I said, the the iPhone wasn't a hit right away. It was kind of like a, oh

right away. It was kind of like a, oh yeah, it worked on AT&T and it was 2 and a halfG and it was this and that and you know, it did it only worked in the US.

So, we had to get multiple versions till we got out. And that's in in my book I have the and uh it's called um three I think it's three generations. Everything

needs three generations. Yes, Bill.

There it is. Three generations. I've

I've learned you make the product, you fix the product, then you fix the business. So you have there's no I I've

business. So you have there's no I I've never seen anyone get it all right the first time. Like you want to you would

first time. Like you want to you would like to but you get close but make the product fix the product after you get customer feedback and then make the business which means make the margins

like on the first iPods we weren't making any money first iPhones we weren't making any money right the second iPhone or second iPod okay we started getting a little bit better

numbers but we got more or less the features sort of dialed third one was like okay windows we got the margins we're getting up the volume we got all

the right and like go right reliability whatever else it had to be. So you need to stick with your idea even if it's not necessarily going the first time unless

there's something really severely your brain damaged about whatever it was. You

have to restart. But sometimes you have to hang in there. And I same thing with Nest. We had to hang in there with two

Nest. We had to hang in there with two generations of the the smoke detector and a few generations of the thermostat before we made the business work, right?

Not just make the product work.

There's so many directions I can go here. One that's interesting is how

here. One that's interesting is how often Steve Jobs was actually wrong.

[snorts] How many times you had to you're like takes years to like okay finally he's we all were wrong at certain times but you know it's when you hit those you when you hit it big when you get the

right ones they over they they overshadow all the other stuff that but that's how you have to try and iterate.

You know Jeff Bezos says the same thing.

I believe in the same thing. You got to fail a few times till you get to till you find your way. and um and uh but but you only fail if you stop. If you keep

iterating, keep going, well then that's not failure. That's called learning.

not failure. That's called learning.

The other interesting uh part of the story you just shared here, which was one of my favorite stories in your book, actually, the fact you uh you kind of implied this, but basically the first iPod was you had to have a Mac to use

it. And the idea is it would we want you

it. And the idea is it would we want you want to sell Macs. This is a way to get people to buy Macs. And it's like the way you tell it is basically this ended up saving Apple eventually. Not selling

Macs but people buying iPods and that was like the became the big part of the business.

Yeah. The the mantra was Steve, you know, if we don't have Windows connectivity, the iPod doesn't cost $349.

It costs $3,000 because you got to buy a Mac and you got to move all your digital life over to it and everything else.

People are not about to take a a risk on this company that's almost bankrupt for $3,000.

So, how are we going to do that? Like,

okay, let's make sure it is only $349 and that they can try it. And once they try the brand, they go, "Oh, that's pretty interesting. Maybe I should try

pretty interesting. Maybe I should try other products from this company and give, you know, give them a shot."

Because that was just such a sublime experience. And that's how it, you know,

experience. And that's how it, you know, it all changed and that's how iPhone was able to be created because without the iPod there, I'm pretty sure there would have been no iPhone. There would have probably been no Apple because it was

close to bankruptcy.

Wow. That's crazy how close it was to that if some of these decisions went the wrong way.

Yeah, very close. And remember, there was no retail back then, Apple retailers, none of that stuff. You know,

most people don't don't know how on the ropes Apple was back in 2001.

So many stories, but I want to I want to come back to the the customer journey thread that you touched on, which I think is really really important for people listening to this podcast to hear. something that you kind of

hear. something that you kind of reinforce again and again in the book and you have this awesome image that we're going to show of the entire customer journey and the kind of your point that you make is so many product builders focus on building the product

and think build the best product we're going to win and you have this very important advice of there's so much more to it talk about especially the marketing piece talk about what you think builders don't really get even though they hear this advice in many ways

when we build products we define products when we build them we have a good sense of the context when we are

defining those things. We're we are we're living in that world, okay? And so

we're like, "Oh, we're like this and these are our issues and this is who we are." And you know, maybe you put on

are." And you know, maybe you put on personas, you know, you we we would strip out and figure out who our target customers were with their personas. You

know, is it a a single mom with kids or is it a a dual income no kid or is it senior citizens or whatever? and we

would come up with these personas and we would kind of live inside them as we're thinking about the product. But you have to also remember that these people don't live in those that they live in the

context but they're not aware of your product in their context. And so you have to bring it home to them in and meet them where they are. And so your

marketing, your website, your, you know, your Instagram ads, your whatever, what your earned, owned and and earned and

owned media that you do, you really need to put that your product in their context and make the visuals and make the words and everything sing to them.

And if not, they're not going to get it, right? And so too many times we just

right? And so too many times we just say, "Oh, if we just make the perfect product." No, you have to put all for a

product." No, you have to put all for a consumer thing specifically. And it's

it's also really good for a B2B product as well is make sure you understand your customer and they go, you know, and when you say the right word, they go, "Oh, they get me. Oh, I want to listen to these more." And this is before they

these more." And this is before they ever got the product. You need to get them to convert in some way. And they

need to hear that you're you've already thought about their issues or you know, and you're living in their shoes and they're like, "Yes, yes, yes, more of that. Is this an emotional point? Is

that. Is this an emotional point? Is

this a rational point? Is it? And you're

you're weaving this this tapestry to get them to come to some kind of trial or purchase or conversion or something of the product. And the best way to do that

the product. And the best way to do that is m is word of mouth, right, by other early adopters. But you got to do the

early adopters. But you got to do the same thing for the early, you know, I mean, not the earliest early adopters, but the early adopters who other people trust to talk to because a lot of other

people who are late adopters, they know, oh, that's that, that's wacky George, he tries everything and then like, no, no, no. But if so and so's tried it, oh, I

no. But if so and so's tried it, oh, I should take notice of that, right? And

so what you want to do is make sure you understand your the gestation of your customer and where they are and where they are in the thing and who who you're trying to I I also updated the cross the

chasm uh you know crossing the chasm graphic um in the book saying how we go about this in our in in in in uh in your product developments because you really

have to think about who your target user set is and your target marketing based on the version of product you're in and how you're going to get those higher and higher volumes and you and it really

means about speaking the context. So

maybe when you first ship you can speak to those early adopters and you can put it in enough words that they're going to convert but then the second version of the product you're getting these nar later adopters and you got to speak in

their language and you and the third set adopters who are really lagards you've got to really speak to them and you know go through that and it could be totally different and so this was this was a

very interesting um story that I it it was so emlazed in my mind

back in 2001 23 you know still when Apple had no presence outside of the US Apple was really it was selling in the US some Canada and some in Japan but

that was it and that was the max so we were selling iPods into those areas and so we had the kind of the early adapter and then we had some other

language and then and by the third fourth version of iPod we had some really refined language for those kind of late adopters.

So then we said we're going to go back and get a push into Europe. We're going

to get we're going to get because iPod hadn't taken off in Europe. So we're

going to push you we're going to push iPod into Europe. And so we're on I think the fourth generation or something like that. And so what did we do in

like that. And so what did we do in Europe? We ran the same marketing

Europe? We ran the same marketing as we were doing in the US in Europe.

And the thing is, it didn't resonate with the early adopters. It didn't

resonate with the later adopters because we didn't have the same messages. We

were going for a different set of people. And we're like, ding, ding,

people. And we're like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We sales aren't working. Say, we got to change the

working. Say, we got to change the marketing. We got to meet those

marketing. We got to meet those Europeans where they're at because they're low. They're slower to adopt

they're low. They're slower to adopt technology versus it starts with the coast and goes inward in the US, right?

And so we're like, oh, we got to change things up. And so, you know, sometimes

things up. And so, you know, sometimes it's when you get to new new areas, you have to rethink your marketing for that area and remember to meet them where they're at and where the if it doesn't

have a installed base for word of mouth, you're going to have to get that word of mouth started. So, work with those

mouth started. So, work with those people to get that going. Now it's

different with all software products and all these things and many many um many uh products can go global right away but marketing you still got to tell

a story and you gota you know so it's it it just reminds me that even though we've maybe compressed the time for some pieces of the adoption puzzle you know

because we can distribute faster doesn't mean we can the the the the awareness can get accelerated and that we can get

people to intelligently understand what this product faster faster if we just say the words of somebody who might have known about the product for three years.

I got to ask about maybe the most famous uh I don't know tagline of all time when a product was launched. A thousand songs in your pocket.

Songs in your pocket.

Uh is there a story behind that? Back in

the day at Apple and I I think it's still that maybe it's changed now but back in the Steve days there was the different functions of

Apple and because they were all lean because the company was only 4,000 5,000 people and it was already doing max and everything each function was kind of

very very functional and so the marketing the marketing didn't get into the engineering and the design folks, it was like separate like Steve was the it

was the hub and he was in each of them putting them together like I said the the uh the um you know opinion-based decision maker and so when we heard the

tagline for the first time I was like that's genius now how long that happened how what was the behind the scenes we were so we were just a tiny team you know we were getting this

done in 10 months so everybody was just running for it right versus versus iPhone, which was we had discussions of it. Should we call it the iPod phone or

it. Should we call it the iPod phone or should we call it the iPhone because Cisco had the iPhone back in the day and there was copyright issues and trademark issues and so we were into that because

it was also a two and a half year development and we were in so and it was betting the farm and we were going to cannibalize iPod right so there was a lot more discussions but in those early

days of thousand songs it was everybody running in literally not in less than n it was really five to six months everything got up um because we really

started it in April and it shipped in end of October.

So I think one of the core takeaways from what you shared here is even if you may have the perfect product, the marketing may be the gap that if something isn't working, it may

absolutely and and the thing is I think I think we're starting to see that the cracks of it uh it might be more than cracks now with like Open AI. What is

it?

It's like oh it's your answer machine whatever like what what does it do for me and now I gotta keep paying you like it was fun as a demo and if I but what am I using it for every day and like oh

claude it does claude code and it does you know code you know it's and then what happens open is like oh we have codeex now but then they were Sora and they were you know this and they were

that we're going to do sex chat we're going to like what are you and so it's like oh yeah you're the great first you know like Netscape everyone went out and bought Netscape Explorer or whatever it

was called next navigator and then all of a sudden it evaporated like well what do I use the net for like I I got the tool to get onto it but what do I use it for daily and what's and it had to

develop and so open AI is now shifting like oh we got to get product teams and we got to start about product marketing and we gota so so you know that is to me that's it's marketing but if you start

if you are already thinking about the marketing you're already going to start thinking about the product and That's the thing is when you're just thinking about the product, you're like, and it was really just a technology demo that

went, you know, viral and they're like, oh yeah, and they still keep winning on that. They never put product in till it

that. They never put product in till it was too late. Now, Anthropics where they are and valued more and higher revenue and all that other stuff. So you know it it just it just even if it's a software

only product yes there's lots of hardware and servers and all other stuff you need to think holistically and you need to think about the entire customer journey the marketing the you know the

sales pieces the distribution pieces the product definition p the messaging the target markets early on you can't leave it till later and then get it yeah and then back calculate in and that's why I

say you should you know you should really make the press release before you before you more or less start the pro project.

Yeah, there's a whole chapter on that.

Uh we had the found the um like Amazon's also very famous for that. There's a

whole book on working backwards that goes really deep on this approach. But

the weird thing is it's working backwards. See that the thing working

backwards. See that the thing working backwards? I would a movie be created

backwards? I would a movie be created that way? Is it called working backwards

that way? Is it called working backwards when you say I'm going to make a script and I'm making a treatment and I'm gonna really know what it is. is I know what the I know what my characters are and how I do character development. Like, is

that really working backwards? It sounds

like it's backwards. It's like, no, that's the way you do it. It's just

because it's so technologyled and technologist, and this is what I thought when I was 20. I was like, yeah, we're, you know, now it sounds backwards. It's

actually, no, that's actually insane.

It's not working backwards. It's just an insane way of working. Like, come on, let's really think through this. I it

says so much that you as one of the I don't know most successful insightful builders are so into marketing. I think

that's a really important takeaway for people just how obsessed you are with that piece of building that I think a lot of builders don't think about at all. Well, when you live in that world

all. Well, when you live in that world and you live in the customer because you're coming from a customer point of view. So, you have to see the lens and

view. So, you have to see the lens and the customer only sees what they see through the lens of marketing and sales, right? And so you have to be in their

right? And so you have to be in their shoes and you go, "Okay, like when I do the when I do the press release, I can only have three or four key features.

After that, it becomes gobblelygook for a customer." So you're like, "Okay, what

a customer." So you're like, "Okay, what are those three or four things?" Okay,

what is that? That's what we're going to focus on. And so, no, we're not going to

focus on. And so, no, we're not going to add five more features. That's not going to make it sell better, right? Or, oh no, we're going to cut

right? Or, oh no, we're going to cut these two features and ship it. It's

like, well, wait a second. We cut out two of our three key tentpole features.

How are we going to sell that anymore?

So it's it's it's a holistic design.

It's not, you know, like because we think the technology the technology is in service of the customer, not we're going to jam the technology down the customer's throat

and they're going to figure out how to use it.

There's too much noise. You got to make it frictionless and you got to fit it in their world and see from their point of view go, "Oh, that's why I needed General Magic was the perfect story for that."

that." You know, I don't know. Your your

viewers should definitely watch the movie General Magic because absolutely we made the iPhone 15 years too early and that was a classic case where we were just making the things that were really cool but nobody needed it.

Yeah, that documentary is incredible.

It's like such a like the very young version of you.

Yeah. Very different. Probably people

won't recognize me.

Yeah. You have a whole chapter about just like not overworking in your in your career based on that experience which general magic was for me.

Yeah.

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I want to talk about something else around the evolution of the product management role and builders. What's

really interesting, this kind of going in a different direction, but it's all connected. Uh, I feel like you were so

connected. Uh, I feel like you were so ahead on this idea that we are builders versus product managers, engineers, design. Like I have your book right

design. Like I have your book right here. It's called build and this is what

here. It's called build and this is what everyone's starting to call product managers, people on product teams. Uh, I'm curious just what you're seeing with that this kind of merging of these

roles. Do you feel like everyone just

roles. Do you feel like everyone just becomes a builder and there's no more designer, engineer, product manager? Do

you think they'll continue being these functions with but we're merged? I don't

What are you seeing with the with the product the discipline of product management specifically?

Well, the discipline of product management sits between all of these functional roles. Okay? Whether that's marketing,

roles. Okay? Whether that's marketing, sales, uh distribution, sometimes manufacturing, depends on what

the product is, um engineering obviously um and so uh customer support. So when

you sit between all of these things, you know, maybe those roles shift or change, especially depending on what it is you're building and and that kind of thing, but you have to interpret, you know, what's going on between all of

them and stitch them all together to make this this thing sing. And

what we're saying and you know is oh I can just today in the AI world I can just make a prompt and all of a sudden it gets spit out and you don't know what all those little functions if you are

not aware of each of those functions even in AI world of what those things are they are very clear definitions of certain points of view for the

customer and you have to consider them and to say that they're going to get washed away and an AI is going come up with it. It reminds me a lot of how

with it. It reminds me a lot of how software coding is getting done with um like something like Claude today,

you know, I don't know, maybe it was a month ago when the Claude source code leaked.

Mhm.

Right. The cloud source code leaked and everybody's like, "Oh my god, it leaked." And then if you and and at the

leaked." And then if you and and at the time and I'm and may I don't maybe they changed it maybe they didn't but at the time Daario was saying you know 90 to

100% of all our code's written by you know our you know Claude and you know we just monitor it and watch it and we're like oh wow that's really interesting and then the code leaves

and then if you looked at the code anybody who looked at the code who's a real software architect and engineer threw up. They were like, "It made

threw up. They were like, "It made what?"

what?" They're like, "This stuff is brittle."

Engineers were looking at like like this should be layered in four or five, you know, actually 12 or 15 different subfunctions. This is the main loop of

subfunctions. This is the main loop of CL of of of of anthropics claude. The

main loop, not not just something off in the This is the main loop. And people

are like, "How can you do this? This

looks brittle. There's like it's unreadable. It's and they're like, well,

unreadable. It's and they're like, well, the AI knows it. But when you think about it and you have to maintain it, you can have an agent make code for you

and it could work and it could test, but is it secure?

Is it maintainable?

If there's something going wrong, can you roll things back and understand what's going on? Like, there's so many other aspects to writing code and delivering a product thing that you

still need humans in the loop. And so

when I think of product design, I think of software code with AI. And when you look at AI and if it's not architecting things and it's not segmenting things and looking at each of those things,

like I was saying, you know, like there's software architects and then there's software optimizers and then there's just general coders and then there's security reviews. And if you

don't have those different mixture of experts around the code structuring it so that subsequent generations can get better and better and it just kind of

devolves into this mass of things you don't know.

You're getting short-term gain for very very long-term loss and that's you know that's called software debt right technical debt. Everybody hates

technical debt. Everybody hates technical debt. So you might be fixing

technical debt. So you might be fixing something, but it might it most likely is giving you more technical debt, especially when you're at the high level. So now, how does that map to

level. So now, how does that map to product management? So if you're a

product management? So if you're a product manager and you type this in and you get some result, but you don't have a really good marketer, a really good marketing communications person, a

really good salesperson, a really good channel salesperson, a really good, you know, architect, a really good manufacturing manager, all these different things in this thing that you're getting.

You're not going to be able, you might be able to make the first one, but when you go to version five, six, how does that work? you're building on a a really

that work? you're building on a a really crusty foundation and people think well my AI is going to be smarter. It's not

proven to do that. What's proven is if you properly architect it and have code claude code go into certain sub segments or have claude help you build the

architecture you modify refine it lock it in and say just work on these few things you know when these more limited scoped things yeah you can make that work and I think that's the way we have to consider

how we use these tools in a product management capability as well to just say it's all abstracted away it's all going to be better and when you ask specific pointed questions.

do you want this thing fixed in your marketing thing or whatever? And then

they're going to like, well, the AI should just figure that out to it's like you have given up so much. Like that's

to me, sure, you can write code, but there's going to be the difference between, you know, it's like the difference between H&M and a luxury brand. You could go get certain things

brand. You could go get certain things that look like that and copies that and like and but it doesn't last more than one washing or one season and it's this and you throw it away and it's cheap and

blah blah blah. Or you go to the luxury thing and you pay more and it's crafted.

It's handcrafted. It's and you know it's going to be around for a while like oh there is this dichconomy of like fast and throwaway. So you know like it's

and throwaway. So you know like it's called fast fashion. We got fast software but software if you're going to build a real company can't be throwaway.

Maybe it can but I don't think it can be if you're really going to do this because you get just technical debt. You

got to start over again. So you got to really understand how you're using these tools. And a lot of these things that

tools. And a lot of these things that these AI coders can do, agent coders can do can make you incredible prototypes.

Do more prototypes. Do more of those things to help you get that informed gut to say we're going this direction.

Architect that in and then work on the subsegments below it and and and and all the expert systems that expert things that you need in each of those domains.

Yeah. And I think what you may also be saying here which I think is really really important is that because it's so easy to build people can just build all these features and additions and the

value acrru to build something awesome and the product mind becomes more important to help push this stuff from just a sloppy every feature every checkbox to something awesome that

people actually use be because at the end of the day if you're building it for yourself whatever go have fun but if you're going to build it and you want going to sell it and like you know and you only need three

key features to sell it to someone like it's going to have to be boiled down.

It's going to be have to be figured out because you're still selling it to a human who needs to understand it. Now,

do you think you could vibe code Flighty?

Probably.

Maybe now that flighty exists, you could copy this.

Like you could do version two of flighty maybe vibe coded because you say look at flighty but the original flighty like that's to me that's luxury software right understood how the pixels are

done. So you got to remember is it

done. So you got to remember is it version one or is it version two, three, four? because an opinion-based thing on

four? because an opinion-based thing on highly innovative differentiated stuff, it doesn't have a model for that.

There's not that stuff in there. You're

going to you still need the version one to be done. So, and maybe you can prototype with these things. So, I just, you know, we I could go on for hours, but whatever. That's just one old guy's

but whatever. That's just one old guy's point of view. I think it's really important this insight that as it becomes easier to build the things that stand out are the things that are really

well thought through and great and luxury almost as you described and and you can feel it right and you go oh my god and you know I'm like one of the biggest proponents of I'm like

telling flighty flighty because I you know all the people in my in my sphere they're all flying all this I'm like have you tried it it's insane you know so it's you know and then you get the

word mouth and you know things take off because there has been that level of care and craft to it and yeah maybe a lot of the subfunctions of flighty could be built and whatever from

clawed code or whatever but the whole thing and the architecture and everything I don't think so and if someone hasn't tried flighty clearly download it and play with it this is I love that this is the example

of a amazing product that's like a really cool yeah and it's all software it's all software yeah something along these lines as people hear you talk uh clearly you are an amazing storyteller and in your book

you often come back to the power of storytelling the value of storytelling for product builders what's I guess one is just why is that so important do you think and two is what's like one tip you could give people to get better at

storytelling storytelling that's how we've passed information down or or got people to commit to doing something like

stories are so who we are we go to the movies for stories we have books, we have all this stuff and it's just so essential to who we are because we like to be taken on a journey. We like to, you know, and hopefully when you're

buying a product or, you know, licensing one or whatever it is you're subscribing, you're taken on a journey that meets your expectations or out, you know, is is better than the what do

your, you know, your the expectations were set. It's much it's outsized that.

were set. It's much it's outsized that.

And so, you know, Dave Chappelle is he just, you know, when it comes to comedy and storytelling, the way he weaves it, he can weave a story for 20 minutes to get to the punch line and you're just

you're, you know, just in it, right? I just love his comedy as opposed to the punchline guys who just, you excuse me, the the short ones. Um,

short ones. Um, I it's something in our nature, our human nature. You know, we were told

human nature. You know, we were told stories when we were a kid. You know, we read the same or watched the same movies a hundred times when we were kids.

There's something about being taken on that journey that we love. And people

love to be educated that way, right?

Your best your your best college professors, high school teachers, whatever, they taught you why you should love, you know, certain math or certain physics or whatever, and took you a

journey of why it mattered. And then

you're like, "Oh, now I get it." you

know, you can learn all the the basics of, you know, how to do something, but that doesn't really tie it into something that's meaningful. And so,

when you tie it to something that's human, right, that's when it becomes uh and accessible for humans and it's relatable, that's when it goes. And it

can be for anything. And that's when great marketing, great sales um um happens, you know, and and great storytelling through the product design,

that's even better, right? because it

wasn't just perfume this pig and you put some, you know, on this bad product and you you say, "Oh, yeah, try it." And

you're like, "Oh," and then it doesn't meet the expectations, but when it sings from the depths of the product, like you were bringing up with um you know, the Nest Protect, the thermostat or the the

smoke detector and stuff, when we had all that and that you could feel the love and care, that's when people go, "Oh, I love this and I want more from that brand or from that company or that team." That's what they want. And so to

team." That's what they want. And so to get better at it, I've learned it because I watched my dad. He was in sales, right? So I watched how he would

sales, right? So I watched how he would sell Levis's and I would watch and he would be like and it he wasn't always selling to sell. Sometimes he was

convincing them not to buy something because that wasn't the best product they had. Buy this one instead and

they had. Buy this one instead and actually go to my competitor down the street because he was building a relationship and storytelling because he these people loved what it was. So it

sometimes is not just setting expectations and telling a story, but it's also saying, "Hey, maybe I'm not for you." And that's truth. That's also

for you." And that's truth. That's also

truth. And so like Steve always said, the best marketing just tells the truth.

Now might put nice words around it, nice creative and everything, but it's telling the truth. And so when I watched Steve prepare for and like I said when

we did the two and a half years with the iPhone, he was honing the story of the iPhone every day. He didn't give it to

marketing. He knew what that thing was

marketing. He knew what that thing was and what those key um features were like we talked about like and micromanage those features because he knew those were the things going to the world's

going to take uh take notice to. and he

would refine the story and then tell other people who were unwashed by like friends who were really smart and say, "I'm gonna give you the pitch and give you the pitch." And he would refine,

refine, refine. And um and so when you

refine, refine. And um and so when you saw him come on stage, it was just cuz he had done it, you know, 100,000 times or at least 10,000 times, right?

And he he knew it like boom boom boom boom boom just it just came off. And so

I watched and I learned from that. And

that's what we did for like the Nest learning thermostat. That's what we

learning thermostat. That's what we learn, you know, we did for each of those things. It was just that same

those things. It was just that same storytelling over and over. What does it matter? Why why does it matter? Why does

matter? Why why does it matter? Why does

it matter? And because too many times when we're technology-led, we talk about the what. We don't talk about the why.

the what. We don't talk about the why.

And the why is where the storytelling is because you want to take a journey of why it matters to you.

You know, if you're t talking about the what, you're just talking to another geek. Love geeks. No problem. I'm one of

geek. Love geeks. No problem. I'm one of them. But and we can relate on that

them. But and we can relate on that level. But general, most people who are

level. But general, most people who are not in the technology world, they want a story and they want something that that touches them in some way.

One lesson I'm hearing from what you just described is telling the story over and over and over and refining it over time is where the best stuff comes from.

Not just here's I just came up with this and it's going to be amazing.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. because you you need and and telling it to other people who don't un who don't it's to see if it resonates. I remember I remember the

resonates. I remember I remember the number of times I told the Nest story before Nest came out because I was like this is crazy this thermostat thing you know I'm like okay let me set up the virus of doubt which was do you know how

much you spend on your energy bill every every year for your heating and cooling don't you hate your you know thing now there's a there's another way there's another way to look at the storytell

I put this in the book oh no I didn't put this in the book we all have seen infomercials Right?

You know those ones that drag on for a half an hour, an hour at late night TV, you know, on some random every channel now, right? And they just sit there and

now, right? And they just sit there and they tell you the story from all the different directions. They give you the

different directions. They give you the virus of doubt. They're like, "Oh, here's this cheese grater." And you know when you you have this bad cheese grater and your knuckles bleed and you know whatever and it's hard to clean and and

they overexaggerate everything and they show you all the pain points of it and then they show how wonderful easy it is to use in this whatever they're selling and then it's easy to buy and then it's

easy to return and it's overly dramatic and we all know, you know, it's like wrestling. It's all an act and whatever.

wrestling. It's all an act and whatever.

It's not, you know, there's probably no real this there, but it is storytelling in a way. And if and not that you should do that because they they overhype the

expectations, but look at the techniques that are used, the psychological techniques, the emotional techniques to get there. And then dial it back and go,

get there. And then dial it back and go, okay, I'm going to do that, but with truth.

And that's when things start to go pop.

Or at least that's what I've seen. And

so I always use that as another metric.

And it's not just telling the story over and over. It's what what story you are

and over. It's what what story you are telling. And so I try to think of that

telling. And so I try to think of that as well, but not obviously clowny and cheesy and everything else, but it is a caricature of of doing good marketing.

I feel like this is a really interesting lens into the press release first or working backwards idea is create the infomercial first and just go extreme.

Sure, you could. [laughter]

Oh my god.

Know what you don't want to do for sure.

But it's like a cool lens to go really far and then kind of pull back the best parts and make it honest. I think we just came up with a really good idea here.

Um [clears throat] I want to come back to the iPhone. So I think it came out like 20 years ago almost at this point, right? It launched 27 2007.

right? It launched 27 2007.

Yeah. 2007.

So what's crazy is people are still trying to build the next iPhone especially with AI. Everyone's just like what's this? We've had this thing

what's this? We've had this thing forever. What the hell? Why has nothing

forever. What the hell? Why has nothing changed? I'm curious. I imagine people

changed? I'm curious. I imagine people ask you this question. I'm curious just like what you think the next iPhone may look like with AI. What's like the device that you think emerges over time?

Do you have vision?

Okay. There's the

what it could look like long term and there's what it could look like soon.

And so a lot of people like, okay, there's the long-term thing and and when we can trust the models and when they have memory and when they do this stuff, then then we're still going to need a

display cuz, sorry people, unless we're plugging it into our brain like a BCI brain computer or there's some laser thing going into our retina, we're going

to need a display. So, so barring those kinds of technologies, we're going to need a display. Okay. And so the best display that we have is a smartphone like thing. Okay. It's not going to be

like thing. Okay. It's not going to be this tiny thing. We saw what happened with humane all other stuff. So you're

going to have some kind of because the best way to visualize visual information is with a display, right? So we're going to have some kind

right? So we're going to have some kind of small slab. Maybe it's foldable like we see today, whatever, so that you can access it. You maybe many things you

access it. You maybe many things you don't need a display for, but a lot of things you still do, right? because you

might not be tapping and swiping and all this stuff. So I am of the opinion that

this stuff. So I am of the opinion that long-term if you look at how a device is layered today and this is many many devices and

iPhone specifically started this which was you know tapping and swiping right that was that was the first thing

is you know you use your finger then after that was keyboard and then after that the tertiary thing

was a voice input.

We need to flip it. We need to absolutely flip it. And we have to say, and this is what I always wanted to do at Nest, which is I want to remove

displays. And we need to have voice as

displays. And we need to have voice as the number one primary feature. And you

build around voice.

Then we have keyboard if necessary. And

then we have tapping and swiping. Okay,

it should go exactly the opposite. And

the problem why we know most of us don't go around talking to our phones and everything. And we saw this also happen

everything. And we saw this also happen with cars. There was tactile buttons and

with cars. There was tactile buttons and then there was the touchcreens and then they also added the voice in. But nobody

really uses voice in the car unless it's some accessibility thing, right? because

voice was always added at the end because it was always like well it sort of works and it's it's a gizmo but it's you know it's like like Alexa was for

version 1.0 know or Siri was what but when we actually have really good voice input with not just it understand it's like whisper flow or something because

that's great what what I'm saying is the intelligence behind it with memory and everything else so it's then we can start to say and and uh we can start to

use that much more specifically and then deprecate those other things but we've always have to have them there as a crutch for voice because voice has never been able to deliver. So that's the

long-term thing. So it'll have some kind

long-term thing. So it'll have some kind of display, but it's going to be much more voice primary and then you're going to have the other things as secondary and tertiary in the middle now or

sometime soon. It's going to look much

sometime soon. It's going to look much much like this. The this smartphone is because we're not going to get away from the all app interface anytime soon.

We're not going to get, you know, we're gonna remove some things, but we don't trust it yet. It's going to take a while till we trust it. And we are literally

turning over a lot to this trusted thing, right? Because tapping and

thing, right? Because tapping and swiping, we know what that is for the most part. We know that we can trust

most part. We know that we can trust ourselves when we're tapping and keyboarding or whatever. This other

thing we don't know. And so it's going to take a lot of time. Reminds me of kind of general magic in a way for us to be able to get on mass to trust it. And

we're already seeing this with coding agents and everything else, you know, oh, they deleted my source code. And

again, I'm not trying to be an old guy who's saying it's not going to work.

Sure, it's going to work in certain things. I'm seeing for consumers every

things. I'm seeing for consumers every day and the things they want and it's cheap enough so it doesn't cost him a lot.

Right? Today, people are, "Yeah, I'm going to try Chad GPT or whatever. It's

$20 a month or $200 a month." That is unsustainable for if you think consumers are going to pay that. There's just no way unless it's incredible. But they're

not gonna do, you know what I mean? Like

they tried it and now they're getting kind of their Siri. A lot of them are getting their Siri 1.0 with this. Like I

paid for it, but it's really not all that yet. And it's like full

that yet. And it's like full self-driving. Like I paid for full

self-driving. Like I paid for full self-driving. It's 15 years later. I'm

self-driving. It's 15 years later. I'm

still waiting for full self-driving. So

I think we again understand what we think we want but where the technology is and and and the social adoption and the social trust that needs to be created around that is going to take a

lot of time and it's going to take a lot of iterations to get there especially and especially if you're going to have to pay for it. It's really interesting to hear you say that long term even we're going to need a screen. Uh because

I think a lot of people are trying to go to just just like an AirPod or like some kind of magical air like how you going to look at a map if you want to look at a map you're going to just you're going to listen like put on the voice stuff in your car and never

look at the map on your car and say oh turn left in 200 feet turn left in 100 feet you're like shut up I can't hear you anymore like I just want to glance over. So, I I I don't buy it. Like,

over. So, I I I don't buy it. Like,

unless you have it jacked into your brain or into your eye or some other way, it's getting into your cortex.

That is so interesting. And you're not a fan of like the humane approach, I think, was like a little projection on your hand as a screen replacement, right? Is that part of it?

right? Is that part of it?

Yeah. Why? [laughter]

What? It's just it it's different, not better.

So funny. I guess the advantage obviously is it's like a small little device you could just put somewhere versus like a screen. But yeah.

Yeah. And you're like, "Oh, it's like, you know, it's like uh the the hologram projections of Star Wars or something."

You're like, "Yeah, that's cool." But

you still need to you still need a you know a screen or something to you to project on. So it is a screen at the end

project on. So it is a screen at the end of the day. You got to still project it onto something.

Yeah. It's well because everyone keeps saying how is it possible that the end ideal product is a piece of glass that we look at and you're what you're sharing here is just like that's actually maybe the ideal product.

Yeah. And like I said, you fold it up, you put it in your thing and it rolls out or whatever else, but I still think there's going to be that thing. If you

look at her, if you remember the movie Her, they had they had glass.

There was glass there for certain for certain things.

Wow. I didn't I I completely Yeah, you have to go back and watch the movie. It's there. Oh my god, that

movie. It's there. Oh my god, that movie. I nailed it. Oh man,

movie. I nailed it. Oh man,

Spike Spike Jones, right? Yep. I don't

know. Um,

I wanted to ask also just, it's interesting that basically everyone is getting to hardware now. Like you've

been at this for so long building hardware in AI and now it's just like the hottest thing. Everyone's building

hardware.

So funny.

Thoughts? I don't know. How does that feel?

Look, I I was building hardware when it wasn't in vogue in 1995 and 96.

Everyone's like, "Tony, you're" and this was in the Valley. Tony, you're crazy.

It's all about the internet. We don't

need any hardware. And then iPod comes like, and I was pitching new businesses in 99 and 2000. They're like, "Well, that's the stupidest idea ever." Then

the iPod comes out. Tony, you want to leave Apple and start that business you wanted to do with hardware, you know?

And then and then it was like, "Okay."

And then it was all software mobile stuff again like okay we don't need anything cuz but we we can't get to the next level of software if we don't make the next level of hardware and it has to

the revolution has to happen completely like you got to have the mobile network and the mobile network software for the mobile network to work. You had to have

the MP3 player and the MP3 you know format bits to make that work. We're

seeing with AI we got to have AI plus all the data centers and edge compute to make that work. So and then over time the hardware becomes less it becomes more mundane like okay it doesn't change

as much but all the software starts to then you know so I've always just been continually going through the things that I love to do and doing the things

at the the the the full stack level because that's where I know is innovation. That's what we had to do at

innovation. That's what we had to do at Nest. We had to innovate the software

Nest. We had to innovate the software level, the hardware level, the network level to get the first thermostat out and then the Nest Protect and all that stuff. If we look now going on, people

stuff. If we look now going on, people are like, uh, if you're a SAS company or if you're a software only company, your software companies do worthless because anyone

can vibe code it into the thing. And and

now they're like, we're only funding companies that have atoms in their business plan with software. I'm like,

duh. like like where have you guys been?

Like so it's just it's just funny to watch these cycles go and happen and it's like okay all right you guys can go chase your tails but it'll just keep here doing these full system kind of

products and businesses. Yes, they're a lot harder and yes they cost more money and yes they're going to take longer to scale and adopt and blah blah blah but they have staying power for years,

right?

and and they bring and they bring new new features that you could have never had if you just did software only because you need especially let's say in robotics form you need new sensors and you knew this and knew that what have

you right look at Whimo you know it's like it's an electric car what you know electric car with tons of sensors and and everything was it's a hardware platform maybe doesn't look as streamlined as maybe a smartphone but

it's an incredible hardware platform with an incredible software platform and that is something that we're going to be able to innovate on and it'll become a platform for something else. I'm sure

you know delivery or this or whatever else.

When Evan Spiegel is on the podcast, Snapchat founder, he said exactly this.

This is why they're they've spent so much money on these specs and he's just like this is the only way to survive in software is you need to have a hardware component now.

Yeah. Just very interesting. Everything

old is new again. And and and you know, I've been in this game 354 years. I just

you just see it. You're like, "Okay, I was there at 99 when the bottom fell out." And you know AI is different but

out." And you know AI is different but it's there's a lot of similarities and you know we're going to have the gen one companies the gen two companies and you know when people really understand product instead of selling technology

platforms that people have to figure out for themselves. So you know it's it's

for themselves. So you know it's it's it's fun to watch. It's a game.

Okay. Maybe one more question before we get to our very exciting lightning round. What do you what are you most

round. What do you what are you most excited about these days in terms of I don't know gadgets or hardware or technology that's emerging? Is there

anything you're like, "Oh, pay attention."

attention." I've been doing this AI plus hardware thing now, not just at Nest, but in many of the startup companies that we funded at Build and so company like Simbi

Robotics, you know, it's Simbi Robotics.

We were doing robotics way back now, it's not a humanoid, but it does inventory inventory of retail stores.

And we've been at it, I don't know, eight years now, seven years. And now

it's just taking off, right? and it does have AI and it has a robotic platform and it's like and it really solves real pain points for the retailers of inventory and the workers hate doing

inventory counting everything on every shelf and all that stuff. So, it really works and like I love seeing that stuff.

You know, I we're doing the same thing at Great Parrot with AI and tech and uh recycling like it's literally figuring out what things should go in this recycling bin versus that and doing it really fast with cameras and and all

this stuff. It's like and we've been at

this stuff. It's like and we've been at that for a few years. And we have AI plus textiles like most textiles, you know, are have uh you know uh weaving errors and and and and color errors and

defects and things like that. And so

people still make all of these these products, but then they have to incinerate them because they're not perfect at the end because we they don't catch the quality problems early enough in the in the in the product product.

And we're doing AI plus cameras to to spot all this stuff. again another thing and we're doing this. We've been doing AI and drug drug design now for 10 years at Orianis and that's taking off and

it's like so I'm really interested in not just these frontier models and this whole thing is really good AI that you can trust

scoped correctly with this solving real problems every day as opposed to pipe dream AGI you know okay you can go solve that I'm going to go and build all these businesses that really matter right now

and we're finally getting traction action because people are like what AI and uh we're robotics and uh and now all of a sudden we're in Vogue and we've been here really working on our product market fit working on our marketing

working on version 3.0 and over the device and everything and people are adopting them and that's what's wonderful to see. So, I'm excited by all that. We have we have another one like

that. We have we have another one like AI infusion, you know, and doing that or or um finally doing um tons of software

with chemical reactions and now we're we're turn we have a agricultural uh clean agricultural uh fuel and oils company that uh is

cleaning up farms all around uh Central America. So like and we're almost all

America. So like and we're almost all Adams plus software in some way. And so

it's just nice to be sitting here and um and knowing that we made these bets a long time ago and we're doing it now.

were not necessar you know I was early on in Grock that you know right because I was like and it was cheap then and it was like yeah that's the right way to go and and and my friends were in Cerebrus

and I got into that and then you know it's like but these are long-term plays and they're finally coming to fruition but we did invested it not when it was

hyped and it's you know we were doing it back when unicorns valuations were billions of dollars today if you don't have a $5 billion rack found raised

you're not anything. It's like okay well that doesn't work from a venture perspective like with those kinds of you never get the venture returns you can't invest in things when when the

valuations are already nine digits or 10 digits and you you think you get a small portfolio that's like uh that's not the kind of game I want to play. So I I'm glad that we have well positioned in the

all these companies that have real good product market fit that came in the right valuations that that we can really help and make big change and deliver painkillers and we'll let everybody else over there play. So that's what's

exciting to me.

Oh man, there's this quote that I I used the other day on a different podcast um that I think applies to you. It's a b quote from the Bible that you were made for a time like this. [laughter]

Feels like all the things are converging around the things that you have been doing for so long and the technology is finally getting exactly as described to actually something amazing.

The same thing happened at General Magic, right? General Magic iPhone too

Magic, right? General Magic iPhone too early and then I just kept at it and add it and then then doing the iPhone. So,

it's just you just you stick with it.

Like there's too many people who chase their tail and chase whatever the hottest thing is. When it's already hot, it's already too late to be in it.

For people that don't know what you do these days, you talked about all these companies you work with. help people

understand what what it is you spend your time on in case they may want to try to work with you on this stuff.

I think the the first thing to know is that I'm we invest in um deep technology. So that could be hardware,

technology. So that could be hardware, it could be software, software plus hardware, could be chemical, could be all kinds of different stuff. So

remember we talked earlier about what's the pain and is there new technology that comes out to solve that pain in a

new way or and so what what we do is I've learned that I invest in the deep technologies that are going to unseat the incumbents because it's going to change the market or the product in such

a dramatic way that customers will choose this. So, we're not we're not

choose this. So, we're not we're not just feature com competing on features or better marketing or whatever. We're

fundamentally a different product. Now,

it might take longer to get the market to shift to it, but it's fundamentally different. Just like I brought up Grock

different. Just like I brought up Grock and Cerebras and these kinds of things, it's fundamentally different. And so, at Build, what we do is we invest in those

technology companies that can be that seed that can unseat things. and maybe

they go the distance or maybe they are the key enabling tech that allows another startup to go to the distance that kind of stuff. And so that's we invest in and we do it in in the

environment in societal benefits and health benefits. That's where we focus

health benefits. That's where we focus and you know at times we've had a portfolio of over 200 companies and we we do that but we don't just invest when we get involved. many of the companies

we advise and that we come in help them with product management, operations, we help them with financing, we help them with org development, uh you know just all kinds of different

ways that a lot of times in marketing and communications, right? Because we

talked about storytelling. Storytelling

is really important and a lot of deep technology people, they're incredible, you know, engineers, scientists, researchers, what have you. They have a really good idea, but they don't

necessarily know how to form the product around it or form the marketing around the product they're building or help the marketing to inform the product and vice versa. And so we try to encomp

versa. And so we try to encomp encapsulate that and and really bring that to bear. So they don't they don't hit it on the fourth version. They try

to get very close to the first or second version so they can get on that three that three version um cycle to get to a a a great uh company. And so that's what we do. So we get to have a lot of fun.

we do. So we get to have a lot of fun.

We get to work play in all these different place uh spaces. Health,

medicine, drugs, robotics, uh um you know, chips, these kinds of things. So

that's what's that's just what's wonderful to us. And we get to just be kids in the candy store and work with all these incredible smart entrepreneurs and everything. So that's one thing I

and everything. So that's one thing I do. The other thing I do is I'm a

do. The other thing I do is I'm a designer at residence at MIT. So I just finished up my first year there um with the MIT media lab in architecture and

design and helped to uh you know give lectures and and um and work with work with students amazing amazing smart students on with the great technology

but help them with the customer journey like try to make sure that they see this stuff early on in their career not after 10 years and then they finally understand oh wait a second what am I really building who is it for not what

is it I'm building but why am I building it and for who and so we're trying to get that into the into some of the later undergraduate and graduate uh students so we can you know watch them change the

world more quickly incredible I love just all the levels of ways you are helping people there's the investing there's this book there's MIT there's these conversations

it's fun it's just so much fun you know I love I love how much fun you're having is there anything else you wanted to share that we didn't cover we should really just talk about

ethics and morals and your your point of view on that and as a product manager, as a product

designer, you need to really consider these things. I understand we have lots

these things. I understand we have lots of big questions about AI and is it going to be a disaster for the for the, you know, for the next generation and for societies and all the other stuff.

But I think that you really need to be well-grounded and have real principles when you're designing something and don't let those things go astray. Just like you wouldn't

go astray with a bad user interface or something like that. Make sure you're not trying to addict your users. And if

anybody is, there's always other jobs and there's always other better companies. And don't chase the money for

companies. And don't chase the money for tearing apart what it is the fabric of this society that we've built.

Obviously, there's going to be innovation and there's going to be change and but when it you're really doing it and you can see that you're doing it and you're like trying to get people hooked or you're like, "Ah, I get

more dopamine or what have you." That's

when, you know, you have to start really looking at things. And a lot of times people are young and they they think, "Oh, that's great. That's what I want."

But when you start to have kids and you start to have families and you start to see the and you're not just about you.

you you're you're you're not trying to just get out of your family, you know, uh out of your when you were growing up, you know, I'm an individual and I want what I want, you know, you really need

to start thinking systemically about how what the benefit that you're bringing to to society as a whole, not just to the business that you're in and trying to bring in whatever revenue you're trying

to do. Um because at the end of the day,

to do. Um because at the end of the day, users will feel that and then I think and will will reward that as we see with Apple with privacy, right? And people

say, "Oh, they're behind because they're so private and there's this." But it's a double-edged sword. You know, I remember

double-edged sword. You know, I remember when we had a very pointed discussion when the iTunes music store and and when

it was turning into video um was being specified and when we're thinking about it and everyone's like, "Oh, this is going to be great. We're going to do movies. We're going to do TV shows.

movies. We're going to do TV shows.

That's going to all be great. We're

going to make a lot of money with this in the studios. Everybody's behind it.

And then somebody goes, "Yeah, when we should have porn, of course." Steve was like, "What? Is that the kind of world

like, "What? Is that the kind of world you want your kids to grow up in?" And

Apple is related with that. And Apple's

about is that what we want to do? And it

was very clear. It was shut down. And we

need leaders like that. You know, we need leaders who are very clear as opposed to I'm going to make a huge service for everyone and they're all sex chat sex chat bots for everyone. I just

think, you know, when you start normalizing those things and you start telling other generations that's a value and you start and I understand that everyone has their own what's right and

what's wrong and here I am the old guy, you know, again, uh, I think we, you know, we can go a little too far. I'm

for individual rights. I'm for everyone to be a thing. But when major companies are are doing this in the guise of certain kinds of behaviors they're

trying to achieve um you know when we're selling we're turning uh personal connection into a product

with AI chat bots and making them really you know uh devolve uh you know social interaction to the point where I'm going to have a perfect interaction with this

thing because the world is so messy.

It's like we're we're losing humanity with that and we're just for for for gain. So I I I wish that the other

gain. So I I I wish that the other product designers out there really take it to heart. Not saying we got to be Lily White and, you know, being in a in

a in a church every weekend and Bible banging. I'm not saying that. I'm not

banging. I'm not saying that. I'm not

MAGA. I'm not any of that stuff. Just

saying, hey, think about it.

A lot of people look at the iPhone as this like thing now that everyone's hooked on. It's like gotten it's so

hooked on. It's like gotten it's so good. or just like it's too good. Uh and

good. or just like it's too good. Uh and

there's all this data showing all the impact it has on people and things like that. Just like how do you think about

that. Just like how do you think about that and the the impact the iPhone has had on people?

Well, the first thing is the iPhone wasn't set out to be that. We you know there's unintended consequences and the unintended consequence was social this social media happened and social media

Apple's not a social media company, right? But it does distribute the apps

right? But it does distribute the apps or make available those apps, right? And

so the way I think about it is, you know, we have lots of junk food and we have an obese nation or obese world because of all the junk food and it

takes us to regulate our our in our our consumption to do that and and get healthy tools and you know and and and you know there's nutritional elements on the back of things and you if you want

to make a better decision you can and I hope AI and these assistants will help people be able to get better control uh of those kinds of things where our lizard brain is being, you know,

stimulated in a way that like consume more, consume more of physical food, right? And now the same thing's

right? And now the same thing's happening in digital food, but we have digital food that doesn't have the nutrition labels, doesn't have the warnings, doesn't have the regulation that it needs to have, just like we do

with our physical food because, oh, we can't you can't let innovation, you know, whatever, uh, you know, be slowed down. I think I think there's I'm not

down. I think I think there's I'm not saying again being a nanny and all that other stuff, but we got to have some balance and it's just swung too far. And

I still think that the platform companies like Google and Apple could be doing a lot more around digital consumption tools and information to help people make better decisions for

themselves, for their families, and what have you. Because, you know, you could

have you. Because, you know, you could go to the refri get iPhone's just a refrigerator.

You can put in junk food or you can put in good food. And even if you put in good food, you could go to the good food every five seconds, right? You have a refrigerator in your kitchen. You can

put good food or bad food. You can open it all the time and keep consuming. So,

we need to learn habits. We need to teach habits. We need to put in

teach habits. We need to put in regulations. We need information. We

regulations. We need information. We

need tools to help us monitor and manage that stuff. And they need to be

that stuff. And they need to be supplied. And we have just like we have

supplied. And we have just like we have rules around, you know, who can buy something when they're 21 or under 21.

We need all those kinds of things. And

uh it needs to happen. Um because

because why? Sure, you could have a short-term game and no customers, but if you make your customers unhealthy, you're not going to have customers.

Let me just say for folks that haven't read your book, I just want to uh communicate how great it is. There's

very few books that are both tactically useful that give you like here's how to do a thing and also just inspire you to build and make great things and Bill does that in such a great way. Uh I

think everyone knows about it. I don't

know if everyone's read it. So highly

encourage you to read it. Two final

questions. Where can folks find you online if they want to maybe learn about the stuff you're up to now and how can listeners be useful to you?

Great. Well, let's see. Well, thanks

again. This was fun interview. I really

enjoyed it. I think if you want to interact with us, we're at buildc.com.

So buildcollective, but we're buildc built dc.com.

built dc.com.

You can go and see the companies we invest in and you can find ways to contact us there. Um, and how can uh viewers help me um or help us? I think

learn about the companies, see if you can model whatever you're doing and some of the learn from insights. You know,

there's a lot of websites that we helped to create, a lot of the marketing we created for deep tech through those through those those investments we made.

So, you can see some well done marketing. I hope you like our our

marketing. I hope you like our our website for build seed to show you how what we think is a really great website that you know only doesn't sell things necessarily, you know what I mean? Uh

like you know, point andclick and and purchase. But um uh I I I just I it just

purchase. But um uh I I I just I it just get the get the rebuild and apply it.

You know, that's I think that's the most thing is rebuild, read other things like that. Um and really hone your craft,

that. Um and really hone your craft, make better products, make a better world because the world only gets better by the things we make and how what we bring. And so that to me, that's the

bring. And so that to me, that's the that's the most important way to help me is by making other cool products like Flighty or other things. They're like, I love this thing. So, make great stuff, people, and don't think the AIS will,

you know, use them for the the tools that they they can help with, but don't have cognitive surrender. Don't allow

don't surrender to the machine. We can

use the machines, but don't cognitively surrender and make better stuff. Make

better stuff than myself or any of the teams that we back can make because we do have better tools now. So, please do.

Amazing. Tony, thank you so much for being here. Hey, Lenny, that was great.

being here. Hey, Lenny, that was great.

Really appreciate it. Uh, looking

forward to seeing what your what your audience creates.

Same. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this

for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple [music] Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please

consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes [music] or learn more about the show at lennispodcast.com.

See you in the next episode.