Hyperfixed - Upsetting the Apple Cart

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

A longer cut of our interview with Matt Welle about apples, accountants, and hospitality. It's a fun one! Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Hey, this is Alex. If you're listening to this, that means that you are a paid member. So thank you for doing that. Without you, you know, the show would just fold up and blow away. So this is very exciting. That hasn't happened yet. This week, we are sharing an extended interview from our story about the garbage fruit, known as the Red Delicious Apple. In last week's episode, we learned that like this gross, mushy, mealy, flavorless apple that's found

in every conference room and continental breakfast was never meant to be eaten at all. In fact, the point of them being there is because no one wants to eat them. At least that's what Matt Vela told us. Matt is Dutch, and he spent years inside the hotel world, and he's thought a lot about why guests so often get stuck with bad apples. Like, he's thought so deeply about it that we didn't even have time to get into the half of it in last week's episode. So that's why we are bringing you a longer cut of our conversation with Matt.

Because his take on this one very specific fruit also reveals bigger changes in the hospitality industry that he is not so thrilled about. So in 2012, Matt helped launch a company called Muse that focuses on hospitality technology, which I was like, what the hell is that? And he was like, the goal is to improve every part of a hotel stay, including the apples that you're offered. So I come in the hotel space specifically. So we take over the infrastructure of a hotel so that we can make experiences in hotels better. So if you walk into hotel lobby, the first thing you normally do is look for a reception desk so that somebody can type your data into some system. And we're trying to solve that. Like nobody wants to get in a queue behind a reception desk.

Oh, so you're sort of trying to automate the process to make it easier for people to check in? Well, like check in is the most visible part, but we take care of the entire hotel operation. and everything that feels manual, like, why is housekeeping always knocking on your doors in the morning when you're sleeping? And it's because technology wasn't given to the housekeepers. And we're trying to really think about every kind of persona in an hotel and fix their job. Oh, that's smart. So you can put specific preferences about wake-up time and do not disturb and all that stuff in one central place. Yeah. Anything that frustrates you that creates a manual workflow on the other side is a thing that we'd love to automate. Got it. And

when and how did you get started in the hospitality industry? So I, when I was four, and I stepped into my first hotel with my parents, I realized, okay, this is my life, this is what I want to do. And my parents remember that moment vividly as well, and then everything led up to it. So I had 16, I started working restaurants, did hotel school, worked for like a decade in a hotel chain. And then I just got really stuck. I got really frustrated by the technology that they made me work with. I was until 2012, when we were all, the whole world was on iPhones.

I was still working in DOS, that blue screen. that you still see at airports sometimes today. And I thought, this cannot be what one of the leading hotel chains in the world is using today. And then that's when I joined Richard, the founder of Muse. And we just started building this new platform with a cloud first, mobile first kind of approach. And it's, you know, it was hard, but it's worked out for us. So first off, four years old. It's crazy, right?

What was it about the hotel that, like, entranced you as a four-year-old? Like, what was it that brought you into it that made you be like, this is it? Like, I'm a Dutch. The Dutch in the winter migrate for a week to Austria to go skiing. And these beautiful hotels on the hillside of Austria with beautiful snowy mountains, they have these schnitzels, these deep-fried meat things that are incredible. So you walk in, you get great apple pie, great schnitzels, great service. And I was like, what is this magical place? And from that moment, I actually want to be a chef because I'm like, this is fabulous. And then at some point, my ambitious just grew and grew from there.

Why is hospitality important? Like, what is about it is important to you? I think it's the escape from reality sometimes, like, you know, when we work most of our life to get these respites when you get to stay in a really nice hotel and hopefully be delighted by the hotelier who does something that makes you think that was nice, like somebody took care of me. And like, I live for those things. I've already booked my next two holidays so that I can dream about those moments that I can step away from work. And I love my work. Don't get me wrong. But I love staying in these really special hotels. And we think deeply about which hotel we book

and why we book it and we read the reviews what people say about it so that we can seek out those experiences. So what factors do you consider as someone who works in the industry? Location is really critical, but service is more critical than anything. I think most hotels that look pretty on pictures, their service elements might not be as good. And we really go into the reviews of the hotel deeply. I understand what customers are saying because you just don't know anymore. Everything is being franchised today.

And when you go into a franchised hotel, then they can't guarantee the service at the big brand. If you book Maritay Hilton, they can't guarantee the service that you get anymore like we used to back in the olden days. And so you have to do a lot of deep research on the reviews and really seeing what people are saying about the hotel. So we spend many days scrolling the internet to find those very special hotels. You mentioned that hospitality has changed since you started. In what ways has it changed? So today, it's an asset light product. So the person that owns the building is different from the person that operates the building that operates the brand.

Whereas in the earlier days, like when brands actually owned the buildings and they also manage the buildings, they control the end-to-end. And that makes a difference because, you know, when the manager is an actual person that works for the hotel brand as well and they move between hotels strategically, they have a career path. And the managers are trained in their old professional hospitality. Today, that doesn't happen. You work for a management company, not the brand. And that opportunities of moving are more limited. And I missed a manager at the front line. Why is the manager no longer in the lobby of the hotels welcoming me

or recognizing that there's a service deficiency? And I have this feeling that there's just less care for service. Yeah, that makes sense. If you don't feel a connection to the place you're working, you are going to feel less interested in it. Yeah, it matters. Um, you called hospitality an old industry? How old is it? It's probably the oldest industry. Like, Rita By, right?

Maria went to an inn to deliver her baby, like, and all the hotels were sold out. So, like, this goes back, like, centuries, basically. So it's probably the oldest industry. Huh. You strike me as someone who's always rethinking the hospitality experience, that people probably don't think about when they're, like, at a hotel. Does that feel like a fair assessment? Oh, 100%. Because, you know, when I travel, I don't really get super positive and engaged because I'm like, I'm looking to kind of rebreats myself. But I'm always watching.

I see everything because this is my profession. I was on a plane last week and I recognized that the pilot did something really special. He, you know, they were delayed. He came into the aisle. And then he said, I'm going to walk down the aisle. And if you have any questions, ask me. And he did. He walked slowly down the aisle and looked everyone in the eye, including

myself. And I thought, this is so good. Like, I don't see pilots doing this. And when I see these quiet moments and I am like, that is really special, I then think, how can we take that moment into a hotel and how do we have systems that support kind of those experiences in hotels as well? So I'm always, always watching for great surface opportunities. What are some hotel experiences that you've been really preoccupied with lately? Like, either really good or really bad. Like, what's something that you've been like, I want to think more about this specific aspect of hospitality. So two weeks ago, I was at a hotel and it was a four-star hotel. I drove up and the signs had four stars on it. And then when I got to breakfast in the first morning and it was a

buffet and I thought, where is everyone? Why is there no waiters? And then on the buffet, there was a pan with raw eggs and a sign saying, make your omelette. And I thought, I don't even make omelets at my house, let alone at your buffet. And I thought, how can a four-star hotel that is rated by the government, not have, you know, any service at the breakfast. And those are things that I then deeply think about. And I then throw them on the Internet as a question mark on LinkedIn. And the debate that ensued is crazy because there's so much frustration that people feel around the world about these star ratings that actually maybe reflect some of the facilities, but they don't reflect the service. You know, I have always been skeptical of hotel star ratings because they seem, first of all, pretty inconsistency.

from one booking site to another, and second, they, like, don't ever seem to align with my personal experience of the hotel. But when Matt mentioned that these stars are handed out by the government, that obviously made me even more skeptical. So I was like, okay, let me look into this. And he's telling the truth. I looked into it, and apparently in a lot of countries, like France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Dubai. In these places, the government literally sends inspectors.

with clipboards to measure your room, check if there's a hairdryer and a 24-hour reception desk. And that's where the rating comes from. But in the U.S., there's like no official system at all. You get whatever number of stars, a booking site decides to put in the listing, which means it's really just marketing. It's like not an actual guarantee. So, you know, when a hotel says, we're four stars, it could mean like we have a functional elevator and Wi-Fi, but not someone's going to stop you from making your own omelette

at the breakfast buffet, which is why Matt says that he's completely stopped trusting the stars. And he started reading reviews to get the full picture. And I keep going back to service, because I think the best hospitality experiences that we've all ever experienced aren't, you know, this beautiful swimming pool. It's the person that serves you the drink at the swimming pool that does something really unique. And that is why you remember the best hotels. The idea of cooking my own eggs, if they're just a bunch of raw eggs around, it makes me feel like I'm just going to get salmonella. Like, I am a terrible cook, and I go to hotels because I don't want to cook.

So don't make me do the thing I don't want to do, because that creates a bad experience. This omelette conundrum was one of Matt's latest hospitality fixations. Like, he became so fixated on it that he posted about it on LinkedIn, asking, quote, is the hotel star rating system broken? And hundreds of people responded. Which sounds wild until you realize that Matt is based. basically like a hospitality influencer, and he's got tens of thousands of followers on LinkedIn, which is actually how we stumbled across him, not because of the omelets, but for another one

of his posts about a different hotel experience that he became fixated on. So I was on a holiday. I went to South Africa earlier this year for a holiday, and then as we walked in the room, there was a lovely fruit basket that they prepared. And then my husband said to me, he's like, why do they keep giving us? And we got upset about green apples. So it's really green apples that basically don't decay like you can leave them in your room they can probably leave them for multiple guests and they will still be a perfectly fine green apple and he said nobody wants to eat these apples they are sour and like you said the goldenies that are mealy these ones are sour like that is not a great welcome gift and i'm like i don't associate south africa with apples

like why are we getting some local fruits so i posted about the apples again on lincoln and i said well why don't you give me like a pink lady apples They were perfectly designed. They have this beautiful crisp bike, and they are sweet. And I posted about that. And how that turned into this massive conversation, because there are people that apparently do like sour green apples, but the majority of people said 100%.

In his post, Matt shared his theory as to why these hotels might be serving cheap, unappealing apples. He said this decision was likely all about money, about the hotel's bottom line, and that it's unlikely guests will eat those apples, and if they don't, that saves them the cost on stocking fresh new apples. And people were like, oh, my God, that makes so much sense. At some point, the accountants of the hotel got involved and said these red apples are too expensive.

On our budget line, we can't afford to give away free apples, but we can give away a cheaper apple, we'll give the way the apple that's more durable. And that was my debate. I said, it feels like in this hotel, the accountants made the guest decisions instead of the hosts. And that creates really bad hospitality moments. Like, if you came to my house, I would never give you a sour green apple. That is not a sign of hospitality.

And I think there's a lot underneath the layer of, you know, hospitality and which kind of apple do you serve people? Right. Why do hotels always stock the worst apples? I think it's the durability of them or the price of them. Like, at some point, they must have started with a nice apple and then, they said, okay, this is really expensive and it starts to add up the cost. Is it worth it? And over time, any manager that needs to cut costs will start to look for the line item that's the biggest.

They find a cheaper alternative where they cancel it immediately completely. And I think it's probably the accountant who said that line item is too expensive. And what's the return on investment on an apple? And I couldn't tell you whether I book a hotel because I got an apple. And it's really hard to quantify. But there is, there is a return on investment on giving great hospitality or you know having something in the room that you will actually consume most of the time when I go to hotel I might get a bottle of wine I'm like I'm not going to sit in the room drinking a bottle of wine on my own it's just it feels really strange I would much prefer a nice apple and I think hotels need to just shift their thinking about what hospitality

should be for the right customer I mean it's so interesting because I honestly think this and that I've started thinking this more over the course of working on on the story, that the poor quality of hotel apples have diminished apples as a fruit in my mind. Like, I think of them as, like, kind of gross. And why don't they wash them? Why is there a sticker on the apple? Because if there is a sticker, I know you didn't wash the apple, but it's not like the apple bowl is next to a tap so I can wash my own apple. And I just want my fruit to be washed.

That makes perfect sense. Sorry, I'm very passionate about these apples. I can tell. So have you ever discussed this issue with your clients in the hospitality industry? So I posted about these apples, I'd say about five months ago. And since then, I would say 20 different hotel agents have approached me. So I just walked into our office. We have a co-working.

And they had green apples before. And they've now switched to these apples every day. When I walk in, there's this giant ball of pink lady apples that they put in the lobby. And it came from my post because at some point, they thought, you're right. why do we feed people apples that no one actually enjoys? Why don't we give them something that it's actually a nice moment of the day a healthy bite instead of like another chocolate bar and in more and more hotels and I'll see it. It was funny. I had a, we had a customer advisory board the other day and we flew them into a hotel here in Amsterdam to have this meeting with other

hoteliers. And then one of the hoteliers in the morning came down and she said, was it a test? I said, what do you mean? Was it a test? And she said, well, I arrived at this hotel, this lovely hotel. And there was a ball of green apples. And I felt that you were testing me whether I noticed because you'd been posting by these red apples and then you fly me into this hotel. And they put a green apple. But I thought it was this giant test. And like, where's the camera? And she's looking around her bedroom for this like candid camera moment.

And it's like, okay, that's good. It landed. That's really funny. I want to read your own writing, if you don't mind. On LinkedIn, you said, quote, these apples last longer than most. they look pretty and because they're sour it's unlikely guests

will eat them lowering the cost for the hotel a win win for the hotel so hotels are putting them out with the expectation that guests are not meant to eat them I think if you were the accountant they're like right if you don't use toilet paper

I'm making a saving in that room and it's the same with the apples if I put an apple out at least we've done the hospitality thing we've put the apple out it's free you can take it and if no one eats them we save costs because I can recycle put that apple for five guests until the fifth guest who does like green apples eat some.

So that decision was made by an accountant, not by someone who deeply cared about the experience of their guests. It's just crazy to me that they are putting these out on the bet that more people won't eat them than will. That's like anti-hospitality. It's like... Yeah, exactly. I don't know if that's always true, but I can't explain why.

you put an apple out that you yourself wouldn't eat. You know, you'd always want to do to others things that you would do for yourself nicely. And I'm like, the ones I buy at house in my house is the pink lady apple. So that's the one I would feed to people in my hotel. And I can't imagine that 90% of the people that work in hotels eat sour green apples in their own personal life. So why don't they make the right decision? So like, why do they do this in the first place? Why did apples become the default? I can go down that path if you want. Yeah, please.

I don't think my post wasn't actually about apples. I said, you know, apples, it's a nice thing to give someone an apple. But if I'm in South Africa, in this beautiful hotel in Cape Town, then give me something from Cape Town. Like, they're known for their beautiful teas and coffees in South Africa. It's like, put something local in my room. And an apple feels like a shortcut. It feels like, right, let's just do it.

the easy thing. We can buy apples in every corner store. Let's just put apples in the room. But maybe you have a local fruit, you know, and I want to experience new things. When I travel, I'm not looking for exactly what I have at home. I'm looking for something special that's memorable. So maybe doing something that's connected to the place that you're going to or the brand that you're staying in is much more memorable than a sour green apple. So, you know, it wasn't about the apple to begin with. It was really about how do you craft a personalized experience in the hotel room. And it isn't green apples. So this is like an international problem. It seems weirdly wasteful, but also weirdly neglectful at the same time. Like, they're wasting

a bunch of money carting these things. Maybe it's the lobbying of the Apple industry that is, I don't know if there is such a thing as the lobby behind the Apple industry. So maybe they have been cutting deals with accountants in hotels to get these apples in hotels. I don't know. Like, that could be some kind of conspiracy theory there. So from a hospitality standpoint, can you explain to me what it means to set out of bowl of fruit? Like, what is that supposed to say to the customers? It says, here's something extra. You didn't expect to get anything in the room, but here you are.

You get something extra. And I think it's a really nice touch because most of the time you book a hotel, you walk in, and there's nothing there, and everything has a price tag on it. So to get something extra is a really nice touch because hotels are expensive. I just question whether we could do better. It feels like a shortcut. Like apples are sold in every single store, convenience store that you go into. And it feels like a lazy gesture to say, here's something else.

And, you know, I do appreciate getting apples because I don't always get apples. Most of the time I get nothing. So if there is an apple, I'm like, right, that's the good first step. Now let's take that to the next step, which could be something that would genuinely like me, but an apple is better than nothing. Do you think that hotels are doing the right thing by offering apples that are pretty and durable instead of tastier and more fragile? Because, like, you know, in the long run, they are, you know, producing less waste because they're not throwing out stuff. They're probably saving some money. So for some hotels, I can imagine that it's the right decision.

If this is a location that you would not return to, you know, it's a roadside hotel that you're not likely to return back to. And you do want to do something extra. It's the cheapest way to kind of make something special. But, yeah, most hotels just don't have the imagination to think a little bit further than the baseline. And the baseline seems to be a sour apple. I know that the Omni chain was actually kind of famous for having a bowl of apples available in the lobby. It was sort of like a calling card. Who is in charge of decisions like this?

Is it on a hotel by hotel basis, or is it with big chains? Well, it depends, right? So if it's Omni, it's probably a brand standard that they have issued. Most of the time, that's not the case. So most of the time it comes down to the management company that the site. So you've got the building, the management company, and the brand. The management company cares for the profit line. So they are the one that decides to put it there, but they're also the first ones to cut it out when the profit goes down.

So when you get into a downturn, like obviously turmoil in the economy is not helpful for hospitality. So if you get into a downturn and there's pressures on prices, then the apple bowl is the first thing that you would cut out. And that is a local decision by the hotel. What would happen if hotels bought produce that guests actually wanted to eat? Do you think that it would generally help or you think it might just cost them more money? Both. I think the cost will definitely go up because people will actually consume the apple. But their enjoyment of the hotel will also go up, right?

If you eat something that you have a positive experience about, then that influences your experience. And most of the time, you do that when you're hungry, and then the hunger is gone. And that's a positive effect. So you have a much more positive relationship, that hotel, because they actually gave you something that you enjoy. So if you leave a positive review, other people read that. And there's this, like, positive cycle that you get into for hotels that actually do the little bit extra, give them something that actually is a really nice touch, you talk about it online, and then hopefully that drives more guests or more demand that drives the rate up because your hotel is busier.

So I do think that there is a bigger motive behind it, but it's really hard to prove whether it was the apples that drove that higher average rates or whether the hotel just increased the rate and people still booked it and they didn't look at the reviews. But where we started our conversation, you know, when I book a hotel, and I think this is what a lot of people do, they do read the reviews. And they go through them because you can't trust the official star ratings that hotels have anymore. And in the reviews, it will surface that this hotel does something really, really special. And some hotels had such a nice little turn-down presence that I talk about it when I write a review for a hotel. So it does increase the cost, but I think it will also

increase the revenue. I don't know if you're familiar with those architectural digest videos where celebrities will show their home. That's hyperfixed producer Amory Yates, who is a fount of pop culture references and somehow always finds the perfect one to inject in a conversation. The lemon or the lemon with Dakota Johnson. The line. The line, that's what it was. Exactly.

You already know. You already know. Okay. So you're already on the same wavelength. That's me. Yeah. So, yes, this idea of like people staging or decorating a home. so it just looks better to, you know, like even if it's like a very intentional pop of color there.

And I'm wondering, is the bowl of fruit element also kind of a way to signal to the guest, like this place is cozier? This place is homie? Does it convey those sentiments? Like, I'm curious, is that an element of the hospitality angle that hotels are also thinking about other than it just being like a free commodity? So I think if you walk into your hotel room, and most hotel rooms are designed so bland, right? They're so corporate. And sometimes you wake up in your hotel room and you don't even know what city you're in. And based on the design of the hotel room, you can't tell because they're all the same. So if you bring some color, some form of life into the room, it definitely adds to that dimension. Flowers are incredibly expensive and they dye really fast, unfortunately.

an apple, like a green sour apple, probably lasts, I'd say, three weeks. A pink lady apple lasts about a week and a half out of a fridge. So you definitely have a difference. But anything that brings a little bit of life in the room is definitely adding value to the experience that you have in the room. And just because you said the sour apple, you know, obviously the apple that kind of brought us to this subject matter is the red delicious. The mealy one, yes.

than the only one, because I would say they're generally disliked in the United States. I'm curious, are the sour apples generally disliked in Europe? So I think so. I actually don't know if there's a cultural difference between the United States and the red apples and then Europe where we have the green apples. And it might be because, you know, you have a different climate. So maybe different apples are cheaper over there and therefore you pull those in. Like the pink lady is the one I highlighted.

And I think it might be a specific European apple. It's a newer brand. And my husband sometimes comes home with new brands of apples that he's found because they're cultivated for tastes. Like there's something special when you bite them. Yesterday evening, I had a new apple at home. And every night, before I go to bed, I cut up an apple and I shared with my dog and we eat it and then we judge it.

And then you judge the crispness and the sweetness of the apple. And I decided that that wasn't my favorite apple yesterday. But there's a whole science behind it. And I love it. But the mealy apple, nobody enjoys that apple. But if you buy it fresh, it's not mealy. It's mealy because it sits in an hotel lobby for two, three weeks at end. And you can't tell from the outside that it's turned.

And that's part of the problem, I think. I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Are you saying that you've been thinking about apples? Like, that's like another thing you think about very intently outside of hospitality. Like, do you eat apples every day? I eat apples every day. Wow. I just love them.

We are really talking to the right person. Oh, my God, seriously. I haven't had an apple in six months. It's my least favorite. I hate them. I like how we're working on an episode about apples and Alex are. He found the one nerd that loves them. Okay, so are there other decisions that hotels make that are similar to the Apple decision?

like is there coffee coffee in the bedroom drives me up the wall you know we've all moved on to nespresso and nespresso feels like the baseline of coffee in a hotel today but often you get different brands of coffee and sometimes you even get the ones where it's in a bag and you put in a cup with hot water the nests cafe nobody wants to drink that like when you go to a lovely hotel you want a freshly brewed coffee or they remove the coffee entirely and say come downstairs for your coffee, like free coffee. I don't want to go downstairs in my underwear to get a cup of coffee at 6 a.m. before I go to the gym in the morning. I don't want to speak to people when it's that early in the morning. So why can't we just have good coffee in the room? It doesn't

perish. I'll promise I'll just make one cup for myself. I'm not going to take the coffee cups with me home. But coffee is one of those things that is really hard because I travel every single week for work. And I always have to figure out what's my coffee situation when I get to the hotel? And you know what's funny is like that is something that people are kind of forced to actually have. Like I feel like people can kind of forego the apple if they see it because there's other elements there unless I need to have an apple a day. But a lot of people would are like, I need to have my coffee every morning. So it's interesting that they make a choice that people are, they're going to kind of suffer through it. They're going to still continue to coffee.

Because I travel so much, I know in my, my poor assistant. and God bless her hearts. She has a rulebook that I go by, and it is literally, like, there has to be a gym, but because I wake up so early, I want the gym to be open at 5.30 in the morning, so you have to actually find out that the gym is open. I want certain coffee. You know, I'm looking for apples. I want it to be in a certain location.

Thank God for chat GPT, because without that, I don't know how she would ever find the hotel that I would meet by minimum standard. Wow. I love a criteria level of all the things that you expect. It's amazing. This is more generally like hospitality etiquette kind of what people have come to expect from hotels. So like what are some hospitality rules that almost all hotels follow? Like basic expectations for hospitality?

Like preferably clean sheets and clean towels and that they clean your room every night. When COVID happened, hotels like great. I don't have to clean the rooms because we'll just say, we don't want to go into the room to affect people. And then for years after that, they didn't clean my room while I was staying in the hotel. And it was on an asking basis only. And that really drove me insane because I do want fresh towels. Yes, at home, I probably were not going to grab a fresh towel every single day. But in a hotel, that is like an experience you pay for.

So a nice cleaning of my room. I love a turn-down service. Like, it's always nice to come into the room at night and the curtains are already closed and there's slippers by the bed. Those things, I think, are kind of baseline expectation. How did these rules develop and why have they changed and how have they changed? So the cleaning of the room is a costing. Like a typical cleaning of a hotel room probably takes 15 minutes, even if it's a stay over. And it's quite a lot of time. If you think in how labor costs have gone up significantly, the mini bar in hotels has always been a loss maker because, you know, people steal from it. They refill it.

like you have to have a person that goes and checks it. It has generally not been a profitable item. So I think it's really smart that they empty them out, put a free water bottle in there, and then put a lobby shop in. And that seems to have led to much more profitable hotels. And it's really hotels that P&L, like the profit and loss statement with an Excel sheet with every line item of costs, they're slowly working their way through that thing to figure out where else can we cut costs without damaging the experience too much. And that's unfortunately cut by a thousand paper cuts. It's the thing that happens in hotels.

And it does at some point get too much where you're like, what am I actually paying for? A room with a door and a bed, and that's about everything that I get. The toiletries, there used to be these amazing toiletries. And now it just feels so commoditized, whatever you get in a hotel,

like the really hard bar of soap that you get. That is not a nice experience. And it's just a cost cutting. Over time, they went for a cheaper brand, and they went for something that they could recycle much easier. And it does, at some point, lead to a worse hotel experience. Since you've written in your LinkedIn post about apples, what was the reaction like to that? So it's a thing that I always try, when I write a LinkedIn post, I do it from something that I feel very passionate about personally. that I'm like, I think people can associate with this thing.

And this is one of those things that people really connected with. And it means that there is an underlying factor that people agree with and hope that someone will change it. And just seeing just a couple of hotels that I have now walked into where there is a ball of the pink lady apples. It makes me really, really happy that I can even influence just a couple of ball of apples. Matt travels every week for work, and now on top of seeking out hotels with a gym that's opened before dawn and decent coffee in the room, he'll also be looking for pink lady apples

at check-in. As for his leisure time, Matt says he has two exciting trips coming up. In December, he's headed to the mountains of Salzburg, Austria, and when the weather gets too cold, he's off to Thailand in February. And something tells me by the time he's back, he'll have a whole new set of hospitality-related obsessions to share. Incredible. So cool. You're doing life right, and it's amazing. Thank you so much. Bye. Kenick, Amory Yates, and Emma Cortland. Extra editing help this week by Megan Tan.

The show is engineered by Tony Williams. The music is by the mysterious brakemaster cylinder and me. Fun fact this week that I just learned from a friend of mine who works on a farm. Horses cannot throw up. Their stomach is at like apparently a very steep angle, and their esophageal sphincter is very tight, and it disallows food from coming back once it's gone down. So they just don't throw up. And I asked her like, well, what happens?

if they get sick. And she said, well, if their stomach aches bad enough, they just die. Jesus Christ. Anyway, that's my fun fact. Thanks for listening. See you next week. X.