Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #153 - Who's Who: R and D, The Second Wave

Episode Date: August 28, 2014

Mark gives his second podcast about the people who have made Magic.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It means Mark took his daughter to camp today. But it also means it's time for drive to work. So today I'm going to continue a series that I started called Who's Who? Where one of the things I realized is I'd like this podcast to be about the history of the game. And to do that, I think the people are important. That if you want to know sort of how the game came to be about the history of the game. And to do that, I think the people are important. That if you want to know sort of how the game came to be, it's important to know the people behind the game. So last time on Who's Who, I did what I call the first wave of R&D, which was Richard Garfield and a lot of the early playtesters that came. So today, I'm going to do the second wave of R&D. By the way, I'll let you in on a secret.

I actually was going to do a different who's who, but I've been real busy, and I didn't get my homework done, and I happen to know the R&D part I know off the top of my head. But my plan on future who's who's is I'm not just going to do R&D. I want to do different sections of the company.

I just want a little more work on my part, and there's a lot going on at work. So I will get to that eventually. Okay. So here's what the second wave of R&D was. The first wave came, made Magic... Or Magic had started taking off already. Then they came, really shepherded Magic during its first year or two.

But what happened was, Wizards at the time was just bursting. I mean, not only were they doing Magic, but they were doing role-playing. They were trying to build upon... Remember Deckmaster? Remember the word on the back of a Magic card? Deckmaster, the idea was, it was a whole series of games. It was trading card games.

Like, we weren't just going to do one game. Magic was the first game. But there was going to be Jihad, later renamed Vampire the Eternal Struggle. There was Netrunner. Battle Tech, I don't think it actually ended up getting branded Deckmaster. But anyway, the idea was

that we were going to be doing more trading card games. We were going to do regular games, doing RoboRally. Anyway, Wizards was just bursting with making lots and lots of games. And so the people that had been making Magic kind of were focused on doing other things. And that they needed a new group of people to be shepherding Magic. And so the second wave really, we were brought in. I'm part of the second wave, we were brought in to be the new sort of

overseers of magic, if you will. And for a couple years, like, I now talk about development teams, you know, for example, of how each team is a different development team. Well, for this period of time, when I was a developer, like, there wasn't a development team

of just, like, it's magic, the same people develop every set. Because we were the people that were there. So anyway, I'm going to be introducing these people today. So let's start. I'm going to start chronologically with Bill Rose. So Bill Rose, William Jockish, and I all started in October of 1995. But Bill actually started the second week William started the third week

I started the fourth week so we'll start with Bill Bill in some ways by the way I talked about how Bill was one of the original play tefters Bill was the co-lead of Mirage and Visions Bill met Richard Garfield through Bridge through the Bridge Club back in Philadelphia

and he was involved in Magic before Magic ever got released I talk about 93 Garfield through Bridge, through the Bridge Club back in Philadelphia, and he was involved in Magic from before, you know, before Magic ever got released. You know, I talk about 93 is my first interaction with Magic. Bill's first interaction is like 91 or something. So Bill's been playing Magic a little longer than pretty much most people on the planet.

So the thing is, Bill I believe was managing a chemistry lab. He was managing something for a school, and he couldn't get out as fast as some of the other people. So Bill, in my mind, is the start of the second age, even though, a second wave, even though he was connected to all the early people. I mean, when I talk about Richard and Scaf and Jim and Dave and Joel and Charlie, and Scaf, and Jim, and Dave, and Joel, and Charlie.

Bill knew them all. Bill was part of that crowd. But he came, it took a little while for him to get out there. In fact, it's funny. I had been essentially hired by Wizards, and I was out doing my last freelance project before they were going to hire me. And I was trying to save a desk for myself because I knew I was coming shortly. But the last desk was saved for Bill.

Jill had saved the last desk for Bill. And Bill got there two weeks before me. So one of the things that happened real quickly is when I first got there, when Wizards started, it was very, very small. It started in Peter Atkinson's basement, the founder's basement, or one of the co-founders.

And eventually it got big enough that they needed to actually move to a building. So when I first started at Wizards, that building is where we were. But we were weeks, supposedly, from moving into the building that's not our current building, but the one across the street that we were in for many, many years. So since we were so close to moving and there wasn't a desk, they're like, well, you and William, you don't need desks. We're going to move soon. You'll get desks when we move.

So whenever you need to use a computer, just find someone who's not at their desk and use their computer. I had the ability to log on to get to my email and stuff. So like I was a desk nomad for my first couple of weeks. And it turned out like we were supposed to move any week and it ended up being like five, six weeks. So anyway, for the first month and a half I was at Wizards, I was like roaming from desk to desk. And then finally we moved to the new building and I get a desk, but I have no chair, no computer, no phone. And I'm like, I should have been more specific. Okay, Bill Rose. Back to Bill. So Bill now is the vice president of R&D.

I think a lot of people, I mean, I've talked about Bill multiple times, so I'll do the quick version of Bill today. But Bill essentially is a hardcore gamer. Bill especially. Bill is amazingly good at trick-taking games. When you play, in fact, I used to go out to lunch, because R&D does lunches all the time. I don't do as much anymore because I work out now. But when I used to play lunch with R&D, from time to time we would play one of our trick-taking games. And playing with Bill, to play lunch with R&D. From time to time, we would play one of our trick-taking games. And playing with Bill, it's just like another league. Like, when you laid out that three of

spades on turn five, then I knew blah-de-bah, blah-de-bah, blah-de-bah. So on turn eight, why'd you do this? I'm like, what? You know, it's like, somehow you play two things, he knows your whole hand, and like, I have no idea what's going on. Anyway, Bill is, how do I describe Bill? Bill is very methodical. So a lot of

what happened was all of us were hired as developers. So the major, the main five, I'll talk about a little more on this, but the main five of the second wave was Bill Rose, William Jockish, myself, Mike Elliott, and Henry Stern. Of the five of us, Henry is what I would call a modern-day developer. William had definitely some sensibility. I mean, William was much more of a developer. Mike and I were hired as developers. We really were designers. And Bill was kind of a hybrid, that he had development skills, but he also had design skills. So what happened was, Bill, when I first got hired there, Joel was essentially, head designer,

head developer was one role at the time. We've now split it. Magic's gotten advanced enough that we need different people with different skill sets. But at the time, Joel was head designer, head developer. When Joel moved over to become brand manager of Magic, Bill ended up taking that role, and Bill ended up becoming the head designer, developer role. And the reason that Bill got that leap is, I think Bill had more background in management, and he just knew everybody. I mean, while we started the same month, Bill definitely came with a lot more, a leg up, in that, you know, he really, he knew everybody there, and, you know, he was very connected.

So anyway, Bill went from being the head designer-developer to being the director of R&D, Aaron's role currently, to becoming vice president. And it's very interesting. Bill and I, like I said, we started the same month, but have gone really, really different paths. Like I said, Bill does a lot, a lot of management, and a lot less creative stuff. And I do lots and lots of creative stuff,

but I do not manage. Anyway, so Bill came in early October. And then, what else to say about Bill? I mean, Bill knew everybody. Really, the story of how did Bill get hired? Well, he was one of the original playdefters. And I've talked a lot about Bill. Let's move on to William.

William Jockish. So William Jockish, how did William Jockish get hired? So William Jockish was a math professor, much like Richard Garfield was a math professor before he came here. But they did not know each other. What happened was William professor, much like Richard Garfield was a math professor before he came here. But they did not know each other. What happened was William wrote a letter to Richard Garfield. A letter.

And he impressed Richard in his letter. I think William basically said, you know, I'm a math professor. I really like what you've done. Here's the aspect of magic, the math of it that I really enjoy. And I'm not even sure what he said. I never actually read the letter. But he impressed Richard, enough so that Richard, I think, called him up on the phone.

And after talking with him, Richard said to R&D, he goes, we should hire him. And so William got hired. He might be the only person in R&D who got hired by a letter, but he did. That's how William got hired. So William, how to describe William. William is definitely, William almost is like the stereotypical image

of a math professor, where like, in some ways his head is in the clouds a lot of times, but he has the ability to just like go deep and think so deep on stuff, it's kind of crazy. And he was very math-oriented, and he was the first person that would try to attack

magic development with a math sort of orientation. I mean, Eric Lauer does that now. But he was the first person to really, I think, go as deep on, like, looking at things and thinking of it in math terms. I mean, obviously, early R&D was very math-based, and a lot of the first-wave people, like, their background was math

I used to joke when I was hired I was the one guy that studied words in college and so William William was peculiar he had a lot of quirky playtest methods he had this belief that you could play as many copies of something as you wanted because we learned important things

I remember he made a psychic venom deck at one point where he had all these psychicic Venoms and, I don't know, Icy's or something to tap them with. And we ended up not putting Psychic Venom in, like, 5th edition because William was worried about Psychic Venom. A Psychic Venom is an enchantment that goes on a creature. Whenever it taps, its controller takes 2 damage, I believe. Or they lose 2 life.

It is not a particularly dangerous card, but somehow William convinced us it was, and we took it out. William was... My favorite William story, I don't know if I told the story, is William used to order in pizza every day. Uh, and one day the phone rings, he picks it up and goes, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I would. Okay, thanks. I'm like, who's that? He goes, oh, it's the pizza place. They, they hadn't heard from me.

It's like, you got the pizza place to call you? I, yeah, I was like, I'll have them after. But William was a lot of fun. William definitely was, he would attack problems in ways that normal people might not attack them. His vantage point was very different, which was kind of cool. I mean, one of the things that I like about R&D is that there's not a lot of value of everybody thinking the same. If everybody thinks the same, they just end up on the same conclusions. Where if you have people that are really different in how they think,

it has a much more, a rich, it gives R&D a richer outlook on the game. And William really came from a very unique perspective. Okay, next was me. I mean, you've heard my story. I mean, the nutshell version of my story is I started making puzzles for the duelists, and then I flew myself to GemCon. I'd been working at a game store and got fired a year and a half into it for really no reason other than the new guy wanted to fire everybody. I was a little down, so I flew myself to GemCon. I convinced Catherine Haynes, the editor of the duelists, to start letting me do more work.

I started writing articles. Catherine and I connected to Wizards. I convinced Catherine Haynes, the editor of The Duelist, to start letting me do more work. I started writing articles. Catherine and I connected to Wizards. I started doing more freelance projects. Basically, I was someone who was talented at writing who knew magic, who would turn things in on time. And magic was exploding. So I was just writing things left and right. At one point, I was doing freelance projects for

seven sections of the company. Anyway, they used to fly me up all the time to do different projects, and I got to meet all of R&D, and Mike Davis was the VP of R&D at the time. J.M.D. Tome is named after him, J. Michael Davis. Anyway, one day I said to him, you know what, I'd be willing to move to Seattle,

and he's like, when can you start? Now, it actually took like two months for me to get the job because of red tape, but anyway, that's my, you've heard my story. I've talked about this before. Okay, next, William, not William, Mike Elliott. So Mike Elliott started in January of 2016. Is that right? Yeah, 2016.

So Mike, I believe, lived down in Phoenix, I think. Mike met Joel Mick and a guy named Dave Lee, who was one of our lawyers way back when. He met Joel at a game convention, I think in Phoenix. There was a period of time where Wizards went to every game convention

under the sun. And if you wanted to go to a game convention, you say, I want to go, and they'd send you to the game convention. Like, the first summer I was here, summer of 96, I spent three weeks in the office, because I was at a convention or

some magic event all summer long. I went to everything. And it was awesome. Anyway, Joel met Mike and they talked. Mike's background, Mike was in the military. I think he did army intelligence. Anyway, Mike just impressed him. Mike was in the military. I think he did Army Intelligence.

Anyway, Mike just impressed him. Mike had made his own magic set just for fun. In fact, that magic set, pieces of it would go into Tempest. So like Slivers and what else was in Tempest that he did? He did Shadow. Shadow and Slivers came

from that set. Anyway, he impressed Joel and Joel recommended him, and they were looking to hire people, so Mike got hired in January. So it was the four of us. It was Bill, William, me, and Mike for most of 96. Then later in the year, Joel asked me if I knew anybody that I thought would be good for Magic. So remember, I used to work at a game store,

the one I got let go of that made me go to Gen Con. When I worked in the game store, I first learned about Magic by working in the game store because people would come in and ask about this game, and it sounded awesome. So I tracked it down at a game convention in L.A., and then after learning and falling in love with it, I convinced the people who ran the store.

I worked at a store called The Game Keeper. There was like 26 stores. I convinced them that they should carry this game. And so I got it into my store. And then I would demo the game to anybody I thought would be at all interested. And I sold a lot of Magic. And what I did is I had a demo. I had a starter deck back in the day.

We sold 60-card starter decks. And I would play people. And I had a little thing. If I was in the store and you were a Magic player, I would trade you one for one for anything out of the starter deck, provided that you gave me a card the deck didn't have and that I think I had a rough idea of rarities. You had to match a rarity.

And so people would come in. So one of the people who sort of stumbled into this was Henry Stern. And Henry used to drop in all the time just to see, like, had I changed our cards, you know. And from time to time I would sell the starter and open a new starter. Anyway, I got to know Henry. Henry lived in Los Angeles, and it turned out he lived, like, a couple blocks away from me. And Henry and I became friends.

So when Joel asked if I knew anybody, I said yes, Henry Stern. So Henry worked for Hughes making rockets. Yes, in fact, Henry was a rocket scientist. We used to joke about it in R&D all the time. You know, it's not rocket science, and Henry goes, no, it's a little harder, you know. But anyway, Henry, I suggested

Henry for the job. Oh, and what happened was Henry sent in his resume, and Henry didn't really play up his magic stuff as much as he played up his, like, job experience at all. I'm an engineer, and I worked at Hughes. And I think R&D was like, eh. And I was like, eh, no, no, I think Henry's good. So when I did the first PT video, if you remember this, I did a podcast on this.

When I did the first PT video, I needed to fly in someone to do color. So I flew in Henry. And my goal was, A, I thought Henry would be good at doing the color commentary. But B, I wanted him to meet the R&D guys. Well, mission accomplished. Henry came in, he talked with them, won them over, and soon did you know it? Henry got offered a job. So Henry decided that he wanted to play

Worlds one last time. So 96 Worlds took place at Wizards corporate headquarters, and then Henry started in September. Turns out Henry topped forward at that Worlds as he did the previous Worlds. Worlds was one of Henry's things. And Henry started with September. Turns out Henry topped forward in that world, as he did the previous world. The world was one of Henry's things. And Henry started with the big.

So Henry was really the first sort of pro off the pro tour, if you will. The third wave was really, in some ways, there's always one person in one wave that sort of hints in the next wave. Henry was the end of the second wave, kind of hints where the third wave was going. Just like Charlie, in some ways, was the end of the second wave. Kind of hints where the third wave was going. Just like Charlie, in some ways, was the end of the first wave. Okay, who else can I talk about? Let's see. Also, a math professor. Robert Cucera was, I think, a friend of William Chokash's.

At least he knew him through math circles, I guess. I don't know. And just like I had recommended Henry for a job, I think somehow William talked to Richard and Richard talked to Robert on the phone. Or maybe it was in person. I think it was on the phone. And after talking to Robert, I remember this, Richard talked to Robert and they're like, we're hiring him. Not, I think we should hire him. Not, I think it might be a good idea to hire him. It's like, we're hiring

him. And they hired Robert, and Robert was awesome. Robert, how do I describe Robert? Robert was, or is, I mean, Robert's not dead or anything. He's just not in the company anymore. Robert, here's the cool thing about Robert. Robert was, one of the things I think I'm

really good at is big picture. I'm really good at sort of stacking back and seeing the picture. Well, Robert was Mr. Big Picture. Like, he could see the trees, he could see the forest, he could see the continent, he could see the globe. He had a great, great mind to sort of pull back and see how things fit together.

And I loved talking with Robert. I just loved like, just getting the mindset of Robert sort of seeing problems and if I ever was stuck on something, I'd sit down and talk with Robert. I just loved, like, just getting the mindset of Robert sort of seeing problems. And if I ever was stuck on something, I'd sit down and talk with Robert. He asked amazing questions. And Robert was funny because Robert was the calmest. Like, Robert one time, one time lost his cool in a fight with Mike Elliott, which I missed. I was so sad that I missed it because Robert losing his cool, it's hard to explain.

He never, ever, ever, Robert losing his cool it's hard to explain like he he never ever ever ever lost his cool and Mike managed to get him in a fight one day which speaks volumes probably also about Mike Elliot

but I missed it it was talked about it's like one of the events that was talked about was did you see you know

the fight anyway Robert was awesome he's moved on to do work at other game companies but just having him around. He was involved, and he did some design

and a little bit of development. He was more one of the big picture guys, but I really thought he was very valuable. And a lot of the way I look at things, I think, comes from just talking with Robert. Next, Paul Peterson. So Paul Peterson and Sean Carnes. I'll talk about both of them.

Both Paul Peterson and Sean Carnes started by being in about both of them. Both Paul Peterson and Sean Carnes started by being in what we, at the time we called customer service, we now called game support. You basically can call Wizards, we're open every day of the week and you have questions, rules questions, damaged products. If you have an issue, you can call,

there's someone you can talk to and they will help fix your problem. Well, Paul Peterson and Sean Carnes started in game support and they actually help fix your problem. Well, Paul Peterson and Sean Carn started in game support. And they actually started, like, when I talk about the Wave 1, they were here at the same time as Wave 1 R&D, but at the time they weren't in R&D. This is why I call them Wave 2.

They were in customer service. Paul Peterson would go on to make Guillotine. Sean Carn's... Well, both of them, the thing I remember about them is they came over around the same time. The way the pit worked is there was two outlets where everybody was together, but there were two sections

that faced backwards, so they weren't in the pit. They were pin adjacent, but they weren't actually in the pit. And Paul and Sean sat there. They called it Taiko Extension, which was based on the name of a Netrunner card. And then I think Richard Mond sat in the other one. Anyway, Sean, by the way, was really, really loud. They used to call him Captain Volume.

There was a period, by the way, where I was the third largest person in R&D. Loudest. Sean was the loudest. Robert was the second loudest. I was the third loudest. I'm now the loudest, but... And...

Anyway, Paul and Sean came on. They definitely were... They were both tangential to magic. They both worked on magic, although they more worked on other things. Like I said, Paul made guillotine. They did more other design,

but they definitely had their hand in magic. Next, Mons Johnson. So Mons Johnson, if you've ever played Mons' Goblin Raiders, Mons was a long-time friend of Richard's. And Mons' Goblin Raiders was named after Mons because Mons loves goblins.

Mons has always been a huge goblin. To this day, he's a huge goblin fan. So Mons got brought in to be our first playtester. Now, we have development, and development does a lot of playtesting, but there also are a few people, Mons being one of them, that just does

playtesting. Mons' specialty is just looking at a file and figuring out what weak points there might be, and making decks and playing, and making decks and playing, and that's what Mons does. Mons is really good at it. And he

got brought in around this time, just we decided we just needed more people. Like, one of the things to remember is when we playtest a set, there's a handful of people playtest a set. Sometimes you'll have a few freelancers help us, but I mean, it's a handful of people doing it. As soon as it goes out to the real world, it's

millions of people. And so just, we need a lot of eyes doing it. As soon as it goes out to the real world, it's millions of people. And so, just, we need a lot of eyes to try to figure out what's going on. Next, Tom Wiley. So, when I went to Gen Con, that first year, when I tried to get Catherine Haynes to give me work, I met Tom Wiley, who at the time was,

he got involved with Wizards because the internet at the time had what was called the Usenet, which was kind of like a bulletin board. And so the way if you wanted to talk about magic, you would go on this bulletin board, the Usenet, and you would talk about it. And there was one of them that was assigned for magic. And Tom kind of just became the de facto monitor of it. I don't know whether he was officially ever assigned to it, but he just sort of took up the role. And he did such a good job that he impressed people at Wizards, and they eventually hired him. And so I met Tom...

I'm not even sure if Tom was working for the company yet when I met him at Gen Con. He might have been. But anyway, Tom went on to be the first rules manager, which is a... Well, I joke about it being, you know, the mortal enemy of the head designer. It really is a, well, I joke about it being, you know, the mortal enemy of the head designer. It really is a very important job,

and Tom did a lot of amazing work. I mean, early Magic was a hodgepodge, and Tom was one of the people that helped sort of, you know, solve a lot of the naughty mess that it had become. And anyway, Tom was the first head judge of the naughty mess that it had become. And anyway, Tom was the first head judge of the Pro Tour. And Tom was interesting.

Tom at the time was well known for having a bit of a temper. I remember there was a meeting where I made a joke. Maybe my joke was a little out of line. I don't know. But I remember Tom threw a deck at me at the meeting. But Tom is awesome. Tom is great. I mean, Tom threw a deck at me at a meeting. But Tom is awesome. Tom is great.

I mean, Tom was really, really one of the influential people early on in sort of making the rules work. And it's funny.

Tom has at least one child, a daughter, who for a while was coming to the daycare in our offices. So every once in a while I'd run into Tom

in the lobby. And Tom got married. He has at least one kid because maybe he has more than one. But I had a chance to see him. I hadn't seen him for a long time. Okay, the last person I want to talk about today, because I'm almost at work, is a guy named Rich Magatha. So Rich was, I talk

a lot about Dan now. Dan's the man who, if I needed something done, I need a sticker set made, or I need something done, I need a sticker set made or I need something I need to get done, Dan gets it done. Rich McGatha was the Dan of the day,

the early Dan. And he was the person that got brought on that if you had things to do, he would make sure it got done. And he was there to sort of service everything.

And he definitely, it's funny, the reason his name's come up is Charlie Cattino, he has a son who we call Little Charlie, Little Charlie isn't that little anymore, who took a game

design course, and his teacher was Rich Magatha. And it's funny, because I haven't, like I said, I haven't heard of, like, I haven't seen Rich in forever. So this story just happened, so it just reminded me, reminded me of Rich. So like I said, when I'm doing these things, I'm trying to remember everybody I can.

There's a lot of people that have worked in Wizards. So if you're one of those people that worked in R&D during that time period, you're like, what about me? I'm sorry. And also, there are a lot of people that worked on other parts of R&D that would dip their head into magic. And so, I'm sure I'm forgetting people, but

like Taewyn Woodruff. Was Taewyn there, Second Wave? Mike Selinker. There's a few other people that probably... Anyway, well, let me quickly sum up about where are they now, because I'm almost to work. So Bill Rose, where is he now?

VP of R&D. William Jockish, where is he now? I don't know where William is right now. That was a question mark. I saw this summer, Richard Garfield had his 50th birthday party and at his 50th birthday party I saw William and we talked, but we talked more about personal stuff

and I didn't ask him. I don't know what he's doing job-wise right now. Mike Elliott is not working at Wizards, but a very prolific game designer. Literally go into a game store and look on the shelves and you will see game designed by Mike Elliott. Henry Stern is now in video games.

He's doing really well at a video game company. Robert Guterra is also, I believe, in video games right now. Paul Peterson went on to be very prolific. He even played the game Smash Up. That's Paul Peterson. Anyway, Paul has done a whole bunch of games, and he, I think, now is at a video game company. Sean Carnes has gone on to do a lot of video games.

What you'll find is there's a lot in the game design world, a lot of game design is in video games right now. So a lot of these people have moved on to video games. If you know how to design games, you can design video games. I mean, the process is a little bit different, but the core of game design is the same. Rich McAtha is teaching.

I assume also doing some game design. Mons Johnson, still working at Wizards. He works on the dual-master Kaijudo team right now, but he keeps his hand in magic, definitely does some magic playtesting. And Tom Wiley, I have no idea other than seeing him, other than running into him in my lobby. I'm not even sure what Tom's up to these days,

although I know he still plays magic. But anyway, that, my friends, is the second wave of R&D so surprisingly because I dropped my daughter off today I didn't start from home I have a slightly shorter

so this is this is something you don't get very often a slightly shorter so let me just finish up since I have a little extra time finish up saying I just want to put

a little context in that so you understand sort of how this fits in R&D so I previously talked about the first wave. Those are the people that really came once magic hit it off and Richard started building an R&D department.

He brought in people that he knew. So all the people or most of the people in first wave were pretty much early play tefters. Second wave, other than Bill, really people started branching out. They started looking for people that they knew. You know what I'm saying? And like I said, if you look at the second wave, William got in through a letter. I got in through the duelist. Mike got in through meeting Joel at a

convention. Henry and Robert got in through me and William. What you start seeing is that they started branching out and looking for more people to try to build it with. The first wave was kind of friends Richard knew and people that had started with magic. And the first wave was kind of friends Richard knew

people that had started with magic and the second wave started branching out more you started getting people like William and myself and Mike

who really grew to love magic for magic and then you know look for opportunities to get involved William loved magic so much he wrote a letter I love some magic

I contacted the duels and tried to start writing you know Mike loved magic so much he made a magic set you know. And that these are, all of us are people, that the second wave, barring Bill,

were people who really had, we started as fans of magic, and magic was something we loved, and we got involved because it was something we loved and we wanted to be connected to. Anyway, that, my friends, is the second wave. So, hopefully, like, my master plan with this series is, I really want you to get a sense of the people and who the second wave. So, hopefully, like, my master plan with this series is I really want you

to get a sense of the people and who the people are. And that way, when I'm talking about the history, I can mention people and you'll know,

oh, yeah, like, one of the things, hopefully, if you listen to these podcasts, that, and I try to reference when I reference other podcasts, but really my podcasts are made to be a web.

That, like, when you're watching this, like, I'm going to make a little tiny story about Henry, and you're like, oh, yeah, that ties're watching this, I'm going to make a little tiny story about Henry, and you're like, oh yeah, that ties into the Video One podcast. Or I make a comment about Elliot or Rose, and you're like, oh yeah, they did this. Oh yeah, they did that.

All my stories of how magic got made are going to tie into these people. And like I said, the first two have been about R&D. I'm going to do some other who's who about other people. A lot of other very, very valuable people to the magic process, not just R&D. Today's was R&D, I'll be honest, just because I've been so busy at work that I haven't had time to do my prep work, and R&D, luckily, is something I know off the top of my head. But I have a cool idea.

I don't want to give it away since I want to make sure it happens first, but I have a cool idea for the next who's who. This won't be next week. I do who's who every once in a while. Anyway, I have a cool idea for the next Who's Who. This won't be next week. I do Who's Who every once in a while. Anyway, I have parked my car. So guys, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll talk to you next time.