Tomorrow - TBT: Paul Ford and Josh Whip the Dip

Episode Date: June 1, 2018

Throwback Tomorrow! The enigmatic and hilarious Paul Ford returns to Tomorrow to discuss his recent, critically acclaimed Businessweek story "What Is Code?" The two men actually manage to stay on topic for a little while, but the conversation soon devolves (evolves?) into a whirlwind discussion about commenters, Batman, and Nokia. In addition, listeners will have a front row seat to the birth of a unique, high-concept restaurant. Josh and Ryan will return with your regularly scheduled podcast in one week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tomorrow listener, how are you? How's it going? Fine. You look really good today. Thank you. I'm really feeling your vibe right now. But listen, here's the deal. I am actually out this week and so we're a rebroadcasting or rerunning as they say in the industry. A classic episode of tomorrow. I think when you hear the opening strains of the tomorrow music and my voice and what we have in store for you, you'll be taken back to a moment in your life where you truly felt alive.

So please enjoy this classic tomorrow and then get ready for next week when there's going to be all kinds of new tomorrow. Hey and welcome to Tomorrow, I'm your host Josh with Tupulski. Today on the podcast we discuss, blasher's, dippers, and slam balls. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. My guest today is a man that really needs no introduction, especially now. He didn't need any introduction last time he was on the show. But boy, does he not need one today, but I have

to introduce him because otherwise how will you know who I'm talking to? I've got Paul Ford with me in the studio. Hi, Paul. Josh, I'm back. That was fained excitement for Paul Ford. Paul Ford author of the Epic, what is code issue of business week? And also it is on the internet on Bloomberg business Available Bloomberg com otherwise known as Bloomberg Everybody's talking about it. Everybody is writing about it. I was just interviewed

By well by the time this airs it will have run by the Huffington Post. They're writing something on it vice-wrote something on it Who else is written on a lot of people people. Let me just really quickly explain. I'm young and I'll let you talk. I think last time you were working on it or you were just about to start to come into the office or something and do it. Paul wrote, Josh T. Rangel, the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, otherwise known as Business Week. At some point asked you to write this.

He said, I don't know how code works. This is the kind of short story. And he said, will you write something on it? And you wrote, like, originally, when you first told me about it, it was like 20,000 words. It was getting there, right? Like, I was like, this is going to be crazy. Yeah. Well, what happened was I, we started talking about it. And Josh said, oh, I've got Paul writing this thing. And I was like, we got to do something cool in the web. And I was like, what's he writing? And he said, what is code? And I was like, oh, you could do some really cool stuff with the thing about code.

And then we both think it started harassing you because it turned out it was going to happen. It had to happen. And anyhow, but you wrote this thing. It turned into a 38,000 word, basically a book, which is now in a single issue of Bloomberg Business Week, which I don't think has ever been done in that magazine. No, no, that's a big issue. And it done. Not for that magazine. No, not the magazine. And it's a sprawling, uh, edutainment piece on the web. Although I'm wondering, we keep saying that.

I'm wondering if like some 97 year old guy is going to show up and be like, with the original Business Week single. Yeah. I did a single issue on concrete in 1941. It's what is concrete. What is concrete? Well, that would be good. Like the man in the blue overalls.

Welcome. That direction, right? I don't know. Who would be the, who is the man in the top play? So it's back to the, the man in the blue overalls. I'm assuming that's somebody involved in the pouring of the concrete. We don't know a lot of government. We don't know. Why don't you look into the world of concrete? Actually, my wife works in construction project management and there's a rule in her house. So we don't talk too much about concrete and I don't know. Why don't you look into the world of concrete? Actually, my wife works in construction project management and there's a rule in her house So we don't talk too much about concrete and I don't talk too much about code Is that a thing that happens accidentally? You're like she's like, oh, we got this new badge of concrete Ed and it is so good. You can only hear so much about like, you know, the way that a roof is put on. I disagree

I think I could I feel like I could talk about a roof They're they're fascinating when you think about it. Do you want to come live in my house? No, I don't. And I seriously, and I just want you to know, I seriously considered him from... You've been in my house. I have been to your house.

That's true. And I've seen your beautiful children. Thank you. You have a parent, Paul. A lot of people don't know this about Paul. He has two beautiful children. They do. They are very cute.

They were napping when I arrived at your house. They're three and a half years old. And then they woke up and the house was full of people, which must be very upsetting for them. I know, you know, they're used to a lot of people though. They're twins, they go to daycare, they're used to. We had Zelda, we had some people over the house over the weekend, a couple of weekends ago.

And she was napping when everybody arrived, and then she woke up, and she was very shy. Not like she's very outgoing, but she was very shy and kind of shell shocked at the whole scene. Yeah. I don't know. I'm like, I'm getting a great, I look at pictures of her,

she's getting a great, slightly pissed off face. She's not, she's ready to give you some, too. I turns out we look a lot alike. I mean, I just put a picture on Instagram of me as a child. Yeah, which my mother sent me where I'm wearing a shirt that says I believe the shirt says just says super person all over it one word like a compound word super person It's there which is an amazing late seventies really amazing word that we should be using more often That stuff was like a yellow shirt and it's almost like written on by hand. Yeah, well it's red, it's red striped.

You can see it on my Instagram, feed Instagram.com slash Josh Witts Polsky. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Make sure to jump on that. I got my phone turned off right now since I'm talking to Josh Witts. I'm ready to do it.

Oh, that was to the listener. That was to the listener. It is at GRAM. It's gram.com. Oh. It's also available.com. Oh, yeah. It's also available as an app on the app store. Is it Joshua Topolsky one word? That's right.

And he's tall. He's really writing this down, by the way. How bad. How happy are your nerds that listen to the show that we stopped talking about babies and started talking about URLs? They're definitely feeling a relief. Like, it's a huge relief.

I can feel like confusing and upsetting. Yeah, it's like, I don't know. I don't care about babies. They're definitely feeling a relief. Like, it's a huge relief. I can feel like confusing and upsetting. Yeah, it's like, I don't know. I don't care about babies. Yeah. I used to get that a lot on the verge cast when we did the verge cast. Like, if I went off script, which I often did, because, frankly, it got pretty boring to just talk about gadgets. Right, with those, those listeners just seemed really bossy.

Like, why were verge people so bossy? Yeah, they were bossy. Like, is this new audience? They know what they want. Is this new audience bossy? No. Well, they were bossy. Like is this new what they want? Is this new audience bossy? Uh, no. Uh, well, I don't know. I mean, I don't have gotten any bossy vibes from them. Right. I mean, I haven't gotten any, um, I actually haven't gotten any like demands for things they want. It's an interesting like, I think things change that way. Like, yeah, the verge that community became famous for being like, and then the comments too. Like,

is that true? Yeah. Sure. You just have the comments too, like. Is that true? Yeah, sure, you just do. That's another thing? I didn't know that. Tell me more about this. I always identify like, verge comments were, and not, you know, famous to me like not like. I hear this that man, the author of what is code,

verge commenters is now talking about you. I can't wait. You know, what am I doing? This is madness. What did you say? What did we mean to say? No, all I'm saying is like, back in the day, like you'd get like a, somebody would write about an HTC No, all I'm saying is like back in the day, like you get like a somebody

would write about an HTC device and there would just be like anger. Oh, yeah. It'd be serious. Oh, yeah. No, I was a famous. I reviewed the Lumia, a Lumia phono Microsoft, a Windows phone device. A Nokia Nokia made Windows phone. I think it was the Lumia 900. Right. And I gave it a seven uh... out of ten and people went fucking nuts

it i mean they went it was like i thought i was worried i was actually concerned for my physical safety yeah they were so mad that i did not and i don't even know why i mean i know why they want you to hate it no they want me to love it it was your love it yeah there was a reason for microsoft slash like i said you so if you go back, actually, by the way, I like that

you refer to it back in the day, like the bird has been around long enough now that we can talk about it back in the day. That makes me feel like that makes me feel really good about something that I made. Like, oh, that legacy, it has, it's, it's a thing now. Yeah. Anyhow, but what was I going to say? What's it talking about? Oh, Nokia fanboys. It was going to be about Nokia fanboys. Okay, this is, this is dirty. Like, this should be like the perfect, if you would, if you really, like, how come Josh never talks about tech anymore?

This is perfect for you. Nokia fanboys used to be the craziest, most fervent because they were also like national, like, like, they were like, finish. It's like the opera browser fan. They were like, finish nationalists as well. Yeah, yeah. So there was like a very,

pry right behind. Well, Nokia is finished, right? So I just screwed that up. Let's assume it's a country with... Did I just screw that up? Is Nokia finished? I need to know, you're sweetest. Yes, it's finished.

It is finished. Okay, I was the first second, I was like, wait a second, are they Danish? This is, by the way, this is how far Nokia has fallen that I can't even really remember. It even has like, what countries are further? Right now, there is a Finnish Nokia fanboy writing an email. Now he's listening to this. He's so mad that I couldn't even,

how dare I disrespect his country and his brand. And it's a Facebook question. And yet Nokia fanboys used to be the craziest. They were like, they were the most beset, like they had the most Nokia phones weren't cool. They couldn't compete with the iPhone. It was when like, the iPhone was really taking off and Android was becoming a thing

and Microsoft couldn't even get a word in Edgewise and Nokia was like hobbling along with like Symbian. Did you remember Symbian? Yeah, I remember Symbian. Who doesn't? I mean, probably like everybody's first phone was actually Symbian. Symbian was one of the ones where you'd go

and you'd build some mobile product or some mobile anything. And it would be on the list like Blackberry Beach. You'd have I close the Android and then Blackberry Beach and then it'd be like, that's 40 years. We also need to think about Symbian because you know, it's about 400 trillion people. No, because it was in yours.

And in developing countries and then whatever. And then it would just always get crossed off like about six months. We're not gonna have budget for Symbian. The developers would be like, yeah. Maybe do Blackberry. Blackberry was like, it was like a weird, kluji, the original Blackberry OS was like Java, runtime, something nasty.

Somehow. But so, Nokia fanboys were terrible. And then what happened is Microsoft announced this huge partnership. Nokia said, we're abandoning our attempts at our own software, huge blow to the finished population and to the spirit of finished phone lovers. And then they were like, we're gonna put windows on it, which at that point was like an almost, I mean, it didn't even exist as Windows phone.

Right. And so they had this like really interesting problem. And then Microsoft, and was with second craziest. It was like Nokia and then Microsoft and them together. What's the analogy for being a Microsoft fanboy? It's sort of like, like, you like, you like, there's a few things I'm thinking here. Yeah. Okay.

The first thing I think is like, Finland is a crazy country. Yeah. We had, first of all, it's, it had a very complicated relationship with everyone during World War II. Sure. Then it brought War II. Sure. Then it brought us Nokia.

Yeah. Then you know Nokia originally made tires. Oh, tires, okay. Oh, was that IKEA? Maybe Nokia was a fisher at some point. Some fish in the slow go. No. And Yamaha was the Japanese.

Yeah, that's what you know they're, yeah, they're very good. Are you very tired right now? Oh, it's just a little tuckered out. Do you want some coffee? No, because I think that'll just end poorly. I think that would end well. Last time we were drinking.

All right, let's get a drink. I'd love a drink. Oh, okay, let's talk about this. Can we get a drink in here? What kind of, what would you like? You had whiskey last time. Whatever they got, I don't care. Paul, oh, to kill him with wine.

You want to do a shot of to kill him? Love a shot of to kill him. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, all right, lying. You want to do a shot of tequila? Love a shot of tequila. You want to do a shot of tequila? Yeah. Okay. All right, well, we're waiting for the one. Do you think that'll go, maybe two shots of tequila, a double?

And do you think that'll go well with the strong coffee? I should get coffee too. Sorry, got it. It's the coffee isn't made though, it's it. Balls so. Yes. This is good. This is good.

You guys couldn't hear this, but the tequila's coming. Coffee is going to take a little bit longer. But I think once you've had the tequila in your sister, you're gonna be ready for a little coffee. Oh yeah. Anybody knows that's the perfect chase. Yeah, we're gonna have a lot of fun on this one.

We're gonna get crazy. They'll wake you up a little bit. I'm also tired, I only got about five hours of sleep. Yeah, I haven't even known what sleep is. You haven't been able to, we should actually get back on, because we can talk about no-kill day long. I really, really can, but we don't know anything about it. Well, I only know a little bit, but I should know more, but of course, I've a lot of my, I have a bad memory. I just sort of,

everything that's in the past gets just removed from my brain. I don't even, it's like I can't access it. I think all I'm saying is that like it was amazing that, you know, your old podcast, your old, that old commenting culture, it didn't, It hasn't followed you over here yet. Well, I don't have comments on this podcast. Well, on SoundCloud actually. Yeah. No, it hasn't. But then again, I'm not saying I'm not making them. And now when I'm talking bad mouth, I know, okay, believe me, you'll get a little bit of, you get some units of people. I'm getting, I'm getting Magnus who Swedish thought that it was necessary to interrupt to

say this would be a good moment to tell people to email the podcast. I guess hate males what you're asking for. Email Magnus, Magnus at tomorrowspodcast.com. He would like to receive any and all despicable comments and maybe some depictions of him being violently attacked by an animal. We have to find a picture of Magnus Hendricks and online. All right, pronunciation. Sorry, Paul. No, it's just going to also say that Josh's Instagram is Instagram.com slash Joshua to Paul's.

They I do actually have a lot of fervent gadget fans. Have you noticed? Is that where the two phones come in camera? It's where many things have come from. Everybody now, this is now a thing. I don't even know if people are joking or not on my Instagram because every time I would take a picture of something, people would say, what phone is this? What phone did you take this with? Because I'm always always going back and forth between phones and getting comedy on the camera quality of the phones. And now everybody including my good dear friends

and possibly members of my family will just comment what phone is this and then they'll start arguing with each other about. And like Magnus has a thing that he does. Literally on every Instagram post he says, he says, what is this, where is this, or who is this, it's really good stuff. It's good.

And he happens to do this. Actually for a long time, they were like, why don't you have a podcast? And now that's become a thing where people are like, bring the podcast back. Right. They map you can and we'll go, we'll say stuff like, bring the podcast back.

Even though you know, and I have a podcast. So with you, it's just that people like to create just like a slow, steady grain of continual annoyance. Why do they like to do that to you in particular? I don't know. I think I've made myself, I mean, I like talking to people and I think people feel that they can say whatever they want to me. I hope that's the case.

But it's fun to burn you a little bit. There's no way around. Well, I've gotten mad on the internet too. I've had some like Twitter flare ups where I get like start screaming at people. You know, I think I've actually like, I've managed to, I've contained that pretty well now. I have a like, not a great, I have a, like, pretty bad temper, I think. Right, but there's something about you. There's something about you.

Yeah, well, just, ever, you first taste a Rage Hall and you're just, yeah, I said, can't put you, you get, then you get a six pack. I remember in high school when you have to convince a really angry guy in his 30s to go buy some, you slip in a few extra bucks to get you a pack of six pack Rage Hall. Yeah, hall. Yeah

That's good stuff. Is that original material? No, that's right here. It's because I'm tired. I mean this is straight straight off the Right out of there. This is a lot like this is a lot like to like well Traveled comedians really just exactly getting it's exactly. Just getting into it. Yeah, and it really, it's like sign felt, or like sign felt in Howard Stern.

Oh, beyond, really. Yeah, it's like, it's like, cause those guys are burdened by so much success. Right. And we're just like, we don't have, we're unburdened by success.

We don't have to carry that around. Well, that's gonna, all that's gonna change now that you have written the encyclopedic, what is code? Which we should talk about right? So you know, you know, it's weird about writing a thing like this So should we talk about what it is? Yeah, let's talk about what it is. Oh, here comes our articulate. Oh, yes Oh, this looks good. Lime and everything. Wow. I love this. Are we not gonna shoot this whole thing? Are we? No, we'll take the take a little step of a tub. Okay, good Are we not gonna shake this whole thing, are we? No, we'll take it a little step at a time.

Okay, get it, let's go. There we go. Thank you, Paul, for- How do you like coffee? It's delicious. Oh, black. It's delicious. I'm afraid, maybe bring the bottle just in case,

this is quite good. I don't normally drink tequila. I only drink it here on this podcast. All right, that's perking me up. What is, what is code? So, really about a year ago, Josh here in Galas, as you mentioned, editor of the magazine, Business Week, said Paul, explain code.

You're off the mic. Oh, about a year ago, Josh. Do you want to lean? We can get, can you, Paul, can you get that? Fun, fun, right here. Are you sure? I'm here, yeah. I know where I am, I know what I'm doing

Paul's the engineer that I'm talking to by the way if you guys hear me saying Paul and it seems like I'm telling Paul to fix the mic Paul get fix that I do it to all of it. Yes, five. Um anyway, I wrote let's let's cut to the chase Okay, at the instigation of Josh Turing Gellie editor of business week wrote this very, very big article to explain what code is to the Business Week population. Not to coders, but to actually to like middle managers who have to deal with software and don't know what's going on. Right. And that's a specific question from Josh because he's managing all these software projects

throughout the course of his career. And he doesn't know exactly what's happening. Which might be one of the reasons you're there because you seem to know what's up. And now that you've ridden the piece, I know I'm no longer needed at Bloomberg. That's it. I do think, well, I think that's true.

And honestly, I only know probably slightly more than Josh does about actual code. But I think that's an interesting thing to admit. And also, it's an interesting way to solve your problem. Most people can't commission a 38,000 word piece to explain something to them. But Josh can. He has that power.

Yeah, so that, and then, yeah, then I came to the company and then we got to this, but anyhow, but then there's a, because there's a web portion of it. Yeah, and it was very random for a while. Nobody knew what the hell we were doing. Including it. I don't know if before, did you guys talk about the web thing before?

Yeah, it was literally like, maybe we'll do a special issue. It'd be cool to have a big piece. It wasn't gonna be one man tells the story of code in thousands and thousands of words throughout an entire magazine and it will be turned into the craziest web thing you have ever seen. Yes. So that's cool then I guess I'm feel good about that because I did think it was an amazing collaboration.

I mean, I got there and we did this new site and we have all these new digital team and doing work. We're doing a lot of stuff on the web now that we weren't doing before. But, and this is not a criticism, but it's like big corporate web work. Like it's got a CMS stuff and it's like, what do you mean?

Like the work that you're doing there to revamp bloomberg.com. It's like, it's gotta be, and, or what's the other one? It's business like, what, what, what, what, what's all, just, what do you mean? You just, you launch something, Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg.com.

We merge, we merge Business Week in Bloomberg.com into a single thing. The process of doing that, coming up with the design, getting it built and so on, that's a very different process than what happened to create what is code. That's correct. That's correct.

Well, the nice thing is having done something similar at the verge, it was, I think that's maybe one of the reasons They wanted me to come and do it right, but this thing let the freak flag fly. Yes, I mean that's I people should go look at it Just because it's so crazy the peace the peace. Yeah, like just look at it on the web like it does things that no other web Peace does I agree with that and that was We I actually remember saying the thing that I thought I wanted it to, originally I was like, what if we, because when Josh told me about the thing you were writing, I was like, oh, we could do this thing

where it's like you have to code to get through the piece. And that obviously is an idea that sort of would have been not quite ideal because people don't want to, but we had like, I would say we had like a console, you could like, you could like, you could start with that. You could start with that. I'd like to start with that, we, um, I would say I was, we had like a console. You could like probe, you could start with that. It was sort of that. We, um, I mean, there's an underlying logic to it that sort of could support such as the idea, the original idea because we were getting very high concept.

And um, before she went on maternity leave, my friend Janet Pascon was there and we were all working the other, uh, tofe Tucker and Steph Davidson and Bernadette and Adam. Adam and I've been there for two weeks. There are a lot of people. Actually, there are a lot of people that worked on this, but it's also small by comparison to other projects. The web team was small on this. The idea was we do these tutorials and you'd solve coding problems,

then you'd get to read more of my exciting stories. That's right, that was the concept. And we kind of missed on that one because it was just like people don't want to do work to read on the internet. It was like, it was, well, and especially once it became up, it was like gonna be a standalone. It was like, well, it's 38,000 words plus.

So then we kind of changed, we changed on the web, and we just turned it, it just kind of became, I say we, I became very passive at this point because my job became too just, so what happened? There's a meeting. We had a meeting, can I talk about the meeting?

Where Tofe was talking about some complicated problems that were being figured out. And Paul was silent on the phone. I think you were basically silent the whole time because you were, you dialed in and then he was like, I can't be a blocker. I have to edit this piece. Yeah, you know, like, you know, you did, I get it. I mean, because once it became its own thing, it was like, it hurt for me.

Because I really love, you know, of course, what I want to do is build the website and make it crazy. But what actually happened was, Brian Ersetton, Jim Eiley, or the editors, on this piece, sent me an email and they were like, great news. We were gonna give you the entire magazine. And I, I was there, my wife told the story.

I went and ran, I didn't run, just stumbled over to the sofa and I put a blanket over my head immediately. Really? Yeah, I just went, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh I just, oh, I said get why you and Toeve got along. I just was like, no, because Toeve during one of those meetings, I saw him start to try to crawl into his computer out of stress. Like, he was actually trying to climb into inside, I think, and then shut the laptop on himself. So I can understand there's a sort of, I mean, it's just, I know, you know, I used to work at a magazine,

like I know what producing a magazine is like, and I knew that I would, like I'm telling you guys, I don't wanna block your web production. What this meant is that if I had a bad day, I could slow down 20 or 30 people. So suddenly I realized that I needed to have like a solid month of really good days. Yeah. Which is hard to pull off. It's hard for anybody doing anything, let alone something

that really is difficult. And I needed to start fact checking my own stuff. I needed to just start like all sorts of crazy. Yeah, you were like quoting, you're just quoting things that you sort of remember. Yeah, well, there's something there. I can always do that when you're writing. You're like, I think he said, like, we did. And George Washington once famously said, and you're like, wait a second, I didn't say that. I made that up. So, anyway, all this goes on, it's really good.

It's really awesome. This giant magazine comes out. Yeah. It's a double issue. It's a double issue. It's all about Koda, or the whole freaking thing. But there's also like, you know, 50 people worked on it. Lots of little pieces of it are written by other people. It's edited so it's a lot of marginalia and yeah. No it's huge.

In the magazine team I mean once they decided to do the single well that was also a new complexity for us because once they decided to do it as a single thing then there was a lot more there was new art that was being done and there was the Marginalia and we had all these footnotes. I mean, the original versions of it were so chaotic by comparison to what we, I mean, it's truly, the power of editing is something that really, you know, it's a fierce force.

What was fascinating, so Business Week runs Lena Me and it's one of the best teams I've ever worked with, what's fascinating is being part of the giant digestive system of Bloomberg. Like, information comes into that giant company and passes through and then they're like, you're on TV. Did they give you a terminal? Did you go on TV?

No, yeah, I went on Charlie Rose. Oh, you did? Yes, so the way you go on Charlie Rose. What? Yeah. When did that happen? It was on last night. Oh my God, what is it air?

Lessly. Oh, what? Yeah, so on PBS though. I guess so. You know the deal, I think the deal is that it goes on PBS and then the next day it's Oh my god, what is it air? Lastly. Oh, what? Yeah. So on PBS though. I guess so. I think the deal is that it goes on PBS and the next day it's on Bloomberg. Okay. Anyhow.

So I would explain why I boycott a PBS because it's down to Naby. Yeah, sure. No. Once Matthew was killed. Oh, sorry. I forgot this. Glad you explained that. Yeah.

But for people who have never had this experience, it is. Sorry, I forgot this. Glad you explained that. Yeah. So, but for people who have never had this experience, it is, but it's really weird because I'm like, I'm working at Bloomberg Business Week, Crape Place, really nice people. This is all very genuine. And I think people in magazine publishing in an environment like Bloomberg are like,

we get free candy every day. I mean, they're just sort of like, oh, this is crazy. We have jobs, we have to work really hard, but we actually have like magazine jobs doing a real magazine. It's cool. And then you're like, then there's all these other things

going on, but they're on like the next floor. So the process of going to Charlie Rose, as I was on with Josh Turing out, you're the editor. Yeah. Is they just walk you to a different floor and you go into a black room and Charlie Roses there. And you don't know if he's ever left or. He's there a lot.

He might be there all the time. Is there all that I think he might have a suite somewhere. Sure, I mean, I'm sure there's like an executive something. You got a lot of guy like Charlie Roses, take a shower at work. It's possible. He takes several showers, I understand. I hope so.

I have no idea. I don't know. Please don't. Is there in you think in that building, there's like a big secret executive? Absolutely. I think there are many secrets. The most important secret of all in the building to me is that there's a set of the sort of fire escape stairs that run in through the sort of the center of the building, which are this is my favorite thing about the bloomer building. If you haven't been to the bloomer building, let me try to describe it for you.

It's like a Star Trek city. It's like when they would go, it's like, you couldn't afford to actually have like, you couldn't do the CGI. I mean, back in the next generation, there was a CGI. This is Star Trek city. But they're like,

we have to film somewhere that looks like a totally futuristic space city. It's the, it's where it's like where the school would be. We like start it be like space school. Right. Right. So that's kind of what the Bloomberg building is like, it's like space, a space city or a space school,

but for an episode of Star Trek. So it's like not an entire actual city. It's like they've repurposed a very futuristic cool space to be at the Star Trek city. Anyhow, so that's what it's like and then there's like a whole floor of snacks and things and they've got a curved escalator they have. We have a curved escalator, which is one of only three I believe in the world. I mean, you know. And they have, near the curved escalator is a cumulus cloud made of metal that floats where the curved escalator is. There's light installations.

It's just like a funky futuristic place. It really is. But it's also a set. How come you go in and there's actually a woman saying, welcome to Bloomberg. Usually. Often. And she says it over and over again.

I don't know about that. I haven't seen that. I've seen that. My favorite point that I was getting to, I'm sorry to be rambling about it. Yeah, that's right. Building is there's a set of essentially the fire escape stairs, sort of in the core of the building, which when you get into them and there's signs like red doors, like do not enter. Yeah, I'm sure in now tomorrow, I'll go and try to open the door. I know tomorrow Saturday, so I don't have to worry about that. But at some point, when you walk into this staircase, it is like it's a building made of

concrete. There's like, you can see the metal, not what do you call it, that holds up the building, that the building's made of. What is that? The frame. You can see the metal, the huge metal frame of the building, with dust on it, and you can see like fire proofing, the fire proofing padding that they do. And it just is like a building.

It's just like a regular building. Like you went into this like regular dirty New York building. And you can use those stairs to go between floors, which is actually quite difficult at the Bloomberg building. You can use it to quickly go between floors. That's my favorite thing. I used that method to go down to record the video because I had to do not had to. I had the beautiful opportunity of you write the article and then you

do the voiceover for the video and then you go down and you do the TV then you do two more pieces of TV then you do the radio show. Yeah this is the power and then you go to Charlie Rose. It's so much synergy. It's like the power of Bloomberg. This is one of the reasons I went to Bloomberg is because like Charlie Rose. It's so much synergy. It's like, still all of control. This is one of the reasons I went to Bloomberg is because like, oh yeah, upstairs, there's a TV network. It's really, really easy.

It's where they make the magazine. There's a booth behind the magazine thing where they do digital video or whatever. It's like crazy. All right, I'm gonna, we have to take a break. Okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna talk, I wanna talk more about code when we come back. But, we're gonna take a break and we'll back

with Paul Ford. What happens if you play monopoly with real money? What does space sound like? What happens when you overwork yourself? Do you believe that work related stress has increased? What happens when you overwork yourself? Do you believe that work-related stress has increased? It reflects the fact of how little value we place on the well-being of human beings. The Outline World Dispatch Every Monday, Tuesday, we bring you a new story on the theme of power, culture, or the future.

And picked from theoutline.com story on the theme of power, culture, or the future. And picked from theoutline.com. Find us an Apple podcast, Google Play, Spotify, your Amazon Alexa Flash briefing, or wherever you download your podcasts. Also, you can say, okay, Google, play me the news, and we're right there. Oh my God, yeah!

Make your mornings a little weirder. We're back with Paul Ford. We were just wondering where the tequila went. And the coffee, I'm a little subdued. I'd like to apologize. No, I know, it's fine. Listen, you've had a crazy week. That a long week.

And even a long month. I've had a long month. This is the hardest thing I've listened to this voice. That's going on. It's going on. I have a character from a Batman movie. I know. You're Batman. It's going on. I have like a character from a Batman movie. I love that movie. I love that movie.

It's just literally under me. Everybody. The last one was everybody had a voice. I've been re-rubbed from my head. Yeah, I know it's smart. It's smart because I think Chris Renon was like, gotta give people voices. You know, like the Joker had a voice.

He was like, hey, I was doing that. And then Batman's like, what are you doing? And then Bane had his thing, which was like, I'm done. I'm done. You know, something like that. I'm done. We got coffee and water to go.

Is that how it went? It was a lot like that. I'm in. It's always like. I'm go. It was a lot like I'm I'm trying to That was only it was so loud though because it wasn't it wasn't that it was this You're such physical pain pain. That's Batman talking. It's true that when he spoke, it's like surround,

if you're in a surround sound situation, it was like so bad. Everything else is mono and then Batman's all over your ear. Oh, it was just like this bow rumbling sound and a man talking into socks. And then somebody's like, no, you've got the wrong idea about that. That's being talked to you. Only the women could be heard.

They were like, hey, I'm a person. Exactly. The men were like, which I think is by the way, is a sign of Chris Renolen's massive sexism. He's a complicated, you know, what do you think about? He's British.

What do you think about Interstellar? I cried during Interstellar. Touchy. I thought by the inner seller, it reminded me of signs by M. Night Shyamalan a lot. And if you go back and look at those two things, side by side, there are striking, disturbing similar to your member signs. Yeah, no, down to the farmhouse. The farmhouse, the family, the son and the daughter.

Oh, man, you just blew the little rye off this thing. I don't want to like ruin interstellar for anybody, but the mysterious happenings that are actually tied to a kind of spiritual connection through the ages and through the time and space and apparently and signs through a spiritual layer that we can't possibly thousand understand. This is the Dexml Gibson.

No, but listen, you know, you may be onto something. He is Matthew McCotty, the next bell gives him, how does he feel about Jews? In a moment? And people of color, we don't know, we don't know. We'll be right back. Is this the part where we added out? Is this the part we have to cut out?

I think we keep this part because it's, I mean, you Jewish. I hope. I was raised Jewish. I'm an atheist Which means I only believe in God when my plane feels like it's crashing No, but even then you know what's probably being an atheist is like when your plane feels like it's crashing Which yesterday I was on a plane that felt like it was crashing several times. I think any bump at all is like I'm done I can't imagine I start to imagine is like what will the reports on TV sound like about this? I think what's the flight number?

And then I go, you know, United Airlines flight 860 went down over Duluth or whatever. Is that a place Duluth? Yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, that's what I hear in my head is the newscast. I immediately think about all the logins that I need to communicate.

Yeah. It's like, I actually, you know, I realize whatever I'm gonna be behind will be very messy and complicated for everybody. I know, but it's just like, they're gonna find things they didn't need to see. Especially because, oh yeah, they will. But especially because I turned on like, you know, good two-factor authentication and everything that's in there. Yeah, that's a nice one.

How is my wife gonna like turn off the AWS account? There's gonna be a lot of like, faxing, like a birth certificate. Yeah, it's really really. Anyhow, but so any time I'm on a flight, this is the problem with atheism, it's just completely has nothing to do with the code issue. Or you, but anyhow, I'm going to talk about it. It's, you know, you're like, oh, I'll pray to God,

but you're like, yeah, that's not going to work because I know that there's nobody listening. And then you're like, I got nothing. I'll just white knuckle this. Right. And that's what I do. And I think I think, um, well, at least Zelda exists now. Yeah, you just kind of about credit copy of you. Then Laura was like, yeah, but you won't get to see your girl. I was like, yeah, but still it's like way to take away my one thing. I go hold on to it. And I feel that I think death

is bearing down on me. I think about that a lot because there's so many ways I can die. And then I think about so many fatherless can die and then I think about so many. Fatherless kids. And then I think about like, oh man, if I die, that means my daughter sleeps with the worst dudes for like five years. Maybe or she's like, you know what? My memory of my father was one of a great protector and somebody who really looked out for me. No, no.

I'm going to take care of myself and respect myself because that's what my father would have wanted. That's what I will tell myself. Has a wide claim. I know, I think it's a monster. Commuter flight from LA. Yeah, no, if I die. It's like my son is caught with cyber spray paint and they're like age 17 and bush way.

That's like when you can spray paint over things and it turns them into like Minecraft objects. That's exactly what's gonna happen. Right, no totally. No totally. And people have like hollow invisibility suits. Good stuff. I mean our kids are gonna be like,

when they're you know, I don't think they're gonna care about screens. I think they're gonna think screens are lame. Screens are gonna be, no, they're gonna think that everything is basically an interactive surface. That's exactly like they'll just be in this room and they'll just be like,

I'm gonna be like, how come I'm gonna change this because there's like a tapestry on this table. Right. I mean like how do I change this wallpaper? And they're just be in this room and they'll just be like, I'm gonna be like, how come I'm gonna change this because there's like a tapestry on this table? I think like, how do I change this wallpaper? And they're gonna be like doing some like grab motion to pinch and throw it out. My friend works with Google on this thing. It's under embargo or anything?

No, no, no, no, it just came out. It came out at whatever they're saying. Oh, the clothing? No, it's like that. They have a new thing, it's got radar. It's little. And you can do, it's making a little twisty motion with my finger, as I'm talking about. It's true, like he's twiddling an ob. And that's what it does. It lets you turn the volume up and down, but you're not touching anything. What is it? I can't remember the name of it. It's a little tiny radar. What do

you touch it? What, you don't touch any? Have you ever used the connect? No, but no, but that's the thing. This is radar, it's sort of closed surface. So I would just be here like messing with the microphone just by kind of like by being like two inches away. Yeah, you think radar is the answer. I don't think anything's the answer. I mean actually the question is will it be everything's everything around us is a surface or you never see anything for real because you're in VR just doing all your stuff in VR. I don't think so. I think people like augmented stuff, and I think that like, the likes, I don't know, I have a short story I wonder along these lines, I'm not gonna sell it out.

Don't talk about it now, that's your bread and butter. I suppose they thank you for this coffee, this coffee is very good. Is it a good, Paul knows how to make a great cup of coffee and a delicious tequila beverage. I know we got tequila, I've got water, coffee, and tequila. You can never have too much, I. You can never have too many beverages. No, you really can.

It's easier to mix beverages than in this food. Do you ever go, you're working in Bloomberg. That's true. Do you ever think to yourself? In case we hadn't established that. Yeah, do you ever think to yourself, I'm gonna have, like, I'll have a little diacoch and then I'll be like, mm, you know what?

Oh, suicide. No, that's not actually what I think. I think like, No, not the act. I think they call that a suicide when you have all the different flavors. Well, then it's okay. So it's not just that all I want is like the bit of it.

I don't know if they've never done that. So I'm in lemonade. I'm just like, Oh, or like a little bit of ginger. I'm like, let's get the real stuff in there. But the lemonade, lemonade from that sort of situation is always going to be a disappointment to anything.

No, because you're just like, this is exciting, this is Diet Coke Plus. But we have some, oh, I see, you wanna get a little extra. So, it's not how I'm like two flavors were, instead I had one. I'm gonna talk about an idea that I'm never gonna use. I'm gonna say it out loud on this, because you know what I,

You wanna put an under creative comment? Well, I'd like to, I'd like to, no, actually, if you use this idea, I need 10% of anything, okay. I'm gonna say right now, trademarking this thing. This is CC 10%. I want at least 10%, but there will be a negotiation

if this ever becomes an actual thing. But I always thought there should be a restaurant where you can order a drink, and then you can order flavored ice with it. So you can have like, alvacoke with cherry ice, or alvacoke with lemon ice, or you can mix and match the ice.

Oh. And so as it melts, it adds like flavor, and it also cools down your ice. We should call this something. We could call it flavor ice. No, that's used. That's what they call it. Those things you squeeze are flavor ice.

For flavor ice. I wish we had that. It turned out like fun. It's something like something like, well first of all, okay, they're cubes, they're ice cubes. Taste cube. That's interesting. It means more, I think it needs to be more active,

like a taste bomber. You know, like a chew bomb. Drop taste. Drop taste is good. Taste drop. Taste drop. No, no, splash. Something to splash.

Splash. Oh, oh, wait, actually just call it splash. Something like splash. Splash.io. No, it doesn't need a website. It's served at a restaurant. Everything but the website. Of course, it'll be a website, cause it's served at a restaurant. Everything but the website. Well, of course there'll be a website for the course.

Is this distributed by Cisco? For the, I would imagine Cisco was going to be the most likely to take my idea and run them. Let's call them right now. I think it's something like ice, it's like stingers, they're like stingers. How amazing would it be?

Iceers, is this good? Is that good? I don't know. I like splash, but look, hey. Just splash? Here's what I want to talk about. Oh, splash with no, with no A. Isers is good. Is that good? I like splash but look hey just splash Here's what I want to talk about oh splash with no with no a I just SPL Equalatorial

What would it be what would you be here's what I would talk about? I say vice what I would slaves Do you ever have fantasies like I wouldn't go? Yeah? So right now Here let's change the tenor in Now that we did that I'm gonna share my true Which is how amazing would it be to go to Cisco and present the idea of splash Let's do it all right the two of us do it just This feels like, come up with something. Just get the meeting. It's like Uber for ice cubes. Yeah, I'm doing that.

I just want to know what that person is. Like that man or woman, it's Cisco. I don't think anybody pitches them. I think they have people in house that come up with new stuff. Oh, I bet there's a problem. They're like, we're with a chicken straws. Chicken straws? I think about it.

You can go barbecue sauce through the straw and then eat the straw. You know, you know? Oh, chicken straws is an amazing idea. I would like, I through this straw and then eat the straw. You know, you know, like chicken straws is an amazing idea. And I would like, I would like also 10% of that. Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that you and I,

but you know, Bloomberg, who knows what's gonna happen there? Bloomberg. Bloomberg. I'm starting a new company. I'm a writer. Who the hell, but what we do is we go start Cisco Labs.

Oh, that's, we do. Like go start Cisco labs We do Cisco we do Cisco labs. It's like oh, you know every you know the hot thing is like Samsung has a new San Francisco office Oh doing yeah, like all of our products. I just like open chicken. Yeah, like there's nothing else It's like chicken with no with no eye. Yeah, yeah, can you mustard like this? I like this. It's like never explain it. Yeah. Oh, I think this is good. I think it's good.

I think we get this. Cisco lab. I think we get like we could get and we get a really cool Twitter account. Open the door. Yeah, with probably like 12 to 14 million a year and funding get that up to 30 by the second year. I don't know why I'm wasting time. We have about three employees.

Cisco labs is just and then we sell to Facebook. Oh, it's so great. It's so great. No, we can't because we're owned by Cisco. Again, I just want to put this out there. Chicken straws. Okay. Great idea. Straw made of chicken. So we got two things here. We got splashes and we got chicken. Did I say splatter? Who said splasher? Listen, I work in branding and marketing. Yeah, splashes. Splashers, chicken straws. These are the first two products of Cisco Labs. What else?

You know, anything I want. Anything like a dip a chip in. I'm gonna say something now. Of course, of course. Cause the splashers idea was actually part of a large idea that I was scared to talk about because I think it's so good. It's so good.

Safe space. Okay, well again, I'm gonna say this one, you cannot use this idea without involving me and I will sue the hell out of you. I will sue you into the dark age, which means I will also use a time machine. Okay. A restaurant called Dippers,

everything has a selection, there are selections of dipping sauces for everything. Literally Cisco right now, the whole company just stopped. They're like, how do we not think of this? So it's like flavoredized and dipping sauces of all types, like like 40 different types of dipping sauces. Well, let me get like 20 kinds of bread and chips.

Yeah, dip everything. Everything is to the kinds of chips. What kind of dipping sauce you want for your burger? Like there's like a peppercorn. Here's what I need in order to move forward with you, Josh. I need you to describe to me what a combo looks like when I order. Well, that's, that, that tells me, do you want to double up your combo? Of course I do.

Okay. Well, I'm sorry. How much is that? 1499. Always. Oh, well, it's a little steep, but you know what? Differences are really, it's a high-end casual dining. Cashable, but not, there's, there's, it's a little steep, but you know what? Difference is a really. It's a high end. As casual dining casual, but not there's there's

wait a minute. There's a what is that they call that casual dining? It's not five Rutgers. Oh, it's not it's not Apple. It's no, it's it's a it's Apple B's pricing, but with an atmosphere that's much more cool and excited. Merwin Wendy's got a buffet. How bad that was. I didn't work out. I didn't work out. I didn't work out. But, but so anyhow, no, I mean the combo,

well the double, the double up combo, what did I say? Double up. So you get, you get, it's double dip. It's double dip. It's double dip is the name of the combo. Double dip.

Choice of two half entrees and you, you get four dipping sauces. Oh my God, all right, 1499. What are my, okay, so I get my choice. So you can get a lot of time. And then obviously the sides, obviously the sides. What would you, okay, four sides. I need, what are the sides?

Gwok. Well, there would be some traditional sides, things like, like double baked mac and cheese. Oh, right. That's a four cheese, four cheese, double baked mac and cheese. That's what I'm dip in. That's, you dip that in something like a kind of like a Chipotle, Chipotle spice, you know, Chipotle curry sauce that's just really sets off from, from, from, from a

she, but easily with a fork or am I just like, what am I eating with a fork? Okay. That's a fork item. Anyhow, so you've got sides like that, but then you also would have, you know, things like slam balls. So sure, sure, absolutely. You know, which is like a baked, it's like a baked, it's like spaghetti, it's like, it's like spaghetti.

We're like 30 minutes away from having a deck. Like, it's really good. We know, we've got to hit LinkedIn and see who we know it's this go. But like baked spaghetti into like a ball. Yeah, you can just lay a ball. Yeah. You can just sleep, kid, just lay a ball. Obviously, yeah.

No, no, no, no. It's a meatball, right? It's a spaghetti. Yes, yes, yes. But then baked it, or sorry, fried, fried. Fried, it's like the meatball stuff, it's a meatball stuff, it's spaghetti with like an incredible on top. Yeah.

That's good. What happened? Oh, Magnus, Magnus just reprimanded us because he thinks that we need to get back to the code issue. And I think, and I'm the sound of the expert, I'm certainly not an expert on my audience. Here's what I want to do. I want to knock out code.

I think the people are interested in what we're talking about. I want to knock out code in like three minutes and then get back to how we're going to create this restaurant. Okay, Dipper's. All right. Let's do it. Okay, here we go. And it says code first and slam balls.

All right, so I wrote this big article and then we talk about Josh's awesome team. Yeah. Went ahead and made an insane website. Which Josh? You. Thank you. Yeah, that's nice.

The other Josh's awesome team also made it in St. Louis. It's a little perplexing when you're at Bloomberg Business Week where Joshua Topolsky and Joshua Turingel are two of the management. And no one's able to, everyone talks about them, there's no inflection. Like it's like Josh says. Yes, this is true.

And we're also both Josh T.C. came and be like, this is a buzzer. Which one? Josh T, yeah, that guy. Anyway, one thing I'll do is go buy this magazine. No, don't get the magazine. I just, I'm just, I'm in my ass hole at the web team bus to the rest

and the editor, like 50 people work really hard. The web is not accessible through the magazine, but the web is open and ready for you to peruse, but you should really have the magazine also, because it's a really special issue. I just like, I will say, I've never worked on anything this hard in my life. This is the hardest I've ever worked,

and the people around me worked incredibly hard to make it work. I thought we were gonna break people during this, honestly. There were moments recently, I was in the West Coast for most of this week, and so the final run up to all of this, honestly. There were moments recently, I was in the West Coast for most of this week, and so the final run up to all of this, I was just completely checked out for, and it was very late at night and I'm like emailing people, and they're there working. No, I was there with them.

Actually, I did a lot of your soldiers, your great soldiers, in the fight against bad content. I think everyone just had a sense that we could make something that would as much as like someone on Y Combinator will be like, you're understanding of small talkage incorrect. Yeah, that was pretty poor. Did you read the, have you read the hack or news comment? Of course I have. I've read all of them.

Have you really? I've read a lot of them. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I like to know that the funny thing about hack or news comments and meta filter comments and so on is that when they're about you, they're really frustrating day one and then by day 30, they are actually the highest possible comedy. You're just like, oh my God.

But on day one, you're just like, you're just heartbroken. It must be so weird. I must, you know, I think about this for the magazine folks. Many of them are like not, they're not like looking at the hacker news comments. Let's put it that way. And that's wonderful. Yeah.

I realize like I've been under attack for like nearly a decade. Oh, people on the internet. Just telling you, garbage, everything that you do is under attack. I mean, the most of what you see is not people going like, this is really great.

A lot of people are saying that about your piece. Which is wonderful. But no, it's not just the communities that you belong to. When you are the person who makes the content that they discuss, they just, it's over. And I notice that, so I have a really, I really love and love mostly a lurker, but I've been a member of MetaFilter forever.

But there was a moment a couple years ago when my kids were conceived, I wrote this essay about dealing with IVF and dealing with my, we went and did full-on test tube babies. And I wrote about it, and just 90 people had something to say about that, and about my wife's uterus, and about sort of my life, and the choices we were making. And it was a lot of like, this is a problem,

this is a problem, and I kind of checked out at that moment, I'm just like, all right, you know, I made some choices in my life, and I wrote about them as honestly as I could, and you people are like, some of you are really kind, some of you have genuine honest criticism, and would like me to think about things differently, or respect that.

I totally respect and I'm okay with, like I've been called on like stupid, homophobic easy jokes or like weird race stuff in the course of my internet career. And like, you're a bad guy. You're a bad person. I'm actually, I think, fine, call me on it. It's great.

I mean, it's like, I don't, one thing I think about, when I think about Paul Ford, I think about a guy who's racist in homophobic in the extreme. No, but you know what, I have tremendous respect. People are trying to create and craft and identify themselves. Like, they're trying to create their own identities

and they're trying to be who they want to be. And like, if I interfere with that and I cause them a sense of emotional distress about that, I actually do want to know about that. That doesn't mean I'm going to change my behavior that minute. But I want to know that effect. I think that's important. I don't want to make some weird joke and have somebody feel that I would never be their

friend. I think that's shitty. I want to watch that. I don't think you are doing that. I don't think you are. You can always do better, dude. That's true. Anyway, let's not go down that path on the internet But I that's what they think about a lot. Yeah So we just tell people go buy this code. Yeah, where do I get back to slay?

Now okay, okay, Dippers now by the way, this is the out there. I've been talking about it for years I'm gonna go right down so the cut it's differs is the name of the restaurant. I'm thinking to Z on the end, but I'm not really sure. Oh, I think that's real good. Differs, because I'm just going to try to do DIPP R as like, like, that's interesting, but that's like a 2006 website. It feels like drip to me. Drip, it's like it's cutting through all the noise with some nice top food for you.

DIPP RZ. Yeah. I think the Z needs to beE-Z would be really big. It's big as the D. And it's got some flames on top of it. Wow, or something dripping off of it. Like a sauce. There's some hot.

So the premise of the restaurant, just to be clear here, is that dipping, there are many, many dipping sauce options. They are like wild combos. How does this stuff get to the table? I was thinking you could have something, when you haven't, like if you've got a group, you're out to dinner with a few friends.

Okay, so five friends. There would be a kind of a tiered, I'd, let's just like, I'm like a, kind of like an, Eiffel Tower of dipping sauces, if you will. So like it's like a tiered, like a Christmas tree, like a Christmas tree of dipping sauces.

Oh, you know what be cool is actually, is you get some technology where you could like, whip around a dipping sauce to somebody else. Oh, we need to go. Like you could be like, you gotta try the peppercorn pickle and then you flip it around to the other position. We're building this platform. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This could rise up, oh, you know what be cool? If it was built into a circular table and you press on it and it comes up, it kind of is like a collapsing structure and then you can whip around, you can whip the dip. Oh, whip the dip. Dipper. Let's see the single best. Let's do the commercial. I think I've ever.

Well, it's something like... You and your friends are hungry. Are you ready for something amazing? Is the southern? I don't know. I don't know if we're going to have something. You're going to have something a little bit more sophisticated. What are you ready for something? Is this something? Is this something? I don't know. I think we're gonna have something like a little bit more sophisticated. What are you saying?

Okay, so it's not hungry. It's actually like a class, a fun day now. I'm gonna tie into the Batman franchise. I'm gonna dip my slim ball. You will regret what you've done. Whip the dip. Bum, whip the dip. Yeah. This is sohah-hah. Whip the dip. Whip the dip.

This is so, I just want to know. I mean, I think this must be terrible to listen to. I don't know what people are thinking. Whip the dip. I love to know. I'm having a great time and I think Paul's having a great time. Oh, no, I think this is what I want to listen to. Because this went from like the two white guys in a room

problem of podcasts into the Let's actually make a restaurant called. Gippers. Gippers, I hope that I get a call. You get a call from Cisco. Oh yeah. I'm not like, we're really like this idea. We're strong. Who owns PF Chang?

I don't know. No, you're probably the moody. She's gay factory. I know, but the cheese gay factory, like just Apple. I want to talk to whoever writes their other profits out of their revenue generator. You don't hear about Apple.

You know Apple owns something. Apple owns the Cheesecake factory. Oh, yeah. Tim Cook would never have met like a dog walking, like, company. I mean, like a dog walking franchise. It's all over. It's revenue.

You know what? And it's good. You know, that money's never gonna stop coming in. Dogs are always gonna need to be locked. People are always gonna need to have a giant, giant entree. So Apple PF Chang. Yeah, I just want to know. We'll ever.

Because of Chang. Is it Chang? It was PF Chang or PF Chang. This is Microsoft with my Panda Express. Is it? Obviously. Cause we're like, we can't. The Panda Express is exactly as the name implies,

kind of a fast food generation. I know, but that's what Changs, which I believe there is an S on the N, is a sophisticated dining experience. I know that's so that. So whoever owns it, please contact me because I have a great idea for Paul and I have a great idea.

Well, he's helping me riff on this. You know what it is? It's the Apple it's the, Apple's legal seafood and Microsoft is Red Lobster. Red Lobster is great. People love it. It's great, right? And it was shrimp.

People love Microsoft. I actually am troubled by the endless shrimp concept. Can we talk about this for a second? Well, because shrimp is not endless obviously. I, we know that it's physically impossible that there's an endless amount of shrimp. That is totally impossible But doesn't it seem excessive to even offer?

To even offer that much shrimp of all the things I would want to have like an endless amount of yeah I think I've talked about this before but shrimp is really low on the it's like oh you know it'd be great endless Cake let's take this endless endless ice cream. Let's consider a device that could produce shrimp from just about all raw material. Something like the fake crab meat that they put sushi. So one of the things is like, this actually could be the way the world ends. It's like a Cooper for shrimp.

It consumes all of the earth in order to make endless shrimp. What if you can, so there's like a thing that you can put anything into it? I was thinking like the singularity man. It creates shrimp on the other end. Like whatever happens, there's a huge apparatus in the middle of it. You put any material into one side. Yeah.

The other side. This is the probably the form cocktail shrimp comes out. This is the singularity. Red lobster ends the universe. That's pretty much how it happens. What? What are you talking? What are you saying, Magnus?

Sorry, Magnus, I can't understand the first part because of your thick accent. Unfortunately, not the end of this, and now it's not an endless podcast. He's saying, I'm sorry, he's saying. Magnus is saying that we're going long. We gotta just get this guy out to different. We're going long.

Yeah, we took you out to Dipper's and we whipped some dip over to you. I think you're gonna be the dip. Yeah, you gotta just get this guy out the diapers. Yeah, we took you out to Dipper's and we whipped some dip over to you. I think you're gonna be the best. Oh, whip the dip. Yeah, you would change your attitude because you'd be amongst friends. It's true. Having a great time, taking a back.

Magnus, let me tell you something, you need to go out tonight and you need to whip the dip. Gotta do it, whip the dip. Today you need some stressful, long day at your cool, awesome job. Sexy young people. Yeah. Time to go whip the dip. Double dip at dip.

Double dip. Hey, with a combo that's only 14.99 with your choice of four. Four, it's like, it's really like a quadruple dip. Oh man, and pick your car. That's part of the ad, quadruple dip. Why don't they go a quadruple dip? Oh, I'm gonna go on. All right, quadruple, quadruple.

Yeah, you know. Whip the question. Yeah. You know, we have the Jeff. This is, this is, this was thought about the code article from the road partner. Mostly we talked about how much work went into the code article. Listen, I just, I really actually have to say this is a thing where a lot of things I write and I do where I'm like, yeah, it's cool. If you happen to come across it, I'd appreciate hearing any feedback. I really, if you have ever had any doubts

about what the hell software is and why programmers behave the way they do, I did my damnedest to tell you what's up. I'll say something. I think that there has never before, I'm not trying to inflate your ego here. No, no, no, no. I don't think anything like this is ever before I'm not trying to inflate your ego here. I don't think anything like this is ever

been written in the way that it is written. In the sense that people maybe have written books and essays about how code works. Because that's a thing that happens. This is a like all-encompassing primer that is actually written for human beings and is funny and smart and sophisticated and not at all impenetrable. Like, I think that is the key. It feels like it's this is like the best possible kind of explainer journalism that has ever.

That's the ultimate explainer journalism that has ever. This is like the ultimate, the ultimate explainer. This is like the ultimate explainer journalism in the sense that it's like, you know exactly what you're talking about. And yet it's communicated in a way to a broad audience that you're like, this is so engaging and so funny and so charming and interesting, I wanna keep going.

And you actually, you do, you learn something. I learned something reading this thing. That's really kind of thank you. And my brain has almost no room left for information. Thanks to all of the great ideas I have in it, the Dippers. You know, actually, as you say that, what it makes me think is I wanna go to Dippers right now.

I mean, it'd be cool if it existed, right? And remember, the ice, what do they call it? Splashers. Oh, splashers. Splashers. Dippers. are they called splashers splashers splashers Differing splashers is a wonderful thing. We got a differs. We get some splashers That's like a whole page in the mind. Oh, yeah, splashers. So out splashers selection you start with your alcoholic splashers We can do that. Oh, that's another thing. I didn't even thought about you do like a vodka and lemon ice Yeah, so you go to differs you get some splashers and then you actually do the dip And you rip the dip rip the dip. Yeah, we have the dip kick a splasher

Anyway, thank you for this kind words. I mean, I look I just I worked hard on it And I'm really it's good to be here. It's good good to good to talk about it funny side note The magazine which we usually have copies of the magazine that are readily available at Bloomberg when the new business we comes out. People are like, they're all gone. Like in the building, people are actually bargaining to get copies from other people. I had to like bargain with somebody.

I don't have a copy yet. Oh, well, so I was gonna bring one, which I left, which is now gonna be stolen off of my desk. No question. I asked them to grab me a couple. I would hope that they could get you a couple, but like I actually think this is a very unusual, I mean, in my time there, I've never seen people

like scrambling around trying to get, because they're always just hanging out everywhere. We created an event, right? Like you can still do that. It takes more. And it's also not like a fake event. It's a real, I mean, it's, it's, when Josh said, let's just do this piece

as the whole thing, I was like, oh, yeah, that is a cool idea. I know, it's crazy, but it's a weird idea. It may not work. Yeah, but it's cool. And I mean, that's the thing that, I think that's what, it's so important to convey that whether it was going to work or not,

like we just, everybody was like, this is really crazy. And then at some level, the job of the management and of the people working on it is to slowly lower the risk, edit by edit, that it will be perplexing or confusing so that it can work. Just give it the possibility of being understood.

Yeah. And it went into the world. And as far as I can tell, people are internalizing it, understanding it, they're criticizing it, they're loving it, they're hating it. Like all that stuff is really powerful. And so anyway, I just like, like that was a big novel, crazy thing. Your team totally got invested in it. And I could you not. Yeah, they just made something really weird and new that no one else has seen before.

So that's just like, go look at it, go buy it. I think the space of like, we're great. I know that we gotta wind this up, but I know that we do. There's a thing that's really interesting that has happened, which is that, I won't name names, we're like people from big legacy external media organizations, famous ones.

Yeah. Are sniping at it. And I'm hearing that back channel because I have all the friends who work there. Sure, because they've been around forever and so are they saying. Oh, just sort of like, I wonder what he got paid. And then they're like, oh, well, you know, blah, blah, blah, covered that better in 2005. And just like, all that stuff is happening. And like, what I love, so the media is annoyed.

And it was supposed to get it was supposed to actually be a interview with me in a paper of record about this and then the bosses shut it down. Oh, oh, I know about that. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about and yes, I was like, oh, that's a bummer and lame. Yeah, the bosses were like, now they're a competitor. That's correct, which has actually happened. It's kind of awesome. It's a newspaper. We want to name names. Not gonna name names. But it's a big one.

It's one of the big ones. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one.

It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one.

It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. It's a big one. one organization buys the other, but we'll just see some of them open. Oh, you know, everybody. They're New York Post. Exactly. Anyhow, or the New York press. No, it's true. It's true. It is, I mean, I'm, I'm, listen, I, I truly am like very hard on anything.

I'm like, oh, this could be better. But it is, you do see like people sniping at it, and then it does kind of like warm your heart. But the nerves, like old school software guys are on Twitter going. It's actually tells the story. No, no good good. There are good people saying really good things, but I actually sent an email to our team and I was like, look, look at Twitter to see the reaction on this thing because it's like

really, there are some really, really smart people saying really nice things about it. This is the least humble I've been in about 20 years. It's fun. You've earned it. I'm gonna call it, but I can't get it now or that. You're allowed to, you just wrote a 40,000 word article. I know, I gotta go finish my book. It's like a book. It's basically a book.

I need to go finish. Okay, really quickly because we have to go. Yeah. But you mentioned that you're doing a new thing. Oh yeah, I should talk about that. Tell me about this just a little bit. This is a plug part of the podcast. So just, I'm getting used to telling this, saying this in public, with a partner,

my partner Rich Ziaude, who has been developing software platforms for well over a decade, big ones, and created an organization called Readability. I am the founding partner. He and I are the founding partners of a company called Post Light, P-O a company called Post-Light, P-O-S-T-L-I-G-H-T. Just the way the words are spelled.

We're still getting the URL. Post-Light.com, who has it? We do. It's just taking a little while to transfer from the purchase. And so, how much is spent on that? Oh, I can't believe it. I'm gonna reveal numbers. Not a shocking amount.

Six digits? No, no, no. Like, low, low five. And that's not insignificant. So that's significant, but it's a good name. Are you in, is this something that you've got like VC cash coming in on or what is the deal? No, we've got, we have clients.

No, okay, both people that you work for, who pay you money. Yeah, so we're like a business. We're gonna build. That's unusual. Yeah, it's one of the things I focus on. Can that work? Is that it? Is it a sustainable? It's actually amazing. You can work with people directly. Do really good work for them and they will continue to pay you money on a regular cash. So do you take Bitcoin? Not yet, but we're working on that. Really? Yeah, no.

What's your kind of shopping card do you offer? We do not yet offer. It would be very like, you'd come to us because you want a very special kind of shopping cart. We're not going to do your midget. You'll make a shopping cart. Yeah, we're not going to do your midget. If I need a shopping cart, you can build one. Yeah, we're not going to do your midgeto installation.

We're here to like get you. Okay. We're going to build something big and weird. Okay. So shopping cart. Like a large real-time streaming digital media platform that can serve 100,000 people simultaneously. Are you doing that?

That sounds pretty good. That's the thing that actually is done that is part of this company. Do I know any, will I see it soon? Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to showing it to you. Is it part of a major media brand? It really is.

I can't wait to show it to you. Anyway, so that's what I'm doing. Actually, I love writing and I will continue to write, but I actually, in the last, and I I actually my number one thing to do right now It's finish a book that I'm under contract to finish What is code? It's a little like what is code? It's called the secret lies of web pages However, what I really I really miss doing client work. It's urgent for me to like get back in I need to build you do too You have to get stuff done. I got to build. I got to work for clients.

You can't just like write little scribbly things. No, I don't want to. Exactly. Unless it's related to differs. The hot new restaurant. Everybody's talking. We're going to do a great marketing campaign for this thing. Can you guys build the platform for differs?

Yeah, we can. That's interesting. You've come to me because what do you need it to do? Like I don't what don't I need it to do. So first of all, it's just ordering, getting the dippers. All right, I gotta get a hold of that. This is gonna be really bad. Matt, this is gonna be really, really bad because dippers, for somebody who isn't like that,

we gotta wrap up. Thank you for joining me. Great to be here. Thank you for doing what is code, it's amazing. And please, I think this goes without saying, but please come back. I love our conversation. I have more of these conversations. So much.

So do I. Well, that is the show for this week. My thanks again to Paul Ford, who is a wonderful, wonderful man. And of course, we'll be back next week. And I was you and your family the very best. Although I had a phone conversation with someone last night. And the things they described to me about what

is going to happen to your family sound very dire indeed. So, I hope that all works. you