From the Macintosh to the Vision Pro — and beyond
01:12:31 Share

Looking into the verdict, the flexures podcast of really, really old computers, i'm friend David piers, and I am currently sitting in my car front of my house. I've developed this morning routine over the last few weeks when it's spent like bitterly cold and snowy and ice on the east coast, the us.

Relative where, instead of coming out and being a proactive person who, you know, scratches off my windshield and dust off all the snow and gets everything ready and just gets going for the day, I instead come out, turn on the car, put all the heat up to full blast, and then just sit here for like fifteen minutes until everything you know melts and goes away on a zone, and then i'm safe to drive while i'm waiting. I listen to podcasts, I drink coffee, I catch up on email. I like to convince myself that this is like a meditation thing I do to really get ready for the day, and not just a thing that I do because i'm too lazy and too annoying about my hands being called to actually just get the car and get IT ready.

Listen, it's not a great strategy, but it's working for me and hopefully it's not going to be this called much longer. So go on with that. Anyway, we have an awesome show coming up free today. We're onna talk about the fifth anniversary of the original macintosh, which launched to this week in one thousand nine hundred eighty four. We're going to talk to what musburger, who has all the stories you could possibly imagine about that computer, and what happened in the interm forty years.

Then we're going to talk to ali abdo, who is an influencer and creator, and yo tube, or that you might have heard of about a booky route about what that means to be a productive person in the world. We're right at the time of the year where everybody fails on their near's resolutions. And I thought IT would be a fun time to talk about how to do Better and whether specifically, all of the digital tools we have can help us do Better.

All of that is coming up in just a second. But first, I think the snow is finally going, so I have to run the store and then we're going to get to IT. This is the verge guest.

See sec support for the cast comes from strike. Strike is a payment and billing platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like uber, B, M W and door dash. Stripe has help countless startups and establish companies alike reach their growth goals, make progress on their emissions and reach more customers globally.

The platform offers a sweet specialized features and tools to fast track growth like stripe billing, which makes IT easy to handle subscription based charges in voices and all reoccurring revenue management needs. You can learn how stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at stripe, that com, that striped our com to learn more, strike, make progress. Support for the show comes from service.

Now the A I platform for business transformation. You've heard the big hype around A I, and the truth is A I is only as powerful as the platform is built into service. Now is the platform that puts AI to work for people across your business, removing friction and frustration employees, super charging productivity for developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agent to make customers happier, all built into a single platform you can use right now. And that's why the world works with service now is a service now outcome flash A I for people to learn more.

Welcome back. I'm defrosted cars to thrust ted the using further custom but require before we get started, we're working on an upcoming segment about boss where which is the software that employers use to monitor and evaluate their employees. That software is getting more powerful and more invasive all the time.

You have software sweets that are logging keystrokes and taking screen shots, they're calculating active and inactive time, and they can even spire on you with your devices. webcam. We're looking for a people with first hand experience with boswell.

So if that you get in touch, we wants to know how you're being tracked and how IT affects your data day workless. Also, we wanted know all of the ways you found to creatively, let's say, work around boss, where we want to hear all your tips and tricks. You can email verge cast at the verge dot com or call the hotline in eight, six, six verge.

One one will keep you anonymous if you want. But we want to hear all of your stories all right today. First up, forty years ago this week.

In fact, forty years ago today, if you're listening to this on wednesday, generally twenty fourth, apple launched the original macintosh. IT was a big deal, in part because apple launched IT alongside one of the most epic ads of all time. Do you remember the one with the woman hurling the hammer at the big screen, shattering IT? And then you have a message about big brother .

in one thousand and eighty four. Jane, twenty four apple computer will introduce mm sh, and you'll see why nineteen eighty four won't be like nineteen eighty four .

apple s in a big way. And as IT turns out, deserved. So here's Steve jobs introducing the macintosh at the meeting of the boston society.

What we need now is the third industry milestone product, and that's what maintain is all about. We've been working on this thing for over two years now, and those of us have been really close to IT will all tell you IT is insanely great and you'll have a chance to see a little bit more of IT later on tonight .

you can find that whole launched on youtube. By the way, i'll put the link in the showers. It's create super fund to watch forty years later. And forty years later, I think it's safe to say jobs was mostly right. The macintosh was a game changer, and its legacy is actually everywhere in the computers that we use now. So we figured on this anniversary, we've go back in history a bit and talk about what the macintosh meant forty years ago and what that means now and who Better to do with than what musburger former verge executive eda, longer wall street journal technical st, and probably the person with the most impressive gadget collection you'll ever see anywhere. Well, mark, welcome back to the verge cast.

Always love to be here, David.

We're happy to have you. So our occasion this times the forty anniversary of the macintosh and one of the reasons i'm very excited talk to you about IT is obviously youth sort of seen this thing through its whole history. But also the macintosh came out, if i'm doing my math correctly, six or seven years before you became a tech com st.

Math, right? You were a computer hobbies at the time, so it's not like you were not aware of the macintosh in eighty four, right? What was your experience of that launch? then?

While I was, I was a crazed computer hobby, and I was really all all I did outside of work. Now at the time, I was covering washington for the wall street journal, washington bureaux. My first counter with the mac was as a customer, but I was little confusing.

I mean, I bought a mac, not the first one, uh, either the second, third one. And I can't remember. I loved IT like any leading edge person. I thought IT was genius, partly because IT shipped with capabilities that on an apple two or a wl. PC, you had to buy cards and put them in to get these things in the mac had not every one of them, all the guy don't think I had a modem, but IT had sound that was really good, sound that had a bunch of other stuff.

The thing about the mac, I I was going back and trying to think, okay, like we sort of understand the legacy of IT now, as IT was the first computer that, you know to use an appalling m just worked. IT was the first thing you could sort of sit down and intuitively use, which computers had just not been before. Well, that's right.

But i'm particularly curse for your perspective. In nineteen eighty four, did IT feel like that because part of me thinks about a lot of what we do with new technology is unlearn old bad habits. And IT actually feels bad, like this thing we're doing with google surface now, right, where we all learned how to sort of type the keywords to get what we wanted.

And now it's like, oh, we have these Better tools. Just ask a like a person and that actually feels strange even though it's an objectively Better behavior. But I wonder coming from something like an apple to e, which you would learn how to use and get very good at. And it's like learning an instrument coming to macintosh even if IT is sort of Better, there's got to be a weird phase of like, what do you mean I click on this icon to open the thing.

The weird face for me maybe lasted forty eight hours. So IT was very easy to make the transition. And the reason was, although I was very proficient in apple dos or whatever that I think pro doss, whatever they called IT, he was dos IT was like dos from microsoft or using lotus one two three. And you had to learn a ton of commands and syntax. And if you got if you just type one letter, you were screwed .

and you are writing code in in a very real way.

You were. And, you know, I became proficient at that. But even before I started my column, which was in nineteen ninety one, and which was all dedicated to the proposition that computers were too hard to use and everything had to get easier even before that, that's how I felt that that blend into my decision to try to vince successfully convince the austery journal. Let me to a computer column.

Will even in that first column, if I remember correctly, you mention the macintosh as an example of kind of how to do this Better.

I don't remember that, but it's possible. I will tell you that in one of my many, many meetings with bill gates, he said to me, this is some years later, he said to me, muster, won't you just headline every one of your columns by a mac? I swear to god.

And with Steve jobs, whatever I said about the mac, even if I was know, a rave review in my eyes was never good enough for him, 是 because I would point out some downside， a bitter whatever, even if I said, this is the one to buy. But please be aware of these five downsides, he would call me up and complain that I put any downside. So most of the two polls I had, which I figured.

if you've ve got them both matter, you you're probably doing .

something right, probably doing something right. yeah. So as a harvest and a customer, I thought the mac was vast, the superior. I also owned a dos machine at the time. I had all these computers that I couldn't afford, but I just fell love with the graphical user in your face and and the mac. So it's fair to say that apple helped invent the personal computer.

IT was one of three companies that in one hundred and seventy seven, brought out a sort of mass market personal computer where you didn't have to be an engineer to use IT, although really you had to be a techy and, you know, radio shack and computer with the others. But the apple two, sort of once a got this visit, kalk IT became the thing that people wanted more than the others. So they helped invent the personal computer, and then they, with the map, they completely change seven years later, the way the personal computer is used to.

This day, I don't know of another computer this forty years old. I mean, in semantics, right? There's been a million different max. So you can say the imac that i'm talking you on is a stand alone computer by itself and shouldn't be counted in the forty year run, but it's all just international of the mac. And forty years is sort of incredible.

I do think it's true that you can draw an unusually straight line from that first mac to the current crop of max. Even just what the thing looks like I was enjoy going back and looking at you look at early versions of like microsoft, word and excel in some of these things that have really endorsed over time and in a surprising number of cases is amazing how little changes.

And part of that is like there's there's one way to look at that, that is like maybe a failure of imagination to keep trying and you get a thing that works and then it's it's hard to fight success. But also a lot of these things just got a lot of things right the first time. And I think the mac was one of those things that the basic sort of tenants of the G I.

Just worth there. And I think they were right and and everyone has tried. We've seen some people try and sort of reinvent that wheel over and over over time. And for the most part, nothing has been Better than that.

Well, I think that's right. And just a not a sound like an apple fan boy, but I mean, I think the iphone was the same way that obviously didn't have the same interface them back. But the iphone touch interface and the you know the scrolling in the different things they had are all on android.

And and you know they have barred back some things from android, largely. What apple set down for the iphone is the way all phones are working. What apple sit down for the mac is the way all computer, all computers, pcs.

work. But IT wasn't that. I didn't have flaws. IT cost way too much. I was just got ask.

what color is what would have said about IT in nineteen twenty? And i'm guessing Price .

where you started. I won't said that they got this revolutionary U I or U X correct, but IT was out of range for most people and IT was outrageous. And I will tell you that when many years later, two thousand and seven, we had famously, as you know, character and I had gates and jobs on stage together and join interview.

And part of that interview was telling the story of the mac. One of the things that gates said in that during interview, jobs were going back. And fourth, Carol, I we're going back and forth with them, gates said, you came to me and you said.

This is gonna A, A cheap customer Price machine. But boys going to do this and that. And when you delivered the machine, I was very excited because the machine really look good.

And H, I really wanted to our apps to work on that. But every time we had a meeting, the Price went up and the Price went up and the Price went up. And you know, IT sounds like microsoft sold its big apps at or or windows itself, a bargain basement Price should they couldn't be with apple on over charging.

I mean, as we are making this a podcast, the apple vision prois coming out at thirty five hundred dollars, yes, and we all know that's gonna come down in Price and middle maybe losing features or whatever. And that's gonna sell very many at thirty five hundred dollars, but that's what they did and that's what they did with the mac. I think IT was partly because Steve jobs was a perfectionist. His idea of what was a customer friendly Price wasn't really a customer friendly Price.

Yeah I I agree that there is definitely IT more on the um we're going to make a good thing and you pay for IT, which is turned out to work prety well for them over time. I would why do you think the mac name has stuck around this long? I I was just looking back over and you know we've had several OS.

Steve jobs left, Steve jobs came back. The devices themselves have changed. There been a million new things. And it's like the only constant at apple for forty years is that something is called the mac.

Yes, originally they use the full name macintosh. And I don't know how many years that lasted, but everybody just call them a mac. Anyway, everybody who bought IT to referred to IT or wrote about IT call them a mac.

Even back then, like you would be hanging out with your hobby friends.

look at a yeah OK. Nobody said, I mean, now maybe for the first six months, people said mac and to. And then everybody started calling on a mac. And so then an apple called in a american.

I don't know when the first of, well, probably during jobs as exile, when there was a parade of horribly and component ceos and product managers and no real of uh, improvement in the mac, they might have started calling at the mac then they certainly started calling at the mac with the imac, which came out in one thousand and eighty eight. That was jobs in his second coming. But when jobs came back to apple, he started calling my house and maybe some other journalists, some I going to see IT was only me, and we'd have these hon a half conversations.

And we talk a lot about the mac and he and about apples, the company and so forth. But when I I I never figured I went to meet with him around that time around, not long after he took over, and he said that he was horrified when he got there to fight out how many mac models there were. This shouldn't have have they were like quadra and performers, and I can't member the other names, but I think most amended with an a for some reason, they were just different mac names and IT was very hard for consumers to figure out the difference between them.

And they have different their different sales teams. They are different P. R campaigns.

IT was just ridiculous. They all still were too expensive. They all still were Better than when til computers, I thought. But they were getting worse because it's getting more complicated. Oh.

that was when apple was started to license the idea out to let other companies make macintoshes.

That was the other thing. He was furious. He was fucking furious. He said to me, I can't believe they license the O. S. And went to a whole discourse about how you have to make a choice.

You can be a company that licenses, like we now know, google licenses android, or you could be a company that does vertical integration and sells the whole thing. And he like to say the whole banana, that was his phrase, but you can do both really successfully. So he cancelled all those licenses, and then he did for me.

What I think he did for many people was he turned to the White board in the room we were in, at which I think was his conference room. And he drew a four square with a marker, and he, and one was called consumer, and one was called pro. And in the upper left time box, he wrote consumer desktop.

And underneath that you were consumer laptop. And the Operate hand boxy wrote pro desktop and pro laptop. Person, that's all I want. That's all i'm gonna. Which was true for quite a while now.

I think less true now.

less true now. Can I tell you just another random anio .

about please go.

okay. So he comes in, he saves the company, he saves the mac. I mean, the imac was genuinely another revolutionary step. Yeah, revolutionary because IT had every capability you wanted in IT.

Part of what I think is something about that is there are kind of those two distinct errors of the mac, right? And I think I think the imac launch is a perfect sort of middle moment of the story because without IT, like not only what apple maybe have died, the mac would have maybe gonna way too. But then that was like save jobs coming back in and and sort of reaching back to one hundred and forum being like, no, this is I am going to redraw the line back to that thing from this due device that we're making, uh, which is kind of just from a like business leader perspective, sort of remarkable in retrospect. And then from there IT just IT has continued on in that same way for a really long time.

Well, I would call the first time mac the funny, rounded one that you could IT was either translation or in one case, transparent, had all these colors. I love that thing. You're right that you could think of.

IT is the middle, but I would call IT the second, the true second generation of the map. I mean, the mac had a number of smaller generations like I mention at one point, they put a hard disk in IT and then they branched IT out until all these crazy models. But the imac was really here's with the mac is now given the internet, given nineteen ninety eight, whatever you know yeah and you know, they did rip mix burn. They did all billboards that said that they did all those things. But then they did the after the I acted the eye book, which was also very colorful, but IT was shaped, has many people noted like a toilet seat.

You're not wrong.

My boy got one and just loved IT. SHE did not get doctor windows SHE had a windows machine SHE struggled with IT SHE refused to buy a laptop because you wanna struggle with that. And then I convicted by this eyes book. And SHE didn't want to give IT up even when I was long past its sell by date. I mean, you know, he just didn't want to give IT up.

So i'm hearing you said that i'm struck by how experimental all of that stuff was. There was such a long time where apple just tried so many things, and some of them were great and some of them were super weird. And I mean, especially in the imac line, like, good god, they tried to every imaginable shape of computer you could make there.

For a while, I felt like, hey, the cube was beautiful.

beautiful IT was everybody felt for the .

cube until crack and until you figured out that you were getting an underpowered puter for a grossly high Price.

But he was beautiful. I'll give you you that. But IT seems like now there's just much less of that. And on the one hand, I I actually think max, in general, they're obviously Better than ever, but I think even comparatively Better than ever, like we're the point now where the macbook is so dramatically Better than anything you can buy for windows right now. And i'm going to get a bunch of angry emails for saying that, but I think it's true.

And yet, IT feels like we've spent the last decade or so on this phase of just sort of gentle refinement of a bunch of ideas, right? And even the new self, like a max studio, is just a slightly different sized box for a thing that are existed. Are we just done with the experimenting phase? Like is the next forty years of mac, forty years of gentle refinement?

Well, couple of things about that.

This is a lead into a question about the vision problem. By the way.

we're going to get there to one is apples no longer LED by a protocol. No one we're LED by a product guy is a lot of good things about tim cook. I personally like tim cook.

I've met with him not as much as I met with jobs over the years, but I have had someone on once with him. He said, smart guy. And he's obviously on the financial side.

I mean, the company has never done Better, Steve, in maybe forty hours of meetings, will Steve jobs. He never mentioned the stock. He never, and by the way, he boycotted all the analysts quarterly, no calls. He never .

appeared interest.

With one exception. They had a scandal one year. He considered a fake scandal, but he was called.

and I S iphone out.

If you grab certain, you attenuated the signal .

you're holding IT wrong scandal.

And so he made rubber bumpers, and you can get one for free and all that. And for that quarter, he appeared on the analyst, all but otherwise he didn't. So time is kind of interested. Nap and Operations, which was his job. He was handpicked by Steve as his successor, but he wasn't a product guy.

And this leads me to tell he was a story when you talk about the mac stagnating even after Steve came back and got rid of all the extra models in the licensing and all that they're biggest seller. And in my opinion, I written this many times. I'll be happy to say IT right here so I can share the hate mall with you.

The macbook care was the best laptop ever made, at least starting with the two thousand and ten redesign, the one that he introduced by pulling IT out of an envelope. The original one was fabulous. Ly, then nobody could believe a computer that then, but IT was IT had some performance issues.

Yeah, another one in that vein of spectacular idea, overPriced and kind of .

underpowered. But I did well enough that they invested in, in twenty ten. They made the one we're all familiar with until very recently with the taper edge.

So I wrote four, five times over twenty years. I wrote this is the best laptop ever built. The fact is IT was their best selling product.

There were some years where I was the best selling PC individual model PC. Obviously, they never outsold when the windows pcs, but individual model of PC was the best seller. And for twenty years, the windows guys tried to chase IT and then they got crazy, right? They start.

Trying once that would fall and become a tablet. And there was always like an ancient APP thick and all this crazy stuff. I once on stage at the very first d conference was two thousand three. So two years after the ipod came out, I was just an interview I had with, I don't think carer was there, just me and jobs and I think, you know, you ve done all the stuff. You've invented the the imac and you're still at five or seven percent or whatever was of the market yeah I said, how are you ever gone to move the middle on that? He said, well, we're moving the need a little bit by little bit.

But he said, we're never gonna outsell windows in computers buddy said, I love the ipod and I said, why? Said, because i'm really tired of being five percent of the market and the ipod was like eighty five percent of the market or seventy pie, whatever, at this time so he that revealed ed to me that he really bothered him, that his baby, his invention, the mac, he can blame all the what he called the boss s who were there when he was loved doing another failed company. Next, he could blame all of them. That was a twill beer gap. But nevertheless, the mac just just never, never made IT.

And yeah, in some ways it's it's now more successful than IT ever has been.

Oh, adapt absolutely is it's very successful.

There's seemingly real runway on this idea left I think is kind of wild and is really the most remarkable thing about them back to me is that IT doesn't feel like an old idea even though at this point in tickets are really the old idea.

Ah well they really just redesign the macbook care yeah radically i'm not sure I like IT. I I like the other one Better. Yeah but i've just tell you one more story before you get to the vision pro.

Tim is a guy who knows what he doesn't know. He knew he was in a product guy, so he he gave even more power to john y, i've the great designer. He eventually he came software, not just hardware.

He came everything. And here's the difference. Johnnie was a great designer, and he has sure had some great designers under him.

They probably still have a great design shot. Steve jobs was his editor. Steve jobs would pull him away from his crazier instincts.

Steve jobs were saying no to some things and yes to other things. Tim cook didn't do that. I don't think does that to this day, because he knows what he doesn't know. And john y, i've decided I can have no proof for what i'm saying, except I have a very high level source who told me this story. That's my it's a one source story.

This is good, good journalistic rigorous on your party.

No, I make IT clear to you, it's not full journalist brigden. But this person really knew really super new the products what he said was after cooked had given john y all is power. And john y no longer had an editor who went to lunch with them every day, which was what jobs stood.

He decided they didn't need to be an air and approve. He decided he could do the pro and make IT as light and as thin or thinner than the macbook care. And IT would be a higher Price machine.

So that would be Better for their bottom line. And people would buy IT even if they didn't need the extra power IT gave. And so you could have one laptop that would do everything. And you might say, well, that kind of even jobs in his force where a thing had two laptops, a consumer and approved Johnson wanted have one laptop. And there was a big war between the design team and its accolades.

Ts, another was the Johnny valid team and the engineering and product manager side of the company, which desperately wanted new, improve versions of the air, because the air was the their best selling product, probably the best selling laptop in the world. The thing everyone was chasing, and they did not want to leave IT on a hill to die, but that's what they thought was happening. And this battle kept up for a while. And finally, the product guys and the engineers managed to the anke back and they brought out a new macbook care with very minimal changes. But IT was a new model and had, I think, more storage faster, you know, whatever.

basically like a spec bump .

of a laptop, correct? And I remember that they introduced at the local academy, music and source of mine pulled me aside and said, we finally, and then IT was the first, I think that was the first machine, or one of the first machines, to get apple silicon. So I still have still have an m one macbook air. You being a professional computer writer, probably have an m3 pro or something。

But believe IT or not, as a testament to how good this stuff has been, i'm still very happily on an mone mac poca. I upgraded basically every minute I could new computers until I got to apple silicon. And i've been happy with the m one for but three years now. Yeah.

me too. Well, good. Good for you. yeah.

But what I really wanted know is you very famously bought two macbook airs before all of the macbook are stuff. Got weird with the butterfly keyboards and all the nonsense they were doing to those computers on the idea that, you know, when my computer runs out, I still have one that I like, right? Have you been able to safely get rid of the backup macbook here? Has apple one new back with apple silicon that now you can buy the .

new ones and set the backup macbook? Care to my wife? ShaGreen is still I thinking the basement rated plastic in the box in the plastic thing.

just, just in case.

But I love my m one. Macbook care is what I use of time. When I, when i'm using a mac or any computer, i'll be onus with you. I probably do seventy five percent of my computer on an ipad or an iphone now. But when I need to use a computer, like right now, this is an imac, it's an m one imac and it's it's fine and the macbook care is fine. And these are max, and the mac has been Better than fine for its whole life.

So okay, before I let you go here, let's talk about the vision proof just for a minute. Because the big question now is, like, is this the beginning of a new forty years cycle? We are you and I onna podcast in twenty sixty four about how incredible the moment that the vision process out was and how the world will never be the same.

There are some things that there's a new interface idea. There's a thing that is probably overPriced and underpowered, but seems to have some interesting ideas. What do you think about where we are .

a division process now? Well, I think they think that you're right that this would be like a new mac or a new iphone and less. I know how long the iphone of last, but seventeen years for phone seems like a long time.

So yeah.

that's what I think they think they're in bork done and they're very realistic. They knew they know this. We don't have the numbers yet, but they know that this one is going to sell less than a million in its first year and all that.

They expect millions of people to go out and buy thirty five hundred dollar thing with you with a battery the last two hours. And this separate from the device, and, you know, all the other things. On the other hand, they think what they like to call spatial computing is a real thing and has a lot of potential, even though every major possible developer has refused to build something for IT.

That was actually true on the mac to, by the way, microsoft and adobe were the only ones to build anything for IT and then apples in our stuff at the beginning. So I think that's what they think. What do I think? I think IT depends on how smart and fast they are at getting the Price down without too much sacrifice and features, and also at getting the size of IT down.

And those two things may not run in tana. There may be a cheaper version of what we have now. This big thing you were in your face with very poor battery life.

And at the same time, maybe years later, they'll start start to shrink the size bit until eventually they're in their dreams. And this is their dreams. I know, I know for a hundred percent fact.

And this is tim cooks stream that IT gets to be these IT gets to be like this. Don't ask me how you can act a battery and all that power into this. There's no cord going down and all that.

But electricity still can't be Carried over. White fire, blue tooth and all that. I think that's their ultimate goal.

I don't know they can ever reach that goal, but IT also could be the society kind of gets used to things out to being worn in your face as long as are not as huge as this. And they may be able to go half the size of this and be OK. I don't know. I certainly would not be willing to say it's a forty year product.

but you're not ruling out that they're onto something.

I don't think it's a one year product because they have a lot of money and they already have a road map. It's more than a road thorn designing the next one to be less money. They have a road map for the next three after that.

So could be a if it's a failure, IT could be a four or five year, three or four year product if it's not a failure and they're selling applausive amount, the margin is good and all of that, they're not losing money on IT. They're never break out sales. And i'm sure unless a miracle happens and they .

sell a little in.

then there will be a press release at one hundred percent, there will be a press release and the stock will shoot up. But you know, this is a new area. Meta is involved in IT in certain ways.

You know, it's worth watching. You guys have covered IT very well. My impression so far from everybody, including the I in the first look is technically its genius. They've technically done a genius job. But in terms of the Price and the overall design is not something people wanted buy.

I think you're right. And I think again, thinking about like a the forty year legacy of of something like the mac, I think the iphone is sort of a clear before and after a moment, right? I think the the day the iphone came out there is the thing that happened. And so this is IT.

If they still have to cut the Price sonic by one hundred box?

sure. I know I totally think that's right. That was another example of right kind of overPrice and underpowered. But IT was obvious. There was something .

there obvious, instantly obvious.

This one is a little less obvious. And so I think the question of the next couple of years, I think you're right that evaluating the idea of the vision pro on this object is actually not the right way to think about IT. I'm trying to think about sort of the five year run before we see the five year run, if that makes sense.

And I I think it's there are reasons to think we might look back on this as the beginning of something cool, overPrice and underpowered on the right track. But at least to me, IT doesn't scream this is the right idea to me. The way the iphone did.

I may look the iphone h and the mac actually both had to have Price reductions. And in the case of the iphone, we will all remember that, you know, IT started out without copy and paste, started out with a bunch of stuff that was was missing. So IT might have been the third version of the iphone or the one when they got off edge, which I think was the, was the three G.

S. In some ways that was the first full fledge I found. And you know, then, and the hockey stick began so art chart just yesterday, but I was like an apple chart. IT was, IT was not from apple, but IT was like an apple chart in that IT didn't have very many numbers for the x and y access.

just had lives going on, couldn't really talk every night.

IT was a color chart. You know, it's said yellow was the mac and Green is everything else I don't know. But so theyve about tripled what their share was early.

And I assume, I mean, it's if the mac was taken out of apple, I think it's a thirty billion dollar business. And I write something like that. That sounds if I was taken out of apple, IT would be a 4 and five hundred company all by itself。 Same is true, of course, of the iphone. But the mac, which was long considered, you know, like almost dying and IT was the last thing and all that. IT would be a fortunate pipe on our company.

Yeah, not bad for being forty years .

old and not bad for being forty years old.

right? Well, i'm putting twenty sixty four on the calendar for a forty years vision pro retrospect. And between now and then, we're going to have to have a lots of reasons to have you back on.

Thank you for the super. I'd love to do IT.

Alright, we going to take a break and then we're going to come back and talk about getting things done, being productive, being a person on the internet and why over thinking your productivity system might not be such a good idea will be right back. Support for this show comes from the aclu. The acl u knows exactly what threats a second Donald trump term presents, and they are ready with a battle tested playback.

The aclu took a legal action against the first trumpet administration four hundred and thirty four times, and they will do IT again to protect immigrants rights, defend reproductive freedom, safeguard free speech in fight for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms. Join the aclu today to help stop the extreme project twenty twenty five agenda. Learn more at aclu dot org.

Support for the show comes from crucible moments, a podcast from scope capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences. No one knows this Better than the founders of some of today's most influential. In crucial moments.

let's listeners in on the maker break events that defined major companies .

like dropbox, youtube, Robinson od and more told by the founders themselves. Tune into season two of crucial moments. Today, you can listen a crucible moments stop com or relisting podcasts.

When IT comes to S M B marketing, reaching the right small and medium size businesses can be chAllenging into IT. S M B media labs gives you the power to do more by connecting with the small businesses that need you most with access to an audience of thirty six million, you can target effectively and at scale.

By leveraging insight from small business audiences, you can target businesses by industry size, maturity, location and more, and drive growth across new and existing channels like social, programmatic and C. T. V. Spend wisely and do more with audiences. Taylor, to your business, learn more and media labs into IT not come.

All right, we're back. If you've been the thing to this show for a while, or if you subscribe to my newsletter called installed shameless self promotion, you know, i'm like, wait over my head deep into productivity software. I've used all the to do apps, all the note apps, all the calendars, everything imaginable that claims it'll help me get more done and make my life Better. And you can't spend much time in that corner of the internet without encountering this guy.

Full name ally of, though, and I guess, doctor turned entrepreneurs. Author R I don't know.

maybe that ali is right. He does do a lot of things. His youtube channel is how I discovered him, and i'm a big fan.

Friends, welcome back to the channel in this video. I want to talk through seven habits that I try my best to do every day, and that save me around three hours every single day.

Most recently, ali wrote a book called feel good productivity, how to do more of what matters to you. The book came out just this week, and it's great. And you should totally buy IT and read IT.

But IT is not at all what I expected. I expected the book to be all about cool tools and sick hacks and tips and tricks and systems for how to get more stuff done. After all, this is the guy who makes videos about his super complicated calendar system and the six A I tools he uses to increase productivity and how to build your ultimate productivity system.

He's done that kind of video a few times and always game starch numbers and in fact, feel good. Productivity is almost the opposite of that. It's kind of a book about what makes us human as much as IT is, about how to be productive.

And I got really curious about that combination of things and whether all the tools and absent systems are even solving the rate problems for us. I also figured this was a good time where three weeks in the january is the beginning of a new year. This is, I think, statistically right about the time most people ditched their new year's resolutions.

So IT seems like a fun time to talk about what that means to actually be productive and what IT really takes. So I asked only to come on and tell me about writing the book, his productivity journey and a whole bunch more. We started with one of the book's recurring themes, which is, ironically, the book itself. One of things I like about the book is how much time in the book you spend talking about. The process of in the book, which is delightfully like meta thing to do in a productivity book, is like you could have kind of written the whole book about writing the whole book. And I still would sort of track, but I could feel IT in the process of reading the book that I was like, you took this thing seriously in a pretty unusual way that I was like, I want to make a thing that last in a way that I think we're just not incentivize to do that on the internet .

most of the time. No, exactly. Like everything on the internet is very, is very femoral. yeah. Throughout the whole process I was like, I I want to take this seriously, but not too seriously to the point that becomes paralyzing.

but sincerely enough in A I, T. I like that very much. So part of the is I want to talk to you about this is, I feel like if I were to, like, boiled the central thesis of your book down, is that an underrated way to be productive? Is to make things more fun. There's a lot more to IT. That's obviously like a massive generalization of what is in, but I think that's like not a totally .

wrong take away from the work that and the title initially was called make IT fun yeah OK or like fun productive as unproductive fun productive is like we played around with so many different titles. Eventually we kind of realized that the word fund doesn't quite capture IT. And really like a lot of the signs around IT was the idea of feeling good and positive emotions. And positive emotions is not necessarily the same as fun, but to be onest, it's close enough that I kind of equate them. And the way I think of that is if you be produce anything making more fun and you will probably more productive at the thing and you'll also be happier along the way, which is win.

win around totally. So the thing that kept jumping out to me as I was reading that is so much of IT is about framing and mindset, and kind of the way that you talk to yourself in, the way that you talk to other other people in the way that you approach things in the process, rather than kind of obsessing over, just like raw data, of how much you accomplish as sort of the end in itself, which intellectually to me, makes total sense, right? Like I believe every word in the book and IT feels right.

And yet I am a person who has spent an alarming amount of my life like testing productivity tools, believing that I will find the right productivity tool that will solve all of my problems and magically work. And I kind of got to the end of your book and was like, the correct tansor here is to throw all of my technology into the ocean and rethink the way that I do everything. And you're also a guy who has spent on an alarming amount of time testing productivity tools. So like square, square, those two things for me, those two sides of your brain solution.

So people have to like various hot tags on this. So some people are like, you know, the tool really matters because the tool facilitate the productivity. Some people are like, the tool doesn't matter a tl, because the tool is just a tool, and any tool will do, whether it's a notion or ever note or google keep or whatever.

The held ups sitting romans, my approach is always been that the tool that I will use is the one that feels good to use. This is why I still use notion, because notion have done an amazing job of making you feel good to use notion. The emerges, the font and the cover images between them make IT a delighted to use notion.

The reason I use things three as much to do this step is because the animations are delighted compared to to do this, which is just a bit more like to do IT as more features, teams and cross platform is all handy, but things are just so. And when we find the things that are nice to you, there's like people buy other products, they just nice, something nice about them. Like when for me, when and that feels good to use some more life, you to use IT and therefore like that will make me more productive totally. I don't if you found this to talk like what's you'll take on the sort of the design atheistic nicest of of .

something and I ve found that exactly one of the notes I went on reading the book was, I bet I loves people who design the hell out of their notion pages. H H, I think i'm right about that. But like, it's funny.

You mention things because it's one of those apps that is like objectively, not what I need just in terms of like how my brain works and how I sort of run my days. IT doesn't do IT. And yet every three months I tried to force my life into things again, because it's a lovely APP with really nice animations, never crashes.

IT makes total sense. All the icons are beautiful, like IT. IT feels really good. And so I try to make myself use IT, even though I know for sure it's never gna work. I just like, I want to use IT, and I think there's something to that. But I also think in this space is very hard for any digital tool to do the kind of thing that you're talking about early on.

Do you talk bunch about sort of making games out of everything? And it's like how do we how do we get of things? So we work through this whole phase on the internet, like how do we game ify everything? And sometimes that works and sometimes it's like disastrous because you try to game fy things that shouldn't be gay mixed and it's really ugly and and problems.

But I think also it's very hard for these digital tools to be wind song and fun and still useful. And so I think we've gotten to this point with so many things where we've like leaned into like ob city and is like pure utility. There's nothing delete ful about IT, but IT is like, holy god, if you want to get things done, will I help you get things done in a certain way? And I guess notions may be an interesting outlier there. And I wonder if that part of I have been so successful. But part of what I wonder is, like the principles that you talk about in this book, like can those exist in the kinds of like productivity apps and I spend too much time thinking about.

yeah, and I think some apps have tried IT like fabulous. Did you come across that habit tracker as no IT was like to do this, but you would like build different habits into IT was like you start off with a drink, my water first thing in the morning and then like to my morning routine. And that was so full on on the design and keep animations and stuff all the way.

But to the point that I was almost unusable because everything that took ages to be like a nice little delight for animation. So I don't know, like a notion is an exception and that they somehow crack them the but for other apps are really hard. A wonder list back in the day was quite delightful. And then, yeah, sort of died.

yeah. R I P wonder. This was a good example in books by gmail.

Was quite delighted. I died. Well.

that's to think right. And I think the path a lot of these end up on is and i've i'd love following to do list apps because they all go to the same thing where it's like everybody has sort of one thing, one idea or one mechanic or one sort of feature that makes them unusual. And then people start to use IT.

They say, well, but I also need this feature, and they need recurring tasks. And what if you account and integration? And I really want to note, and I do my things this way, I need a priority system.

And all of the second you just built this like awful vault on of an APP that does thing and is a mess in the same way that almost every other productivity APP is a mess. And then that's when I get to the point where i'm like, okay, I need out. This is too much.

This is making me feel bad. And like expanding my life, managing the system rather than actually accomplishing anything. And then I go find another APP and go through exactly the same process.

Yeah, this is like my life for the last. Ten years, every few months.

do you feel like writing this book has changed the way you think about all of that stuff? Icc, to you approach new productivity apps and stuff differently. I went back to your youtube channel and tried to see if I could pinpoint, like when you were working hard on the book based on how much you were talking about productivity tools.

And I feel like I can sort of invent in narrow there. But I am curious, like did you have that experience? Like do you find yourself switching less or Carrying less or trying new things less because you're like actually the tool matters a little less than maybe i've thought over the .

yeah I really comes that realization of the time that the tool is almost meaningless other than the fact that someone nice are to use than others. We're actually working on a sort of productivity course to read in twenty twenty four with like a community and a coaching program and that has involved diving into a bunch of researcher on like goal setting and things like that and a big goal for this course, which is why i'm thinking a lot about this stuff, is for IT to be platform magnetic c.

I've come up with a bit of be curious to take on this a little also a frame framework for productivity, which is which is not in the book but ah who cares about I talking about which sort of stands for its GPS goal plan system. That's what all the productivity boys down to have a goal that gives you a sort of destination to go towards, make a plan of how you're going to get there and then have a system that encourages you to actually follow the plan. And then you were just accordingly gold plant system GPS and have been kind of doing sort of informal productivity coaching for like friends and my team and stuff.

And IT always comes down to that. If if someone wants be more productive, we should have a goal, should have a plan, you should have a system. And if someone is struggling with their productivity, IT is almost always a problem with either the goal or the plan, all the system.

I'm trying to figure a way of like presenting that in the way in a way that does its not like do this in notion or do this in one or is like do this and whatever you want use to use, use pendant paper, use posted notes, use notion for all I care. The point is you have a goal, you have a plan on the system. There's no way you're not going to be productive.

The great chAllenge I have had with like capital p productivity, internet people over the years has been that I think everything you just said is absolutely true and makes for terrible content, which is the child, right? And I think I was anybody not that longer about why notion grew this huge community? And I think it's partially it's a very successful like because it's very good APP and also IT is a very fun thing to tinker with and make beautiful things with that you can share on the internet, right? Like notion allows for Better youtube videos than a text file and that has nothing to do with whether or not is a Better APP.

But IT IT is a Better thing to make content about. And I think so is really elaborate ate systems. So is, you know, coming up with things that you can sell courses about anything i'm as guilty of this is anybody like I spend a lot of time writing about uncovering apps that purport to solve everything when in reality, like I found myself sending a lot of people this blog post, I forget the guy who wrote IT, but he's like, my productivity system is a single text file. It's like I have a fifteen thousand word long text file that is just, I write down all the things I have to do that and then I do them and it's like our ship maybe it's that simple, but I I do wonder, like we're in this place now where trying to make, you know, quote, quote content about this stuff feels almost discontinuous if the goal is just nowhere are going and figure out how to get there like that. So much similar and so much less sort of visually compelling in a certainly I know .

you know one person who I ve really been reviving with his tough recently. Remember sei has been doing a whole new, new thing on youtube. He actually took my course on how do you youtube, and I connected with the team and stuff, and I was rushing on youtube.

But one thing that he's doing is he's doing just like long form conversations with the people who are struggling with their finances, and they're just like sharing the screen and going through their numbers. And it's all the same simple stuff like they don't spend more than you earn and like put stuff in investment accounts and like don't spend so much on a car payment for your truck that you can't afford. Basic stuff like that, that was in his book as a teacher to be rich.

But the something about washing him, coach a real couple through these problems and seeing how they deal with IT that i'm just hooked on this content even though I know exactly what the system is from the broken. I'm fairly familiar with personal finance. He just really cool watching him like coach people through IT.

And so i'm thinking, hum, maybe there's something there instead of you know, for me when when I think of the future of my content instead of IT being like, let me try and invent some new productivity system that looks good on a brick in huge video or like hate, they should get someone on a call and coached them through how to set goals, how to make a plan and how to build the system. And IT will converge on the same things. IT will converge on, figure out roughly, what do you want to do with your life? Turn IT into a few goals for the year.

Let's break them down. Let's put IT in the calendar, and let's review IT every now then. But actually, the process of doing that requires a lot of coaching for some people, needs the emotions get in the way, like fear gets in the way is like so much cool stuff. But I think the cool stuff is in the human emotion behind IT rather than in the how pretty as my notion page yeah and there's .

something too like I don't mean to delegate people who have pretty notion pages like there is something too like you said, if your prety notion page makes you use notion more like that a Victory, right? Like that is a thing that is successful. And my problem is the reason I which productivity up all the time, I discovered that is I just get bored with them.

And so i've actually come to take the inevitable switching. I'd literally just did this yesterday. I took all of my notes out of one APP and put them in another up, which is an unbelievable waste of time, like it's just such a bad use of time and energy.

But at every single time I, like the system, get a little different is essentially way to, like, look at all my notes again. I get to sort of move, suffer. I take some things out, I put some new things in and i've come to see that is like i'm switching apps, but also sort of reviewing everything that I have and whatever IT takes to get there is a win.

But I I think that's right that the all of this is in some ways simpler er and in some ways more complex than IT is made out to be. And and it's an interesting thing for you as a person who people like look to for advice to be like here are ways you can do this, but ultimately, like this is about your feelings is this a very funny kind of line to have to walk as someone who is trying to guide people, especially for you, like a mass audience of millions of people through that process? Yeah, you're like an internet therapist in a lot of ways. I know exactly .

like I I genuinely never thought the conclusion for any of this would be. It's about your feelings. But the three years of researchers around the book made me really realized our crap IT really is just about the feelings. And if you can deal with the feelings, then honestly, productivity as simple as I write down what I need to do and then I do IT. It's just the feelings get in the way of that.

One of the things that you mentioned with the CEO coach and I think is is true about a bunch of stuff. Your book is how valuable a lot of this stuff is to do in person, whether it's like giving your feedback or the you talk about kind of the random x of kindness that you can do or receive and how meaningful that can be in productivity and all this self.

And I think my experience has spent that is sort of obviously true that a lot things that matter in our meaningful happen when you're in a room with somebody, but that's also just increasingly not the world we live in, like you I do in this pocket for thousands of miles away from each other. This is the world we live in. Can this stuff work in digital space? Like I keep coming back to the idea that like, agree with so many of the ideals in your book, and I think they run into what IT means to be a person in the world in twenty, twenty three and two and twenty four in these really complicated ways that can we get that stuff through digital tools? Yeah.

I think we can. Definitely some of IT. One of my favorite to do is to work in an environment where there are other people working, which is why right now I may ate, we work rather than in my hotel room, because I find a very depressing spoke in a hotel room.

But you know, during the pandemic, when all of these coworking spaces were closed, I found this writers group that would just meet on zoom four times a day for like an hour. And I was so nice is like, I think it's still going a london writing salon and it's a sick like like a zoom call with a few hundred writers. They spent five minutes at the start giving you a motivation quote.

Five minutes at the end, everyone's like posting in the chat what they accomplished. That genuinely is a feeling of community in being on a zoom cool with couple hundred people and like all working on the same general thing, I think that definitely works. I think similarly know our team has just gone remote because i've decided to travel the world previously, we were in person.

And so we've been trying to figure out, like, okay, how do we apply these principles of, like how do we make work feel good in a remote world, even like like simple stuff, like have a channel in slack now for like nice comments that we say to each other or nice comments that we post from people in. And emails that we get, and we didn't really have that before because we were in person. But now the fact there is a slack channel dedicated for pleasant trees and feedback and nice things, it's kind of cute. And we ve got this like matter up on slack that gives you pots and you can redeem them for a stock x gift card. And something about that is kind of nice.

Does that self work for you as a person?

I really does. Yeah, honestly, I love IT. I love that IT like I used to be skeptical of motivational quotes, and I used to be skeptical of affirmations and stuff.

But I think as i've gotten noder, I have realized the value of reminders, even something like back in the day when I had a computer monitor, I used to have a posted note. What would this look like if I were fun? This written on IT. And I think in the past I would have set of Scott that thinking, like, fuck like, how would that be helpful? That does actually really helpful. Reminder, if you ask yourself, what would this look like if I were fun so like I probably take a bit less serious ly because it's not that deep um I got any music in the background let me put on concerning hobby from all of the rings because I always like, no ask me up vibe well, haven't said her some someone in my team in a while and just go say hello and give middle message in a non weird way I haven't had a nice mesage to someone on the team today because you know as to see you I should do that something to do that and I was like, great now i'm getting back into my work but IT feels more fun so I have I love little reminds like that i'm a suck of em motivational quotes.

The part of the book that resonated with me the most actually was the part of the very beginning where you're like, like everybody talks about discipline and everybody talks about this idea that sometimes you don't want to do things and you should just do them anyway and that's all well and good, but also like, screw that, that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do like, sure, that's life.

What if there were fewer of those things? Like, that's what this work is about, not like that. Just like, thank you for that because there are so many and so much of the lake hostile l culture of the internet is like twenty four hours a day.

Just get IT done, no excuses, play like a chap and it's just like, I just boring and i'm tired and I don't want to me one yeah I think i'm guessing that was intentional because if you read all the productivity books that IT seems you have read, you've heard that message more times the most, which is just like, shut up, do the work and like, buy this supplement and you'll win. And I think that is a bleak world to live in. And I feel like your version of the world is significantly less break on purpose.

Yeah I think i've benefit a lot from you know as partly through the journey of having this youtube channel, I just happened to connect with loads of people who are like a really rich and really like sort of business successful like deca millionaire, hundred millionaire, i've met two billionaires and I love asking them for advice because I always like, okay, this is a cool cold ship.

I get to hang out with people who are like, wait further ahead of me in their careers and also stupid dy, rich and like, let me just asked them for life. And basically all of them sacrifice to their health and relationships and well being for the sake of growing their business. yep. And literally all of them regret doing that.

And there was like, bro, if there's one thing you do, trust me, like a recognized when enough is enough, don't sacrifice your family and your health and your well being for the sake growing your business is not actually gonna you happy even though you think IT will, to have some baLance? Man, wish I want to told me about this before. Have some baLance.

Do all the stuff. Enjoy the journey, the journey, the destination. The goal is not going to make you happy. The journey makes you happy. And I ve just been hearing that.

So i've been reading a book about IT, reading all stuff about IT, and hearing IT enough time from people. I think I really have absorbed IT into my heart. My whole thing these days is like, no achievement is actually going to make you happy. The thing is going to make you happy and feel content is having that dan's life, where you are enjoying the journey. So why not start now, rather when you hit some orbital income milestone or whatever the thing might be?

So in speaking of that, actually, one of the things you mentioned in the book that i've been inking about ever sense is this idea of like adding friction deliberately to your life. And is somebody, do you cover software? This is a thing I king a lot about, like, especially in this age of social media and stuff, right?

Like we spent a whole generation removing friction from everything. We made IT really easy connect to the people. We made IT really easy for people to track everything. We made IT really easy to do everything online. And we like kind of broke society in the process.

And now I the more people I talk to you, the more they are like, well, what if we made shopping a little harder? Like if what if shipping was slower? Like maybe, maybe that would suck, but also be Better. But I think we've had a point where that's really it's just hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube in that front.

And I think the people who do things like you described in the book, like by feature phones on purpose, are like there's a world in which they're like smart forward fingers and there's a world in which they're like border line insane people. I guess I wonder like for you as somebody who who is sort of writing about this foreign distance and trying to live IT yourself, do you have a good sense of the baLance there of, like we have so many tools that make IT easy to do so many things. Smart phones are so good for so many purposes. There's all these upsides to all these things like the friction the avoidance of friction that helped you get a giant audience is also the avoidance friction that is a problem for a lot of people trying to like successfully live their lives. Do you have a sense of kind of how to walk that line the right way?

Yeah, I think I strugling with this, like everyone else, the thing I think I was bring you back down to his intentionality. So I have no problems about spending time on social media. They also do IT for a job.

But one thing I found enormous ly helpful is just getting rid of all of social media apps from my home screen, because before I would just have swipe, swipe open on twitter and scroll and almost do that on autopilot out, even thinking about IT. Now the way opened up, twitter is I scrawled down on my phone. I type on twitter, I realized is not called twitter anymore, and I type in x and then I gone the thing.

And that's enough friction for me to be like, I have to intentionally decide to go on twitter, for me to actually on twitter, it's not just a click on my phone. The things that are looks on my phone are kindle audible ud size and day one, a new APP that I just got voice power, which is like voice, not for steroid and like my workout checker. So it's like the only things I have access to of my fingertips are things that I would like to spend more time on and that I think I are good for my body and my mind, my self, everything else I have to actively seek out.

And that is a good thing. That means, you know, I still watch youtube videos, but I watched them when I have decided I wanted to watch a youtube video. And I think one of the issues that so many people have is that, you know, if you're, for example, of drained of energy, you just find yourself scoring through tiktok, a integram mer, whatever. And when was the last time you go off a scrolling session and thought, wow, I feel so energy as I energies .

as a result of that never .

going for a walk or I don't know, playing the guitar is, you know, towards the end of the book. Like generally creative things or things that like help us flex are a sense of autonomy, all things that help us sort of separate from work. These are really the things that recharge or energy. And we all know that we don't do IT because it's it's too easy to look at the notification and like click on the thing the nower scrolling before yeah well.

that brings me back to you. I hate to keep helping on the light. Can we do any of this online stuff? But it's telling to me that like you, you had A A section in the book or like the two columns, right? Like the things I do when i'm tired and the things that are actually resorted.

And it's like the things you do when you're tired or look at screens and the things that are restoration are basically like don't look at screens, beauty and and to some exact I think maybe the answer is just what we need is more baLance. I think that's absolutely right. That like the touch grass joke on the internet is like it's right, right? We should all spend a lot less time looking at screens like that is objectively true.

But I also wonder in this like phase that we're in where like can we solve technology with more technology? Is there a sort of digital answer to this? And I think like I talk, a lot of people who do are on the ipad.

And that, I think, is like a perfectly valid resort of music screens, right? Like looking the screen. But IT is like a fundamental creative activity. I've been learning how to play guitar using an apple called musician. I think that counts. But I do wonder like I do have versions of those things that are there are there things you can do still looking at your phone or a puter or a screen of some kind that recharge you in that same way?

Yeah so I I know this just me, but one thing I love doing is listening to a load of the rings ambience type soundtracks on youtube OK while working, because I ve seen some research. The broken there seems to be this weird thing where hearing the sounds of nature has this weirdly energizing effect on us.

So you can obvious ly walking through nature is like the best, but you can even just list to bird sung or listen to like the sound of waves of something. And that happened into something in our brain on quite as what IT is, but IT seems to be quite energizing. And so people that put these like players together, like three, our long videos on youtube, where it's like Harry potter music or lord dering's music, but with the sounds of rain or the sounds of birds, I just love that it's so nice.

It's like anything becomes a more fun and more energizing when doing that sort of sound track in the background. So that's a way in which I try and recharged while also also looking at a screen. One thing someone should do, someone needs to make an APP that let you listen to podcast, but with background music, like with the some like meditation apps, like waking up by some Harris is like you can listen to the lectures with some background music and the background music makes you so much more emotional.

Ve pretty someone to make up, like listen to this podcast in the rainforest, like I would do that, I would listen .

to that rain forest or epic, like classical or whatever, like low, fine, make more engaging.

That's a problem. A I could solve, figure out how to score the the beat of of a podcast like that. I could do IT.

but that would be cool.

That's good day. I think we just start the company. This is .

exciting for I think we did.

All, ali, thank you again. Everybody buy alley's book, feel good productivity, how to do more of what matters. You great book, highly recommended. We have to take one more break. And then we're going to come back and answer a question on the bird cast off line will be right back.

Hey, italian, from decoder with the laptop. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buy? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in deciding not to acquire and instead license can hire away co founders? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month on deal with new life presented by strike.

You can listen to decoder whatever you get your podcast support for the verge cast comes from the home deep boo. Hey, it's almost the holidays. And whether you're planning to travel or host is always good to have that extra layer of safety and security to help ease your mind. And now with help from the home deepo, you can stay connected and protected with the convenience of smart home security products. The home depot offers a wide selection of products that afford you easy control and automation of your home with top smart home brands like ring, google, wise and more, from smart cameras with forecasts, surveilLance to doorbells that can be Operated from your smart phone.

The home deep boo has at all, whether you're an expert or new to smart home tech, the home depot can help you find what works for you and your home, visit the home debo online or in store, and purchase your smart home products to give some piece of mind this holiday season because smart home start at the home debo support for the show comes from service. Now the A I platform for business transformation, you've heard the big hype around A I. And the truth is A I is only as powerful as the platform is built into service.

Now is the platform that puts A I to work for people across your business, removing friction and frustration for your employees, super charging productivity for developers, providing intelligent tools for your service age to make customers happier, all built into a single platform you can use right now. And that's why the world works with service now. This is service now outcome. Splash A I for people to learn more.

Welcome back. Let's get to the hot line. As always, the number is eight, six, six, verge one one. And the email is verge cast at the verge dot. come.

We love all of your questions, and we try to answer at least one on the show every week. We have some fun things coming, and thank you to everybody who writes and calls. Is my favorite about forecast this week.

We have a question from england, from norway, which seems relevant to what we've been talking about today early. And is the email that says I need to get a new mac? My last one is from twenty fourteen.

IT is a macbook pro. But now i'm thinking of a mac mini to have at home and maybe later a macbook air for travel. Or should I just get a macbook pro again? I'm a hobby, I photographer and videographer, but mostly I use IT for presentations for my job as a teacher. So that's the question.

I have gone back and forth on this question a thousand times, both in my life dealing with my own set up and also, just in general, trying to think through the best way to use a computer. Basically, it's like, should you have a work station at home and then a thing you take with you, or should you just have one computer that you kind of dock in and out of various setups as you need IT. I will say personally, i'm in a one computer at home, in one computer on the road phase.

I'm actually on a mac mini right now as I record this and I have a macbook air that goes with me whatever I leave the house, which is increasingly rarely, but that's for another day. So I think for most people though, if this is what you're debating this specific thing, I think the answer is the macbook pro. And I went through, just to speak, IT out rock can and see what the cost be.

So you have a thirteen inch macbook air. Just the m two, two hundred and fifty six gives the base model macbook air for one thousand nine, nine, nine dollars. I desperately want to upgrade your RAM here for two hundred dollars more, but will leave me alone for now.

And then you have the eight gates, two fifty six gig S M to base model, make mini for five hundred ninety nine dollars. So you're at like seventeen hundred bucks all in between. These two, two machines, two great machines.

They do a pretty good job of talking to each other. One of the things you run the risk of with having two separate machines, you have stuff on one device that's another on the other device. But things like I cloud drive make that easier.

I personally am just religious about uploading stuff to google drive. So that is everywhere. It's a relatively easily solved problem, but IT is a thing that can again, or you can get a base fourteen inch m three macbook pro again, base model.

I want to spend two hundred a grade rim, but you can just get the stock base model for fifty and ninety nine. So for all intents and purposes, the Price is not that different, but it's a little bit cheaper to just get the pro. And I think that's the answer.

It's the newer computer. It's gonna last you longer. IT has the Better processor. IT has apple later stuff. I think the pro is probably the single most visual computer that apple makes.

The m one, even macbook air and especially the m two macbook air are going to be plenty for all of this sort of standard presentation stuff. But you'll notice the difference when you're doing things like editing photos and especially dealing with video. The speed increase you'll get on the pro is meaningful.

It's not gonna totally change your life, but IT is noticable. And then on top of that, the macbook pro gets just outrageous battery life. It's not super heavy.

It's noticeably heaven ier than the air, but it's not like onna way down your backpack in a super brutal way. And I think if the question is, should I get an error, should I get a pro? Most people, I would tell, to get just an error.

But if you're debating, do I get an air and then a mini, I think the pro actually over lapse. What's good about both of those computers in a pretty good way. So I think if I were in your position, I would just get a fourteen macbook pro check IT out as much as you can and planned for that thing to last you an awful ly long time.

You got ten years at your last maco pro. I wouldn't be surprised if you get just as long this one. So that's what I do.

But england, tell me what you decide and how IT goes. And also, if you have thoughts on this set up question, let me know. Call the hotline.

Send the emails. This is a thing I think a lot of people go through, and i'd love to know anything. All right, that is IT for the first cast today. Thanks to everybody who came on the show, and thank you, as always, for listening.

There's lot more on everything we talked about from the mac anniversary to productivity stuff all over the verge 点 com。 我 put the links in the show notes to only stuff and what stuff and everything else load the verse。 I cool like IT.

As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings or other. Old max, do you want to see if you can stop me with? You can always email us at verge, cast at the verge dot com, or call the hotline.

It's six six verge one one we love hearing from you. Send us all your thoughts and feelings and questions and ideas. We do how I question every week, and we're going to started to do even more of them.

So keep them coming. This show is produced by Andrew marino, lame James and wilpon. The verge cast is a verge production in part of the vox media podcast network. Nei alex, I will be back on friday to talk about fords weird new ideas about android, elan, musk and mr. Beast, what's going on in the streaming wars and a whole bunch of other stuff, we'll see then rocks and roll.

Support for this episode comes from A W S. A W S, generate A A I gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced cloud. Hey, italian, from decoder with the laptop, we spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What part are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you're listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license tech and high way co founders? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month. Decoder with the libertad presented by strike. You can listen to decoder whatever you get your podcast.