Good morning. And welcome to another edition of Stuck at Home with my friend Jason Freak. He's the co founder of Base Camp, and he's joining me from Chicago. Good at home right now.

I'm at home in Chicago. Yeah,

Yeah. How cold is it?

Uh, today's not so bad. It's like, 40. But yesterday was, like 70. So we had a taste of spring and summer yesterday. It was wonderful, but it's back to thirties and forties again.

Are you guys isolating in Chicago

now? Yeah. Yeah, we This state was pretty early. Um, not as early as California or has really? San Francisco says, didn't San Francisco do it first before California? Yeah. Yeah, our governor Pritzker was pretty good. And we've been kind of been locked down for about three weeks now. Um, so, yeah, it's been I mean, you know, you know what it's been

what's being the thing you've enjoyed the most of being locked up.

Hm. That's a really good question, because it's usually everyone. It would ask the opposite. Um, I think I've come to appreciate all the people in our life lives that are not around that help us. Um, And that level of appreciation. I don't think was there before. If I'm being honest, I mean, there was some of it, but not as much as I realized. Like, you know, we have Ah, nanny comes during the day.

She's not here. So my wife and I are taking care of our two kids, which is hard school. Um, cleaning service is all the things that we could kind of rely on and you pay for and things are taken care of, and you sort of assume that that just will go on and on, and then when those things go away, you realize how valuable they are. And I think that's a really good um, smack in the face and a good reminder that Ah, a lot of people make things go around and, um, everyone is really important. So that's that's been a thing. And then also, um,

um, getting back into cooking has been really nice, So we've been cooking a lot more than typical. So that's been wonderful as well. What about you?

So I've been doing two things to keep my mind mean off the negative negative things. One is I have started to do border paints, uh, Meena watercolors on on my part. I never really dabble in it. I kind of take my own photos, and I'm trying to see if I can trace over them and see if I can actually recreate the landscape. Did you know, as a painting and I think it's helping me calm down a little bit. And the other thing which I've been doing is I have a CDs off about. I have 27 books which have gone on record, so I'm trying to finish a one every three days

where you answer before this.

Now I've never thinking. I just thought, Why not learn something

new? Yeah, That takes a lot of patients. Because you must be bad, right when you start terrible. Right. So,

Mark yeah, I'm bad at a lot of times. I'm okay with being by. Oh, yeah. I think if you're not bad, you don't get good, right? I think you will never appreciate what is pure. So

Oh, for sure, it's one of those skills that must be I used to draw when I was younger and I stopped and I tried to pick it up because my wife's really good at it, and I I'm just terrible at it. And it's one of the things that's intimidating to me. Is trying to get better at that specifically because in a painting I match must be similar is because you see something and you want to recreate it, and it's frustrating because you can't versus. Perhaps this is just me speaking, but perhaps like creating something out of nothing. At least you don't have a reference point, but to sort of see something and want to draw it, like in the right perspective or whatever, and I can't do it. It's so frustrating for me. So I gotta figure out

I did that. You know, like whenever I take photographs and I actually don't want to, like, show you the real photo like you know, just like I don't want it to be just the images captured. I think it's more like watching my foot in my head, and so I spend a lot of time trying to think about that and, you know, I did my photos in a certain way and kind of there is a degree of abstraction which is involved in how I see and take photographs and actually, you know, the final product. And I think this is the same process. I think photography was an easier way off trying to paint and in many ways so and some, I mean, I'm I'm I'm experimenting 10 guard for iPad and the little pencil so you can trying many times without, you know,

getting paint on your hands and, you know, But it's it's really great, like so I think it's something I'm learning, and I'm using that as an opportunity. Plus, you know, it's something I don't know. So why not try something? I don't know why I keep doing what you know. Yeah, course I'm I'm writing a lot more because I think, you know, rather than watching YouTube or Netflix, I would rather take an hour and write something, Plus doing a lot off these kind of conversations, broadcast or whatever you wanna call them. And the idea is to just kind of be more creative and constructive, then be bogged down by the negativity.

That seems the healthy option. I love that. I mean, you're such a talented photographer. How did you decide? If you don't mind me asking to trace toe, learn how to paint, like was that recommended by somebody else? I'm curious for myself because I I would like to learn this too at some point. Like did someone say just learned a trace or try to recreate a photograph? Or was this a recommendation?

I know I learned that on YouTube. Like all great things in life, you have to you have to go to YouTube.

I mean, come on,

it's the best teacher that's

out there. It is,

you know, for all, all the all the crap they get for all spreading all kind of nasty stories. They also bring a lot of joy, you know, And we sometimes forget that about technology is the great things of Arctic are also the the worst things about it. And I like, you know, regions where I want to go with you on this conversation off. Like, you know, we are suddenly finding the whole tech universe, and a lot of white collar workers are working from home. I was like, I have 2006. I saw you in Toronto and we talked about, you know,

base camp and all the other things. And, you know, just just before Gigolo. I'm actually started at the company, and we talked about the future off work. I mean, now it's become a cliche and, you know, for like, 15 years, nobody gave a shit about men like you. Now, suddenly it's it's Ah, it's like everybody has to deal with it and I wanna pick your brain on like, what do you think of art? Had this and, ah, suddenly interesting remote for working from home distributed companies.

Yeah, I'm excited about it, obviously. I mean, we've been doing it for forever toe almost 20 years. And what's exciting to me is that this is actually one of those rare moments where companies can reflect on how they work because most, most of time no one thinks about how they work. They just work because everyone has more work to do than they have time to do so. There's not like free time for a company to stop and go. Let's stop and reconsider how they how they work, and this is that moment right now, and it's forced upon us. Which doesn't mean coach typically means people don't love change. It's forced on you, but so be it. So I'm excited by The opportunity is here, and I think more cos we're going to begin to realize that even just even a few days,

Ah, week at home should be an option for people when before perhaps they felt like there's no chance. There's no way in hell that anyone could work from home. So I'm not. I don't believe this is gonna flip companies from physical toe virtual companies, but I think there's gonna be a nice hybrid coming on to this. And to me, the beautiful thing about it is that there's a new sense of resiliency being built into companies that companies can function and work in more than one way. And any time you can do that, like if you know two different ways to get somewhere and one road is blocked and you can go the other way confidently like, that's good, and I think that's what's gonna come out of. This company's gonna go well, if this happens again or our office lease is up, we can't find a new space or there's a fire in our building or whatever happens like Yo, we're okay. We can just take this other path for a little bit, and I think that level of confidence is, is is a good thing to be widely distributed across many, many different companies of many sizes.

I think I'd order peace in 2004 basically saying You could be a great company and you could work from anywhere. And in reality that is, the is one thing broadband and Internet has enabled. And it's so funny that even the best of technology companies never internalized. The opportunity is created by the platform they worked upon and like they all wanted all their people to work inside inside, therefore, for hours and like suddenly, as a result, we have really shortly software like really the target, the tools for remote workers so bad because nobody actually took it seriously. I mean, except for you, GE is in a couple of other companies.

Well, thanks, I I think it's It is strange to mobile to see companies that make software that's being pitched as software for remote teams, but they themselves don't work remotely. Like I, I generally think you have to have the experience in the thing to be really good at doing the thing. There's people. There's like great coaches and great sports that didn't play the sport. But I feel like if you played the sport, there's just another level, another layer of understanding. And I think that's true for people who are building tools, because the tools reflect the organizational structure and the organizational makeup of a company and how the company thinks and works. And the defaults and all those things there are baked in based on experience. So I do think it's handy to look to companies who've actually work remotely four tools that help you work remotely.

Okay, you'd be interesting to see how it all shakes out. But, you know, you worked on like a remote distributed team idea for a long time, you know, So as Mad Mullen Bag and his company, automatic slash wordpress, you know there is good labs, which is ready for more alike, and one other things, which I'd see in common in negligee. I used three examples is there is, ah, a different degree of empathy towards each other in those companies realize most of these other companies retire, forcing people to work remotely, I guess because they don't have a choice,

I wonder, like how they can learn that level of empathy and understanding of people working. Not only you know your mortal, but also working from home when you know the kids were there and the dogs were there. And, you know, this is not about some random, you know, kid, our dog showing up on your zoom call. But it's, like a little deeper understanding. And, like, put your how would you advise people to think about their employees in this time?

Yeah. Um, well, first of all, the reality is they're basically no time, no full time workers. Right now, that's just the reality. Ah, A lot of parents who are working at home certainly don't have full time ability right now. They have to juggle kids and all sorts of things. Ah, lot of people who don't have kids still have to juggle family and other situations that are going on right now. And there's a lot of anxiety in the air. So that's the reality. And you have to As a leader, you have to recognize what reality is.

Um, you can't will it away. It is what it is. So at base camp, what we did, and I'm only speaking to what we did, because that's the only example I have to draw a direct experience from. But we we basically wrote up a CZ unturned announcement, which we also put up on Twitter for other companies to look at and follow if they wanted, which is, um hey, look, we recognize no one's gonna have the ability to work full eight hour days right now. Um, so, um,

we're not gonna expect that. Um, we're just looking for you to find the balance that works for you. Whatever works for you works for us, and that's fine. And we're gonna dial back our ambitions a little bit and we're not going to push ahead. We have a new product we're about to launch called Hey, h E Y, um, we're gonna launch at the end of April 2 new email thing, and we're not We're gonna probably launch it in June now, because it just doesn't feel like the right time to launch. We don't want to add the additional anxiety on top of everything else people are dealing with. So I think what's important is creating some space showing your employees that you understand the world right now, unless you're making masks or ventilators or P p e or any other key, things like you don't matter that much right now,

work doesn't matter a whole lot in that in that same regard. So it's okay to dial that back a bit and get people more space, Um, and let them cope anywhere. They can figure out what time they can. They can fit into work. So, like, for me, what I'm doing these days is I'm working from 9 to 11. Ah, and taking an hour. And then my wife takes a break. My wife's with the kids for those two hours before I'm working and I take the kids for an hour. Then I go back to work for two hours and I take another hour with the kids and she takes a break or just kind of flipping back and forth. So my day's air love it more than half what they normally might be.

Um, but, um, that's what we're going to figure out. And some of our employees are working half days full half days, and then they're they're partners working the other half day because they're both at home, both working It's just you got to figure out what's gonna work. So I think it's important for leaders to recognize that communicate that, clearly changing expectations they have and slow down. Ah, look right here. I think it's really important. By the way, I think this is another benefit. Um, which is just everyone can slow down a little bit,

and they're gonna find out that everything's just fine when things a little bit slower we've been used to. We've been ramping up like as a society on speed, on speed, on speed, on speed, on speed. And this is a chance to kind of slow down a bit and go, You know what? It's okay when it's a little bit slower. To think this speed thing is not necessarily the be all end all, Nor is it the best thing in the world. So I like that forced introduction of a little bit of a buffer as well,

you know, the funny thing for me is that, um and I've always known this that, you know, be in Silicon Valley, years highly inefficient. We like to think we're very productive when we're not like between two hour coffee breaks and breeding in line at psych class or Blue Bardo to just, you know, you know, dropping off your laundry, you're going to the gym, and that's not really work. I think this is also an opportunity to understand how quickly we can get our work done, how productive we can be now. The flip side of that is that I get my job done in like, four hours. Then I feel I'm not being productive.

But I feel so guilty for why am I not being more productive, like women are doing more? And because the whole society has been built on the idea off? Our identity is work, not as our yes people. And I'm talking about myself and other people. But, you know, I'm not talking just about other people. I feel currently I'm feeling the same was like, I'm done in, like, five hours. So no work. It's like, What am I doing wrong and like?

And I think those feelings of guilt are also part of working from home now, your experience in the past like, how have you? You know, I dealt with that. However, you educated your team members to deal with that kind of bling.

Yeah, First off, I think you're right about all those things. As a company, we work eight hour days, 40 hour weeks. We think that's enough time. And in our industry, a lot of people like there's no way that's enough time. You're not aggressive enough. You're not ambitious enough, Whatever it's like. No, no, that's more than enough time as you're finding yourself, like if you get a good four hours of quality working in a day, that's amazing.

Anyway. Even if you had eight hours like most people don't work, you're actually working all day. It's on a busy work on the meetings, on a back and forth, a lot of screwing around. That's the reality for most people. And we've as a company, we've We've learned how to squeeze most of that out, so we actually have. Everybody has a full eight hour date of themselves at base camp. We have no scheduled meetings. We have no shared calendars. I can't see anyone else's calendar. No one can see mine. I can't take their time.

They can take mine. So we've We've become very used to this notion of, ah, tight day, Um, but also you're right in that It's a good realization that again, like there's, there's always work to do. Of course, there's always more work to do. Then you have time to do. But there's diminishing returns as well. And if you can get a good 345 hours of working in a given day, you should be proud of that. And you should also be mentally a bit spent at that point. Like if you've been writing literally writing for four hours,

you should be tired mentally at that point and to push through and try to give yourself another four hours just because, like the clock says, there's four more hours. The quality of that works probably not as good as waiting the night until the next morning, when you're well rested and had a good night's sleep just to pick up those four hours and do it the next morning. So I'm a big believer in in shorter days and feeling like giving people full contiguous blocks of time to get their work done and then signing off and being done and letting sleep and getting good night's sleep, Of course, got to get eight hours and then the next morning has a really good way of clarifying your thoughts, because when you're working on that seventh or eighth or if people work longer, our like the quality is just not as good. It's just not as good. I don't think, um, and there's no reason to push it. So I also think in general it's just it's a really good thing to have to edit. If you really feel like you only have four hours to put in a given day,

those should be good for hours, and you should. There's a lot of people, I think, just spinning their wheels, doing stuff because they have to fill up their day or like you said, they want to feel productive. But I don't know. There's all the busy work going on, and this is a really interesting time because it forces people to squeeze that out because they don't have as much time and they realize people I think are realizing that like you can actually get a lot of done a lot done in a short day. Someone is actually the work. If it's meetings and all this other stuff, it's a problem, and by the way. I think one of the one of the really bad things that's happening right now now outside of the like health problems and stuff is just that. Companies were trying to simulate what it's like at the office,

virtually so they're such they're stuck in in video calls all day. They've got endless meetings like this is actually again, like I said earlier, an opportunity to reconsider how you spend your time and have fewer meetings, no fewer in person events and fewer face time stuff. And actually let people have some quiet time to themselves to get their work done. Unless unless time and they're gonna find out that they don't need to work 10 12 hours anymore, like you just don't need that time. And in fact, it's very hard to fill it like you said.

So I I was being a suffering through you, too, and watch this random YouTubers probably I can't even remember who itwas and she had figured out like a really good way of managing her day, and she lived in a tiny studio, which is for you. Much might set out, and she said, no, uh, checking off e mail first thing in the morning. Don't pick up the phone. Have some coffee. You know, relax, people. Ball court. I would come back,

like, you know, you can't take a rock these days, obviously, right? Like you can and then pick up your phone. Then when you're starting work, which is like, you know, let's take you to him from 8 to 10 uh, focus on email and communications. And after that, just believe the the phone aside and email it site and they don't don't touch the phone because phone is essentially like cold word for Instagram and Twitter and all those social networking time sucks. And then idea is to work from 10 till 12 have a lunch, relax and then work for another hour and 1/2 and then do Erin's inside the apartment, like,

you know, wash your dishes, you know, do the laundry. Whatever taken our at 11.5 to break this the afternoon lago and then from 3 to 5 30 work every day and then go back to picking up the phone and on train, you know, playing with people and then have a routine around calling family and stuff, and I thought that was actually a really good way to structure. This would like somebody very young, maybe like 22. 23. That that kind of clarity off like, hard to distinguish the blocks for what reason is, is probably the best way to get true. Not only this pandemic, but also hard to get work,

work at home, like, literally. And I don't know if you have any amazing Jason freed productive or D axe Fif. I'm sure you

do. Uh, the best. You're giving me too much credit. The best. The best tip I have is to have if you want to get more stuff done, have less to do. Basically, I mean, like, this idea that first of all, I appreciate what she wrote up. I didn't read it. I'm just listening to your description of it. Um, personally, I have a hard time with superstructure days like that because things inevitably come up and then you start Ask yourself,

do I have permission to do this or to do that? So I think if you're is very structured person and you can indiscipline in that way that I like that idea for the for some people for other people. I think what's more important is to develop this, Um, this disability organizational is more of an organization thing, like it's it's not a personal organization because we talk about personal time hacks. The thing is, very few people, unless you're on your own truly is a freelancer, like you don't have a lot of control of your time. Your organization you work for. The company worked for the group. You work for the team within the group within the company within the organization. Um, that has a lot more impact on on your day than you do. Um,

and so I think it's important to develop a real respect for time and attention and long, contiguous blocks of time within an organization. So those organizations don't take your time and chunk your time up into smaller and smaller and smaller bits where you actually can't get anything done. So what she's describing is probably utopia for a lot of people because they're like, Well, I don't have control Over my day, my day is decided by my boss, and by the standard meeting we have every day and by my team members who are who are sending me pings all the time, or emails or direct messages or whatever. Like I don't have that ability. So I'd love to see those thoughts make it up to higher ups in the organization to create the tea, to basically eliminate the expectation of immediate response from everybody. Like, right now there's this expectation. A lot of organizations, especially ones that use a lot of chat tools that that whatever you say if you say it quick,

someone should get back to you quickly because it didn't take you long to say it. So they should get back to you quickly. And that pulls people away from the work constantly. So they're being their whole days, being chipped apart by tiny interactions over and over and over and over and over, and that makes it really difficult for people to focus. So I'd like to see that eliminated or at least the expectation of the response eliminated giving, thus giving people more longer structures of time to actually do the work, and then they can have a little bit of their own structure and apply their own structure to the situation. But, um, I think that what people typically realize eventually is that the downside is of modern communication and modern workplace is that they don't have control of their time. And so it's very hard to apply these lessons individually. That's

the problem. It's not just modern leg workplace, it's just as a society. We want everything in synchronous mode and you know everything. Like, Do you want? You know, all communication instantly. We want all our tweets on certain strength you want, and I think that has. It's an untenable situation like you kind of have. You start to break down and you start behaving not like a decent human being. You just behave like like a like a robot on

Well, it Z yeah, you kind of get sucked into the thio to the mob, to the massive, to the mass hysteria of of of always on a meat response. Everything instant gratification and you kind of can't help. But it's like it's like being swept away. It's like you can't fight the current in a lot of cases, you know, and I think that that that is true and I think that that that's word actually begins. I don't think it begins at work. I think it begins like you said, sort of more across society at a higher level, and then it trickles in tow, work, and then work becomes like what I've. What I've noticed is that work feels for a lot of people.

Um, it feels like it's it's It's become like network news that there's always breaking news at work like everything is important to all of a sudden all the time. Everything is real time. Everything's breaking in everyone's needs, your attention immediately. There's new notifications all the time. It's like watching CNN where it used to be. That breaking news story was like a war which happened once a decade or 20 years or 30 years, or like something was terrible happened. But now everything's breaking news, and I think that's true. It worked, too. Everything's breaking news, and so it becomes very difficult to even understand what's important. Um,

and that comes from like I said, the world outside of work. His work is a work is inside the larger scope where everything is now breaking news and so you know, we're or like on demand on call constantly, and I don't think it's healthier, Terrible. Maybe you and I were maybe maybe people who are much younger than us. They're looking at us going, They just don't get it. And maybe they're right. Maybe we don't get it. Maybe this is the new way and probably is the new way, actually. Um, but there's trade offs. And, um, I'm curious to see how that pans out or plays out over time. You

know, I think there is the other aspect to it. I think a lot of activity he does not equate to achievement like that's pretty much I've learned as I've become older, I've, you know, the young person there Tie rods was always like, hyperactive and doing a lot of things. And and I like that as I've grown older, I've become a little bit more patient with not only my own limitations but also understanding how other people are and how their motivations are. And I think a lot of it comes from kind of starting to distinguish activity were, says achievement. And I think we're gonna start to see more of the next generation tools which come into the marketplace start to make that distinguish distinguish those things. I mean, I mean, I look at something like slack are even Microsoft teams. They're just a dream off information, which makes absolutely no sense.

They gotta start, you know, our toe understanding. And I mean, this is where I should be a play rather than, you know, trying to make us look at more tweets that this is where it should be, like thinking about Hardy. You actually, you know, cluster things in a more intelligent way, which involves better is communication, not more communication. I think more has become the de facto Oh, you know. But what do you call it? The trigger word for society.

Yeah, well, it's a couple things. It's Maura and that the default behavior built into tools like like slack and teams, which is everything should be a chat. Everything should be real time. Everything should be one line at a time. And you're basically on a conveyor belt. I mean, this is the conversations in those tools are on conveyor belts. And if you could think of a factory floor where the conveyor belts going faster and faster and you're at your station trying to, like, bolt this thing together before it goes by you and it goes faster and faster, like it's chaos and equality goes down because you're rushing and things are just out of control, like those old Lucille Ball like, Uh uh, there's some skits where she's like there's like a conveyor going.

But remember that one right? And that's what that's what modern work is like on those tools, because everything is being thrown onto a conveyor belt that slides by you in real time. And if you're not right in front of your station at the time, which is when a conversation flies by well, then you don't have a chance to pitch in because it's gone. And that's why people are paying one eyes on the chat room all day long with the other I supposed to be on their work and a new orange dot pops up and you got to go over there and check it out. You don't even know if it's worth looking at until you look at it, and most the time it isn't. But how would you know? These are broken models. They're broken models, but they're convenient and they're easy. And so their candy in that way and that like, Well, um,

it's delicious and tasty and like, Well, if we can all talk really fast, this is good because we cannot get a hold of each other all the time. Like I think that's above, not a feature. This idea that you can get ahold of everyone all the time in real time, all the time. And if you have a question, just go ask someone really fast. I'll give you a quick answer like we don't think about the impact on the other side for me. Yeah, it's great to get a great answer, but what if the person I just asked has been asked for 15 quick answers by 15 other people all day long, and then they don't get a chance to do their work and they're following the conveyor belt like these air broken models. And while I agree that that there's room certainly tons of room for a I hear,

I think structurally the problem is the pour everything onto the conveyor belt. That's to me. The problem and what I think you actually want our separate places for separate kinds of work and like, this isn't me. Inevitably, it's sort of a pitch for base camp cause that's how we build things. But base camp, Every base Camp Roger has a set of separate tools for different context. In different kinds of work. There's a message board, which is more like email. Like slow conversations. There's a chat room for faster casual conversations. There's to do is to break up the work so you can see what needs to be done. Have conversations about the work. There's a place for documents and files to keep those organized in folders,

and so everyone knows where things are. There's a place to get automatic to have automatic questions. Be asked of the whole team on a recurring basis, like there's different places because work is different. It's not a conveyor belt. Everything's on a conveyor belt, and the other problem is with these tools is that they encourage people to integrate other tools into them. So now you've got Maur and Maura and Maur stuff being shoved on the conveyor belt in between conversation you're tryingto have with humans, so bots are throwing stuff in and between human conversations, and it's a total disaster. But everyone right now thinks it's a good thing, but people begin to realize that's not really a good thing and actually creates a lot more chaos than order. So I think tools that encourage order are going to be moving forward, the ones people look for. And I think they're going to start by going to chaos because it's convenient and they're going to realize that we need to take a step out of that after we like start to sink in it. You know,

this actually wasn't a very solid foundation. This is too soft for us. When you get on firm ground here with some order and organization and predictability, I think that's gonna be something that's really important moving forward. But, um anyway, um, yeah,

but I think this'll need a lot of imagination, I think imagination not only from people going to create this software, but also from people to buy this after more and more importantly, imagination from the leaders off these companies to kind of think differently about. But you know, what you're talking about is fundamentally going at the idea off what is work and how work should be done. Nod how it should be done like it's like, you know, like the how the tools air the harder, like here. We need to God, go figure out. You know, the real idea of work and by real change,

Yeah, let me what's missing. I mean, I hope I hope this is hope that this is what we're doing with with our the way we speak in the way we build our products. But what's missing from a lot of tools is a philosophy of work. How do you actually approach work? How do you think about breaking work up? How do you work in teams? How does one do not work in teams? How big should the team's be? How much time do you want to give things? Do you make estimates, or do you have appetites for things? There's a whole different approach to thinking about work that I think is missing from a lot of tools, and so it ends up happening is people don't have a path. Companies don't have a path to follow, so they they buy a tool and they try to shove their way of working into that tool.

But they haven't really thought about how they work, so it ends up devolving into just like rapid requests back and forth between people all day long because that's like the default behavior is just like, what? Just ask people questions all day long, and it's It's not a philosophy that that's that's tenable over the long term. It wears people out. It breaks things down and things take longer and longer and longer to get done. Quality goes down like you need a philosophy, so we have one called shape up. Um, if you did basecamp dot com slash shape up, you can read it. It's free. We don't even need your email address. It's just read it if you want, um,

and that's our philosophy of work, and we published it. And, um, it's about 30,000 words. It's a very detailed approach, and then we hope we've built that idea into our products as well. So we want to offer a philosophy and then a product to back that up. So I hope over time we see more and more companies with a point of view that is is public and then builds into the product as well, so people can decide what philosophy they want to adopt, just like you decide what people decide. Maybe what religion they want to adopt or what theology they want to adopt or what philosopher they like to read. Like we all want to live a certain way. But we all don't really think about work the same way and that we want to work a certain way. But but but people are realizing they do need to figure out howto work. Mom and companies,

our companies and products are making that very easy right now because they're just throwing more working people with with and expectations are out of whack and the whole thing. So, yeah, I'd love to see more philosophies of work coming out and then being built into products that people have a choice, like I want to work like this or I want to work like that. Not like I want to use this tool. But I wanna work this way, and this is the tool that helps me work that way. I think that's the really interesting thing today. And looking forward,

let me ask you, this pandemic relying sooner than later, I hope. How will we come out of this? As as people from four, as in a human level and mostly again pertaining. Good. You know, your unity of expertise, which is work and things related to work.

Well, I haven't made up my mind on this, but let me give you a few different things that I'm swimming around that swimming around my head. Um, one is people have short memories, and things will get back to normal, as they always tend to do. Um, after, you know, a certain period of time And it seems like these days everything kind of moves quicker. So maybe if this would have happened 20 years ago, we might get back to work and back to normal. Slower. I feel like things might get back to normal quicker this time. What I'm curious about is, um,

would have noticed is with myself. Is, um I think I'm losing some social skills. Like I went out for to pick up some food recently at a restaurant. Um, you know, curbside pickup, you pull up, you lower your window, they say, What's your name? They put the food like, pretty safe and everything, but it like seeing another person was kind of startling. And like talking to another person was kind of startling, and it was The whole thing was a little bit weird.

And I felt like I was stealing something. Like I felt like I was doing something wrong. It was kind of this weird feeling where I'm like, Gosh, I've kind of forgotten. And I'm just kind of thinking like, I'll talk to my wife about this this morning. Like, once stayed home, orders air lifted. And as people begin to come together again, like, are we always gonna stand a foot further apart than we would have before? Like how? Those the things I'm really curious about more than the micro things I think macro, like in general,

like people gonna go back to work. They have two people go to restaurants. People like to eat food like things were gonna get back to that level of normal. But on the micro level, I'm really curious about trust in society. Um, are people going to be thinking about that person's gonna give me sick or this person is gonna hurt me or what? How long is that part going to take to mend? I don't know. I'm very curious about it. Um and I think there's gonna be a lot of people who are suspicious for a long time, Um, and skeptical. And that's gonna be interesting to have that undercurrent going on through society, cause some people are gonna get over it sooner than others, and and then,

you know, it's gonna be this awkward imbalance of what new social norms are. So I'm really particularly curious about that. Um, I I hope, but I I wish I lived more faith in humanity here, to be honest. But I hope that, um, we appreciate it, um, the basics a bit more. And we appreciate the people who help Ah, in all different parts of society because we realize what it's like when when we have to do all the work also, And I think that that's gonna be like, you know,

it's teachers. Childcare cleaning service is, ah, delivery. Restaurant line cooks. You know, all this stuff, all these people who it's easy to take for granted. To be honest, I think everyone kind of got to that point and realizing that when they're not there, like how much they matter. But I don't know, I I want I hope that I remain thinking about them. But I'm also conscious of just how quickly as things you go back to normal, you begin to take things for granted again. Um,

I saw it in the, you know, 2008 downturn. You see it all the time, like, you see, in 2000 2001 Earth was 2000 2001 that dot com thing, like things were kind of weird for a while and then get back to normal. And then you're like, You know, 2008 was only 10 ish years ago and 12 years ago basically, and, you know, look at the stock market. Look at the inn singing rise we've had Look at, look at,

um, lending, Ah, rules. They've kind of everything's kind of loosened up again. And we're right back to where we were. And this is also sort of the human pattern over time, which is that we, um we we make the same mistakes over and over and over and over and over. So I don't know if we learn from things that much, but I think things were gonna feel different between individuals at a close scale for a while. That's my take. Also like last thing I'll say sorry, I'm rambling on this a bit, but big events are gonna be weird for a while. I think I think that's gonna be really strange.

Like when you can decide to go to a conference again. You probably used to go to a lot of conferences. I I don't especially the speaker. Like I don't You give a talk and there's kind of afterwards as a line, people want to ask you questions like I don't really know if I'm gonna want to do that for a while. Those kinds of things were gonna be strange. So I don't know what What do you think's gonna happen?

Um, I think I'm with you on the idea of trust being the biggest victim of love of this pandemic. More than the lives lost, we would become probably less human, even though me, even though we are appreciating other humans, are large more now, the suspicion of the other is going to be the real pandemic in my mind in the long term, my 19 that is going to redefine our social behaviors and, you know, people eventually will go back to big events and whatever, but that whole notion there is a theater off off security right now after September 11th you know, checking and like all those kind of things, yes, and then everybody got used to it. You know, it's not really clear,

like what happens right leg as you just go along. And I think the whole idea is like people even today, politicians saying there mass made out of cloth and it's like, but that doesn't really solve the damn problem. It's right, it's the same problem. And I think we will create this big, you know, tear down around life, protecting ourselves and clean cleanliness and in our shaking hand and all those things. But in the end, that's gonna take away who we are as humans. And it's gonna happen. Unfortunately, that, like we're on the first thing,

you know, it's like September 11th happened. But the longest time we were suspicious of the other, it wasn't really like anything other than that. Like I lived through. They're gonna have Frank kicked like a lot like everybody was weird around each other, and I think that's what's gonna happen now. You know, on the positive side of things, I do feel that there's a lot of technologies which have bean kind of, you know, like, kind of, you know, on the edges, which will not start to get more attention.

So, you know, the fact is, videoconferencing should be much more advanced than read It is today. The fact is that our best to live zoom, which is full of compromises. And so, you know, I'm hoping that newer technologies will emerge because of this on hopeful that actually, you know, we will not be so upset about the idea of drone delivery. Are autonomous vehicles doing basic work which is not driving cars were doing other kinds of work. And, you know, actually understanding that in this time off change pandemic in a Corona virus is just a symptom off bigger issue, which is a massive scale change in the planet.

Like, you know, you can call it climate change. You can call it anything where we will have to change as people because we'll have to adapt to new realities. This isn't the last pandemic that this is gonna be more. You know, climate change is destroying wild habitats, so fewer animals exist, So viruses are jumping species. It's not. It doesn't take. You don't need to be a rocket scientist or proper PhD biologists to understand that this is happening and you read a few. I mean, a good magazine articles. You can figure this out. And so this is where I think we need to adopt.

As and you know, the idea of science and technology back to the service of humanity is where we need to go back to in sort of, you know, another photo app or another, you know, So I shouldn't be doing for sending admit tightening.

What's interesting about all that is that, um it does seem like right now, forgetting the president. Um, people are looking to scientists again, and that hasn't been the case for a while. Um, so I think that's really particularly interesting that people are looking to scientists for leadership and for ideas and for trust. And scientists have been sort of hidden for a long time. We haven't had, like the famous scientist are the famous doctor or the faint like we don't really have those people anymore, it seems like, but now, with Fosse and others, seems like that's people. Well, there's there's a figure out there who's really smart thinking about this stuff for listening to that person.

So I think that's good. The You think that's that's a little bit, um, I think that the loss of humanity is gonna be interesting. I wonder how long it takes. But the good news took, maybe come back. Or maybe it won't. But I tend to think that there's basic. I mean, we are social species. It's very hard to to fight against our DNA in that respect. So, like, yeah, there's gonna be a temporary pause or a bump or something's gonna feel weird for a while.

Maybe shake someone's hand, and the first thing you do is wipe it on your pants like we're does any weird shit like that where people don't know what to do, where they're gonna pull away from him, that's going to be weird. But genetic like DNA and genetic, they are what they are. We're gonna kind of like we wanna be together. We want to be close to one billion groups, like that's what we're gonna wonder if that's gonna happen. I think at some point again. But But, um, I do wonder about, um, the thing that's different about this this time it seems, at least from 9 11 And this,

of course, is different experience for different people. Like I, I, um in different places and also things. But like because when it's when it's over, when it's a viral pandemic like this, it feels like anyone I can give it to you, right? And so there's this. There's this mass paranoia of, like anyone at any time that you run into, like someone's jogging down the street like, Do I stay away from them? I guess I do. I cross other side.

There's someone else coming on their side now, although I do like there's this weird like everyone is is, um, dangerous to you is it seems like a very unhealthy place to be. But as a species, we are the only reason we still exist or soft bodied and don't have any real physical skills like is because we're adaptable and were mentally strong. And, um, so we're gonna figure out how to get through, but I do think things will change. But then again, like we've had pending pending mix in the past, did things change that much? Um, they might have changed for a while. But did they change that much aside from like learning about washing hands and drinking fresh water and those kinds of things which were societal like step ups.

But, I mean, we get over things as a species, and before you know it, we're gonna be stupid again. And you do stupid things. Just seems like that's what ends up happening with humans.

Well, I hope you're right. So let's talk about stupid things for a minute. Yeah. Which watching you in?

Why put on a grand Saeko for you? Because I know your grand Saeko fan. I know I have. I know if you can. This is the slowing.

Oh, yeah. This is the new one.

The new? Yeah, they don't know. It's not a limited edition, but they did four additions. One for spring, one for summer, one for fallen for winner. And since it's spring, this is the spring Dr Pink Dial, uh, spring and you know it's titanium. It's light. I absolutely love it. And, um, I put I put on a few days ago, but I kept it on for you. Then we would be talking today. So what about you are you

still doing right? I I I know because I'm on a laptop right now, so I just kind of you, I I don't know if you saw my block puts yesterday. I wrote about my guilty pleasures and it was one of my guilty pleasures Is mine Grand Psycho on brink A grand sick on Monday Oh, new rent Sicko on Tuesday News Grand Chico on Wednesday we've entered Saeko today, which is it's sitting there and tomorrow is a King Seko Day. And then today the the grand the today Saeko is a gift from from Kevin rules called Common Frame. Oh, yeah, Been on then Then on Saturday and Sunday, it's the apple watch.

Why? Why in the weekend? No phone. Ah,

so phones off just to kind of get text messages are from my mother. Yes, Experience. That's it.

Yeah. Yeah, That's, um I like that so you can get the text messages and you get phone calls, but there's like there's such a shallowness to the to the watch, in terms of like, what I mean by that is like, there's no depth you can't you're not gonna go through Instagram on is super Dick ass. But communications there, that's cool. What was their own

would want ads work.

Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Um, that's a podcast Work and Spotify work centered now.

Oh, yeah, but Spotify I have an apple watch, but I only use it for, like running. But I found Spotify, doesn't It Doesn't stream, though, right? You have to like Lo o doesn't Okay? Yeah, yeah. Um What grandson? What? Vintage vintage Saeko

Grand secret You have? I can't remember than the model. It's like the one of the earliest ones.

The first model. Oh, and steal or like, yellow, Uh,

what is it in guard?

And then the yellow The yellow globe? Yeah. Those were such beauty. I have the remaining, like, the re addition of that. Watch your step there. So pretty. They're so pretty.

Yeah, I you know, I gave up everything else I have. I have one more watch, which I love, which is no most, uh, the normals or didn't keep Metro audition.

Oh, yeah,

I like that word. But everything else I'm slowly getting rid off. I'm actually, uh, you know, like you don't really have that many. You don't need a lot of war just to love you just need one and like, that's what you want. Change.

Are you still doing to that point? I think you told me this. I read this about you somewhere that you have, like, 100 pieces of clothing. Is that still true?

And though yesterday day before yesterday, I broke down in a bar like six new pairs of socks, like did I just was like having a really bad day. And I need, like, I need some

consumption consumption threatened by

something. Yeah. Yeah. And I love I love I love socks. So instead of getting rid of some I got now on my 806

Okay, so you're okay with that? Are you gonna let some stuff go

then? You know I'm going to go get rid of some. Yeah. I don't know. Probably. That is some older socks which will go away some T shirts or to go away. Yeah, sure. Tight T shirts. I do change every six months. Okay. I hate I hate T shirts, which are, like, not crisp by Katrina. That's thing in telling me like I mostly me like

that and this 100 clothing thing. Um is this Is this about encouraging yourself? Are almost forcing yourself to choose quality so I don't have to buy is many things Or is it just fewer choice or less choice? I mean,

you know, having a streamlined wardrobe basically helps in actually utilizing your clothing more effectively. Yep. And so. And that means that I will spend probably more on buying clothes than but I will utilize them. Or so, for instance, you know, I get my trousers. Taylor. Now, I used to get them, like after Iraq, and they don't really fit well. But now they're Taylor, so I'd only need four pairs, you know,

two genes and one clay and one blue. And I'm good. And, you know, you don't really need more than four. Yeah, And so it is. Yes, they cause probably, you know more than, you know, pair of pants you would buy from that saying Brooks brothers are something like that. But they just freak just better. And like, I probably and they are the way I want them, Not the way somebody else decides for me.

How drastically Same is with my shirts in a game like I have six of six trousers and time shares. Actually, no. Yeah. Decays. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason I have toward churches because, you know, if you get study, you can get you can get another and they're all in, like, the same color palette, like the blue gray slight, slightly like lavender kind of colors. So everything you just all matched.

So it's like everything can go into 1 30 inch. Ah, the, uh, more suitcase and I can go anywhere. And that's my home.

You can't make a bad choice. Basically, you have limited. Yeah, that's like that. And it's it's more. The thing I like about it is it's more a little bit more fun than than the alternative version of that, which is like, Well, I only wear black shirt, only wear blue jeans and like, Yeah, but there's no variety at all. You need

a little bit of variety here. Yeah. Ah, long time ago. Out on the block was called the Shuffle Principle, which is the beast on the iPod shuffle. It will only put like in a certain number of songs on it. So you have to find a kind God. I love this song like, yeah, this is like, where Before Mary Condo. I wish I had the brains of time that I do actually a book.

Well, it sounds like a book title. I mean, you could You could still do that. Book the shuffle first. If it's anything called something principle, you're you're on your way to a best seller. People want to be told what to do. Um, everyone's looking to adopt again, a philosophy of something. I like the idea where you the premise could be. I could send anyone into my house and they can pick six random items and I'd love them all. I'd be happy with him versus, like, I know I've got some stuff where if someone picked this sweater of like, Oh,

God, I should have given that sweater away two years ago like that's not I don't want to feel that way. So I like this idea that anyone can just going and choose things for you, and you're like, This is fantastic.

You know, what I'm struggling with right now is straight pants, because I never really wore striped pants at home. I would come home being parents, and then I would change over into lounge trousers and, like, large pants about charge and there couldn't sleep. And now I'm like, Oh, my God, I got a better And I hate I hate you know, they're not custom, so they're going to freak me around. So I I have one pair from it's her apparel, but those were the those other trousers I would wear on the plane. Mmm. Sleeping.

And so they're not exactly the like what? I would walk. So I'm you know, I go and change. And I were regular trousers and dress up like I'm going to the office that were at least I feel I'm utilizing my clothing. Yeah, okay. My 100 item rule does not apply

to choose the Oh, sure. Did you have shoot? You just buy shoes?

No, I looked like I I I have a habit.

If I know that happen, I've Yeah,

I get it. A

And now. All right. You gotta leave some room for improvement. Your life, and also just room for breaking the rules. So I like it. Why not?

So most of the issues I have are designed by me from Nether Ting. How they look from everything. The materials and everything. And then, you know, I get one parent made every

two years, so wait a second. So you goto a proper cobbler for this? Or do you have,

like, Shoemaker? Is there like

Shoemaker? Sorry, I

would say I'm artist more than

artist. Okay, so this is This is ah, person. Who are they in San Francisco

now? They're a little of them, a couple of them alternately. One of them is in Japan. One of them is in France. That one isn't

England. And so they No, you're they've got your what? Your last or whatever. Yeah, it And you're just like, I want a simple thing that looks like this, you

know, nearing

the process. You sending pictures of other things you like.

I draw them, you draw them. I mean, they're not like, you know, they're not like, you know, fashion design and more like drawings. What I would I draw them the color and, like I think about it and they can send your total.

Are they all made of leather? They'll cancel

a cleat leather, different kinds of leather. Like I like the shell code. When a lot, A lot. That's hard to find. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of people who who it's expensive, like that leather is expensive,

or Ween in Chicago is a primary

supporter. Yeah, and, ah, suede is another material alike. Do you know that these in years, like I this is more like an artistic expression. Not like I'm not buying shoes. I mean, every day, if you were asked me, would wear their everyday. I have, like, two pairs of boots, which are rare constantly. Yeah,

they go with me everywhere there. I repair chancy boots, which are in blue and one in black. They're pretty. Went with me everywhere. But the other ones are just like my You know, in my other life, I would I would have loved to be a shoemaker.

Okay, I like that. Why not? Um, that's interesting. Um, I'm surprised that it's it's stopped. Oh, you're you're doing You're doing tailored clothes now, but so maybe it's it's moving up the body from the shoes up here like, is there gonna be a point where you feel like you can't buy anything? That's not custom?

I don't buy anything. That's my custom. Makes their own stocks.

Okay, so you've gotten to that point.

Yeah. And the reason for that is just like I find more. Is the better it fits the more our village.

Yeah, definitely. I

hear that lecture. So I have Ah, you know, I used this company cause son offer Taylor there in Denmark. Okay? And they do after a lot of hate, Mrs. I ended up getting the right T shirt size with them. And should I order six from them? And they lost like I've read them, washed him. Whatever. And after six months, I just give them away in order a new set of six T shirts

and these air didn't leave a prostitute. Send them one shirt that fits you really well. And they

now they ask you to measure years have been angry about those things. I mean, it took three tries before I got it right. So I have the student little bit of money, but now it's great. Like if, like, is the same blue T shirt every six of them every six months.

I love it. And their cotton became a cop or something.

Or just real thin. No, we're going Oh, there, Marina will, you know, and I were carton for sleeping and merino wool for, like everything on. Yeah. Yeah, like I have. Yeah. And so I have that. And then I have six shirts and, like, kind of decide what I want on any given day. So everything is,

like, 100 piece of clothing. So many combinations. Yeah, through a lifetime with our pretty reading the same combination again.

I love that. That that's love. That's great. I wish I had that, um, thing in my life. I should look into that. Just something really special about it, about really picking things of high quality, getting things that fit right. And just this is what? Your body all day. You're right next to it all day long. Might as well get it right.

I think we look for the idea of luxury is so wrong in our society is that we don't think about all right, the tingler gee should be spending money on the bed. You can be sleeping it shoot shoes because we're in shoes old all day long, you know, and everything around left the clothes we wear. No one needs to know what brand that does them think that they need to make you feel great. If you're sure that you cared Fry, the material has to be good. They have to be built like perfectly. They don't have to be screaming that, you know, some guys in France mated or something like that. The guy who makes my trousers is in San Francisco, right? And or the guy who makes my shirts is in San Francisco. So it's not like I'm going in you. It's just It's so I don't need the brand. I just need comfort

next time I'm in town, Can you introduce me to this person or these beings? Right fitting. Basically, they'll do a fitting there. Yeah, I'd love to do that. I'd love to get some stuff made for me. I have a problem because you and I, I think probably the same height, like 57 or something of that. I have fairly broad shoulders for my height, but then when I so like, I have a hard time finding things off the rack that fit me because there tend to be too long because I need a wide enough to handle my shoulders, and that's like it just it just I just want stuff to be. I've never had anything made for me. So I'd love to really go through that process and give it a

show that most people think that it's actually expensive. Like a lot of people would goto fashion, brand and buy things and think, uh, you know, they're more expensive than sometimes buying custom trousers. Yeah, and I have a pair of jeans from this guy. They cost me, like, 600 bucks. Right? And if you go to, like and your famous Jean company now, it's like 500

boxes. All right, things right there.

All right. So I But I wear them all the time, right? I You know, I have a little spreadsheet. In which light. Okay, Harmony. Where's do I need to get out off?

Do

you really? Yeah. I mean, like that by you know, I do. I actually have a new a graphic in on my site on, Like, what are the best socks to buy? According to me, basically, I go on like it has to cause below five cents for very important wash fate. Yeah, if it costs more than that, it's just too

expensive. You're very efficient. Very

impressed. No, No, I got to it because I kept making the same mistake everybody else makes, which is I was buying the wrong clothes. Never felt great. And I ended up having image issues. And it's like, No, this is like I'm just making my personal appearance decision based on how other people think I should not. I

see yourself. Yeah, totally true. You know, people tend to like, think there. I think they're saving money when they save money. Like you're usually not here wasting money and you're gonna spend more for sure. That's very true.

One of my favorite artist is Nina Simone. Ah, and the reason I loved her and hope her boys is definitely amongst that. But her style was Nina Simone style. She could give a shit about the label you put on her music. She was all about what she felt like. She waas right, and and I think a lot of the times we forget who we are and then start looked looking at other people to validate ourselves, and I think it goes from everything fashion, clothes, everywhere. I don't think it's fashion. It's the closer. It's like treating region important in life you know, food. Shake her and clothing. And I don't need a big house. I live in a tiny apartment. I would rather spend my money on good food and looking good and comfortable.

Well, we've had not. So yeah, we've had some good nails. You've always taken me to good places. So I I respect about you, and I'm a big fan of good food, too. But I, um it's been hard for me, like we have a 5.5 year old 1.5 year old like my wife. And I don't get a lot of chance to go out these days because we got the kids at home and and making before this is just it's hard. So, like, those great meals are really, really crave and want to savor. Um, but they're few and far between or have been for a while. So

you know. Don't worry. We will do it a game. Yeah. Next. Maybe I could come to Chicago. Come see you. Check out the beast. Camp

offices? Yeah, our offices. Check this out. So we're office lease is up in July. We're not gonna renew what we've been there for. 10 years. We're gonna go office lists for a while, so we're gonna see how that works. Kind of like automatic used to be. Then I think then they finally just got in office. Is that right?

Yeah, a little. It's a little place. It's more like a lounge.

Yeah, that's what we're gonna do eventually. So next time we get a new office, I'm gonna treat it more of just a social, like a social space. So people want to come and hang out together. That's fine. But if you want to actually work, work like you're probably better off just being at home or somewhere else. Um, we're gonna try this no office thing for a while and see how that goes. But if you come to town, of course I'll take you somewhere. So you

go do something. And congratulations on the the new product. Hey, hopefully yeah, launches Soon I'm on the bait on the waiting list for the beta, so

I'm gonna show you. Ah, we'll do a tour. Actually, I just got Kevin signed up yesterday. He's the 1st 1st beta tester, so I'm gonna send you a separate email and see if you have time tomorrow. So I just wanted to a super quick walkthrough with you. And then, um and then, Ah, hand you the keys and you can sign up and and get your account. So yeah, of course. And thanks for the conversation. This was fun. Always good with

you. It's been a pleasure. I thought this was gonna be 30 minutes, tops. And as we are in our flat, Slater's again great to have a conversation with you. Give my best to your colleagues and your family in ST ST.

Likewise. Thanks. Take care. All right.