Feel The AGI

Speaker 1

This is America. We've got Coke Zero. 45 cans.

Aaron Francis

This chaotic song- ... about America and Coke Zero-

Speaker 1

45 cans and 49 cents

Aaron Francis

... is unfortunately, I'm sorry, Svyx, to associate you with this. But, you know, it's a great song. So Svyx-

Speaker 1

Great song

Aaron Francis

... let's put your name on it. Svyx, in the age where code is cheap, you might be tempted to build webhooks in-house. Svyx has solved all the hard problems about scaling webhooks so you can avoid triaging failed deliveries and incrementally building features. Check them out at S-V-I-X.com. We have a special link down below that gives us credit.

It gives us kudos. So go check the show notes, click on the special link and say thank you to Svyx for sponsoring Coke Zero in America. Where the hell did this song come from?

Speaker 1

Woo! Our buddy Justin Jackson. You know- ... we were all together a couple weeks ago. He got inspired. He's from Canada, if you're not aware, and he's, he's was inspired by America and the greatness of America, and then-

Aaron Francis

The freedom

Speaker 1

... the freedom in America. Then Phideloper posted a link or picture of Coke Zero, pallets and pallets stocked high at Sam's Club, and so cheap. It's, like, cheaper than water, right? It's, like, the Coke Zero. And Justin just was so deeply inspired that him and the AI got to work, and they made a jingle. I love a jingle.

Aaron Francis

He was taken by the same spirit as the Founding Fathers were taken- ... when they wrote the Constitution. This is not that different.

Speaker 1

It's the same.

Aaron Francis

This is the same spirit of America.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

It's the same spirit. So-

Aaron Francis

What are the odds that Svyx keeps sponsoring the show?

Speaker 1

That's gonna be, uh, gonna be the end right there. Uh, so the funny part-

Aaron Francis

Hey, you know-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... I lost, I lost a kid, and we spent 40 minutes on losing a kid and then rolled straight into sponsors.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

And so if we didn't lose sponsors on that one, we're not gonna lose it on the America Coke Zero song.

Speaker 1

This is a hot jingle. The people are gonna be singing this jingle in their head. $20-

Aaron Francis

They are

Speaker 1

... 49 cents. It's so jingle-y.

Aaron Francis

It's funny 'cause it's actually, I don't know how he did it, Justin Jackson's voice.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I don't know if he clone... Like, he AI cloned it or he-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... like, got on the mic and spat a few bars, but, you know, it's not bad.

Speaker 1

It's, oh, his voice is perfect in it, especially if you know his voice. It just, like, adds something there.

Aaron Francis

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1

It's like, uh... Yeah, no, that was great. And yeah, I, I, I just love a jingle. I thought it was great. And the video, the... You should all go watch the video. He's got bald eagles. He's got Walmart. He's got all kinds of stuff in there, very America. Flags.

Aaron Francis

And-

Speaker 1

Landing on the moon

Aaron Francis

... never forget, this is the same artist that did Laravel New.

Speaker 1

Right. Well, it's not the same level.

Aaron Francis

You'll remember his old, his old discography is, uh- ... Laravel New, which we'll, we'll put in the show notes as well.

Speaker 1

Ooh.

Aaron Francis

It's a song about how Ian never ships. Uh, and it's great. It's a great song, honestly. You know, if-

Speaker 1

Maybe we should, that should be our opening.

Aaron Francis

I say open the data centers. If this is what we're getting- ... get those data centers built.

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

Get them open. Dry up all the water, which is a hoax, but give us more songs.

Speaker 1

That's right.

Aaron Francis

This is perfect.

Speaker 1

You know, the best part, so I showed this to the, uh, the fam last night, and you know, the AI, I assume... I don't know if this is a creative choice or not, but I'm, I'm assuming it's the AI that wouldn't write Coke Zero.

Aaron Francis

I saw that.

Speaker 1

So everywhere in the video it says Cola Zero.

Aaron Francis

Cola Zero.

Speaker 1

And, oh, my daughter thought that was the best.

Aaron Francis

The lyrics are saying Coke Zero-

Speaker 1

Yes

Aaron Francis

... and the, the video is showing Cola Zero.

Speaker 1

Yes. So I thought that was great.

Aaron Francis

All of a sudden we're real worried about trademarks over at Anthropic.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Okay. Sure, bud.

Speaker 1

So, no, I thought that's just great. So anyway, a little something for the people to get you moving, start your morning off right, get you happy. Um, you know, it's a podcast I used to listen to, I listen to it sometimes still, ATP.

Aaron Francis

Mm.

Speaker 1

And, uh, they had a guy make a custom end song, and w- and that was the guy who made a song every day. You remember the song every day guy? He was big in the podcast.

Aaron Francis

Yep, I do.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Maybe we need a, maybe we need an opening song every week from Justin. Every week, a new opening song.

Aaron Francis

I would-

Speaker 1

52 weeks

Aaron Francis

... I would, I would receive, uh, submissions for, like, a... You know how the, uh, All In podcast has, like, a... It's, like, a remix of them talking turned into a song.

Speaker 1

Mm. Okay.

Aaron Francis

Y- you know All In. You love All In.

Speaker 1

No, I've never listened to All In once.

Aaron Francis

You love those guys.

Speaker 1

Never.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Those guys-

Aaron Francis

Those guys seem right up your alley

Speaker 1

... I've heard some of the worst. I love Jason Calacanis, but the rest of them I could do without.

Aaron Francis

Yeah, I don't like Jason. The rest of them- ... I could do with. So that totally checks out.

Speaker 1

The rest of them are terrible.

Aaron Francis

That's, that's perfect.

Speaker 1

Oh, my God.

Aaron Francis

Uh, Friedman. Fried- Friedberg. Friedberg is not terrible.

Speaker 1

I've actually never-

Aaron Francis

He's great

Speaker 1

... I don't know anything about him

Aaron Francis

... he's, he's science guy.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

He seems very reasonable.

Speaker 1

Yeah, he's fine.

Aaron Francis

Uh, Sacks and Chamath are kind of, kind of crazy.

Speaker 1

Oh, those are the worst.

Aaron Francis

Yeah, they're all, they're all cracked up. Uh-

Speaker 1

Chamath plays poker, which I kind of, like, I can respect at least that aspect of him.

Aaron Francis

They all play poker. The thing's called All In.

Speaker 1

Uh, yes. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

They're, they play a game together, yeah.

Aaron Francis

Actually, Jason, Jason annoys me, but I do like the balance he brings to the force.

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

Uh, he, he holds them to account and, you know-

Speaker 1

Okay

Aaron Francis

... he represents a different side. But yeah, it's a... I don't know why I listen to it. But the point being- ... they've got a great intro song, or outro, who can say?

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

And, uh, we should get one too. So Justin, get on it. Cut together Seinfeld, Laravel New, Coke Zero.

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

Whatever you got.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Whatever you got, Justin.

Speaker 1

Oh, I like where we're going with this. A theme song, like a full-on legit theme song.

Aaron Francis

Full-on legit theme song.

Speaker 1

I like your style. This is why it works.

Aaron Francis

I'm gonna start having-

Speaker 1

This is why it works

Aaron Francis

... I'm gonna listen to the post-produced podcast so I can hear all of these goodies, you know? We, we just hop on the horn, and then Dave does his magic behind the scenes.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Mm-hmm. This got me thinking. I feel like I've always wanted a soundboard, even though, like-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... I don't know if we'd use it, but, like, I kind of just want a button here I can push and funny stuff happens, you know?

Aaron Francis

And it just says, "Oh."Oh, yeah

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

$20.49-

Aaron Francis

Yep

Speaker 1

... and it's just like we throw it in there? I don't know.

Aaron Francis

I had, for a minute, for reasons unknown, I had a small MIDI, like, keyboard-

Speaker 1

Oh, okay

Aaron Francis

... that you could plug in via-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... USB, and then, um, the people that make Loopback and Audio Hijack, I think it's Rogue Amoeba-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... is that company.

Speaker 1

Yep.

Aaron Francis

They make great Mac software. They had one, uh, called Fera- Ferrato.

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

And you could do-- you could turn any MIDI device into a soundboard. So I had-

Speaker 1

Oh, that's pretty cool

Aaron Francis

... I had that. I had that-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... for a while. Um, and it was a lot of fun. I obviously don't use it that much, but I lo-

Speaker 1

I love-

Aaron Francis

I do love a soundboard.

Speaker 1

I love, like, Rogue Amoeba. Like, I love-

Aaron Francis

Oh, they're great

Speaker 1

... businesses like that. Like, they... Like, that was such a phase, and they're still around, of course, and like, but like they're just ultra-specialized. Like-

Aaron Francis

Yep

Speaker 1

... we do Mac audio stuff. Like, that's all we do. It's weird. Like, there's no UI, basically. It's like w-

Aaron Francis

Yep

Speaker 1

... audio input, output, whatever. We're, we're, we're, we're creating a UI for these things with no UI at some low-level functionality. Ah, I just love software businesses like that.

Aaron Francis

And it's-

Speaker 1

It's good stuff

Aaron Francis

... it's just high quality, and it always-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... has been. So-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... good, good for you, Rogue Amoeba. There's your free shout-out. I went to Denver-

Speaker 1

Oh

Aaron Francis

... last week.

Speaker 1

Back to Denver.

Aaron Francis

Back to Denver.

Speaker 1

What's going on there?

Aaron Francis

We had a, uh, we had a joint event, Laravel Holdings Incorporated, and Name.com, uh-

Speaker 1

I love this, domains.

Aaron Francis

I know, domains.

Speaker 1

Domains.

Aaron Francis

Oh, man-

Speaker 1

Let's go

Aaron Francis

... I wish you were there. There was one guy in attendance that had, like, 160 domains as-

Speaker 1

Oh

Aaron Francis

... like, a portfolio, not just, like-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... abandoned side projects. He, like, had a portfolio.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Um-

Speaker 1

That's my guy. I have a portfolio. I have a portfolio.

Aaron Francis

I know. That's what, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I'm giving you the credit right now.

Speaker 1

It's not just abandoned side projects-

Aaron Francis

No

Speaker 1

... it's domains I own for-

Aaron Francis

No, that was not a slight

Speaker 1

... an asset.

Aaron Francis

That was a-

Speaker 1

Yeah, it is

Aaron Francis

... I was, I was ascending to your level and saying-

Speaker 1

Oh

Aaron Francis

... "This guy's on your level as well."

Speaker 1

Yeah. He's above me.

Aaron Francis

Yeah, it was great.

Speaker 1

He's above me.

Aaron Francis

It was a, it was a rooftop event. Uh-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... I was on a panel with Taylor and a guy named Sammy from Name.com. Uh-

Speaker 1

Oh

Aaron Francis

... probably had 65 people show up, which-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... was pretty good. I mean, the whole thing, it felt super packed. Um-

Speaker 1

Just a one-nighter-

Aaron Francis

And it was-

Speaker 1

... thing, right?

Aaron Francis

Just a one-nighter, yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

They're, they're in Denver. Laravel Cloud is using Name.com to power our domain experience, domain purchasing experience.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

And so I can see us doing more events with them because it was, it was flawless, and it was awesome.

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

Uh, turnout was great. Um, so I'm a, I'm fully, you know, field marketing guy-

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

... going to events and getting up on panels and talking about stuff. It's great. I'm having a blast.

Speaker 1

We're, uh, they, they, they were... They organized it?

Aaron Francis

Uh, we joint-

Speaker 1

Or you guys organized it?

Aaron Francis

We joint organized it.

Speaker 1

Joint organized it?

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

Okay. Look at, look at this year. Look at this year. January 2026, you and me, we go to San Francisco for the same type of thing, right?

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

We're just, it's a one-nighter with Taylor. He's talking about the Laravel AI SDK, releasing it, whatever. We're there. It's 50, 60 people, rooftop, and now, 10 months later, you're doing it, but you're on the inside. What an arc.

Aaron Francis

I am the rooftop now.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

It's crazy.

Speaker 1

Oh, I love it. Wow.

Aaron Francis

It is, uh, it is a good arc, I must-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... I must admit. Uh, you know, flying there, flying there and back, I'm just, like, ripping tokens on- ... all these marketing projects-

Speaker 1

Oh

Aaron Francis

... for Laravel Holdings Incorporated.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

I'm-

Speaker 1

Business time

Aaron Francis

... you know, going, I'm going out and meeting with the people, got to see a lot of friends at the Denver thing. I'm just fully in, man. It's great. I told, I told somebody, uh, recently, I know it's my job, like, to be super rah-rah and optimistic about-

Speaker 1

Sure

Aaron Francis

... Laravel Holdings Incorporated, but I feel it in my bones, man. We got a lot. We have-- I wish I could tell you everything we have coming up. The, the second week in November, we're gonna do a big launch event with all-

Speaker 1

Ooh

Aaron Francis

... kinds of stuff, okay?

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

So y'all look out. It's gonna be amazing.

Speaker 1

Y'all heard it here first.

Aaron Francis

And the, the secret stuff that we've been cooking up-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... is very exciting. Very exciting.

Speaker 1

I, I have lots of questions. I feel the need as, uh, the r- the representative of the listener to poke a little bit. Obviously, you can say what you can't say.

Aaron Francis

Uh, you can poke, and I will demure as much as, as much as I have to.

Speaker 1

Uh, is this going to be in person or not?

Aaron Francis

Um, it is not an in-person event, uh, to which the general public can show up.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

I think I will probably have a few people-

Speaker 1

Some people

Aaron Francis

... a few employees fly to Dallas for, like-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... the production.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

But it's not gonna be, like, a, a meetup or anything.

Speaker 1

Okay. All right. So it's an online event. You're doing some kind of stream or whatever.

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

Um, okay. And we- it's a... A- and we have some big releases. We got some stuff.

Aaron Francis

Got some-

Speaker 1

Some hot stuff coming.

Aaron Francis

Got some hot stuff.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

I think there might be four or five hot things.

Speaker 1

What?

Aaron Francis

I know.

Speaker 1

Interesting. Now, okay, so marketing man-

Aaron Francis

All right

Speaker 1

... how are you fitting these sort of things in with... So traditionally, I would say these things have waited for Laracons, right? Um-

Aaron Francis

Correct

Speaker 1

... whether it's an EU Laracon or a US Laracon being the two primary sort of big release places-

Aaron Francis

Yep

Speaker 1

... uh, generally speaking. Now, what do we think about that going forward? And also, I think e- even EU this year I saw moved to April. So now it's also, like, kind of like, they used to kind of be, like, sort of six months apart-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... or-ish, but now, like, they're getting pretty close, right? 'Cause, like, April-

Aaron Francis

Yep

Speaker 1

... to July or whatever is not that far apart. So I don't know if you guys have, if this is, like, a strategy thing, if this is not really that, or you're still figuring that out. But what's going on with your release cadences? What are you thinking there?

Aaron Francis

So just to put everyone's mind at ease-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... framework release cadences haven't changed at all.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

We're not gonna do major versions, breaking changes outside of the regular yearly.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I think we-- I've never been on the inside. I think we hit those around February, that we do, like, Laravel-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... major version upgrades.

Speaker 1

I, I think these days-

Aaron Francis

So that's-

Speaker 1

... it was just a, on Laravel news I saw there was, like, an officially released thing about, like- Like a official cadence of the open source. I maybe didn't-

Aaron Francis

There you go

Speaker 1

... see that. Okay.

Aaron Francis

Check, check Laravel News.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Francis

Great friend and partner of the company.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Aaron Francis

Check them out for that guidance.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

I will do that immediately after the show-

Speaker 1

You're not on that side of the business

Aaron Francis

... I'll check out that guidance.

Speaker 1

You're on the other side of the business.

Aaron Francis

That's not my world. No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1

Okay. All right.

Aaron Francis

All right, so dear listener, do not be afraid that we're gonna be pushing a bunch of br- breaking changes on a different cadence. However-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... we are taking a different cadence for some exciting announcements.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

I think it's, um, some of it is product driven. Like-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... we have, we have cloud product that is done slash almost done slash customers want, you know?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

And so we're not gonna save that for April-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... because we gotta get that out the door.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I think the other part of this is it's emblematic of the age in which we live, which is we can go heads down for a month and come back up with something that is pretty newsworthy.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

And between, you know, if we do this launch first week in November, that leaves all of November, December, January, February, March for Taylor to come up with something new- ... to launch at Laracon EU.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

And I, my fear meter is at 0% that he-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... will not come up with something new.

Speaker 1

He won't have anything to say there?

Aaron Francis

Yeah, I'm just not worried- ... about that at all. You know, in, in ye olden days, like Nova probably did take eight to 12 months to do.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

And so you save that for the next Laracon. You're like, "Well, I finished-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... but Laracon's three months away. Let's just wait for it."

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I just don't think that is directionally correct anymore.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

And so a combo of product requirements, customer requirements, and the speed with which we can move just-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... necessitates a launch day.

Speaker 1

I like it. Now, are you coming up with like a repeatable style launch? Is this gonna be the first in a, like, this is our playbook for launching-

Aaron Francis

It could be

Speaker 1

... things or?

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

It could be. Um, there will be, there will be news about, uh, forthcoming news about some new hires we've made that are really-

Speaker 1

Mm. Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... gonna help with this, uh-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... this style of thing and some of the other things we're doing. But this is definitely a let's, let's test the waters and see what type of attention we can get if we do this, like, big single day kind of thing.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I had thought about doing a launch week. Um-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... it's hard to hold attention for a week-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... especially these days. And something that, uh, Sam Lambert, CEO of PlanetScale, used to always say, which I always found hysterical, was that, like, companies run out of stuff to launch by, like, Thursday, Friday of launch week.

Speaker 1

Uh-huh.

Aaron Francis

And so they end up launching, like, SOC 2 compliance, and everybody's like-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... "Cool, that's-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... great." And so I don't, I don't wanna do a launch week that peters out. Um-

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

So I think we're gonna centralize it all into, all into one forceful day-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... uh, and just own, hopefully own that day and then not have to, like, drag it out over a week.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I wonder if you could, like... 'Cause yeah, I mean, definitely you always see that. Even Cloudflare does that, and they're big on launch weeks-

Aaron Francis

Mm-hmm

Speaker 1

... and they have a zillion people. But it's like, eh, some of these ones, I don't know. Like, it's like they're just keeping them-

Aaron Francis

Could've been a blog post.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it could've been a blog post or it's like whatever. So, uh, y- I imagine there might be a way to come up with, like, can we take over Monday, Tuesday into the Wednesday release? Not with, like, releases on Monday and Tuesday necessarily, but more like just marketing, excitement-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... building, you know? Right? Like, uh, that kind of thing as opposed to, like, we must have five things to release every day of this week and, like, making it-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... a really big high pressure sort of are people gonna be disappointed? Um, yeah, that seems like a lot to take on. And you guys aren't that big yet. No, you're not big enough-

Aaron Francis

We're not that big

Speaker 1

... really to have a week of stuff. Like, I think you wanna do the couple big things right as opposed to, like, let's make sure-

Aaron Francis

I agree

Speaker 1

... we have 32 things to release on-

Aaron Francis

Right

Speaker 1

... launch week or whatever. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

The, the Laravel way is not, not to do things half-baked, and so-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... that is also part of, like, we don't wanna just, you know, we don't wanna just slop out things just to be able to release them. We wanna put, you know, the care and craft into it that Laravel is known for.

Speaker 1

Yep.

Aaron Francis

But even then, we got a lot of stuff. Like- ... there's just a lot of stuff that we've cared for and crafted that is now ready to go, and so-

Speaker 1

All right. Let's go

Aaron Francis

... let's freaking do it. Yeah.

Speaker 1

L- I think you should do some marketing on this show, and then we'll continue on.

Aaron Francis

Some marketing on this show as in- ... taking money from one pocket and-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... putting it into my other?

Speaker 1

That, that's right.

Aaron Francis

I don't know what embezzlement is, but that feels close, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah. Well-

Aaron Francis

Is, is that close?

Speaker 1

Uh, listen, I think that Laravel Incorporated Holdings, whatever they're called, has always-

Aaron Francis

Close

Speaker 1

... sponsored this show.

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

Been a while. Just saying. Maybe gotta go above you.

Aaron Francis

I-

Speaker 1

It's not a decision you should make. You gotta go above you.

Aaron Francis

It's not a decision I should or could or will be involved-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... in in any way, shape, or form.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I believe-

Speaker 1

Taylor, Tom, I'm out here. I'm dying. I'm in the, I'm in the desert, Tom. Help me out.

Aaron Francis

Here's, here's, here's my- I hate to talk against your book 'cause I know how much you love your book.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Um, one, I don't think the IRS would classify this as an arm's length transaction. Um-

Speaker 1

Well...

Aaron Francis

I-d forget exactly what the-

Speaker 1

Think about that

Aaron Francis

... technical manifest or the technical-

Speaker 1

Come on, come on

Aaron Francis

... reason for that is.

Speaker 1

Let's not have this.

Aaron Francis

But this is not arm's length.

Speaker 1

Oh, oh, oh, hold on, hold on.

Aaron Francis

No. No.

Speaker 1

Before you go to number two-

Aaron Francis

Don't

Speaker 1

... can I just throw one name out there, one name?

Aaron Francis

No.

Speaker 1

Elon Musk. Can I say Elon Musk to you?

Aaron Francis

You can't-

Speaker 1

Can I say Elon Musk?

Aaron Francis

... actually. I, I don't allow you-

Speaker 1

Come on

Aaron Francis

... to say that on this show.

Speaker 1

Arm's length-

Aaron Francis

So you can't

Speaker 1

... transaction.

Aaron Francis

No.

Speaker 1

Come on.

Aaron Francis

Sorry.

Speaker 1

That's a thing of past. That's a relic from 1984, some accounting textbook you read. That's-

Aaron Francis

You know-

Speaker 1

... ancient history, buddy.

Aaron Francis

You know what?

Speaker 1

Ancient history.

Aaron Francis

There's a small chance that Elon and I share slightly different moral compasses.

Speaker 1

Oh, that's good.

Aaron Francis

I, I don't know him personally-

Speaker 1

Sure

Aaron Francis

... but there's a small chance that I'm like-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... "Hey, what if we did everything above board?"

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Second thing-

Speaker 1

Mm. My God

Aaron Francis

... besides being, uh, dangerously close to fraud and embezzlement, the second thing is- We're getting, we're getting the marketing for free, my friend

Speaker 1

That's true

Aaron Francis

I don't need, I don't need to- I don't need to take that out of the budget-

Speaker 1

Ah

Aaron Francis

... and come on here and read an ad for something I'm gonna talk about anyway.

Speaker 1

It's some bullshit.

Aaron Francis

I know.

Speaker 1

You get the, you get the cake for free or whatever that saying is. Bah.

Aaron Francis

That's close.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Aaron Francis

I say we tell, we tell Eric Barnes, "Go rustle up some other companies- ... and we'll, we'll just let Laravel Holdings ride for free," okay?

Speaker 1

These guys, bunch of freeloaders over there at Laravel Holdings Incorporated.

Aaron Francis

That is-

Speaker 1

All right

Aaron Francis

... that is correct

Speaker 1

Well, what about reading the ads that are actually part of this show that the beautiful-

Aaron Francis

Yes

Speaker 1

... gorgeous, attractive other sponsors have chosen to bequeath upon us?

Aaron Francis

Sure. Good use of bequeath. This episode is not brought to you by Laravel Holdings Incorporated.

Speaker 1

Oh, I made up a bad-

Aaron Francis

Although in a way it is. It is brought to you by SERP API. You can access Google search, maps, shopping, and other search engines via API with SERP API, S-E-R-P A-P-I. It's ready in Markdown and JSON for your AI tools. No more scraping headaches.

Try it for free at serpapi.com/mostlytechnical. And by Jesse Bentley's new product- ... Post Sheba. You've heard us talk about Bento. Well, Jesse and the team are launching a new product that is somehow already profitable called Post Sheba, the transactional email platform that powers Bento's amazing delivery rates.

So you can think password resets, logins, receipts, all of the emails users are waiting on. Jesse's currently gathering interest and customers to test this out, so if you wanna replace SendGrid, Mailgun, Resend, SES, then reach out to him at postsheba.com. Speaking of moving quick-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... Jesse Bentley is moving quick.

Speaker 1

Guy's cooking over there.

Aaron Francis

Thank you to SERP and Post Sheba for sponsoring.

Speaker 1

You know, I'm gonna let the listeners behind the show a little bit.

Aaron Francis

Okay.

Speaker 1

This is how good we are. This is how good we are. I was actually just talking about you reading that ad. You took it as me saying Laravel Inc. should sponsor this show, and I just went with it. I just went with it.

Aaron Francis

You did. That was amazing.

Speaker 1

And we had a nice little bit, and it was great.

Aaron Francis

Look at that.

Speaker 1

I was gonna keep it-

Aaron Francis

That is stage craft

Speaker 1

... a secret, but I'm not.

Aaron Francis

That is stage craft.

Speaker 1

We'll just let it go. I'll just let a little behind the curtain. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

That was fun.

Aaron Francis

I totally misunderstood that, and you played it like an old pro.

Speaker 1

Just went with it. I was like-

Aaron Francis

Ah, that's amazing

Speaker 1

... "This will be a fun segment." Ah.

Aaron Francis

That's a great segment. That, my friends, is how it's done, you know?

Speaker 1

That's how you do it on the podcast. Um-

Aaron Francis

It's called improv. All right. What else we got?

Speaker 1

Oh, man, we got a lot of stuff here. Um, uh, I don't, uh, normally I would put this at the end, but it was too big. I can't put it at the end.

Aaron Francis

Is this, is this-

Speaker 1

The Milwaukee Brewers.

Aaron Francis

Oh, yeah. I was h-

Speaker 1

The Milwaukee Brewers

Aaron Francis

... I was hoping this would be at the end-

Speaker 1

No

Aaron Francis

... so I could just, like, check my emails or something. All right.

Speaker 1

Sports ball.

Aaron Francis

The Milwaukee Brewers.

Speaker 1

The Milwaukee Brewers. Last night-

Aaron Francis

All right. I know that, I know that they're baseball.

Speaker 1

Ah.

Aaron Francis

Where are we in the season?

Speaker 1

All right. So we are at the-

Aaron Francis

Are we close to the end? Are we close at the beginning?

Speaker 1

... second round of the playoffs. They-

Aaron Francis

Oh, wow

Speaker 1

... got to skip the first round, so they are directly into the second round 'cause they won a bunch of-

Aaron Francis

Okay

Speaker 1

... games this year. They're top team in the, in all of baseball. And they, uh, so they were... It's a five-game series. They won the first game, and then last night was the second game, and you wanna win the second game 'cause then you can kind of cruise. Then you only have to win one of three, right? But if you, if you lose this game-

Aaron Francis

Yeah, you, you wanna win 'em all. I mean-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... I don't know much-

Speaker 1

You wanna win 'em all

Aaron Francis

... but you have to. That's kind of the thing.

Speaker 1

Well, the thing is, the way baseball works too is that it's two games home for the, for the kind of team with the more wins. It's two games home-

Aaron Francis

Okay

Speaker 1

... two games away, uh, the fifth game home. So you get three games home, but the thing is, if you go one and one in the first two games, now-

Aaron Francis

Mm

Speaker 1

... the, it's basically a three-game series where the other team has two games at home, so it's, you're, it's not ideal.

Aaron Francis

You're, you're fighting for your life on the road.

Speaker 1

Right. Exactly. So, uh, so they, you know, you wanna go up two-nothing here obviously, and just one of the best baseball games I've seen in a very long time. This is why you love baseball. Just the ninth inning, absolutely incredible. Had my whole family there. None of them really care about baseball either.

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

My son, who's super into baseball-

Aaron Francis

They're all looking at their phones. Yeah

Speaker 1

... yeah, they're on their phones. My, my daughter at one point opens her laptop to do study. I'm like, "No studying," and I, like, shut the laptop.

Aaron Francis

Yeah. Perfect.

Speaker 1

And my oldest kid, who's super into the Brewers and got me into the Brewers, he's at college, so whatever. We're texting, but, like, he's not there. And just the ultimate drama, bases loaded, the best hitter on the team against the best reliever in baseball, just mano a mano. At bat, he's fouling balls off, uh, and then he hits a single up the middle.

My favorite player, who was on second, Sal Frelick, he comes around, he dives, he scores. I'm jumping up and down like a maniac and throwing my hat. Whoo. It was great. Great.

Aaron Francis

That's... I'm so excited for you. That sounds awesome.

Speaker 1

We gotta get you into some kind of sports, man. You're a sports guy.

Aaron Francis

Hey.

Speaker 1

You played sports your whole life. What are you doing?

Aaron Francis

I'm, I'm, I'm working is what I'm doing.

Speaker 1

You know-

Aaron Francis

Uh-

Speaker 1

... you're, you're very much like my second-- My middle kid is very much like this. Like, he loves sports. He does not like watching sports.

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

Like, he never watches sports. Doesn't care about watching sports.

Aaron Francis

I got stuff I gotta do, man.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to get that out there. Uh, we don't even have, we don't even have to banter about it.

Aaron Francis

I got nothing.

Speaker 1

This is just me.

Aaron Francis

I got nothing for you.

Speaker 1

You got nothing.

Aaron Francis

I hit you with the I'm happy for you.

Speaker 1

Oh, okay.

Aaron Francis

That's, that's literally all I got.

Speaker 1

Here's one other thing.

Aaron Francis

Yeah. Tell me.

Speaker 1

You'll like this. This is not related directly. It's indirectly related. So my birthday, okay?

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Big one. I got a big birthday coming up. It's on the 24th. So the Milwaukee Brewers, if they make the World Series, the first two games are the 23rd and the 24th. So I-

Aaron Francis

Jamie, listen up

Speaker 1

... uh, well, well, he scheduled this party for me on the 24th, and I was like, we... Whatever. The short version is we're moving the party for my birthday so that if they make the World Series, we can go to the World Series, and I already booked everything.

Aaron Francis

There we go.

Speaker 1

It's all booked And 'cause I don't wanna, like, be able to not get a flight or whatever, so I, I mean, I haven't bought the tickets yet. But, uh, if they make the World Series, I will be there for my birthday, which will be fun. That'll be fun.

Aaron Francis

Fir- first question-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... where the hell is Milwaukee? Second question, it's not in New York, so what, what gives?

Speaker 1

No, it's in Wisconsin, man. They got the cheese curds. Milwaukee's actually a pretty cool city.

Aaron Francis

Why do you like Milwaukee?

Speaker 1

Oh, so, uh, my oldest son, he randomly decided he liked Milwaukee. I think it's probably b- he really liked the logo. The logo's like this-

Aaron Francis

Mm

Speaker 1

... pretty famous thing. It's v- very well-liked logo.

Aaron Francis

Is that the, the, the mitt one?

Speaker 1

Yes. Look at this guy-

Aaron Francis

I know that, yeah

Speaker 1

... 'cause it makes the M and the B-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... together with the ball and the mitt. So-

Aaron Francis

I never saw that. I just knew it was a mitt. That's cool.

Speaker 1

Uh, nobody knows about it. Yeah, so this is... That's got a whole... It's like a FedEx logo situation-

Aaron Francis

Yep

Speaker 1

... where you're like once you know, now that you know it, if you go look at it, you'll see it. But without it, you don't necessarily know the arrow's there kind of thing. So yeah. So basically, he picked them up randomly, uh, and then he, over the years, uh, got me on. I, in, when in my youth, I was a Yankees fan, as most people around here are. Um, but the Yankees, man, I just can't, I can't take the Yankees.

Like, it just, I don't know. Like, once they got... Once we got out of the Jeter era, you know, it's just like, eh, I don't know. I, I hate Aaron Boone. Uh, I don't know. So anyway, Brewers fans in the household now. And it's fun 'cause they're like the th- they are the smallest market in the whole, uh, all 32 teams.

Aaron Francis

See, that's the... I like an, I like an underdog story.

Speaker 1

Yeah, they're the big underdog. Won 103 games, the smallest market, the lowest, you know, they don't have the lowest payroll. They're like kind of middle of the pack to slightly lower of the payroll, but, you know, still like a quarter of the Dodgers or whatever. And-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... uh, yeah. So it's fun. You get the underdog vibe. I mean, so that's making it super exciting 'cause it's like they have no bu- And, like, I think in the last 15, 18 years or something, only one team not in the top, like, five of payroll has won the World Series. So it's very hard thing to do. But, uh, this team, it looks really good, so I'm hoping they make it.

But we'll see.

Aaron Francis

All right. Go Brewers. Brew them up, baby.

Speaker 1

Go Brewers. Let's go. Get 'em on the show.

Aaron Francis

That, and I'll leave that up to you.

Speaker 1

All right. Oh, boy.

Aaron Francis

Sports corner done. What else we got?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Where do you wanna go?

Speaker 1

Once a, once a year we do a sports corner.

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

Um, let's do... I, I kinda, I had this epiphany, and I had like... It's w- it was sort of a reverse epiphany, and I've reversed it on myself now for the show. So my epiphany on Twitter was all these devs who make me mad, right? They never had real jobs. That's what I, I realized, right? Like, they never worked as a middle manager somewhere.

Aaron Francis

Speculative. Continue, yeah.

Speaker 1

Not, they've had real jobs, but they haven't had jobs outside of programming.

Aaron Francis

Okay.

Speaker 1

So they, like, went to school for programming, and then they got a job in programming, and their whole experience has been, like, managers coming to them, saying, "We're building this. We're building that," whatever, right? And so they've never been the middle manager stocking a shelf or figuring out SKUs for some product in some manufacturing job, right?

Aaron Francis

Pro- probably directionally correct, yes.

Speaker 1

So mo- the majority of them.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Not every single person, right? But most of them have not been, like, a middle manager somewhere. And I just feel like this, like, incredibly invaluable experience. And so now for what I really wanna talk about on the show is maybe this opportunity for you developers out there to do the reverse, which is take your programming knowledge and go get a job, right? Everybody's like, "Oh, the AI jo- is stealing all the jobs," which I don't believe. But even if you do believe that, go get a job as a manager in some other business, and I think you're gonna be a freaking superstar in there, right?

'Cause, like, now you have all the technical chops. You're gonna be able to see where should we pull AI into different processes and things. You're gonna get that good experience of being a middle manager somewhere and understanding the dynamics that has, which is gonna make you a better programmer and especially make you a better businessperson if you want to do your own software thing at some point. So I just think it's an interesting idea of, like, okay, you wanna get out of s- programming, like, go be a middle manager somewhere.

Aaron Francis

You know who did this?

Speaker 1

Hmm. Who?

Aaron Francis

Successfully, I must add.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

One Aaron Francis.

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

Hey.

Speaker 1

Unbelievable.

Aaron Francis

Look at that. I didn't go to school for programming, but I was obviously-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... a, a programmer. And then-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... I spent four, four and a half years at a property tax firm.

Speaker 1

Exactly.

Aaron Francis

Not a, not a programming, not a software company.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

I was literally the only, the first and only-

Speaker 1

Yep

Aaron Francis

... programmer. I came in, and they were running everything out of Zoho CRM and Google Sheets.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

Which it worked fine. They had scaled up to, uh, I think at the time I joined, 16,000 properties under representation.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

So the company represents property owners against the county. In Texas, we have high property taxes 'cause there's no state income tax.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

And so every year you get your valuation, and you can go to the county and say, "You're insane. This should be lower." And if it gets lower, then your property taxes go lower. That's what we did as fiduciaries.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

We would represent all these owners and go out, right? So they'd scaled up to 16,000 properties under representation, and then they were like, "Man, we need better systems." And my sister-in-law-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... uh, Jennifer's sister said, "Hey, my brother-in-law's a programmer. That could probably help."

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

And, uh, so I came in, first on a contract basis-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... and took their existing systems and made 'em more robust. Still Google Sheets-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... still Zoho. I just did a bunch of Google Sheets, um, like, App Script-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... which is Google's, like, macro thing.

Speaker 1

Yep.

Aaron Francis

And I made their, I made their processes way better. And then they were like, "Hey, why don't you come work for us full-time?" And out of the hubris of my heart, I said- ... "But I'm a software developer-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... and you're a property tax company. I don't know if you can afford to hire me."

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

And they're like, "Brother, we can afford to hire you."

Speaker 1

That's not the issue.

Aaron Francis

So first, first learning, real businesses do have money. It's not just-

Speaker 1

They have money

Aaron Francis

... it's not just Silicon Valley. Then I spent the next four years, uh, building internal software that-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... we scaled from 16,000 to 72,000 properties under representation.

Speaker 1

Wow.

Aaron Francis

I hired a couple of programmers. I left as the COO, so I moved all the way up to, like, running the company.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

And it was one of the most valuable learning experiences-

Speaker 1

Yes

Aaron Francis

... of, of my professional career. 'Cause you see, like-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... you see what matters and what doesn't matter. Like, they didn't-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... wanna talk about choosing a new framework because it was hot on-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... Twitter. Like, we had, we had stuff we had to do, and the software merely served-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... uh, the needs of the business. And it was-- I, I agree. I agree. The thing I will say is, I don't know how you get into those. Like, how do you get into the-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... sheet metal company if your uncle-

Speaker 1

It's-

Aaron Francis

... or your sister-in-law doesn't work there?

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

You know what I mean?

Speaker 1

Well, those are al- that's always the best way to get a job, to be fair, but als- but, like, having some kind of connection, obviously. But yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

You have to get through now, there's-- Whatever, that's a whole separate discussion of how you get in the door, right? So, okay, you gotta get in the door somehow, whether it's like-

Aaron Francis

Less, less how you get in the door, h- and sec- like, more-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... how do you even know that the window and blinds company is out there slash-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... needs help? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, I think-

Aaron Francis

Like, they're not saying, "I need to hire a software developer." They're like-

Speaker 1

No

Aaron Francis

... "Ah, our, our business is on fire."

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

That's the thing where how do you figure that out?

Speaker 1

Well, I think that it's-- I'm s- I'm saying even sort of a step farther than that. Not even just finding the company that's on fire, but I'm saying applying to jobs that are just explicitly manager jobs. Like-

Aaron Francis

Hmm

Speaker 1

... it's not even a programming job at all. There's no expectation of programming. It's like, "You're gonna manage this thing," okay? But I think that there's a ca-- you're going to have an interesting angle to be like, "Listen, if you can get that interview, you can have a whole dog and pony show about, 'Listen, this, this is the future. You're probably thinking a lot about AI, right? You're thinking about automating systems. You guys don't know how to do any of that.' I see in this role, look at, just from your description of this role, I see, like, three or four places where, like, my technical knowledge, not that you're gonna program it, your technical knowledge is gonna be

valuable in this role for XYZ to help with the bringing them into the future," blah, blah. I just think there's an angle there. Not for every job, obviously, blah, blah. If you have no management experience at all, probably gonna be hard if the job says you manage 30 people, right? Like-

Aaron Francis

Right

Speaker 1

... you're not gonna get that job. So it's gotta be the right thing, but I think that, like, to broaden the, uh, the sort of opportunities out there away from just, like, pure software or pure AI or pure things. Like, every industry is thinking about this stuff right now, and if you can get yourself, as someone technical, in a role that's not traditionally technical...

I mean, this, I've had this job as well. Like, I was, like, in a role like this at a college, and, like, I was, like, a genius to everybody.

Aaron Francis

A god.

Speaker 1

They were like, "You are a god." Yes. Like-

Aaron Francis

Yep

Speaker 1

... "You manipulate the bytes. You are a god." And it's like, you know, I'm just, like, an average programmer, but-

Aaron Francis

Right

Speaker 1

... it's like, so-

Aaron Francis

I mean-

Speaker 1

But I know a couple things that I can put together, right? That's it.

Aaron Francis

That's how I was-

Speaker 1

So-

Aaron Francis

... at Ernst & Young, just-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... merely being an expert Excel user.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

Like, I was-

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I was a god. I-- They just, they just moved me around project to project. Anything that was difficult in terms-

Speaker 1

Yep

Aaron Francis

... of, like, modeling or macros or anything like that, they put the new kid on because-

Speaker 1

Yep

Aaron Francis

... he's really good at Excel. And I just, you know, I g- I made a name for myself. It was very easy.

Speaker 1

Exactly. And it's like you are-- You, if you can inject your technical knowledge into somewhere that doesn't have enough of that... It's like at the college, I was at the board meeting with the president and board members and all these people because they had, like, they wanted to do some crazy Amazon competitor or whatever. And so, like-

Aaron Francis

Bad idea

Speaker 1

... I was there. So I was there as the technical guy to be like, "It's a bad idea," and I had to tell them all it's a bad idea. But whatever. Like, I'm getting pulled up into all these meetings that I had no business being in because-

Aaron Francis

Right

Speaker 1

... I have some bit of knowledge that my manager has no knowledge of at all, right? And so, like, this is the way these things work, is like the big manager doesn't know shit about a lot of things. They're looking to hire people under them who do know about those things, so they can cover their butt. That's what the whole thing's about. So, like, there is angles there that you can take on that. So I don't know, I just thought that was interesting that people are up, up and thinking about what they wanna do with their lives and their careers, and should they stay in software and stuff.

It's like this skill set of your generalized technical knowledge is actually still incredibly valuable, and it's even more valuable if you get somewhere out of the Twitter sphere, where it's, like, just a normal company who's got, like, two IT guys, right? Or whatever. And, like, that's why I got the job at the college, 'cause I, my boss hated dealing with IT, and IT would push him around, and I was his answer to that, of like, "I'm gonna hire my own technical guy to be

able to counter what I-- gonna hire stuff with it."

Aaron Francis

"I'm gonna hire my own no man-

Speaker 1

Yeah. Exactly

Aaron Francis

... my own bulldog, to go in there and fight."

Speaker 1

Exactly.

Aaron Francis

They got the perfect-

Speaker 1

Exactly

Aaron Francis

... guy for it.

Speaker 1

So then at the meetings, they're like, "Oh, IT says they can't do this for three years." And then I could be like, "No, actually, that takes, like, ten minutes. They're just lying," right? And so we can have that whole... Which it was quite an adversarial relationship, but-

Aaron Francis

Making enemies from day one.

Speaker 1

They did hate me. It was really very funny. But, um, anyway, all right. That was my bad.

Aaron Francis

I cannot wait. Just, I'm just very excited to see the reaction of all the developers that you just told to go stock shelves at a store. They're just gonna love that advice. They're gonna think-

Speaker 1

Let me tell you

Aaron Francis

... you're super in touch with the world, for sure.

Speaker 1

Ah. I was the manager at Office Depot, stocking those shelves, man. I learned a lot. Learned a lot about customers, why people buy, you know? It's like-

Aaron Francis

You were also, you were also a kid.

Speaker 1

Different phase.

Aaron Francis

Like, it, it's hard, it's hard to do that at 37.

Speaker 1

It is hard. And but, but that's why, but that's why I'm, I'm evolving it away from, like, "Hey, just go stock shelves," to, like, try to get a job as a manager or, or an individual contributor, but, like, in a different kind of company, a different kind of role that, like, your technical knowledge will really stand out as opposed to when you are just developer, senior developer seven, right?

In this big group of people- You don't stand out as much, right? But so-

Aaron Francis

I agree

Speaker 1

... I think there's just some opportunities there. Not that you have to start at the bottom stocking shelves. Uh, I'm definitely not saying that, although I think that was amazing experience and, you know, that's, there is an aspect to that that I think is useful, and it's gonna be hard to get directly now, yes, if you're 37 and you got three kids or whatever. But I still think there's something to that idea of, like, go out-

Aaron Francis

There is

Speaker 1

... acquire these different sorts of knowledge, work in companies that are different-

Aaron Francis

Encounter the real world

Speaker 1

... you know, angle a little bit.

Aaron Francis

I agree.

Speaker 1

Yes. Transfer within your own company, which is even easier.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Transfer within your own company to, like, a different sort of management role, a different part of the business that's not just in the software trenches necessarily. You know, if you're interested in learning about these other things. Some people just wanna be software developers, and that's fine. And I don't think they're going away, so it's fine. But-

Aaron Francis

So if you're, if you're a software developer listening, go do an honest day's work, for goodness sakes.

Speaker 1

Good point with you people.

Aaron Francis

Meanwhile, let's get, let's get paid by just reading out some words.

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

Yeah, we're all the same. We're all the same.

Speaker 1

We're all the same.

Aaron Francis

You go work in the factory, we're good here. This show is brought to you by...

Speaker 1

Laracon AU is heading to Brisbane this November with a limited late release, capitalized late release of tickets out now. Join the community for workshops and two days of deep practical talks about the realities of building, shipping, and maintaining real software with Laravel. Get your tickets at laracon.au.

Typesense, open source lightning fast search engine for your site or app, natively integrated with Laravel Scout. Check them out at typesense.org. Obviously everybody needs this in their apps these days, so, uh, check that out. Very fast searching. And finally, Bento, the email marketing and CRM platform built for the AI era.

Send your product marketing and transactional email with Bento, and check out their new transactional email pricing with rates as low as 9 cents per thousand emails. Check 'em out at bentonow.com. Jesse Bentley's new thing, uh, it sounds like it's doing pretty good, so that's pretty cool. He's, uh, you know, he only fi- uh, the show is the main mechanism people have found out about it, so he's making bank off us.

Aaron Francis

Jesse Bentley- ... still kills me. Yeah, it seems like, uh, I think I saw him say it's already, like, rent profitable, ramen profitable, something.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Like, it's already, it's already working. It's already making money, which talk about speed running a successful business. Crazy.

Speaker 1

You know what he needs? A third add-on here. If he gets a third add-on here, that chart's just gonna keep going up.

Aaron Francis

You know what he needs?

Speaker 1

Keep going up.

Aaron Francis

He needs to buy a podcast is what he needs.

Speaker 1

There we go.

Aaron Francis

I don't know a lot about marketing.

Speaker 1

Uh.

Aaron Francis

I'm still learning.

Speaker 1

Sure.

Aaron Francis

But I, I think number one thing you're supposed to do-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... is buy a podcast for an-

Speaker 1

I love that for him

Aaron Francis

... exorbitant amount of money.

Speaker 1

Uh, I mean, this is a great idea.

Aaron Francis

Exorbitant. Exorbitant.

Speaker 1

Exorbitant.

Aaron Francis

Exorbitant? Exorbitant? Exorbitant. Exorbitant. I missed a T in there. Huh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1

But is it pronounced-

Aaron Francis

I threw him off.

Speaker 1

Is it, is it a pronounced T-

Aaron Francis

He froze

Speaker 1

... or is it like Omachi?

Aaron Francis

Go, go back and watch the video.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I was like, yeah.

Aaron Francis

He literally froze.

Speaker 1

I was like, whoa.

Aaron Francis

Oh, whoa.

Speaker 1

I was just waiting for you to-

Aaron Francis

What the hell is going... Nah, that's it.

Speaker 1

I see you're looking up something.

Aaron Francis

That's all I had. Nah, I looked up exorbitant.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

That's all I had.

Speaker 1

But is it Omachi or Omachi? You know what I mean?

Aaron Francis

It's Oma- Omachi.

Speaker 1

Omachi.

Aaron Francis

Omachi.

Speaker 1

Omachi.

Aaron Francis

That's a respect to Dad-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... but that's the dumbest name ever.

Speaker 1

But is it exorbitant in that way? Maybe it's, maybe they'll say that T.

Aaron Francis

No, I don't think so. I think the T-

Speaker 1

You think the T's there?

Aaron Francis

... I think the T is pronounced, yeah.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Aaron Francis

Make sure you tune in for hard-hitting radio on how to pronounce words.

Speaker 1

That's our new podcast, How to Pronounce Words. That'll be kind of fun. I bet you people would listen to that. It's more mainstream.

Aaron Francis

It is more mainstream. All right.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Speaking of words-

Speaker 1

Uh

Aaron Francis

... what words are we gonna say next? What are we doing?

Speaker 1

You got some game you tried to get me to play. I don't know. I couldn't get through the, like-

Aaron Francis

Oh, my gosh

Speaker 1

... the, the startup, like, 20 minutes of, like... It's supposed to be an iOS game that's like, okay, load it up and play in two seconds. It's got, like, 32-step onboarding thing. I'm like, "Ah, I can't get through it." But-

Aaron Francis

I wish you all-

Speaker 1

... tell us about how awesome this game is

Aaron Francis

... I wish you c- all could understand that Ian is the same off the show as he is on the show.

Speaker 1

That's true.

Aaron Francis

I send him something objectively awesome-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... and he hits me with, "Bah, this tutorial's too long." That's it. That's it. I said-

Speaker 1

That's what-

Aaron Francis

I said-

Speaker 1

Who gets through this tutorial? It's 20 minutes

Aaron Francis

... I said literally, "This is the most fun game I've ever played." And four minutes later, "Bah, this tutorial's too long."

Speaker 1

And it's a, it's an iOS game.

Aaron Francis

That's it. That's all I got.

Speaker 1

And you know what, too? I d- you know what's really funny about that? I, I actually had a compliment for you before I sent that, but I was like, "Let me try the game first." Because, like, you know, nobody's sent an iOS game in forever. You know, that used to be a thing all the time. It's like, "Hey, iOS game. It's here. Let's go."

Aaron Francis

I'm trying to preserve the culture.

Speaker 1

I was like, "Oh, this is cool. Aaron is sending me an iOS game. This is fun." I was gonna say that to you. But I was like, "Let me just get right into it." And I try to get into a, a 32-minute onboarding. It's crazy.

Aaron Francis

It's not a, it's not a 32-minute onboarding.

Speaker 1

It is.

Aaron Francis

Okay, so the game.

Speaker 1

It's like, "Draw this line. Draw this line over here. Do, push the question mark." It's like, just let me play the game.

Aaron Francis

That, that's teaching you how to play the game.

Speaker 1

I know how to draw a line with my finger. I don't need you to teach me that.

Aaron Francis

You don't know the mechanics of the game, though. You don't understand how the game works.

Speaker 1

I kind of wanna do it right now on air. I don't know.

Aaron Francis

All right.

Speaker 1

All right.

Aaron Francis

That's enough.

Speaker 1

Tell us about the game.

Aaron Francis

Here's the game.

Speaker 1

Tell us about the game.

Aaron Francis

I've had it-

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

... with you people. The game is called Mini Motorways.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

Okay? So I was in Denver. I was driving to the top of a mountain with Taylor-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... and Hailey, who's on our team.

Speaker 1

Oh, were you going to the, uh, were you going to the casino, which is up there at the top of the mountain?

Aaron Francis

No, we were going to the top of Mount Blue Sky, which I said-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... "Uh, I don't know, that seems, seems a little risky- ... Mount Blue Sky. I don't know. Maybe cancel up there."

Speaker 1

You were just actually cruising.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

You were just, like, going to see the sights.

Aaron Francis

Oh, yeah. We were sightseeing.

Speaker 1

Okay. Okay.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

We had rented a, we had rented a Cybertruck, and so it was on auto drive.

Speaker 1

I saw.

Aaron Francis

You know, we're six inches from certain death- ... and we're like, "Grok, take the wheel." Uh-

Speaker 1

Oh, boy

Aaron Francis

... so it made me a little nervous.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Taylor did take over, uh, when we were six inches from death.

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Oh. Whoa.

Aaron Francis

Do not let this be-

Speaker 1

It is not out of whack then. Take that

Aaron Francis

... do not let this be fodder for your-

Speaker 1

Oh

Aaron Francis

... grievances, okay?

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

It, it drove us successfully, but Taylor, out of his, his human instinct for preservation- ... was like, "This machine has done nothing wrong. However, I am going to take over-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... because of evolution." Right?

Speaker 1

There you go. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I wanna preserve my life.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

We're, you know, I'm gonna talk about this again.

Speaker 1

You're the speechless one, yeah.

Aaron Francis

This is ridiculous.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

We were driving up the mountain.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

We're just having a nice chat, right? Nobody's-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... you know, nobody... We got a long drive. The car's driving itself for the most part.

Speaker 1

Beautiful. Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

We're talking. They start talking about this game called Mini Motorways.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

Never heard of this game in my life. They both are like, "Oh, this is the most fun game I've ever played ever."

Speaker 1

Oh, wow, okay.

Aaron Francis

And-

Speaker 1

I thought this was only Laravel executives, but this is, it's permeated the company. It's bigger than that.

Aaron Francis

It's, yes. It was-

Speaker 1

Okay

Aaron Francis

... this was a Taylor and Hailey original. Um-

Speaker 1

Okay

Aaron Francis

... so they, they explain the game. It's like-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... it's kind of like a strategy puzzle game where you basically have to draw the, the layout of a city with roads and highways to make sure everything connects.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

I think we were talking about it because we were talking about how beautiful Dallas is with their multi-leveled highways.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

You know, we were saying, "The mountains are great, but have you ever been to Dallas?"

Speaker 1

Sure.

Aaron Francis

"We have a lot of highways."

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

And they're like, "Oh, speaking of highways-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... Mini Motorways."

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

So I'm, uh, you know, I'm up in the mountains. I can't download it, so I'm just forced to, like, continue talking to these two people that I really like.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

But I would rather be playing Mini Motorways on my phone, right?

Speaker 1

Obviously, yeah.

Aaron Francis

So we get back down the mountain. We go to a dinner. I'm on the plane. I'm about to take off the next day, and I text Hailey, "What's the name of that game? I've forgotten."

Speaker 1

Mm. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Mini Motorways.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

Download Mini Motorways, go through the very short onboarding tutorial that I found very helpful.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

Then I spend the next two hours straight on the airplane. Straight. I had my computer.

Speaker 1

No tokens, no nothing.

Aaron Francis

I had my Diet Coke. I was ready-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... to rip some tokes. And I'm like, "Ah, let me just draw some roads." Two hours later, I look up-

Speaker 1

Wow

Aaron Francis

... we're in Dallas.

Speaker 1

Look at this guy.

Aaron Francis

I, I probably played, I probably played, like, five hours this weekend-

Speaker 1

Oh, man

Aaron Francis

... between nap time and post kids' bedtime.

Speaker 1

Okay. All right.

Aaron Francis

I probably played this game five hours. I'm taking screenshots and DM-ing Taylé and Haler, Taylé, Taylé and Hailey-

Speaker 1

Taylé and Hailey.

Aaron Francis

... I'll go with it. And I'm like, "This is my score in, this is my score in, uh-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... Miami. This is my score in-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... New York City." And Hailey's just mogging me. She's like, "Oh, that's great, I got double that." And I'm like, "God dang it." Uh, so addicting.

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

So fun. And I'm glad I have a casual game on my phone now.

Speaker 1

I would like that.

Aaron Francis

Because, you know, I, I do love Twitter, unlike my co-host.

Speaker 1

Fair.

Aaron Francis

I do love Twitter.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

But sometimes you reach the end.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

You just reach the end.

Speaker 1

There's nothing left to scroll, yeah.

Aaron Francis

And I'm like, "I'm not gonna look up and see what's going on in the world."

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

"It's nap time. This is my time."

Speaker 1

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

"I should keep looking at my phone. I'm gonna look at Mini Motorways." And it is one of my favorite games, for sure.

Speaker 1

Wow. All right.

Aaron Francis

It's very... It's like a, uh, dumbed down, casual, like, Factorio style thing.

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

Like, you have to, you have to build the system that makes the whole thing run smoothly.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

And at some points you just gotta pause, erase all of your roads, and rebuild it from scratch, because it's grown into a nightmare.

Speaker 1

Whoa.

Aaron Francis

You gotta refactor.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

It's just software development. So don't listen to Ian, as always. Listen to me, download Mini Motorways, have a blast.

Speaker 1

Brought to you by Taylé and Haler.

Aaron Francis

Taylé and Haler put me onto this, and they were correct about it.

Speaker 1

We've been having some fun with the names lately. Look, it's on the page-

Aaron Francis

Yeah, we're, you know-

Speaker 1

... I thought it was like old guy stuff, but no, it's something off the internet causing it

Aaron Francis

... nah, it's just, it's, it's podcaster brain. You know? You're just, you just gotta go, go, go-

Speaker 1

You're just going

Aaron Francis

... keep the people entertained, and you just run over some names sometimes.

Speaker 1

Yeah. All right. Have you used these, uh, stinking dot things or what?

Aaron Francis

This is my first experience with, um, this, like, AI personal assistant thing.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

So that's mostly true. I did download Grok and ran out, uh, Grok Bot and ran out of usage in, like, four minutes and was like, "Uh, I'm not paying for another one. This-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... I can't see this being so useful." So dots are OpenAI's, uh, answer to OpenClaw and Grok Bot and Instinct maybe. I don't know. There's a million of them.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Who knows what that thing is, yeah.

Aaron Francis

But it's included in your plan.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

And so I thought, "Sure. Let's, uh, let's give it a go." So I'm in Denver in the hotel.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

I have my, uh, Laravel Holdings Incorporated laptop, right?

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

I left my, uh, Aaron Francis Holdings Incorporated laptop here in the studio, but I left it plugged in, and I left it, um, reachable on, on LAN and also I think I turned on Caffeinate. So, like, there w-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... there's no chance this thing's unreachable.

Speaker 1

Right. It's cooking.

Aaron Francis

But also, I got it on the Tailnet, I got it on Jump desktop. I can get into this machine.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

Right?

Speaker 1

It's got several ways in, yeah.

Aaron Francis

So I'm in the hotel on my Laravel laptop, and I open ChatGPT desktop app, which has unknown tabs for ChatGPT, Codex, Work, Play, whatever.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I find the right thing to set up my dot. I set up my dot, and I'm like, "Hey, dot, can you... Like, what's the deal?"

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

"Where do you live? What can you see?" And it's like, "I live in a dedicated VM cloud computer. You can, however, link one of your, uh, local computers, and I can work across both of them."

Speaker 1

Oh, okay.

Aaron Francis

"Oh, that's neat." So I thought, "I'm not gonna link it up to my Laravel computer." Um, one, that feels, I don't know. I don't know the rules.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Right.

Aaron Francis

I don't really read the rules, so I just try to abide by what I think the rules are.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

So I didn't do that.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Plus, all my, all my, like, project-based stuff is obviously on my personal laptop.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

So I jump desktop in to my personal laptop-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... open ChatGPT desktop there, connect to that computer. So I connect to that computer, so now it can work in the cloud and on this local MacBook-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... that is here in Dallas.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

Then I'm in Denver, I pull up ChatGPT on my phone-

Speaker 1

Okay

Aaron Francis

... and I open up, I open up my Dot.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

This is... Brace yourself.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

This is, this is where it gets weird.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

I open up my Dot, put my headphones in-

Speaker 1

Two dragons

Aaron Francis

... and call it. So I'm talking-

Speaker 1

Okay

Aaron Francis

... I'm talking to my Dot back and forth.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I'm like, "Hey, what can you see?" "Well, I can see that Solo's running." "Great, let's set up the MCP for Solo."

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

It walks me through setting up the MCP for Solo so that the Dot can reach it.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

Now, I'm on the phone and I'm like, "Hey, what's that process in Solo? Is that, is that one done?" And it's like-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... "Let me read that terminal." It reads the terminal, says, "Hey, here's what it did." And I say, "Great, tell it to do this."

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

So I'm in, I'm in Denver talking on the phone. My machine here-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... is, like, orchestrating code inside of Solo.

Speaker 1

Sure. Via Dot in the cloud.

Aaron Francis

Via Dot in the cloud with some-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... Cloudflare Tunnel MCP thing. Um-

Speaker 1

That's it

Aaron Francis

... and I'm like, "All right, I'm starting to feel the AGI."

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

"Hey, Dot, can you see my personal inbox?"

Speaker 1

Oh, boy.

Aaron Francis

"Yes, I can see your personal inbox. I see you have 84 unread messages." I'm like, "Yeah, that sounds right. That's, that's, that's correct." "All right, Dot, now turn off, turn off your mental imagination here."

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I tell my Dot, "All right, I'm gonna get in the shower." I have my headphones- I'm talk-

Speaker 1

Sure

Aaron Francis

... I'm talking to my Dot. I say, "All right, you might hear some-

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

"I'm gonna get in the shower. I want you-"

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

"I want you to go through my email inbox. Let's clear out any newsletters. If you find a newsletter, ask me if I wanna unsubscribe." "Great, okay, I'll do that."

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

"Then I w- Then we need to go through anything that needs a response. Don't send any email without my permission." So I'm, you know, I'm in the shower. I'm washing my hair.

Speaker 1

Sure.

Aaron Francis

I'm talk-

Speaker 1

How are you washing your hair? How are you washing your hair with headphones?

Aaron Francis

Uh, you just, you just be good at stuff. That's how you do it. You just, you just be good.

Speaker 1

This is crazy.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

This is some millennial stuff right here. All right.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Anyway, continue.

Aaron Francis

And so it's just talking to me like, "Hey, okay, I see this email from, uh, the kindergarten camp out. Your son and daughter are in kindergarten." I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, that, that much I know." Um, "The camp out is on this day. You have this thing on your calendar the day before. What do you want me to say?" And I'm like, "Oh, okay, uh, tell them that XYZ."

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

And it's like, "Great, here's the email I'm gonna send. Do you wanna send it?" "Yep, send it. Next." And so we go through my entire inbox. I'm just talking, just talking to it.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

We go through my entire inbox- ... responding to emails that I've felt guilty about for weeks-

Speaker 1

Oh, geez

Aaron Francis

... that I've just ignored.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

And we just... We knock it out. We get to zero.

Speaker 1

Oh, my God.

Aaron Francis

And so this is my, this is my feel the AGI moment, where-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... you know, I'm not, I'm not booking travel, I'm not booking dinner reservations, but I am using this AI to help me do the things that I should be doing, which is, you know, clearing out my personal inbox.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

And then I realize, uh, oh man, I can just, like, I can just code on the go now. Like, I have my own... I got my own orbs basically.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

And so this morning-

Speaker 1

Uh

Aaron Francis

... this morning, I dropped off the kids at school, as I do every day.

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Francis

And then I was driving to get my coffee, as I do every day, and, uh, there weren't any, there weren't any good podcasts out 'cause it's not Tuesday.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

Most of the technical releases are on a Tuesday.

Speaker 1

Obviously.

Aaron Francis

So I put in my headphones and I call my Dot, and I'm like, "Hey, Dot, what's going on? Catch me up. Where are-

Speaker 1

Oh, my God.

Aaron Francis

"... where are all the Solo-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... uh, projects? Scan through every project in Solo that has an active agent and tell me who's up to what and who's-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... waiting on me." And it's like, "All right, this one needs this." And I'm like, "Yeah, let's not do that. Tell it to do this, and then it can push and watch the CI. Next one."

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

And it just goes down the list. So 15 minutes of driving-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... and I just kicked off, like, maybe 10 other agents working on stuff- ... just because I can get on the phone with my Dot. So it's actually pretty good. It's actually pretty helpful.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

Yep.

Speaker 1

The Dot. Did... I have a question, though. Did you have a cocktail in the shower?

Aaron Francis

No, 'cause I was in the hotel and I didn't wanna pay, like, $28, you know?

Speaker 1

You didn't wanna open one of those little, little-

Aaron Francis

No

Speaker 1

... little vodkas just to have in there?

Aaron Francis

I... You know, I love a, I love a shower cocktail.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Drinking a bottle of vodka in the shower- ... just feels a little different to me.

Speaker 1

It's a little-

Aaron Francis

I don't know why.

Speaker 1

It might be a problem at that point, you're saying.

Aaron Francis

Yeah. Maybe something-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... to interrogate there with morality. But like, oh, let's have, you know-

Speaker 1

A Negroni's okay

Aaron Francis

... four ounce, four ounces of straight liquor- ... in a Negroni, and this is sophistication. Let's drink-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... from a vodka bottle, and this is-

Speaker 1

Sure

Aaron Francis

... degeneracy.

Speaker 1

Ah, I see what you're saying there.

Aaron Francis

I don't know how it makes sense, but it makes sense in my mind.

Speaker 1

Mm. So okay. So when, when you say call the Dots, do you mean... You don't have to actually make a phone call, right? Like, it's just like you're bringing up in the app, right? In the voice mode or whatever.

Aaron Francis

It's a VoIP thing. Yeah. So you, like-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... you open the Dot, and then you hit a call button.

Speaker 1

Oh.

Aaron Francis

So it's not just like go into voice mode. You hit a call button.

Speaker 1

Oh, okay.

Aaron Francis

And it does this incredibly strange psychological trick-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... where it rings probably five or six times.

Speaker 1

That's funny.

Aaron Francis

It is, it is the most-

Speaker 1

That's crazy

Aaron Francis

... it is the most devious thing I've ever experienced.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that seems manipulative. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yes, it's incredibly manipulative because obviously you can hit a button and the VoIP connects immediately, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I, I know how, I know how this works.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

This is just probably WebRTC going to-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... a handler somewhere.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

But they do this, like, this absurd thing where it's like-

Speaker 1

Mm

Aaron Francis

... "Hey, we'll see if the Dot is home or available," and then it picks up and it says ... good to hear from you. What's going on? And I'm like: I know what you're doing, but not much. What's up with you? How are you doing today?

Speaker 1

See, they haven't given these... I tried the, uh, the, I was messing with the voice thing a little bit, not in the Dot, just like their pure voice mode thing. And it's like, I just want pure robot. Like, but they won't give us that. It's like-

Aaron Francis

No

Speaker 1

... here's an English guy. Here's the-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... just give me a fricking robot. I want it to be fully robotic. I don't wanna pretend I'm having a conversation with a human. I just want it to be, like, very structured and robotic. But it, for some reason, they won't give us that, and I don't really understand why, when it seems like so... I would feel way better about talking to it. But like, whenever I talk to it, I'm like, it's so annoying 'cause it's trying to be human.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So now I'm trying to be human. Like, I'm trying not to leave weird, awkward spaces, because, like, in a human conversation, I would come up with something to say.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

But I don't have anything to say to the robot. So, like, it's just very annoying how they've done all this stuff. And this is part... This is a perfect example. It's like, why are we giving this rings? Like, just-

Aaron Francis

I know

Speaker 1

... connect it. If, if it does take two seconds-

Aaron Francis

It's a trick to humans.

Speaker 1

Yeah, if it does take two seconds to spin up the server, fine. Say, "Spinning up server," and like, or, "Spinning up your bot," or whatever. Well, fine. Why are we pretending it's a phone call?

Aaron Francis

I think this is a situation of stated versus revealed preferences.

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

I am confident that they either did internal testing or, like, focus group testing and had people talk to a robot and had people talk to a fake human, and the people were like, "Oh, the fake human was obviously more enjoyable."

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

I'm, I'm just confident that this is what most people actually want.

Speaker 1

I don't know. See, I feel like this is all part and parcel of kind of the same thing of like, they're doing all this stuff, like, if you put a bunch of normal people in a room, I think that's totally true. But if you put a bunch of people who are actually gonna use these tools, which is a bunch of technical geeks, I'm not so sure I believe that they wanna talk to Sally, the fake woman from Idaho. I think they just want a robot.

So, like, I don't know. I don't know. Like, nothing you've said in this whole thing makes me feel like normal people are gonna use any of this. Like, they don't wanna stand in their shower going through their email. Like, you wanna stand in your shower going through your email.

Aaron Francis

Wait, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 1

And me too. But, like-

Aaron Francis

You said-

Speaker 1

... those are two different things

Aaron Francis

... you said normal people-

Speaker 1

Yeah, right

Aaron Francis

... don't wanna do this.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Aaron Francis

And then you explained the thing that I did.

Speaker 1

Right. Well, and me too.

Aaron Francis

Lead- leading me-

Speaker 1

We're not normal

Aaron Francis

... leading me to believe you think I'm-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... not normal.

Speaker 1

You're not normal. You're, you're-

Aaron Francis

This is news to me

Speaker 1

... one of the least normal people I know.

Aaron Francis

This is news to me.

Speaker 1

And I'm not normal either.

Aaron Francis

This is like that time my best friend in college-

Speaker 1

Mm. Schoolgirl

Aaron Francis

... looked at me and was like, "Oh, you know," 'cause we have big foreheads, so people like us. And I had made it, I'd made it 18 years not knowing-

Speaker 1

Ah

Aaron Francis

... that I had a giant forehead.

Speaker 1

Oh my gosh. That's so funny

Aaron Francis

... and he casually roped me into, "Well, you know, people like us with big foreheads." And it shook my world. This is like me realizing just now I'm not normal.

Speaker 1

Isn't it so funny?

Aaron Francis

You can't just drop that on me on a Monday morning.

Speaker 1

Well, I'm sorry about that.

Aaron Francis

I'm very normal.

Speaker 1

There's no way I buy for one second that you thought you were normal up until now.

Aaron Francis

I did think I had a-

Speaker 1

The forehead thing I believe

Aaron Francis

... I did think I had a reasonable forehead. I didn't really think I was normal.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

But I did, it was news to me that my forehead is enormous.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

So that was a surprise.

Speaker 1

What, I saw those pictures of you young, though. You used to have the big hair.

Aaron Francis

I did have big hair.

Speaker 1

Which kind of, like-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... keeps the forehead in line, too-

Aaron Francis

Yeah

Speaker 1

... you know, when you got a big, spiky, blonde hair thing going on.

Aaron Francis

When you have, when you have a fivehead, you gotta have hair that compensates for the fivehead.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So you never noticed 'cause you had, you had the big hair going.

Aaron Francis

That is absolutely correct. Um-

Speaker 1

Man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for you. That's hard. It's funny how those things, uh-

Aaron Francis

Isn't it? Just comes out of nowhere

Speaker 1

... people just say something random. Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Just like, "Oh yeah." And then you're like-

Aaron Francis

Oh, yeah

Speaker 1

... "Oh, shit."

Aaron Francis

The, the weirdo freaks, like you and I. I'm like, "Whoa, hang on. I didn't know that."

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Aaron Francis

Did you see that, uh, 2% of households are using AI? 2%.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I'm surprised it's so high.

Aaron Francis

Get real. 2% is incredibly low. Don't, don't surprise it's so high me.

Speaker 1

Then how much of that-

Aaron Francis

2%

Speaker 1

... 2% is people just typing into Google and getting an AI response, or like typing into... Like, the number of people using it for anything that's not search is like 0.05%. You know what I mean?

Aaron Francis

I mean, even, even my wife and, uh, our nanny use chat basically as a better Google.

Speaker 1

Right.

Aaron Francis

They're like-

Speaker 1

That's what I'm saying. If you eliminate the better Google people-

Aaron Francis

"Hey, how can I find XYZ?"

Speaker 1

... it's like zero.

Aaron Francis

Oh, it's gotta be close to zero. It gotta-

Speaker 1

Right

Aaron Francis

... it has to round to zero if you don't-

Speaker 1

Yes

Aaron Francis

... include the chat, the casual chat users.

Speaker 1

100%.

Aaron Francis

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah, 100%.

Aaron Francis

It's crazy. It's crazy.

Speaker 1

This is why everybody's out there like, "Oh, the normies, the bots are gonna do every- automate their travel." I'm like, I don't know what the frick you people are talking about. Like, they're not gonna do any of this. It's not important to them, and they don't wanna do it. Even the thing you just described, right? Like, at the end of the day-

Aaron Francis

The normal thing?

Speaker 1

The normal thing, right? The normal thing you did to go through your email box, it's just flat out faster to like manually go through your box.

Aaron Francis

Mm.

Speaker 1

Like, you didn't wanna do it that way, but like, having the AI literally read to you all your email is slower-

Aaron Francis

Mm

Speaker 1

... than you just being like, "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Batch closed."

Aaron Francis

But I have no-

Speaker 1

Nope, nope, nope, nope, closed

Aaron Francis

... emotional resistance if I don't have to open it.

Speaker 1

I, I get it. I understand all that part. But in terms of like pure efficiency, it reading your email to you is not as efficient. It just can't be. It's just not as fast, right?

Aaron Francis

Well, I will say-

Speaker 1

Now, I get what the reason is to do it, but that's not really one of them. I, I... If it could fully... At some point, I want it-- What I want from my email is it to automate what you just did, right? Which is like-

Aaron Francis

I don't want that

Speaker 1

... get rid of all this shit that's stupid and you don't need to see. Here's a summary of some stuff you might need to see, and here's the three emails that are actually important.

Aaron Francis

I know.

Speaker 1

That's awesome.

Aaron Francis

I've seen you, I've seen you tweeting at Google to please fix Gmail.

Speaker 1

I'm begging. I'm begging people out there.

Aaron Francis

Good luck. I believe they call-

Speaker 1

But-

Aaron Francis

... that tilting against windmills.

Speaker 1

Uh, but-

Aaron Francis

We'll have to check

Speaker 1

... even that, which is gonna be awesome when it finally gets here, nobody actually wants that. Like, that is for the 0.1% of people that are interested in ultra-optimizing their email, and it's gonna be like work shit, and which is mostly what I want too. Like, it's gonna be work people doing work stuff. The bots are gonna be work people doing work stuff. Not gonna be normal people using this stuff ever.

Aaron Francis

Okay.

Speaker 1

Not until it's automated.

Aaron Francis

Yes and, uh, I will, I will yes, but I will also and.

Speaker 1

Give me an and.

Aaron Francis

Uh, some emails require action, right?

Speaker 1

That is true.

Aaron Francis

And so like I got one from the accountant.

Speaker 1

Mm.

Aaron Francis

Uh, not Ben Affleck, my accountant-

Speaker 1

Yeah

Aaron Francis

... whose name is Jennifer. Great movie. Um, so I got one from-

Speaker 1

Not your wife Jennifer

Aaron Francis

... not my wife Jennifer.

Speaker 1

Different, natural Jennifer. Separate Jennifer.

Aaron Francis

Yes.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

Jennifer is an actual Jennifer, but this is a separate Jennifer.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Aaron Francis

Um-

Speaker 1

Gotcha

Aaron Francis

And so she was requesting that I log into the IRS portal and get this notice-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... out of the portal. And so I tell the dot, "Hey, use my local machine. Bring it up."

Speaker 1

Oh, boy.

Aaron Francis

"Bring up whatever you need." Um, and then I will log in.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Aaron Francis

And then you take it from there, download the notice, attach it as a PDF-

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm

Aaron Francis

... send it back to her.

Speaker 1

Yeah.