The Big Announcement w/ Taylor Otwell

April 29, 2025

Ian and Aaron are joined by Taylor Otwell to discuss the Mostly Technical Party at Laracon, what exactly Taylor does on a day-to-day basis, how they all use AI, and so much more. Mostly Technical Laracon Pre-Party! sponsored by Diagonal - https://lu.ma/d9cdjjcw Sponsored by: Bento - https://bentonow.com/ WorkOS - https://workos.com/ Native PHP for Mobile - https://nativephp.com/mobile Laracon US 2025 - https://lrvl.co/mostly 00:00 Revenge of the Sith 09:26 The Big Announcement 12:24 Laracon US 15:36 Taylor's Day-To-Day 22:30 Forge Updates 29:29 Starter Kits & WorkOS 38:43 Using AI 58:20 You Still Need Good Ideas 01:09:29 Tina Fey & Amy Poehler 01:14:50 Aaron's Climbing Wall
Watch on YouTube →

Transcript

Ian
00:00:00 – 00:00:00
Hello? Good
Aaron
00:00:00 – 00:00:02
morning, Ian. We got somebody with us.
Ian
00:00:03 – 00:00:05
We got a guest. It's been a little while.
Taylor Otwell
00:00:05 – 00:00:07
Yeah. Hey, guys. Good to be here.
Ian
00:00:07 – 00:00:12
Soothing sounds of Taylor Otwell, still in her best voice Back
Taylor Otwell
00:00:12 – 00:00:15
with another mostly technical podcast. Oh, man.
Ian
00:00:15 – 00:00:16
You used
Aaron
00:00:16 – 00:00:20
to do those Laravel snippets back in the office this week. Those were great.
Taylor Otwell
00:00:20 – 00:00:22
Yeah. It's like every week, basically.
Aaron
00:00:22 – 00:00:24
No. I miss those.
Ian
00:00:24 – 00:00:32
We also used to do, some movie podcast, Taylor and I. We did, like, three or four of those. And, Yeah. I went to saw revenge of the Sith. So maybe Oh, yeah.
Ian
00:00:32 – 00:00:38
Yeah. Oh, a little revenge of the Sith, little quick quick movie pod, to start the show.
Taylor Otwell
00:00:38 – 00:00:43
Why were the it's an okay movie. Why were they re showing it? It was, like, the twenty year anniversary, thirty year anniversary?
Ian
00:00:43 – 00:00:44
I think it was.
Taylor Otwell
00:00:44 – 00:00:45
Like twenty years? Yeah.
Ian
00:00:45 – 00:00:52
I think it was maybe twenty years. It was something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But I saw it set, like, some kind of record for a rerelease or something.
Ian
00:00:52 – 00:01:00
Like, people people clapped at the end. It was like Really? Yeah. That's what I was like. I was like, oh, man.
Ian
00:01:00 – 00:01:02
The nostalgia's hitting hard.
Taylor Otwell
00:01:02 – 00:01:11
The Star Wars franchise is just such a tough topic for me. Let me pull up the Star Wars franchise movie list real quick. Yeah. And the the problem
Aaron
00:01:11 – 00:01:12
Which one was in theaters? Revenge of
Ian
00:01:12 – 00:01:13
the Sith?
Taylor Otwell
00:01:13 – 00:01:15
Revenge of the Sith. Yeah. Episode three.
Ian
00:01:15 – 00:01:16
Three, the last of the prequels.
Taylor Otwell
00:01:17 – 00:01:24
The problem is, as much as I hate to say it, more than 50% of the Star Wars movies are bad. They're just not good.
Ian
00:01:25 – 00:01:26
It's crazy.
Taylor Otwell
00:01:26 – 00:01:33
And the ones that are good are just so good. Yeah. Phantom Menace, bad. Attack of the clones, bad. Revenge of the Sith, okay.
Taylor Otwell
00:01:33 – 00:01:43
A New Hope, great. Empire Strikes Back, great. Return of the Jedi, controversial opinion incoming, bad. Force Force Awakens, good. Last Jedi, bad.
Taylor Otwell
00:01:43 – 00:01:46
Rise of Skywalker, bad. It's just it's very hit and miss.
Ian
00:01:46 – 00:01:48
I'm with you on all those, I think. What? Rogue one?
Taylor Otwell
00:01:48 – 00:01:59
Rogue one is good, I think. I actually enjoyed Rogue one more or less. I mean, it was entertaining, like, popcorn muncher movie, you know, in the Fast and Furious style of movies. It's just an entertaining I was about to say,
Aaron
00:01:59 – 00:02:03
you need a list on TaylorAtwell.com that ranks these movies.
Taylor Otwell
00:02:03 – 00:02:05
Nothing deep, but it was it was entertaining.
Ian
00:02:05 – 00:02:18
Yeah. That's what I think I agree with all that. Return of the Jedi, I think, salvages itself slightly at the end. I do enjoy the end of return of the Jedi, but, like, the first two thirds, like, I don't care about the Ewoks. I don't care about all this stuff.
Ian
00:02:18 – 00:02:19
All that stuff is bad. You know?
Taylor Otwell
00:02:19 – 00:02:29
Like I mean, I I know I've told you before. The Ewoks, like, really killed killed it for me, but it was our first glimpse into, like, the Jar Jar Binks mentality of George Lucas.
Ian
00:02:29 – 00:02:38
Mister mind of George Lucas. Yeah. Like, once he has no constraints and he can do literally anything he wants, like, it's all downhill.
Taylor Otwell
00:02:39 – 00:02:39
Yeah.
Ian
00:02:39 – 00:02:49
Yeah. That's what it's that's what it was like watching revenge of the Sith. I was like, man. Like, I don't even know what he's thinking. I don't understand why he wanted to tell the story.
Ian
00:02:49 – 00:02:57
Like, there's no you get two and, like, three quarters of the prequel movies is like, Anakin Skywalker's a great guy. And Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
00:02:57 – 00:02:57
Then
Ian
00:02:57 – 00:03:01
it's like there's literally five minutes where he turns to the dark side. He's like,
Taylor Otwell
00:03:01 – 00:03:04
stop the bad guy. I'm murdering children with a lightsaber.
Ian
00:03:05 – 00:03:12
Go murder children. Literally. Literally, it's five minutes. He's like, oh, no. It it snapped, and I'm going to murder children.
Ian
00:03:12 – 00:03:22
Which even if you gave me a good snap scene, fine. Like, give me something that pushes them over the edge, but there's not even, like, there's not that. It's like he's just scared about Padme, but it's, like, I don't
Taylor Otwell
00:03:28 – 00:03:28
think it
Aaron
00:03:28 – 00:03:33
will surprise either of you that I have not seen all these movies, so I have no idea what you're talking about.
Ian
00:03:33 – 00:03:34
Star Wars, man.
Aaron
00:03:34 – 00:03:39
I've seen some of them. I've seen some of them. I think I've seen the original three, the middle ones, but I have not seen
Taylor Otwell
00:03:40 – 00:03:40
That's fine.
Aaron
00:03:40 – 00:03:43
This one that was just in theaters again, I haven't seen that one ever. Yeah.
Ian
00:03:43 – 00:03:54
You don't need to see that. It's bad. I will say the only thing I did, I did put this out there on the Internet, but I'll get your thoughts, Taylor, quickly is what made the movie laugh. I'm halfway in the movie. Right?
Ian
00:03:54 – 00:04:09
When me and my son are there, I'm like, this is it's brutal. Like dialogue is it's unbelievably bad. People are laughing, you know, when you're not supposed to be laughing, like it's, it's horrible. Dialogue. And then I realized if they made this a silent movie, keep the music.
Ian
00:04:09 – 00:04:18
Right? But, like, old school silent movies style where somebody's playing music. Right? And and then you just have the visual and there's no dialogue. It's, like, way better.
Ian
00:04:18 – 00:04:28
It's way, way better. It's just like the visuals and there's action. You don't need to hear the words for any of it really. It actually all makes more sense. I really started to see my dialogue.
Ian
00:04:28 – 00:04:31
I was like, it's better. That's kind of
Aaron
00:04:31 – 00:04:32
a brutal indictment. You
Taylor Otwell
00:04:32 – 00:04:39
just stopped. I know. I was just thinking that script whoever wrote that script, like, how bigger much bigger of an insult can you have?
Ian
00:04:39 – 00:04:45
Yeah. It's so much better without the dialogue, though. It's, like, actually, it's, like, much more compelling movie without dialogue when I was actively tuning it out.
Taylor Otwell
00:04:45 – 00:04:49
So You should make a we should make a a Star Wars silent cut of,
Ian
00:04:49 – 00:04:51
like, the whole Yes. That's literally what
Taylor Otwell
00:04:51 – 00:04:51
I'm saying.
Ian
00:04:52 – 00:05:03
Artsy. Yeah. I when I was walking out of the theater, I was like, exactly my thought. I was like, boy, if somebody did a silent cut of the prequels, I actually think the whole thing is, like, so much better. It's it's actually would be a lot better.
Ian
00:05:03 – 00:05:09
Yeah. The visuals are alright. You know? Especially, like, if you don't have to hear the terrible dialogue, it's like, oh, alright. It's fine.
Ian
00:05:09 – 00:05:13
Like, I don't like what they did with some of the visuals, but whatever. It's still compelling on some level. But
Taylor Otwell
00:05:13 – 00:05:16
Yeah. And I like this podcast. This is a good podcast.
Ian
00:05:17 – 00:05:23
We're not talking about boring tech stuff. The other thing is you gotta watch Andor. I know you Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:05:23 – 00:05:26
I saw the season two reviews are looking pretty crazy. Like, people are loving it.
Ian
00:05:26 – 00:05:38
Yeah. I just I don't I don't know if I like it as much as season one, but, I mean, it's only three episodes in. So I I do really like it, though. Like, the first episode, I was like, it's a little slower. But then by the third episode, it's, like, banging.
Ian
00:05:38 – 00:05:39
Yeah. It's they're right on it.
Taylor Otwell
00:05:39 – 00:05:46
So So I went out and looked. Are they releasing them in three episode chunks, like, every week or two weeks or something like that?
Ian
00:05:46 – 00:05:48
Is a three episode chunk for four weeks. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:05:48 – 00:05:49
That's kinda cool.
Ian
00:05:49 – 00:06:02
Like, yeah. It's basically like a year per chunk. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by that. So, like, they're kinda having these little movies basically of, like so it's kinda cool because also you get the, like, binge vibe, but you're not getting the whole thing. So you still have time to talk about it.
Ian
00:06:02 – 00:06:03
Right? And, like, all that stuff.
Taylor Otwell
00:06:03 – 00:06:09
And people did Wow. So a year goes by in show every three episodes. Right.
Ian
00:06:09 – 00:06:17
Yeah. Roughly. Wow. Okay. I guess they originally planned it to be five, five seasons, and then they were like, this is nuts.
Ian
00:06:17 – 00:06:30
We don't wanna do five seasons. So, like, they just did the like, I think the first season's like a year, and then they kind of compress the rest of the story, which I was a little worried about, but so far so good. So it seems solid.
Taylor Otwell
00:06:30 – 00:06:31
Yeah. I gotta watch it.
Ian
00:06:31 – 00:06:36
Yeah. Andor the first season's unbelievable. Aaron, you gotta watch. You gotta watch Andor. You could just jump right in on Andor.
Ian
00:06:36 – 00:06:39
You don't need to know all the Star Wars stuff. That's the beauty of it.
Aaron
00:06:39 – 00:06:41
What what is what is Andor? Where does it take place in
Ian
00:06:41 – 00:06:52
the universe? Disney plus. It's before the, like, destruction of the death star and all that. So if you're aware like, before the first the real first movie, episode four.
Aaron
00:06:52 – 00:06:59
So Yeah. And, you know, very on brand, Rogue One, the popcorn movie in the style of Fast and Furious. Great movie. Love it.
Ian
00:06:59 – 00:07:00
Yes. See?
Aaron
00:07:00 – 00:07:02
There you go. Love that movie. Great movie.
Ian
00:07:02 – 00:07:08
Andor is about that guy. So if you like that movie, you like the show. Yeah. Andor is that guy's name, the guy in Rogue One.
Aaron
00:07:08 – 00:07:10
Okay. Well, there you go. I'm in.
Ian
00:07:10 – 00:07:14
Good. Then we could do a review on here about that. So you got you gotta watch that. We got Taylor back
Aaron
00:07:14 – 00:07:20
on that. Want from me, Ian, is you just want me to watch movies so you can talk about movies, and I continually let you down. Down?
Ian
00:07:20 – 00:07:27
I wanna just shit can this whole show. I just wanna turn it into a movie podcast, and that's it. And I'm just totally I'm the
Aaron
00:07:27 – 00:07:28
holding you back.
Taylor Otwell
00:07:28 – 00:07:40
I'm the worst at watching movies and shows. It took Abigail and I, I think, three years to watch Ozark all the way through. I mean, the show was already done. Like, the show all the episodes were out. We're just terrible at finishing stuff like that.
Ian
00:07:40 – 00:07:51
It is kinda nice nowadays, though, that, like, most shows have an end. You know? It's like in the old days, if you didn't keep up with the show, but the show is still going on. It's not like you return to it in three years and, like, oh, we'll get to see what happens. It's like, no.
Ian
00:07:51 – 00:07:58
They're just doing another twenty four episodes next year. Like so it's kinda cool that shows have an actual arc, and it's like, oh, yeah. If I don't Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:07:58 – 00:07:59
Return to
Ian
00:07:59 – 00:08:12
it in three or four years, and then you get to see the end of the show, and that's cool. But, yeah, we tend to never return. That's pretty good that you guys are turn like, if we start something and then we don't finish it, like, right away, if we're not plowing through it, like, this is awesome.
Taylor Otwell
00:08:12 – 00:08:13
It is hard to come back.
Ian
00:08:13 – 00:08:18
Go back. Yeah. Alright. So I guess that's the end of the pop culture segment. That that
Aaron
00:08:18 – 00:08:38
whole that whole segment reminds me of this great comment that we got on last, episode on YouTube. This comment says, I need an entire podcast entirely about Ian explaining activities to Aaron. Like, Disney World is a park where you pay money to have fun. And Aaron's like, sounds like a nightmare. Continue.
Ian
00:08:41 – 00:08:42
That's pretty much your show.
Aaron
00:08:42 – 00:08:44
Yeah. That's the whole show.
Ian
00:08:44 – 00:08:46
So We just did that. I didn't even know about that.
Aaron
00:08:46 – 00:08:48
Star Wars. Never heard of it. Continue.
Ian
00:08:50 – 00:08:51
Oh, man.
Aaron
00:08:51 – 00:08:57
Alright, Ian. We got the big boss here. Should we what what should we do? Should we do the regular song and dance? Should we talk about some Laravel stuff?
Aaron
00:08:57 – 00:08:58
What do you
Ian
00:08:58 – 00:09:00
wanna do? Well, should we talk about our
Aaron
00:09:00 – 00:09:05
big announcement? Let's talk about our big announcement. Let's tell Taylor because I don't think Taylor probably knows. So let's talk about our
Ian
00:09:05 – 00:09:06
big announcement in front of Taylor.
Aaron
00:09:07 – 00:09:14
Knows. Alright. Taylor Taylor knows everything that happens in his company, but this one, he might not know. We'll we'll find out pretty quickly. Ian, give him the big announcement.
Ian
00:09:15 – 00:09:20
Alright. We are having a party at Laracon US. Mostly a party.
Aaron
00:09:20 – 00:09:24
The mostly technical day zero party at Laracon US.
Taylor Otwell
00:09:24 – 00:09:27
Wow. This is crazy. What are the de what's the details on
Ian
00:09:28 – 00:09:35
this? We are, it's gonna be at around 08:30. The first the night no. I guess day zero before the first day. Mhmm.
Ian
00:09:35 – 00:09:42
And it's gonna be a couple hours. Gonna have some drinks. Gonna have some, snacks of some sort. I don't know if that's totally figured out yet. Great.
Ian
00:09:43 – 00:09:51
Yeah. It's just gonna be a place to hang out. I think we're gonna have a 50 tickets available, so not room for everyone. So you will have to reserve your spot. We're gonna have that link up.
Ian
00:09:51 – 00:10:05
Hopefully, when the show goes live, you can go to mostlytechnical.com. Check out the, there'll be a link for the party. Reserve your spot if you're going to Laracon US, which you should be, of course. And, I think it's gonna be cool. We're gonna have some of the Laravel team there.
Ian
00:10:05 – 00:10:06
And, That's gonna
Taylor Otwell
00:10:06 – 00:10:07
be awesome.
Ian
00:10:07 – 00:10:12
Yeah. I think it'll be cool to have, like, a night before gathering in the community. I don't know I don't know if
Taylor Otwell
00:10:12 – 00:10:18
we've got This Laracon has a lot of stuff going on, like, a lot of kind of extra stuff like this, which is which is pretty cool and kind of new.
Ian
00:10:18 – 00:10:21
What are some of the other big things? What what else is happening around it?
Taylor Otwell
00:10:21 – 00:10:42
Well, like, you know, I mean, similar to last year, with the basketball game, we're doing we're doing a sporting event. I don't I don't know if I can I don't know if it's been publicly announced what we're doing, so I won't do it? We're doing a sports related activity the day before, and, of course, we got this mostly technical thing. I've heard about, like, a rooftop get together at some point. Of course, we'll be doing the after party stuff like usual.
Taylor Otwell
00:10:42 – 00:10:48
Yeah. There's, like, a separate vendor hall this year. It's just, like, a bigger That's pretty cool. Cool. Better event.
Taylor Otwell
00:10:48 – 00:11:01
Gavin, some cool people on stage too that we haven't had on stage in a while, like, Evan Yu from Vue JS. We're gonna do a panel with Oh, exciting. Adam, Evan, and then we added Jeffrey Way to the panel as well. So Jeffrey Way back on the Laracon stage. So it'll be it'll be good.
Ian
00:11:01 – 00:11:05
Adam back on the stage. Jeffrey Way back on the stage. Evan up there.
Aaron
00:11:06 – 00:11:08
That's my whole development life right there.
Taylor Otwell
00:11:09 – 00:11:09
Three of
Aaron
00:11:09 – 00:11:13
the three of you and Jeffrey Way. That's, like, my whole career, so that'll be fun.
Taylor Otwell
00:11:13 – 00:11:14
Man. Yeah. I would be
Ian
00:11:14 – 00:11:23
talking to, so first, thank you to Hank and Sam and your people over there who've been helping us, organize the party and get And Diagonal who
Aaron
00:11:23 – 00:11:24
is sponsoring the party.
Ian
00:11:24 – 00:11:27
Yeah. So we have, I think, another sponsor coming on too. So
Aaron
00:11:28 – 00:11:32
thanks for the long run. To register. So make sure you register. Yes.
Ian
00:11:32 – 00:12:02
It will be free, but, you just have to register. So thanks to the sponsors. Big thanks to your team for helping us get it organized. But, but, also, I was, yeah, I was talking to them, and I almost feel like because they were saying some of the stuff you guys have going on too, and it I feel like it's like I love the format of Laracon, and I don't want it to get bigger in a sense. But then there's also, like, literally not enough time kind of for, like, all this stuff go like, there's all these, like like you said, like, ancillary things kinda happening, and it's like but there's, like, literally not enough days.
Ian
00:12:02 – 00:12:07
Like, we need more days to, like, fit the stuff in. So it's kinda interesting.
Taylor Otwell
00:12:07 – 00:12:12
Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. I think it'll be fun. I'm excited about the talks. I think everything would be great.
Taylor Otwell
00:12:12 – 00:12:14
It'd be my first time in Denver, actually.
Ian
00:12:14 – 00:12:16
Me too. I've never
Taylor Otwell
00:12:16 – 00:12:16
been in Denver.
Aaron
00:12:16 – 00:12:29
Yeah. So I think I'll be moderating the panel with the four of y'all, and I will try my hardest to do a great job. But one thing I can promise is that I will not fall asleep on stage. So I'll just put I'll just say that. I know.
Aaron
00:12:29 – 00:12:30
So Omar.
Taylor Otwell
00:12:30 – 00:12:35
I I know. A low it's a low bar. Stay conscious during the Q and A.
Aaron
00:12:35 – 00:12:36
Conscious. Yes.
Ian
00:12:37 – 00:12:42
I don't know. I'm gonna be feeding Aaron those shots the night before and see if we can get him real tired. It's my power.
Aaron
00:12:42 – 00:12:45
That'll be perfect. That's exactly what we wanna say.
Taylor Otwell
00:12:46 – 00:12:49
Oh, yeah. Watch out for dog bites too. No dog bites.
Aaron
00:12:49 – 00:12:58
Yeah. Apparently, Sam Selikhoff confirmed he was the one that got bit the year before. Yeah. I remember that. We're two for two on dog bites at Dax's house.
Aaron
00:12:58 – 00:12:59
Not great.
Ian
00:13:00 – 00:13:04
Alright, man. It's been kinda low drama. Knock wood. Hopefully, that continues. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:13:04 – 00:13:07
We had no injuries or people falling asleep. No.
Ian
00:13:08 – 00:13:13
Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. So you then so you weren't you didn't go to Denver to, prep the site or anything either. Right?
Ian
00:13:13 – 00:13:14
So now you got the No.
Taylor Otwell
00:13:14 – 00:13:20
Like, Hank and Sam did. They went out to Denver. They walked through the venue. They sent me pictures. They loved it.
Taylor Otwell
00:13:21 – 00:13:28
So, yeah, I was good with it. So, yeah, it'd be my literally my first time, like, in the city of Denver. So be a fun time.
Ian
00:13:28 – 00:13:41
Yep. Yeah. I like that vendor hall I did too. I think, they were saying that Mhmm. That this way, it's just like that noise is its own space, and, there's no no issues there.
Taylor Otwell
00:13:41 – 00:13:43
Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I'm positive.
Aaron
00:13:43 – 00:13:46
The first one you haven't had to, like, plan yourself?
Taylor Otwell
00:13:47 – 00:13:57
Yeah. Kind of. Like, starting in what was it? The Nashville year, which was 2023. That was actually the first year I hired, like, an event company Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
00:13:57 – 00:14:27
Who we're still working with through this year. But I was still kind of making all the, like, high level decisions, that year and last year for Dallas. This year, I have tried to, like, just kinda turn the reins loose and let the team run with it and kinda put their own stamp on it and not really step in or micromanage the whole event. So, like, just the other day, I actually messaged Hank, and I was like, hey, what's the stage look like this year? You know, which is, like, really different than previous years where I would have been super involved in, like, figuring that out.
Taylor Otwell
00:14:28 – 00:14:37
So yeah. I mean, I'm trying to do that in a lot of areas around the company, honestly, where I've, like, done every little detail in the past, and I'm trying to let other people kinda find their way now.
Aaron
00:14:37 – 00:14:40
What do you still do? PRs, I know. Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
00:14:40 – 00:15:13
Yeah. PRs, like, honestly, just, like, feature review. Like, if there's a big new feature on cloud, I, like, go in, use it, like, try to figure out what makes sense, doesn't make sense, or even, like, when we're first thinking about the features, thinking about in general how they should work, you know, with the product managers and stuff. You know, a lot of that kind of stuff, just like guidance and feedback and direction setting and feedback giving and sort of, like, vision defining of what kind of big picture items should we work on over the next year or whatever or what our goals are. A lot of stuff like that.
Taylor Otwell
00:15:14 – 00:15:18
Yeah, PRs are part of that every morning as well. Do you have So so in the nitty gritty.
Aaron
00:15:18 – 00:15:26
Do you have standing meetings with, like, teams, like, team leads where you, do reviews and feedback and stuff like that?
Taylor Otwell
00:15:26 – 00:15:34
Yeah. I think I have one, two, three. I think I have, like, four or five standing meetings per week. Wow. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:15:34 – 00:15:34
I know.
Aaron
00:15:34 – 00:15:36
That's four or five more than you used to.
Taylor Otwell
00:15:36 – 00:15:43
Yeah. I know. It's fine. Whatever. It's I are they necessary?
Taylor Otwell
00:15:44 – 00:16:01
I don't no. They're not. But, you know, I have to play along a little bit, and, it is good, you know, to, like, see everyone and talk to everyone. And I will say we get we do get things done that I think would be more time consuming to, like, figure out over Slack at times. Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
00:16:02 – 00:16:10
So, you know, I'm not totally a downer on the meetings. I did go, like, five or six years at Laravel without having a single call, and things kinda went more or less fine.
Ian
00:16:12 – 00:16:13
Oh. But
Taylor Otwell
00:16:13 – 00:16:15
Yeah. It's all good. Also, like so it's
Ian
00:16:15 – 00:16:25
so much bigger now. It's like you want your sort of mindset to seep into the company a bit, and that seems easier if you're actually talking to people, you know, to get those subtleties versus just like
Taylor Otwell
00:16:25 – 00:16:54
Yeah. It does also help you build, like, relationships better, especially for people you don't really know or, like, that haven't been around the Laravel ecosystem for years or even a decade at this point. It helps you, like, actually feel like you're kinda becoming, like, you know, you know, there's, like, real camaraderie and, like, friendship there if you, like, talk to them visually and can see them, you know, versus just only on Slack. Yep. You know, whatever.
Taylor Otwell
00:16:54 – 00:16:56
I'm trying to convince myself that it's all good.
Ian
00:16:58 – 00:16:58
Do you
Aaron
00:16:58 – 00:17:01
have all hands where it's, like, every quarter, you have a big meeting and stuff?
Taylor Otwell
00:17:01 – 00:17:16
Yeah. So we usually do that once a quarter roughly around kind of you know, we have quarterly board meetings. And we sort of give a company wide update at those. And so we sort of repurpose a lot of that material to just present to the entire company. Right.
Taylor Otwell
00:17:16 – 00:17:38
Because sometimes, you know, like, you know, you might imagine if you're on, like, the night watch team or the cloud team, you might not know exactly, like, what other people are doing. And you might be interested in it. It is interesting to see, like, what the other teams are doing. Sometimes we have little demos. So, yeah, it's just a time to, like, bring everyone up to speed and and talk about what we're doing, how we're doing, you you know, things we're struggling with, things that are going well.
Ian
00:17:38 – 00:17:51
Do you think you're gonna do, like, team off-site type of things? Like, I assume maybe do one around Laracon, but I don't know if you would do, like, the whole team. We actually did try to
Taylor Otwell
00:17:51 – 00:18:15
get as many people as possible, and we did an an off-site, a short one, last year in in Fort Worth after Laracon. And we actually had a a fair number of people at the time. I can't remember what percentage of the company was there, but it was a a lot of people. And we, you know, kinda did that similar thing to we do once a quarter. I think we just use that to do like, go through every part of the company, how we're doing, what we're working on.
Taylor Otwell
00:18:15 – 00:18:26
And I think we're gonna do the same thing this year, in Denver. So we're trying to get as many people as we can. It can be tough because we've got people literally all over the place, but, hopefully, we can get a you know, most
Aaron
00:18:26 – 00:18:33
of us there. I like that. Is that is that the plan is, like, use Lyricons as a way to get everyone together and then spend a few days together afterwards?
Taylor Otwell
00:18:33 – 00:18:46
Yeah. I mean, it's super convenient because a lot of people wanna come anyway, especially especially the engineers, I think, especially wanna come, but then a lot of other people as well. So it's just a good convenient excuse to make it happen, you know, around that time.
Aaron
00:18:46 – 00:18:56
And that's fun for the attendees because then, you know, at least at Laracon US, a good portion of the Laravel team is gonna be there, which is you know, that's always fun to see the people you see on Twitter in real life.
Taylor Otwell
00:18:56 – 00:19:12
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And that's I mean, that's one thing I really like about Laracon is, like, if you go to Laracon, you get to hang out with, like, the people that work on Laravel. Like, they're not all, like, hiding in these super secret VIP, like, parties where they never come out and talk to, like, the regular people.
Taylor Otwell
00:19:12 – 00:19:28
Like, you know, I go out and hang out at lunch or, like, during the breaks and just, like, stand around and, like, talk to people. And I like that, like, feel about Laracon where it feels very, like, genuine and real and, like, you know, you can just approach anyone. You know? You can go talk to Jeffrey Way. You can go talk to Nuno.
Taylor Otwell
00:19:28 – 00:19:30
You can go talk to whoever you want. And you
Aaron
00:19:30 – 00:19:45
see people from, like I remember I think it was maybe the Laracon EU, this this most recent one. I saw Graham Campbell, and I was like, wait. You're supposed to be 17. I haven't seen you in forever, and he's just, you know, like, a normal grown up person now. And I
Taylor Otwell
00:19:45 – 00:19:45
was
Aaron
00:19:45 – 00:19:48
like, you were a big part of early Laravel. That's fun.
Taylor Otwell
00:19:48 – 00:20:00
Yeah. I was actually walking through the Dallas Laracon at it was kind of during, like, the after party or the the day was over. And I see him, and I was like, Graham? He he, like, he hadn't even, like, told me he was coming. I was like, dude, I didn't know you were gonna be here.
Taylor Otwell
00:20:00 – 00:20:04
And so I was like, here. Take a picture with me. Like, I took a picture with him. You know?
Ian
00:20:04 – 00:20:06
Not not a picture you.
Taylor Otwell
00:20:07 – 00:20:09
Yeah. Not not vice versa. Yeah. Pretty funny.
Aaron
00:20:09 – 00:20:18
Yeah. I love I love Lyricans. I'm happy, sir, that you're so relaxed during Lyricans because I'm not I'm not relaxed at all. I gotta make sure that all the speakers end up on stage.
Taylor Otwell
00:20:18 – 00:20:24
But Yeah. And hopefully hopefully, you don't have to, improv for thirty minutes with Calab Orzio.
Aaron
00:20:24 – 00:20:30
Man, I will say of all the people it could happen to, Caleb was the best. We had it. It was totally fine.
Ian
00:20:30 – 00:20:34
I was, you know, looking fine. I watched that video. You guys were fine. It was
Aaron
00:20:34 – 00:20:38
great. He's good on his feet. It was a lot of fun. So, yeah, it was That was crazy.
Ian
00:20:38 – 00:20:41
Yeah. Technical issues. Are you gonna stream it?
Taylor Otwell
00:20:41 – 00:20:53
I don't know, honestly. I I mean, I know we're gonna video it like usual. I don't I haven't heard about the live streaming thing this year. But a lot of times, the same guy that does the video also does the live stream. So maybe it's possible.
Taylor Otwell
00:20:53 – 00:20:55
Just depends on kind of the Internet set up as well.
Ian
00:20:55 – 00:20:57
There'll be videos after regardless anyway.
Taylor Otwell
00:20:57 – 00:21:00
Yeah. We usually have them up, like, super quick.
Ian
00:21:00 – 00:21:04
Right. Yep. Cool. But you should still come. Yeah.
Ian
00:21:04 – 00:21:06
You gotta come get your tickets. Come see us all.
Taylor Otwell
00:21:06 – 00:21:12
Yeah. It's gonna be good. There's such a there's there's some cool stuff coming at Laracon. Big up big updates, big forge updates.
Aaron
00:21:12 – 00:21:24
I have heard. I was just listening to you and Matt Stauffer. I heard all this the forge teasing, and that sounds that sounds very exciting. I've seen James talk about it a little bit. He is he the head of the forge team?
Taylor Otwell
00:21:24 – 00:21:25
He is team lead on forge. Yeah.
Aaron
00:21:25 – 00:21:31
Okay. Yeah. It sounds super exciting, and the only one that I guessed was the Envoyeur one, which you admitted on
Taylor Otwell
00:21:31 – 00:21:33
that. Everyone guesses that.
Aaron
00:21:33 – 00:21:40
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm excited to see what else y'all have been cooking up. So what's Yeah. What's the what like, what's the idea with Forge?
Aaron
00:21:40 – 00:21:46
Because I know a lot of people were kinda down on it and being like, oh, they're gonna take Forge away. Clearly, that's not happening.
Ian
00:21:46 – 00:21:46
Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
00:21:47 – 00:22:13
I mean, you know, my perspective on on it is we have many, many, many thousands of happy customers on Forge. There's a high level of customizability on Forge that people really like. They like installing their niche little extensions and the little tools they need for their app to run. And that's just hard to do, like, on a fully managed platform, at least for now. And, you know, I I think, hey.
Taylor Otwell
00:22:13 – 00:22:26
Like, we need to keep making this better. We need to, like, go harder on it, be more ambitious with it because we have a lot of people using it, enjoying it. So let's, like, keep keep working on it. So we've done a lot. You know?
Taylor Otwell
00:22:26 – 00:22:42
The the Envoy stuff that everyone guessed is honestly maybe not even the biggest part of, like, what we've been working on on Forge, so I I'm super pumped. It's kind of a fresh new look. You know? Lots of cool new features. So, yeah, definitely not a slowing down on the Forge development pace.
Aaron
00:22:42 – 00:22:58
I like this because you're I think you said this to Matt. Your biggest competitor to forge is cloud, and the biggest competitor to cloud is forge. And so you're like you're running the the Procter and Gamble or the Johnson and Johnson playbook where it's like, we own it all. Pick whatever you want. It's all us, guys.
Aaron
00:22:58 – 00:22:59
So I like that.
Taylor Otwell
00:22:59 – 00:23:16
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in, like, I want in some ways, it's it's funny to me because Forge is a little bit more, like, unique of a product, I guess, because, you know, cloud is a fully managed platform, and lots of people have done fully managed platforms. Right? Whether all the way back to Heroku or or whatever.
Taylor Otwell
00:23:16 – 00:23:38
But not a lot of people have really, like, built this really high quality, just like server VPS management tool that's, like, very deep on Laravel, but maybe potentially on other things as well. So, like, to me, it's like I I don't know. It's kind of a unique tool and has its own little corner of the market that is not very well served. So I I'm a forge fan still.
Ian
00:23:38 – 00:23:50
I love forge. Great. Just the other day, I was doing a new help spot website, and, like, I ended up just putting out on forge because I was, like, playing with the cloud, and then, like but there was something weird. It's, like, for older legacy stuff too. It's, like, forge.
Ian
00:23:50 – 00:23:58
I I know I can just do anything. Right? It, like, doesn't it doesn't need, like, any special settings. Like, if I have to put some weird thing on there, I can just do whatever weird stuff I want. Yep.
Ian
00:23:58 – 00:24:11
Because it's fully customizable. So, yeah, it's just great to have that, like, ultimate flexible tool. Right? And then you have cloud, which will probably creep in on that, I assume, over time. Right?
Ian
00:24:11 – 00:24:29
But, like, but up until that point, you know, it's, like, gonna be a little more dialed in, I think, on, like, applications and, like, kind of the core stuff like that and not so much on everybody's random edge case. It's gonna be a while till you get to every random edge case on cloud. So you still have forge for yeah. You got weird edge case. Great.
Ian
00:24:29 – 00:24:32
Like, just Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't No.
Taylor Otwell
00:24:32 – 00:24:34
Literally do anything. Yeah. Yeah. You
Ian
00:24:34 – 00:24:39
can do whatever you need to do. And, yeah. I I don't know. I still love Forge. It's good to know.
Aaron
00:24:39 – 00:24:44
Have you looked at have you have you looked at DHH's what what is it? Kamal? That thing? Have you looked at that at all?
Taylor Otwell
00:24:44 – 00:25:06
Yeah. I've looked at it a little bit, and I saw him demo it live at, Rails World in Toronto in, Toronto. I mean, yeah, it seems fine. Like, I I probably you know, I would just rather use forge or cloud or something, but, it seems pretty cool. You know, DHH is always, like, kind of against the grain and doing his own thing and blazing his own trail.
Taylor Otwell
00:25:07 – 00:25:17
So it's a little bit more, like, complicated than even, like, Forge, you know, more than I would wanna bite off, but that's cool. It's DHH. You know? He can do what he wants. He drives race cars.
Taylor Otwell
00:25:17 – 00:25:17
Yeah. He
Aaron
00:25:17 – 00:25:19
he's earned that. He can kinda do whatever he wants.
Taylor Otwell
00:25:20 – 00:25:20
Yeah.
Ian
00:25:20 – 00:25:34
He's not so much worried at this point, I feel like, about, like, the usability of things necessarily either. You know? It's like I mean, I think with base camp, I'm sure he is. But, these other things, it's like, this is the tool for our use case. And if you wanna come along, that's great.
Ian
00:25:34 – 00:25:38
But he's not, like, trying to make it easy to use necessarily. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:25:38 – 00:25:51
I think you're right. Like, it it's not like the, it's not built for the same reasons that Rails was built. It's, like, more ideological against the system, like, against the corporate, you know, like, man that's overcharging us.
Ian
00:25:51 – 00:25:51
Than a
Taylor Otwell
00:25:51 – 00:25:59
Yeah. It's more of a Yeah. Yeah. Where to me, Rails was, like, very, yeah, very, like, polished and about the DX and all of that.
Ian
00:26:00 – 00:26:10
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's kinda interesting how that occurred because, like, I mean, it was sort of a statement against the way things were at the time too, but it was done with a much, like, broader outlook. Right?
Ian
00:26:10 – 00:26:20
You would say, I think. Like, it was really a general purpose tool. I feel like he was trying to build, and I don't there's other stuff that's coming after. I don't I don't feel like that's the case. Yeah.
Ian
00:26:20 – 00:26:46
Probably. But but who wants to run their own server? It's like, at the base of it, it's like, you could run this thing and run your own servers, but it's like, I don't really wanna run my own servers and, like or at least want a little more middle ground there. Like, Forge kinda gives you to both get it set up correctly to begin with and then, have that, like, layer. Even though I'm, like, ultimately responsible for it, there's, like, this layer of management and help there with Forge so that you don't have to be all the way down in the weeds most of the time.
Ian
00:26:46 – 00:26:53
And then obviously you have cloud where you're not in the weeds at all. But, yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't run-in those things. It's like,
Aaron
00:26:53 – 00:26:56
yeah. Alright, Ian. Let's let's pay some bills.
Ian
00:26:56 – 00:26:57
What do you say?
Aaron
00:26:57 – 00:27:22
Yeah. Let's do it. This episode is brought to you by WorkOS auth kit, coded hand coded by our guest today, mister Taylor Otwell. Laravel twelve's new starter kits include work OS auth kit, future proof your authentication stack with the identity layer trusted by OpenAI, ever heard of it, Cursor, Perplexity, and Vercel. You can find out more at work0s.com.
Aaron
00:27:22 – 00:27:39
This episode is also brought to you by Bento at Bentonow.com. Bento is the email service provider that we use at TryHard Studios for both marketing and transactional email. I highly recommend you check them out at bentonow.com.
Ian
00:27:39 – 00:27:53
Thank you. So that actually is a perfect segue because I have a little bit of a starter kit question. Okay. Bossman here. Starter kits, love the idea, love the execution, love you have all the different, like, every flavor you want back, you want Livewire, whatever you want.
Ian
00:27:53 – 00:27:57
You want different flavors of Livewire. Like, we got the whole thing for you. Right? Great.
Aaron
00:27:57 – 00:27:58
This feels like a setup, by the way.
Ian
00:27:58 – 00:28:00
It's a little it's a little bit of a setup.
Aaron
00:28:00 – 00:28:01
He's buttering them up.
Ian
00:28:01 – 00:28:16
So I it's like I I I want my cake and eat it too. I love that it's like you just get the code. We're not trying to make it packages that you have that that is updating, and you're worrying about conflicting things and all that stuff. Right? Like, I think that makes sense.
Taylor Otwell
00:28:16 – 00:28:16
Mhmm.
Ian
00:28:16 – 00:28:31
But then I was, you know, I was poking around, messing with the thing the other day. It's like, oh, man. You guys are working on a big two factor enhancement for the auth stuff. And it's just, like, huge branch with, like, 50 commits in in it. Right?
Ian
00:28:31 – 00:28:39
And it's like Yep. Man, I can never get that. Right? So that I've already messed with Jason, McCrory, and I was like, dude, you gotta put this in shift. But so that would be one answer, but I was wondering what you guys are thinking on that.
Ian
00:28:39 – 00:28:45
When you when you do add something big and huge and new and awesome, is there, like, gonna be upgrade docs, or what do you think in there?
Taylor Otwell
00:28:45 – 00:29:02
I don't know. It'd be nice if we did have upgrade docs or even, like, automated upgrades for it through some kind of shift thing with JMac. And I don't even that two FA stuff, you know, we may even use end up using Fortify for that, so there's much less code. We're not sure. We may we may pull that back into Fortify.
Taylor Otwell
00:29:02 – 00:29:16
Just use that. But, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of like that that it is kinda like the gift and the curse, the way the starter kits are set up. It's like, I really wanted all the code to be available like Breeze, but they're like, like, you're right that there's not, like, a a clear upgrade path for some major feature. That's something.
Taylor Otwell
00:29:16 – 00:29:42
Yeah. But I don't know. I'm hoping we can at least get, like, the controllers and the views, especially for, like, something like two FA kind of isolated enough to where you could sort of drop it in if we wrote the docs on what files you need. But I could potentially see features down the line where that's just, like, not feasible because they're, like, so intertwined with, like, how it works. Regarding the OS stuff, you know, like, this kind of plays into the work OS stuff where which I took some heat on even releasing.
Taylor Otwell
00:29:42 – 00:30:00
I saw that. We don't get any money from we don't have any deal with Work OS. We don't get any money from that. But, like, the main reason I built that is because, like, you know, like or maybe you don't know. I'm just, like, super OCD about, like, super minimal organizing everything and just, like, having all of that awe stuff, like, in the app.
Taylor Otwell
00:30:00 – 00:30:12
I just didn't like it. I didn't want any of that in there. Like, I just wanted my own app in the Yeah. In the in the Laravel app. So when I built the Work of West stuff, I was like, oh, this is sweet.
Taylor Otwell
00:30:12 – 00:30:23
I can just, like, redirect to them. They do all of that. I don't have to think about it. I don't even I don't wanna see any code in my app about two FA or login or registration or anything. And then it's redirect back to me.
Taylor Otwell
00:30:23 – 00:30:28
Great. So, I mean, that's that's kind of, like, why I built that, honestly, is so that
Aaron
00:30:28 – 00:30:31
summer child. The people hate it. I know.
Taylor Otwell
00:30:33 – 00:30:41
I don't know. The the they'll come around. You know? They hate they hate everything at first. They hate everything, and then they're crawling, you
Ian
00:30:41 – 00:30:42
know, they're crawling. We
Taylor Otwell
00:30:42 – 00:30:43
love it.
Aaron
00:30:43 – 00:30:46
It had the tinge of VC even though there was no action.
Taylor Otwell
00:30:46 – 00:30:47
Yeah. That's true.
Aaron
00:30:47 – 00:30:48
And so people
Taylor Otwell
00:30:48 – 00:30:49
were like, oh,
Aaron
00:30:49 – 00:30:51
now they're doing money for off. No.
Ian
00:30:51 – 00:30:56
I think it's messed up that we've made more money on Work OS than Taylor. That is true. You
Taylor Otwell
00:30:59 – 00:31:10
you guys have made more of this than me. That's so funny. It it is true. I need to be more aware of, like, the optics of that. I don't think about any of that crap.
Taylor Otwell
00:31:10 – 00:31:25
I don't think about any of that any of that VC stuff. I just build the things that I think are actually good. There's no way anyone could, like, hold a gun to my head and make me build something that I think is trash or I don't agree with or, like, I would just I just quit. I just wouldn't work anymore. I don't care.
Taylor Otwell
00:31:25 – 00:31:35
Like, you know what I mean? So, like Right. All the, like, conspiracy stuff doesn't really make sense. But, you know, that's how it goes. I do need to be a little bit more aware of the optics of that.
Taylor Otwell
00:31:35 – 00:31:44
But I just thought it was cool and minimal, and I don't know. If I was starting a new Laravel app today, I would use it. I think the other cool thing is, like, they iterate on the auth stuff. You know? Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
00:31:44 – 00:31:53
It's like, you know, they're constantly updating it and making it more secure and stuff, and I don't have to do anything. Anyway, starting to feel like a commercial, and they're gonna have to, like, pay me before I say anything else. But
Ian
00:31:53 – 00:31:55
That's alright. Thank you for asking us for sponsoring.
Aaron
00:31:56 – 00:31:57
Yeah. Thanks for sponsoring this show.
Ian
00:31:57 – 00:32:24
I should think about that more. I I always, like I went on a little thing where I was like, oh, I don't wanna ever deal with auth again. Then I was like, there was, like, it's sort of tricky to get set up, and then it's like, we'll just use Breeze or whatever the Laravel thing is, right, at the time. But, but, yeah, nowadays, maybe it makes I mean, now that you've given us the, the super tight integration, it's like, maybe it's just back to WorkOS and, like because that stuff is so critical. It's like everybody's trying to hack you all the time now.
Ian
00:32:24 – 00:32:35
Even, like, littler projects, like, so much is automated and everything that, like, having that off your plate, if you have a use case where you can, where it's like a pure SaaS and, like, it's no problems. Mhmm. I think that's
Taylor Otwell
00:32:35 – 00:33:09
I think it's also, like I I don't wanna beat a dead horse too much, but I think, like, when I look back on Laravel and, like, as we grew and eventually as we took funding, I see now that, like, you know, I think the whole YAGNI approach is, like, kinda true a lot of the time. But there are things I wish I had done more, like, forward thinking to get more, like, let's say, like, enterprise ready from the beginning. So things like, you know, a single sign on system for, like, all of our products. Mhmm. At the time, it felt very, like, YAG.
Taylor Otwell
00:33:09 – 00:33:14
You know? It was, like, very YAG mentality. Like, let's just see if the products are even successful. Right? Like, if they even make any money.
Taylor Otwell
00:33:14 – 00:33:33
But now, like, looking back, I was like, oh, it's kind of a bummer that, like, there's, like, five different logins for five different commercial products. And so I don't know. You know, if I was starting today, I think I would actually pick something like an auth solution like that because, one, it's easy to do now, and it can just, like, really pay off later, if it works out.
Aaron
00:33:33 – 00:33:40
Do you think that would have, I agree about the logins. I have, like, eight different logins in my one password, and they all just say Laravel.
Ian
00:33:40 – 00:33:43
Like, this is not helpful. Yeah. Do you think
Aaron
00:33:44 – 00:33:52
if you had had that mindset of, like, let's look forward, do you think you would have been as successful, or is the YAGNI mindset what got you here?
Taylor Otwell
00:33:52 – 00:34:09
I think, like, it wouldn't have really mattered from, like, a revenue perspective that much. I just think it would have been, like, convenient. It would have been sort of nice to have more than, like I don't think it would have materially affected the success of the business up to this point. But, you know, it just would have been convenient for users, I think. I just
Ian
00:34:09 – 00:34:18
think it's always hard. You never know where to draw that line. Right? Because you could be like there's probably 10 other features you can name that are more enterprise y that you could have been like, well, we can't launch until we have this thing too. Right?
Ian
00:34:18 – 00:34:35
And then, like then that starts to, like, delay you in even launching and all that kind of stuff, and that maybe impacts things. You know? Whereas, like so it's always hard to know what is the feature that would when oh, yeah. That one you could throw that in, and that would be useful and not a big deal versus, like, the other ones and which when you draw the line and all that stuff. Mhmm.
Ian
00:34:35 – 00:34:43
And plus for Forge, especially, it was so long ago. There was no work OS. There was no there was no I don't even think there was AWS, whatever was it? Incognito or
Aaron
00:34:43 – 00:34:45
Yeah. I mean say.
Taylor Otwell
00:34:45 – 00:34:52
Who's this what it's called? Yeah. I just hoped Ford was gonna pay my mortgage. You know? Like, I had no idea what was gonna happen.
Ian
00:34:52 – 00:34:52
Yeah. That was one of the
Aaron
00:34:53 – 00:34:58
did so well, Ian had to fire you. He had to push you out the door and say, go work on this.
Ian
00:34:58 – 00:34:59
Like, dude, get out of there.
Taylor Otwell
00:34:59 – 00:35:11
I yeah. I can't believe, you know, I couldn't believe it myself back then, you know, that people were interested in it. It looked like garbage. If you go back and look at that, go back. It's like boost Twitter bootstrap, no customization.
Ian
00:35:12 – 00:35:16
Who did the first real design of it? Did Steve do that, or was somebody before Steve? There's somebody before Steve.
Taylor Otwell
00:35:17 – 00:35:26
So, you know, like, I did the first one in bootstrap. And then I think after that, I think Jack McDade did a pass on it, and David Hemphill coded it.
Ian
00:35:27 – 00:35:27
Oh, wow.
Taylor Otwell
00:35:28 – 00:35:38
Like, he got the designs from Jack, and then David finished it off and something like that. I think that's how it went. I don't think there was anything in between the initial launch and that happening.
Ian
00:35:38 – 00:35:41
Yep. Wow. Those guys go way back too. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:35:41 – 00:35:47
Yeah. And the design that it has now is roughly reminiscent of what Jack did, I'd say.
Ian
00:35:48 – 00:35:50
Right? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's still rough.
Aaron
00:35:50 – 00:35:53
Did you point your army of new designers at Forge yet?
Taylor Otwell
00:35:53 – 00:36:11
Yeah. So we have a designer on Forge that's, like, dedicated to Forge right now. Yeah. And like I said, it'll be a big big, like, kind of UI update, at Laracon for Forge. You know, trying to take a lot of the stuff we learned on cloud, stuff we did on cloud, but still retain some of Forge's personality and the way it looks.
Taylor Otwell
00:36:11 – 00:36:14
And, so, yeah, it it'll be a a big update.
Ian
00:36:14 – 00:36:20
Love the Forge love. Alright. What else we got going on here? Well, we could talk about this. Yeah.
Ian
00:36:20 – 00:36:20
Aaron's got
Taylor Otwell
00:36:20 – 00:36:23
some crazy shit going on. Why is Aaron laughing?
Aaron
00:36:23 – 00:36:28
Because I know that Ian is reading the Trello board, and he's like, what the hell is going on here, man?
Ian
00:36:30 – 00:36:30
Let's start
Taylor Otwell
00:36:30 – 00:36:31
with the
Ian
00:36:31 – 00:36:33
we'll start with the one I put in because I I'll be curious
Taylor Otwell
00:36:33 – 00:36:33
to know
Aaron
00:36:33 – 00:36:34
if you put in
Taylor Otwell
00:36:34 – 00:36:34
this too.
Aaron
00:36:34 – 00:36:36
Six things, and we're gonna start with the one thing.
Ian
00:36:36 – 00:36:39
It's alright. Hey. You want me to run the show? We're gonna start with mine.
Aaron
00:36:39 – 00:36:41
I want you to run the show, so keep going.
Ian
00:36:41 – 00:36:43
About you, so don't Alright. Then I'll let it
Aaron
00:36:43 – 00:36:44
I'll let it slide. I'll let it slide.
Ian
00:36:44 – 00:36:51
Because you had a tweet, I believe, or some formal post that was your Chat GPT history, your style.
Aaron
00:36:51 – 00:36:51
Oh, yeah.
Ian
00:36:52 – 00:37:00
Yeah. I did. And, you got you know? So I guess it's like it's interesting to see how people use Chat GPT. At first, I was like I think I even wrote in the notes.
Ian
00:37:00 – 00:37:08
I was like, something like, Aaron's boring or something chat gbt history. And I was like, oh, let me delete boring out of there because it's not exactly boring. But, like
Aaron
00:37:08 – 00:37:09
a little aggressive, I
Taylor Otwell
00:37:09 – 00:37:11
guess. On that too. Yeah.
Ian
00:37:11 – 00:37:15
But he's got, like, you know, read read only attributes in Laravel
Taylor Otwell
00:37:15 – 00:37:16
Mhmm.
Ian
00:37:16 – 00:37:18
Exporting videos from DaVinci Resolve.
Aaron
00:37:19 – 00:37:19
That's good stuff.
Ian
00:37:19 – 00:37:23
Video short description naming. I think sin nature.
Taylor Otwell
00:37:23 – 00:37:25
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember that one.
Ian
00:37:27 – 00:37:33
Mist and sound effects. I'll click exercise tips. So you got a health thing in there. That's what changed my mind. I was like, everybody's got a health thing in their chat sheet.
Aaron
00:37:33 – 00:37:34
Everybody's got a health thing.
Ian
00:37:34 – 00:37:38
So, like, I was like, how does he not have a health thing? But then I saw that. I was like, okay. Okay. He's got a health thing.
Ian
00:37:38 – 00:37:43
It's not that boring. We're good. You know, you got Leland, Cypress, and Texas. You got a bunch of random stuff.
Taylor Otwell
00:37:43 – 00:37:44
I gotta pull up my own, though.
Ian
00:37:44 – 00:37:46
Foot gate feasibility. Thirty
Taylor Otwell
00:37:46 – 00:37:47
thirty six
Aaron
00:37:47 – 00:37:57
foot gate feasibility. Turns out it is feasible. And for concrete, it is a rolling gate across the driveway. That's what that's what I was after.
Ian
00:37:57 – 00:38:04
See, I don't like that. I picture it vertical. Like, you want Yeah. An emperor style wall, 30 foot high.
Aaron
00:38:05 – 00:38:06
I mean, I kinda do want that.
Ian
00:38:06 – 00:38:12
Taller than the walls between us and Mexico. It's giant wall. Yeah. That's what I was picturing.
Aaron
00:38:12 – 00:38:16
And I'm gonna make my neighbors pay for it. That is for sure. Yes. Yes. No.
Aaron
00:38:16 – 00:38:33
We got this we got this driveway that opens to an alley, and right behind the alley is a a major road. And so I wanna put a gate up, but the driveway, like, our property line is kinda on an angle, and so that makes it really long. And so I needed a 32 foot gate, and I wanted to see if it was feasible. And it's feasible.
Ian
00:38:33 – 00:38:35
Is it a break in two two two gates?
Aaron
00:38:35 – 00:38:38
I I think it's gonna be one big rolling guy.
Ian
00:38:38 – 00:38:41
Like, you're pulling, like, a a truck in there kinda thing.
Aaron
00:38:41 – 00:38:43
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Aaron
00:38:43 – 00:38:44
So that's that's the plan.
Taylor Otwell
00:38:45 – 00:38:47
Chad GPT is down, actually, so I can't even look at my history.
Ian
00:38:47 – 00:38:56
Oh, no. No. Mine I don't I don't actually don't have anything, too interesting in mine. Mine's more boring. I have I have some stuff about Star Wars prequels.
Ian
00:38:56 – 00:39:00
I have, writing some stuff for the HubSpot website.
Aaron
00:39:00 – 00:39:06
Boring. Mine's way more interesting than that. A simplified pool automation plan. That's a good one.
Ian
00:39:06 – 00:39:15
Mine has, like yeah. I I don't actually don't even, I have a I have a health thing, but not for me, for my son's pinching arm. Then I
Taylor Otwell
00:39:15 – 00:39:30
Man, I've got a health thing too. I've I have it on my phone. My first one is oh, I got modern outdoor design concept. Then I've got Crestor steady state time, which is cholesterol medication. These these Laravel guys, we're getting old.
Taylor Otwell
00:39:30 – 00:39:31
That is
Ian
00:39:31 – 00:39:32
Oh, boy, aren't we?
Taylor Otwell
00:39:32 – 00:39:33
Oh, that's funny.
Ian
00:39:33 – 00:39:40
That's too I have a I have a permanent project in the sidebar. You know, you can make projects now, like, to organize stuff. That's just called gallbladder. So that's got my Oh
Aaron
00:39:40 – 00:39:41
my gosh.
Ian
00:39:41 – 00:39:43
It's got my cholesterol medicine, which is what you
Aaron
00:39:43 – 00:39:45
use to call the last couple of minutes.
Ian
00:39:45 – 00:39:48
Yeah. We're getting old. This is geriatric podcast.
Aaron
00:39:48 – 00:39:52
I'm researching sin nature. You have no gallbladder, and Taylor has high cholesterol.
Taylor Otwell
00:39:53 – 00:39:53
Like, we're
Aaron
00:39:53 – 00:39:55
not the most interesting people in the world.
Ian
00:39:56 – 00:40:05
But it is funny how, like just interesting how it just it's sort of seeped into your life, you know, and you're just, like, using it, like, optimizing it on the phone.
Taylor Otwell
00:40:05 – 00:40:06
All the time. All the time.
Ian
00:40:06 – 00:40:25
It's kinda it's definitely it's definitely dramatically hurt my Google usage, which Google has already grown themselves, you know, with, like it's just being, like, impossible to find anything, just all the ads and boxes and stuff they have there. But, yeah, it definitely anything question like, it just goes right to chat GBT.
Taylor Otwell
00:40:25 – 00:40:29
Oh, yeah. It's just it's destroyed my Google usage. Totally. Yep. Yeah.
Aaron
00:40:30 – 00:40:34
Speaking speaking of AI, Ian, did you watch that AI video I made?
Ian
00:40:34 – 00:40:38
Yes. And you liked it? I like that one too. You're I
Aaron
00:40:38 – 00:40:38
love AI.
Ian
00:40:38 – 00:40:41
On all cylinders right now. So We love it. Very good.
Taylor Otwell
00:40:41 – 00:40:41
That's true.
Ian
00:40:42 – 00:40:46
Taylor, but Aaron made a video about how they use AI at try hard.
Taylor Otwell
00:40:46 – 00:40:46
Okay.
Ian
00:40:46 – 00:41:03
And it was cool. It's like, like I mean, I maybe it was a little bit of code. I think you did mention the coding stuff, but it was also, like, kind of all the other ways that you use it, to kind of optimize. I guess it is a lot of it was coding, but I even think of it as coding because it was, like, more like you were building tools to Yeah. Do things.
Ian
00:41:03 – 00:41:09
And, obviously, it was creating code to do those things, but it was not like you were building an app and it was writing the code as much
Aaron
00:41:09 – 00:41:12
as it was, like, you're having integrate it
Ian
00:41:12 – 00:41:21
into our Yeah. Our You're writing commands. Yeah. To, like, process videos and make transcripts and all that stuff. Yeah.
Ian
00:41:21 – 00:41:23
That was cool. How how did it how did it go? Did the people like it?
Aaron
00:41:23 – 00:41:31
Yeah. People liked it. I think Reddit complained that the thumbnail was cringy, and YouTube had the highest click through rate ever. Ever. So it's like
Ian
00:41:32 – 00:41:32
Hey, man.
Aaron
00:41:32 – 00:41:47
Who do we listen to here? But, yeah, it's it's doing well. And I did change the thumbnail to see if it would do any better, and I don't I don't think it's done any better. So, once again, maybe don't listen to Reddit. But, yeah, it's been doing great and a lot of lot of positive comments.
Ian
00:41:47 – 00:41:49
Feel like cringe thumbnail is, like That's that's
Taylor Otwell
00:41:49 – 00:41:50
what you're
Ian
00:41:50 – 00:41:55
supposed to do. Yeah. That's, like, that's what they all are. They're all like, oh, that's weird, and that's why they work.
Aaron
00:41:56 – 00:41:57
Yeah. But Reddit hates everything.
Ian
00:41:58 – 00:42:04
Yeah. What are you guys using Taylor? What are you using for your AI? Are you using, like, coding wise? Are you going between chat g p t and not?
Ian
00:42:04 – 00:42:07
Or are you are you cursor? Or what are you doing?
Taylor Otwell
00:42:07 – 00:42:23
I'll pop open cursor, like, if I wanna if I'm actually working on a Laravel thing and I wanna try AI. If it's something quick, like, how do I do this? And it's just like it's gonna be a few lines of code. Sometimes I'll just use chat g p t directly and, like, copy it out. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:42:23 – 00:42:45
The other day, I popped open cursor. I don't know. We got a PR to Laravel, and it was the auto discovery of the HTTP, like, API resources that are linked to your model. So usually, we'd have your model in, like, appmodelsuser.PHP, and you have your resources in, like, app HTTP resources user resource or something like that. Someone sent a PR to, like, find those based on conventions.
Taylor Otwell
00:42:45 – 00:43:11
So if you know you have a user model, you kinda know where the resource for that is, but it only were it assumed, like, the app directory was the name of the directory instead of, like, you know how people do the DDD stuff and Right. Blah blah blah. They go down all these rabbit holes. And I wanted it to be, like, more generic so that no matter where the model's directory was, it just found the closest, like, sibling resource, if that makes sense. So I popped open cursor, like, explained that, and there's, like, bam, bam, bam, one shot.
Taylor Otwell
00:43:11 – 00:43:23
Good. I've changed, like, the styling a little bit to be kinda Otwell style and then and then shipped it. So, yeah, I'll pop it open occasionally. You know, I used to try out a lot of boilerplate stuff too, like, tests. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:43:23 – 00:43:25
At least to get me started.
Ian
00:43:25 – 00:43:31
So not all in on it, but still poking around. Yeah. Probably probably not coding as much as you were either.
Taylor Otwell
00:43:31 – 00:43:39
Yeah. That's true. The team uses you know, we have a cursor license for the team. So I think a lot of the team is using cursor pretty much every day.
Aaron
00:43:39 – 00:43:53
Yeah. I just started using codecs. Have you all heard of this? It's like a command line tool from OpenAI. And, like, a week and a half ago, it only worked with, ChatGPT.
Aaron
00:43:53 – 00:44:07
And then, like, a week ago, a few days later, they were like, yeah. Fine. It can work with any model because somebody forked it and made an open codex, of course, as they do. And so, OpenAI was like, yeah. We'll do it first or second in this case.
Aaron
00:44:07 – 00:44:39
And it's really nice because I use PHPStorm, and there's not really, like, a good story there for, an editor or an assistant. And this is just, like, runs in the command line, interacts with files, asks you questions, like, confirms commands before it runs, and it can do all kinds of stuff. Like, it can look around, you know, look around your computer, run Git commands, run NPM install, all of that. And it's like it's really good. So I hooked it up to I think I hooked it up to Gemini 2.5, and had it do some stuff.
Aaron
00:44:39 – 00:44:51
And it was it was pretty impressive. And I like I don't know. I I like it being outside of my editor because I don't like it when it gets, like, getting in my way when I'm trying to just, like, you know, hand write some code. And so I find that this is a good trade off.
Ian
00:44:51 – 00:45:04
I'll check that out because I do definitely, the worst part about all of these editors for me is that they're not PHPStorm. I know. I'd greatly prefer PHPStorm. And so it's like, like, Cursor. It's so Versus Cody, obviously.
Ian
00:45:04 – 00:45:25
And, like, it's like, I don't really care for much of the v a Versus Code sort of mindset. And, so, yeah, maybe that'll be something like I know Anthropic had a thing like that. I didn't realize OpenAI did. I saw OpenAI is looking to buy that windsurfer thing too or whatever, so I guess they'll probably have their own Versus code knockoff entry at some point as well. But, yeah, maybe I'll try that.
Ian
00:45:25 – 00:45:34
That's interesting. Because that's fine. Like you said, it is annoying sometimes in the chat window is, like, overtaking the, like, code window, and it's like you got a lot of stuff going on there. So just in the terminal, it's
Aaron
00:45:34 – 00:45:42
Or you type out, like, four characters and the auto completes, like, here's a hundred lines of code, and you're like, that's none of that is what I was gonna say. Yeah. That part's really frustrating. It's
Taylor Otwell
00:45:44 – 00:46:02
I'm really curious how, like, AI will impact developers' perception of, like, DX in general. You know? Because, like, when we when I was first building Laravel, like, even back to the rails topic, like, so much of what we focused on was, like, every character of the syntax. You know what I mean? And, like, will people even care anymore?
Taylor Otwell
00:46:02 – 00:46:09
You know, if, like, the AI writes all the code anyway, like, who cares Yeah. What the syntax is? It's kinda sad.
Aaron
00:46:09 – 00:46:11
Yeah. It is kinda sad.
Ian
00:46:11 – 00:46:16
Or you have to even wonder if it's gonna go farther than that of, like, what's optimal for the AI
Taylor Otwell
00:46:16 – 00:46:22
to run. Exactly. Like, in some ways Yeah. Worse DX or, like, might be even better for the AI. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
00:46:23 – 00:46:24
Worse human DX.
Ian
00:46:24 – 00:46:34
Worse human DX. Yeah. Like, maybe, like, every function should have this crazy long name. That's Right. That the AI will understand it better if it's, like, a sentence long name for this function, you know, and things like that.
Taylor Otwell
00:46:34 – 00:46:35
Kinda wild.
Ian
00:46:35 – 00:46:41
Yeah. Rather than you finding the perfect Otwell word that, like Mhmm. The single word. Yeah. It's like, nope.
Ian
00:46:41 – 00:46:49
We'll just write it as a huge sentence and call this huge function everywhere and doesn't matter because everything's fast now, and AI understands it better. And that's it.
Taylor Otwell
00:46:49 – 00:46:50
It's a crazy world.
Ian
00:46:50 – 00:46:57
I also kinda wonder. What do you guys think about? I still don't know. Like, obviously, I feel like all the AI stuff is so tuned to code. Right?
Ian
00:46:57 – 00:47:05
And they're, like, just training it more and more in code. I don't know. I wonder if other industries are gonna get like this. Right? Like, where it's like like, that's the theory, of course.
Ian
00:47:05 – 00:47:13
Right? Everybody's like, of course. AI is gonna be in every industry, and it's gonna act just like this. But, like, not every industry is like coding it. Like, coding is so perfect for this.
Ian
00:47:13 – 00:47:18
It's all text and blah blah. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it will be. Maybe it won't be.
Ian
00:47:18 – 00:47:25
I I'm so torn. I'm like, I don't know. Can you tell the doctor? Can you knock? Can you replace, like obviously, it's physical things that'll be harder to replace.
Ian
00:47:25 – 00:47:25
But
Aaron
00:47:25 – 00:47:30
I don't know. I feel like coding, there's the a huge corpus of data on which they can train.
Taylor Otwell
00:47:30 – 00:47:30
Yeah. And
Aaron
00:47:30 – 00:47:48
I just don't feel like that's the case for most industries. Mhmm. And with coding, like, you can run this AI, and then you can verify if the output is correct. Like, do my test pass, or does the app work, or have loosey goosey you wanna do it? You can verify, yeah, the thing works.
Aaron
00:47:48 – 00:48:03
I feel like with everything else, except maybe, like, math, it's hard to just verify if it works. So, like, you have it right you're an attorney and you have it write a brief, and it's like, first of all, what's a brief? I have no idea. And then second of all, it's like, was it right? Was it good?
Aaron
00:48:03 – 00:48:07
Who can say good luck? Go present it. I don't know. It feels weird to me.
Ian
00:48:07 – 00:48:16
There is some tricky stuff there, like, with a legal brief, for example, right, where if one word is wrong, that word could be incredibly important and change the entire meaning of the whole thing.
Aaron
00:48:16 – 00:48:18
Hundreds of millions of dollars. Right.
Ian
00:48:18 – 00:48:38
And it's not like quite like code where you can have like a unit test. That's like ensuring that the thing you want to happen is still happen. Even if it happens in a weird way that you don't understand, or you wouldn't write it yourself that way at the end, it's spitting out the correct value. Whereas, like, in a legal contract, it's not true. And if, like, you miss that, it's, that word is off.
Ian
00:48:38 – 00:48:42
It could be incredibly expensive. So yeah. I don't know.
Taylor Otwell
00:48:42 – 00:48:49
Yeah. I just saw that like, I just saw the other day, Bill Gates predicted a two day work week within the next decade for most people.
Ian
00:48:49 – 00:48:50
Next decade?
Taylor Otwell
00:48:50 – 00:48:53
That seems like so incredibly farfetched to me.
Aaron
00:48:53 – 00:48:56
Yeah. But So farfetched. Farfetched. No way. I mean,
Ian
00:48:56 – 00:49:06
there's just not even, like, society would have to change dramatically to even allow such a thing, first of all. But, like, even putting that aside, yeah, I just most people jaw like, I don't know.
Taylor Otwell
00:49:06 – 00:49:12
Has AI unlocked a two day work week for anyone in the on the entire planet thus far? Like I don't
Aaron
00:49:12 – 00:49:13
I don't think so.
Taylor Otwell
00:49:13 – 00:49:14
Kinda think no.
Ian
00:49:14 – 00:49:38
No. And would the I would the economics I mean, I just feel like, okay. If in an industry where you it creates huge efficiencies, it's I mean, if it goes traditional tech, it's just gonna actually make more jobs in the in that industry, but not necessarily, like, less work. And or if it does go the route of replacing, then it's not gonna be like everybody has two hour two day work week. It's gonna be like, well, there's 20% of the people working five days a week.
Ian
00:49:38 – 00:49:49
Like they always were, but there's just 80% less of them or whatever than there were before. But everybody working two hours at the same or two days at the same salary, I don't know. It seems weird.
Aaron
00:49:49 – 00:49:50
That's never gonna happen.
Ian
00:49:50 – 00:49:51
I feel like people
Aaron
00:49:51 – 00:49:58
are already only working, you know, 40% of their time when they're at work. So it's they're not gonna give them three days off. No way.
Taylor Otwell
00:49:58 – 00:50:12
People, people get nervous about this. I had someone DM me not too long ago, and they were like, I'm really depressed. I'm on, like, anxiety medication because I think the AI is gonna, like, destroy my career that I worked so hard on. I was like, I don't know. I didn't know what to say.
Taylor Otwell
00:50:12 – 00:50:25
I was just like, I I said something like, do you do you pay for any AI generated app now? Have you have you ever seen a good AI generated app once? No. The most impressive thing is that Peter level's flying game so far.
Ian
00:50:25 – 00:50:26
Yeah. Like,
Taylor Otwell
00:50:27 – 00:50:34
you know, I don't so I don't know. I don't I I love I use AI every day, but, obviously, it's just still such a long way to go.
Ian
00:50:35 – 00:50:47
Yeah. It's a useful tool for sure. It's like another tool in the bag, but I don't know. Like, even with HubSpot, it's like, this is the thing. I think I've talked about this a little bit on on the show, but it's like, man, two years ago, I was like, oh, that's it.
Ian
00:50:47 – 00:50:58
Fold it up. Like, this is gonna be AI customer service. Right? And, like, all the customer service tools have added AI, but, like, hasn't replaced us yet. You know?
Ian
00:50:58 – 00:51:14
And, like, I think there's a lot to do there. And I think customer service, much like coding, is one of the areas where you could see some big changes, but it's also not like an overnight thing. And also just there's still gonna be a place for the human aspect. There's a lot of things that just aren't AI a bull. Like you're Yes.
Ian
00:51:14 – 00:51:22
That are just everything is a one off. Like we have a lot of customers where like every request they get is a one off. So like, that's not true. And like, whatever, a SaaS app, that's not true. Right.
Ian
00:51:22 – 00:51:36
Because you're getting the same questions about pricing and how do I do thing X and whatever. And that's probably more automatable. But if you're like the Yukon library, you're not necessarily getting, like, a ton of automatable questions. Right? So, yeah.
Ian
00:51:36 – 00:51:45
So I don't know. We'll see, but I I agree. I don't think it's, like, I don't think it's total doom and gloom. I think there'll be some shit. And the history, technology always makes more jobs.
Ian
00:51:45 – 00:51:51
Like, there could be a shift in where it goes. Like, some industries go away and other ones rise up, so that could be tricky. But,
Aaron
00:51:51 – 00:51:56
There there are an infinite number of things that need to be done and need to be fixed and need to be made better How
Taylor Otwell
00:51:56 – 00:51:57
much work is that?
Ian
00:51:57 – 00:51:57
Working two
Taylor Otwell
00:51:57 – 00:51:58
days a week.
Ian
00:51:58 – 00:52:01
So much software is bad. Like, that's a thing. Maybe bad.
Taylor Otwell
00:52:01 – 00:52:01
All of
Ian
00:52:01 – 00:52:04
the developers will just be able to fix a lot of the bad stuff.
Aaron
00:52:04 – 00:52:07
Hope so. Yeah. Like, just make something good.
Taylor Otwell
00:52:08 – 00:52:14
Yeah. Is it DAX that's always tweeting, like, if the AI is so good, why is none of the software I'm using getting any better? Like
Ian
00:52:14 – 00:52:17
Well, that sounds exactly like that. He didn't say
Aaron
00:52:17 – 00:52:18
that he should have. Yeah. That sounds like him.
Ian
00:52:19 – 00:52:29
True. Right? Like It is true. In the real world, like, if you get out, if you just take one step back from bleeding edge where we all wanna be, like, oh, you're in linear, and it's all magical and amazing. You're in Laravel Cloud.
Ian
00:52:29 – 00:52:39
It's beautiful. It's awesome. If you just take one step back from that, it's like, oh, every other app you interact with is total trash all day long. Like, the your doctor's office app is trash. Right?
Ian
00:52:39 – 00:52:41
Like, that's all trash. It's all trash.
Taylor Otwell
00:52:41 – 00:52:52
I think it's I think it's debatable if linear is better than Trello, and Trello is, like, 20 years old. It's like it's not a settled conclusion, I don't think. Yeah.
Ian
00:52:52 – 00:52:56
Yeah. That's true too. It's like everybody just yeah. Yeah. You get the hot app that everybody copies.
Ian
00:52:56 – 00:53:00
Right? And it's like, is it even better? Nobody even stopped to ask if it's better. It's like, oh,
Aaron
00:53:00 – 00:53:03
it will work. A sync engine. It must be better.
Taylor Otwell
00:53:03 – 00:53:11
The linear linear is good. But it is most software, you're right. Most software is just absolutely terrible. It's hard to write good software.
Ian
00:53:11 – 00:53:15
Yeah. It's super hard. And, and then even what is good software. Right? Like Yeah.
Ian
00:53:15 – 00:53:24
It's like, is it doing the job? Is it looking pretty? Is it, like Mhmm. Be using cutting edge techno? Like, there's all these other questions around, like, what do you even define as good.
Ian
00:53:24 – 00:53:29
Right? And what's the price performance trade offs and all those kind of things. So
Aaron
00:53:30 – 00:53:43
Yeah. We can even we can we can just stop at doing the job. I feel like that was the first one you said, and not all software even gets there. So let's just work on that one, and then we can look pretty, and then we never have kids cutting edge technologies. I don't care about that.
Ian
00:53:43 – 00:53:51
I mean, this is that's the thing. It's, like, such a huge opportunity for small software developers. Like, again, this is, like, one of those things where, like, twenty years ago, I'm in there. Right? And it's like there's no frameworks.
Ian
00:53:51 – 00:53:57
There's no nothing. I'm literally writing every line of code. Right? And then then you get the frameworks. You get Laravel.
Ian
00:53:57 – 00:54:08
It's like, great. Now Laravel, like, puts me what took me three months to get to z right? To get to start my app. Okay. Those three months are totally saved because Laravel and the starter kit and boom, that whole thing is there.
Ian
00:54:08 – 00:54:27
And obviously much better, more secure, all the stuff. But now it's like, okay. Great. Now, like, the start my app part gets moved up a bit because now the AI can, like, jump into, like, the business logic right away and think things through with me and, like, all that stuff. So, like, the bootstrapper, startup y person, it's, like, a huge opportunity, potentially.
Ian
00:54:27 – 00:54:30
I mean, that's, like, what levels levels is kinda blazing on
Taylor Otwell
00:54:30 – 00:54:30
the trail.
Ian
00:54:30 – 00:54:33
Right? It's like Yeah. Gonna build this game.
Taylor Otwell
00:54:33 – 00:54:48
Why not? I think it's, I mean, it's the best time ever possibly to to be a coder, you know, to be building software. It's there's never been a better time, I don't think. So not only should you learn how to code, it's like the perfect you're coming in at the best of times, really, honestly.
Ian
00:54:48 – 00:54:50
Yeah. We're out of the stone ages.
Aaron
00:54:50 – 00:54:55
Yeah. So but here here's the hard part. You still gotta have a good idea. So how do you
Taylor Otwell
00:54:55 – 00:55:01
That is the key. That's what every most people's ideas are bad. That's the whole problem.
Ian
00:55:01 – 00:55:02
They always not fix that for you.
Aaron
00:55:02 – 00:55:06
Alright. So how do indie hackers have better ideas, Taylor? Tell us.
Taylor Otwell
00:55:06 – 00:55:25
Okay. So I think one thing I see a lot I I this doesn't tell you, I think, how to have better ideas, but it just helps people fix something that they do wrong a lot. A lot of people have, like, this string of things not working out. And, like, they launch something, it doesn't work out. They launch it again, it doesn't take off.
Taylor Otwell
00:55:25 – 00:55:47
And they do that let's say they do that, like, six or seven times. And they never seem to step back and say, I'm not good at having ideas. My all of my ideas are bad, and how do I, like, step back and fix that? They always blame it on, like, some other ancillary thing of, like, I didn't, like, market it right or, like, the, you know, I didn't the design wasn't good maybe, but, like I
Aaron
00:55:47 – 00:55:49
don't have enough followers on Twitter.
Taylor Otwell
00:55:49 – 00:56:02
Yeah. Like, I don't I'm not Peter Levels. I don't have, you know, hundreds of thousands of followers. But just, like, good ideas are almost always successful, I think, most of the time. They just always take off to some extent.
Taylor Otwell
00:56:02 – 00:56:18
But, you know, people just never seem to step back and say, okay. Like, I'm I'm missing the mark or, like, the what I think is a good idea is not what most people think is a good idea. Like, how do I correct that or fix that? I don't know. That's kinda, like, a brutal thing to, like, step back and accept.
Taylor Otwell
00:56:18 – 00:56:36
You know? Usually, the I what I see is the ideas are usually too niche. They're, like, something, you know, that just not anyone really has besides this person, which feels weird for me to say because I've always been the guy that's like scratch your own itch. Just solve your own problems. Well, it's not hard.
Taylor Otwell
00:56:36 – 00:56:53
You know? But, yeah, I don't know. Just, like, identifying problems that a lot of people have. But, you know, easier said than done, I guess. Obviously, everyone would love to do that, but a lot of the low hanging fruit has been done, I mean, to be fair.
Aaron
00:56:53 – 00:56:54
That's the hard part.
Taylor Otwell
00:56:54 – 00:57:14
You know, a lot of the easy low hanging fruit has been solved on the Internet, and I think that the really successful ideas are hard, and they, like, require outside the box thinking. Even though, like, it's like coding is getting easier. It's never been easier to build things, but there's, like it's harder to, like, get the right ideas, I think.
Ian
00:57:14 – 00:57:34
I do think there is this other crazy opportunity on the, like, bootstrapper, indie hacker front right now, which is, like, when you're try like, five years ago, when you're trying to have an idea, it's like, yeah, a lot of low hanging fruit's been done. And usually the best way my what I've always told people is, like, you wanna basically build something that already exists in a sense.
Taylor Otwell
00:57:34 – 00:57:35
I think Yeah.
Ian
00:57:35 – 00:57:45
People want help desk software, so you should build some more help desk software. Right? Because, like, you know people want that. That's at least you're not, like, trying to invent a whole new market that nobody even you don't even know if anybody wants it. Right?
Ian
00:57:45 – 00:57:58
Okay. But everything was mature. It's like, how do you break in? There's lots of good options at all different price points and all those things, but we're kinda hitting the cycle. And that's, like, when the HubSpot was launched, it was, like, everything was client server and everything was going browser based.
Ian
00:57:58 – 00:58:19
So that was, like, the tech change that made new opportunity. And, like, now you have a similar thing, which is, like, all these industries where, like, yeah, there are all these established players, but now you have people wanting to how can I use AI in it? And that could be the tech opportunity to be like, yeah. This is a category that exists. We know people want a solution to this problem this category solves.
Ian
00:58:19 – 00:58:30
But now maybe we could take a different angle on it that leverages the AI in a way that's not you know, all all these tools are adding AI, but it's always just chunked into the existing thing that's existed for twenty years.
Taylor Otwell
00:58:30 – 00:58:30
Right?
Ian
00:58:30 – 00:58:34
And it's like, well, now you can do AI in here, but it's not, like, reconceptualized.
Aaron
00:58:35 – 00:58:40
So we're we're at the radio on TV stage, and we haven't invented real TV yet.
Ian
00:58:40 – 00:58:50
Right. It's like that thing, which is also why I think you haven't used many good AI apps yet because it's like all the AI apps are, like, an app you already use that shoves some AI into it. And it's like In the worst possible spot.
Aaron
00:58:50 – 00:58:51
It's so It's
Ian
00:58:51 – 00:59:17
all terrible. It's, like, not amazing. And, so when you maybe start from the ground up and rethink it, who knows? Maybe it'll just be bad, all these things, and that won't be true. But I didn't think it's like when you have these tech changes, does create opportunity to come in underneath the competitors in a way that's hard for them to counter because it's just hard to rethink something from the ground up when you have a billion dollar business built on top of it existing in the way it currently exists or whatever.
Ian
00:59:17 – 00:59:19
You know? So, yeah, it's a lot of opportunity.
Aaron
00:59:19 – 00:59:28
Dangerous for an indie hacker, though. This sounds like I'm gonna go invent something new fundamentally, and then Alright. It sounds like, oh, shoot. I gotta go market it, and nobody knows
Ian
00:59:28 – 00:59:36
what it is. All that stuff. Yeah. Still gotta market it. Still gotta have an audience of, you know, an audience not necessarily an audience, but, like, some way or
Aaron
00:59:36 – 00:59:38
A distribution. A customer. Distribution.
Ian
00:59:38 – 00:59:40
Yeah. Ads. Whatever it is.
Taylor Otwell
00:59:40 – 00:59:57
Yeah. There's a certain category of existing markets that I am always, like, drawn to. Like, customer support's a good example, but also tools like linear or, like, Basecamp where I find, like, those kinds of tools, like, really prey on people's desire to, like, get their life together.
Aaron
00:59:57 – 00:59:59
Right. Aspirational tool.
Taylor Otwell
00:59:59 – 01:00:10
Yeah. Like, if I if I just sign up for linear or this organizational tool or this support software, finally, like, everything's gonna click and, like, the comp we're gonna be organized. We're gonna
Ian
01:00:10 – 01:00:11
be Save so much money.
Taylor Otwell
01:00:12 – 01:00:23
Done constantly. Like, customers are gonna be happy. I love those kind of tools. Like, if I Right. If there's, like, another half of my career, I've gotta build, like, productivity software and and capture that, like, aspirational
Aaron
01:00:24 – 01:00:25
Second brain software.
Taylor Otwell
01:00:25 – 01:00:26
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Ian
01:00:27 – 01:00:41
Yep. And those are the kind of tools too. I mean, I tend to like those kind of tools obviously as well because it's also, like, people use them all day, which I think is super useful. Like, that's always another thing. If you're not building a tool that somebody is going to use all day, it's like, man, that's so easy to pass on that.
Ian
01:00:41 – 01:00:51
It's so easy to cancel it. Like, it's not easy to cancel a thing that, like, your 10 staff use eight hours a day Yes. Five days a week. Like, it's just hard. Like, it's a whole process.
Ian
01:00:51 – 01:01:06
You gotta get a committee. You gotta talk to the they gotta try stuff. Like, people are gonna be mad. You're even moving because they know how to use this thing already. Like, it just creates an amazing a full amount of lock in that, like, oh, I built this little widget, and it automatically does something for you, and you can check back with it.
Ian
01:01:06 – 01:01:16
Every two months, you can just check-in and make sure it's doing the thing. It's like, I don't know. That sounds like something that's super easy to cancel. It's like, you're not even gonna remember you have the thing. I don't know.
Ian
01:01:16 – 01:01:17
You know? But
Aaron
01:01:17 – 01:01:22
yeah. Taylor, you gotta bully Adam into making project management software. That's what I wanna see him do.
Taylor Otwell
01:01:23 – 01:01:30
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that's kind of the idea he always brings up. You know? Anytime he anytime he talks about the SaaS timeline, you know, of Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
01:01:31 – 01:01:36
His career, that's that's the idea. I mean, I'd love to see it. Like, I think it'd be a fun thing to watch and talk about. He'd
Aaron
01:01:36 – 01:01:37
be so fun, and he would be so
Taylor Otwell
01:01:38 – 01:01:40
a lot of good content. Be a lot of good content. Content.
Aaron
01:01:41 – 01:01:43
I think he'd be so happy doing it.
Ian
01:01:44 – 01:01:47
Yeah. I wanna see if he would go head to head with DHH.
Taylor Otwell
01:01:47 – 01:01:49
Oh, man. That's that's, like, the ultimate.
Aaron
01:01:49 – 01:01:50
Do it. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
01:01:50 – 01:01:59
I I do think, like, it it puts some serious pause on, like, the idea of, like, backstabbing dad to to build like, try to build this empire.
Ian
01:01:59 – 01:02:10
Man, that's but that's how we make it interesting. That's how you get a movie made about it. You know? Then you have, like, THH and Wathan and Schwarzenegger's playing Wathan. We need AI Schwarzenegger from, like, thirty years ago.
Ian
01:02:10 – 01:02:11
You know? Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
01:02:11 – 01:02:14
It'd be fun for him to, like, go build some software like that, I think.
Ian
01:02:14 – 01:02:15
Yeah. Yeah. He needs
Taylor Otwell
01:02:15 – 01:02:19
to do that. I think he should just do it himself, basically. Him and a designer.
Aaron
01:02:19 – 01:02:21
Him and his life. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Ian
01:02:21 – 01:02:31
That would be just just great to watch. Like, yeah, who who we'd all be raptured. You know? We'd be like, oh my gosh. Like, he's got a new a new video is out where he's doing something, whatever weird thing he's doing, and you're like, yeah.
Ian
01:02:31 – 01:02:33
It would be must see TV.
Taylor Otwell
01:02:33 – 01:02:34
The best ever.
Ian
01:02:36 – 01:02:51
Alright. We gotta pay the bills here. Thank you to native PHP for mobile. Turn your level project into a native mobile app, ready for the app stores in minutes with native PHP for mobile. Check out nativephp.com/mobile.
Ian
01:02:52 – 01:03:01
And thank you to Laracon US twenty twenty five. Laracon is calling all web artisans. Come to Denver ready to level up. Leave, ready to ship. Thank you.
Ian
01:03:01 – 01:03:06
Check them out at lar laracon.US. Come to our party at laracon US.
Aaron
01:03:06 – 01:03:09
I've got I've got late breaking news on the party.
Ian
01:03:09 – 01:03:10
Oh, okay.
Aaron
01:03:10 – 01:03:23
The party is sponsored by Diagonal at godiagonal.com, and we got a little blurb for them. We're not gonna read it every show. We got a little blurb for them. We're gonna put it on the event page, but these people are making the party possible, so we want to thank them. Yep.
Aaron
01:03:23 – 01:03:46
Diagonal is building the future of customizable software for businesses. Come meet the team, Brannick, Weichs, Owen Conti, Andreas Sante Santebanez, all these people I know from Twitter, and I've never said their names out loud. If you're interested, we're hiring Laravel engineers. Learn more at godiagonal.com/careers. So thank you to them for sponsoring the party.
Ian
01:03:46 – 01:03:56
Thank you. So good stuff. Speaking of, well, let's just talk about sponsors some more. Native PHP, have you been intrigued by building a mobile app in PHP, Taylor?
Taylor Otwell
01:03:57 – 01:04:12
I think it's super cool. I haven't personally had the opportunity to, like, do it, you know, because I don't have an app ready to to do with that. But it's just wild that, you know, Simon at native PHP was able to actually get that done. That is just
Aaron
01:04:12 – 01:04:13
hilarious. In the App Store.
Taylor Otwell
01:04:14 – 01:04:14
Yeah. I know.
Ian
01:04:14 – 01:04:19
Apple lets him get away with it. I don't know. I don't know what kind of dark magic he's pulled there. It feels like that should
Taylor Otwell
01:04:19 – 01:04:21
be either. Yeah.
Aaron
01:04:21 – 01:04:22
That's wild.
Taylor Otwell
01:04:22 – 01:04:23
Yeah. I've been
Aaron
01:04:23 – 01:04:35
real excited one day when the Laravel team is like, yeah. We got a native app for cloud, and it's in native PHP or something like that. That would that would be wild. I know. I'm excited to see somebody do a big app in that.
Ian
01:04:35 – 01:04:36
They've done
Aaron
01:04:36 – 01:04:41
a lot of very impressive, like, proofs of concept, but I'm ready to see someone push something out for real.
Taylor Otwell
01:04:41 – 01:04:41
Do you
Ian
01:04:41 – 01:04:44
ever have any mobile app ideas just in general, Taylor?
Taylor Otwell
01:04:44 – 01:04:51
Not really. No. You know, not outside of just, like, mobile apps for Forge or cloud or something like that. No. I really haven't.
Taylor Otwell
01:04:53 – 01:04:54
You know? I don't know. Maybe my
Ian
01:04:55 – 01:04:55
the summary.
Taylor Otwell
01:04:55 – 01:05:01
Yeah. It is kinda. I've never even tried. I've never even started hacking on something that was intended to be mobile.
Ian
01:05:01 – 01:05:06
Mhmm. Mobile game. Maybe that'll be your second That'd
Taylor Otwell
01:05:06 – 01:05:07
be fun. Yeah.
Ian
01:05:07 – 01:05:13
That'd be fun. Alright. We got a couple more little items here. I don't know. Aaron, maybe we'll save you wanna save the meetup, or you wanna do the meetup?
Aaron
01:05:14 – 01:05:16
We can save the meetup. We'll save the meetup.
Ian
01:05:16 – 01:05:16
Let's save the meetup.
Aaron
01:05:16 – 01:05:20
We'll do we'll do a few little short guys, and then we can tailor back to work.
Ian
01:05:20 – 01:05:25
Yeah. Alright. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. What's what's the deal with them? Did you meet them?
Aaron
01:05:25 – 01:05:28
We went we went to This is
Ian
01:05:28 – 01:05:29
a topic? This is a topic.
Aaron
01:05:29 – 01:05:37
We went to their show on on Saturday night. We went and saw Tina and Amy live in not concert, but live in person.
Taylor Otwell
01:05:38 – 01:05:38
Wow. And it
Aaron
01:05:38 – 01:05:48
was fantastic. So they're doing a tour, very similar. This little, maybe, be more your speedy end. Very similar to Steve Martin and Martin Short. You know?
Ian
01:05:48 – 01:05:49
Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
01:05:49 – 01:05:49
That's
Ian
01:05:49 – 01:05:54
Kinda speaking. Your language. Yeah. The right generation. They're almost a little before my time, but yeah.
Aaron
01:05:54 – 01:06:14
We saw Steve Martin and Martin Short several years ago when they did, like, this variety show tour, and it was very good. Yeah. But this one was I think this one was funnier. They did a lot of, they did a live in person weekend update. So they, like, rolled out a desk and did weekend update with, like, current topics, like, you know, the pope died, and they, like, had a topic ready for that already.
Aaron
01:06:15 – 01:06:31
Oh, wow. And it was it was just it was so funny. They are incredibly talented. And so they did a little bit of stand up, a little bit of storytelling, a little bit of improv, a few, like, sketches, and, it was very fun. It was a great a great show.
Aaron
01:06:31 – 01:06:34
Highly recommended if if they're coming through your town to go see that.
Ian
01:06:34 – 01:06:35
Dallas this was? Or Yep. Mhmm.
Taylor Otwell
01:06:36 – 01:06:37
That's cool.
Aaron
01:06:37 – 01:06:38
Yeah. That's great.
Ian
01:06:38 – 01:06:39
I don't know if they're going
Aaron
01:06:39 – 01:06:42
to Little Rock or Poughkeepsie. Probably not. Probably not.
Taylor Otwell
01:06:42 – 01:06:44
No one stops by Little Rock.
Aaron
01:06:44 – 01:06:45
No.
Taylor Otwell
01:06:46 – 01:06:49
We are getting Nelly. Nelly's coming through. I'm gonna go to that.
Ian
01:06:50 – 01:06:52
There you go. There you go. Nelly in concert.
Taylor Otwell
01:06:53 – 01:06:54
Very millennial thing to do.
Ian
01:06:54 – 01:06:56
Yeah. That's good. I was gonna say what
Aaron
01:06:56 – 01:06:58
is this? 02/2006?
Taylor Otwell
01:06:58 – 01:07:01
Oh, man. Hey. I'll take what I can get over here. Okay?
Ian
01:07:01 – 01:07:02
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Aaron
01:07:03 – 01:07:15
They also I forgot to say they also had Fred Armisen come out, and so he did a little bit on weekend update, which was very funny. I find him to be hysterical. So they had a a a sketch with him as well.
Ian
01:07:15 – 01:07:16
I'm not a Fred Armistead guy.
Taylor Otwell
01:07:16 – 01:07:17
What?
Ian
01:07:17 – 01:07:22
I don't know. After my time or something. I don't know. I mean, I'm not against him. I almost like I feel like I've almost have never seen him.
Ian
01:07:22 – 01:07:23
Like, I know who he is.
Aaron
01:07:23 – 01:07:28
Everywhere, but also nowhere. Like, I don't I couldn't name one show he's done, but he's on everything.
Ian
01:07:29 – 01:07:31
Yeah. I don't know.
Taylor Otwell
01:07:31 – 01:07:36
Oh, man. I like this podcast. This is the only podcast I can come on where I hear the line, I'm not a Fred Armisen guy.
Ian
01:07:39 – 01:07:42
Everybody else wants your take on Laravel and Tulsa.
Taylor Otwell
01:07:43 – 01:07:46
Tell us about Fred Armisen. Give us your take. What's your
Ian
01:07:46 – 01:07:51
Fred Armisen take? Fred Armisen or Will Ferrell, go. Give us.
Aaron
01:07:51 – 01:07:54
Oh, man. I think Fred Armisen for sure.
Taylor Otwell
01:07:54 – 01:07:56
Oh, really? Over Will Ferrell? Yeah.
Aaron
01:07:56 – 01:07:58
Dude. I think so.
Ian
01:07:59 – 01:08:00
Oh my god.
Aaron
01:08:00 – 01:08:09
Will Ferrell is too Will Ferrell. Like, if you like Will Ferrell, you'll like Will Ferrell, but he's just himself always, and it's too much for me.
Ian
01:08:09 – 01:08:15
This is why me and Taylor couldn't do a podcast together, though, regularly because, like, we're too similar to see. I need I need You and I I
Aaron
01:08:15 – 01:08:18
need to disagree on literally everything, and that's what makes it work.
Ian
01:08:19 – 01:08:19
Disagree with it. Yeah.
Aaron
01:08:19 – 01:08:20
Yeah.
Ian
01:08:20 – 01:08:29
Man, Marshall. Is in he's on the pant he's, like, on the the they've got monuments to him. Like, they've got he's on, you know, he's everywhere. He's a barrel.
Aaron
01:08:29 – 01:08:45
He is extremely funny. I will give I will give you that. And there was a time in my life when I was maybe in high school where he was the funniest thing to have ever happened. But he just kept playing the same shtick, and I think I got a little bit older and the shtick got a little bit tired that I've kinda, like, cooled on him. You know?
Ian
01:08:45 – 01:08:54
Okay. Yeah. I don't know if he's done much lately. I mean, he's kind of at all I don't know what he's even done in the past. Like, you know, he did, like, the Lego movie there, but even that's, like, ten years ago or something now.
Ian
01:08:54 – 01:09:07
Yeah, I'm sure he's done some stuff. He's not he was at his peak twenty years ago or whatever that was, where he was, like, elf and, you know, all those wedding crashers and all those things. Will Ferrell, the man. Brett Armiston, no Will Ferrell.
Aaron
01:09:07 – 01:09:15
Jack Black is another one who's only ever himself, but I I like his I like his himself more than I like Will Ferrell's himself. You know?
Ian
01:09:15 – 01:09:18
Oh, it's comedy. Like, Vince Vaughn. He's always Vince Vaughn.
Aaron
01:09:18 – 01:09:23
He's always Vince Vaughn, and I think he's very funny. Yeah. He's not too over the top. Vince Vaughn
Ian
01:09:23 – 01:09:26
Vince Vaughn show? That Vince Vaughn show is pretty good. You guys watch that? The No.
Aaron
01:09:26 – 01:09:26
What is it?
Ian
01:09:26 – 01:09:39
Something monkey? I don't know. He's in he's in my he's in Miami or The Keys, and he's, like, a a cop and, like, a bunch of crazy shit happens. It's, like, kind of a little bit out there. It's a Apple TV show.
Ian
01:09:39 – 01:09:46
Pretty good. It's it's I just remember that. Still Vince Vaughn, but it's a little more serious at times, although there's some comedy stuff. But
Aaron
01:09:46 – 01:09:52
The most recent thing I've seen Vince Vaughn in is Curb Your Enthusiasm, the the later seasons, and he's great.
Ian
01:09:52 – 01:09:53
He's in that.
Aaron
01:09:53 – 01:09:54
I mean, he's great.
Ian
01:09:55 – 01:09:57
Would never watch Curb Your Enthusiasm all the way
Taylor Otwell
01:09:57 – 01:09:58
through either.
Ian
01:09:58 – 01:10:00
Crazy. What? I know.
Aaron
01:10:00 – 01:10:03
How am I the guy that's seen a show that you have set?
Ian
01:10:03 – 01:10:06
Guy, but, like, I haven't seen Curb all the way through.
Aaron
01:10:06 – 01:10:11
Oh, guys. Y'all gotta watch Curb. Yeah. Don't watch
Ian
01:10:11 – 01:10:11
it with your
Aaron
01:10:11 – 01:10:13
kids, but you gotta watch it.
Ian
01:10:13 – 01:10:26
The old school type show, it's like, oh, there's, like, twelve seasons or something, and, like, there's a lot it's, like, 200 episodes. It feels, like, overwhelming now. It's like, oh, if I start it, it's gonna take me two years. I know. I should watch it, though.
Ian
01:10:26 – 01:10:32
I don't know. Alright. Final update, rock wall project. I don't know if Taylor has a rock wall.
Taylor Otwell
01:10:32 – 01:10:33
A climbing wall? What do
Aaron
01:10:33 – 01:10:34
you mean?
Ian
01:10:34 – 01:10:36
I think I think he means a climbing wall, but I'm not sure.
Aaron
01:10:37 – 01:10:40
Ian, I posted on x.com the everything app, but you probably didn't see it.
Ian
01:10:40 – 01:10:41
I didn't see it. Well, it's fine.
Aaron
01:10:41 – 01:10:46
Unbelievable. Yeah. I built a climbing wall for the kids.
Ian
01:10:46 – 01:10:47
Shit. You built one.
Aaron
01:10:47 – 01:11:03
It's done. It's dusted. It's on the wall. So I noticed in the house Okay. My, so my oldest are almost four, and I noticed my son was starting to, like, climb on shelves and stuff.
Aaron
01:11:03 – 01:11:08
And so, like, in their room, in their closet, they've they've got this set of built in shelves, and
Taylor Otwell
01:11:09 – 01:11:09
they like to go
Aaron
01:11:09 – 01:11:19
and, like, play in the closet. And one time I opened the door, and he was on the top shelf hiding, like, in the shelf. I'm like, oh, okay. That's the way to do it. The energy, but we gotta direct it somewhere profitable.
Aaron
01:11:19 – 01:11:49
You know? So I ordered I ordered just, like, a set of rocks, climbing rocks on Amazon, and then went to Home Depot and got, two little sheets of MDF because it's really MDF is really smooth, and I didn't want them climbing barefoot on, you know, plywood or OSB or anything. Right. And then I had them help me build this climbing wall, and we got it done in start to finish in one weekend. Two, like, solid work sessions, one Saturday, one Sunday.
Aaron
01:11:49 – 01:11:55
It was fun for me about 75%. And then the last 25, I'm just, like, sweating and furious. I'm like,
Taylor Otwell
01:11:55 – 01:11:56
oh, yeah. Hang on.
Aaron
01:11:56 – 01:12:10
We're almost done, kids. Hang on. But then we got it on the wall, and they love it. They woke up this morning. I went and woke them up, and my son, who doesn't yet speak, unfortunately, was signing, climb.
Aaron
01:12:10 – 01:12:23
And I was like, oh, you wanna go climb on our rock wall? And he was like, yeah. And I said, well, you know, you gotta go to school, which that sucks. But after school, you can climb on the rock wall. And so they did it, you know, they did it last night before bed, and they woke up wanting to do it again.
Aaron
01:12:23 – 01:12:42
And I think it's gonna be really great for building his confidence because he, like, would climb up and then get really scared. And, you know, we're there, like, supporting him and helping him get down. And each time, he got a little bit a little bit better, but still a little bit scared. My daughter's just, like, up and down, up and down. So I think it's gonna be a great thing.
Aaron
01:12:42 – 01:12:47
But we did a project, and we got it completely finished. How about that?
Ian
01:12:47 – 01:12:49
I love a project with the kids. Is it eight foot?
Aaron
01:12:50 – 01:12:54
Just shy of because of the trim. Yeah. So it's an eight foot eight foot, wall. But
Ian
01:12:54 – 01:12:55
Yeah. So you don't have
Aaron
01:12:55 – 01:12:56
half feet.
Ian
01:12:56 – 01:12:58
You have no basement. So is this, like, this
Taylor Otwell
01:12:58 – 01:12:58
is the
Aaron
01:12:58 – 01:13:00
main one beside it? I have no basement.
Ian
01:13:00 – 01:13:01
Oh, man. So where the heck is this thing?
Aaron
01:13:01 – 01:13:08
Because, we have a so we have three rooms upstairs, big kids, little kids, and playroom. This is in the playroom.
Ian
01:13:08 – 01:13:12
Okay. Oh, perfect. I love a kid project. That's awesome.
Aaron
01:13:12 – 01:13:15
Yeah. And it looks good. I'm very I'm very pleased with how it went.
Ian
01:13:15 – 01:13:20
You guys have any house modifications, Taylor, for the kids, like, specific to the house on the TV.
Aaron
01:13:20 – 01:13:22
About modern outdoor furniture or whatever.
Ian
01:13:22 – 01:13:24
Sounds like it might be for him, though. I don't
Taylor Otwell
01:13:24 – 01:13:34
know if that's for kids. We really don't. I mean, we used to used to build, like, a little reading nook or whatever when the kids were smaller, but now, not really. No kid specific modifications these days. You know?
Taylor Otwell
01:13:34 – 01:13:39
Jane's been out fishing every day, and Victoria's been riding her bike, but that's about it.
Ian
01:13:39 – 01:13:42
Yeah. The fishing yeah. Yeah. You live out by the lake, so the fishing's built in.
Aaron
01:13:42 – 01:13:44
Y'all have a little fishing boat you like?
Taylor Otwell
01:13:44 – 01:13:57
That's that's why he's on me about that. That's the that's that's what he wants. So but to do that, like, I gotta have a dock built. I don't have any kind of floating dock to even tie the boat to. I don't know.
Taylor Otwell
01:13:57 – 01:14:07
It's gonna be a deep project. It's gonna take a lot of work. So we gotta tackle the dock first and then potentially the fishing boat. And I swear by the time we get that built, he'll be done with fishing. Like, he'll be not interested in it anymore.
Ian
01:14:07 – 01:14:08
Of course.
Taylor Otwell
01:14:08 – 01:14:12
And then I'll be stuck with the dock and fishing boat, and I never really do that stuff.
Aaron
01:14:12 – 01:14:19
He's gonna say. He's just gonna say, dad, now we've got a dock. Can we get us, like, a ski boat for me and my friends? Yeah. That's exactly what he's gonna say.
Ian
01:14:19 – 01:14:21
Pontoon boat. Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
01:14:21 – 01:14:28
Yeah. So we'll see. He's gonna join the fishing team next year in high school, and, you know, maybe this is his ticket to college sports scholarship.
Aaron
01:14:28 – 01:14:31
I don't know. Fishing scholarship.
Taylor Otwell
01:14:31 – 01:14:40
Amazing. Some some kid in our town just signed with one of it was one of the LSU's, like, satellite schools, you know, satellite campuses and fishing scholarship. So
Aaron
01:14:40 – 01:14:43
No way. Everything. Yeah. That's wild.
Ian
01:14:43 – 01:14:51
Is he into, like, the types of fish and all? Like, does he know it all? Like, is he researching it, or he's just more into the actual fishing and not so much, like, the fish?
Taylor Otwell
01:14:51 – 01:14:59
Around here, the kids, they're, like, only fishing for bass. Usually, like, largemouth bass. So that's all he's that's all he's focused on. Yeah.
Ian
01:15:00 – 01:15:03
Is Abby okay with him having a boat that he wanders out into the lake with?
Taylor Otwell
01:15:03 – 01:15:09
Or, I think so. He's pretty responsible, kid. It's not a super big lake. I can see across the whole lake almost.
Ian
01:15:10 – 01:15:11
So he can't, like, disappear too.
Taylor Otwell
01:15:11 – 01:15:15
No. Not really. No. And, you know, of course, life jacket and everything.
Ian
01:15:16 – 01:15:22
So That sounds pretty good. Yeah. Well, it's a home project, the dock. That'd be cool.
Taylor Otwell
01:15:22 – 01:15:22
They have,
Ian
01:15:22 – 01:15:26
like, ones that are metal. You just drop in if you wanted the, like, kind of easy version.
Taylor Otwell
01:15:26 – 01:15:30
Yeah. Definitely need the easy version. Don't don't want any hard version of anything.
Ian
01:15:33 – 01:15:35
Guys back there with those pylon, like, dry Yeah.
Taylor Otwell
01:15:35 – 01:15:38
I know. And That's what I'm picturing. Yeah.
Ian
01:15:38 – 01:15:40
Yeah. The whole thing.
Taylor Otwell
01:15:41 – 01:15:41
Well, on
Aaron
01:15:41 – 01:15:43
your lake have docks, most of them?
Taylor Otwell
01:15:43 – 01:15:45
Yeah. Yeah. There's a few. There's a few docks.
Aaron
01:15:46 – 01:15:49
I guess it's a small small. They don't have big boats.
Taylor Otwell
01:15:49 – 01:15:59
No. Mainly, like, little fishing boats. Couple people have party barges, but even that seems a little bit too big, for this lake. So we'll see. Maybe this summer, we'll get it done.
Ian
01:15:59 – 01:16:05
I think if you're on a lake, you gotta you gotta have a dock. I feel like it's Mhmm. Feels mandatory to me. I think maybe it's good investment.
Taylor Otwell
01:16:05 – 01:16:05
You you
Aaron
01:16:05 – 01:16:06
heard it here first, James.
Ian
01:16:06 – 01:16:09
This summer, James. I'm fighting for you, buddy.
Aaron
01:16:09 – 01:16:10
Yeah. I'm fighting Good luck, big guy.
Taylor Otwell
01:16:11 – 01:16:18
Bro. I gotta delete Gotta delete mostly technical off of James' podcast app. I know he he listens. As soon as it drops, he listens every time.
Ian
01:16:19 – 01:16:24
We're really big with the 13 year old. Yeah. That was our best demo.
Aaron
01:16:24 – 01:16:25
Yeah.
Ian
01:16:25 – 01:16:29
Alright, man. Well, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.
Taylor Otwell
01:16:29 – 01:16:31
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Fun times.
Ian
01:16:31 – 01:16:41
Yeah. Thanks, to the sponsors. Thanks, to the listeners. Check out the mostly technical party at mostlytechnical.com. There'll be a link there to sign up as well as in the show notes, of course.
Ian
01:16:41 – 01:16:44
And, we will see you next week. Thanks, everybody.
Taylor Otwell
01:16:44 – 01:16:45
See you. Later. Bye.
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos, and generally try really hard.

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