Doing Too Much

Ian

Hello?

Aaron

Hello. How are we doing today?

Ian

Doing good. You?

Aaron

You ready to talk about blue sky for two hours?

Ian

Let's do it.

Aaron

Let's do it. Gosh.

Ian

Now you have you put on the list that you wanna talk about blue sky for five minutes. This is after last night. You said you're done talking about it.

Aaron

I'm done offering opinions on blue sky. The good news is, Jennifer didn't get to garage talk on last episode because we hit it behind an hour and a half of blue sky. So she's still in the dark about, what's about to happen at our house.

Ian

She thinks you're a normal husband.

Aaron

She thinks I'm very normal. Yeah. And that all those diggers are for somebody else. Yes. Yes.

Let's not talk about blue sky save for just this. I'm I'm done offering opinions on blue sky. Everyone has. It's become, and maybe it always has been. And I've been ignorant to this.

Very religious. It's, it's the same as, it's the same as politics. It's the same as them versus I. What is it? Emacs.

It's the same Mac versus Windows. It's just very tribal now. And like I said, maybe it always has been, and I just haven't been paying attention. I'm open to that. But, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't enrich my life.

I try to like, you know, I try to talk about somebody was responding to, I think, Justin Jackson. I think his name's Fred. Followed him for a long time. And I responded and was like, yeah. I don't feel like, you know, blue sky and Twitter are fundamentally different.

It just feels like they target different audiences. And somebody came in the replies and was like, boy, you spend a lot of energy complaining about being here when it doesn't seem like you wanna be here. And I'm like, oh, okay. I just thought this isn't good for me. I don't enjoy this.

So I took the app off my phone. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'll still, I'll still, you know, participate over there. But in here and there. Check-in. I think I was, I was enjoying some of the conversation about the differences, but now it's gotten to a point where it's like, I don't enjoy this. A lot of people have way stronger opinions than I do and are trying to convince me of their point of view.

And even like some some friends, I feel like it's it's like exposing it's exposing rifts that don't need to be there. It's like, I just I don't care that much. And so I'm just going to keep my opinions to myself because I'm not interested in debate. So that's it. Yeah, it's over.

I mean, I think that's fine. I think

Ian

that that's where it's, like, I guess it's, like, to me, the people who felt strongly that they disliked Twitter. Right? For whichever there's a couple main reese

Aaron

themes

Ian

to that. Right? They found a new place and they're happy about that. And I'm in that crew. I've been looking for a new place for a long time, not just the, since the elections since way before that.

And it's like, okay, it's a new place. So you get happy or excited. You want your old friends to come to the new place, all that kind of stuff. Right? And so on that arc, I think that arc just needs to be done.

Like, blue sky's big enough now that, like, you don't need to, like, tell everybody you ever knew, hey. You should come to blue sky. Like, they know about Blue Sky.

Aaron

You don't need to go post on Twitter how much fun you're having on Blue Sky. Need to do that. Like, that

Ian

was fine for a little while. I think that served its purpose.

Aaron

Totally.

Ian

But, like, we everybody's got it, and they can they now notice if people get sick of Twitter for their own reasons at some point. They know there's a Twitter like substitute. If they don't, then they stay there, then that's fine. Right? That doesn't matter.

And, on the other side, I think, you know, I think when you come into it, like, asking,

Aaron

How to change it and make it into Twitter? Yeah. Like, you know,

Ian

I like like, I think if you would just be in charge using it. Like, if you just came in and just used it, like, use Twitter. Like, I'm gonna build 2,000 mutes, and I'm just gonna do that. And I'm just gonna just use it like I use Twitter. I think you would have probably had less of that because it's, like, whatever.

Like, if it wasn't if you came in a year from now, there wouldn't be this, like, hey. I'm here on the new thing and, like Mhmm. What's going on in the new thing? You'd just be like, okay. Like, how do I do this?

Okay. I do it like this, and I'm just gonna do use it like I use Twitter because it's the same thing, you know, roughly. And you wouldn't you don't even have to have those conversations at that point. Right? It's like, who cares?

Like, right,

Aaron

we're

Ian

not we're not here to talk about the meta of the platform. I'm just

Aaron

like Yeah.

Ian

I'm off of this thing or I'm using it in conjunction together, which I think for content guys like you, I mean, it's just another platform. Like, who cares? Like, yeah, I get that there's, like, the difference of, like, where do you wanna spend your personal time?

Aaron

Yeah. It

Ian

has that aspect to it. Right? But then there's still just the, like, content people should just be everywhere, like Yeah. Anywhere. Like, whether or not you use it heavy or not heavy, like, whatever, but you should probably be posting I mean, mean, you should probably be posting yourself on Facebook too.

Right? Like, I don't know if you do or not, but Yeah. It's probably a mistake not to because it doesn't Probably. Not it doesn't hurt to have it there and not having it there is potentially whatever. Some percentage of people who now will never find you.

Mhmm. But yeah. So Yeah. I think

Aaron

that's a that's a good distinction. I don't I don't plan on spending at least for now, I'm open to this changing. I don't plan on spending my personal hang time on blue sky, and that's just totally fine with me. And I'm not gonna try to convince anyone that that's a good idea or a bad idea. I'm just going to do whatever I want to do.

Ian

Do what you wanna do. Yeah. I think that's fine. And, yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

I don't have anything to add to that. I think that's good. That was a tight five.

Ian

We're done. That's all

Aaron

I needed.

Ian

There we go. Got that off your chest. Hey. Something I've got here. Like,

Aaron

you know, I

Ian

had to pay respect, pay homage to the OG greatest. Who? Late Show with David Letterman.

Aaron

Late Show with David Letterman. Something I have never watched in my life. Oh, man. I

Ian

didn't watch a Late Show.

Aaron

It's possible. It's possible we're of different generations. We're not that far apart, but it's possible.

Ian

That's one of those things that's on the line there. I think that's yeah. You were just in his, like, real prime where, like, the teenagers and young 20 were all about it. You were just a little too young there probably.

Aaron

I think I was a little too young for that. Yeah.

Ian

A late show. David, there's no this is, like, one of those things that's been totally lost. You know? It's like there's no David Letterman anymore. Like, it just doesn't exist.

There's no David Letterman. These other, like, guys are all watered down.

Aaron

Jay Leno, or did one of them succeed succeed?

Ian

So here Come after this. Called the, what they call the the late night wars, I think they call this. Mhmm. They made a pretty good movie about it, which you should watch if you have time. It's like a, it's like a HBO, which I don't know, which is really good when you retire.

But so David's main thing, when he became famous in the shift after that. So he was on after Johnny Carson. Okay. In the 12/30 to 01:30 slot. Okay.

And that's and so he could kinda do whatever he wanted. Like, it was like nobody, you know, and this was like the eighties or whatever. Nobody was up at 12:30 unless you were, like, a degenerate. And so he was, like, pushing the boundaries. So that's what he was, like, edgy.

And then he wanted to be on prime time, but, like, you had Carson and you had, whoever I think there was, like, a new show on the one channel or something and whatever. There wasn't a spot. Eventually a spot opened up for him. He, he was assuming he would take over for Carson. That was always,

Aaron

and Carson was late show or tonight show tonight show. Okay. So tonight show's the big show. That's the one you want.

Ian

That was the biggest. Johnny Carson was the biggest of these late night guys for thirty years or forty years or whatever. So when he retired, Letterman figured he would be like, he was the heir apparent. It was like, no one, he was the heir apparent, but then I think he was maybe too edgy or whatever. So they gave him to Jay Leno and that like freaked, Letterman freaked out, blah, blah.

So he went to CBS and started the late show with Dave Letterman to directly compete with Leno at the same 11:30.

Aaron

Oh, the same slot.

Ian

Yeah. So then they were both on 11:30, but he had to move network. Because back then, there was only three networks. So you had to be you know, those are the slots. There was no YouTube or whatever.

So that was the whole thing. And it was a big battle, which I think Leno always, like, had the ratings. Maybe Letterman eventually won the the ratings at one point, but, Letterman was always way funnier. I mean, Leno is fine, but he's kinda just

Aaron

like is fine. Yeah.

Ian

He runs the show and, like, whatever. Like, Fallon, fine. You know, a guest comes on, and maybe there's a little funny thing or two, but he's not

Aaron

like Fallon Fallon's not very funny.

Ian

He's not must watch TV. Letterman was like, you must watch. You need to watch what he's gonna do with these different scenarios. So, so anyway, Letterman's great. He's still great.

He's like, now he's like, he's the perfect guy to be like the old, old curmudgeon comic. You know, he's just like got the huge beard.

Aaron

He's got the big Jesus beard now. Right? Yeah. He's got the

Ian

huge beard. And who screwed

Aaron

over Conan? What was the Conan story? Did was Conan trying to take Leno's spot and then they screwed him over?

Ian

I think Conan was in a similar boat where he wanted the whatever. Yeah. I think he became the Letterman. So I think he took over the 12:30 slot at some point. Maybe not right after Letterman.

I'm not sure. And then he didn't get the slot. And so then he went to, like, TBS or wherever.

Aaron

TBS and then showed someone else. Yeah. I just remember when he got screwed over, he had a great, like, short speech about not giving in to cynicism and stuff like that. I remember him doing like, he was objectively wronged, and he handled it very, he took the high road. And it seems like, you know, he doesn't have a, you know, a big three show, but it seems like he's crushing it with Conan Needs a Friend, which I've never listened to.

Ian

This is podcast. Podcast? Yeah.

Aaron

I I I understand that he's doing well. I I don't I have not experienced it, but

Ian

I've never been a Conan guy. I mean, I think he's fine. Like Conan love Conan. The only thing I even know about Conan is when he does the dog bit, and I like the dog bit. The dog bit is very funny.

That little whatever. The hand dog guy thing. The cigars. I like a dog that plays poker and smokes cigars, so that's very funny.

Aaron

You're a simple man.

Ian

I'm a simple man. But, yeah, that that's all I know about Conan. Like, because I think he was that guy

Aaron

You're telling me this dog plays poker? I'm in. You son of a bitch. I'm in.

Ian

I got Letterman. I don't need I don't need

Aaron

soda.

Ian

That's the thing. Then now it's all gone. Great. All we got is spaghetti and ketchup. We got nothing.

You don't even know what that means. You probably never seen gazellas.

Aaron

Nah. I don't know what that means. Anyway Sorry.

Ian

We don't have any good this was bothering me about this bothers me all the time about my children too. It's like they don't have any shared anything. Like, they're gonna be I know.

Aaron

They're gonna grow up and

Ian

be like, oh, did you watch pony lover 74? And their friends are gonna be like, no. I watched pony lover 72. I don't even know who's pony lover 74 is. And, like, there's no, like, Seinfeld.

There's no Agree. Central centralized culture

Aaron

I agree.

Ian

Which is all the problem in America in general.

Aaron

It's most of the problems. I'll agree. Yeah.

Ian

It's most of the problems. About anything. Right? There's only, like, you have your politics. Yeah.

And then you have nothing else shared because there's no shared culture.

Aaron

That's right. You've got you've got politics. You've got, which social media platform you're on. That's it. That's all we can talk about.

There's nothing else. It's terrible. Oh, goodness gracious.

Ian

I do agree.

Aaron

Well, I'm glad you have, this shirt on. That's really great for letterman.

Ian

Yeah. Your letterman swag. Just release the swag, so you gotta you gotta buy some. Go buy some if you like letterman.

Aaron

I'm not gonna do that, but I'm happy for you.

Ian

Have to.

Aaron

I don't mean you.

Ian

I mean the, rhetorical you or the,

Aaron

speaking of dogs playing poker and smoking cigars, you've been playing some poker.

Ian

I've been on this fairly regular Friday afternoon game.

Aaron

Hourly wage of a on playing poker. Time. You're doing well.

Ian

Well, you know, let me tell you something.

Aaron

Yeah. Tell me.

Ian

As a gambler Uh-oh. I am a strong believer in, jinxes Yep. And things of that nature. Right?

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

So I jinxed myself. I went. I made a social media post about, look how well I'm doing.

Aaron

I've got some good stuff.

Ian

Yep. Of course, I lost Friday. Of course. There's inevitable. All one

Aaron

game. That.

Ian

Did you

Aaron

post that? To I did I

Ian

did say I lost. Yes.

Aaron

Balance is Yeah. Yeah. Balance is

Ian

People were following along. I was, like, posting pictures. It was, like, a little thing. I did I mean, it was, like, three in the morning or something, so I don't know who saw my follow-up that I lost. Our completionist, they would have, seen it.

And I do love

Aaron

a completionist.

Ian

I love a

Aaron

Do you have a sense of lifetime winnings or losing? You think you're up and down?

Ian

Oh, definitely up. I don't you know, I switched apps over the years, and there was a phase I didn't track it at all because I

Aaron

was like Mhmm. Don't

Ian

really care. Then, like, this for most of 2024, I didn't play at all. But, yeah, no. I'm up. I'm like, I'm probably at, like, I don't know, probably, like, 15 big blinds an hour, which is a really good rate.

Maybe it's 12, something like that. But, like so that's, like, normally how you think about it. It's like, okay. The size game you play, like, if you play Mhmm. $5 big blind, like, how many big blinds do you do you win in an hour?

Because this way you compare even across, like I see. Different stakes. Right? Because, like, if you

Aaron

have relatively Yeah.

Ian

Keeps it relative. Like, you might play one, two, or five five, or ten ten. Like, the amounts of money are quite different in all those. But yeah. No.

I think I could make a living as a poker player, I feel like. Wow. Not not not for my current life. But if I was, like, a single guy, right, and I didn't have a wife, I didn't make kids, like, could I survive? You could eke out.

Aaron

You could eke out a living.

Ian

Out a living. Yes. I could, like, just be a professional poker player. I feel like I could do that.

Aaron

Man, pity we're not in the eke out days anymore. You know? We gotta do a little we gotta do, like, quadruple ekes to make it these days.

Ian

Bike is yeah. If I was, like, in college now, you know, and I was like, hey. Instead of working at Office Depot or little corner store, I, I just play poker on the weekends as kinda, like, my my money. I

Aaron

This was also not no. Just for just for the record.

Ian

Yeah. But then you that that's a whole different approach. Like, I would play different games. You have there's a lot of different strategies if you're trying to make a living versus if it's, like, half entertainment, half Mhmm. For profits.

You know, you also have to be more cautious. You can't, like, you know, if you have a really bad session, that actually hurts you quite badly if this is all your money and your income Right.

Aaron

If this is your income.

Ian

Yeah. Versus if this is like, well, I don't care. Cause like, this is my entertainment and over the course of my life, I'm up. So it's like entertainment that pays me. And I don't necessarily care if like in the short term I'm down because it's not affecting my financial situation at all.

Whereas, if it was my only income, then, of course, it would potentially affect my financial situation. So, yeah, you have to have more bankroll, like, dedicated to poker, and you have to have a whole there's a whole different set of strategies if you are making a living on it.

Aaron

I'm just gonna keep selling database courses. That sounds way yeah. Sounds way easier.

Ian

It's probably a good strategy. It's a good strategy. Are you gambling, man? You gamble at all?

Aaron

No. Okay. No. I I have I've played some blackjack. Enjoy it a lot.

Okay. So much fun. There we go. Gone gone to WinStar, which is north. It's just across the border in Oklahoma.

Mhmm. Gone to WinStar a ton, especially, like, you know, when I was 18, 19, 20. Me and my best friend would, we would both come back home from college to Dallas, and then we would drive up to WinStar. We'd, like you know, we'd leave here. We'd leave Dallas at, like, nine or 10:00 at night, which at this point but I'm thirty minutes to an hour into into my slumber at this point.

But in college, you know, we would we would drive through Taco Bell, drive up to Oklahoma Good. Gamble for a while. I would lose probably, like clockwork. I would lose $200, and my friend would either make a thousand or lose a thousand. It was a little more it was a little more wild than I was.

Mhmm. And then the, either the biggest winner or the smallest loser on the way home would have to buy a Taco Cabana for the other person. You know, we're coming home at, like, three or four in the morning.

Ian

Oh, that's okay. You're not spending the night. This is just not up and back. Broke for that. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. So we'd come home, eat some taco sea, and then crash at somebody. So whoever was closest crash at their house. And it was just, man, so much fun going to win star. So much fun, especially because you get free sodas.

You're just walking around. You get so I was just pounding sodas. It was so awesome.

Ian

18 there then, I think. Yeah. Look at that. Mhmm. I thought that this is oh, I thought it was pretty far.

Isn't it far from Dallas or no?

Aaron

It probably took us an hour and a half. Oh, that's it. Oh, I thought it was four

Ian

hours for some reason. No. No. No. No.

Oh, okay. Oh, that's not too bad then.

Aaron

No. It's not too bad at all.

Ian

Texas doesn't even have any casinos. What's up? I thought land of the free, home of the brave. Zero casinos.

Aaron

It is. I don't know. Literally zero.

Ian

I don't know. Makes no sense.

Aaron

I don't get it either. And the ones the ones in, Oklahoma are the Indian reservation ones. Right. And those are just right across the border. But I don't know why Texas hasn't legalized any sort of any sort of gambling.

Ian

Which. I mean, for Dallas, that's not too bad. But if you're in, like, Houston, that's a haul from Houston to go to. If

Aaron

you're in Houston, you're probably going over to. New Orleans or. Louisiana. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. It's got to be

Aaron

an hour, right? Oh, definitely. Yeah. Not close. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. But I've seen I've seen a lot of these, like, sports betting things,

Ian

and

Aaron

some of the aftermath of it. And I'm I'm pretty I think I'm pretty down on gambling as becoming, like, a state sanctioned institution. Doesn't seem doesn't seem like something we want to be exposing to the masses.

Ian

Does Texas have lotto?

Aaron

Texas does have a lotto. Yes.

Ian

See, this is the thing, though. This is why casinos get a very bad rap to me because, first of all, you have sports betting on your phone, which is way worse than a casino.

Aaron

Way worse. Casino, you have to

Ian

literally go there I agree. And do it, and there's security, and there's people watching, and there's

Aaron

And you're handing over US dollars from your hand. Yes. Yeah. Sports betting on the phone, way worse. Way worse.

Ian

Twenty four hours a day. Seven days is way worse. Nightmare.

Aaron

Just completely should be regulated. I hate, you know, big government, but big government has gotta save us here. Yeah. You gotta step in and say no more sports gambling.

Ian

And then you got lotto, which is like again, it's very much like this tax on the poor to me. It's like Very much. In your five dollars, and you're gonna win the lotto and be a millionaire if you're not going to. And then who knows where that money goes? Right?

It's all like, it's for the school.

Aaron

Fund schools, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Here's the problem. Here's the problem with sports betting is everybody knows a guy who's made a bunch on sports betting. Nobody knows anybody that's ever won the lottery. Right.

And so you hear, like, oh, the lottery is a billion dollars. You're like, man, not for me. But you hear, like, oh, this guy this guy knows somebody

Ian

with tip.

Aaron

Just get injured, and and he made $20,000 in the game last week. You're like, yeah. I'm gonna do it. And then you're destitute. You gambled away your family's money.

Ian

So this is my whole thing. I think casinos are by the humans are gonna want to have their vices, and the casinos are the best form of the vices vices compared to some of these alternatives in some ways. They also have physical structure.

Aaron

Just change your vices into virtues. Whenever you wanna go gamble, go read a book instead. Problem solved. So America is healed. We're fixed.

We're back. That's the worst advice I've ever had. That's a great idea. This is worse than your blue sky take.

Ian

This might be your worst take.

Aaron

No. This is my best take. Okay. Instead of reboot, go build something. Go make something awesome.

Ian

You can't do that all day long. You gotta have some help.

Aaron

Can. You should. No. You can. You should.

Ian

Just get burned out. You gotta have

Aaron

some other things going. Nah. That's where digging tunnels come true. When you get burned out when you get burned out

Ian

Oh, yeah.

Aaron

Building stuff on the Internet, then then you dig tunnels. Mhmm. That's perfect.

Ian

I think you should go gamble. Get out there and gamble, but just be responsible. Only gamble within your means.

Aaron

This is why it's such a good show

Ian

because smartly

Aaron

That is the most insane thing I've that's the worst charge to the audience. I've never heard get out there and gamble.

Ian

No gamble. First of all, if you do poker, you can actually just have an advantage and win. It's not even gambling. It's like you have a, a way to adjust the odds in your favor, which is not true of

Aaron

any of these other things.

Ian

And then even if you go gamble, you could be smart. Like you could do roulette, a single single zero roulette, which is like you're paying 1% or something, then you're gonna get free rooms. Then you're saving money on that. You're you're even if you just play some of these, more smarter games, if you just go play slot machine, you're getting destroyed. Like, you're paying 30%.

That's insane.

Aaron

It's not gambling if you have a system. That's what you're saying. I've got a system.

Ian

No. No. Not a system. Like well, okay. So my system is system.

Aaron

You just told me you don't have a system. Alright.

Ian

Alright. Here's the deal. There's people with, like, gambling systems, quote, unquote, which are, like, gonna take a game that is, like, mathematically, you cannot win at.

Aaron

Right.

Ian

And pretend that via some double my bet

Aaron

every time.

Ian

Right. That that that you can magically win, which is not true. You can't. That no. That's the problem.

But what you can do is okay. I can learn well how to play poker, in which case I now have an advantage over in the in the game. K. Plus in the game. Yep.

But to go play, you have these other expenses which cut into your advantage, like, a hotel room, which could be expensive at casino 3 or $400 or whatever. Right. So if you play the games, they want you to play, which are the games that you can't win at, but you do that smartly. Then what happens is you get the rooms for free. Okay.

And you are not paying them anywhere near the value of the room. And now this is adding to your advantage in the post, because you are not paying for this room cost. The rooms are now free to you. And that's a huge savings, which normally would be a tax on your poker winnings.

Aaron

Now it's

Ian

not a tax and maybe you're breaking even, you know, you're not gonna

Aaron

be again, you can't win at that, but you can break even or

Ian

close to it if you play the right games. And so now that's a wash, and you win at poker. So you're plus.

Aaron

So you're saying go go lose a hundred dollars at one of the dumb games. Get a $500 room for free Gotcha. And then go make a bunch of money on poker.

Ian

No. You're speaking my language.

Aaron

Okay. Alright. That's interesting. That's interesting.

Ian

There we go.

Aaron

That's not great. Once you win is interesting.

Ian

We'll get you playing a little poker. It's gonna be fine. Ever wish your PHP stand analysis could be supercharged with AI powered code reviews? Meet CodeRabbit, the AI native code review platform that works alongside PHP stand to revolutionize your PHP development workflow. Beyond static analysis, CodeRabbit analyzes pull requests to provide instant PR summaries, in-depth code walkthroughs with sequence diagrams, and one click suggestions to improve your code.

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Aaron

I got a lot of stuff to do when I retire, but we can we can add that to the list.

Ian

What do you wanna do when you retire? What's your number one? Or you and the wife? I don't know if you have a shared idea. Do you have a shared plan?

Aaron

I don't I don't know.

Ian

You haven't thought about I mean, coming on that deep yet?

Aaron

I can't think that far. Honestly, what I wanna do when I retire is tinker with hobby electronics. That's as far as I've gotten.

Ian

Oh, hobby electronics.

Aaron

Okay. That's kind of that's kind of as far as I've gotten. Rob little robots and stuff.

Ian

A workshop. Some kind of workshop situation.

Aaron

Yes. I want to have I want to have, like, a, basically, a a warehouse with big windows Yep. Like a factory where I have a bunch of tools, and I can go in there and build stuff and make stuff. I'll probably honestly, if if YouTube is still a thing, I would totally be a 50 year old YouTuber

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Making in in the workshop. Oh, man. That would be awesome. I would love that.

Ian

You're you're optimistic you're gonna be retired by 50 with these four kids.

Aaron

No. I'm gonna be retired by, like, '42. That's you know, it's so funny. I used to say this exact same thing. It's so it's so different.

It's different. It's different.

Ian

We started the business. I was like, 35. I'm done.

Aaron

Then I hit 35, and I was like, 45.

Ian

I'm done. 45. I'm like, 55. I'm done.

Aaron

It's different. I'll be I'll be out. I'll be I'll be out by how old will I be? Let's see. I'm 35 now.

Ian

There's zero chance you're out.

Aaron

42. I think I could I think I could be, not post economic. You know, I'm not going full photo map, but I think I could be I think I could be optional work by 45, 10 years from now.

Ian

Well, okay. Are we saying, like, do you have other income that might come to you? Do you have wealthy family?

Aaron

I mean, I don't wanna get that deep in it.

Ian

But if you have stuff like that, obviously, that changes the equation. Right? No. Okay. Do you think just by 45, you'll be right?

Aaron

By '45

Ian

Ten years.

Aaron

My own bootstraps

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Ten years, I think I could be I think I could be free.

Ian

I mean, I thought, like, literally impossible.

Aaron

Of course not. It's gonna happen.

Ian

It's gonna be very, very difficult. Alright. We got these four kids. I don't know if you're aware of that.

Aaron

Somebody somebody write it down. Somebody set a reminder for ten years

Ian

to run. If you do it. That'll be awesome. I'm I don't wanna send negative energy your way. I'm just saying, like, a lot of expenses along the way.

Aaron

Boy, isn't it?

Ian

Yeah. And then the real thing too is, like, there's the expense along the way, but then there's how you wanna live after, like, you wanna have your electronics workshop. You wanna buy expensive electronic parts for your

Aaron

electronics workshop.

Ian

Like, you're not trying to be like, okay, I'm on this really tight budget. And like, I got enough money for the bread and, and my seltzers, and I'm good. Like, you wanna have enough to deal

Aaron

with you and stuff. Yeah.

Ian

You don't wanna eke it out. I don't

Aaron

wanna eke it out.

Ian

Children and,

Aaron

you know, time. No. No. No. No.

No. No.

Ian

So that does add a lot to the number. It's gonna

Aaron

be it's gonna be a big decade.

Ian

It's gonna be a big decade.

Aaron

We're gonna have to do. We got a lot to do. Feel it in my bones. We got a lot to do. I will say we, we had our first not our first.

We had our most recent meeting with our accountant the other day, me and Steve.

Ian

Okay. And

Aaron

we haven't taken any money out because it's like, well, have you done

Ian

Are you using my accountant or no?

Aaron

No. Okay. We're using one Steve had.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Like, wanted to make sure we got the s election. We're an LLC electing to be taxed as an s corp.

Ian

We wanted

Aaron

to make sure that we got, like, all of that squared away before we started moving money around because they don't wanna accidentally get hosed. And Yeah. We had the meeting with the accountant, and Steve sent over some numbers ahead of time. And on the call, the accountant was like, you know, when Steve told me the idea for this, I was like, oh, that's,

Ian

you know,

Aaron

that's a nice idea. And then Steve sent the numbers over today, and I was really impressed. And I was like, yes, we got the account. We got the the accountants impressed. She likes us.

So that felt really, really good. And we took some distributions, so we have money now. Yeah.

Ian

Oh, you haven't been taking distribution?

Aaron

No. I haven't taken a single dollar since we started this thing.

Ian

Wow. Okay.

Aaron

Yeah. So Interesting. Yeah. Not great. So now we're set up on we're set up on payroll.

So with the s corp, as you know, you do part payroll, part distribution. So Mhmm. We're set up on payroll, got all that squared away for what a reasonable person would expect to get paid. And then we just took some some big old distributions. It's like, we'll get taxed on it anyway.

Let's just take it out.

Ian

Yeah. You gotta take it out.

Aaron

People don't take it out. Like, take it out. What do you

Ian

it doesn't You're

Aaron

gonna pay the taxes. Doesn't matter.

Ian

Like, yes. It doesn't matter. It's not affecting. You might as well take it out, and then you can invest it or do whatever you're gonna do with it. Like, there's no you gotta leave enough in there to run the operations, but there's no point in keeping a lot above that.

No. Because No.

Aaron

So that feels good. Big milestone. Big milestone in there.

Ian

Congratulations. Love the distribution.

Aaron

Love a distribution.

Ian

Is it interesting little aspect to that for you? Because, like, with the partner, it's, like, more of a conversation. You know? You have to, like, figure out, like, when you're gonna do it, how much you're gonna do, and all that kind of stuff. So Yeah.

Cool. So that's good. Money in the bank. We are

Aaron

Money in the bank. Money off the ball. Money from try hard bank to Aaron Bank is always a good day.

Ian

Very good. Very good. Alright. Well, you're underway then. Underway to retirement.

Put the count. Somebody's gotta build a little flipper countdown.

Aaron

That's right. Yeah. Somebody said I don't know if there's a long term reminder service, but somebody said a ten year reminder to check back in.

Ian

There probably is.

Aaron

So that when I'm 45, I'll be super depressed when I get that reminder that I'm supposed to be retired. Oh, man. No. I don't know.

Ian

I'm just I'm just gonna say, I think it, like, I don't think it was good for me that I had that mindset. That would be my advice to you. I think it was bad to have that mindset, generally. I think it, like, creates these expectations that are probably not achievable, really. And so at least at again, at the level, like, I think you're probably gonna wanna do things along the way for the kids, all the stuff, the underground garage, for example, the stuff like that.

Aaron

All that stuff. That cuts into the timeline a little bit.

Ian

Cuts in a little bit. So I don't know. Do you even wanna be retired? This is a whole other thing. It's like, oh, retired.

Quit

Aaron

working. No.

Ian

But that's the thing. It's like, if you're retired, it's like to have the amount of money that you could really be like, I just fly around, and I just do all kinds of crazy shit. Anywhere. An insane amount of money. Right?

Aaron

So, like wanna stay at home.

Ian

You're gonna have to really have a mega home run, you know, to do that. So let's say okay. Let's say that's a very outsized Let's

Aaron

give it a number. What do you think the number is for just, like, a normal I don't wanna I don't wanna go to Ibiza or anything. Like, what's the normal I'm I'm retired. I could work if I want to and maintain a maintain, like, a nice urban Dallas life lifestyle.

Ian

Okay. So yeah. So not the, like, you're flying private jets around.

Aaron

No. Just I'm never flying private jets.

Ian

Retired, but, like, all the kids go to the school you want them

Aaron

to go to college. Let's say to They're not they're not going to Harvard or Yale or anything. They're going to Texas a and m Yeah. Whatever. Somebody somewhere like that.

I mean, I don't know.

Ian

I mean, to retire at 45, you're adding a lot of years before the normal retirement age too. Right? And so you're also, like, not gonna whatever. It's cutting into your Social Security when you do get to 65. Like, there's a lot of factors, but I don't know.

I mean, it's gotta be at least, like, for you like, listen. This is not a number for, like this is the number for I think you wanna live, like, with foot now. It's gotta be at least I mean, it's gotta be at least a minimum, like, 10,000,000.

Aaron

That's what I was thinking. 10. Yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking. $10,000,000.

Ian

And I think that the way you wanna live, it could be it could be tight because you have twenty years before you're 65 at that point where you're gonna be spending money with, like, government security and all kinds of stuff.

Aaron

I'm not getting any I'm not getting a dime from the government.

Ian

That's a Elon's in there now. Like, he said you're gonna have to suffer some hardship.

Aaron

So He's gonna go shut up. So we'll we'll be rich again. But I'm I'm I'm People will be rich. I'm counting on getting from that. $0 from the government.

Ian

Well, so that's fine. Even That's fine. Well, I don't know if that's fine. But, yes, that's

Aaron

I'm okay

Ian

with that. Yeah. So yeah. So, I mean I mean, that's like okay. So let's say you live to 85.

Right? And so that's, like

Aaron

10,000,000. 40 years. That's 25,000,000. They say the first million is the hardest. So, hopefully, after I hit one, it'll be easier.

Ian

Well well, I mean, because you gotta also factor it now. I guess if we mean, I'm I was saying 10,000,000 after tax. But if you wanna Yeah.

Aaron

10,000,000. 10 million in the bank.

Ian

Yeah. 10,000,000 in the bank. Right? So now you're talking about 15,000,000, you know, roughly, let's say 14,000,000, 15 million. Which, I mean, it's not impossible.

But then alright. So that's $250,000 a year

Aaron

for forty years. What's $250,000 a year?

Ian

10,000,000.

Aaron

Then I can draw that out.

Ian

40. Yeah. Got it. That that now obviously you could, like, invest the 10,000,000 you're making interest. So whatever the comp, right?

The calculation gets what more complicated. So do you actually need 10,000,000? Maybe again, if you're playing it tight and like kids' activities, kids' colleges, like those things, like, yeah, if it's state school, if it's they're not into any crazy activities, like, yeah, you could probably do it with even less as long as you're being frugal about it. And, obviously, lots of people do it with less. This is one of these conversations where, like, that sound ridiculous.

Right? Like, of course, it's possible to do it less. But the the caveat here is for the lifestyle you want to live Correct. You wanna have a warehouse with a electronics factory in it. Right?

Like, that's not normal retirement living.

Aaron

Right.

Ian

Yes. So that's that's the rub. Yeah. But not impossible. It's, if you're if you're frugal ish along the way,

Aaron

I think it's too old. So we're we're gonna have to we're gonna have to amp it up just a little bit. Well, the thing is

Ian

it just creates a a combination of, like, a, you're still gonna be very young, and what are you gonna do anyway? You're probably gonna wanna do stuff. So, like, there's retired and there's retired. There's retired, like, you literally don't work anymore. And then there's retired, like Yeah.

I don't build courses, and I'm not trying to build a SaaS, but maybe I still have my YouTube channel. And I'm doing stuff, and I'm still making my you know what I mean? Like, there's all the layers to it. So that's the other other kind of thing.

Aaron

Well, I'll keep you posted. There we go. 10,000,000 10 million is a lot. Should we put a

Ian

$10,000,000 counter up and you could Yeah. In real time. Let us know.

Aaron

I gotta get I gotta get to one before I get to 10, and we're struggling there, but we'll make it. We'll get there. We're we've only just begun.

Ian

Yeah. Here we go. I don't know how

Aaron

many ads there are.

Ian

Alright. What else we got? I don't know. People wanna like, literally, like, seven or eight people messaged me about wanting to hear about the HubSpot back office. So should we go through the HubSpot back office?

Aaron

Let's go through the back office. Tell me. I got I love I love a back office. That's what I spent that's what I spent five years doing at the property tax company. Back office is great.

Tell us about the back office.

Ian

So the back office is HubSpot is before Stripe. HubSpot is before all these platforms that we use now that take care of money for you. Right? So the only way to collect money was to build your own thing. And then even, like, you can use this thing called authorize.net, which was, like, the thing before Stripe, which was really bad.

It wasn't even anything really like Stripe. It was, like, real credit card processor that sort of did this online thing and whatever. So version one of the back office was like, okay, like people sign up, they gotta get a license file, because this is only downloadable product and we gotta collect money from them somehow. So this tool does that. And that's what it did.

And that's pretty much what it does now. So the thing is we could have moved to Stripe sort of at some point along the way, but we have all these, like, legacy customers that are in older license tiles that Stripe doesn't really support. There's probably some way today to do it, but it's like, do we go through all that work to like move everything? No, I don't

Aaron

think so.

Ian

So yeah. So what the back office does is like when you sign up for HubSpot, you actually sign up in this back office app that now does all kinds of other stuff. It collects your information, of course, but then, like, if you're signing up for a cloud account, it like kicks off a thing that builds a server and AWS for you and does all the connections and all kinds of stuff. It sets up for you and sets up help slot, does all that stuff. It has this whole management arm of all the cloud servers.

So like manages all the cloud servers and their deployment ability and upgrading help slot versions and security stuff, and you're on a custom domain as opposed to the domain we give you and all those type of things, like SSL certificates for that and all that stuff. There's all this management logic in there, and in combined with other systems. But that's, like, one of the things. It's like a CRM. It's got all the customer data.

It's got, those invoices. It does coupon codes. Does all that financial stuff. And then does reports. So it has, you know, I have, like, a projections report for, like, upcoming renewals.

It has historical sales. It has

Aaron

Oh, so, like, accounting reports.

Ian

Accounting reports. It has sales tax reports, like, how much sales tax did we collect in the states we collect sales tax in, accounts receivable, because we do invoicing, which is somebody all you out there don't do this anymore, but you should at least consider it because a lot of companies still like to pay by invoice and check and transfer. We support that, and this tool supports that. None of those some, like, email stuff. Just looking at the list of stuff it does.

It has, like, partner management for, like, partners who get a commission when they sell HubSpot, like, an affiliate system.

Aaron

Yeah. That's what it does. Like, that's So does it run all of this stuff? Like because when I was when I was doing this, we had, like, maybe a hundred different scheduled commands that would, like

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

Wake up and check the database for stuff and do stuff and go back to sleep. Some some every some every minute, some once a month, that sort of thing. And so it's like Yep. This back office just constantly running these processes all the time that are checking for things that need to be done or updated or stuff like that. Yep.

Ian

Yeah. So it does stuff like, most of that, is on, like, the money end of things, I believe. So it's like yeah. Like, it send us all these series of email, right? Like, for the different license types.

So, like, if you're on an older own license, it's like, well, your support renewal's coming due in ninety days, sixty days, thirty days today, all that stuff. If you're on a you know, it does the renewals for subscriptions. So okay. Today's the day that, like, this you know, these four companies need to resubscribe, so it does the subscription management. There's a lot of that stuff.

I think I don't know. I haven't built and don't know as much about the, like, cloud aspects of it, but I think there are some, like, scheduled things where it's checking things cloud wise for different things. So, yeah, there is that type of thing in there as well, just like stuff that needs to happen, on some kind of regular basis, and it does that stuff.

Aaron

That's my favorite that's my favorite thing, I think, to to code is, like, let's let's basically write process automation. That's

Ian

what I that's what I love

Aaron

love doing. It's like so back at the property tax company and actually went to their holiday their Christmas party on, on Friday. They still invite me. So it was so it was so wild to go and, like, not recognize. Like, I used to be in charge of everyone, and I go, and I don't recognize anybody anymore.

Ian

Who are these?

Aaron

So fun. But that was the kind of stuff that we did was like Mhmm. Alright. Somebody's gonna sign up and type in their address onto our site. Then Yeah.

We're gonna generate a PDF. We're gonna send the, you know, the DocuSign to the person. After they sign it, we're gonna use their API to check if if it's been signed, then we're gonna send that PDF to the county, and then we're gonna check the county every hour until the county has, like, faithfully recognized that we are now the agent of record. And if they don't do it in, you know, seven days, we're gonna resend the forms over and over and over until they code us as the agent and, like, making it used to be that humans had to do all of that. Right.

And now it's just the computer. And I love I absolutely love automating the processes and letting the humans do the higher creativity stuff. It's so fun.

Ian

That that is really cool. And that's, like, even yeah. We don't have anything quite like that where we have, like, other third party we other than Stripe, we don't well, to our own systems, we have other, interactions and integrations, but not to, like, the government or anything like that. So that's that's pretty cool. I like that.

Yeah. We do have, like, stuff like there's a lot of, like, weird edge case logic things. Because it's like, okay. Are you a subscription customer, which is, like, a new customers in the last twelve years, whatever? Or are you before that, so you're a grandfathered, like, owned licensed customer?

Okay. And then your invoice or subscription. Okay. And then if you're invoiced, like, do you have a purchase order that which is like a contract that people have when they buy things that that companies use? So if you have a purchase order, then we do certain things.

If you don't have a purchase order, then we do different things. And yeah. So there's that kind of stuff, that's in there. It's not, like, scheduled, but there are all logical edges to things.

Aaron

I bet your accounting your accounting arbiter, twenty years of edge cases baked into the logic that decides who to build what when. I bet that is wild.

Ian

Yeah. There's some weird stuff in there. And just because we have different models over the years, we even have, like, per user for, like, a minute way back before that. It was probably too early even that didn't work out So we got rid of that a subscription per user, which we're probably going back to here soon but it's obviously very common now where it wasn't, necessarily common back then so yeah, so, like, there's that's the worst stuff with this stuff, which everybody knows about this. So it's like, oh, you try try let's try this new pricing.

Oh, now we have eight customers on that new pricing, but it didn't really generally work out. So, like, let's stitch that. So now, like, these eight customers must be forever maintained in their weird pricing state or tell them to move, which is something I guess we could have done, but we didn't do in that particular case. So, yeah, there's just a lot of, like, stuff that's built up over time sort of thing in there, which is why it's, like, it's much better now because, it was just rebuilt in the last well, a year ago, it got finished. But But it took, like, a year to rebuild it.

Aaron

The back office is

Ian

just a fabrication. Yeah. Eric Oh. Just rebuilt that. It was, like, the last thing he did before he went full time on Marvel News, was rebuilt.

Aaron

Eric Barnes, he doesn't just play golf all day?

Ian

Yeah. You wouldn't have

Aaron

He actually programs because based based on what I see online, he's just golfing all day.

Ian

I'm I'm me I'm just gonna be a professional poker player. He's gonna be a professional golfer.

Aaron

Holy. I know. I gotta come I gotta come work at UserScape. That's the way I know. That's the way to do it.

Ian

That is the way. Then you go off and just chill.

Aaron

Then you go off and you get to either be Taylor, Eric, or Ian. That's awesome. That's the option. That's amazing. Oh, goodness.

Yeah. I know. He does do a

Ian

lot of golfing. I don't know how he squares that circle, but, yes, he rebuilt it. So now it's like a modern Laravel app, which is much nicer and has all those niceties and proper cues and whatever test suite and blah blah blah blah. But this is the third, I think, iteration of it. Mhmm.

It was, like, my original terrible one. There was another terrible one I built very quickly before, like actually, right before I hired Taylor and Eric, just already a long time ago. I, like, was like the thing I first had was like unusable by anybody but me. So I was like, alright, let me like build something that at least makes some kind of sense. So I did that and then that's what we used.

And then that was like added on to over the years in a million crazy ways. That was nuts. And then Eric sat down and like properly thought through everything, how things actually work now and rebuilt it. So so that's good. So that's really nice to have that.

It's like all modern and Livewire and all the

Aaron

That's all Livewire.

Ian

Yeah. It uses Nice. Yeah. It's Livewire. There's some filament stuff in there.

Aaron

You're using flux for.

Ian

Well, I'm not using flux for that, but it's I'm not going back and ripping out the filament stuff. We use

Aaron

some

Ian

filament stuff in there because, like, whatever, it's a back office. But, I'm using filament on new help spot website, and I am using or not filament. Flux on new help spot website and Flux on some new HelpSpot inside of HelpSpot stuff that we'll be doing. So we'll be the flux will be being used heavily. So it's good to see.

Aaron

He's moving fast on the flux, man.

Ian

He's moving. I feel

Aaron

like I feel like every every day, I'm getting a new, I'm getting a new notes on work from Caleb about something else he's fixed.

Ian

Love the notes on work.

Aaron

He's moving.

Ian

I find it very intimidating. Like, I would like to do a notes on work type of thing, but I'm like, I don't produce at the pace. I would just be talking about the same thing for, like, three months. He's like, oh, yeah. I did this thing, and I did this thing, and I did this thing.

Aaron

Like, he's, like, he's on it. He's on to the next thing. I want I I'm gonna do a notes on work. I got a lot of I got a lot of thoughts, man. You tried this before with the video.

Is it, like, the

Ian

the thing? Does it be next

Aaron

week? Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna

Aaron

do it again. I'm going back. Video? Starts. We'll get there.

Probably just audio.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

There's not a lot to show. You know?

Ian

Yeah. So that that adds a lot to it too. Like, it does that adds a lot of burden to it whereas, like, audio, if you, like, make it real light, you could just be, like, in the car. You could be like

Aaron

Totally.

Ian

But, yeah, you could just, like, do it whenever as opposed to, like, well, video, you have to be, like, in your setup, and it was, like, a whole thing. And you have to edit it probably and, like, whatever, all that stuff.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. I know. But then maybe it's just like he just has a vibe for it. You know? I don't know.

He's got he's got a vibe for it. Vibe. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe I don't know. Maybe he it's a special sort of, thing.

It is hard to talk to yourself, like It is. Without somebody to bounce off of. Like, there are awkward moments. I did have a podcast like that a long time ago. And I was like, I think I got, like, 10 episodes in, and I was like, yeah.

It's just me.

Aaron

You had a solo show?

Ian

It was quasi solo. It was, anything but code, which

Aaron

is cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I

Ian

did have, like, Taylor was on once, and we reviewed Star Wars.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Like, I had a guest on a couple times, but then the other episodes were just me. I don't know. It was a little different. It wasn't, like, as tight like, notes on work is generally, like, you know, ten minutes. Right?

Jeffrey Way does these sort of things too.

Aaron

Yeah. His are good.

Ian

On and off occasionally. Yeah. Is it a podcast? I only ever see them as video, but maybe I only see them as a podcast.

Aaron

It's probably a podcast.

Ian

Video? Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

So I don't know. Alright. What else we got on here? So you wrote down Interstellar, which I have a whole Interstellar story for you from just this weekend, but I don't know if you have your own story here since you've

Aaron

I have my own story here, and it is that I am going to see Interstellar in one hour and forty five minutes.

Ian

Yep. On IMAX. Right?

Aaron

On 70 millimeter IMAX. Yep. Yep. I so I booked this I booked this weeks and weeks ago. Yeah.

They're bringing it back to theaters for the ten year anniversary. Ben Holman DM'd me and was

Ian

like, hey.

Aaron

Did you know that they're coming to Dallas?

Ian

Is the central like, they they paid him to spread the word on you. It's awesome. Yes. Yes. I was

Aaron

like, do you know they're coming to Dallas? And I went, and I didn't. And so I went and I looked. And so today is what? December 9?

I looked originally at the week before, so, like, December 2, and this is way back in October. And showings were already sold out Yes. On a Monday morning, like, a month and a half ahead of time. Yep. And so I, like, immediately, as fast as I could, found a showing where I didn't have to sit, you know, off to the side Well,

Ian

that's and booked it. The iMacs, if you're off to the side, you might as well not even go. Like, you need to have a good seat at the iMac.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going I'm going to see it in I've I don't think I've ever seen a 70 millimeter iMac. I think I saw Dunkirk in iMacs, but I'm I'm led to believe that there's something different about 70 millimeter. So

Ian

Taylor Swift was 70 millimeter, I think. And we

Aaron

saw that. That sounds right.

Ian

It's like a seven story Taylor Swift.

Aaron

That was, like, pretty incredible. So I am so excited. Man. I just cannot wait. It's gonna be I'm gonna cry so much.

It's gonna be a freaking blast, and I hope they serve me some kind of food. Let's see. Where am I going? Oh, it's just me.

Ian

There's no serving food in the IMAX. Like, there's There's not get gross food at the counter.

Aaron

Yeah. The cinemark Dallas, IMAX. I wish Alamo had IMAX. So, yeah, super pumped. Cannot wait.

I don't think I saw it in theaters when it first came out. And so this is gonna be this is gonna be a first time seeing it in theaters.

Ian

A perfect movie for IMAX, though.

Aaron

Like, some of the scenes,

Ian

like, at the black hole or whatever. Like, this is gonna be awesome on the IMAX or the tidal wave. Like, it's gonna be incredible. Like

Aaron

I can't wait.

Ian

So I have a similar story. Tell me. Ben Holman, right, like, was talking about it. He didn't messaged me directly, but he was talking about it. Oh, sorry.

Whatever that was. And it's like, it was no no ones were near me at all. And then I think New York City had some, and I looked, and they were all taken. Instantly. Yep.

And it was it was like, oh, I could have one seat, like, in the far corner. And I'm like, I don't even wanna deal with that. Whatever. I have, like, a nice TV at home. If I'm it's like, that's better than the far corner of iMac.

So forget that. So but then been home and again, this weekend said, hey, they released more tickets and I'm like, okay. You released more tickets. Good. So I go and there's tickets, both in New York City, but also in, West Nyack, which is like, whatever an hour from here.

Big biggest mall in the country or second biggest mall in the country. Some big mall, big mall that, is like an hour for me and has IMAX. So I'm like, great. I'm like, I'm just gonna buy it for Wednesday at 03:30 and I'm just gonna take kids out of school and it's gonna be fun. Like we never go see movies.

This will be like the tidal wave and the black hole. It'll be huge. It's gonna be awesome. And then I thought I could pay the $85 whatever. And then I started talking to Jamie and we go through it all.

And it's like, Max has his first basketball game, and Mia has a thing. And so now there's no interstellar. I can't even go. I'm not even going. Not

Aaron

sick. You're you're not gonna go?

Ian

I'm not going. I already refunded the tickets.

Aaron

Oh, dude.

Ian

I know. Because I wanna show it to the kids, and then I'm like, if I can't bring the kids, then I might as well just watch it at home. I'm not gonna watch it twice. Like, so I'll just watch it at home at some point and whatever. But very frustrating.

And then the v It sucks.

Aaron

So weird. Like, why don't they have

Ian

it for, like, two weeks? It's like, they literally have nothing starting Thursday. It's like Thursday, we're showing nothing. Well, why don't you just keep Interstellar in there rather than, like Yeah. So it's selling out.

Like, it's not like it's not selling out. You could have, I'm sure on

Aaron

Friday, you know, Friday,

Ian

Saturday. Sucks.

Aaron

I know.

Ian

So it's gonna be a nice little family time to Yeah.

Aaron

No no

Ian

failure. And even when I talk to the kids about it, they were like, I wouldn't wanna miss basketball. I wouldn't wanna miss my other family.

Aaron

It's a pretty good kid impression, honestly. Exactly. So wait till you get the teenagers. Wait till you have the teenagers. I will I will let you know how it is.

Ian

Let me know. We'll talk about it next week. Tell me how glorious when they're going into the black hole, how awesome it is.

Aaron

I'm gonna get I'm gonna get the biggest soda you've ever seen. I'm gonna get Diet Coke the size of your head.

Ian

That's gonna be amazing. Man.

Aaron

I don't know. No? I don't know. We'll see. If they have some chicken tendies, I'll do that instead of popcorn.

Ian

Chicken tendies. See? I don't know. Food in the movie, it's so weird to me. We just never had it around here, so it's like It's great.

Aaron

I mean, they always have

Ian

the bad chicken tendies, but they're, like, gross and disgusting. Like, AMC, I think, is maybe a little better on the food than, like Yeah. We have whatever. That other big we go. We have Regal on the food.

It's like

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

I mean, I'd rather just go I just, like, make myself sick on peanut M and M's or whatever.

Aaron

Oh, that sounds good too. I should

Ian

do that. M and M. That's kinda my excuse. The movies is like, oh, I can't get this whole bag of peanut M and M's. That's fine.

It's the movies.

Aaron

It's the movies. It doesn't count.

Ian

Yeah. It doesn't count.

Aaron

Yeah. So I'll let you know how it is. It's gonna be that's gonna be awesome. Can't wait.

Ian

I might have to finagle myself into this somehow.

Aaron

I guess I can't go myself.

Ian

Maybe I'll You

Aaron

should just go yourself.

Ian

I mean, I don't I'm not opposed to that. Obviously, you're not opposed to that. Some people don't like to go to movies by themselves. I don't know.

Aaron

I mean, there's nothing better than going to a movie by yourself. There's really not. Yeah. Do whatever you want. Do whatever you want.

There's no like, what are you going to? You know, you can't talk in a movie anyway.

Ian

I know.

Aaron

What are you supposed to do? Did you see that? Yeah. I saw that. I'm sitting right next to you.

Like, what? You can't. It doesn't matter. This is this is pointless. Also, this is this is even further out there.

Go into a restaurant by yourself. Awesome.

Ian

The best. Love it.

Aaron

Love it.

Ian

Before. My wife hates it. She doesn't wanna go to restaurant. I was like, this is the best. It's so great.

Like, I can just go

Aaron

to the bar.

Ian

I just they put the thing. All those people who can't even get a reservation, they're like, we can't get in there. It's impossible. You just walk in any night and you go sit at the bar and they're like, yeah, we got a spot for you right here. No problem.

No reservation. No nothing. You're by yourself. It's great. So good.

I love the restaurant by yourself. Love it.

Aaron

I haven't done that in a while either. I can't Oh, man. By myself. Me either. Can you imagine the luxury going to a restaurant by yourself?

Ian

That's actually do it more like, travel. I don't usually do it, like, around town, although I'm not supposed to. Yeah. I haven't been traveling, so I haven't been doing a restaurant by myself.

Aaron

That's how to get you. Alright. I got one more.

Ian

Yeah. So you talked at a conference.

Aaron

I spoke at a conference. Which is,

Ian

like, you just you just have these things happen. Isn't this weird? Like, it's like nobody knows you're speaking at this conference. I didn't know. I mean, nobody knew, but nobody knew.

Were you, like, actually published as, like, a thing? Was it, like, was it? Yeah. It's time published.

Aaron

Barely. Barely. So it was a conference. It was a conference here in Dallas. Yeah.

Called Commit Your Code. And very strange because not like not our crew. You know? Normally, you go to a conference and you're just like, hey. How are you doing?

Good to see you. Good to see you. And this one, I'm like, I know I know very few of you. It's like a dot

Ian

net thing?

Aaron

Or who who else? Yeah. It was it was way more corporate because it was a Dallas thing. And so it was like there were there were three tracks, first of all. Don't love a multitrack conference.

Ian

Lyricon's gonna be there soon. You know?

Aaron

No. We must resist. At some point. No. No.

No. No. No. No. Speaking of shared experiences, one track conference, everybody has the same experience.

I love that. I love that.

Ian

Love that.

Aaron

So the tracks were Java, cloud

Ian

Wow.

Aaron

And Java the Chromebook.

Ian

Java's still a thing?

Aaron

Java is it's big in in Dallas where it's all these, you know, stuffy corporate headquarters. Java's big. And, also, like, moving to the cloud is still a thing. It's just, like, insane. What year is it?

I wanna learn Java.

Ian

Maybe someday I'll learn Java. When do you think about that?

Aaron

That's not worth it. So for there was the first year they've run it. They did an incredible job being first year. They went they went super big. First year, let's do three tracks and have 60 speakers.

Like, what? Why are you doing this to yourself? I think there were, like, 350 in person and then several hundred more online.

Ian

See, that's not big enough for three tracks, I'm gonna say.

Aaron

Yeah. I I feel like one would have been fine, two maybe. But, anyway, Alright.

Ian

So it was cool, though. They did a good job. Sounds like the place was cool. They did a

Aaron

good job. Great job. It was hosted at, very interestingly, headquarters of Yum! Brands, which is, like, KFC, Taco Bell, and, I think, Pizza Hut. Yeah.

Yeah. So that was kinda cool. So KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell were the lunch options, which is like,

Ian

hell, yeah.

Aaron

I love I love some Pizza Hut. So I saw that this conference was happening several months ago. Maybe in September, I saw that it was happening. Hold on.

Ian

Hold on. Wait. Wait. Hold on. I gotta I gotta stop you there.

It's just taking me a little while to process. So are the only options for food in this building those things, do you think? Like, is that what the cafeteria and the building is? Or is there no cafeteria in the building, and they brought you in from, like, outside? I don't know if you saw this while you're there.

Like, sound like, can I only eat KFC or Pizza Hut? There were parts

Aaron

of the building. Most of the building, we were not allowed access to. So we were in, like, the little meeting area that had a few big stages and a few breakout rooms and stuff. I I, you know, peaked beyond the sign and saw what appeared to be a cafeteria, but I I don't know if it was only KFC pizza I had to talk about.

Ian

How fascinating. That's like I know. Corporate and k like, this is all you can eat. What we make is the only like, that's how it should be.

Aaron

It's how it should be.

Ian

Should be.

Aaron

That's dog food.

Ian

I feel like it's not that just based on the food that they're serving, but it should be that. Yeah. It should be that. Alright. Anyway.

Aaron

So it was good. They brought us some some good food.

Ian

Okay. Good.

Aaron

So I saw that this was happening in maybe September. Saw it on Twitter. I was like, hey. Doing a conference in Dallas, all these people. It's like, I live in Dallas.

Let me I let me let me just reach out.

Ian

Doing stuff again. You're always just doing stuff.

Aaron

Doing stuff. Doing things. You can't stop doing stuff, man. Damn it. So I reached out to the guy, sent him a DM, and was like, hey.

Saw that this is in Dallas. If you need another speaker, I'm always open to come up and and speak. Let me know. Did he know you were Sure. I he I think he followed me on Twitter at that point.

Okay. But he was he said, sure. Sounds great. Let's do it. It's like, well, first of all, that was easy.

You you just ask. So, you know, I I did a new and updated version of, publishing your work increases your luck. Included included the layoff in there, which is great. Nice. Good content.

Ian

Lovely good layoff story.

Aaron

Included the layoff to riches. Exactly. Starting TriHard Studios, had to cut it down from forty minutes to twenty five, but I still did it in thirty. So oopsie doopsie, but that was fine. Just it went great.

I crushed it. It went great. It was awesome. And on the just doing things note, I before my talk, I told the organizer, I said, Danny, this is my this talk is my audition to be your keynote speaker for next year.

Ian

Oh, snap.

Aaron

Just calling my shot saying, hey. If this works, I wanna be your keynote keynote speaker. Yep. And so, like, the day after the, the day after the conference ended, he sent me a video of himself in the car and was like, hey. Thanks for coming out.

I'm trying to, you know, lock down speakers for next year. Do you want a keynote next year? And I was

Ian

like, I do. I

Aaron

do want a keynote, so

Ian

it worked. Wow. Congratulations. Thanks. Yeah.

Another, leading by example on your part Yes. Making stuff happen.

Aaron

That's right.

Ian

I love it. Yeah. People don't realize, like, there's all these things in the world that, like, people hate dealing with. Like, finding speakers for a conference is actually terrible. And if you can it's a fine line.

Right? Because, obviously, lots of people just be like, woah. Make me the speaker. Like and that that alone isn't probably enough, but it's like the combination of, like, you're doing stuff, you're putting good stuff out there that's provable evidence that you have

Aaron

something interesting to say. And then

Ian

you ask, and then, oh, yeah. Like, this guy looks reasonable. Let's give him a shot because I need to find somebody for this and it's gonna be annoying and that's one less thing I have to do, especially if they're doing 60 speaking slots It's like yeah, that's a lot of speakers to go through and now it's one less and I got a keynote and it's like a headliner and I can put them up there. So Mhmm. That's awesome.

So now also redoing a talk you already did, people don't do that and you should because, like, nobody's

Aaron

seen Totally.

Ian

Talk before. Like Correct. You know what I mean? Like, if two people have seen it, who cares? And Mhmm.

Everybody else is new. So that's also a smart strategy because like you said, then you can crush it. You've already done it before.

Aaron

Already done it.

Ian

Like, the things you'd wanna do differently and all that stuff. So that's great. But yeah. Now what about the speaking circuit? Is this a thing you're interested in?

Aaron

I don't know. So I am interested I am interested in the speaking circuit to the extent that it exposes me to new audiences, I think. Yeah. So, like, I I am going to I'm speaking at Lyricon EU. Right?

Not a new audience, but these are my people. Super fun. Very exciting. But, like, speaking at React Miami, for example Mhmm. I'll have anything to say on React.

But could I could I get to the point where it's like I'm like a Kelsey Hightower of Right. The the new age, right, where I'm kind of, like, not specifically talking about the technology that's there, but more, like, broader human principles, maybe. I'd be super

Ian

interested in that. Webs. Talk.

Aaron

Yeah. I'd be super interested in that, but what I I'm not interested in is, like, beyond, like, beyond our little circle, I'm not interested in giving highly technical talks at other conferences, I don't think.

Ian

Yeah. Talks are such a weird thing. I feel like they're definitely valuable in the, like, go from unknown to known. Like Yes. That is a personal branding win if you can get a little you know, do some talks and and elevate your status like that.

I'm a little more dubious on the, like, business economic value of being a speaker. Like, can I actually yes? You can improve your brand. Can you make money doing it if you have, like once you reach a certain level? I think, yes.

Like, you definitely can if you then reach that that Kelsey Hightower level. Right? Like, of course, then you can. But, like, there's that middle ground of, like, are you gonna grind to the level required to become the ubiquitous speaker of web development conferences or not. And then, like, is that time well spent or not or whatever, you know, all that stuff.

So I don't know. Interesting to say. Yeah.

Aaron

I honestly don't know.

Ian

Yeah. The it's I think it seems like a reasonable strategy to do a few and try it out and see how they go and see if you can then leverage that into bigger ones and all

Aaron

that good stuff too. That's that's the idea is try to, like, try to leverage past wins, which I think is is a good principle. Leverage past wins into future wins. And so the whole, like, I'm gonna go speak at this conference where it's like, I know, you know, maybe 10% of the people, which was the case this weekend or the last week. I'm gonna speak at this conference with hopes that I can maybe keynote the next year, or somebody at this conference can turn me on to another conference where I get to speak there.

And so, yeah, there's a little there's a little bit of strategy to it in terms of, like, trying to expand beyond just the Laravel circle.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And a little bit of, like, I don't really know what is gonna happen. Like, I don't know what's out there. So Yeah. Somebody, somebody tweeted at both the render ATL organizer and the React Miami organizer, and said that I need to be their keynote speaker

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

At those conferences. And so it's like, woah. Maybe maybe it's gonna work. I don't know. And so You're

Ian

actually speaking at React Miami, are you? Like, a fit wait.

Aaron

As of

Ian

right now?

Aaron

Not yet. Okay. No.

Ian

You said that before, and I wasn't sure if you meant, like, you are speaking there or not, but you're not.

Aaron

No. I wasn't right now speaking. But, yeah, as of now, I'm not. Okay. But, yeah, trying to figure out, like, trying to figure out and, you know, I I have this outside dream of, like, being a being a corporate speaker, like, you know, going going back up to young brands and inspired the KFC folks and getting paid a bunch of money for it.

So

Ian

even, like, HubSpot or something. Like, I could

Aaron

see a

Ian

HubSpot conference. It's like a little overlap of, like, technology, web stuff, but not maybe about that. It's about, you know, whatever. It's five tracks, a million things. Right?

So, like, being in that kind of like, hey. It's a 10,000 person. It's a 20,000 person conference. Like, being at those kind of things.

Aaron

Or or even smaller, but in the same vein as Nathan Barry's craft and commerce. Like Right. Would would love to go speak there, and that's, like, you know, that's a that's a half step outside of, like, a developer circle. Not totally outside. Yeah.

And so that could be another good one, like, on my way up or out to speak at something like that.

Ian

The other interesting thing is if you could get dialed in with, like, kinda like what we're talking about, but, like like, Seth Godin. I saw him speak several times. Right? And, like, he just has, like, the Seth Godin talk. And, like, I mean, it's probably within a time frame.

I'm sure he's had different ones, but he's, like, he's going to this, all these conferences and he's given the same talk.

Aaron

I would love that for,

Ian

you know, $50, they're paying him or whatever to come give the same talk. You, you

Aaron

call, I'll do it for 40.

Ian

Places on the internet. Right? Yeah. And, but you're not gonna go search the internet for it. So he can just give the same talk over and over.

And if you're one of the people who's seen it, you don't go to it or you go to it again if you like it, whatever. But, like, nobody's worried about that. He's big enough where he just gives the same talk every time or whatever, former presidents, whatever. All these people just give the same talk every time. And that would be a nice place to be because then you could just be you're just showing up and you're like, I gotta talk.

Like, one, two, one, one, two, one, two, one,

Aaron

two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, and getting paid $25, 20 grand,

Ian

something like that. And get the exposure. You get some money. Once you get a

Aaron

So that's what I gotta do.

Ian

You should write a book.

Aaron

That is usually the angle into that. Yep.

Ian

I do feel like yeah.

Aaron

I've got I've got I've got one. I've got one. What do you got?

Ian

Oh, no. No. No. No. I'm pulling it in.

Aaron

No. I'm pulling it in. I can't do it. I can't do it. Nope.

You're sharing. It's too precious.

Ian

I'm the private. I know. You're the sharing guy.

Aaron

I know how the turntables, but it's too it's too precious. I can't it's too nice.

Ian

Can you give us, like, I assume is it fiction or nonfiction?

Aaron

Nonfiction. Is it,

Ian

web related? Not at all. Okay. Good. General.

Is it more general interest then?

Aaron

Yes.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Interesting. This is this is it's gonna sound crazy when I say it out loud. This is my book to become a New York Times bestseller author. I like it. So I can't

Ian

I can't got the goals.

Aaron

I can't. Yeah. That's all I can say.

Ian

Doesn't sound like somebody's gonna be retired in ten years to me, but I like it.

Aaron

Well, not like retired retired,

Ian

but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not retired retired. So what about you and chat GPT?

You sit down. You crank this baby out in a month. Let's go.

Aaron

It's on the table. I mean, it would probably take it probably take six months to a year to, like, to do it. But it's one of those things where you have to start the background process. Yeah. And let it simmer because you're gathering examples and you're gathering new, axioms, principles.

You're you're just, like, you're taking it all in. You're absorbing. So keeping the and Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

Anecdotes, all that sort of stuff. And so when the time comes, I hope it will be somewhat quick. But the simmer has not completed yet. But in time

Ian

an area that I actually think we've lost and is unfortunate is books where, like I remember when I started like, within the first three years of launching HelpSpot, I was in, like, four books, and I didn't write these books. Like, people just reference me and HelpSpot by name in these books. And it's like That's cool.

Aaron

They were, like, books on

Ian

bootstrapping and startups, and it's like like, that was so cool to look at. Like, what I did is real. Like, somebody put, like, a new book. Holy shit. Is that crazy?

And, like, nobody writes books. Like, like, everybody has whatever. You tweet stuff or you have a blog post or you do a video, and it's, like, all ephemeral. Yeah. And it doesn't have that, like, oh, man.

Like, my product was named in a book. And even though we didn't get even a single sale from any of that, it's like, it doesn't matter because it's just like, that was cool. It's like printed and out there. And, yeah, I don't know. I kinda missed that.

I kinda wanna make I kinda wanna do a book even though I'm not a very good writer, but I kinda wanna do a book and just put in, like, all the people we know. Because, like, that'd be cool. Like, they were gonna

Aaron

be they're

Ian

gonna get a thrill out of, like, having their name in a book. Yep. Because it's cool when you see your name printed there. You're like, holy shit.

Aaron

It is. Well, maybe I'll do my best to see if I can get, to get you into this book. Yeah. I got me in. Get me in, baby.

Make it I'm gonna acknowledge round five for you. Send it to us four. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Or, like, I could be a beta read like, Sanderson does his beta readers. And then You

Aaron

can be a beta reader.

Ian

All the beta readers and all this stuff. So you could have that that's an angle. Yep.

Aaron

Alright. Well, I like this whole book idea. It's a good idea.

Ian

This is very this is very errant. Oh, well, while we're talking about things you're gonna do. K. What you were you were gonna whittle us, you're whittling something, people are guessing

Aaron

not whittling. I don't I don't whittling. We use machines. We use machines. Are you and the machine

Ian

still whittling a thing?

Aaron

It will still it will still come to pass that something will be, created. So Okay. It's not gonna happen here in the apartment. Oh, you're not gonna happen at home because just too much going on at home. So it's gonna it has to wait for the factory.

Right. And the factory might, in fact, wait, until April or May. Oh, woah. Hey. Yep.

Ian

I thought you had a contract. I thought you signed a contract or no?

Aaron

No. We had an agreement in principle to start January 1, and then the guy the guy has been dragging his feet on getting us an actual lease. What do these people do? You have one job. What do you do?

I'm asking you for a lease every day. No. You're like, I'll get it I'll get it to you.

Ian

You're like, oh, it's moving.

Aaron

It's happening. January 1. It was.

Ian

Doesn't sound right. I've I've never heard anybody move into a office space this quickly.

Aaron

So this guy just, like, dragged his feet a bunch.

Ian

And He just likes the empty space sitting there, making him no money because he can't be bothered to do. Yes. That's crazy. We The

Aaron

We should get in charge of everything, man. Why are we not in charge of everything? I just want to work

Ian

with the business so bad. I

Aaron

feel like you

Ian

just run it in the most basic fashion, and you'd crush everybody else. But, anyway

Aaron

It'd be amazing. So I talked to Steve

Ian

contract. Yeah.

Aaron

Talked to Steve sometime last week, and, basically, I was just telling him, boy, do I feel stressed and overwhelmed? And he was like, what if we just put off the factory for three to four months? Yeah. And I was like, oh, man, that would make me feel a whole lot better because I started to look at the timing, and I was like, okay. Well, I've gotta I've gotta one, I've gotta finish Postgres, which is almost done.

Gotta finish Postgres. Gotta do, gotta create this library for Laracon EU. It's only, like, you know, 40% done.

Ian

Library building. I don't know, man.

Aaron

I know. So we gotta do this. Then at some point, we're gonna do

Ian

Can you just switch that talk? Just switch it.

Aaron

He'll let you know. Don't don't don't give up. Don't give in.

Ian

Then you have to maintain the library.

Aaron

Yeah. It's okay. Everything is possible. It's okay.

Ian

No upside in that library.

Aaron

We'll see. Whatever it is,

Ian

there's no upside.

Aaron

It's a good library.

Ian

I mean, that's fine. But what bring in somebody else. Have them build a library. Oh, maybe that's

Aaron

a good idea.

Ian

That's the play.

Aaron

Yeah. There's all you know,

Ian

all these people do it together with somebody else. You'll be the face. They'll write the code.

Aaron

I do like that.

Ian

You're not gonna you're not gonna be taking this thing.

Aaron

I like writing the code. The You like writing the main

Ian

version point one. You don't want it when there's 400 bugs with this thing.

Aaron

I do.

Ian

You don't wanna be in there doing those bugs. That's the worst That's

Aaron

probably true.

Ian

You could possibly have. It's literally totally negative value of your time.

Aaron

Well, it's it's too late. It's too late. It's too late for any of this.

Ian

So Okay. Continue.

Aaron

So I gotta write this library, got a prayer talk, and then Right. We're doing screencasting.com. Steve is starting to record his portion soon. Now I gotta start recording my portion soon. And so we looked at this.

It was like, man, if we get the factory on January 1, it's gonna be four weeks.

Ian

That's gonna take over.

Aaron

Moving, building, unbuilding, rebuilding

Ian

like, whatever. Dude, and

Aaron

so. Yeah. He was just like, we're we don't we haven't signed anything. We haven't signed anything. This guy won't respond to us, so let's just put it off for a while.

It's like, wow, that's a really good idea. And I told Jennifer that that that Steve mentioned that, and she said, tell Steve I said thank you. And I was like,

Ian

oh, shoot.

Aaron

Yeah. Maybe maybe everyone sees it but me, which is entirely possible. So we're gonna put that off till screen casting is done. So probably, you know, April, March, April, May.

Ian

Gonna let you go month to month on your current place? Or

Aaron

there's a month to month, option. There's also, like, a renew for, you know, three, four, five, six, seven months with different prices for each. And But you're gonna be able

Ian

to stay there.

Aaron

I'll be able to stay. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Growing up grown up Steve is taking care of it. He was like, just send me the lease. And I was like, god. This is the freaking best.

So I love having a responsible adult on the team. So, yes, we're still gonna whittle the timeline as with all good things. The timeline has shifted a little bit. But, yeah, we'll still we got this. We got a lot to do.

Ian

This is the perfect bookend to how we started this conversation, because there's just not as much time as you think. That's just the reality. And ten years is going to happen instantaneously. You're going to be like, oh, the kids are 12. What the hell happened?

Like, where'd all that time go? It just goes by so incredibly fast. So it

Aaron

turns out maybe so. Here's here's my here's my, here's my unformed philosophy on that Total this is this is this is off the dome. Okay?

Ian

Okay. Mhmm.

Aaron

I am doing too much. That's that's just the start. Clear. That is that is clear. That's obvious.

I'm doing too much. I'm stressed out all the time. There have been nights I've cried myself to sleep because I'm so stressed out.

Ian

That's a little too much. Too far. Yeah. That's too much. And you're doing here's the thing.

You're doing well. Right? Like, you gotta save that for when you're not doing well. Like, when the business has a hiccup, when things are looking not as rosy, that you let the emotions lose a little bit. But if you're already to that, when you're having a great year, you've had a great year.

Aaron

Great year.

Ian

So you're doing. But here's

Aaron

here's my here's my here's my unformed philosophy.

Ian

There was the philosophy. Yes.

Aaron

I don't know if it's I don't know if it's possible to do the right amount. I feel like I feel like most people oscillate or most people I don't maybe not oscillate. Most people pick doing too much or doing too little. Yeah. And I think most people pick doing too little.

And I don't wanna do I don't want to do too little. And so my my unformed philosophy is to push as hard as I possibly can and then have to shed a few things here and there rather than, not live up to what I want my life to be. You

Ian

know? Potential.

Aaron

Yeah. My not even my potential, but what I want out of life. Yeah. Like, potential is some, like, objective outside thing. Like, oh, he didn't live up to what he could have been.

Mhmm. I'm not I'm not terribly interested in that. I'm I'm interested in I didn't live up to what I wanted to do. You know?

Ian

You the things you believe are achievable, and if you don't get there, that type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think the thing the problem when you're an entrepreneur comparing yourself to, like, the abstract most people is that most people have a very defined like, if they wanna get ahead. Okay?

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

They wanna make more money. They wanna have a better job. Whatever. They actually have a very defined path to that. Like They do.

I'm in this corporate wheel. Yep. I understand very clearly what I have to do and I could choose not to, or I could choose to do it, but it's like, if I I only have to work hard in this very particular way. Yeah. And I and I know what that way is.

Like, it's not even a mystery. It's like, this is you're getting reviews. You're getting all this stuff. It's like, this is what we want you to do to move ahead. And, generally, that is accurate.

Whereas when you're on your own, it's like you could do anything. Right? Like, everything is potentially beneficial. And so that is where the rub is. It's like, you gotta narrow that part down to, like, what what are the things that are actually moving ahead and what does moving ahead even mean?

Because does moving ahead mean more time for my family? Does moving ahead mean more money? Does moving ahead mean a bigger business that's more valuable that I can sell? Does moving ahead mean I get to do interesting things, even if at the sacrifice of some of those other right? Like, so you got to figure out that balance, and that is hard because there's not a game plan for it.

There's just

Aaron

Sure is.

Ian

Yeah. You could do anything, which is You can

Aaron

do anything, which leads to doing everything, which leads Or nothing. Right?

Ian

Like Yes.

Aaron

Yes. It leads to stress. You're incapacitated by the stress of

Ian

I could do anything, or you are motivated by it, but then it's becomes I'm doing everything, which leads to kind of doing nothing in its own way because nothing gets your full attention for long enough to become the the big thing. Right? So, like, that is the tricky bit for sure. So I think it's interesting to see you coming around. You're struggling.

You're pushing boundaries. Mhmm. And you're resetting. Mhmm. You're getting there.

Aaron

This is, this is expand and contract. Yeah. So we've got explore and exploit, which is a framework. We've got expand and contract. Yeah.

So it's not totally dissimilar, but but it's slightly different. I feel like I do too much, and then I pull back.

Ian

And

Aaron

then I do too much, and then I pull back. And somewhere somewhere, the lines fall such that it works out. But Yeah. I think we're currently in a phase of doing too much and

Ian

And maybe

Aaron

trying to pull back. And that Steve is very helpful in this.

Ian

I was just gonna say Steve because it's not even it might not be too much. It might just be the wrong timeline. Right? Like, it's an unrealistic timeline. Like, I wanna do all

Aaron

of this

Ian

by January 30. Well, that might not be realistic. Right? But, like Totally. If it's over two years

Aaron

self driving cars for the next thirty days. Yeah. You would need

Ian

to get a job at SpaceX. Forget the boy. I would go to Mars next year.

Aaron

I would crush one of his companies.

Ian

You should be the face man.

Aaron

Actually, you probably hurt my feelings a lot, and I would quit immediately.

Ian

You would last two seconds.

Aaron

Oh, in the last days.

Ian

No. You're gonna be off base crying in the first day.

Aaron

What did you say? Exactly.

Ian

I just said the thing you told me

Aaron

to say yesterday. I don't think that way anymore. Like Anyway. Yeah. I'd be gone.

But But, yeah, we do have

Ian

that time. The timeline. The timeline. Like, you might just have to, you know, jiggle the timeline a little.

Aaron

Break down longer term. Setting aggressive timelines.

Ian

Yeah. It does. It is helpful for getting stuff done to be aggressive with your timelines. It's motivating, but you just can't operate that way all the time. It's very

Aaron

difficult. Very difficult.

Ian

Yeah. With four kids in a way.

Aaron

Especially with four kids.

Ian

You're not single guy living in the city. I'm not grinding. No. Not that

Aaron

I'm married guy living in the city grinding.

Ian

As we talked about, this is honestly the easiest phase of that Because, like, even though it's also the hardest, it's, like, very hard because the kids are crying and they're wiping butts and all stuff. But then there's just stuff you have to do with them and they wanna do and you wanna do with them. And it's just stuff you don't you can't it's like after school, we're doing the soccer thing and the other thing and blah blah. And it's like stuff you refuse to miss, which is good, but, like, there is no replacement time for that. Like, once you give away those two hours, like, you are not going to be able to find those two hours in some other part of your day that you didn't weren't using already.

Like, that time is just gone. And so you're just not gonna be able to operate on that level. You know? So that's where it's it does the issue. So

Aaron

And that's, honestly, that's part of that's part of the calculus of, like, going so hard right now. Like, I do I do wanna be able in the future to be done at 03:00 so that I can go, you know, hang out after school. Like, that is definitely on my mind. And so Yeah. Yeah.

This is this is not a forever thing.

Ian

It's interesting though, because then that's like a grinding for, like, the financial freedom to do that. Yeah. Essentially. And that would then lead you to, I think, different decisions if that was the main factor. If that becomes the main part, like, the main like, you have things that work and you sell and you could just do more of that.

Aaron

Right. Do you

Ian

know what I'm saying? Like I do. Have a thing that works. We could just do more of that. We'll make more money.

And that is the straightforward safe plan to having those two hours on Wednesday afternoon.

Aaron

Yes. And I think I think, I think the ship is pointed more in that direction

Ian

That seems like a little

Aaron

bit days than in it was even, you know, three weeks ago.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

So but there there's always there's always in my mind, like, there's always short term, long term trade offs.

Ian

For sure.

Aaron

Right? Like, speaking at this conference is a long term thing. Yep. I maybe, you know, maybe was able to sell one course just by saying this is who I am and what I do. It's not worth it.

Right? It's not it's not worth monetarily. But long term, it might be worth it. And so I'm constantly trying to balance. Alright.

How do we how do we move some courses? Like, how do we get these things moving? But, also, what's gonna come in two to three to five to ten years? Right. And those seeds, we need to start planting those now.

Ian

Yeah. And there's only so many databases. Like, all that stuff we've already

Aaron

talked about.

Ian

It's only so many of those things. And but some of the things like the talk I think the speaking's kinda cool because it's like, you have a strong desire to do, like, different types of things. So, like, maybe they can be things that are, like, yeah, more like one hit. Right? It's like, whatever.

I work on something for a couple weeks and it's done. Like, I'm going to do this talk and I prepare and I do the talk. And I did it, and it was fun.

Aaron

And now I'm done with that.

Ian

You know what I mean? It's not like taking on a new I think the problem I've definitely had myself is like, oh, I'll build a new app. And then

Aaron

long term commitment.

Ian

It's a new long term commitment, which just interferes with the other long term commitment. Right. And even if it doesn't actually interfere, it's like the stress of it and all this stuff. Oh, well, like yeah. But I've Totally.

On this show. We've we all listened as I've started something and been like, that's a stupid idea. I'm just I'm trying to learn from my mistakes. And I Yep. I still haven't learned to not even start them, but I start them and then I Never

Aaron

learn that. You must always start things. Don't learn that you

Ian

can't start things. That's true. Possibly. Possibly. But I'm also towards the other side of it where now I can see, like, man, one kid's already in college.

The other one's not that far behind. Then I got the baby who's not even that far behind them. So I have the other side of it soon where it's like, oh, man. Like, we have all this time. We don't have anybody, and it wouldn't be for anybody.

But then I'll need lots of activities. Alright. Cool. That's how we wrap it. How's it going?

Aaron

Alright. Let's call it there.

Ian

Call it there. Nice arc to the show today. Thanks everybody, for listening. Follow us at mostlytechnical.com at mostly tech pod, mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com, mostly technical on blue sky, mostly technical dot com. And, we will see you next week later.

See you. Bye.