Paid In Respect

Ian

Hello?

Aaron

He is back. Finally.

Ian

Back, baby. They tried to take me out. They failed again.

Aaron

They failed again?

Ian

The man I

Aaron

don't even know who the they is there.

Ian

Doesn't matter. They.

Aaron

Matter. They

Ian

failed. Yep. They failed. Oh, it's good to be here.

Aaron

Man. So we got a lot to catch up on. You're you're one, apparently useless organ down. You did a big thread on mister beast.

Ian

Oh, yeah. I

Aaron

was an MC at Laracon. You didn't even go to Laracon. We launched a Frank Sinatra trailer. What what are we gonna talk about?

Ian

You're going to jail. There's so much to talk about. I don't know. Let me give the quick gallbladder story. I'm doing the ultralight.

I can't give the story too much. Probably people know about it, but just since I've been gone, basically didn't feel good a lot of this summer. Didn't totally know why. I did various tests. Eventually figured out gallbladder is going bad.

Aaron

Going bad.

Ian

Yeah. I think I was poisoned, but whatever. We'll put that aside. Yeah. So hacked it out.

Went pretty smooth. It's been two weeks, just a little short of two weeks. You know, they do it laparoscopically now, so they punch a couple holes in you. But not the big open surgery. Went pretty smooth.

I mean, there's, like, so much stuff with that I could talk about, but I don't know.

Aaron

I don't know. I've had the stomach for it.

Ian

Yeah. Like, there's not too much to it. I would say went fine. Back to eating, fairly normal, so that's good. Yeah.

Otherwise, pretty good. It's a it's a weird thing that if you have, like, slightly nonstandard, symptoms, like mine weren't totally traditional, that it's not quite so easy for them to pin down initially. So, that was a little bit annoying. But, yeah, otherwise, feeling pretty good. Still tired.

Wounds are still healing a little bit. But, besides that, it was pretty straightforward going under getting the surgery when all smooth. Couple things where people don't know if you have laparoscopic surgery. I didn't know this. A nurse just this is like the healthcare system's so crazy.

Like the nurse just threw this out there in passing that like, Oh, your shoulders might hurt after the surgery. And you're like, Oh, that's weird. Because they laparoscopic surgery, they pump you full of CO2 to like pump you up so that they can see what's going on in there. And so that gas doesn't really have anywhere to go. Like it's just in your body cavity.

It's not like in your lungs and stuff. And so it has to like slowly reabsorb in. So while it's in your body cavity, it's pushing on nerves Mhmm. And it makes pain. And so that pain is not, like, some pain.

That pain is, like, excruciating ice picking your shoulders.

Aaron

Really?

Ian

Yeah. Like, way less than the incisions. It was, like, three or four days of, like, pretty excruciating. And then another three days probably till it was, like, it, you know, basically gone. So that was, like, the worst pain of the whole thing.

And finally, like, it's like, you know, it's so crazy. Cause they lead you leave with paperwork. Right. And it's like, it's like, yo, if you're suicidal and like, it's all this random shit. Right.

But it there's nothing in there about everybody basically gets this and it's excruciating pain. And if you, nobody just happens to tell you in passing, like, you're gonna leave there thinking that like, holy crap. Am I having a heart attack?

Aaron

Right.

Ian

Like, is something crazy wrong? Like, this is an insane amount of pain, Amanda.

Aaron

So if this nurse happened to just not bring it up, you would've

Ian

never know. And when she got busy and like, she missed telling me this, like, I would literally have no way to know, and I'd be instantly on the phone and being like, I'm in excruciating pain. What's going on? Like in a totally unrelated part of my body to what was worked on. So we got through all that and, yeah, overall it was good.

No, no setbacks or anything. So hopefully back of the men, miss Laracon, which was a crazy bummer. Cause my surgery was like the next day and leading up to the surgery, once you figure this out, you gotta eat all crazy, like no fat. So I'm on this like zero fat diet and, yeah, just worn out and tired and all that. Definitely, definitely couldn't in pain from the gallbladder.

Because at the end, by the time I got to the end, then it was the more obvious symptoms of like Mhmm. Nausea and you know, like, pain in your side and stuff like that. So was glad I decided not to go because it would've just been me hiding in a hotel room until I could've got back on a plane to leave. So, Yeah.

Aaron

It would've been even worse. Yeah. Even less fun.

Ian

Nothing nothing worse than traveling and not feeling well. It's that's the one.

Aaron

Was it just like a when they took it out, was it just like a bag of rocks? Just a bunch of freaking

Ian

That's what it is.

Aaron

Stones in there?

Ian

Yeah. And so Bro. I wish they had kept it. I I kinda wanted to get the stones. I think it's back to the day they used to do that.

But, yeah, I didn't get to actually see mine, but, yeah, that's in fact what it is. Just cholesterol from your bile ducts from your liver that, and that's what your gallbladder does. So what it does is it takes in bile from the liver, and it, like, strength, it like removes the water and concentrates it.

Aaron

Okay.

Ian

And so when you eat something fatty, it just releases a bunch of this all concentrated bile all at once. And that makes the fat particles smaller, which makes it easier to digest. And so, and so, so basically what most people experience is these stones either get stuck in the duct out of the bladder or block it. And then you get like severe pain because it's trying to pump stuff out and it can't and whatever. Mine was a little different.

It was more like this chronic thing where like the stones can be in there and just irritating the gallbladder. And then the Okay. Little like wall of the bladder gets thicker and then it gets inflamed and it inflames other things. And so stuff's just not acting correctly. But not with the more like more traditionally people just get this incredible pain and nausea and they go to the doctor and, like, having pain in my upper right quadrant and nausea.

And they're like, yeah, it's your gallbladder, whatever. Mine wasn't quite so with their cup, but, yeah, it's just literally physical stones in there. And,

Aaron

so now what the gallbladder is gone and all that They just reroute everything. How is this possible?

Ian

It's fascinating how it works. So your gallbladder is nothing to reroute. There's only what so you have this your liver makes bile Bile goes through this one duct into your small intestine. Now the gallbladder has a branch off of that. So it's a single duct off of the, the main bile duct into the gallbladder.

So it's less like a bag with the, it's just a balloon with one duct to this that ties to the main line. So basically, like, it's not it's like the bile goes down the main line and some of it just goes off into the gallbladder and the rest of it just pours through into your small intestines. So your small intestines are actually always just getting some and some gets goes off in your gallbladder. So what they do is they crimp that off, and then they crimp it off on the gallbladder side and they crimp it off on the right near the bile duct, the main duct, and they clip it and they just take the gallbladder out, which is the balloon. And then that clip stays in there forever.

I mean, it's a little nerve wracking because there's just like this titanium clip in there. I have to check with the doctor. That's what they normally use. They can also suture, but I think now it sounds like they just always use these, clips. So there's two clips keeping closed this open.

What was the line to the gallbladder? That's now, you know, cut off with these clips and now your liver is just constantly putting bile into your small intestine. So basically, you know, if you had like a hugely fatty meal, like you may not have enough bile to deal with that, and then you're gonna get like gas and maybe diarrhea and stuff like that. So far as I reintroduced fats, I have not had any issues at all. But I also haven't had, like, a big basket of fries or, you know, I've been still watching it.

I have had, like, hamburger, and I've had, like, meat and things and cheese and fine. So it seems like for the most part, I'm fine. But I haven't tried to go out for the big steak dinner with a bunch of, you know, buttery mashed potatoes and all the stuff and see how that goes, but we'll get there. Okay. Yeah.

Aaron

Well, that's horrifying.

Ian

To reroute the guy Yeah. The surgeon, but this is a whole funny thing. I've been talking to the surgeon like two weeks before the surgery. And he's got this chart, you know, like one of those body charts of like your insides up on the wall. And he's like, okay, like your gallbladder and here's the line and here's the main bile duct and They're different colors so you can see it.

Alright, and he's like, you know, he's like, so it's all fine. We do this all time He's like, but the one potential issue is, like, if we, you know, if you clip the main bile duct, that's a problem. And inside your body, it's not color coded. So, like Oh, dude. I mean, that's obviously true, but also kind of scary.

He's like, we do, we do, you know, they have some computerized thing that, you know, checks it before they cut and all kinds of stuff. And, it was also fascinating. Like everybody and their mother was in the, in the surgery, like, like literally three different students came in at different points who were like, oh, it's okay if I watch, you know, one was the anesthesiologist student and one was a surgical student and one was somebody else. There's like three nurses, the surgeon, two anesthesia people. Like, they roll you in there, and it's like, there's stuff going on.

Aaron

Do you do you remember the junior men's episode of Seinfeld?

Ian

Oh, I know. I was thinking about it the whole time. Seinfeld always says, you don't wanna have a surgery

Aaron

where other doctors are like, oh, I gotta see this. That's bad news, man.

Ian

That's trouble. You don't

Aaron

want be you don't want people coming in and saying this is gonna be crazy. Yeah.

Ian

I gotta help with this one. Actually, this is the fifth or sixth most common surgery in the country. So it's very common. So, yeah, whatever. It was cool.

I was like, yeah, whatever. Come in and check it out. What do I care? So people were watching.

Aaron

Yeah. Well, you're back. I'm glad you made it.

Ian

I know.

Aaron

It sounds kinda horrifying, but, glad you're glad

Ian

you're doing okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, what else? So that's something while they were in there.

They also fixed the hernia, which I didn't know I had. The old toothbrush was like, yeah, it's like this way. They don't have to do surgery again. So that that was actually the other it was like the gas pain was one. Where they fixed the hernia that I didn't even know I had was two on the pain.

And then, like, the incisions from where they actually put the laparoscopic instruments in were, like, totally fine. They just super glue it all now. So you don't even, like, have switched. Yeah. But I should I could show the audience my

Aaron

No. No. No. No. Bullet holes.

No. I've reached I've about reached the limits of what I can bear.

Ian

Alright. So that's my that was my big stuff. I actually had some other big stuff, but let's go to you. What what

Aaron

Well, I wanna I wanna hear what what you thought of my, my solo run without you. What'd you think of Caleb as guest guest cohost?

Ian

Yeah. I thought that was awesome. I listened, obviously, to all the episodes. I thought it was

Aaron

fun. Right?

Ian

It was great too because it just lined up so nicely with Caleb actually having this, like, big launch and thing he's working on. So there was, like, an actual story line to the whole thing where he's coming in every week and being like, I don't know what to do or whatever. And, then you had, you know, Daniel on there for the one. And yeah. No.

I think the I'm thankful to everybody for filling in for me. Thank you guys. Thank you for Aaron for being so accommodating and, keeping the show going while I was out. So

Aaron

The show must go on.

Ian

I thought it was great. I thought the show went on. I mean, the last one was, like, two hours. I was like It was. They're really giving people their money's worth there.

Like, this is not just, like, fill it in. This is, like, a full on therapy type session going on here.

Aaron

Those are awesome.

Ian

Deep. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. It was a it was a ton of fun. I loved having them on. My wife listened to them, and she said, I I really like Caleb, but I gotta say I miss Ian. I like listening to you and Ian.

You and Ian have something special, and I was

Ian

like, I know.

Aaron

So good to have you back.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I miss being on. It was like last week, I almost did it, but I was like, you know, I just didn't feel it.

And, like, I don't wanna be on here being all, like, like, call and dumpy. So

Aaron

That happened one time. Do you remember that? You were like I don't know if it was gallbladder stuff, but you were super sick. And we got on, and the vibe was just awful. And you're like, alright, man.

I I gotta call it. This is not working. I was like, okay. Good. I felt like that wasn't working.

Ian

Dude, that was the beginning of all this stuff. So that was in spring. It was, like, the March or something like that. And that was the beginning of me starting to feel bad. And like, it was with my thing, it was like impacting my breathing.

Cause it was like pressure. It puts on your diaphragm. Like not that you literally can't breathe. Like if they measure your breathing, which they did, it's like, oh, you're totally fine. But like the feeling wasn't right with it at times.

And, that was the beginning of it. Yeah. And I was, like, on here, I was like, I just I don't have the juice. Like, I can't do it. Like, I don't

Aaron

I think you were trying to read a Laracast ad, and you were bombing it. Yeah. What is going on with him? And that's when you were like, alright, man. We gotta stop.

Ian

We got it, though. Yeah. We were, like, ten minutes in after that, and I was like, this is just this ain't gonna work. So yep. So it was it's been impacting.

Yeah. It's been for a while dealing with it and, just, you know, then, you know, it's the whole thing. It's, like, not just the thing. It's, like, we'll go obviously, if it's, like, breathing y type stuff, like, we'll go check your heart. Okay.

That's a month and a half of, like because they don't just there's nowhere you go with it. Like, okay. We do everything. It's like, you gotta do step one, then step two, and step three. Okay.

Alright. That's good. Now check your lungs. Go step one, two, three. Like, so it's months and months of bouncing around, and everybody's like, you're at the peak of human fitness.

Mhmm. Nobody's in better shape than you in all these systems. And I'm like, well, that's good. Dying. Right.

Well, I feel terrible. So I don't think of like the actual total peak of human fitness. So we figured it out. Good. Yeah.

But yeah, that was the beginning of it. So been been a little over on here, but, and then in the middle of that, like, you know, my son was picking a college, then my son was going to college. There's all that stuff. We dropped him off at college, like, two weeks before the surgery. I think I knew it was the gallbladder stuff by then, but, it was still gonna be several weeks.

So went up there and he's doing good with it, which is great. But, yeah, it's always there's been a lot going on this summer, plus a million other things, but that loads of things.

Aaron

Going on, man. Yeah.

Ian

Busy summer. Twenty I'm I'm excited to get through 2024. Feel like it's been a busy, not the always the best way. I mean, the college stuff is good, but it was, like, on top of this stuff Right. And whatever.

So kinda looking forward to 2025, but we're gonna finish strong in 2024 and go from there.

Aaron

K. Whew. Alright. Well, we're we're

Ian

glad to have that. Yeah. Alright.

Aaron

So we have a we have a ton to cover. Where do you where do you wanna

Ian

I don't see. Of the stuff I, like, super missed on your end, what about, you had a plumbing update as this nearer term thing. Do you wanna give us the plumbing update you last week?

Aaron

Different kind of plumbing, but yes. Yeah. So this freaking house, man, got this house

Ian

Homeownership. Remodeled it.

Aaron

Contractors are the worst. How are they all so bad? Yeah. How are they all so bad? Don't we just.

We should

Ian

open a contracting business.

Aaron

Oh, my gosh. We would be good because we're not. Yeah.

Ian

We can answer the phone.

Aaron

Yeah. We can answer the phone. So, yeah, we got we got, this tile in our master shower, and now it's all discolored. It's marble, so it's like, well, that's porous, but we got this super special seal put on it. Right?

Mhmm. But it's being discolored from underneath. So the shower pan is not draining correctly. So it's retaining water underneath, and then the tile is soaking it up.

Ian

So It's not it's not sealed on the underside, probably.

Aaron

Of course not. It was supposed to drain down there. So we had a, you know, we had a plumber come out, not associated with the contractor, and he was like, yeah. I'm pretty sure they didn't install the shower pan wrong, but I can't see it. So Right.

Good luck. But, also, under the house, they did everything wrong. Like, this is not up to code. There's a vent down there that is not allowed to vent in the crawl space. They did an s trap when they should have done a p trap, and I'm like, yeah.

Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Oh

Ian

my gosh.

Aaron

Now I'm just like, okay. So did they do all of this stuff wrong? So I call the contractor out. He brings out an inspector, one of his friends, of course, but he's a licensed inspector, and he's actually a a student of, Chris Morales, boss man Chris. I was like, so where do you you know, what's your license?

He's like, well, have you heard of InterNACHI? And I was like, have I heard of InterNACHI? Boy, haven't I?

Ian

So funny.

Aaron

So this this, this inspector looks at the shower, and he's like, yeah. I can't tell. There's you know, it's all sealed up. Let me look under the house. He looks under the house, and he's like, you know, it looks good to me.

But if in this situation, I would call out a licensed plumber because I'm not a licensed plumber. And I'm like, yeah. I'm freaking kidding. So then I call out. I have a friend who is a master plumber, and now he has his own plumbing company.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

So I text him, and I'm like, Elisha, I need one of your guys. Can you send out one of your guys? So he sends out one of his guys. Totally agrees. Everything is done completely wrong.

He's like, this vent this vent that is under the house actually needs to go up through the wall and out the roof.

Ian

Oh my gosh. That's a that's a big one. That's a big one.

Aaron

It's not just, like, put a different vent or vent to an exterior wall. He's like, no. No. No. This has to go all the way up through the wall.

So they're probably gonna have to rip open some walls. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

Ian

Got it.

Aaron

So I, you know, I request a report from them. I'm like, listen. I need I need specific code citations. Yeah. And so Documents.

My friend my friend, like, looked up in the plumbing code, and he probably knew it off the top of his head, but he looked it up and sent me back, like, plumbing code rules. Here's why this is illegal. And so I sent it back to the contractor, and I'm still waiting. And then on the tile stuff, I'm like, guys, I just want everyone out of my life. This is all that I want.

I just want you all to go away. Right. I want my house to be, like, not growing mold, but I also want you to all go away.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And so the contractor you know, it's a fight between, oh, did the contractor do it wrong, or did the ceiling company do it wrong? And I'm stuck in the middle being like, I don't care. Y'all figure

Ian

it out.

Aaron

But they're, you know, fighting, and they're forefighting with me, and I hate it. And so the contractor's like, listen. What if we just tile over the tile? And that way, it's done. It's fixed.

We have a new tile in there. And I'm like, that's fine. However, we're gonna cut out a six by six square of the existing tile first with your plumber and my plumber there, and we're gonna see if that shower pan is retaining water. Because if that shower pan is retaining water, it's all coming out, and you are paying for it.

Ian

Yeah. Because just putting it over the top, that doesn't make no sense at all.

Aaron

Exactly. And I'm like, okay. If if the tile sucks, if this tile sucks and we cut out a six by six square and we we look at the shower pan and it's sloped and it's bone dry, fine. I picked a bad tile. Joke's on me.

But if we cut this out and it's all wet down there listen. You are redoing all of this for free. So I'm just like, with everything else that's going on, I am just at my wits end with this, like, remodel. I'm so over it, and I'm so freaking depressed about it because I'm like, do it right and get out of my life. And they just and they're gonna have to redo parts of the wood floors too because they didn't let they didn't let the wood condition, and now it's all, like, cracked and bowed.

And I'm like Yeah.

Ian

You gotta let the wood condition. That's, like, the most basic

Aaron

I don't remember. That. Yes.

Ian

They park the wood inside the house for, like I know. Weeks or whatever. I know. That's, like, when they did our floors. You know?

The the wood just sits here until

Aaron

Freaking dummies. So I'm just I'm just furious. I'm exhausted. I'm not paying for any of it. That's for sure.

But, you know, I don't like fighting. So it's like I'm stuck in the middle with this contractor being like, we're we'll do everything we can to make it right. Also, it's not our fault. And I'm like,

Ian

I mean, the floor, that's a really big inconvenience. Ripping out Yes. Flooring and It is. Sanding and refinishing and hoping they don't screw it up, but it actually matches the rest. And Exactly.

What about the rest? Like, it's not bowed now. Is it gonna be bowed in a year? Because it wasn't right. Like

Aaron

I know. I know. I know. Wow. So

Ian

You know what other people do in this situation? Move. That's that's exactly what they do. They sell the house. They get the hell out of there.

Aaron

Yeah. But Once once Steve and I are super rich,

Ian

which is coming do it.

Aaron

I'm out, man. Yeah. I'm I am buying a house that is completely finished.

Ian

One little thing

Aaron

Just, like, built five years ago and looks perfect. Right. And then the executive got called to a foreign country and had to sell his house. I'm like, that's the one I want.

Ian

That's you. Yeah. Pick some oil guy's house.

Aaron

Like, you know

Ian

you know it's good. It's Exactly.

Aaron

He overpaid. He overbuilt, and now they've gotta go. And it's like, that's my house now.

Ian

Yeah. We had a quasi similar thing when we built our house in terms of for your for your venting thing. It depends a little bit on exactly where it is. But, basically, they were finishing the outside of the house, and they nail gun through Freon line for the or whatever for the AC stuff. And, you know, the house is, like, all done, and this line's in this exterior wall.

And what are we gonna do about that? God, I wasn't really keen on, like, ripping through all the walls to get up because that was the line to the Second Floor Air Handler, blah, blah. Mhmm. So we ended up just having them punch outside the house there and take it up the side of the house up in to where they needed to go. There's like a cover on it.

And it's like the side of the house that faces nothing. So it's like, whoever who cares? So that could be an option for this venting. It's like just pop it outside, then go up over the root through the roof on the through the eve, potentially if it's not like the front of the house or if they can run it towards the back and out or whatever where someone don't care so much about

Aaron

Hopefully, that's possible because yeah. Right up I I don't understand I don't understand how the old shower was set up because I don't think, like, right above our our bathroom is the kids' room, and I you know, they're not running a vent through there. So I don't I don't even understand how it ever worked. But, fortunately, that's not my problem. If you come and do a remodel, I expect you to do it up to code, so it's not really my problem.

Ian

Yeah. That part's true. But the part that is your problem is when they rip through all the walls to do it, and then they screw that up, like Yeah. Which is, yeah, not your problem in the sense of, like, well, they just have to come back. Problem.

But, like yeah. But, like, at some point, like, a year and a half from that when you're like, oh, you gotta come back because when you ripped through this other thing and broke the other thing Yeah. That you didn't know was there and blah blah blah, like, you know, all that stuff is as much of a nightmare. Even if you're not paying for it, it's still a disaster. Yeah.

Aaron

Super depressing. So Yeah. Not great. Not great.

Ian

So that's not gonna involve me. It's just stupid. Solve all of my problems?

Aaron

Money. That would solve all of my problem. People keep saying, like, money won't solve your problems. I'm like,

Ian

I'd like to try. Insane. Those four are no idea.

Aaron

To try.

Ian

What they're talking about. The money doesn't solve all your problem. People literally have no idea what they're talking about. Like, it doesn't fine. It doesn't solve

Aaron

every single problem. Problems.

Ian

It solves your

Aaron

solves your plumbing problems. And, honestly, that's all I care about

Ian

right now. Good. Yes.

Aaron

That's a big that's a whole lot of problems. Plumbing and AC, that you can throw money at, and it will just get better. You know, like happiness and, you know, raising children and stuff, that's different. But plumbing and AC, those are all my problems. Those are the only problems I have.

I'm a little bit sleepy, but plumbing and AC, those are my real problems.

Ian

Money can even help with the sleepy. You can have a team of people in there waking up, taking care of kids all night long.

Aaron

That's what I'm talking about.

Ian

So not great. Well, how was Laracon? So you were all over the place. You were coaching. I know you went through this already, but, like, with you know, I don't know.

Give me your vibe. I I didn't get the firsthand accounting. Were there any highlights we didn't talk about yet? Like, how was hosting?

Aaron

Okay. So hosting is great. I love I love

Ian

I love hosting.

Aaron

I love being the host. It's great. It's so fun. So that part was super fun. I like, you know, I like taking care of, you know, hospitality.

If if you wanna call it a spiritual gift, hospitality is what we would call that. So I like taking care of the speakers and the people and making sure that everybody has what they need and things flow smoothly, making sure the audience knows what's coming next, that kind of stuff.

Ian

Yeah. I think I hosted the first two Laracon US's, and, like, it's it's, like, all the best parts of speaking. Like, everybody knows who you are. Lots of big conversations. Your backstage is fun.

You're mixing it up with everybody. You go but you just, like, go out and tell a few jokes and, like, you know, transition some people and that's it. Like, it's not, like, months of, like, all this talk and and we're gonna screw it up. It's all this pressure. Like, there's no pressure.

You're, like, wander out there. You just be jovial.

Aaron

Yep. That's great.

Ian

Love the host then.

Aaron

You just get to go be folksy on stage. Right. There's nothing wrong with that. That's amazing. That's all I ever wanna do.

Yeah. So, yeah, I'm listening to, like, Daniel and Caleb talk about their talk preps and how they've been working on it for months. And somebody I don't know if it was Jennifer or somebody else asked me if I was prepping to be MC, and I was like, no. No. Not really.

I just I just gotta show up. Yeah. Show up, point at some people, tell a few jokes, get off the stage. That's great.

Ian

So more prep for the basketball game. You're out there buying suits or whatever or buying whistles, whatever you're doing.

Aaron

Yeah. I sure did. So for the basketball game, I did buy, I bought a new pair of shoes that matched a suit I already had. So I didn't buy

Ian

a new

Aaron

suit, but I bought a new pair of Nikes that matched the suit. Got a got a whistle, a coach's whiteboard, and a basketball for dummies book. Just a

Ian

Way more stuff than Posey.

Aaron

So fun. So hysterical. And then so we'll back up. Let's go to the basketball game. So, you know, I show up, first of all, David Hill, which is different than David Hemphill.

Somehow we have both in the community. David David Hill name. Somebody. David Hill messaged me and was like, hey. You wanna play basketball?

I was like, hey. I sure don't. Pretty pretty terrible at it, and I do not wanna play. And so he's like, okay. Well, you can be the coach.

Now that now that I can do. A little a little bit. A little acting, I can do that for sure. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, I leaned into the bit as as I do, and then I get there.

Turns out, there are some serious players. Not only are there some serious players, there are some players that seriously wanna win. And so I I huddled up our team, early on, and I was like, hey, y'all. Here's the deal. I'm just here to be funny, so you don't have to listen to anything that I say.

And I said, one thing I can actually do is, like, if you come tell me this person needs to come off the court, I can call out their name so that I'm the bad guy. Like

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

That that I can do. I can totally Take

Ian

a little heat. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Exactly. And so that was basically my only role. It was, like, walk up and down the sidelines, clap, yell, make some jokes, and then pull people off, except unless your name was Taylor or Tom. I wasn't touching those players.

Or you can stay on you can stay on the whole game if you want. Not my deal. So it was it was a lot of fun. Laravel team got shellacked, but it was, still a lot of fun. Turns out the Primogen is incredibly fast for being, like, 37 or 38 and

Ian

What do they know?

Aaron

Very good. And then they they also had some some very good basketball players, and it was fun. It was just it was so silly. I think next year, if we do something like this again, it should be sillier. It should be like dodgeball or something.

Ian

Dodgeball. What that would be fun. Yeah. That's a good idea. Well, that was

Aaron

It was good.

Ian

I think, they've talked about this on no plans to merge when I was lying around sickly listening to all the podcast, but and they were, like, surprised. They were like, oh, we thought it was gonna be fun, and it'll be jovial. And I was like, I never for one second thought this would be fun and jovial. Like, Taylor's been out there wanting to kill people and, like, dunk on heads. Like, don't don't want

Aaron

me about this. College basketball. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

And the private gen, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who's I mean, he's, like, funny, but also intense. And, like, a guy that intense doesn't seem to me like he's gonna be out there just, like, trying to be, like, the Harlem Globetrotters and horsing around. He's like, I'm gonna go out there and crush you. Like, that I want the bragging rights. Like, and Yeah.

That

Aaron

from the beginning of the year.

Ian

For sure.

Aaron

That's why I said no because I thought there's no

Ian

way to heal. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. If I had thought it was a comedy routine, I would have said yes immediately. But I sidestepped into the comedy routine of being coached because I thought there's no freaking way I'm gonna drag this team down. No way.

Ian

That would be great, though, because it also would let maybe more of the community. You can even, like, a dodgeball tournament or whatever. It's, like, not so intense. You can just kinda walk around and throw the ball.

Aaron

Yeah. Imagine imagine getting, like, five on five teams and doing, like, a little tournament. You know? Yeah.

Ian

That would be fun.

Aaron

Teams and you play a little

Ian

five on five and then Yeah.

Aaron

That that would

Ian

be a lot of fun. I would love that one. Be really fun.

Aaron

And that's And it serves it serves a very useful, a very useful purpose of, like, getting people in town and getting them immediately a place to, like, meet in a low low pressure environment.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And then throughout the rest of the conference, you're like, oh, hey. We were at basketball together. Can I come sit with you at lunch or whatever? And that, like, that's a pretty big service to a lot of, you know, the people attending, in my opinion.

Ian

Yeah. I think I can imagine even having more than eight teams. I wouldn't be surprised if you had quite a few people who signed up for something that was a little less intense than basketball. And, yeah, I think it also gives people a chance. Like, everybody loves interacting with, like, you know, both, like you're saying, like me, meeting new people and just like them having that conference friend that you can, do stuff with, but even just like, hey, I was on a dodgeball team with Taylor or whatever.

And I bounced the ball off Taylor's head and that was hysterical or whatever. You know, it's like, that's cool, like, to get in close with the the stars, versus them just being on stage. So, yeah, that that's a good idea.

Aaron

But it was fun. It was a lot of fun. So after that, we did, speakers dinner. One one thing, don't listen to Caleb about Dallas. Dallas rules.

Don't listen to Caleb. Caleb doesn't know anything. Caleb lives in a sleepy a sleepy little hamlet in Buffalo. He doesn't know anything about Dallas. One thing that was great one thing

Ian

that was

Aaron

great about Deep Ellum, which is where the conference was, it was all walkable. So from their hotel obviously, I live here, so I stayed at home. But from their hotel to the speaker dinner to, the venue to Laracon after dark to the barbecue place, everything was walkable, and it was awesome. Were there roads? There were roads.

But, hey, where are there not roads? You know?

Ian

Roads everywhere.

Aaron

Mack Mackinac Island, that's the only place there aren't roads. But here in the city, the city where I live, the city, not

Ian

the suburbs. The suburban

Aaron

Yeah. The city.

Ian

The suburbs.

Aaron

There are roads. And you know what? You just gotta look out for the roads. That's all. But beyond that, it's just awesome.

Ian

Cross these 10 lane highways, just a little frogger style.

Aaron

Exactly.

Ian

I like it. Yeah. It sounds like it was I didn't hear many people, like, super complaining about the heat. Was it not, like, max heat, or

Aaron

was it cool that heat, surprisingly. It was it was hot, but, like, the the Laracon after dark was outside, and it Mhmm. Honestly, it wasn't that bad.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Cool. We had we had a little bit of a respite. I don't think it was in the hundreds while while people were here.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

So that turned out to be fine. And I actually did hear several people say it's not as hot as I expected it to be. Right. It's like, oh, well, that's good.

Ian

Is that is Dallas a dry heat or or a wet heat zone?

Aaron

It is not Scottsdale dry, but it's also not Houston always humid.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Like, the past few days have been quite humid, but it's not like, oh, you go to go to Dallas, that's gonna be humid. That's just auto auto humidity. Not no. No. No.

Okay. So when people were here, I don't think it was very humid.

Ian

Yeah. Alright. I like that. Yeah. I don't know if I had anything else.

It seemed like it all went pretty well. I heard you guys. You know, there's a couple improvement potential, but that's always the case in the conferences, so that's fine.

Aaron

Yeah. Any anything to improve is tinkering at the margins. I still think this is the best conference by leaps and bounds.

Ian

Yeah. It's so good. And though people are always happy, I'd say, and seems to just always go off well. Even when there are hitches, it's like it still it works out. Like, even with you on stage with Caleb and whatever technical glitch, but Really?

Great. Yeah. That

Aaron

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Okay. Back to the show. Okay. So shortly oh, I haven't gotten your take on this. Shortly after the conference was the big $57,000,000 announcement.

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

Yes. So what are your what are your thoughts on it, and what are your thoughts on people's thoughts? Let's do a derivative.

Ian

Man, I love that you are becoming the Johnny Carson of the Laravel community. That's the first thing. Let's just start there.

Aaron

Oh, it's great.

Ian

It's awesome. Great. We need this. Other communities don't have that. I think it's a little another little, like, community advantage Laravel can lean into a little bit.

Mhmm. But, yeah, I thought, like, you sitting down with Taylor was so good.

Aaron

In that was just the multipurpose room in the apartment. Isn't that crazy? Ridiculous.

Ian

It's ridiculous.

Aaron

Freaking Steve. He put it together. We we moved a bunch of furniture. I bought I brought some plants down from my studio and put them in the background, and we we, like, we worked real hard on getting it to look right. But it was just like the pool table room right off the pool.

You know?

Ian

It's like, look at this guy. It's like Oprah out there. He's got the two chairs right back to each other. He's, like, diving in deep with everything. Yeah.

Yeah. No. It was it was great. Yeah. With the money itself, I mean, I think it's awesome.

Like, I mean, you know, I think Taylor's ambition like, at certain point, like, yeah, like, could he have done it without it? Maybe. But I think their vision is like, you know, really huge. And when you get into like, we're going to need thousands of servers and things like that. It just gets to be where you're going

Aaron

to need.

Ian

Yeah. You want to be able to hire. I have no inside information here, but let's just say you want to have like some really good security people and those people are going to cost $700,000 a year or whatever. Like that's a lot harder on the bootstrapper, even a very profitable bootstrap company. It's like, well, I'm paying one person an incredible amount of money.

Aaron

I I should get into security. That's not

Ian

You should get somebody should be into security.

Aaron

The hell am I doing?

Ian

But, you know, I'm just making up numbers here, but, like, whatever. You're gonna need more specialized help most likely than, you would for something like Forge. And also, especially if you wanna get into, like, you know, one of the things that's hard, even for my own use of it at times is like, they're not SOC two and things like that. And so, you know, I think getting all those things done takes people and money and time and all that. So, yeah, I think it's great.

I mean, the big amount of money, so the big expectations, definitely a lot of pressure, on Taylor, anyway, but, Yeah. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully it doesn't change the community too much and stuff. I don't think, I think so far it's been great and there's been no down visible downsides. It's like all the, all the people in the community are getting hired to work at Laravel.

So it's been a been a make work, plan for the Laravel community. It's a VC jobs program at this point. Yeah. And it's kinda interesting too because I think, like, they've hired a lot of people. Right?

But it's not an insane number of people. It's

Aaron

like No. Not for what they've done slash or

Ian

Yeah. I think he said what's, like, 30 something people so far, which isn't that for the amount of money they have. It's not that many people, and it's not that many more than Taylor probably could have afforded even on his own at the point.

Aaron

But like, all the finance and operations people. So you look at, like, the the, engineering output of what they've done so far, and you hear 30 people and you're like, well, probably 20 engineers, maybe. I don't Right. I don't know the makeup of the team, but it's still incredibly productive so far. Yeah.

And

Ian

I think it'll be really cool that you're probably gonna see just so many more. You know, at the end of the day, Taylor loves building things. Right. And so I think we'll probably see more products. So you have like Laravel Cloud, which is, will be like the flagship and the thing they hope, you know, makes them all fabulously wealthy.

But I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of other things like, I mean, obviously it already has another product that's coming out soon. It sounds like. And, I wouldn't be surprised if they kind of keep that up and have some like skunk works teams that are kind of always fiddling on other cool directions and product ideas and things like that. So, yeah, I think it's great. I mean, Hey, it'd be cool to have our own, you know, sort of visionary leader in our circles here and

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

As that grows and becomes bigger. But, yeah, I know some people were worried about it. I mean, I'm not particularly worried about like the open source end of things and stuff. I feel like that's gonna still be rock solid, and they're still gonna be shipping a lot of great stuff into Laravel. But, but it's also not unreasonable to think about.

But, yeah, I think it's great.

Aaron

Yeah. That was the only that was the only, I think, response So I think the only response I saw of concern was, like, does this change the open source story, vibe, future? And, of course, Taylor has said no many times. I'm I'm inclined to believe that he is, he's telling the truth on that. I don't I don't think it's gonna change the open source stuff at all.

I mean, there's, like, 40 open source Laravel packages. Open source is pretty big deal, to Laravel, so I think it'll

Ian

be a good one. And the whole thing with Laravel, right, one of the biggest advantages that it's ever had and always had is that it's always been sustainably kind of run-in terms of there's been revenue sources for it since the beginning. And so like, that's a big part of why there's 40 open source packages and why there's a release every week and all these things is because there's actually money behind it. That's not just like how most open source runs, which is like, hopefully some big company that really depends on this will throw us a few bucks and we can sort of make it another year. It's like, no.

There's actual money. It's tied in with the products. There's motive. It's everything's aligned and the motivation is clear and there to, like, keep making the open source version better. And so I think that's still true.

And so that just seems like it's gonna be really good for the open source end of things.

Aaron

The funniest thing I saw was like, oh, man. So Laravel's a business now? And I'm like, oh, I got bad news for you.

Ian

Bad news, buddy, for the business.

Aaron

Good. Who knows? Laravel's been in business for, like, ten years or more. Yep. I don't remember when Forge was launched, but it was a long time ago, and it's been a business Yeah.

Since then.

Ian

When was that? Like, 02/2014 maybe or something like that? So. Maybe even '13 or something. I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was, like, successful really early. Like, that's what Taylor still worked here. And I was like, dude, you gotta go.

Like Yeah. You're like it's, like, made, like, you know, a hundred grand in a couple months or something. Like, you gotta go do this. Like, you can't be like, this is not a side project. This is, like, a thing.

This is real. It needs all your attention. So

Aaron

Yeah. So how much did you get from Excel for being the godfather? 5,000,000 to nothing.

Ian

Zero godfather money. I know. They pay no respect to the godfather. It just someday, they'll have to come pay their respect. It's gonna be just like the scene in the beginning of godfather.

Oh, no swear. Where oh, the beginning of godfather. Where the I've seen any of it. Under where the undertaker comes and talks to the godfather. You haven't.

How do we even have a podcast? This is ridiculous.

Aaron

You know, future content. I'm reserving it for future content.

Ian

We should do the godfather episode. We should do the watch along. What if we get a watch along?

Aaron

Oh, the watch along. Isn't it, like, three hours long?

Ian

It is three hours, but every minute is riveting, so it's fine. It goes by in Okay. We'll see. We gotta get some time for you to watch the godfather. Like, you just gotta let

Aaron

go time for me, full stop. Just time.

Ian

Just be there.

Aaron

Listen. When I have my surgery upcoming to make sure that, to make sure that we don't have any more sets of twins, that that's on the horizon. Maybe I'll get a hotel room and watch The Godfather.

Ian

Wow. Yes. Yes. Do what it's

Aaron

about. Right?

Ian

Because I can't I can't lift.

Aaron

I can't lift, and so I don't want a kid running up to me and instinctively, like, lifting them up and, like, you know, exploding down there. So we'll see.

Ian

That'd be bad. That'd be bad. You don't want that. That'd be bad. Yeah.

I love this idea. Tie those things together. I think it's perfect. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Then we'll do the the vasectomy godfather episode of MT here.

Aaron

We're gonna get so many so many content warnings on on, iTunes or Apple Music or whatever.

Ian

Man.

Aaron

Oh, jeez.

Ian

That's a medical procedure. One of the other one, which I've also had and which is one of the, one of the ones that's above gallbladder removal in top, five. Oh, top

Aaron

five most common? That's great.

Ian

Yeah. So you're you should be yeah. Or what's it? Eight. Anyway, it's in the it's very it's in the very high percentage of, yeah, top 10 for sure.

Yeah. Interesting. When's that happening? Do we have a date?

Aaron

I think we do have a date, in fact. Okay. It's it's after Postgres. I think it's, like, early mid November or something

Ian

like that. Oh, we'll look forward to that.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

Well Exciting.

Aaron

Yeah. There there are times when I think, like, what in the world would we do, even at this point, if we had a singleton? Might to say nothing of multiples again. I Wow. I might I don't know if I could physically do it.

Ian

Yeah. I couldn't

Aaron

I couldn't mentally do it. That much, I know.

Ian

But I might I might

Aaron

physically Right. Die if we had twins again.

Ian

Yes. No. Twins for sure. You're you're a goner if you get twins again. Like, that would be all some kind of record.

How many times can people have twins?

Aaron

I don't know, man.

Ian

But I don't know. Multiple kids. But, yeah. Jamie says this all the time. Like, cause I've always more like, ah, like I just love the baby phase, even though it's, I mean, it's wrecked me physically every time.

Cause it totally destroys my sleep and I'm not good when I don't get enough sleep. And so it always wrecked me, but I just love the baby and toddler phase. And she's always like, like, no, no, no, no. Like I would die. I would literally die.

That would be it. I can't do it. Yeah. So when you get up those, yeah, you got the four. That's enough.

You're you're

Aaron

good. Four is plenty.

Ian

Yeah. You're good.

Aaron

Four four is plenty.

Ian

You've done your part for side of growth and all that stuff.

Aaron

Keep the birth rate up and listen. Y'all gotta pick up the slack here.

Ian

I'm good. Everybody else. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. The rest of it's up to y'all. I did

Ian

my part. You techies out there. You're all smart. You're doing

Aaron

well. You're all rich. Got a bunch of kids. Yeah.

Ian

Me and Aaron have done

Aaron

our part.

Ian

We're above replacement. Just, like, get out there and

Aaron

do it. Jeez. Yeah. Okay. So no money for the godfather.

That's too bad.

Ian

Money for the godfather. Don't be out here thinking the godfather got paid. Godfather didn't get paid, but that's alright. I like it for the community. I don't need to get paid.

I like the I I the, I can't think of the word. The adulation? I don't know. I like being the godfather. That's all I need.

I get paid in respect. That's how the godfather likes getting paid. He cares about the money, but he cares way more about respect. Respect is his real thing that that he's got no currency.

Aaron

No respect.

Ian

That's his

Aaron

I like that. Okay. Yeah. Well, respect. Godfather.

To Ian. I know. I know.

Ian

Do you understand how much better your life and business is gonna be after you watch Godfather? You're going to make more money. You're going to have a happier family. These are just

Aaron

These are not the values I get from, like, the, you know, the marketing of the godfather. Have a better family. That doesn't seem

Ian

You're not That doesn't seem like ads, I guess. I don't know. Like Maybe. I'm telling you, go into the approach of what how am I gonna the family elements I'm gonna take out of this and the business elements I'm gonna take out of it. Just have that mindset.

Aaron

It's about the mafia. Right?

Ian

Yeah. With that love. Familia. Yeah. The family.

Aaron

Okay. Perfect. That's kinda what I thought. Speaking of

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

You think mister Beast is Gordon Gekko?

Ian

Mister Beast is freaking Gordon Gekko. Who knew?

Aaron

One t

Ian

is badass.

Aaron

Tweet thread from Ian Lanceman. Twenty seven tweets. I read

Ian

them all. I did.

Aaron

I read them all.

Ian

Did you?

Aaron

It was great. It was great.

Ian

I loved it.

Aaron

It was good.

Ian

I know.

Aaron

So tell me.

Ian

I kinda ran out of steam a little bit, so I don't know. I wasn't super happy with it by the end, but I think it was alright. I know mister b, some production document got, you know, exposed. It's really cool. I think it's just like, he just wrote it and it's pretty obvious that he just wrote this thing and it's like just blank white pages with, like, centered titles and

Aaron

a bunch of like balls or lowercase words. And yeah,

Ian

like it's like, all over the place in it. And like, so it's not corporate y at all. And it's so bootstrappy. Like, I don't know if Mr. Beast has ever actually raised any money.

I don't think so. But even if he has, it's like was after he was already very successful and already had millions of dollars coming in. And so it's all super bootstrappery mindset. It's so like, I'm the guy who created this thing. I'm not like the guy, the board put in charge of some business.

It's like, this is my baby. I love this channel. And he just loves everything about it. And it's like, he's so deep in it and he's so knowledgeable about this one weird particular thing of making YouTube videos. And, Yeah, it was fascinating.

I don't know if we wanna dig out a few parts, but like, he is like, yeah, he's like Gordon Gekko. He's like a hardcore business dude. Who's like, if you want a friend, get a dog and you're gonna, and it's startup in, in some of these ways, obviously of the, like, you're supposed to bust your ass here and yeah, we're all gonna make you fab. We're gonna make you fabulously wealthy if you do. But, I do think it's a little different to me because it's like, he, they already, I think very profitable or at least if they're not, it's the, with that, like we are intentionally not profitable because we're spending money, in other ways to grow faster.

And so it's just more behind it's like there is actual cash to make you fabulously wealthy, which is very different than there is stock, which might someday make you fabulously wealthy if everything goes perfectly well.

Aaron

Yeah. And you don't, you don't get fired before it vests. Right.

Ian

And all the games of all that stuff, which is fine. And it's nice to have that lotto ticket, but at the same time, it's like pretty much just a lotto ticket, whereas like, Hey, if you're making amazing videos and all the videos you work on are amazing and we can't afford to lose you no matter what, then we're just gonna dump piles of money on you because every video you make makes 10,000,000. Then that we can make that math work of you being incredibly valuable or whatever. So I think that was all kinda interesting. I don't know.

I don't have the I don't I don't actually well, I'm I'm totally unprepared. I don't have it up in front of me. No. But,

Aaron

I think, so I didn't read the document. I just read your thread, and I think Yeah. The the good takeaway was, like, the intense obsession with the goal. Yeah. And the really interesting like, the part that was most interesting to me was, like, we are not here to make the best videos.

We're here to make the best YouTube videos.

Ian

Yes. That's the part that got me too.

Aaron

Yeah. I was like, that's actually a very good distinction because either you said it or he said it, that they probably get a lot of Hollywood types in there that want to do stuff that doesn't really work on YouTube, and they're like, listen. Yep. We're not here to make the funniest videos or the most artsy, or we're here to make the best YouTube videos, which is is its own thing, of course. And so I thought that was good to have, like, a a clarifying a clarifying mission statement.

One thing, I don't know if we've talked about this. One thing that Nathan Barry and I talked about on his podcast was, Steve and I need to have, like, a a through line, like, a this is what we do, and this is who we do it for. And, like, this is

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

The try hard, like, not mission statement, but kind of.

Ian

Yep. Yep. Yeah. We haven't talked about that. We do need to talk about that too.

I I haven't heard the last half of the second episode, and so I sound like I heard that part, which is very annoying. That's good. But, yeah, just to wrap that first part up is, like, yes. He's, like, very specific. Like, we're not making Netflix shows.

We're not doing stuff for TikTok. We're not doing stuff for Instagram. I mean, I'm sure they cut it up and push things there, but that's not what we're doing here. We're making YouTube videos and there is a formula for YouTube videos and we run the formulas. Yep.

And we make, we create the formulas sometimes or whatever, but like, it's always focused on how to make the best YouTube video. And there's all these little gimmicks. I'm sure he knows, you know, there's more than even writes there, but he's like one that he returns to like three separate times is you never, you never sort of, indicate that the end is coming. Like, the it just has to end instantly. And because if you start to indicate that it's coming up on the end and project that.

Aaron

We've done another one. You can't give them a wrap up sign.

Ian

There's no wrap up sign. Because then like everybody stops watching, I guess, is the issue or whatever. It's like, it just has to end instantly so that the retention curve stays the way that YouTube likes it. Which is mostly flat. You know, meaning mostly people watch right through to the end.

And so if you start having people drop off before the end, then YouTube doesn't the algo doesn't like it and they stop pushing you and blah, blah, blah. So there's all these little things where he has all these intricacies of YouTube, creation that were super fascinating. And, yeah, I I love the idea. I mean, it's definitely something I've never felt like I've nailed in my own business is, like, this is what we do. Like, I mean, I can explain what we do and why HubSpot's important and to the customers it serves, but the it's just never quite that tight as, You know, yes, we are here to make the best YouTube videos and every single thing is in service to that.

Every time you think about anything you think about, is this making the best YouTube video or not? Is this going to be the you know, thing that makes this video successful? And he has a lot of stuff about that too. Like whatever. Coming up with the gimmick for a video, the thing that blew my mind really the most and maybe this is just a known thing.

I'd be curious to hear if you do this, but they come up with a title and the thumbnail first. That's what they start with is the thumbnail, and then everything builds off the thumbnail, but the thumbnail happens first. Mhmm. And so I thought that was it totally blew my mind that the thumbnail happens first.

Aaron

Yeah. We don't do that. I know that that's, like, what you're supposed to do. I've heard that I've heard that many times. But what I do do is, like, if I have an idea for a video, the first thing I do is decide, is there any like, is there an interesting hook for this?

Yeah. Because if it's like, I really wanna teach this one thing, and, of course, my videos are so different because I'm generally teaching people. I really wanna teach this one thing, but I have to package it in such a way that it's interesting Yeah. Instead of just saying, like, this is the thing. Here's how you do it.

There has to be some kind of angle of, like, interesting example, funny use case, something like that. Otherwise, I can't, like, I can't find the right, the right hook, basically.

Ian

Yeah. So hit part of his whole strategy too, which was fascinating, was, like, the first minute being, like, we gotta really hook you. It sounds like, you know, they're taking edits from other parts of the video, whatever they're doing to, like, make it super snazzy. And then minutes one through three are super important because that's when you have a fair amount of fall off. So how do you limit that fall off?

I don't know. Do you ever think about your videos in terms of that sort of thing? I think it like you said,

Aaron

it's very different. As I should. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, the whole the whole YouTube meta game is not one I play super well Yeah.

In terms of, like, what is the hook? What is the open loop? What is the, you know, the structure? Yeah. I I I could, should be much better about that.

But, yeah, it's hard. It's hard to, like, take a teaching concept and turn it into, like, a, you know, a a viral loop hook. Okay. But it's not impossible. And I think if I had a whole lot more time, that would be a fun thing for me to, like, investigate, and maybe get really good at.

But at this point, my goal is to just, like, put out as much good content as I can. Yeah.

Ian

I

Aaron

don't know. I need to be better at that.

Ian

Definitely, I think, greatly increases the time commitment because you have to really plan the video out and then every moment of the video and all that stuff. And, yeah, like, they like he says, they talk about every like, what minute of the video are you working on? And each minute has its own plan and its own beats and, like, they generally

Aaron

know how to got time for that.

Ian

Yeah. I can do that.

Aaron

That's why he's winning

Ian

because he's got,

Aaron

you know, he's got the obsession and the time and the money to do that.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And even before he had the money, he had the obsession and the time. So yeah. Yeah. That's what

Ian

he talks about in there too. He's like, I just watched and analyzed more than anybody else and, you know, put in the work and then Yeah. Down the hooks and all that stuff. So, yeah, I don't know. People should check this out.

I don't I didn't think I linked to the full document, but, if you just search like mister b's production guide, I'm sure it'll come up. It was quite a fascinating read, especially, like, the first half. It kinda then it's a little uneven in the rest of it. It's, like, fine, but not quite as interesting. But, yeah, it was really interesting for third or first half.

It was really good. So go check that out. Yeah. So on Nathan, so the idea of, like yeah. Who's your guy's audience?

Like, is it Mhmm. Program I, you know, I assume it's something with programmers who deal with databases or whatever, but if you've locked that in and also how even once you lock it in, how do you convey it and describe it and all those things? So

Aaron

what And I don't want it to be database people. Like Okay. Because so Steve and I have have dreams of being breaking out of of, you know, the tech world.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

So not not just be, not just produce database courses forever. Mhmm.

Ian

I

Aaron

think I think we're good at that. I enjoy that personally. I like teaching in general. I think I'm good at it, and I have fun with it. But I don't know how or what or when, but I would like I would like to dream a little bit bigger than just, like, doing technical courses forever.

And so and even, like, even as we exist currently, Screencasting.com is our focus after Postgres, and that is just, like, fundamentally different than Right. Databases. And so I don't know. Like, I don't know I don't know what the, like, core tenant or the through line is. I think that to some extent, it's me.

Right? It's just things I'm interested in and things that I want to see in the world, but I don't know I don't know how to turn that into a a mission statement. So, yeah, I don't know. I think it it works well right now, like, the database courses and kinda, like, the creator side of stuff, but I don't know how to make it super tight. And then beyond that, I don't know, like, what we grow into.

So maybe we do Postgres. We do a bunch of screen casting. We do, like, the flagship course again, and then Steve does editor courses. And then we probably will do MySQL after that. We'll probably, you know, play the hits and do MySQL.

And then after that, I I don't really know. You know, after Postgres, I'm gonna need a big long break because I'm Right.

Ian

I'm getting to the the end of

Aaron

my rope here. But I don't know what the future beyond that looks like. Unfortunately, we don't have to know right now because we have enough on our plate that we have to focus. But Yeah. Yeah.

It'll be it'll be interesting to see.

Ian

Yeah. I don't know. I kinda feel like at one point, you talked about, like, I don't know if you use these words, but, like, a variety show of sorts. Mhmm. I can see that, again, kinda tying back you into Johnny Carson theme of, like, maybe, like, not horrible Lex Fridman or something, like some kinda interview angle or, you know, interviewing quite different than produced videos.

But Yeah. Or produced show of some sort.

Aaron

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. After after Laracon, the event staff asked me if I wanted to emcee some other stuff, and I was like, yeah. Definitely.

Ian

Oh, wow.

Aaron

That's awesome. Email. Yeah. So I don't know what that looks like, but that feels like a step into a broader world

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Where the, yeah, the, like, the the value that I'm providing is not technical education. It's something else, and I'd be curious to run that down and see what that looks like. But, yeah, the the variety show is still like, it's still on my list, and I'm still going to do it. It's just a matter of getting these other things out the door first.

Ian

Now do you worry about sort of the focus? Constantly. Right? Because it does seem like, you know, you're building up a rep. People like the database courses.

Zoom especially if Postgres goes well, Presumably it's gonna be wider than SQLite, I would think. So, you know, you start to build that up and then it's like, you kind of get into that. It's kind of like what we were talking about with money even before at the start, like, you know, like, it's it's gonna be easier to sell into the group you already sell into, presumably, and, all that kind of stuff. And you ultimately have bills to pay and things you wanna do. So how do you balance, like, then transitioning into other markets or Yeah.

All that stuff. So

Aaron

I constantly worry about it. I think one step at a time is Yeah. Is part of the answer. So I can't I can't immediately go to I don't know what's way out of, you know, left field. I can't immediately go to concert pianist and then, like, nobody nobody follows me there.

Right?

Ian

Right. So I

Aaron

think, you know, if we're gonna if we're gonna step outside of database education, which we are, it needs to be kind of a gradual thing. Yeah. And looking back, it should be obvious the path of to get from here to there or there to here. So I think that's part of it. In terms of in terms of, like, the money, I'm hoping that Postgres does SQLite has done very well.

I'm hoping Postgres does three or four times as well. Right. And then that buys us a little bit of buffer, in terms of of time to kinda, like, have some fun. Yep. Because I think that's the final and maybe most important thing is I just don't wanna do database courses forever.

I just really don't. Like, there are so many things I want to do. And so part of and I'm very sensitive because I'll I'll listen just in general, but I'm very sensitive to this particular thing because I'll listen or watch on Twitter, certain people be like, hey. I'm working on this new thing. And everybody's like, no.

You're an idiot. You gotta focus. You're never gonna make it. And I watch that, and I'm just kinda on the sidelines being like, oh, gosh. That's kind of how I feel.

Right. So I'm very sensitive to that notion. And now it doesn't super matter what other people think, but it is gonna be it is going to be like a gradual, hopefully, progression. And I am gonna weather some of the, like, why are you doing this stupid thing? And you know what the answer is gonna be?

Because I want to be happy. Like Right. I want I there are things that I want for my life, and I don't really care if a bunch of people want me to

Ian

do a course on MariaDB. I like

Aaron

maybe I just don't wanna do it. Right.

Ian

And it

Aaron

would make the most business sense to do it. But provided we have enough money coming in and we have ideas that are fun and could make money, I would rather do the ones that I want to do instead of, you know, being captured by the audience. So

Ian

Yeah. I think I don't Yeah. Definitely the, like, people who are like, you're stupid or that's like, whatever. Who cares about that? But, like, I just think practically there ends up being it's yeah.

A lot depends on, like, a Postgres does a huge number. You have, like, all this time and flexibility potentially. But even there, it's like you are making trade offs, right? Of like guaranteed money. Let's say let's say guaranteed, even though it's like not guaranteed, guaranteed.

You know, versus exploring new things, which, and you don't, you always have to explore some new stuff because otherwise it's it's definitely gonna be stale. And you've also been on this like database heater for, you know, this year. And I think just, you're gonna need something to refresh the

Aaron

brain

Ian

cycles for sure. So, yeah. And but it's like, whatever. Like, Wes, like, he mostly just stays in his JavaScript CSS lane, for example. Right?

He's scared. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys. Like, well, we got we it's a job.

Right? Does that part of it too? It's like

Aaron

It is.

Ian

This is my job is to teach people about these things. Yeah. And so my job is to go in nine to five every six months. I make a course, whatever their, you know, I'm not doing what their frequencies are, but whatever it's a job. And then I do other things that entertain me outside of it.

Which isn't how you have to approach it all, but that's that's sort of the, like, sort of standard approach. Right? It would be like, okay, I found a thing that works. I'm gonna stick with that.

Aaron

Let's just mind this vein until it runs dry.

Ian

Right. And, you know, maybe it's not the most fun every day or whatever.

Aaron

I

Ian

do think, like, CSS and stuff's probably a little more fun than databases. If I had to pick one to do Probably. You know, for years, I'd probably go CSS just because it changes faster, I'd say. And it's kind of

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Got a little more pizzazz.

Aaron

To those examples, I think Wes and Kent both probably have very enjoyable lives. But I don't want to do that. Like, I don't want to do JavaScript for the next ten years. Like, I don't wanna just continue. And I told this to Nathan.

Like, Kent has this, like, this universe that he's constantly building, and that is the epic web, the stack or learning stack or whatever. Okay. And I I just don't wanna do that. Like, I don't wanna continue to talk about databases for the next ten years, much less, but not definitely not the next, like, two years even. Yeah.

And so I think in terms of pattern pattern matching off of people, I'm trying to think of a modern day equivalent, but somebody more like like Theodore Roosevelt or Thomas Edison, where it's just like, you just do a bunch of random stuff. Like Right.

Ian

Theodore Roosevelt hits.

Aaron

Famous big game hunter, president, poet, author, inventor, crazy person. Like, that seems awesome. I wanna

Ian

do that. Let's do that. I'll do that.

Aaron

I'll be president one day. That'd be awesome. But, you know, in terms of, you know, find the one thing you like and just do that forever. I don't know if that fits for me, at least not in this context. Maybe the one thing is, like, creating stuff.

And, sure, when you go that broad, I I could do that forever. But if the one thing is being the best database educator in the world, I don't have a lot of interest in doing that

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Which I think is interesting.

Ian

Yeah. And it's also might be, like, it might take the right thing. Like, even if this is successful financially, it might it's not that's not the you know, you have to find the right thing that really strikes you. And that might be the thing that you're like, oh, I'll double down on this thing. Cause it's.

It keeps me mentally engaged as well as being, you know, financially lucrative or whatever. Like, yeah, I think, like, the modern standard techie kinda angle to this would be like a Steve Jobs. Right? Like, the classic, like, he's he could just kept building Max, but he was like, hey. Let's do phones.

And then we did other stuff. And then we I own Pixar too. And, like, we're doing Exactly. Pixar movies and all that kinda stuff. Totally.

Aaron

Or maybe, you know, I hate to bring him up. Maybe Elon Musk. Yeah. Before crazy Elon

Ian

Musk. Nor normal Yeah. Elon Musk.

Aaron

Twitter, Elon Musk. Let's dig some tunnels. Let's go to Mars. Let's put some stuff in the brain. Let's build some cars.

Like, yeah. My man, that sounds awesome.

Ian

He did get rich on the initial thing, though, which is that's very helpful. He did. Same with his job. There is that, like, if you get rich, then you have so much flexibility to do whatever you want, which is Right. Why people wanna be rich because money does solve some problems.

Aaron

It does. Yeah. So that that is that is part of the hope that Postgres brings in enough money that between Postgres and SQLite and probably MySQL, you know, shortly thereafter, we have this stable offering of high quality, and I hope it's the highest quality possible educational material that then funds some of the more speculative, interesting, like, side tangents. And, like, after Postgres, I think in November, December, I'm gonna I'm gonna work on something physical. I think we have a a physical a physical product idea that I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna work on.

And you know what? We also have a software product idea. And so those are the types of things where it's like, if we could if we could have a little time and space to do a little bit of this bizarre off the wall stuff Mhmm. Maybe it works out great. Maybe it's a a base hit.

But either way, it's good content. It's all everything's content, baby. Yep. And it's a lot of fun. And I think Yeah.

I'm trying to decide what I'm optimizing for. And I think right now, we're optimizing for money, and I would like for that to change at some point.

Ian

Yeah. And

Aaron

I'm I'm mentally stealing myself to prepare. And I think this is an interesting, like, concept. Like, when we're no longer optimizing for money, I'm preparing for people to tell us that we're doing things that are not optimal for money. And my answer is gonna be yes.

Ian

You're right.

Aaron

Absolutely right.

Ian

You're very observant.

Aaron

It would make more sense to do the thing that you're talking about if we were optimizing for money, which hopefully, at some point, we no longer are, and we're optimizing for some combination of lifestyle interest plus money, some amalgamation of those things. So we'll see.

Ian

I like that. Oh, man. I had a question in there, and now I can't remember. For money. Oh, mister Beast had a very you have to read the whole document because a lot of it applies to you.

But this was interesting just on everything's content. He's like, one of his piece of advice is like, be paying attention to everything going on in that, like, let's his example was, let's say you have a hundred vases in your car for the current video and a tree falls on your car and wrecks all the vases. Like, that's amazing content.

Aaron

Like, that's funny. Content.

Ian

That's something that either we should do something with in this video and we're gonna cut it in somehow as part of the funny things that happened or whatever. I don't know exactly what he does with that, but, like or we're gonna make a new video. It's an idea for a new video or whatever. But, like, always be aware of your surroundings Mhmm. And what's funny or entertaining or things like that, because it sometimes just comes up in other ways there.

But, yeah, I like this plan. I think I mean, and obviously, even the database courses, like, database don't change that fast. If once a year you run through and do here's 10 new videos in each, with the latest and greatest, that makes sense. Then you get to do the whole rerelease cycle updated for Postgres '74 or whatever.

Aaron

They do release so fast over there. Yeah.

Ian

What my sequel, though, that what with that one

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Feels like that would be hard. I feel like that's gonna be one that, like, is hard gonna be real hard for you to do. Like, you've already done one full course, and I feel like you've done other stuff with it over time.

Aaron

It's pretty tough. Right?

Ian

Just the just the hard one to choke down of, like, oh, I'm doing this again. Like, I'm saying the same things again. Like, because 90% of it's gonna be the same as the last one. Yeah. But

Aaron

I know.

Ian

But And feel like you need Like

Aaron

we've talked trilogy. Talked about before, I'm gonna be competing with me. I'm gonna be competing with free and me. And so it's gonna it's gonna be different. I will say I do want the set, and there's a part of me that's like Yeah.

I just have to have it.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

It's it's it's mine, and I will have it. Yeah. And then I am smarter now than I was back then. Yeah. And I am a better teacher now than I was back then.

And I have Steve now. I did that whole course by myself.

Ian

Oh, that was pre Steve. That was

Aaron

pre Steve. And so there are things that are going in my favor. And my SQL nine was released. It's a big old nothing burger, but it was released, so that counts.

Ian

That's some new stuff. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. So and I think the, the having the full set will be a thing unto itself. Like, you can you can cross promote. You can market. You can say you can bundle.

You can buy them all like that. Yeah. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to not do it even if it's our worst performing course monetarily. Yeah. I think it makes sense because it is probably also going to be the easiest to produce.

Right.

Ian

You know a lot of it.

Aaron

I did all the research. Yeah. I just I just gotta, you know, freshen up for it and then hit record. So, yeah,

Ian

we'll see. Would you do, DynamoDB, Redis, like, some of these things that I

Aaron

would like Redis?

Ian

Nontraditional database databases.

Aaron

Redis. I would not do Dynamo because the the thing that SQLite, Postgres, and MySQL have in common is they're all very common to each other. Right. So I feel like with all of the experience I have plus a bunch of research, I can get there on any of those three databases, even Maria, honestly. Right.

I don't have any production experience with something shapes like Dynamo, and so I wouldn't feel very confident. Yeah. And I would feel a little bit icky just, like, regurgitating docs. Yeah. So I've I've talked to some people about potentially doing a Dynamo course under our brands that, like, we produce, that they teach.

And I think I think that's totally doable.

Ian

That's also an interesting way to, like, get out of the database game without getting out of database games. Like, who if you're not the one doing the databases, whatever. You you guys can produce a bunch of database videos, but just Exactly. You're not the face. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm in I'm in the works with two people on that. In fact

Ian

That's interesting.

Aaron

Neither of them are the are the dynamo ones. Like, I'm still that's still extremely early. Mhmm. But in the works is is like a Rails SQLite course,

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

With with not me. And then there's a second course that is very early stages that I won't, talk about anymore, but it is, it's it's outside of databases. And

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

It's the kind of thing where Steve and I would produce it, and a and a subject matter expert would teach it. And it would live it would live it'd be like a joint. You'd be a try hard, you know, so and so production. Right.

Ian

Yeah. I like that.

Aaron

And we're to the point where it's like, you know, I talked to Steve after I talked to this instructor. I was like, hey, Steve. You know, this person wants to do it. I would love to work with this person. They're top of their game.

Like, let's do it. He was like, sounds great. I could fly out to them for a week and rent an Airbnb and do it up into a recording studio, and I can manage the lights, the recording, everything, and just sit by quietly while they do it. And I'm like, that.

Ian

Do it.

Aaron

That is next level.

Ian

That is a good idea. Try hard right there. Yeah. That's how you get the the high quality production.

Aaron

Exactly. Yeah.

Ian

If they don't have the whole set up

Aaron

for it. Stuff. That kind of stuff. That is a good example of taking a half step out

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Without, like, becoming a concert pianist and people being like, what the hell? I'm not following this guy anymore. But it's like you're experiencing or you're witnessing the growth or the expansion of, like, the brand and the empire, but without feeling, you know, disjointed, hopefully.

Ian

The other low hanging fruit thing to me, I guess, would be the full enterprise jump of SQL Server and Oracle Yeah. Which use the same SQL flavors as PG and, MySQL. But I don't know. I mean, obviously, it's not something I don't think you have a ton of experience with. Maybe that would be for somebody else too.

And I thought, like, the developers that are in your circles maybe aren't a ton of those people, but those are also circles that pay lots of money for things.

Aaron

Hey. A lot. They wanna be in those circles. You know who has forty years of experience with Microsoft SQL Server?

Ian

Who's that

Aaron

besides me? One Stanley Francis, my father.

Ian

Oh, there we go. We can't Isn't that crazy? That's awesome. Get him on the feed.

Aaron

Yep. That was his whole deal for for

Ian

forever. That's a

Aaron

tough up until a few years ago, honestly. Like, he's, I

Ian

don't know, 71 centric charm, or did that initiate with you? Okay.

Aaron

I think he could do it. I think he would need a little he'd need a little, camera coaching.

Ian

Oh, coaching. Yeah.

Aaron

But he could he could totally do it. But, yeah, it's

Ian

That's awesome. Wild? I think you should do that. I I know you've said that, but I didn't really put that together like that. So, yes, sir.

I think that'd be really cool. That could be a few bucks, man. Of course. A few bucks as they're heading into retirement. Is he retired already or not retired yet?

Aaron

Yeah. Retired.

Ian

Yeah. So even more so that needs a few bucks. Mhmm. Right. Can't hurt that a few bucks.

Aaron

But you're right.

Ian

I, you know,

Aaron

I look at these DB charts. I I think I forget what it's called. Maybe DB rank or DBranking.com or something. And Oracle's just always number one. It's like, you know, Postgres and MySQL are fighting it out, and Oracle's just, like, cruising across the top of the charts for a decade or something.

Ian

It is a little trickier in some ways, though, and that, like, there's tons of, like, get certified. Like, there's official certifications

Aaron

for these

Ian

things and all kinds of stuff. So it's also not the more blue ocean y vibe of these other open source ones. It's like, no. There's a lot of, like, companies just built around making content for Oracle and stuff. So Yes.

Aaron

There there is a lot of corporate training

Ian

where

Aaron

it's like Yeah. You come in, you watch slideshows for six hours, and then you get your your, CE credit, your continuing education credit, and then you can move on. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at db-engines.com.

I can't imagine dbengines.com was taken, but db-engines.com.

Ian

A dash. I like a dash.

Aaron

I hate a dash. Hate a dash. Because I just said it out loud like an idiot. D b dash engines.

Ian

You have to say it.

Aaron

You have to say it. Oracle, number one. MySQL, number two. Microsoft SQL Server, number three. Postgres, number four.

Mongo, Redis, Snowflake, Elasticsearch, IBM SQLite.

Ian

So Yes. Snowflake. That's kinda interesting.

Aaron

Yeah. What's the one that Jess spoke on? Cockroach.

Ian

I think that one I think that

Aaron

one is extremely interesting to me.

Ian

Yeah. Have you gotten to, like, ClickHouse and single store? Some of these, like

Aaron

I lied. Cockroach. Yeah.

Ian

They should be Brad the cockroach. But Yeah. ClickHouse. Yeah. These are column store databases.

Uh-huh. I mean, those are really hot right now too.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

I imagine if you did, like, a column store, maybe you don't do each one individually. Like, it's like a column store database

Aaron

That's interesting. Course

Ian

that covers, like, ClickHouse and single store.

Aaron

And Single store is the featured product on this rankings page. They've bought out all the ad stores.

Ian

Single stores. I know, Jack Ellis is always evangelizing it, and I was planning on using it for some stuff, which I'm not doing that. But yeah. So they are very performant and very cool. Does take, I mean, I think it's the kind of thing where you actually, a lot of existing developers need training on it because it's not, it's very different way to think about the database.

Aaron

It's fundamentally quite different. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. So there's a, you know, all different trade offs and all those kind of things. But,

Aaron

yeah. I think if I did do an analytic an analytical database, I would start with DuckDB, which is the it is the SQLite of analytical databases. So it's like embedded single file thing. Mhmm. And that would make a nice complement that would make a nice complement to SQLite, and it would also be, I think, a pretty approachable entry point for these analytical databases, both for me and the audience.

Right.

Ian

It's just pretty

Aaron

Learning ClickHouse is gonna take me a freaking long time, but I feel like learning DuckDB has a little bit of a lower barrier to entry. So that's definitely on the table. I would love you know, I'm I'm very much a a collector and a completionist, and I would love to have a full set of of courses. A full set.

Ian

Like, the encyclopedias. Exactly. The National

Aaron

Geographic, encyclopedias. Like, what do I what do I wanna do with my life is the question. And that is still an open question.

Ian

That might take you know, also, I mean, the nice thing about this is you could go back it could be over years. Right? It's like

Aaron

It could You

Ian

don't necessarily have to complete it day one. It's like, hey. Every six months, you go back and hit a database for a month, and that's it. You know? And then between you're doing other things.

Aaron

Go do some go do some light manufacturing. Go do a database course. Light manufacturing software products. Yeah. I could I could get into that.

That sounds

Ian

So alright, man. Anything else we wanna cover with that or anything else?

Aaron

Oh, Sinatra, baby. Let's let's close

Ian

on Sinatra. We didn't we didn't really cover the Postgres course even then Not even a little bit. Yeah. We have next week, but give us a give us a little bit in the Sinatra. Yeah.

We should cover. We gotta talk about Sinatra.

Aaron

So we were talking about what are, you know, what are we gonna do for this Postgres trailer? Yeah. Are we just gonna do the same thing we did for SQLite, which is kinda like fast cuts and a beat and, like, me working and stuff happening? And I think to his credit, Steve was like, we can we can do the same thing and try to do it bigger, or we can just we can just whoop, sidestep and do something completely different.

Ian

And I was like, yeah. Let's do that. That sounds fun.

Aaron

That sounds like a fun a fun strategy.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And so we did. We just sidestepped and did something completely different. And I remembered that you either tweeted or sent me that comedian's, hype video for playing at Madison Square Garden to Andrew Schultz's video.

Ian

Yep. Yep. And I was like, oh, wow. I didn't realize you took it from that. Yeah.

Aaron

Oh, yeah. I was like, that song, I I was like, I don't know who this guy is, but I will die for him. And so I remember that feeling of watching him and hearing that song and thinking, we gotta use that song. Right. And so I, you know, I pitched it to Steve, and he was like, alright.

Let's do it. What's the, you know, what's the storyline? And so we kinda you know, we used footage from a bunch of different places. Like, we used footage from unused footage from the layoff video. So me walking along the side of the road, we actually recorded back in March.

But just didn't actually use it. Yep. Then we had studio build out footage that I took here on my iPhone back in, you know, March, April, May, whatever. Actually, that was January, February.

Ian

Oh, right. That part was yeah.

Aaron

So didn't use that. And the stuff at Home Depot, I recorded in January, February. Like, not putting the rewards on the cart. Yeah. I know.

I just had it. Everything's content.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And then I did, I did some fake takes here in the studio. Steve did a bunch of filming at his house. So the printing, the highlighting, and the post it notes were all done at Steve's house.

Ian

A highlighter. A highlighter lives in information.

Aaron

Age highlighter is crazy.

Ian

I wanna know what the deal with that highlighter is. I know.

Aaron

And the post it notes, I have, like, that right there is the sequel light course, all those that stack of post it notes Yeah. Yeah. On a restaurant spike. And so that was you know, we're doing that for the post Christmas trailer. And then we had a kid.

We had, Matthew, Knipfer Knipfer, something like that. We had him come up from Austin and do the drone shot. And so yeah. He did he did the drone shot here at the studio, and he also did a few other he brought his big camera, and he did a few other just shots in and around the studio. And then it was over to Steve.

Like, good luck. Have fun, buddy. And he just freaking crushed it. It was so good. And I watched it, and I just laughed out loud.

I was like, this is incredible.

Ian

Of course, it's gonna be a massive letdown, you know, compared to this, like, inspirational model. Like this. Yeah. And we have Sinatra in every 80 videos.

Aaron

Well, about these goofy data types that Postgres has and not about, like, make your dreams come true. But, hey. The trailer was awesome.

Ian

So awesome. Yeah. I love when there's discontinuity too of, like, the song, like, crescendos and, like, inspirational thing, but it's about a database course.

Aaron

So it's

Ian

like you wouldn't necessarily think that, but then it all just kinda works.

Aaron

Oh, I know.

Ian

Yeah. It was awesome. I was, like, totally blown away by it. I was like, wow. This is

Aaron

So ridiculous.

Ian

That might've be it's probably the most next level thing you guys have done in some ways. Because, like, with the drone and, like, lots of cuts and, like, different scenes and, like Mhmm. And, yeah, a lot of it apparently was already there and you'd recorded it before, but, like, obviously, you don't know that when you watch the video. So it's like, wow. They really did just because they was a week of shooting to, like, do all this stuff.

And, yeah, it really comes in as over the top. I don't know how you're gonna follow that up, really. That that's No idea. Tell you. That's why I gotta get out of the database game.

You can't follow

Aaron

that up. We gotta continue to sidestep. We gotta do new yeah. Enter a new field each time just so that we don't have to, like, one up ourselves. You know?

Yeah.

Ian

So how was that received, though? I assume well Amazing.

Aaron

Yes. Very, very well. Lots of very positive public feedback, lots of encouraging DMs. We're gonna put out a post maybe today, maybe tomorrow about the numbers behind it all. Mhmm.

But I think we have, like, 1,500 people on the mailing list already.

Ian

Wow. That's great.

Aaron

Just from that, which is great. Right.

Ian

Just from one video.

Aaron

Yeah. Just from one video on on Twitter, and so that's good. And then we'll continue to, you know, mail the SQL light list and ask them to cross over and do continue to do stuff like that. But, yeah, the reception has been amazing. Gotten a few inquiries of, like, making videos, like, not courses.

Like, hey. Will you come shoot an ad for us? You're like

Ian

Oh, wow.

Aaron

Maybe. We got money.

Ian

Maybe you'll become sandwich, you know, when they do it. Yeah. Yeah. That could be interesting. Always working on different things and stuff.

So yeah.

Aaron

So, yeah, lots of lots of good feedback. This is another one of those, like, just put it out there and see what happens and, like, do the best you can possibly do, and then we'll see what comes of it. And I think, that continues to be a viable a viable strategy. Like, obviously, we want it to market the course that we

Ian

want to sell for US dollars. Yes. Right.

Aaron

But we also want it to reflect well on us and people to think highly of us and offer us, you know, opportunities that we didn't know existed, and I think it has served that purpose as well.

Ian

Yeah. No. I'd obviously put you guys in a great, like, light, I think, and there's just nobody else nobody else is doing this, like, tech content with this sort of style. Mhmm. You know, it's all pretty more straightforward.

And, so, yeah, I think it really stands out, obviously. Do you think it did it as well as the first one? Like, the first one, you had the juice of the layoff and everything, so I didn't know if it, like, reached those same highs or

Aaron

it close? In terms of so in terms of just, like, pure views on the layoff video, I think the layoff video might have had more pure views. I don't actually know if that's true. Mhmm. But in terms of, like, if you compare it to the SQLite launch video, I think it does better SQLite video.

Better than the SQLite launch video. But the audience is bigger. People more people know. And so it's like, man, I don't know if it's apples to apples, but it it did better.

Ian

Well, yeah. I would have thought maybe the sequel lite video had an advantage because it was, like, closer to the layoff storyline. And so, you know, people were more focused on you and what was going on more actively because it was like in the news, in our little world here. So that's great if it's like, yeah, if it's above that, I think that's really great. So no calls from the Sinatra estate yet?

Aaron

No. No. Not yet. But if they want a a % off coupon for the course, I would gladly give that give that to them.

Ian

Oh, that's good.

Aaron

That's good. It's an old song. Right? Like, isn't copyright mostly vibes?

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

So, hopefully, it's old enough that nobody cares. And we didn't we didn't put it on YouTube because they do have content matching and

Ian

Right.

Aaron

I don't you know, it's like that. Well so, yeah, hopefully, nobody comes knocking. And if they do, we'll gladly pull it down.

Ian

Isn't there a way on YouTube to put it up there and just say that they can like, if you let them monetize it, then it's

Aaron

okay or

Ian

something like that. I think there

Aaron

is only if you try

Ian

to not let them do it or something.

Aaron

It depends on the rights holder. So the rights holder can say, yeah. You can use it, but we get the money, or the rights holder can say, no. You can't use it at

Ian

all. Yeah.

Aaron

So I think the Laracon livestreams got pulled because they had so many walk on songs, and some of them were like, actually, no, there is no license. You can't use this at

Ian

all. Yep. Yeah. Because you gotta check. YouTube has some database you look up in presumably or whatever.

Aaron

So Exactly.

Ian

Interesting. Mhmm. Man. Well, I think Postgres course is gonna be a mega hit. I'm excited.

Do you think, yeah, I guess you're I guess you're running it as two separate lists, then you're not just using the SQLite course as the base. Just keep it fully separate. It's probably Yeah.

Aaron

We're we're

Ian

Right way to

Aaron

do it. All, you know, it's all in one Bento account. And so It's tagged. You know, it's deduped, but it's tagged. And we are we have mailed the SQLite list and said, hey.

I know you like SQLite. You might like Postgres. Here's a link. Click it. We'll tag you.

Otherwise, like, you're good. Don't, like, be more organized.

Ian

Now, though. Are you in can was that gonna work? Because, like, what if I'm on SQLite list?

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

I mean, it's probably isn't a huge deal, but, like, if I unsubscribe, I might not be able to get on the Postgres list.

Aaron

If you unsubscribe, it removes the tag that says list colon SQLite.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

And so, like, if you're subscribed to the personal, the SQLite, the screencasting, and the Postgres, whenever I send an email to one of those lists, the unsubscribe removes you from that list.

Ian

Okay. So it's still like a separate list sort of concept where you can be on one and unsubscribe from another or whatever. Yeah. Because not Yeah. I never used Bento, but the other tools, some of them anyway, don't work, like that.

It's like you well, you have to have a more like a definitive object of, like, a list and it works within a list, but, like, the tagging alone wouldn't be enough, but it sounds like Mentos, like, tag oriented.

Aaron

Yeah. It it it it can be, and that's the way that I'm using it. It's tag oriented.

Ian

Cool.

Aaron

And I think what I would like to have soon is, like, a manage preferences page on, like, karen francis dot com. Because right now, I send an email, and it's like, what list is this? Okay. Okay. What unsubscribe link is that?

What I would like to have is just, like, manage your preferences. You can go unsubscribe, resubscribe from all or any or whatever you want. Yeah.

Ian

But

Aaron

that takes just takes a few minutes of engineering, and I just haven't done that yet.

Ian

Yeah. Is this plan still to move over to Aaron Francis? Or

Aaron

And we have actively engaged, a designer to help us, like, redirect what has been my personal website into a more brand style website. Right. And so once they're done with that, that process will begin. But as of now, all emails are coming from aaron francisco dot com. There's just no global, like, manage preferences yet.

Ian

Right. All that stuff.

Aaron

Yeah. And the courses login is still not it's still on each discrete domain.

Ian

Right. So some behind the scenes, work to do still.

Aaron

Everything has to happen first. It's like, oh, you gotta do this? Well, you gotta do that first. We gotta do that first.

Ian

Like, how

Aaron

does it all have to happen first?

Ian

I know.

Aaron

This doesn't make any sense. Terrible. It's terrible.

Ian

Alright, man. I think we gave the people a good, a good run here. So,

Aaron

We did. Good to have you back, sir.

Ian

It's good to be back. Very nice to be back. I was actually a little nervous leading into the pod. You know, it's been a while since I've been on, like, this is my first day back working at all.

Aaron

Oh, wow.

Ian

Checked in, you know, because cause whatever. When you run your own company, you always have to check-in. But Yeah. Like, but this is the most, like, not working I've kind of done in a non vacation format in the ever probably. So yeah.

So first day back at work, kicking off with the pod, and, back at it this week. So alright, man.

Aaron

A great job. Welcome back.

Ian

Thanks. Everybody out there, you can follow us over at mostly technical dot com, mostly tech pod, email us at mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com, which I have checked in on and cleared out. And there was nothing in there. So it was, there was nothing, for you in there anyway. And it's a couple of little things.

So thanks for writing in folks who do. And, we'll see you next week. Thanks.

Aaron

See you.