00:00:00
my iPhone does not work I'm sorry I'm
00:00:01
just going to say it okay I don't know
00:00:03
what happened in you upgraded your
00:00:05
software is what happened you're on iOS
00:00:07
18 it doesn't I after three years I
00:00:09
upgraded to the newest phone I upgraded
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to the newest OS the phone doesn't work
00:00:14
meaning like to call people I can't call
00:00:16
my wife anymore I can't call my kids
00:00:18
anymore the phone bricks constantly my
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photos app doesn't work it is just
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really bad and I think for a company of
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this scale I don't understand how it
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does not go through a more complicated
00:00:29
test harness that catches all of this
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I'm not trying to complain but because I
00:00:33
know it's hard for them and I know it's
00:00:34
complicated and but it's really bad
00:00:37
you're not the only person people are
00:00:39
freaking out about the infras changes on
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photos crashing is a major thing and
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apple intelligence just doesn't work so
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it does seem Keith that Apple has gotten
00:00:49
off their game of making Polish stuff to
00:00:51
race to try and I guess catch up to
00:00:54
their perception of you know AI being a
00:00:57
disruptive Force at the interface level
00:01:00
I.E your phone or desktop what what are
00:01:02
your thoughts on uh this new story about
00:01:04
them doing more chips they've obviously
00:01:06
had great success with the processors
00:01:08
and phones and now the M4 incredible if
00:01:11
you haven't tried the Mac Mini best
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computer for the dollar in the world
00:01:14
right now but what are your thoughts on
00:01:16
Apple so the most important thing about
00:01:17
Apple is to remember it's vertically
00:01:19
integrated and vertically integrated
00:01:21
companies when you construct them
00:01:22
properly have a competitive advantage
00:01:24
that really cannot be assaulted for a
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decade 20 30 40 50 years and so chips
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classic illustration go all the way down
00:01:32
to the metal in build a chip that's
00:01:35
perfect for your desired interface your
00:01:37
desired use cases your desired UI and
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nobody's G to be able to compete with
00:01:41
you and if you have the resources that
00:01:43
you know because you need balance sheet
00:01:44
resources to go the chip Direction um it
00:01:47
just gives you another five to 10 year
00:01:50
sort of competitive advantage and so I
00:01:52
love vertically integrated companies uh
00:01:54
you know I posted a pin tweet I think
00:01:55
it's still my pin tweet about vertically
00:01:57
integrate is the solution to the best
00:01:59
possible companies uh but it's very
00:02:01
difficult you need different teams with
00:02:03
different skill sets and you need
00:02:04
probably more money truthly more Capital
00:02:06
but Apple's just going to keep going
00:02:07
down the vertical integration software
00:02:09
Hardware you know all day long and
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there's nobody else who does hardware
00:02:13
and software together in the planet
00:02:15
which is kind of shocking in some ways
00:02:16
is there a worldclass company a company
00:02:18
that's world class that's both software
00:02:20
and Hardware other
00:02:21
than yeah maybe
00:02:24
Invidia well may not really could they
00:02:27
do a world class UI you know maybe maybe
00:02:30
there's a foundation you have to have a
00:02:32
different Vision maybe a different team
00:02:34
not clear Tesla's close I guess I'd say
00:02:37
the
00:02:38
software's good if you Define software
00:02:40
as it touches a
00:02:42
consumer Tesla Apple in some ways
00:02:47
Google maybe meta with the meta
00:02:50
glasses trying trying attempting you
00:02:53
can't see Nvidia because I think Nvidia
00:02:55
touches the consumer through an app that
00:02:57
then sits on top of Cuda which I think
00:02:59
is that's a brilliant strategy for them
00:03:01
but it's be apple then Tesla and then a
00:03:05
long tail of people right any point app
00:03:08
has a lot of competitive advantages that
00:03:11
they you know been actually leveraging
00:03:12
for about 15 years now and even back
00:03:15
then Steve there's some old great Steve
00:03:16
videos I I'll see if I can find you a
00:03:18
clip where he talks about this very
00:03:20
intentionally from the 1990s you know he
00:03:23
came back to Apple he said we're doing
00:03:25
vertical integration basically using
00:03:27
those words of software and hardware and
00:03:29
there going to be nobody else that can
00:03:31
compete with us I think it's in an
00:03:32
interview he did in it's published in uh
00:03:34
in the company of giants I believe and
00:03:37
he's perfect on point he just followed
00:03:38
that strategy for you know the next 25
00:03:41
years now you're seeing some of the
00:03:43
manifestations though of a competitive
00:03:45
strategy that gives you incredible
00:03:46
advantages is you get very sloppy in
00:03:48
other places especially over time
00:03:51
because you have such great competitive
00:03:52
modes that you don't have to compete at
00:03:54
The Cutting Edge of this like the photos
00:03:55
app is completely unusable I'm the
00:03:57
biggest apple Fanboy in the world like I
00:03:59
I I remember interviewing once with a
00:04:01
job for Tim Cook and I walked in and I
00:04:03
said he's like why you know why are you
00:04:04
interested and I said well you know I
00:04:06
own every skew of every product you've
00:04:08
ever produced except I don't have every
00:04:10
color of each you know iPod and he was
00:04:14
like blown away and but now like my
00:04:16
photos app is completely unusable so I
00:04:18
totally understand you know off the
00:04:20
frustration and they they're showing
00:04:22
like the Decay function you know
00:04:24
culturally and otherwise that eventually
00:04:27
somebody will figure out an angle to rip
00:04:29
them out yeah I'll tell you we talked
00:04:31
about dictators at the beginning of this
00:04:32
shth and obviously this is your real
00:04:34
house as a dictator yourself is you know
00:04:37
there has to be a constant fear that
00:04:40
some a-hole is going to come to your
00:04:44
office and be like what did you do to
00:04:45
the photos app and that fear does not
00:04:48
exist inside of Apple it's not like the
00:04:51
mobile me you ever hear the mobile me
00:04:52
story
00:04:53
where he brought the mobile me team in
00:04:56
he said how is mobile me supposed to
00:04:57
work they said well it's supposed to
00:04:59
back up everything you buy your new
00:05:00
phone you get everything you never have
00:05:01
to worry about losing a f slammed his
00:05:02
hand down and said well why the F
00:05:04
doesn't work that way fired the person
00:05:07
brought the next person and and said now
00:05:08
make it the way he said it's supposed to
00:05:09
be game over I don't think Tim Cook's
00:05:11
doing that Johnny IV's not there and
00:05:13
obviously Steve Jobs not there to
00:05:14
terrorize people well I don't think you
00:05:17
look you don't need to necessarily
00:05:19
terrorize people but I do think you have
00:05:21
to go through uat so I think it's pretty
00:05:24
reasonable when you have a large
00:05:25
footprint of consumers using an app to
00:05:27
go through user acceptance testing is
00:05:29
like first base and typically what
00:05:31
happens is you can do a process of a few
00:05:34
months where several hundred thousand
00:05:36
people get it all over the world and as
00:05:38
long as you do an okay job of getting a
00:05:40
decent distribution of people this would
00:05:42
have come out but I want to just talk
00:05:45
about what Keith said as well it's
00:05:46
literally not just photos it's like the
00:05:48
phone doesn't
00:05:50
work so there are just core structural
00:05:53
issues with this operating system now
00:05:55
that makes the Iphone
00:05:58
maybe 10 10 to 30% less usable and
00:06:03
that's really frustrating the command
00:06:05
center you know when you pull up your
00:06:06
little Command Center to change the
00:06:07
brightness and the your airpods it's
00:06:10
just like what are they doing here I
00:06:11
mean by the way so do you need a chip do
00:06:14
you need a machine learning chip to do
00:06:16
inference to figure out that when you
00:06:18
constantly run your phone at a certain
00:06:20
level of brightness you should just
00:06:22
allow the phone to be at a certain level
00:06:24
of brightness stop changing the damn
00:06:25
brightness why does it re like I mean
00:06:28
this is not this is not complicated
00:06:30
software engineering guys no but this is
00:06:33
my point there's no Arbiter of taste
00:06:36
anymore who is the back stop who say no
00:06:40
yeah J let me let me pause double click
00:06:42
on that for a second so I think taste is
00:06:44
great if you have it but there's only so
00:06:46
many people on the planet that are going
00:06:47
to have you know Cutting Edge taste and
00:06:49
be right if you don't have taste what
00:06:51
most tech companies do is they use data
00:06:54
right data is something that's
00:06:55
approachable and leverageable because
00:06:57
Apple has like this the an I using data
00:07:00
to measure success with a user
00:07:02
experience to measure whatever
00:07:04
success if you subtract taste even by a
00:07:07
bit you don't have the scaffolding that
00:07:09
every other company would use and so you
00:07:12
see the worst of Both Worlds that's a
00:07:13
great take that's a great good take Ian
00:07:16
just go off the rails right you go off
00:07:17
the rails so Keith do you think that you
00:07:19
think that what happened is like when
00:07:20
Steve Jobs isn't there and Johnny IV
00:07:22
isn't there there's still a bunch of
00:07:25
folks that probably think they have
00:07:26
taste but the real taste folks left and
00:07:29
there's really no scaffolding left to
00:07:32
the scaffolding you had at Facebook meta
00:07:34
obviously or that Google uses would
00:07:36
catch some of the stuff without a doubt
00:07:38
like no doubt about it you know that
00:07:39
users are less thrilled and they use
00:07:41
things less and you'd fix it and maybe
00:07:43
even you take that too t extreme you
00:07:45
never develop taste like I could argue
00:07:46
that about Google or meta they don't
00:07:48
really have taste but like yeah you
00:07:50
could AR You could argue the paradigms
00:07:51
but fundamentally if you don't have that
00:07:54
back stop if the taste sub tracks even
00:07:56
10% not all the way down you're just not
00:07:58
going to catch this Stu and I think
00:08:00
there's only like how many people in the
00:08:02
world really have Cutting Edge
00:08:03
technology user experience taste I don't
00:08:05
know too many I would fun them right
00:08:07
awayes might have it it's an incredible
00:08:10
point because
00:08:12
I if I'm being really
00:08:15
insecure I would want to say oh yeah no
00:08:17
we had a lot of taste at Facebook back
00:08:19
in the day but actually we had so much
00:08:22
scaffolding around data probably because
00:08:24
intuitively we knew that that was way
00:08:26
more reliable for us it's more
00:08:28
predictable scale it's certainly more
00:08:30
right like take Steve out you don't need
00:08:31
a dictator but you do need a taste and
00:08:34
taste is Artistic the same thing Venture
00:08:36
like you know like scaling Venture funds
00:08:38
is really really challenging because
00:08:40
early stage investing is more like taste
00:08:43
than data driven and later stage you can
00:08:45
use data and scale it and Scaffolding so
00:08:49
I think there's just Fields it's a
00:08:50
little bit also you see like the sports
00:08:52
teams they just happened at Stanford
00:08:54
when Jim Harbaugh
00:08:55
left it took years for the Decay
00:08:58
function for like the next coaching
00:09:01
regime to show they were completely
00:09:02
incompetent like the next year they're
00:09:04
pretty good next year they lost one more
00:09:05
game they should have next year they
00:09:06
lost two more games they should up blah
00:09:08
blah and then eventually they became
00:09:09
like horrible and you know there's a
00:09:11
Decay function with an organization when
00:09:12
you take out the person who is the
00:09:14
original thinker or the leader or the
00:09:16
dictator whatever and so I think some of
00:09:19
this is showing up now and then you know
00:09:22
playing on a field that's not favorable
00:09:23
to them which is there are advantages
00:09:25
Apple has in AI but there's some
00:09:27
significant organization
00:09:29
structural disadvantages and that's the
00:09:32
field that people are going to be
00:09:33
competing on for the next five years
00:09:35
from a consumer perspective and they're
00:09:37
playing on a field where they don't have
00:09:39
all the advantages in their favor yeah
