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BS Jobs, Redundancy in Software, Self Driving Cars, and Dax's List

/ 01:12:16/E101
Adam:

And just thinking about the what is in my pocket? Sorry. Oh, that's random. Okay. Do you wanna know?

Adam:

It was a a

Dax:

measuring tape.

Adam:

What? It was in my pocket. And I was like, what?

Dax:

What? Hang on. That's a kind of measuring tape you use to measure your own body.

Adam:

No. No. I did not measure my own body. I measured my children's bodies because I'm ordering I'm ordering them BJJ geese, but that's another topic for another time. Wow.

Dax:

Hey. Hello.

Adam:

It's been a couple of weeks. We we skipped a week.

Dax:

Yeah.

Adam:

I feel like we skipped a week pretty it's been pretty recently we skipped another week. Are we falling off? What's what's going on here? Do you not like me anymore?

Dax:

It's you. You're the one that's like, I'm traveling. I need a break.

Adam:

Is that what I said? Did I say I need a break? I

Dax:

need a break. We were on

Adam:

a break, friends. Anybody?

Dax:

Well, I mean, this is very you, to hit a milestone and then just not continue. This is me also.

Adam:

Yeah. There was a there was a part of me that was like, how funny would it be actually if we just never recorded again? Like, the longest gag ever. Just, like, continually not recording because we hit a 100. That would have been fun.

Dax:

Yeah. Did you see, I think it was Scott from Syntax. I think they hit 800 episodes. And he said something like Wow. Getting to 800 episodes is hard, but showing up every week to do one is easy.

Dax:

Yeah. And I was like, yeah. That's actually exactly how I feel.

Adam:

Yeah. It really is like there's no excuse not to do it every week because it's an hour where we get to talk. And Yeah. And that's it. And we're fortunate to have some people that take it from there and make it more than our hour.

Adam:

Shout out, Chris, who's on vacation. He's gonna edit this on vacation, by the way.

Dax:

Wow.

Adam:

And he was happy to do it. I'm not, like, a slave driver here. I'm not, like, forcing this.

Dax:

Well, I think he was happy to do it.

Adam:

You're listening to this right now, Chris. I hope you're happy to do it. It seemed like you are.

Dax:

It's just the the life of a freelance person.

Adam:

That's right.

Dax:

Every vacation costs twice as much.

Adam:

Yeah. Business owners, man. You don't get a you don't get a break. Yeah.

Dax:

But it

Adam:

it's good. Right? Like, that's the better path than I was thinking about this a lot, actually, over the last few days. Just seeing a lot of layoffs and seeing a lot of, like Mhmm. Pain in our industry.

Adam:

So I've been thinking a lot about, like, the tech industry layoffs. And, I guess, just the idea of, like, working on small teams and how great that is versus working at a big company. Do you think, like, we've talked about this ad nauseam, I feel like, the idea that big companies do need to exist for certain things. But, like, software teams just continually getting smaller and smaller, like, that that's the future. It's better.

Adam:

Right? It's more fun to be on a small team for sure. But is it more fun to be, like, an independent contractor and have to deal with invoicing and doing all these things? And if you're not, like, with a steady client, like, actually coming up with work, like, is that better? Or is it more stressful?

Dax:

I think that if you do it well, it's better. I think it's been my experience. Because I can remember when I first started doing that, and it was not better. Yeah. It was it was a lot worse.

Dax:

Yeah. But once you know, eventually, if some some set of people break through that and I think it's better because, you end up with situations that are fairly stable. Like, when I used to do that, I pretty much was, like, full time. Yeah. Like, what about full time?

Dax:

Like, I wasn't, like, they have work for me one week. They don't the next week. I think that sucks. Any kind of freelance where your client can't guarantee the amount of work you do, but you still kinda are, like, committing to them so that they, like, might have work, but they might not. I think that's

Adam:

Yeah.

Dax:

That's hard to deal with. But if you can get it close to looking like normal employment, except you've spread your risk among a bunch of companies Yeah. I mean, risk from just them going down, but also risk from just you not liking them anymore or, like, them being annoying. You know? You just have more more options.

Dax:

But, yeah, I don't know how many people actually get to that to that level.

Adam:

And that's one of my questions is, like, is that for everybody? Like, if if tech layoffs Why

Dax:

is that right now for everyone?

Adam:

I guess I just feel like teams like, big company software teams are just gonna keep getting smaller, and there's not gonna be like, the proportion of people that are on at small or medium sized companies will grow over time. Like, the Twitter thing is the big example everyone points to right now that, like, they went from how big? Like, 7,000 engineers to how many? Not very many compared

Dax:

to that.

Adam:

Like, a1000? Did they cut it that far?

Dax:

Sub1000 now. Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. So, like, that's the big case study where everybody's like, oh, actually, they get a lot done still, and the things would have some bumps. But, like, when you shed that many people, of course, there's gonna be bumps. So I guess I just think, like, big tech companies are gonna realize and just with, like, improvements in efficiency, tooling, abstractions, all these things, AI, whatever. Whatever you think is gonna drive the next, like, step.

Adam:

I don't wanna say step function. The next, sometimes you just r the trope, and you can't help it. The next big leap in developer productivity. I just feel like the era of, like, a 10,000 person software development team is just it's just not it's not the future.

Dax:

Okay. But here's here's a observation I had. An observation. I guess this is, like, maybe I was able to think about this a little bit more. That's maybe a counter to that.

Dax:

And maybe kinda explains this thing where I've been talking about, and I think you feel too, because the whole economy is fake. Yeah. So this CrowdStrike thing that happened Mhmm. This is the was the biggest blunder disaster that has ever happened. Like, by far, the biggest by a wide margin.

Dax:

Right? So it's it's one of the biggest things we could even

Adam:

In technology? In IT? In software? Like, how do you

Dax:

bucket that? Yeah. Like, in software, I guess. In, like, in computers. I think that's how broad it is.

Adam:

Which side note, just real quick. It's it's kinda interesting that it was like a software bug. Like, a software team shipped an issue that created an IT nightmare. It wasn't software people that had a nightmare. You know what I mean?

Adam:

Like, I'm sure they had a bad day. But, like, it was all these IT people

Dax:

out of the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dax:

But here, that that that's my point. So it's been maybe a week, maybe a little more

Adam:

than a week. Yeah. How long is it?

Dax:

Yeah. Mostly, it's all fixed. Like, I'm not really running into business. Like, like, every business was down. But now they're all just back.

Dax:

Yeah. And they're just back to doing their usual thing. And, you know, for something that is, like, the largest disaster that's ever happened, you'd think that it would screw them for, like, years. Yeah. But it doesn't.

Dax:

And I think the explanation is the economy is not fake. It's just massively over provisioned.

Adam:

So Redundant.

Dax:

All these people that worked at these companies, they had what looked like full road maps. I'm sure they're all doing sprints and using Jira. I'm sure they, like, had maxed out story points. I'm sure it was like they were at, like, full capacity. And this totally unplanned amount of work shows up, and somehow they just also do it, you know?

Dax:

Yeah. I'm sure there was some, like, interesting, but in the grand scheme of things, like, I doubt, you know, it's, like, gonna affect them for years in most cases. So, yeah, everything is just really over provisioned. It's you are everyone's overhiring. Everyone's whatever just for these moments where things do spike unpredictably.

Dax:

And that's ultimately and this is like actually in Taleb's book. He says, that's what's different between an employee and a contractor. An employee, you're paying them to be there whenever you need them. You might not need them every second. Maybe most employees, like, are actually rarely needed.

Dax:

But, you know, the moment you need them, like, they'll be there. Whereas a contractor, you just don't have that

Adam:

type

Dax:

of relationship with. Like, they can just say no or, like, they have another client they're prioritizing. So all this cost, I think, is for immediate availability. So that that's that's, like I don't know if that explains the whole thing. I think a lot of what you're saying is still true, but I think that is, like, another dynamic that exists.

Adam:

So, there's so many different avenues I wanna go, and I'm gonna try to go to all of them. It's not

Dax:

gonna work.

Adam:

Yeah. At once. Okay. I the so the the first thing is, I guess, there's a distinction between the software industry and the fluff or the extra slack in the system versus, like, whole categories of jobs that maybe shouldn't exist or that, like okay. So there's a book.

Adam:

Somebody actually, someone who listened to the podcast sent me a book recommendation. They heard me talk about my idea that the US economy is fake or the worldwide economy, whatever. And there's this book, Bullshit Jobs.

Dax:

Yeah.

Adam:

And, basically, if you if you read this No.

Dax:

I haven't read it, but it's it's pretty

Adam:

popular. Premise? Yeah. Yeah. And there were some, like, studies where, like, it was 30 to 40% of people in some country, I can't remember, the Netherlands, the UK, I don't know, said that they didn't think their job served any, like, purpose to humanity.

Adam:

Like, that it was helping society in any way. And that's all people that were surveyed. It wasn't, like, specific industries. So you imagine, like, all the nurses and doctors and, I don't know, very important jobs. Even people, like, in the service industry, they wouldn't say they think their job has no purpose.

Adam:

Obviously, they can see the purpose. Like, they're helping people every single day. So those whole categories were probably unanimously, like, yes, my job does have a purpose. And then 40% still of the whole economy were people in jobs saying, I don't think it needs to exist. And there's, like, whole categories of jobs that just maybe don't need to exist.

Adam:

So that's an interesting topic. We don't even have to go any further into it. But I think what you're saying is did you have something you wanna say?

Dax:

No. I mean, to that, yeah. I think, yes, there is a lot of it. And then there's a few dynamics that contribute to that that are just, like, fundamental in human nature, which is, by default, humans like like empire building. So when they enter a company, they like to just add more and more people underneath them and expand the number just the number of people that they're in charge of.

Dax:

Not everyone does this, but that's, like, an innate bias. Generally, like, we like doing that. So, of course, that's gonna result in some amount of made up stuff, a lot of our made up stuff. So I think that, yeah, that that is there. So I'm gonna tell you, see, I don't know if you can self identify if your job is important, especially at a big company or, like, needed.

Dax:

I do feel like a lot of these big companies do tend to be, like, a team of 10, and, like, one person is really, like, doing all of it. Yeah.

Adam:

And everyone else is like school when there's, like, a team project, like, a group project.

Dax:

Exactly. It's just that skill that happen. Like, there's no reason why it would be any different as adults. Right? It's we've we've all experienced that.

Dax:

Yeah. So I think that that definitely is there. But, yeah, it it is a complicated thing. I think this is just how humans operate. And when we work we do need to work in teams.

Dax:

When we work in teams, like, there's, like, a large margin of error of of part of the team not being muted.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other avenue I wanna go down was I saw your tweet that was kind of tied to what you just went through, what you just explained about, the whole CrowdStrike redundancy. Like, how the world got back on track pretty quickly.

Adam:

And a lot of people were kinda clapping back or pointing out that, oh, these companies had huge financial, like Delta or all these airlines that had huge financial losses because of the CrowdStrike issue. But in my mind, I didn't even see your replies to those people. But in my mind, you were talking about, like, the technology. Like, the the IT side of it healed. The leaving outside the the whole concept of financial implication was kinda outside what you're talking about.

Adam:

Right?

Dax:

Yeah. I think it was more that, as usual, I feel those replies prove my point. Like, yeah, it was big. It was huge.

Adam:

Yeah. Just proving the size of the issue. Yeah.

Dax:

And if it's, like, the one of the largest things we can even imagine and they're, like, kinda back to operations a week later, like, just just that differential of, like, how big it technically was and how, like, a nonissue it's gotten to already. Yeah. It's funny because there's so many crazy dynamics going on. Right? You have the whole classic centralization problem where everyone is using the same thing.

Dax:

But when that thing breaks, everyone breaks equally, which is, like, not how you build a robust system. Yeah. USC Smart. As Yeah. Right.

Dax:

Exactly. But as an engineer, what's, like, a huge pain? You hate when people are using different versions of stuff. You hate when people are using different browsers. You hate when people are using different operating systems.

Dax:

Like, you, like, you, like, push for, like, consistency and standards and, like, and, contracts and then all this stuff. Mhmm. But you end up creating this, like, really brittle thing. Simultaneously, the real world completely rejects that notion because if you look at a lot of these big companies, they will buy, like I was talking to Stefan about this the other day. Like, okay.

Dax:

We're using GraphQL. For some reason, they buy, like, 4 GraphQL products that are all competitive with with each other and use, like, one here and a different one there and a different one there. And it looks like a complete mess, but it accidentally creates this resiliency because there's no central point of failure. It's not they're designing for that. It's just a side effect of just the chaos of people.

Dax:

Yeah, there's so many weird things going on where the airline that wasn't affected was the one that was, like, behind on tech because they they were still on Windows 3.1 or whatever. Was that Southwest? Yeah. So it's it's so weird. Like, it just makes you question everything.

Dax:

And that's kind of why I posted that because I was imagining all the people that are, like, you you, like, want to rename a field in some library, and they're like, this breaks backwards compatibility. And then you imagine and you, like, do kind of empathize with it. You're like, okay, companies are just trying to, like, do their job. Like, they don't want this unexpected work of, like, changing this stuff. And as a library author that breaks up frequently, like, I do feel bad about that.

Dax:

But simultaneously, I'm like, people act like it's end of the world. And, like, literally, the end of the world happened, and, like, we're fine weekly. Like, there's so much extra capacity to deal with nonsense like that. So

Adam:

Yeah. What kind what kind of, like, rarity do you think this event was? Like, do you think this is the thing that is, like, a once in a decade kinda thing? Is it gonna happen more? Is it is there some reason why we're trending toward more of this?

Adam:

Do you have any thoughts on our theories on any of that? Is the world getting more brittle and more centralized? Or

Dax:

It it but it's weird. Right? Because, like, this was a critical example of the centralization of things and the brittleness of things. But, again, it just, like, didn't. Yeah.

Dax:

It, like, recovered so quickly. So Yeah. I mean, COVID is a counterexample of clearly from mass centralization, mass globalization. Like, a thing spread so fast, so quickly, and it did cause a lot of problems. So, yeah, I don't know.

Dax:

It's it is it is like a meta thing. Like, even thinking about this concept is so not centralized. It is, like, so many, like, chaotic different ways that, like, some places are getting crazy centralized. Some places are, like, completely rejecting it, which in itself is diverse.

Adam:

You go to, like so I had thoughts about see after seeing your tweet, like, about how it recovers so quickly. And I had my feelings and thoughts about why it recovers so quickly. And it's not what you can do, which was, just to recap, sort of like there's slack in the system. We're over provisioned. So I love that concept of, like, you're applying kind of computing to so we're over provisioned, and these companies are able to, like, pick up this kind of stuff that needs picking up.

Adam:

I guess, the way I viewed it and I think it's kind of from, like, the Rational Optimist book, kinda stemming from those ideas that, like, most people wake up every morning and wanna make things better. And because of that, something bad happens, and you got a whole lot of collective energy trying to fix it across all these industries and all these different companies. And the result is that we can kinda, like, fix stuff pretty fast because a lot of people trying to make it better. I don't know. Is that stupid and fluffy?

Dax:

No. I think that's true. It just, like with a problem like this, the result isn't, like, one update and then you push it. Yes. The exact opposite.

Dax:

It's, like, a 1000000 people each, like Mhmm. Like, figuring out these, like, localized solutions for it. Like, of course, there's a general solution, but then it's, like, all these, like, probably all these random local problems. Like, oh, that machine is, like, located in this room, and, like, I don't have the key to that room. And, like, you know, it just it's like you need the people that are close to it to, like, figure stuff out.

Dax:

Because I'm sure there are stuff there. Like like, everything like, just random stuff runs Windows. Like, in New York, you'd sometimes see these not sometimes. Oftentimes, you would see these digital billboards. Not

Adam:

Is that it? Yeah.

Dax:

Like, on, like, on the ground. Like, they're at ground level that are just, like they're not huge.

Adam:

Mhmm.

Dax:

And they'll show, like, ads and, like, directions if you're, like, in the subway, like, all this stuff. That stuff runs Windows, and sometimes you see a blue screen. Like, how do you go update that? Like, where is that? Like Who yeah.

Dax:

Who's in charge? Machine running Windows is, like, in that physical thing. So having to go to each one

Adam:

Oh, jeez.

Dax:

And update this stuff. It's crazy because it seems like a lot of work, but this stuff, like, scales so easily. Right? Like Yeah. You just split up the work among a 1000 people, and they get it done in a day.

Dax:

Like, no matter what, you can do in a day.

Adam:

Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Because this is kind of worst case scenario. Like, most things can be, like, patched over the air kinda thing.

Dax:

Right.

Adam:

The fact that this was a situation where you had to physically, like, go to each machine because it's stuck in this recovery mode or whatever, it's kinda worst case scenario. And, yeah, it's interesting to see how quickly it could be resolved.

Dax:

Yeah. That's good news

Adam:

for us. A society continually built on top of technology more and more so.

Dax:

The other thing this makes me think about is self driving vehicles. And I've had a hesitation with them for a single reason, and it's exactly the same we're talking about, which is it removes all diversity from driving styles on the road. Mhmm. Which, if you look at it through tradition like, the way we traditionally look at performance, like, how well do they drive, probably beats a human. But they will all fail in the exact same way, in the exact same situation because they're all running the exact same model with the exact same Yeah.

Dax:

Outcomes. Right? And I wonder if that's not true. Like, do they put in, like is it, like, nondeterministic? Like, is there some variability to it?

Dax:

And I'm sure, like, maybe it's not technically true because 2 cards in 2 different positions are getting different inputs for whatever their input is, and maybe, like, that that creates variability. But something about that feels off to me. I feel like whenever we build these types of things, it's you just, like, hyper expose yourself to some catastrophic thing. So my dream is everyone in the world is using a self driving car except for me. I'm the only person on the road that's that's still driving.

Dax:

And I think that, like, solves all my problems with it.

Adam:

Really? Okay. Because you you wouldn't feel safe being part of this giant uniform driving apparatus. But as long as Yeah. You have that agency still, you don't mind if everyone else is around the block.

Dax:

And and, like, technically, like, they probably are net safer. So it's good to be around those vehicles. But

Adam:

I have I

Dax:

have a lot

Adam:

of thoughts on, self driving cars. And I I actually can't believe I don't think we've talked about this on the podcast, which is No. It's funny.

Dax:

It's the most cliche tech topic. We've never talked about it.

Adam:

Yeah. I actually have a ton of thoughts. So I own a Tesla. And we use the full self driving now, some, with a big asterisk, which is, like, it's kind of annoying how much you have to be paying attention. Like, I have to pay attention more when I use full self driving than when I don't, which maybe that's just because I'm not safe and I shouldn't it's not like I'm looking at my phone while I'm driving.

Adam:

But, like, you can't even glance down, like, at the dash in the wrong way before it's, like, freaking out at you, the full self driving. Like, it's very sensitive to you not looking straight ahead at the road. So it's good, like, after a workout, I'll turn it on to get home. Yeah. And it does a really great job.

Adam:

Like, I can just kinda zone out and stare ahead. And, like, I'm I'm paying attention as much as you would pay attention when you're driving. It's not like I'm completely checked out. But it's just nice to relax a little bit. That's basically the only use case that we use it.

Adam:

Like, it's really just I'm exhausted or I just got back from the airport. Like, I'm driving home from the airport. It's good for those cases. And it seems to, like, be pretty good at driving. Like, I don't know what other people's experiences have been, but, it's got the different modes, kind of aggressive versus passive or whatever.

Dax:

Mhmm.

Adam:

I I think the aggressive seems the most like a normal human driver. It seems pretty good at it, but the the amount of you have to pay attention is so, like, counter to the purpose of using it. Like, I feel like I wanna use it, and I want you to just be good at driving, and I don't have to think about it, and it drives us. And we can do other things while we're driving. Maybe that's never gonna happen or maybe I don't know.

Adam:

Maybe that's planned, and I just I don't follow the news. But

Dax:

Well, I mean, like Waymo taxis are fully operational in SF, and they're entirely running on their own with picking up random passengers. So

Adam:

Like, no driver in it even?

Dax:

No driver at all.

Adam:

Oh, so it's not like a legislative thing. It's really just like a Tesla, like, being safe. Like, Tesla. Sorry. Being in case he makes fun of me when I say Tesla.

Adam:

It was like a z. Tesla. It's not just like the it's not like they have to do this for liability or legal reasons.

Dax:

I think it's just a different product where when you're a robo taxi company, you're, like, really constraining where it's operating and when it's operating, and and you have, like, a lot more control over that. I can see why just giving this to end users maybe is a higher level of risk. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, like, it's there, and people have experienced exactly what you're describing of just being able to, I mean, the the taxi one's funny because, like, you you can just experience that if you just get a human driver.

Adam:

You're still not having to

Dax:

drive. Yeah.

Adam:

We've had that for a long time.

Dax:

Yeah. So I guess, like, it like it being a vehicle you own and, like, can take anywhere, that's that's probably feels a lot different. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think with the way that I I drive how much it would impact me.

Dax:

So my car has a lot of self driving like features. Yeah. So when I am driving on, like, like, a, like, a highway, like a main main road, I'm not really driving. Like, the car is, like, turning and doing everything for me because it's just very simple maintain a speed, like Yeah. All the lane.

Dax:

Like, cars have been able to do that for a while.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. The crew the adaptive cruise control in the lane, like, staying in the lane, that's pretty commodity now. Right?

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's in a way, that's probably, like, pretty close to what you're forced to do. Because even though your car is better self driving, you still have to, like, you know, be in the driving position. But I've had the same experience where it's like it is it is nice.

Dax:

Like, I can, like, relax a little bit. And, I'm not, like, actively it's, like, wiggling the wheel the whole time. Does it feel different? I think that I am trying to imagine, like, if I had full self driving yeah. It would be nice.

Dax:

I guess it would be nice. Yeah. I mean, if you didn't

Adam:

have to pay attention more because I'm remembering now. And maybe I can maybe someone's gonna tell me in the comments, you can do this in the Tesla settings right now. I actually liked the old version of self driving better, which was just what you're describing. It's just lane staying in a lane. Wouldn't even change lanes for me.

Adam:

It was just stay in your lane and not hit the car in front of you, like adaptive cruise. I like that better because I could not pay attention, and it didn't freak out. I don't even know if the our original Tesla no. In 2016, our Model X didn't have the camera that looks at your face. Like, they they weren't monitoring you paying attention.

Adam:

So I actually enjoyed that old self driving better, and I don't have it anymore. So now it's either, like, I have to completely drive, or I have to stare at the road even harder than I did, like, when I'm just driving. So it's like this weird trade off. Yeah. And when we make, like, a long drive, like, 3 hours on the highway to Kansas City, it's really nice to just be able to turn on that adaptive cruise and and coast.

Adam:

But I don't even have that anymore.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. I just don't drive that often. So Yeah.

Adam:

You get to walk all over your city, your beautiful neighborhood. I'm so jealous.

Dax:

Yes. But I also just don't leave the house much.

Adam:

There's no there's no walking. Yeah. Well, I don't either. But there's no walking in the Ozarks. Like, if we want to walk to the closest grocery store, we're talking, like, hour and a half of walking.

Dax:

That is wild to me.

Adam:

Like, it would be that bad. I mean, the suburbs and the Ozarks are so spread out. Like, everything is a long ways away. Like, it's a 15 minute drive to our grocery store. So imagine, like, I'm not walking that.

Dax:

I can visit, like, 10 grocery stores in an hour and a half, probably.

Adam:

I see the draw of cities. Especially, it's not like a city. Like, your neighborhood does not feel like I live in an urban area. Like, it's nice.

Dax:

Man, I am so, like I'm feeling this weird existential thing where mostly existential things are about your own self and your own aging. Mhmm. I'm feeling this about my neighborhood where I'm like, I love this. I don't see how this is gonna be like this forever. Like Water feels like

Adam:

sea level or what? What are we talking to? Okay.

Dax:

No. Nothing that crazy. So you remember how I don't know if you remember, but, you know, to my left, it's an apartment building that's, like, I don't know, maybe, like, 10 10 floors. And I have a house with a backyard. Behind me has been an empty lot for a while.

Dax:

I looked it up the other day, and it was sold 2 years ago. And when it was sold, it had, like, renderings of a giant apartment building. Oh. And,

Adam:

like That's what you mean.

Dax:

There's gonna be an apartment building in my like, looking into my backyard. Like, that's really weird.

Adam:

No. Like, it's going to grow bigger and bigger, and they're going to densely pack it in because it's such a nice area.

Dax:

Yeah. And then and then, like, on a more, like, mini version of that, you probably heard me complain about a 1000000 times. Like, they're tearing down houses like mine and putting up duplex like, really shitty duplexes. Like, just the 2. And I'm looking at all this, and I'm like, there's actually no way to stop this because this is just, like, an economic force that's happening.

Adam:

People want to be in that neighborhood in order to increase the number of people that can be there.

Dax:

Yeah. People want to be in that neighborhood, and most who have horrible taste. Like, that's actually what the actual combination of things that's happening is because I'm not against tearing my house down and putting up something else. The problem is the thing they put up, like, robs the entire vibe. It's just like this cement cube.

Dax:

Mhmm. And it, like, looks modern. It, like, like, like, it acts like it's modern. But to like, if you, like, understand it, it's actually just super cheaply built. I honestly feel like those are gonna, like, last, like, 20 years before they, like, fall down.

Dax:

It just just it just seems like a piece of color.

Adam:

Where you live, like, the elements are much more intense, like saltwater and the yeah. It's, like, the grades stuff faster.

Dax:

Yeah. And my house is a 100 years old, and it's still up. Yeah.

Adam:

It's So That's crazy to me. Like, people actually built stuff that lasted a 100 years. I I don't think any homes that are being built right now are gonna last a 100 years.

Dax:

Yeah. So there's just this economic force, and the only thing that would resist it if people were, like, not willing to move into these again, they're, like, 1.6, $1,700,000 houses that are just, like, really like, there there there's a street where they just ripped up every single house, and there are, like, 8. 4 on each side, side by side. Exactly identical. Exactly, exactly identical.

Dax:

And I see them slowly being bought. Every single one, white Tesla. So it just

Adam:

Okay. I have as a driver of a white Tesla, I take offense.

Dax:

White Tesla Model 3. Think it's, like, that specific.

Adam:

Okay. Wow.

Dax:

So it's just, like, my disdain is, like, just for it's not even like this.

Adam:

Moving into your neighborhood. Sorry.

Dax:

I don't think you'd move into this house. I'm, like, very skeptical that you would. Yeah. I think you would just notice all the weirdest things. To be honest.

Dax:

No. No.

Adam:

You should really advertise more how many mosquitoes are in your neighborhood.

Dax:

Like, keep the people out. That is true.

Adam:

All those white people from the Midwest that are moving down there and our white Teslas. Yeah.

Dax:

So my disdain for all of this, it's not even the developers that are doing this. I'm just like, there's an opportunity, an economic opportunity. Of course, they're gonna do this.

Adam:

Of course,

Dax:

they're gonna try to figure out how cheap as possible they can do it for. It's all the people willing to pay this much for this piece of crap. Like, what is wrong with you? Like, why do you have this, like, boring generic life where somehow you've made enough money to afford this thing, but you're just, like, using it in the most boring way. Like, if you had $1,600,000 to spend on a house, like, you could do some pretty wild fun stuff, and instead, you do this crap.

Adam:

Yeah. Now now I have a question for you. Because you are not boring. You are anything but average in every area of life. What would you do if you had, like, let's let's say, a $100,000,000?

Adam:

Where would Dax

Dax:

live? 100,000,000.

Adam:

Like, what would you do that would be, like, your endgame living situation? Because I know you love your neighborhood. But, like, $100,000,000 is different. That's different than, like, you're comfortable right now in South Miami. Where would you go?

Dax:

I said South Miami. I was in Miami. You stay

Adam:

in your neighborhood.

Dax:

You can stay in

Adam:

your neighborhood. Even with all

Dax:

of those. My neighborhood.

Adam:

Well, okay. What would what would be the thing that you would like what would be the Dax thing that happened because you have a $100,000,000 that we'd all be like, of course, he did. I

Dax:

I don't I'm gonna disappoint you because I don't I like, nothing really comes to mind. Because I can I can only really think for the next step? So I would definitely stay in my neighborhood because I think I think I told I think I showed you the area that, like, LeBron lived in when he played for the Heat. Mhmm. Like, there's property on, like, that scale that's over there.

Dax:

So I think I'm very basic. Here's the thing about Miami. Like, it is so well suited for basic richness. If you're rich, you live by the water. If you live by the water and you're rich, you get a boat.

Dax:

And, like, that combination of things, your life is really, really amazing. Like, it's, like, really, really, really nice. Like, you actually really get the benefits of being rich just by having those things. But if I was able I've always wanted to build my own house. I've always wanted to do, like, a very concrete oriented house with concrete floors.

Dax:

And, like, it it just freezes pretty, really well.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. I mean, I think people imagine they're cold. It is, like, on the colder side, but I think you can still make it, like, pretty warm as well. I I like warm houses. Like, I don't like that, like, cold ultra modern thing.

Adam:

You'd have a bunch of dead animal rugs, like, laying across your concrete floor to kinda keep

Dax:

the mess of it warm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. So I've always wanted to build my own house. So that's, like, the thing I wanted to do.

Adam:

So this is this is too boring of an answer for a podcast.

Dax:

So I

Adam:

need to ask more more probing questions. Would you have a second home? Is there another location in the world where different seasons like, when it's too hot in Miami in the middle of the summer, is there somewhere else you'd go? Have you thought about that?

Dax:

Yeah. I mean, I think what's hard about this question is is, like, it's so unlimited. Like, if you have that much money, you can have 10 houses and be everywhere. Like, of course, I'm I'm sure I'll find 10 places in the world that I would I would like to live. Like, I'll go have a really nice apartment in New York because I love New York.

Dax:

I'll go, like, we really like Lisbon. I think of the parts of Europe we visited, like, that seems like a really good fit. We definitely have a place there. Maybe outside the city, which is only, like, 20 minutes away, you can get, like, a country type house Mhmm. Or something in the city.

Dax:

I don't know. Like yeah. It's just like so you can do anything with a $100,000,000. You know,

Adam:

it's not a That's true.

Dax:

It's just the basic stuff. I don't think I'm interesting in that category.

Adam:

There's not enough constraints. You like you like when there's constraints. You think the interesting stuff comes out of constraints. Right?

Dax:

I can think of the next step. Right? Like, if I'm able to make it to that next step, like

Adam:

You're planning or kind of semi prepared for that?

Dax:

By the way, my lychee tree died, the one I got a little months ago. Yeah. It's unfortunate. But my mango tree is doing really well. But in that category, I would just want a freaking, like

Adam:

Fruit farm?

Dax:

Tree On the property? Farm in my in my yard. Oh, we've got a pretty good spot. Tree.

Adam:

Yeah. The the Maui draw is, like, just have an entire, like, tropical fruit farm that you live on. Because there's those on Zillow. You can see them. It's amazing.

Dax:

I just keep finding more fruit. Yeah. There's just, like, more new fruit. Like, so I was really into lychees, and then I found out that there's another thing called a longan. I don't know how to pronounce it, which is, like, exactly like a lychee, but the season is off.

Dax:

It's, like, shifted forward by a couple months. So, like, that kind of widens your window of when you can enjoy this type of fruit. Yeah. There's just all the infinite banana varieties. Do you

Adam:

like rambutan? I don't know how to say it. I sound like such a midwesterner. Rambutan?

Dax:

Yeah. Those are in the same delivery too. Right?

Adam:

Yeah. They're very similar

Dax:

to Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam:

I call them lychee, but I guess it's lychee.

Dax:

We've had this conversation. Oh, okay. I mean, people I'm fairly certain it's lychee.

Adam:

But You're probably the

Dax:

right place.

Adam:

You live in South Florida. Like, I just order them online

Dax:

from my family. From Asia. So Oh,

Adam:

yes. So you would know these things. Yeah. From Asia. It's funny.

Dax:

So fruit trees for sure. That's that's my thing. And I don't understand why people plant a non fruit tree. Couple of non fruit trees, yeah, makes sense. But

Adam:

Yeah. We've, we've planted ourselves, like, 6 fruit trees. 1, 2. Okay. 2 peach, 2 cherry, 4 apple, and, 1 well, 2 pawpaw, 1 died.

Adam:

So now we have 1 pawpaw tree, but we're gonna replace it. So however many that is. We've planted a bunch of fruit trees. It's really hard in the Ozarks, at least, to keep fruit trees alive. The deer just wanna come and, like, tear them down.

Adam:

I don't understand that from an evolutionary standpoint. Why would a deer find a little cute baby fruit tree and be like, I'm gonna rip it. I'm gonna just destroy it. I'm gonna hump it to death until it breaks in half. Why do they do that?

Adam:

Because, like, if they want fruit from it someday, I think they'd learn to respect the tree. Take a little nibble, like a little nibble of a leaf, and then just, like, come back next year and get yourself some fruit. I don't get it. Should I not say that word? Did I say a word I shouldn't say on a podcast?

Adam:

Chris can edit it out.

Dax:

I think people are the people are uncomfortable with that word for sure. Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. I don't know why that came out of my mouth. Like, I that's not a word I use.

Dax:

You're extremely upset by by what happened to your tree.

Adam:

Do you have deer? Do you have deer in South Florida? You don't do?

Dax:

No. No. We we do. There's but, like, not in they don't, like, roam around the middle of Miami, you know? Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. Except when they want to, like, you know, when they're having a bachelor party or something, maybe. Maybe they'll come down. That's funny. So stupid.

Adam:

So we've we've lost, like, one cherry tree and one apple tree now just so the deer are destroying it. Like, completely snapping them in half. Like, they look like there's nothing left of them. And I don't understand that. I don't get why the deer would do that.

Adam:

But

Dax:

I mean, I think they just have to survive long to reproduce. So Oh, yeah. Okay. They're not thinking about that.

Adam:

They're not thinking about 80 years and, like, retirement. And okay. That's

Dax:

true. So the thing that's funny is, so I don't know. So peach trees, apple trees, I don't know what they look like when they grow, but mango trees look so cool when they're fully grown. Like, if you ignore

Adam:

the fruit mango leaves.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. They're, like, one of the coolest trees to have, and they can, like, form all these intricate crazy shapes. Another thing that I kinda clicked for me was so with my mango tree, like, trees grow in these, like, bursts, where it seems that they're doing nothing. And all of a sudden, there's there's, like, shoot ups.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. Kids too.

Dax:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Your mayor then grows that way. So it finally did that. Right?

Dax:

When I first got it, it had these, like, 3, like, maybe, like, 6 inch shoots that were coming off the top. And, like, new leaves were growing

Adam:

on it.

Dax:

And they were, like, they were still, like, not very 30. And 4 days later, there was a really crazy rainstorm. And because they were weak, they, like, kind of drooped like, the weight of the water and the wind there, they drooped all the way to the side. So they're, like, hanging, like, facing left and right instead of going up. And then they, like and I, like, propped up a little bit, but they hardened in that way.

Dax:

Like, they grew and they got strong in that direction. But now this tree is going to grow in a specific shape Yeah. Because of this, like,

Adam:

one because of that one rainstorm.

Dax:

One day. Yeah. And it's like you would see trees, and then all those weird weird shapes. And it could have literally been from, like, one specific day where, like, one thing happens, a permanent memory of it

Adam:

Interesting.

Dax:

In the tree, which is just really wild.

Adam:

That is wild. I don't know why it made me think of, like, weight training. Like, I feel I I lift a lot these days, and I feel like I don't stretch. So, like, I'm growing in a certain way. It's a new technique.

Dax:

And then, like, I'm being in a

Adam:

certain shape. And it's just this is a real

Dax:

thing, though. Right?

Adam:

Oh, yeah. No. It's for yeah. I stretched today because I realized I was really sore. And this is what happens.

Adam:

My hamstrings get even smaller and tighter because I don't stretch them.

Dax:

Yeah.

Adam:

Can I go back to the full self driving thing now? Yeah. Okay. Do you are you aware of, like, how full self driving has evolved from a technology standpoint?

Dax:

I'm aware the most I'm aware of is, like, the LIDAR approach versus the non LIDAR approach. Like, I don't know about anything else.

Adam:

So I'm gonna give you a short version and everyone on the podcast. I don't know where I heard this, actually. I feel like this was, like, Carpathi. It was when he joined Tesla, rejoined Tesla. I don't remember where he's been.

Adam:

He's been everywhere. But they used to, like, train. So they they had the cameras. Well, the the LIDAR thing is going even further back. Like, they had multiple sensors involved.

Adam:

Did they have radar too? They they had, like, 2 or 3 different systems. There was the cameras,

Dax:

there

Adam:

was the LiDAR, and then maybe even something else that were kind of all, like, feeding into these ML models. And the cameras were feeding images, which were, like, labeled data. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I may be misremembering any one of these points. But, essentially, like, how we would think of training object detection classically with image detection.

Adam:

Right?

Dax:

Right.

Adam:

Like, you've got an image, you label the different things on the image. Whatever. And it wasn't very good. There was, like, this ceiling on that technology. And then they said, what if we went all in on just cameras?

Adam:

And then today, what they've the ultimate form of full self driving where they've gotten to with the at Tesla, it's just like photon data. They don't, like, train it on images. They just take the photon data from the 8 cameras or whatever around the car and, like, raw photons feeding into some model that then ultimately is making decisions. It's like it's like how our brains work. It's like the eyes.

Adam:

The light comes into the sensor, And they don't do any they don't have any preconceived notions of what those images may look like. It's just, like, trained on photons. I think that's so cool. It's just so wild to me.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. To figure out what the actual level of like, what level of data does it need? Yeah. Yeah.

Dax:

Because at some point, it's like that's, like, super unstructured. Like, you can feed it just raw. I mean, for people for them training, like, the music models and stuff, like, at some point, are they just, like, ingesting, like, raw sound waves and they can, like Yeah. Learn and find patterns from that? Which is, again, how, like, humans learn to see and learn to hear.

Dax:

So Yep. That is very cool. But this reminds me of something unrelated in terms of, like, humans seeing a certain way. So this thing happens to me, like, maybe, like, once I get it, like, maybe, like, once a year, maybe twice a year. It's in the category of migraine, but it's called an ocular migraine.

Adam:

I think I have heard this.

Dax:

Yeah. It's this really crazy thing because it is a 100% not a problem. Like, you get it. It allows a couple hours. And it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

Dax:

It doesn't mean, like, you need to go get it checked out. It's just a very it's rare, but it's, like, a very normal thing, and it's ultimately benign. But the symptoms of when you get it seem insane. So here's how it usually happens for me. I'll be working.

Dax:

I feel totally normal. All of a sudden, I realize that there's a blind spot forming in, like, an area of the monitor that I'm looking at. And it feels really weird because blind spots are weird. Right? It feels like you can see something, but you can't.

Dax:

And so it'll start forming. So I'll sort of feel like I'm going blind in one eye. That will transition into the blind spot having this, like, weird, like, flashing, like, rectangle that kind of shows up. And then I'll at that point, I'm like, okay. I'm getting one of these things.

Adam:

Yeah. And

Dax:

I'll go lie down. I'll drink a bunch of water just to make sure I'm not dehydrated and stuff. And then from there, the blind spot might start going away, and I'll get, like, the traditional, like, migraine headache thing, which is very painful and annoying, but whatever. That's not a huge deal. Then my hand my hand will start tingling, and it'll start going numb.

Adam:

My word. And then

Dax:

I'll, like, feel, like, this, like, numbing going all the way up my arm and then, like, into, like, the side of my face. And then and then, sometimes this hasn't happened to me in a while. Like, there's, like, these weird neurological things where, like, I'll try to remember what people's faces look like, and I just won't be able to. Like, some, like, random function in my brain just, like, stops working.

Adam:

Yeah.

Dax:

And then an hour later, I'm just a 100% back to normal.

Adam:

Oh, it's just like an hour.

Dax:

This this and, like, it used to be a lot. Like, there have been times I was younger where it lasted a day. But lately, it's been, like, 1 or 2 hours. And what's wild about all of this stuff is, like, I'm feeling something in my eye. I'm feeling something in my hand.

Dax:

I'm feeling something in my face. But none of those things are wrong. It's, like, entirely in my brain that this is happening. So it's, like It's

Adam:

so wild.

Dax:

Yeah. It is really weird. So it's really scary teeming because it looks like I'm getting a stroke or something. But Yeah. It's, like, this very rare but normal thing.

Adam:

And, like, if it happens when you're driving, I guess you have enough warning. Like, it's kind of coming on slowly and you can, like, pull over.

Dax:

Yeah. And and and I I could probably slow slow drive. Like, it would just be I was just uncomfortable because I would have a headache. But it's not a giant blind spot. It's just, like, the weird thing.

Dax:

I probably wouldn't would pull over.

Adam:

Yeah. Wow.

Dax:

But, yeah, it's really odd. And it's, like, wow. Your brain is, like, makes you realize, like, how delicate your brain can be. Like, something is going on in some part of my brain that's agitated. And it's

Adam:

Oh, man.

Dax:

Creating all these, like, weird effects.

Adam:

Brain stuff brain stuff is wild. What am I I'm listening to something about the brain. I can't remember what it is now. Is it a book I'm listening to? What am I listening to that's about the brain?

Adam:

Seems like Have I

Dax:

seems like you're not really listening to it.

Adam:

Have I said anything lately to you about the brain that I've learned? What what is it? I gotta look at my audible now. My brain just died.

Dax:

Funny because it sounds so stupid you're talking about the brain. Is it it it sounds like you're, like, looking for a brain.

Adam:

Like, I I like to have one, and I'm, like, am I

Dax:

trying to find one? I don't really remember.

Adam:

There's nothing in there's nothing in my audible about the brain. What is going on? I know I'm listening to something. Maybe it's just a podcast.

Dax:

Like, I just I'll do give

Adam:

you a random tidbit that I could not make up. Like, just heard in whatever I'm listening to about the brain, that some animals have, like, a part of their brain there's a name for this part of the brain, and, humans have this part of the brain, too. But in some animals, there's, like, a hole in their skull where light can pass through and hit this area of the brain.

Dax:

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah.

Adam:

And it, like, it's something to do with, like, their chrono cycles and, like, it keeps them aware of daylight and nighttime. Ours is not obviously getting any sunlight. But there's, like, animals that receive sunlight into a certain spot of their brain that, like, stimulates these certain processes. That's just wild. Brains are nuts.

Adam:

Bodies are nuts. Just biology, big umbrella.

Dax:

I mean, that's probably how the eye formed originally. It was like light hitting some part of a creature and then a bunch of, like, neuron cells, like, forming around that area, like, over time, figuring out how to interpret it.

Adam:

It hurts your head to think about some of the just like I was thinking about this with dinosaurs. My kids, like, do stuff with dinosaurs so much. Like, they've got dinosaur toys and dinosaur books and dinosaur costumes. We're just constantly inundated with dinosaurs. If you ever just look at, like, a dinosaur model or a toy and you just think about, like, like, an ankylosaurus.

Adam:

It's like this little, like, tank of a thing with a big club on its tail. Ankylosaurus. You just look at, like, all the spikes on its back.

Dax:

Sorry. I

Adam:

know too much about dinosaurs.

Dax:

No. And that's not why I'm laughing. I'm not making a creature. It's ankylosaurus.

Adam:

Oh my god.

Dax:

Ankylosaurus. I mean, I don't know. I might just be making it up. But Why do

Adam:

you think it was ankylosaurus? Whatever.

Dax:

It makes it sounds like it just sounds like a dinosaur that's, like, very ankle y. Like, it's got a lot of ankles.

Adam:

Oh, it kinda does. You look at, like, its back, and it has all these spikes. You have all this, like, crazy evolved armor. And you think, like, all the intermediate steps, like, where it was like a little bump, and it was like, oh, that bump helped protect it from dying from a T Rex or whatever. And it turns into a spike over how long.

Adam:

I know. Evolutionary stuff blows my mind. Like, to think of, like, you just have these little building blocks for life, and then you fast forward, like, 100 of 1000000 of years, and it, like, turns into these crazy shapes and crazy designs and organs and all these other things that are needed to, like, accomplish this thing of living. It's just nuts.

Dax:

Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if you know how, like, in tech or, like, society or the world, usually, it's like there's, like, one crazy leap that, like, suddenly, like, spurs, like, a huge change. I do wonder if it's similar in evolution because I think we often imagine, like, okay, like, the armor. Like yeah. I imagine the same way, like, where it developed, like, a tiny version of it.

Dax:

It's, like, minuscule. And then, like

Adam:

Maybe it just jumped straight to full blown spikes. Like, some Yeah.

Dax:

Maybe, like, there's a crazy mutation, and it was, like, it just fully covered its whole body and and something. Or

Adam:

That's interesting. Yeah. I guess it doesn't

Dax:

so effective that, like, that, like, was a leap in terms of

Adam:

Yeah. It almost it almost has to be that way. Here I am opining on very, like, probably known scientific facts. But, like, there's no way some intermediate step of a spike on an on an animal would protect it anymore. Right?

Adam:

I

Dax:

don't know. I don't know. But yeah. I don't know. But maybe, maybe there's cases for both.

Dax:

Like, yeah, it is it is wild. I think it's just one of those things where, like, the amount of time this stuff took is just incomprehensible.

Adam:

It's incomprehensible. That's the word.

Dax:

Yeah. It's like developing just that spike technology might have been, like, longer than all of humanity.

Adam:

That's insane. It's really it's ludicrous. And I've been getting into, like, quantum physics stuff and, like, astral or which one's the one that's real? And which one astronomy? Astrology?

Dax:

You know where to go find your brain before you get into these topics?

Adam:

I really can't remember which one's real. I think one of them is, like, the fake Astrology is

Dax:

the sign stuff. Astronomy is Okay. Looking at stuff in the sky. Yeah.

Adam:

When you, like, get into, like, astronomy stuff, this is I just enjoy, like, to I feel something when I listen to these types of books where they just talk about the crazy physics that underlie everything. Just something about it just, like, blows my mind. I like to have my mind blown. That's why I like, like, books about time and all that. Yeah.

Adam:

I don't know. Just like all that and then our little brains trying to comprehend it. I don't know. It's just it's, it's wild. I've ever told you I want to, I've so badly wanted to make do you remember Spore?

Adam:

There's like a game.

Dax:

Yeah. I remember Spore. It was kinda it's it's like was it kind of like a letdown in that, like, it wasn't

Adam:

Yeah. That dynamic. I wanted to make, like, the not letdown version of that. Yeah. Like, it's just in the back of my head, some version of that.

Dax:

I don't know how you could

Adam:

do it. But some kind of game that's built on the premise of, like, evolving things and adapting to their environment. End

Dax:

up. Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. And, like, could you make something that surprised you as much as dinosaurs surprised me? Like, where there's some end state in this game that you just can't even anticipate. I just I

Dax:

think that'd be really cool. No. That's not really fun.

Adam:

When are we doing that? When are we gonna retire and build video games? Sorry.

Dax:

Next. That's the next thing.

Adam:

Okay. That's the next. Before the $100,000,000. Go ahead.

Dax:

Here's my list of next things. Mhmm. Once I don't have to work as much, I'm going to build a Plex competitor.

Adam:

Oh, right.

Dax:

I just talked about that the

Adam:

other day.

Dax:

Really fast. And doesn't have shitty stuff. Yeah. I was dealing with annoyances yesterday.

Adam:

I was too. I literally have an item on my checklist today that's 6 Plex because I have this annoying DVR issue. Anyway

Dax:

Yeah. It just constantly comes up. If I'm gonna fix it that much, I might as well just

Adam:

build it.

Dax:

Might as

Adam:

well just build the entire thing. Yeah. That's totally the engineering solution. Yeah.

Dax:

So that, I wanna write I wanna create a new programming language that is more functional but compiles with single binary, has a good type system. It's like my ideal language. That's that's one.

Adam:

There's there is no what's the closest thing?

Dax:

I imagine something that looks like Elixir with types of

Adam:

But it doesn't have

Dax:

the runtime. Glean, but compiles to, like, a single binary. Single binary. With a really nice standard library. That's like, I wanna build that.

Adam:

Yeah. Okay. Do it, Dax. Call it just call it Dax. Just be like ultimate power move.

Adam:

Just call the language Dax. And then build the game. And the game you wanna build we've talked about this before. The game you wanna build is like it I think it overlaps with a lot of things I want to exist, I wanna build. Like, where we we can, like it's multiplayer somewhere.

Adam:

A world. Yeah. Share a world. Kinda Minecraft y, but not yeah. Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. That's those are all

Dax:

those are my things.

Adam:

Do you think there is actually a day where we want to work so much? Sometimes I wonder if I'm gonna be saying that when I'm 75. Like, someday when I don't have to work so much, I'm gonna do these things.

Dax:

I mean, when I can work I don't think it's gonna be work so much. It's just, like, working on things with a different goal, I think. Yeah. Like, making that game the goal like, I don't have to, like, make a lot of money with it.

Adam:

Yeah. The goal is just it's fun. It'd be fun.

Dax:

Yeah. It's not to be a giant success. It's not to be venture scale. Just stop working on venture scale things. Oh, do

Adam:

you have any, reaction thoughts to all the VC stuff on Twitter I saw while I was on planes?

Dax:

Oh, man. I have so many thoughts to this.

Adam:

Who's right? Because they're both, like, very angry. These 2

Dax:

Paul Paul Graham and David Sachs?

Adam:

They're right. Because you're a VC company?

Dax:

Or you're a YC company? No. No. Those those those are the 2 fighting.

Adam:

Oh, right. Right. Right. Sachs versus yeah. Paul Graham.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. You you still laid out both sides. Sorry.

Dax:

This is like a great tweet of all time. Who is Kendrick and who is Lamar?

Adam:

Oh, yeah. No. I just heard Paul Graham, and I immediately thought, oh, you're siding like, you're answering my question, who's right? And I figured it's

Dax:

because you're right. I was gonna side with Paul Graham. For the longest time, I found David Sacks to be really insufferable. And I think he is wrong on most things in, like, a deep fundamental way and just gotten longer. I'm sure there's some stuff that he's not wrong on, whereas Paul Graham I have the inverts relationship with, I do find him annoying at times.

Dax:

I feel like I think where he struggles is he has a really hard time imagining a different type of personality than his own that also cares about the same things. I think he, like, has his like, my annoyance with him is he just has this, like, sense that anyone that cares about stuff he cares about, the way he thinks, also must be this, like, hyper introverted, like just, like, very, like, narrow, like, SF type persona. Like, I think that's what he imagines. And he, like, he struggles to imagine outside of that. But outside of that, I find him to be generally very correct on most things.

Dax:

0 consistency with what side he's on. I think you can see him swing from traditional bubbles into, like, the opposite. Like, I I think he, like, truly thinks independently. Mhmm. And and I find him found him in places where, like, he was contrarian in a way where everyone else in the industry was kind of focused on, like, leading one way.

Dax:

And he actually thought about it from scratch. Yeah. And the other thing that I really appreciate about this whole situation is it's something that I really value. Maybe it's my number one value. So in a situation, these 2 VCs are fighting because they are fighting over the situation that happened to the the Zenefits founder.

Dax:

Mhmm. And Paul Graham is just his approach is very simple. The Zenefits founder is my friend, and it doesn't matter. Like, I'm just gonna back, like, the fuck out of it. Like, I'm just gonna have a 100% be on his side and be in his corner because I chose my side with him.

Dax:

And that's, like, if he goes down, I go down. If he goes up, I go up. That that type of thing. And I think that's, like, a really great just way to way to be and and way to live. Whereas, I think I think a lot of people like, it's hard to find, like, that level of of loyalty, especially in VC.

Adam:

It's almost like the crowd wants to, like, shame you for that. Like, you're just biased or you're just but, like, you're saying it's actually a good thing. Like, you're loyal to this person that you decided to back a long time ago. And Yeah. And that's enough of a reason to to continue to back them.

Adam:

Yeah.

Dax:

Exactly. Like, you made a commitment and you're and you're sticking with it. And, yeah, like, you'll take whatever if they do something and it causes a problem for you, like, you're gonna take it. You're not gonna, like, wheeze a lot of it. Right?

Dax:

So Yeah. That's like a level of, like, honor that I think that is not that common. So, yeah, that situation was funny.

Adam:

My only annoyance my only annoyance with Paul Graham is his Twitter avatar. I feel like if he changes his avatar somebody posted, like, a full photo of him the through all this, and it was like, he looks so much kinder in that photo. I don't know. Just maybe think about it, Paul. Just the the avatar is not doing any favors.

Adam:

It kinda looks angry, like he's, like, I think he's, like, speaking or something, but it's just, like, this expression on his face. He looks

Dax:

like he's interrupting you.

Adam:

Yeah. Exactly. It's somehow, like, it's the perfect personification of how I read his tweets. Like, now I read every one of his tweets like that. And I feel like it could it could do better.

Adam:

He was a little friendlier.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. It is funny. My favorite part about all this was this was so good. I love this part.

Dax:

Matthew Prince, who's the CEO of Cloudflare, commented on this.

Adam:

I think I saw it.

Dax:

Yeah. And David and then David Sacks replied going, I don't even know who you are, which is, like, a very classic dunk. Right? Typically, that would work because a person talking shit is like a nobody that's never done anything. But saying that to the CEO of Cloudflare when you're supposed to be this, like, tech Silicon Valley person.

Adam:

Person. Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. It's, like, so Kinda so hard. Yeah. And I laugh so hard because, the railway CEO posted that meme with, there's traditionally, like, the guy complaining and then the other guy going, I don't think about you at all. Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. But he inverted it. So the guy was like, I don't know you who you are. Then Don Draper was like, wait. What?

Dax:

Like, that's not how this goes. Like, of course, you know who I am. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah.

Dax:

So it's it's really funny. But it seems like this I think ever since the, Israeli stuff started happening, there's been a fracture in this community. Like, this VC is interesting because it's so much about social connections and, like, networking and, like Mhmm. You know? It's like a lot of it is that aspect.

Dax:

So everyone rides this, like, weird line where they, like, all act kinda friendly with each other because they don't know who's they're gonna need at some point. But, obviously, there's tensions that build up. And I think after the whole Israel thing, that that was, like, the spark. And now that's cascading to all sorts of things. And it's, like, crazy fracturing happened.

Dax:

I'm seeing people Punches

Adam:

being thrown.

Dax:

Yeah. Like like, there's stuff that it won't recover from. Like, there's things that have been done where, okay, these 2 VC firms will, like, never be on a deal together ever again. Yeah. That's, like, fracturing in in, like, a 1000000 ways.

Dax:

And all this political stuff with the election now, I saw a tweet that I think was so interesting, and I think it's a great way to put it. And they were like, it's clear that politics is this, like, crazy, crazy drug that'll just melt your brain. Like, it'll just completely wreck you in a same way that some, like, crazy drug would. But, like, very normal people just go and and do lines of it, like, without without thinking. And and I feel that's what's happening.

Dax:

Like, it's, like, melting people's brains. Like, even these really, like, so called, like, very intellectual, like, smart people, it's, like Yeah. Eroding them down to, like, being really, really stupid. Like, even Paul Graham, who I respect a lot, like, after the whole Trump assassination thing, he was, like, finds, like, a weird angle to, like, minimize it. And I'm, like, like, like, people just aren't thinking clearly at all.

Dax:

This stuff is, like, completely, like, melting.

Adam:

Like, I I really wanna talk just with you about US politics stuff. I'm just terrified to talk about it on the podcast. I don't even because I it just feels like this thing you just don't touch. And I know, like, historically, you don't you don't talk about politics and religion. But it's, like, different now.

Adam:

It's, like, on a level of, like, concern for just safety, not wanting to say anything publicly for either side to pick apart. And I don't know. Not that, like, we have this huge audience that like, I'm a famous person that needs to worry about what I say. It's just kind of like a thing

Dax:

I don't wanna even be involved in.

Adam:

And I don't know what that says.

Dax:

Yeah. And I think that, for me, it's it's 2 sides. Like, I've seen there are some tweets in our circle that were, like, slightly political, and I saw their crazy responses to it, like, way crazier than saying tailwind sucks.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy enough.

Dax:

Yeah. I know the replies you get to saying some things, tailwind sucks. You think those are extreme, but, like, these are, like, way like, people, like, don't give you an inch at all. Like, there's no Oh, yeah. Effort out at all.

Dax:

And on the flip side, then you, like, react to that stuff, and you get pulled in, which is why it's, like, this crazy drug that just, like, completely deteriorates your ability to to to think. So I think, privately, I've actually been really plugged into it because I just find it like, it's hard not to be. Like, I like really want it.

Adam:

Privately, you you enjoy the drug quite a lot. You're you're melting the brain

Dax:

Yeah. On the weekends quite a bit.

Adam:

Well, I don't

Dax:

do it in public, you know.

Adam:

But not public. Yeah. It's a respectable thing to

Dax:

do. Yeah. But it it is like, you know, at the end of the day, we can intellectualize it all we want and make it seem like it's as big important thing as all we want. But it is the greatest reality show that has ever happened. And it happens every 4 years, and we all just can't resist watching the drama.

Adam:

It's so true. The but I do feel like the stakes from, like, a societal sticking together standpoint are getting higher and higher and ratcheting higher. Like, as much as I wish it was just entertainment, actually. At this point, it feels like it's actually affecting, like, the tension is getting violent. Yeah.

Adam:

Exactly. Yeah. It's it's resulting in real world ramifications for both sides from, like, a civil war kinda standpoint.

Dax:

I don't

Adam:

know if that's dramatic. But, like, just the tension and the violence feels like it's it's always there. And it's just very, at the precipice of boiling over. I mean,

Dax:

it just reminds you that it's the default state of most of history. It's kinda been that way. Oh. Yeah. I don't know where this all goes.

Dax:

That's We can't just keep ratcheting up forever.

Adam:

Right. Yeah. On a more light note, I was thinking the other day, and I meant to tweet something about this. Is there been, like what's the precedent for Tailwind is this technology that if you say Tailwind, people get so angry on both sides. If you say you don't like it or you do like it, it's so polarizing, like US politics.

Adam:

Is there a precedent, like a previous technology that had that effect? Is is Tailwind the first to be like that?

Dax:

No. No JS.

Adam:

Okay. Not as much today, probably. But I

Dax:

mean, the joke is season round, but, like, I do remember and I I didn't use Node. Js for a very, very, very long time. But I do remember, like, people using it. Like, yeah, there was, like, crazy arguments over it. They're like, it's stupid.

Dax:

Like, everyone

Adam:

needs I mean, it was like Yeah.

Dax:

It was

Adam:

like the first JavaScript on the back end.

Dax:

Yeah.

Adam:

Right? Like, a serious scale, I guess. I don't know. There's probably some obscure thing before that. But Yeah.

Adam:

So you think just the idea, like, people were very polarized because just the idea of running JavaScript on the back end in the first place. And then whether it was the actual implementation or people involved was maybe a footnote.

Dax:

Yeah. I do remember that being polarizing. There there's some, like, eternal ones, like types statically typed stuff. Mhmm. That has always been, like, people would that was, like, probably the like, remember when I was first getting into tech, I do remember people arguing about static versus dynamic typing.

Adam:

Yeah. All the time. There's, like, ideas, like tabs versus spaces.

Dax:

Right. Right. Right.

Adam:

Like, there's, like, these ideas that have historically had, you know, eMacs and Vim, like, the 2 sides. It's like gang wars. But I've never like, I couldn't think of a technology, like a library or something that, like, has a team behind it building it

Dax:

Mhmm.

Adam:

That brings up so much, like, intense feeling on both sides, like, tailwind.

Dax:

Yeah. I think what's similar to the node and the tailwind thing is and people will observe that whenever something has this level of controversy, it ends up being massively successful. But I think what's going on is the form of this debate always takes it's, like, almost the exact same in both cases. You'll have, the side that doesn't like it. Their framing of it will be, like, this is dumbing something down, and you don't need it dumbed down.

Dax:

It's, like, unnecessary. Just use this other thing that you just spent some time to learn it, and you can do it. Yeah. The reason that side always ends up losing is their observation's correct. It is dumbing something down.

Dax:

It is making something easier. And that will always gain traction. Right? Yeah. So I think that's the same case with Node.

Dax:

Js, same case with with Tailwind. There's just some stuff that you just can't fight Yeah. Because it just makes something more accessible or easier to understand.

Adam:

And it just it just hit me that, like, I'm neither of us are extreme here, but I'm pro Tailwind. You're sort of not pro Tailwind. Or you just don't use Tailwind. You don't I just don't use it. Yeah.

Adam:

Bothered. Yeah. You kinda have fun with it on Twitter. But, we've never had, like, an intense argument about it. So it's interesting that, like, it seems to be more of a Twitter phenomenon, like, angry at people from a distance.

Adam:

If you're actually, like, in a room with somebody talking about Tailwind, you're probably not quite as passionate.

Dax:

The thing the thing the feeling I get whenever I get these kinds of replies is, you have nothing else. Like, people that get so worked up

Adam:

over this,

Dax:

it's like

Adam:

Oh, that's actually

Dax:

I'm being harsh because I want them to freaking stop. But it's I get these replies all the time. Right? Like, I work in dev tools. I am someone that spends all my time working in dev tools.

Dax:

I spent a ridiculous amount of time compared to the average person exploring just the random ish shit in this space because that is my job. Yeah. Despite that, whenever I talk about something, people will insert, like, their random technology that they love as though I probably have never heard of it because that is the only thing they have. They have this identity that I know about this thing that's cool, and nobody else knows about it. And I'm gonna reply to this person who literally gets paid to look at this stuff, assuming that they don't they don't really know what it is.

Dax:

So I get that with, like, the the anti tailwind people are, like, I'm good at CSS. And I I love that about myself. I hate to,

Adam:

like Yeah.

Dax:

Obsessively talk about it. The people that use tailwind that are the equal thing on others, they're like, I'm using this cool thing. It's like their future and, like, people hate it, but, like, we're, like, rebelling. You know, it's like Yeah. They wrap all this shit around it where I have other stuff I do that with.

Dax:

This I'm not gonna do it here, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fair.

Dax:

Yeah. All they have.

Adam:

That's all they have. Poor guys. Poor poor people.

Dax:

I know.

Adam:

Okay. That's an interesting note to end on. But I do I do think we should end on that note.

Dax:

Well, do you have to pee?

Adam:

I actually don't. I ran out of water. My throat's very dry, so I would like to fill it. And other other things I gotta do today, I've actually got a giant list. It's Casey and I I think of this a lot.

Adam:

For some reason, I used to play a lot of golf. In golf, there's, like, 4 days to every tournament, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I just randomly decide a day is moving day. This is what they call it on Saturday in a golf tournament. Like, it's the day you're trying to jump up the leaderboard before Sunday.

Dax:

Mhmm.

Adam:

It's like you go more aggressive, you go more big ambition, on Saturday, moving day in a golf tournament. I today is moving day. We got a lot to get done. It's been, like, a few days of kind of, like, playing it safe, getting a little bit here and there done. And today is, like, we got a giant checklist.

Adam:

And record podcast was on that checklist. So did my duty. I recorded a podcast. I came back 101. We did it.

Adam:

100 wasn't the end. Oh, the means that could have been.

Dax:

Yeah. It's like every, like, even number, we gotta, like, watch out for you.

Adam:

Yeah. We really do. 110, to be honest. Not out of the water yet. Yeah.

Adam:

A 111, I guess, would be more more exciting.

Dax:

Today is not gonna be a moving day for me. I went to bed at, like, 4 AM yesterday.

Adam:

4 AM? What are you working on something? Exciting?

Dax:

I, like, I stopped working early because this migraine thing happened, and then I, like, felt completely normal at midnight. So now I was, like, really hyped up to go work on stuff.

Adam:

Yeah. I okay. I said I said we're getting off here, but now it just reminded me of something. I just thought of you when you were talking about kind of, like, completing the multiplexer and you shipped this giant thing into SST, and I and you and all the lines of go you've written. I I've seen some of the tweets, and I just thought of, like, I know that feeling when you finish a giant project.

Adam:

It's like it's an amazing feeling, but it also kind of, like, you feel a little dead inside the next day when it's like, I'm shifting into something different today. Like, whatever day that is, maybe there's a little bit of a, like, like, a halo or like a a a minute of, like, stuff you still gotta get done, wrap up, like, little stuff. You basically shift it, but, like, you're dealing with some of the little here and there. But then the the first day where it's like, I'm actually picking up on the next thing, it's kind of a depressing thing to me. It's like I've been so in the zone in a context working on one singular thing that once it's shipped, it's kinda bittersweet.

Adam:

It's like, now I gotta I gotta work on the next thing, and there's kind of a ramp up process to get

Dax:

really into it again. And I don't know. Do you feel that? I don't think that's really how I think if if you take a little bit of the scenario you're describing, I probably would feel that way. But I actually haven't worked on anything like that.

Dax:

Like, I didn't I wasn't working on this multiplexer just working on it and getting it done. I was working on it, like, 1 or 2 days out of the week.

Adam:

Oh, interesting. Okay. So I I'm more of an obsessive. Yeah. I'm more of, like, a go dive hard on one thing, come up for air once it's done.

Adam:

I think that's my personality.

Dax:

There was a week of that with a multiplexer when I, like, when all the abstractions were failing me and I just have to, like, just go to lowest level. Yeah. There was, like, a week of that, and that was crazy. And I haven't had that in a long time. But, yeah.

Dax:

I feel like I'm always, like okay. So the thing with me is I can work many, many, many hours, but I can only work a couple hours on a single thing. So I tend to, like, do a burst on one thing, then do a burst on another thing, then do a burst on another thing. That is not I think it's a hard constraint, but that that just is, like, my habit.

Adam:

Yeah. I'm not good at the the context switches. There's just a big, loss of something for me when I

Dax:

do that. I love talking about the multiplexer on here. I don't wanna stop talking about it because

Adam:

it just sounds so made up. Just sounds like we're just like it's a gag. Like, we're just trying to see if anyone calls us out on the multiplexer that Dax is working on.

Dax:

It sounds like

Adam:

a time machine.

Dax:

I was gonna say, what is that? Like, flex capacitor, whatever that's Yeah.

Adam:

Flex capacitor. Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. Flex capacitor. Yeah. It sounds

Adam:

like that. Sounds so great.

Dax:

You know what's crazy about it? For how, like, weird it was, this is one of our, like, lowest bug launches ever. Like, I launched it, and I was, like, staring at the Ion channel, like, just waiting. Yeah. And, like, 24 hours went by, and, like, nobody reported any issues.

Adam:

No one's like this is That's crazy. Because it seems like this has been a good have a ton of little bugs. Different emulators, different yes. And then to not have a bunch of issues, that's amazing. Good job, Dax.

Adam:

First try.

Dax:

Yeah. It it is. I know it's my first whatever it was. First time ever at a first try. Whatever it is.

Dax:

But, yeah, it worked really well. And we've gotten, like, really good feedback on it. And you saw some of the crazier stuff that we're doing, like spinning up tunnels and and all that stuff. So it's funny because someone replied, to when I launched it, they were like, this is not something that I need at all. Like, I wish you would focus on other things instead of this.

Dax:

But I guess, you know, all engineers seem to, like, scratch their, like, random things. And it's so funny how inaccurate that was because for the longest time, I was like, I don't want to fucking build this thing.

Adam:

Yeah. This is not

Dax:

a case you'd want to do. I don't want to build it. I don't want to build it. I don't want to build it. And just things kept stacking up as, like, this would get solved if we do this.

Dax:

This would get solved if we do this. This bug stops even being possible. Like, we had, like, a giant list of things that it fixed, and I was, like, forced into doing it. And, obviously, once I got into it, I got into it. But Yeah.

Dax:

But not a thing you'd be looking for. Funny. Yeah. Yeah. I did not make an excuse to do this at all.

Adam:

Oh, it solved a lot of pain points for me. I mean, it's things that, like, I couldn't have articulated the right solution. But when I see it, it's like, obviously, this

Dax:

is what it should have

Adam:

been and needed to

Dax:

be. Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. The multiplexer. It's a real thing.

Dax:

It's real.

Adam:

Look it up. Is it still called Mosaic or did you just roll it into SSC dev? I haven't even seen.

Dax:

It's just SSC dev now.

Adam:

Oh, nice. When does Ion go away? When does that word gonna leave?

Dax:

We are working on a migration guide right now. We're planning on launching moving Ion to v 3 next Tuesday. I don't know if that'll happen, but

Adam:

I'm gonna

Dax:

make a note. I'm gonna open source the terminal repo. I'm making a video about it

Adam:

Oh, nice.

Dax:

Potentially this weekend.

Adam:

Yeah. Cool. Are you gonna, like, get rid of all the git history or people are gonna make fun of it

Dax:

for the rest of my career? Okay. Cool. Always. I'll always

Adam:

do that. Yeah. It's just kind of like prerequisite. Yeah. Alright.

Adam:

Now we really do gotta go.

Dax:

Okay.

Adam:

I got so many things on this list. This has been fun now.

Dax:

Alright. Enjoy. It's

Adam:

always fun. Alright. See you next.

Dax:

Yep.

Creators and Guests

Adam Elmore
Host
Adam Elmore
AWS DevTools Hero and co-founder @statmuse. Husband. Father. Brother. Sister?? Pet?!?
X Website Link
Dax Raad
Host
Dax Raad
building @SST_dev and @withbumi
X Website Link
Chris Enns
Editor
Chris Enns
I edit podcasts so you don't have to.
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BS Jobs, Redundancy in Software, Self Driving Cars, and Dax's List

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