The #1 Book for Tech Entrepreneurs! - Build by Tony Fadell

Carter Morgan (00:00)

If you've got that kind of startup bug, and especially if you're an engineer, like read this book. I really can't imagine a better book.

Hey there, welcome to Book Overflow, this podcast for software engineers by software engineers where every week we read one of the best technical books in the world in an effort to improve our craft. I'm Carter Morgan and I'm joined here as always by my cohost, Nathan Toops. How are you doing, Nathan?

Nathan Toups (00:23)

Doing great. Hey everybody.

Carter Morgan (00:25)

Make sure to like, comment, subscribe, join the discord, book time with us on Leland. All the links are in the episode description. And we're really excited for the book this week. We've had, I'm trying to remember what we've read recently. ⁓ Software architecture, the hard parts. What was before software architecture, the hard parts.

Nathan Toups (00:44)

What a world. think that was that designing data in intensive applications.

Carter Morgan (00:49)

gosh, it

was designing data intent or yes, I'm trying to. I'm on the website.

Nathan Toups (00:53)

Let me, ⁓ I'm gonna look at our,

I'm looking at our episode list, because I, know, ⁓ and we also did Project Hill Mary.

Carter Morgan (01:00)

Okay, okay, okay, so we did Project Hail Mary. ⁓ DevEx and the Age of AI. So that was, we have read. Mastering the Behavioral Interview, okay.

Nathan Toups (01:02)

Yeah. So we started the year, let's see, we, yes. Wow, we did it. We've read a lot actually. Holy moly. Yeah. we, Mastering

behavioral interviews, designing data intensive applications. ⁓ We did a couple of, ⁓ yeah. We had a couple of guests, frictionless. That's right. Then Project Hail Mary, ⁓ crafting engineering strategy, and then.

Carter Morgan (01:26)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan Toups (01:31)

And then we're here, we're just cranking through it.

Carter Morgan (01:34)

Well, so I guess what I'm getting at is we've been reading a lot of pretty technical stuff. mean, any, you know, year where you're doing software architecture, the hard parts and tech designing that intensive applications is pretty intense. And what we haven't done in a while is more, one of these more like businessy books. Like we read, ⁓

Mastering behavioral interviews, but that's more career than business. And ⁓ what we've got today is one of the more businessy books. It's a build an unorthodox guide to making things worth making by Tony Fidel. ⁓ well, we're going to do our impressions of the book, but I, I'm loving this book. This has really been fantastic. let me give you the author introduction in the book introduction, cause that'll help you understand exactly who we're talking about. What the book is. It's a Tony Fidel started his 30 plus years Silicon Valley career, general magic.

Nathan Toups (01:57)

Great.

Carter Morgan (02:23)

the most influential startup nobody has ever heard of. He then went on to make the iPod and iPhone start Nest and create the Nest Learning Thermostat. Throughout his career, Tony has authored more than 300 patents. He now leads the investment and advisory firm Build Collective, where he mentors the next generation of startups that are changing the world. The book introduction is Tony Fidel led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone, and Nest Learning Thermostat.

and learned enough in 30 plus years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure, and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia. That's what his book is, an advice encyclopedia, a mentor in a box. The book is broken up into, it's like six chapters and each chapter is a section, very easily digestible. And I mean, I think performs as advertised. ⁓ Tony Fidel is a really interesting guy who's done a lot of really interesting things.

⁓ And that's really what this book is all about. Just a lot of interesting stories and advice from his career. It's been a pleasure to read. Nathan, give me your thoughts on it.

Nathan Toups (03:25)

Yeah, the big thing is I originally, there's not that many times that we'll reread a book for the podcast, but this is one I read when it first came out in 2022. this is what, Tony's excitement is contagious. Like you read about what he's doing and you're like, I'm excited that he did all this stuff. you're just kind of like, you're like, oh man, that's cool, that's cool.

Carter Morgan (03:37)

Yeah.

Yes.

Nathan Toups (03:53)

He's very like open about all the failures that he had along the way and actually how they prepared him for the future. And it doesn't feel like a behavioral interview spin. It literally is, hey, I was at this amazing company, but we didn't know how to set timelines. And so we never shipped anything. And you're like, oh man, that is true. Like I felt that before. And then he started what he learned from that and how he learned about how to execute. And I just remember thinking, like I walked away from that book in 2022, so inspired.

Carter Morgan (04:08)

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (04:23)

I actually thought about doing some startup ideas and then ended up joining some startups partially from the advice that he had here is like, hey, go work with people that are building or doing the stuff that you want to do. But man, reading this book, I'm like, do I want to start a startup again? Like this is a yeah. So this is kind of cool. What I like about this is that there's a lot of product and product manager type folks. There's like Lenny's podcast and things.

Carter Morgan (04:40)

my gosh, I'm feeling the exact same way.

Nathan Toups (04:51)

What I loved about this is number one, this guy's a hardware engineer, ⁓ big Apple fanboy who ends up getting to work at Apple and under Steve Jobs. And he just talks about his whole experience in Silicon Valley and living your values and doing these things. And then of course, all the terrible mistakes he's made and the ways he screwed up. I he was like what? A CTO at Phillips at like 25 or something. It's like completely nuts. Like not a normal human being, right? Like he's definitely...

Carter Morgan (04:56)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Toups (05:20)

one of these like super high achievers, big visionary type people. ⁓ Obviously he made Nest Thermostat and sold that for billions of dollars. And yet this book is very down earth. Like I feel like you could just go, you know, grab a drink with this guy and talk shop and feel very comfortable, you know, pretty neat.

Carter Morgan (05:38)

Yeah, I totally agree. Like I said, I've really been loving this. In fact, this book, we're both enjoying it so much that we were chatting about it before we started recording and we're like, we just got to start recording because like we're going to use up all of our good discussion here. and, ⁓ yeah, I, you know, sometimes I think sometimes people really want to write a book and then they like, this is all the advice or my career. And then you're reading it like, I don't think your career has been that interesting. Tony does not have that problem. Very, very interesting guy.

Nathan Toups (05:49)

Right. Yeah.

Carter Morgan (06:08)

Uh, like you said, you know, starting out at general magic, going to Phillips, eventually winding up at Apple and building the iPod. Um, there's reminds me a lot of rework by Jason Fried, uh, the CEO, he's the CEO or CTO of, uh, CEO. Yeah. Yeah. Of, uh, Oh gosh. I know it's a base camp, what's the 33, 37 signals. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. And it reminds me a lot of that. Um,

Nathan Toups (06:23)

He's CEO, yeah. DHH is CTO, ⁓ yeah.

37 signals.

Carter Morgan (06:37)

I didn't tell it's very much the same. Like here are a bunch of like parables or like little subsections of advice, but it's sprinkled with stories from my career, which I'm not complaining. I actually think that's a great format for a book. love, ⁓ any sort of book like tells the story of a business. I'm a big fan. read in the Plex about Google. have read and loved the everything store, which is about Amazon. it is funny. This book isn't that old, but, ⁓

Nathan Toups (06:58)

Yeah.

Carter Morgan (07:07)

He, in the book, he's really proud of the Nest, what they call the Nest Protect. It's like their, their smoke alarm. Um, that's like their second product after the Nest Thermostat. I have a Nest Thermostat. I love the Nest Thermostat. Um, it's a fantastic product and, we don't love our smoke alarms. And so while he's talking about this, I'm like, oh, that's, that's fantastic. I don't know. Nest made a smoke alarm. Like I, I was going to buy one right that minute. And then I saw Google canceled it. And that's the other thing in this book. You pick up a bit. He has a bit of.

A bit of a bad taste in his mouth about Google. I don't know exactly how that happened.

Nathan Toups (07:41)

Yeah.

And you'll see he gets into it more in the second. So we read the first four chapters. Just there's actually six chapters in this book. And it's kind of funny. The chapters are actually like one dot one, one dot two, like versioning. So they're pretty long chapters in chapter five and six is about half the book. So the first half is the first four chapters. The second half of the book is five and six. Just because I've read ahead, you know, in the past a few years ago.

his experience of being acquired and then the promises made versus promises kept and things like this definitely left a bad taste in his mouth. You get hints of it even here where they, one of the things I love and I think I'm gonna talk about later as far as like what I'm gonna do different in my career. He talks about this idea of like heartbeats and like not doing long-term planning, which really resonated with me. And you really kind of see how that's in the DNA of Apple, right?

Carter Morgan (08:31)

Yeah.

Nathan Toups (08:38)

There's a lot of places where you can find out how does Google do stuff, how does Amazon do stuff. But I've read much fewer inside glimpses of how Apple actually does things. ⁓ We did get a glimpse of that in Radical Candor because she was also at Apple for a bit, and she talked about the culture shock of going from Google to Apple. But this one paints it in a much rosier light of this idea that,

Carter Morgan (08:48)

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Nathan Toups (09:07)

If you just do crazy stuff all the time and are constantly releasing things, like you don't have a way of having a cadence of letting people know what are new features and what's actually happening. you realize like Apple really does do this thing, which is, know, they have one big annual event and then they pepper throughout the rest of the year, sort of like more niche product, you know, smaller updates. But they do this because Apple's always thinking about how am I going to ship on this cadence?

And, you know, of course they're a hardware company too. So hardware has to just think about long-term in the future, what's available and things like that. But he makes a really good case. He brings up a lot in the book, like atoms versus electrons, right? He'll talk about like, you know, atoms are companies that build physical things, Versus electrons where, you know, we're just building software. And how it, sure. Like what you're doing, the risks that you can take, the timelines and how agile you can be about.

Carter Morgan (09:42)

Rhyme.

Nathan Toups (10:05)

shifting from one to the other is maybe slightly different. yeah, I like this book because it's kind of like old school advice. Like lot of it's very practical and simple, even though he's making this argument that like, hey, if you're trying to build disruptive technology, and he even defines like what it is versus like incremental technology, ⁓ then you got to think about the world a different way, right?

Carter Morgan (10:33)

Right.

Nathan Toups (10:33)

I love it. Again, it's one of these things where you read it and you're like, the clarity of thought here. So nice, so nice.

Carter Morgan (10:39)

But there's

also lot of talk about how human nature doesn't change and building good products. I feel that way a bit in like, AI is such a disruptive force in our industry, but sometimes I think there's a little too much talk about everything's changed. You throw out the entire playbook, I'm like, I don't know about that. I think there's still lot of fundamentals about how things are built and how humans just react and operate that

Nathan Toups (10:44)

Mm-hmm.

Carter Morgan (11:09)

still apply. so, you know, I don't know, I don't, I don't know if Tony Fidel is like, is he active in the podcast circuit? Does he have a Twitter he's on all the time or whatever? He'd be someone who's opinion. I'd be very interested about everything that's going on. We'll take a quick break and then come back and discuss ⁓ anything and everything from this book. Cause it's a fantastic book.

Okay. We are back. So part one. So that's chapters 1.1 through 1.4. It's called build yourself. It's all about early career advice and you know, how you should get your start. ⁓ I wanted to talk about this because my early career and my early life in general was just very different from what he recommended with, although I don't think his advice is bad, but his, the

His thesis here is basically like, listen, you're going to screw up, right? You're in your twenties. You're, you're a young adult. Like just by nature, you are going to screw up and, uh, you kind of got to find out who you are and what you want to do in life. And so like, this is the chance to take big swings. This is the chance to, um, you know, go out and, and, and try a bunch of things because he says, as you get older, he says, you're just going to become tied down a little more.

He says, you'll get married, you'll have kids. He says, even if you don't get married and have kids, you'll have a reputation, right? And just, you in your 20s, you're kind of just a blank slate. In general, I agree with this, but it's very different from what I did in my 20s. I was a, I got married, you and I are similar in this way, right, Nathan? Didn't you get married somewhat young? Yeah. Okay, so we're the same. I got married at 21 too.

Nathan Toups (12:42)

Yeah, I got married at 21. I was really young.

Carter Morgan (12:47)

But I think where we diverge a bit is then I was a dad at 22. ⁓ Yes. 32, okay, yeah. And I just like to point out for everyone, it's not a shotgun wedding. The baby was planned. We were just very eager. And so ⁓ the baby was born, I think a year and a half after the wedding about. Anyhow. ⁓

Nathan Toups (12:52)

I was not, yeah, was a dad at 32, so.

I was gonna stop listening to the podcast if that wasn't true.

Carter Morgan (13:16)

And so my early 20s and and I also was not incredibly ambitious. I become much more ambitious I think I was always maybe a little ambitious, but I wasn't that hard working. It made my problem and so Right Yeah

Nathan Toups (13:28)

Yeah, same. It was funny. I was like,

I was, I mean, it's the classic memes. Like I was in the gifted and talented program when I was growing up and I was like smart enough to be, I was intelligent enough to be a slacker. And so like, was just like, oh, well, I mean, I don't really have to study. Like high school's not that hard. So I'll go skateboard and listen to punk rock and just go like, you know, very like middle-class suburbia, right? I'm not trying to say, I wasn't like a hardened.

Carter Morgan (13:37)

Right, right.

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (13:57)

person on the streets or something, you know. But yeah, it's funny because my wife ⁓ was valedictorian of her class and I get to college, woefully, okay, yeah, I was woefully unprepared and she's like, you have to put in effort. You actually have to like work. And I was like, ⁓ yeah, I guess you're right. And so I did, I feel lucky in that like I've,

Carter Morgan (14:08)

I was mine. I think she was like number two or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Nathan Toups (14:24)

follow the things that were interesting to me, there's always this overlap between creativity and software type stuff. But it took me a while to give myself permission to really get deeply technical. I knew I had the affinity for it. Any time I would tackle something, I'd be like, oh yeah, I isn't... I could pick up technical topics really quickly. But I was like, oh no, I'm a skateboarder. I play in a band. I learned how to build websites for my band because we didn't have any money. But I was just like...

Carter Morgan (14:35)

Yes.

Right.

Nathan Toups (14:53)

didn't think

about how weird that was that like an 18 year old in the early 2000s was just like buying a book on web programming and teaching myself along the way. like, it took me a long time. It was like a lack of self-awareness, I guess. And so it's, it's interesting because this guy was like Bill, Tony Fadal's building like businesses while he's in school. He's like making, uh, you know, he was like, Oh, Apple's co-processors.

Carter Morgan (14:58)

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Nathan Toups (15:18)

suck and I'm going to build this better processor for the, I think it was like the Apple II or the Macintosh or something. And I was like, wow, that's not my experience, right?

Carter Morgan (15:19)

Yeah.

That's not what I did.

yeah, but it's, it's also nice that like, there's very much like a striver culture in Silicon Valley. And it's a little like, if you did not get a 36 on the ACT and go to Harvard and or accepted a white combinator in your twenties, like, what are you doing with your life? Right. And so this, this man is obviously very, very talented and has been programming and working hard for awhile.

but he doesn't follow, I think he went to the University of Michigan, right? right, like I have since my 20s have become more ambitious, or again, I think I always had like delusions of grandeur, and I still suffer from the same delusions of grandeur, but I am working harder to make those delusions hopefully a reality one day. And I think in my 20s, I was a little more like,

Nathan Toups (15:59)

Yeah, yeah.

Carter Morgan (16:24)

I kind of wanted things to be handed to me. ⁓ I don't regret my twenties at all because I worked at some high paying companies. ⁓ I really enjoy having established myself. Like I have four, soon to be five kids. My wife had been married for 10 years. And I worry about another version of me that was more ambitious younger and maybe put off a lot of those things. Cause just personally, I do enjoy that

Nathan Toups (16:27)

Mmm.

Carter Morgan (16:54)

when I think about, like my family comes first and then the career comes second, which everyone will eventually fall into that pattern. And I don't mind having fallen into it sooner. It does limit you. Like I was telling my wife, I'm like, I think if we didn't have any kids, I'd be a little more interested in like, just going out to Silicon Valley right now. Just like trying to build something, you know, just like do the whole live in a ⁓ one bedroom condo and you know, just a.

Build, build, build. But I can't do that, right?

Nathan Toups (17:24)

That's fascinating.

Silicon Valley actually never attracted me. Yeah, so I always had an appreciation. I always kept track of those folks. I guess my experience was a little different. I graduated with a theater degree just kind of like, it was for some funny reasons. I actually started as a physics major and was a terrible student and like almost got...

Carter Morgan (17:29)

really?

Nathan Toups (17:50)

I almost lost my scholarships because in Louisiana they have like really nice sort of state scholarships. And so I switched to theater because I was like, I know I can make A's. I know I can make A's in this. ⁓ And also there's a weird one in my family history. Like my dad has a theater degree with a minor in mathematics for a very similar reason. He like didn't do well. And then he like went to officer training school and now he's a doctor. He's like, you know, so I guess the rite of passage in my household.

Carter Morgan (17:53)

wow.

size.

Right, right.

Right, right.

Ha ha.

Nathan Toups (18:21)

But yeah, I was able to make all these for the rest of college, I unintentionally learned a lot of really interesting things like doing primary source research and how to work collaboratively with a lot of like strange and interesting people. Turns out that that worked out really well for startups. And I ended up having a bunch of weird odd jobs. Like I, out of college, I worked as a copier salesman. And then I was working in like AV. These were like not, you

Carter Morgan (18:46)

Bye bye.

Nathan Toups (18:50)

My wife had gone straight into working at a CPA firm and I'm like, you know, wearing a uniform and driving a van and stuff. ⁓ But again, I learned a lot about human nature. And what's funny was, like, and I'm not joking here, I read the four hour work week. I was working at like a computer repair shop and I read the four hour work week and I took this guy to lunch and who was running an Apple consulting business in town because I wanted to get out of like cheap computer break fix and do something that was like nicer. saw this guy.

like he had his stuff together. I was gonna start my own business and he actually offered to hire me and I under him. So was almost like an apprenticeship under somebody that I really respected. And then when we decided to move to Austin, Texas, I started my own business and I did that in my 20s, right? If I had had a child, I would have been, because I didn't have, my wife got a job at a CPA firm in Austin, so we were in an okay position, but it took me, I don't know, six to seven months to get that thing off the ground.

Carter Morgan (19:28)

Nice. Nice.

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (19:49)

And I made a lot of mistakes. my wife is sometimes she'd like, come home and like, what did you do to him? Like, I got the the main part of the website up and she's like, okay, but when are you going to get clients like, you know? And so like, I kind of was in this middle ground, like I wasn't doing anything revolutionary, ⁓ but I got autonomy and I got to think about like, what real problem am I solving? And like, because, you know, if you start your own business, you have to solve real problems for people or they stop paying you.

Carter Morgan (20:00)

Yeah.

Nathan Toups (20:18)

Like it's not, it's, it's, you're the easiest thing to remove from the equation. And they're like, is this consulting consultant providing value? And if not, you just cut ties. You're, typically on some side of a contract that is easy to sever. You're not worried about, Oh, this person's livelihoods at stake and these other things. And so, um, and I got to solve interesting problems. I got really lucky because, and again, this is where the Tony Fidel stuff ties in. I got lucky because I was very forward about.

putting me on solving weird and interesting problems that hadn't been solved yet with new technology. So a lot of times I was doing these early prototype implementation stuff. I started my business in 2010 and cloud computing was just becoming a thing. And so in 2012, I pivoted out of doing small business consulting into doing cloud computing. It turns out that that was a really smart idea. I read the infrastructure's code paper from Chef.

Carter Morgan (21:10)

That's right, Rhyme.

Nathan Toups (21:14)

I read a few of the other things and I was like, okay, I need to learn how to like seriously learn how to program, not just shell scripting and stuff. ⁓ I learned how to like bump elbows and talk to folks at VCs and do all these other things. And again, if I hadn't been able to take that six months to figure out what my business even was, if I hadn't been able to kind of sweet, you know, I always could have. Tilt between the legs after six months, couldn't get any clients.

go just work a traditional job again, right? I could have done that. But it opened up so many doors for me. And again, this is where, like, I'm not putting myself on the Tony Fidel equivalency here, but I am saying his advice is really good, which is just like, hey, get out of your own head, go work with interesting people, go solve weird problems. I think he, one of the things he said when he talks about getting a job, he says that you should look for revolutions and not,

Carter Morgan (21:54)

Hahaha.

Nathan Toups (22:12)

just a better mousetrap, right? Like you should look for somebody who's like super smart. that he also really, he's like, don't go work at a consultancy. Like don't go work at McKenzie. That's really alluring. And I love that he gives us advice because I think Seth Godin also gives us advice, like don't go work at a consultancy. And then there's a very famous Steve Jobs talk, if you look it up on YouTube, where he's talking to, I think it's like Stanford or Harvard or some group.

Carter Morgan (22:14)

Right.

Nathan Toups (22:42)

some class and he's like, who's planning to go work at consultancy? And he's like, ⁓ that's no good because like you're never going to learn how to solve deep problems. never you're never going to build something and then own it two years later when it was a bad idea or how to fix it. Like you. And I don't.

Carter Morgan (22:49)

Right.

Right, right.

Consultancies are

so funny because it's like, it's not sexy to like go work at like a Midwest plumbing supplies company, right? But it is sexy to go work at a consultancy, which then dispatches you to go work at a Midwest plumbing supplies company, right? It's almost like a scheme to launder high talent, right? Like high talent individuals to these other places.

Nathan Toups (23:16)

Right, right.

Carter Morgan (23:25)

Yeah, I thought that was really, and he says, he's like, Hey, if you do go work at a consultancy, he's like, you know, it is what it is. He's like, but you got to know what you're getting out of it. Right. And, and I think that is. I appreciate that perspective because I think maybe that's where I not went wrong in my earlier career, but I think my, expectations were misaligned, right? I kind of thought like, Hey, if I joined these really big companies that pay really well, like

then obviously that's a great thing for my career. But then I think it, and I think one, plenty of people have great careers doing that, but knowing myself and knowing that I kind of have larger ambitions than just like getting a W-2 job, right? I think I was under investing, like I was underrating the importance of people. And he talks about that too, about like how you should go work with like superstars. You should work with the best, smartest people you can possibly find. ⁓

Nathan Toups (24:24)

Great.

Carter Morgan (24:25)

And I think, know, what I kind of across my stint at big companies, just I'm like, you know, I don't really have a ton of coworkers where I'm like, man, we really forged a great bond there, didn't we? Like, you know, we're all very ⁓ pleasant, but they're coworkers. ⁓ And I don't know, like I just. ⁓

Yeah, I think that there, if you are ambitious, right. And if you do want to build something, there's a lot of value in saying like, again, I just think about what Dan Heath told us all the time on our pod, you know, when he, when he interviewed us, which is like, got to trust that flywheel of like, you know, he's, he said about, he's like, meet people, mostly MBAs who are constantly preparing to interview for a panel that doesn't exist. And they keep going to a job, which is like, this will really bump up.

this part of my resume, but I was like, why does it matter? He's like, just work on what sounds the most fun and trust that you'll work the hardest if it's the most fun and that hard work will be recognized and you know, and then that will lead to other opportunities which also sound fun. you know, again, do I regret any part of my early career? No, because I have a very nice big home in Utah that provide and I have enough money to provide for my four children and.

Nathan Toups (25:24)

Right.

Carter Morgan (25:47)

Um, that kind of those companies on my resume really do help whenever I'm considering other jobs or other opportunities. But when I think about like, okay, where do I want to be in life? Cause I would love to have my own startup one day, right? I'm just like, was there a clear path between working at those companies to what I ultimately want out of life? And the answer is no, there wasn't. And I think it's why I did not work as hard as I should have had those companies because I just didn't care.

Right. And I know some people are just very much like, Hey, an honest stays work for an honest days pay. And I'm just going to work, work, work, work, work. And I think that's great. I wish I were those people, but I've learned about myself. Like I have to care and I will care if I see that path between how does working hard here help me get to where I want, where I want to be in life. I didn't see the path at some of those earlier jobs. ⁓ I do see that path now. And it's led to me. It's just, it's not hard to work hard anymore, which,

Nathan Toups (26:27)

All

Yeah.

Carter Morgan (26:46)

It is great. I think Tony Fidell will be proud of me.

Nathan Toups (26:49)

Yeah, no, and this is the other, I love that he has this whole chapter on heroes and it's funny because like I look at this and I go, you know what? This is an undertapped resource, which I'll tell you several times in my career, I've just randomly reached out to folks that I deeply appreciate it. I remember years ago, I reached out to, ⁓ shoot, what's his name? I think it's Jason Donnell, Jason Donnell.

Oh, no, is it Don Feld? Ah, shoot. I'm going to get roasted in the comments. It's OK. Creator. I just reached out and it was just like, yeah, Jason, Jason Dunfeld. And I just reached out to him just talking about how I liked aspects of the design of Water Garden. I thought it was really cool. And he wrote me this wonderful email back. I think he was living in like France or something at the time. And I was living in Costa Rica. It was just like years ago.

the first time I in Costa Rica. And he just like mailed me a bunch of wire guard stickers and some other like cool stuff. And there's just been a few times where I've like touched base with folks where it was, I think it's actually much lonelier in those places than you realize that like some note of appreciation. I think he said, you can always offer something if you're curious enough, meaning you can always offer something to your heroes.

Carter Morgan (28:13)

Yeah.

Nathan Toups (28:20)

if you're curious enough. And he has this like Bill Gurley quote that's like, can't make yourself the smartest. You can make yourself, you can't always make yourself the smartest, but you can always make yourself the most knowledgeable. ⁓ And that persistence, ⁓ plus you can have persistence plus something to trade. I you know, like if you put a bunch of energy and say like, hey, this person has this new pattern or this new technology that they're involved in. I think this is the right way at looking at the world. I'm going to become deeply knowledgeable.

Carter Morgan (28:33)

Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Toups (28:50)

I'm going to ask questions or offer improvements or do these things. If you see somebody who's like doing something in the world, latching one to those people, it's a really small community of folks who actually like maybe see a glimpse of the future that everyone else hasn't realized is there yet. ⁓ And pushing yourself to not be cynical and pushing yourself to kind of embrace those things. You know, we're only on this world for only so many years and

Worst case scenario, they ignore you. Worst case scenario, they're like, super weird dude just reached out to me about whatever. But most likely they're going to be encouraging or they're going to point you in the right direction or show you how you can contribute. And who knows? Maybe they have a company. Maybe you can go work for them. Maybe you can, ⁓ especially if you're in your 20s and you're willing to do it. think that's how he got into, what was the name of the company? ⁓ General Magic.

Carter Morgan (29:23)

Right.

Yeah.

General magic.

Nathan Toups (29:49)

He was a freak, right? Like he was just like reaching out to the HR every day and he had, ⁓ you know, really tried to position himself in a way for him to just get his foot in the door. And it worked, right? He got to work with a bunch of really inspiring people.

Carter Morgan (30:04)

We should talk a bit about General Magic. General Magic was a startup in Silicon Valley, ⁓ their whole idea was they were going to make, this is in the nineties, of like basically the precursor to the smartphone. They're going to make smart devices, right? You know, some sort of pocket computer. ⁓ But the startup was basically just filled with absolutely brilliant geniuses and not a single person who had a business plan or business model, right? And they,

Nathan Toups (30:31)

All right.

Carter Morgan (30:35)

claimed they wanted to make technology for Joe Sixpack, right? Just your average American Joe. But then they were just, it was very, very engineer brain, Of just like, isn't it so cool that we invented a new transport protocol, right? And it's just like, no one cares. Exactly, right?

Nathan Toups (30:39)

Right.

Right. A precursor to USB. They actually developed all these

crazy technologies. The internet wasn't ready. Hardware wasn't ready. The general populace didn't even know. Most people weren't even using the internet at this point. So this idea that you'd have a communication device in your pocket for the average Geo six pack is just absurd. Right.

Carter Morgan (31:06)

Rhyme.

Yeah, yeah. He says where they really missed the boat is they should have been focusing on business power users and they should have been designing one thing really well. And that's where like Palm Pilot kind of took off. Cause it's like, you can save your contacts. can write notes. You can send an email, right? Like that's really all you need to do back then.

Nathan Toups (31:28)

Yeah. Well,

I think originally the pump, a lot of folks who picked up a Palm pilot, it was to replace the Rolodex, right? Because you have to think about it. They literally had a physical Rolodex and it was huge. It was a huge deal. And then all of a sudden I could like have a digital one. And then it just so turned out that if you have a digital Rolodex and the Internet starting to develop, I can write an email, I can make a phone call instantaneously, right?

Carter Morgan (31:37)

Exactly. Yeah.

Nathan Toups (31:54)

I can put a reminder to do a thing, right? All the stuff that you start, the productivity tools you build on top of it. But you had to get your foot in the door with replacing something that people understood, which was Rolodexes, right? ⁓ And this is the part that I think is really interesting. And I think it's an area that you can hone if you're savvy, which is this sort of relentless dedication to understanding who your customer is.

Carter Morgan (32:23)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan Toups (32:23)

And this

kind of goes through all the chapters of these books. I mean, I think even in, I think it's either end of chapter three or chapter four, they talk about like who your loyalty is, right? If you're a B2B2C, you still have like a B2B2C meaning business to business and then business to consumer business, which is a lot of times marketplaces, know, marketplace stuff like Leland, right? Like you have to think,

Carter Morgan (32:42)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Toups (32:51)

Who is our prime? Is it the person receiving the mentoring or is it the mentors? Who is our customer? Right. One of those, both of those have to be there for the marketplace. But one of those is who you focus on. You can't focus on everything. If you focus on everything, you're going to screw up. Right. And he makes this really compelling case to that. ⁓ That I thought was like, you can weasel your way in, but yeah, but you you have to understand everything. Otherwise it won't work. And I think they've shown time and time again.

Carter Morgan (32:55)

Right, right.

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (33:21)

if you split your loyalties, it inevitably ends up becoming anti-consumer, right?

Carter Morgan (33:26)

Well, and he has this great chapter. he says called, he says, don't only look down, right? Which is this idea that like, as an individual contributor, you've got your thing that you're focusing on. And that's the right move, right? ⁓ but early career, but occasionally you do need to look up and you need to look at the other parts of the business. And he says, at general magic, he kind of realized that because he's just very, very focused on building out his part of the system. But then he started to look up.

Nathan Toups (33:33)

yeah.

Early career for sure, yeah.

Carter Morgan (33:55)

And he started to look at like marketing and sales. And that's when he started to realize like, wait a minute, we don't have a plan. Like what, you know, uh, and, he talks about, in later chapters, this idea of, heartbeats. What is it, Nathan? It's heartbeats and handcuffs, right? Um, heartbeats, this idea that like, you should have deadlines and basically moments you're committing yourself to, he talks about an Apple, like Mac world being the big one, right? Like.

Nathan Toups (34:13)

Yes, heartbeats and handcuffs.

Carter Morgan (34:25)

They need to something to announce every year. And then you have these smaller internal deadlines because that's going to force you to commit to something and to ship something. And in particular, says to ship something that's not as good as you'd like it to be. It's like the version of every product is not going to be. like if you're shipping the first version of your product and you don't already have a laundry list of everything you'd like to do in version two, then you ship too late. ⁓ It says General Magic just had no heartbeats, no handcuffs. There was no deadlines, right?

Nathan Toups (34:38)

Right.

Carter Morgan (34:54)

And they were just constantly pushing back and constantly delaying and saying to investors like, it's not ready yet. not ready yet. It says they would have been better off just committing and saying like, we will ship something by this date and then shipping it. I am a big believer in this. am a big believer in that. If you have to cut, you have to compromise in one of two areas, which is either you've got ⁓ to push the deadline back or you've got to cut scope. And I'm a big believer like scope is what squishes, right?

We pick a date and we ship by that date. And I find this to be a very useful exercise, especially at like a startup, because it's like, I don't know, I just think it's totally fine to say like this feature is non-critical. We're not going to include it because what's actually critical is shipping by this date. ⁓ And I think it forces you to prioritize. ⁓ And I think it's so funny that General Magic just did not do this. And I'm just like,

Is this new knowledge? Did we discover this in the past 25 years?

Nathan Toups (35:55)

You know,

you know, it's funny too, because I think that it's it's sort of like. You have to have this discipline to execute, and I think that's the big cautionary tale here is you can't just throw a bunch of really smart people at a problem and then magical things come out the other side. You really do have to have this cadence of discipline. One of the things that was kind of cool, I did not realize. So he he was at Phillips in Phillips, this huge, I think 300 plus thousand people.

company, there's a lot of like fiefdoms and infighting and you had to claw and scrape to get your project attention before it got axed, right? There's like all these, I think he called them like the antibodies or something inside of the corporate entity that would just like try to axe projects. And when he got to, he left Phillips and went to Apple to work on the iPod and he set this incredibly aggressive deadline of like seven months for the first iPod.

where Steve Jobs had actually set one for like 16, 12 to 16 months. And it was just because Tony was from that world where if he didn't just get it done, it wasn't gonna get done. And I think it seemed like it was pretty shocking. Even internally at Apple, there people trying to pull them off the project and didn't really understand the value of what a music device was gonna be doing and all these other things. And so I think that this sort of internal...

time pressures and time constraints, it's a really nice forcing function to other teams. And I think that's an area that I've like under appreciated is that if you set your internal deadlines and you have dependencies on other teams, it kind of constrains that most people aren't gonna push back. If you say, have to have this done in three weeks, these are the two things I'm waiting on from your team. Very few places are gonna actually be like, no, you can't do that. Or they don't understand the inner inner workings of it.

even if it is an internal cadence that you have on your side. And so yeah, I thought this was really interesting. it also gives you this really clear idea of identifying where the slack is, right? Are there people in your team that just can't predict how long something's going to take or can't commit to shipping something, right? If you don't have heartbeats ⁓ in handcuffs, and I guess talking about handcuffs, right?

Carter Morgan (38:08)

Drive.

Nathan Toups (38:17)

Handcuffs are sort of like the external things like a season upon which you need something done. Macworld used to be a handcuff for Apple and it used to be important. it's funny, I actually, think I went to the last Macworld ⁓ event that Apple was a member of ⁓ because I was working at that Apple consultancy in Austin. I'm sorry, in Baton Rouge at the time. And then yeah, Apple took control of their timeline. They created their own handcuffs, right?

Carter Morgan (38:22)

Right, right.

Yeah. speaking of Apple, this might be a good time to pivot to, ⁓ cause, cause he worked under Steve Jobs. That's the other thing. he does general magic. Then he kind of goes to Phillips for a bit. with the idea that basically is like, okay, we'll actually launch the device here. And he actually even wanted to like use general magic's operating system, like, because he trusted the guys there and he liked them and eventually, but they, kind of did the same song and dance. So like, okay, it's not ready. It's not ready yet. It's not ready until some finally told him.

told him, it's like, it's just, it's not going to be ready. Right. So he has to settle to use a windows operating system, which he didn't like, but he gets a lot of experience working on and building consumer hardware, tries to start his own company. And it's just, this is after the.com crash. so like, there's just, he says he did like 90 VC pitches and like none of them went anywhere. And so he's trying to do something, anything to like.

keep his small team funded. So finally, he connects to someone at Apple. And because he has all of this work ⁓ building consumer hardware, ⁓ he gets some consulting work at Apple. And he's like, okay, fantastic. I can try to keep the lights on, pay my employees with this. ⁓ But then eventually just, this is when Apple is really thinking about the iPod. Because ⁓ back at this time, this is like, so what, 2002-ish?

Apple is doing better after the return of Steve Jobs with a company. They're still not, they're worth 4 billion, right? Which like, I gladly have a company that's worth $4 billion, right? But considering the like 4 trillion behemoth it is today, right? It's obviously a very different company. And so they're trying to think about, okay, well, what other devices could we build that would really, you know, buoy the company? They start looking at MP3 players and that's what he comes on to contract about. And then.

I don't remember exactly how this happens, but they basically say, like, do you just want to come build the iPod with us? And so he winds up bringing his whole team from his startup and they just get absorbed into Apple. and it's really, really interesting with the iPod because, he has this whole chapter on a holes, he doesn't call them a holes, but you get the idea. ⁓ and he talks about Steve jobs a lot in this chapter. ⁓ cause Steve jobs is kind of a notorious a hole. calls them a mission driven a hole.

⁓ and he also talks about this idea in later chapters of like, sometimes you gotta have data driven decisions. Sometimes you have to have like, ⁓ just gut driven decisions. It says the initial iPod was a gut driven decision by Steve jobs, where he thought let's make a great MP3 player and people will love it so much that they will buy our max. The iPod, the whole idea. Exactly. Yeah.

Nathan Toups (41:19)

Mm-hmm.

And that was his goal. Additionally, like he I don't think anybody

realized that this was going to completely change how people listen to music. He just thought it was going to drive more sales.

Carter Morgan (41:37)

Yeah. He thought,

yeah, it'll drive more sales of Macs. They'll love the iPod, then they'll do it. so Steve, they'll buy the Mac. And so Steve Jobs was adamant that iPod could not work on windows, right? But then when they released it into the wild, that's when the data starts coming back. And they were able to convince Steve Jobs and basically say like, listen, it's people like the hardware, but they're not, it's already $400 for the iPod. And then

If you need to spend another $1,300 on a Mac, like no one's going to drop $1,700 to improve the way they listen to music. So then they release it on windows. That's when it explodes in popularity and then actually drives Mac sales because you can get in with the iPod and he said, wow, I actually really liked this Apple hardware. And it makes you more curious about their other offerings. so it talks about Steve Jobs here saying basically like he did ultimately change his mind, right? Um, but he could be a guy who's

Mine was hard to change. Steve Jobs is kind of the a-hole. He talks about other kinds of a-holes, some who are a little more Machiavellian. ⁓ I don't know. mean, this is some kind of an archetype that's popular in Silicon Valley. It's OK to be an a-hole as long as you're the right kind of a-hole. ⁓ I don't know. What are your thoughts on all this, Nathan?

Nathan Toups (42:52)

I, you know, it's funny, it's only been four years, but I still don't, it kind of laid flat for me and I think it just hasn't aged well. I understand that this kind of came with the genius of Steve Jobs, but I read the Steve Jobs biography years ago and it just made me sad because he had like no relationship with his children or very, very, you know, I would say one that leaves a lot to be desired. And to me that that's a sort of deal with the devil that I'm not.

willing to cross that boundary. if it's the people around me ⁓ that are more important to me than like, know, achievements. ⁓ And so I get where he's coming from and I understand that part of why Steve Jobs was the way he was is because he just didn't accept people's answers unless he understood it. And if he understood it and the product made sense to him.

that that was his sort of intuition, this like deeply intuitive kind of person. And it just so happened that building devices that Steve Jobs absolutely loved resonated with a very large percentage of the world, right? I think, I think again, I'm bringing up Seth Godin again. Seth Godin has a really good article talking about how Apple had one customer. Like Steve Jobs, all devices when he was alive were sort of at

of Steve Jobs, right? He loved the Ivo and he loved the constraints that were there. He loved that he got to like do these presentations. He like, these are things that he looked forward to. And it just so happened that his reality distortion field was so strong and that his intuition was so correct and he could push the hardware and the surprise and delight things that he changed the world, right? Most people aren't making those types of decisions and... ⁓

You could see the the reason why he appreciates this, because Tony Fidel builds Nest. And really what you're seeing here is that Tony Fidel had left Apple, kind of figuring out what to do with his life afterwards. Like, what does he want to do next? And as they're traveling, thermostats are driving him crazier and crazier. Right. And Nest is really a problem, solving a problem for Tony. And he's like, I hate this. This sucks. This is the worst.

If I could just access it from my phone and it could learn the right wind times to turn the temperature down before I get home and do all these other things, this is the thermos that I want. I think other people would want that. And that is very Steve Jobsian way of problem solving. And I think you have to have this relentless focus on this one problem like this to do this of product development.

I guess.

Carter Morgan (45:49)

Yeah, it's a, one thing I really liked about this, and Nathan and I were, we were chatting about this a bit before the episode started, which is, he talks about like, okay, how should you decide to do your own startup, right? ⁓ And he had a framing, which I thought was really helpful, which he says like, the best startups are pain killers, not vitamins. He's like, vitamins are good for you. Vitamins are helpful. Pain killers are necessary. They alleviate pain. ⁓

And he said, like with the Nest Thermostat, he's like, he had been thinking about the idea of building the Nest Thermostat for 10 years, because he talks about having like this cabin up in, I think, Tahoe or whatever. like, they would go up in vacation, like in the winter, but then they'd spend the first night sleeping in their parkas, because they kept the thermostat at just 37 degrees while they were gone to avoid wasting energy. He's like, I was thinking about a way to warm up this house before we get there, right? ⁓

says, 10 years is a long time to think about a startup before starting a business. But basically, any idea you have, you should keep coming back to it. He says, it's kind of rare to just have this lightning strike of an idea. Like, my gosh, I have to build this right now. He's like, you should kind of put it down and then pick it back up again. ⁓ And I thought that was really, really interesting. ⁓ And it's something I think about with a startup. Some people just have that startup dog in them.

And like, they don't care what it is. They just want to be at a startup. They want to be building things. The idea is kind of agnostic. I'm learning about myself. That's not the case. I don't have to care incredibly passionately about what I'm building in the sense like, you know, I work for Leland. It is an online coaching marketplace. This is not what I dreamt of doing when I was a kid, but I do find the product genuinely useful. I find it interesting.

And just, I'm learning to tell myself, I like kind of consumer facing stuff. And so I really like that. ⁓ Is it the thing I would have chosen to build if I was the guy in charge? Probably not, but it's kind of in that realm. ⁓ And I just, yeah, like, sometimes I just feel a little bit like, my gosh, I should just like, for example, Y Combinator released their startup request list basically for the year. Basically like these are all the things we'd like people to build.

and I'm reading through it and I'm just like, am I an idiot? Am I an idiot for just not trying to build this right now and going and applying to white combinator? I'm just like, you gotta care. You gotta be passionate about what you're building. And that's what he says here. He's like, this idea has to kind of keep nagging at you. And you have to keep coming back to it and saying like, someone should build this. Maybe I should build this. This is a problem I have. ⁓ I don't know. I thought that was helpful because I think sometimes there's just a little too much focus on like,

Nathan Toups (48:26)

Mm-hmm.

Carter Morgan (48:44)

If you're not building something right now, you're an idiot. Like good luck being part of the permanent underclass. And we've discussed that on the podcast. I hate that framing, you know, very mean spirited. ⁓ But yeah, it's nice hearing the perspective from someone who has obviously been very successful and, and also had to kind of a few failed startups under his belt. haven't talked about that as much, but you know, he does have a few startups in his youth, which just don't work out. ⁓ And

Nathan Toups (48:51)

Right.

Carter Morgan (49:12)

So it's cool the one he hit it big with happened, one, with an idea he had really been mulling over for quite a long time, and two, after he had gained a lot of experience in the real world and then finally had the expertise to make something very successful.

Nathan Toups (49:26)

Yeah, it's.

It's fascinating.

Working on, I think it's really easy for us to get, especially in software, to get into what you call the golden handcuffs. ⁓ And I don't think that either one of us are in that at this moment, but there's periods of our time where, especially during the COVID flurry of opportunities, where you could just get more titles, more compensation, and you'd kind of just talk to yourself and be like, I mean, this

generally interesting and I'll just kind of do it or whatever. And then figuring out where the passion is or what's inspiring to you, ⁓ what to occupy your time with. If you're not doing that at your company, I highly recommend that you at least try to figure this out in your spare time. Obviously we have to pay bills. Obviously there are really great problems that are pretty cool. ⁓

that you're being a good value to, you're a good contribution. But I do think that long term, especially if you're interested in building a product or doing something exceptional, it has to be kind of a borderline obsession. At least that's what his argument is. And I...

I'm trying to think, I don't think I've been able to have an opportunity to get there. I haven't gotten to something where I'm like, this is my life's work. This is my life's work. I'm so lucky that I'm actually making a living at this. ⁓ I think that in an interesting way, book overflow scratches a part of that itch. I think that there's something that we could, I could see a world in the future in which

Carter Morgan (51:13)

right.

Nathan Toups (51:19)

the ecosystem, the community that we've built has some sort of like, I mean, I love continued education. I love seeing people thrive and ⁓ grow in their careers, especially folks who have unconventional backgrounds, right? Like those are, if we're gonna talk about vision and mission, I'm excited about that. Like I want the people that went to the state schools in the Midwest to run circles around the Ivy League folks, right? I would love to see that.

⁓ just because like, and again, it's not a, not, it's not a knock at the Ivy league folks, Ivy league folks, you're pretty well set up, right? Like you've, you've already kind of like achieved certain things very early in life. And I w I hope the best for you. I also have like, I've worked with folks from, from different walks of life, Ivy league as well, folks from McKinsey, all these other things. And, ⁓ had an incredibly fulfilling, you know, inspiration field, ⁓ sort of stuff.

But like, yeah, this book is very inspiring to say, no, spend more time thinking about this, right? What is a product that would make you get up in the morning or that if you could figure out how to solve it, ⁓ you'd just be like, man, I got to build this thing. I got to work with these people. I got to do this stuff. It's worth the time investment. guess that's really kind of, and again, the other thing I love, and I'm gonna kind of go riff on this a little bit.

Carter Morgan (52:27)

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (52:48)

He starts ⁓ Nest at age 40. And he actually like, he brings up a really good point, which is that, you know, there's this mythology that there's like the super genius 20 something drops out of college and then goes and becomes a success. But if you actually look at the data, ⁓ the investors love these sort of like mid-career folks who've had some failures and some learnings in the past. ⁓ He was in an amazing spot to start Nest.

because obviously he had some, you help invent the iPod and you pretty much can get a check written for another smart hardware device. But it wasn't that he was like washed up in an old man at 40, right? Where Silicon Valley would not invest in him. And so again, as someone who's 42, it's kind of cool to be like, hey, this sort of like weird wandering of career, all these weird things that I've seen, I still have like a viable way of looking at the world.

Carter Morgan (53:24)

Ryrem.

Nathan Toups (53:46)

Can I find a painkiller? Can I find something that drives me nuts? And if I could just double down and spend time on it, solve a problem for other people, could I turn this into something that ⁓ I get rewarded for, right? By the marketplace. And that's really what this book is. It's like, what do you want to build? Who do you want to build it with? How are you going to go about this? How are you going to be a success? How do you measure these things? ⁓ yeah, this again, I come away from this and I'm like,

Carter Morgan (54:04)

Right.

Nathan Toups (54:13)

This subject matter seems like it would be pretty dry, but the way this book's written, you're like, I'm like, I mean, I got this cheerleader just like, you know, revving me up.

Carter Morgan (54:20)

Yeah,

I think about that. I'm like, yeah, I

You almost worry like, and it sounds so silly to think about, cause like, know it's famous, like I think like the head of the patent office in like 1890 or whatever is like, we might shut the patent office down. Cause everything that could be invented has been invented, right? And like, but you know, kind of in like a digital landscape, you do look around, you're just like, wow, yeah, a lot of this, like it's, hard for me to imagine like, what could I invent? That would be.

Nathan Toups (54:42)

Right. Right.

Carter Morgan (54:56)

Huge or would really solve this need ⁓ and then it's also like trying to find an idea that a million people aren't doing already but it's a little like Something that's good. Sometimes it's good if you have an idea and you look and someone's already trying to do it like it means that Like if you're the only person in the world with this idea Maybe you're just a genius and you've just seen something that absolutely no one else saw coming more likely There's something about the idea that you're not seeing that, you know

Nathan Toups (55:24)

Right.

Carter Morgan (55:26)

It's gonna make it not work.

Nathan Toups (55:26)

Well, look at Nest, right? mean, he really brings up, he said one of the reasons that they got funding was that they actually had this really detailed annotated list of all the risks that were involved. You know, it's very easy when you're sort of on it be like, I have no risk. Like, you this is just the most genius idea ever. And he's like, hey, ⁓ there's this buddy buddy crony based system between HVAC installers and Honeywell.

Carter Morgan (55:29)

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Toups (55:53)

There is the fact that direct to consumer thermostats is basically non-existent. Will people spend a premium on a well-designed thermostat? There's all these things that are there that honestly they were so obsessed with the customer experience. And I remember I got the Nest thermostat and they spent a moment in the book talking about this really nice screwdriver that was in the box. I remember unboxing this and being like,

Carter Morgan (56:17)

yeah, yeah.

Nathan Toups (56:21)

this is a really nice screwdriver. remember like, and there's like a little guide card and I remember like, I had never done a track. I'm a relatively intelligent person. And I remember taking the thing off and like looking at the wiring guard. I think it was 10 minutes tops that I was able to like install it, put the plate on place and get it up and running. And I was shocked at how like Apple like this felt, right?

I did not know at the time, I think I didn't know that it was the guy who created the iPod. I think probably knew within a couple of weeks because I was like, oh, this feels like the click wheel on the original iPod video.

Carter Morgan (57:00)

Yeah, I, ⁓

Yeah, like I remember on my Nest thermostat, I screwed it up the first time. I think you're supposed to mark the wires in the wall, but I just kind of ripped the whole thing out and then it was like, okay. I was just like, dang it, I don't know what any of these wires do. So I had to pay someone like 90 bucks on Facebook marketplace to come fix my ⁓ thermostat. ⁓ Yeah, it's a.

Nathan Toups (57:18)

Yep. Yeah.

Carter Morgan (57:30)

But yeah, I do love the Nest Thermostat. It's just a very beautifully designed product.

Nathan Toups (57:33)

The part that drove my wife crazy is I think we in Austin, they had some like $100 rebate if you bought it through the city. And it basically gave them during surge times, they could turn your thermostat up because it was like to reduce the on the grid. And Sarah was just like, this is the worst. I do not want the city reaching into my house and turning my thermostat up because I'm hot right now. And it was it was very funny because it was also like it's kind of a rebellion.

Carter Morgan (57:43)

⁓

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Nathan Toups (58:03)

Like it's kind of a weird big brother thing that every time you walk down the hallway, it's like motion sensor, like nest knows I walked down my hallway.

Carter Morgan (58:03)

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah.

But I liked the idea with the, he talks about how like in the nineties, a lot of kind of like Silicon Valley big waves got taken for a ride with the connected home because what the connected home idea was like, we're to make the whole home connected and we're going to install these like really intense systems like in your walls. Right. And Nest was kind of one of the first products in this category. like, man, we'll just do a piecemeal.

not going to have this whole ecosystem. We'll just have a thermostat, right? I think I feel like the connect home has fallen a little out of fashion since then. There's still a lot of products in that space, but like I think Google had this big ambitious desire to have everything be all wired up in your smart home. And I feel like maybe that's why Nest has not done so well under their leadership because I don't know, maybe they lost interest in the idea. I don't know the space well enough.

Nathan Toups (59:04)

But it's Google in a nutshell. It's like, and I was like, Apple is very like risk averse. Actually, there's a really good Marquis Brownlee that just came out talking about the new CEO, the guy who's going to be taking over. You should. It's because it's a hardware engineer who's now going to become the CEO. And he actually designed the MacBook Neo. Early, it led the project. And so it's kind of interesting. You know, we had the visionary.

Carter Morgan (59:06)

Yeah, exactly.

I should watch that.

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (59:32)

Steve Jobs. And then we had the operator, the master operator. I think that while Tim Cook was not Steve Jobs, he was his own identity and is leaving his tenure with incredibly positive thoughts. Of course, also a fourth trillion dollar company and his master of logistics and master navigating presidencies. Like who is you know, Apple has all this geopolitics they're involved with.

Carter Morgan (59:49)

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, right,

Nathan Toups (1:00:00)

So it's interesting that maybe we're in a new era where ⁓ sort of the hardware focus ⁓ future of where we're going, maybe this is gonna be AR glasses, maybe this is going to be other sort of next wave technologies could have, we'll see. I mean, it's only a matter of time to find out. He's relatively young ⁓ for a CEO. And ⁓ yeah, I think it's gonna be...

I think it's going to be really interesting to see where that ends up taking us with this sort of idea here, which is that Apple, oh, so this is what he was talking about, risk averse. I was trying to think of my train of thought here. That Apple is so, Google, right, it has the Google graveyard. And I think there's a website dedicated to all the projects that Google has killed. Google will literally just try anything, get people behind it, and then abandon it, right? And Apple doesn't.

do that. Apple is like really sensitive to its failures and really does not like negative press, doesn't want a failed product category. ⁓ know, again, their virtual reality headset, it's a swing for the fence sort of technology. And I think it's largely a failure, right? If we think about it from a ⁓ user adoption, but it also is leading the way to if they made some sort of AR

glasses or they did something else, I would imagine that all the work that they did with Vision Pro is going to pay off. ⁓ But yeah.

Carter Morgan (1:01:32)

Right. Yeah.

I'm bullish. I'm bullish on AR VR stuff. I get it. Like, I think he talks about people dropping too much money on VR and I think he's right. But I do think it's probably the future of computing, but like you've got to get it down to like such a teeny tiny form factor that, you know. Yeah, exactly. Right.

Nathan Toups (1:01:53)

Yeah, it has to be invisible. Well, he talks about with Google Glass, right? In the book,

he's like, Google Glass, well, not only is there social norms, it was funny because he simultaneously said, this technology is inevitable, right? Like, I think anyone can agree. One day, you're going to have smart computing devices that can just, like, contextually pop up wherever you need them. I think that's not a controversial conclusion to have, but privacy, security, social norms, like how stupid you look factor, like,

Carter Morgan (1:02:13)

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (1:02:22)

all of these things were violated by Google Glass. I they called them glass holes. I remember this really, I saw a guy driving down in Austin, Texas on a Segway wearing Google Glass. And I was like, this is not the future I want. This is terrible. I was like, this is not okay. Luckily, both of those things have dropped out of fashion. But that guy was living in the future.

Carter Morgan (1:02:28)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's talk a bit about ⁓ some of our hot takes. I thought it was weird that he said, you can't be B2B and B2C. I don't know if he's talking about just like right at the very beginning. That makes a lot of sense to me at the very beginning, right? Like you have to focus exactly on who your customer is. And I thought it made sense. says, like, if you're ultimately going to serve B2B and B2C, you have to market yourself as B2C because you can never get a consumer to use a product made for a business. so that made sense. He lost me a little bit. Like you can't do both. I'm like, I don't know.

Plenty of companies do both. Like isn't Microsoft a B2B and B2C company? What, isn't Amazon?

Nathan Toups (1:03:29)

What

consumer, I mean, what, Xbox? Like what's a consumer side of Microsoft?

Carter Morgan (1:03:33)

But that's Xbox,

PCs. mean, don't you, plenty of people buy PCs as consumers. And then there's Azure, right? Like, I don't know if he's talking about like subsections, because like, I agree if you try to make Azure like consumer facing, that's weird, right?

Nathan Toups (1:03:48)

All right.

I said I'll I'm going to I'm going to take Tony's. Yeah, I'm going to take some Tony pushback. I think, well, number one, they're a huge corporation. I think they can have subdivisions at this point. But when you're early, well, first of all, Microsoft brings me no joy and I only think of them as a business company. I never was an Xbox user. So again, there's that sort of part of it. And gaming, I always felt that the loyalty to that was just that they had the relationships.

Carter Morgan (1:03:51)

Push back on this, I didn't get this.

Right, right.

Right.

Nathan Toups (1:04:16)

the games ran on Windows and that's why they use Windows. wasn't like there's this super dedicated Windows consumer crew who then games went on top of it. It's just like, they had all the really cool ⁓ advanced hardware drivers for graphics cards and you could play cooler games on it. I think that we're seeing the shift now that ⁓ Steam has ported over pretty much every Windows game to run on its Linux platform at very high performance.

and look at how many people are shifting to getting away from Windows. So I don't know if the consumer side of Windows is a loyalty thing or a love of Windows. ⁓ And so I think that, you know, to me, Microsoft really is, they developed Active Directory and they really have a huge mind share of business technology workflows and pipelines.

Azure is a good extension of that. The Microsoft Office suite is a good extension of that, but that's really their customer base, right? Like it's where most of their money is coming from. ⁓ And he talks about how, it's funny, I was a part of this. So Apple did have a business division for a while. I, in Texas, I was like one of, think three or four people who actually had like every Apple certification as a consultant. And so I actually had, was like Apple certified.

Carter Morgan (1:05:15)

Right, right.

Yes.

Nathan Toups (1:05:35)

systems administrator, everything you could have for like the business enterprise stuff. I actually installed XServe servers. These are the stack and rack servers that Apple used to roll out. ⁓ A lot of times it was for folks who were doing high-end pro video, but there were companies like in schools and other places that were doing like enterprise grade Apple stuff. And it was largely neglected. It was not, it could not compete with the Windows side of things. It was like a big pain in the butt.

⁓ and I saw it die in front of my eyes. Actually, I knew a woman who worked at Apple. I knew her father from some stuff back in Louisiana. We had coffee a couple of times and she ended up working. I think she was like working directly under Tim Cook for a while. and I remember having coffee with her and being like, yeah, I work in XServe. And I remember her just kind of looking at me like thinking, he doesn't know. Like he doesn't know that there's no future to this. And I think it was less than three months later. I was at an Apple tech conference for

consultants and Apple announced end of life on the XServe, like while we were at the conference. And this book gives the other side of this and just like, hey, they're a consumer device company. That's like, that's in their DNA. They didn't understand enterprise sales. They didn't understand these long business cycles, nor did they want to, right? Like that just wasn't part of Apple. So yeah.

Carter Morgan (1:06:39)

wow.

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (1:07:00)

I thought this was interesting too. Like this section was kind of interesting because some of it seems a bit contrarian and he's saying, Hey, even if you are B2B2C, you either need to be business focused that happens to have consumer or you're consumer focused that happens to also have some business stuff, right? Like the identity has to be for one very specific customer on your platform. no, like when push comes to shove, loyalty always stays with that entity, right?

I think that was his big takeaway is that you can't put in Biblical terms, you can't serve two masters. And ⁓ I think that that's just a timeless correct advice. And especially when you're early stage startup, if you're spread two different directions, some investors are gonna wanna invest in you because of the B2B side. Some of them are gonna want to the B2C side. who you take on, ⁓ I think actually in chapter four, they talk about this.

Carter Morgan (1:07:29)

Right, right.

Yeah.

Nathan Toups (1:07:57)

marrying for money. That's like one of the chapters. And it's talking about like taking VC is a marriage in that who you're hooking up with, like who you're marrying yourself to has, you know, make or break potential in the future of your company. And that like, don't just take the money. Don't just like you pitch the idea that they seem kind of excited, like, do they have a reputation for loving your idea, but axing CEOs, which I've seen there was actually some

VCs in Austin who had a reputation for, ⁓ they had VCs in Austin that had a reputation for just investing in an idea, seeing if the CEO is good or not, and then just like completely kicking the CEO out while they're in like seed funding or series A funding. ⁓ And of course, that will destroy a company in a heartbeat.

Carter Morgan (1:08:45)

huh.

Right,

Well, I think the other thing I'd say about this book is like, he makes a few attempts every now and again, like pitching it towards a broader audience. It's funny. He'll be like, and if you're a fisherman or a teacher, I'm like, I'm like, fishermen and teachers are not reading this book, right? Like, which I don't, I don't, I don't care, right? Like for me, like for someone in our industry, like this is great. I love a book that's written for me and pretty much just for me and others like me, right?

Nathan Toups (1:09:10)

No, they didn't. Right.

Carter Morgan (1:09:21)

I've said that before, like, I think books are stronger when you just know the type of person you're writing for and you write towards them. I think that is why this is a very strong book, because that's ultimately what he did intentionally or not. ⁓ Every now and again, he's like, and you know, remember if you're laying brick, this could be useful to you too. I'm like, I don't know so much about that, Tony. What are you, Nathan? Any hot takes for this week?

Nathan Toups (1:09:45)

will say the only counter

example is, again, this guy was filthy, stinking rich. I met this guy in Costa Rica a few years ago. Former military guy who ended up becoming like a mercenary for a little bit, lived this crazy life and then was working in construction and realized that their like time tracking system sucked. Like he lived up in Canada. And so he, with a little bit extra money, built a time tracking system and got the big company to like use his software.

And then they ended up buying it from him for like $25 million. And so, mean, like, I guess maybe they'll get more out of this than I would. Because, you know, he's like, he just, he like was, he was staying in this place across from us and he was like getting this like very nice looking house built. And I was just like, man. And of course I was thinking like time tracking software. That's not a solved problem. But apparently for their niche business, like,

Carter Morgan (1:10:15)

Nice.

hey, there you go.

Maybe.

Nathan Toups (1:10:41)

It solved it so well that they were willing to pay $25 million for it. Nuts.

Carter Morgan (1:10:48)

Anyhow. What about you? Any hot takes?

Nathan Toups (1:10:50)

⁓

Yeah, hot takes Lucy. ⁓ I do, to me, the heartbeats and handcuffs is probably like the biggest idea in this book. At least like, how do you execute with a great idea and a great team? ⁓ It may be, I guess on some level it may feel obvious, but I was just like, ⁓ I think I missed it a little bit. I didn't appreciate it the first time I read this book. And this time I'm like running into some situations where we need better heartbeats and maybe that's what it is. ⁓

I'm trying to think, ⁓ this book does feel like implicitly hostile to bootstrapping. there's never once did I see like everyone was like, hey, you got this great idea. World's moving so fast. You got to get VC. Here's how you do it. Like it's very like Silicon Valley. And I think I agree in the mood. It's similar to Jason Fried's, you know, rework and stuff like this and like attitude. But Jason Fried, of course, is like the bootstrap king. And so

Carter Morgan (1:11:27)

Interesting.

Right, right.

Nathan Toups (1:11:49)

I wonder how much Tony Fidel and Jason Fried you could like marry together to get, you know, product focused bootstrapped company in 2026. What about you?

Carter Morgan (1:12:01)

Yeah, I wonder.

⁓ I think for me, it's just like, yeah, like I said, the B2B, B2C stuff. ⁓ And I don't know how much fishermen are gonna read this book. I'll be totally honest. As far as what I'll do differently in my career though, I have two startup ideas that I haven't been able to let go. I think one of them is probably a bad idea. The other one I think is a much more promising idea, but is...

Nathan Toups (1:12:12)

Yeah.

Carter Morgan (1:12:29)

in a much more competitive space. I just want to start toying with it a bit, but the bad idea, I just want to kind of confirm that it's a bad idea. In fact, it was like midnight last time. I was like chatting with Claude and I was just like, everyone says this is a problem. Yeah, as one does, but I'm like, jokes on me now, Anthropic already built my startup idea because of my session history. Anyhow, they should figure out how to make a product first that doesn't. ⁓

Nathan Toups (1:12:42)

As you do. As one does. As one does.

Carter Morgan (1:12:58)

go down every day. I saw someone on Twitter tweet, they were like, sorry, honey, I can't talk right now. Both Claude and GitHub are up at the same time. Anyhow. And so that one, I just want to kind of confirm that it's a bad idea. I think it is. There's another one, which I think is actually a good idea, but much more difficult to make. And someone is probably doing it right now. And so I just, but either way, at any point,

Nathan Toups (1:13:06)

Rain, rain.

Carter Morgan (1:13:28)

At any rate, Tony says like, that's part of a startup idea is like, if you have something like griptune and you can't get rid of it, like you should investigate it. And even if the result of the investigation is like, Hey, this is a bad idea or someone's tried this and it doesn't work for this reason. Like that's good. That's good learning. So I just want to keep poking around at those things. How about you?

Nathan Toups (1:13:48)

Yeah, ⁓ for me it is, ⁓ I'm going to take a crack at using his methodology on the heartbeats. ⁓ I have a project that I need to be better about doing this. We have enough external stakeholders and some other stuff that I think that ⁓ it would be good for us from a discipline standpoint. And we're easily fitting into scope creep. And I know all these things. I just need to be disciplined about it. And I'm using this as like sort of a catalyst.

Carter Morgan (1:14:16)

There you go. Okay, well, as far as who you'd recommend this book to, Nathan, I'm just gonna copy what you wrote. But yeah, basically anyone thinking about starting their own tech startup, like this is fantastic. ⁓ If you've got that kind of startup bug, and especially if you're an engineer, like read this book. I really can't imagine a better book.

Nathan Toups (1:14:37)

Yeah, to the point that I would even gift this book to somebody who says, hey, I'm going to go down this path. Right. Or they're a recent college grad and they're like, aspirations of joining Y Combinator or doing something. Right. Like this would be an amazing book to just give as a gift. Very consumable. The audiobooks phenomenal. Like the audiobooks really good. I also have read the Kindle. think I've I've spent plenty on Tony Fidel at this point. So yeah.

Carter Morgan (1:14:41)

Oh, 100%. Yeah.

There you go. All right, well, we'll be back next week to finish out the book. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter at BookoverflowPod. I'm on Twitter at Carter Morgan. You can check out our website, bookoverflow.io to get a history of all of our previous episodes, transcripts for those previous episodes. And you can find Nathan and his work with his consulting agency, Rojo Roboto, at rojoroboto.com. All right, folks, we'll see you later. Bye.

Nathan Toups (1:15:28)

See

you. Bye.