BIZ/DEV

Burnout & 10 Billion Sharks | Episode 17

January 19, 2022 Big Pixel Season 1 Episode 17
BIZ/DEV
Burnout & 10 Billion Sharks | Episode 17
Show Notes Transcript

Buuu-rn-OUT doo-doo-duh-doo doo! After a rough week, Gary and David chat about the real truth around founder burnout. Its not all doom and gloom though. The duo also nerds out about childhood toys (GOOOOOO JOE!!!), Facebook's anti-trust woes, and a few billion baby sharks.

Enjoy!

Here are the links to all mentioned articles/videos in this episode:

CNN: Judge rejects Facebook's request to dismiss FTC antitrust complaint
Britannica (for you young people): G.I. Joe | Toys & History
Engadget: 'Baby Shark' is the first YouTube video to reach 10 billion views

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Our Hosts

David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel


The Podcast


David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.


In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.


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David:

So, I see you're wearing something a little different this week. What's going on there?

Gary:

Yeah, these are called crutches. Yeah.

David:

Oh, nice it. Why do you have crutches that? That seems so unlike you since you sit at a desk all day?

Gary:

Well, thanks to you calling me an old man all the time, I decided that I was going to prove you wrong. And I've been skateboarding with my daughter a lot lately. And I was doing pretty good up until the point where I was getting a little too overconfident in my skills.

David:

You know, you're not supposed to do that stuff in your 50s

Gary:

I'm not fit. As soon as I recover from this, I'm skating again. And this time we're gonna clips you're gonna

David:

skate again. Okay, there Gramps. Ragone. man. You gotta learn where your limits are. Apparently you have not done

Gary:

I do. Luckily, it wasn't it's not a major injury. It's very inconvenient. It sucks. But it's not anything I need to go to the doctor and get surgery for so hopefully good this time. This time. Yeah, learning my lesson.

David:

Everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host and I'm joined as always by Gary Voight. How's it going, man?

Gary:

It's going pretty good. How you doing today?

David:

I am a little cranky, but we're gonna get to that. I think we'll get to that a little bit later. I want to start with some news. E News. Cranky? I'm not news cranky? No, no, Zuckerberg is cranky. Zuckerberg is a little cranky. Yeah, he got he got slapped.

Gary:

Yeah, will boy got his hand swept again.

David:

He is so he getting why he's gonna get sued again. I guess the key. He's not getting sued yet. But it's coming. So to put some history on the so during the Trump administration, the government, I don't know which group of them. FTC, I guess. went after Facebook and said, Hey, you're a monopoly. And a judge throughout the case saying you didn't make you didn't give me enough detail. I don't know what you're talking about. This doesn't look good. Get

Gary:

up? Yeah, the judge tried to play it like it was just an attack on Facebook. And in relation somehow that that was a an attack politically, not actually a business attack. But

David:

so though the Biden administration picked up the Lena Khan is the head person now. And she is very well known to not be friendly to big tech. She picked it up and said, All right, you need more detail. Here's some more detail, dude. So they did it again. And they threw in a bunch of details. And this time, the judge says, Hmm, I guess you have something to say here. And they did not dismiss it. So that case will go forward.

Gary:

Yeah, Khan. She started, like, I guess her investigations into these mega big tech giants. Back when she was still in college and Yale Law she would write I guess she had a journal highlighting the dominance of Amazon back in 2017. So she's kind of an after this for a while she knows what she's talking about.

David:

It's crazy that she is been knocking out the hits. I tell you what, she's pretty young. And she's already the head of the I believe it's FTC. Right? Yeah, it's the FTC.

Gary:

And it seems to all come from like a consumer advocate point of view. So that's good. Yeah.

David:

Which is kind of the point of the FTC. Or one of the points I should say, so they're going to get and it's funny, because all the articles that I'm seeing here, they're all talking about Facebook. And that's just weird. But

Gary:

yeah, they mean matter, though, the group of Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and their subsidiaries. They just say basically, they have too much control over social media.

David:

At the end of the day, though, the goal of the government, as they've said, at least, is to break facebook, whatsapp, and Instagram up

Unknown:

into separate businesses. That's a big deal. Yeah, it's

David:

a big deal. And especially What's up now, what's up in America, it's not much of a thing. But outside of America is like, the everything. It's just,

Gary:

it's basically the Google of a lot of a new world outside of the US and Europe, like, tons of countries, countries use whatsapp as their portal to the internet.

David:

Yeah, I mean, it's not Google, like it's a search engine. It's a channel, but there's so much stuff inside of it, that you can basically run businesses out of it. You can do all sorts of craziness. It's what Facebook's wants to be. So they just bought it.

Gary:

Yeah. It's like their entry point. I guess I should have said,

David:

I just never. Yeah, I mean, it's where people go, they open up the phone, they go to WhatsApp, that's yeah, that's what if you're outside of America, so it's a big deal, especially worldwide. I think it'd be really interesting. I mean, I am not a metal fan. I think I've said that before, just because their privacy history is pretty trash. And you should care about your users more than that, I think. Yeah.

Unknown:

I'm not a fan either. Now I

David:

will say I like Instagram. But that's, I like pictures. Pictures are easy.

Gary:

I will say though, and this is just a personal little gripe of mine, but Instagram lately. I don't see any pictures I'm scrolling through and it's nonstop animated ads or short video clips are promos of other people's reels like it's, it's very hard for me to find like a static image in Instagram, any

David:

man nowadays, all I have is a bunch of dog pictures on my Instagram. So it's great. I mean, it's great. You really can't go wrong with that. We write dogs is my current favorite little plug there because they're really funny.

Gary:

Our algorithms aren't the same.

David:

No, no, they're probably not. But anyway, I've digressed. So I think I do think that's going to have an impact. I think that it's going to not anytime soon, I mean, these things will take probably years. And of course Facebook will appeal will be old, oh, well, you're already old. But we'll be really old people. By the time this finally shakes out. And here's the kicker. So Facebook is trying very, very hard on the tech side, to make them all one platform that all the users are shared, that all of the databases are shared. That's not an accident, because then they'll be like, you can't pull us apart. We're all one here.

Gary:

Yeah, they're purposely fighting against this by creating like, you know, the digital monopoly that shouldn't exist. And but they're pretty straightforward about fighting this too. I mean, they're just saying that the evidence will reveal that the fundamental weakness of the FTC is claims cannot be proven. And they have a tall task ahead of them. Like they're, they're definitely trying to use some power moves.

David:

Everybody says that, of course, what you're making that up? Oh, I didn't do it. Yeah. We'll see. See how it goes. So I wanted to, we want to do a few different news articles. But I wanted to move faster, because we got a couple of questions that were asked last week that we didn't get to. And I want to make sure we have time for that. So I want to jump ahead a little bit. Sounds good. The earlier this week I posted on LinkedIn, which I rarely ever do. Except for, you know, things that hey, our new podcast is up that kind of stuff. I rarely post anything personal. I just usually. But I woke up on Monday, it was first thing in the morning. Was it Monday knows Tuesday. And I was feeling burnt out. I Monday was a rough day. For for a lot of reasons. I just didn't feel productive. I couldn't make you know, we had a few bugs that came up of course, that's just nature of the beast. But it was it's this whole week has been rough. I was up till midnight last night writing reports, which is so much fun. This week has been rough. It's the clients are great. The the work is great. I'm not really complaining at all. But it's been a hard week. It's been a lot of deliverables. And we've been working really hard. Even the last few months minus a Christmas break in. And I was feeling this morning, my wife was like, Are you cranky? What's going on with you? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm a little cranky. And I think it's because I've worked like 70 hours this week already. And that's unusual for me. And I don't like it. So

Gary:

this is basically how everybody explains burnout and how burnout creeps up on you. And how once you do notice that you're feeling burnt out you have to kind of adjust what you're doing a little bit to kind of get back into the right headspace because it could affect you.

David:

I bring it up because yeah, I think it's something that is not talked about a lot because, you know, startups and business. It's Go, go go, everything is great. I'm going to take over the world.

Gary:

Yeah, the hustle, hustle, hustle mentality of it. Yeah, does eat at you.

David:

And running a business is hard. I said in my LinkedIn thing. And I've said it minute, several times before. I was at an event years ago, this has been a long time, probably six, say eight years ago, I was at a networking event. And this guy, a local startup guy. I wish I could remember his name. It kills me. I can't. Really great guy. His name was Joe something, but it doesn't matter right now. He said he was giving a speech on starting companies and stuff. And he was great. He's really funny. And he said, you know, running a business, you always have two songs in your head. You have the Lego song, everything is awesome. And everything is broken by Bob Dylan. And they're both playing simultaneously. And if you've never run a business, that won't make a lot of sense, but when he said that it struck me so true. Because I always enjoy the single day. As a business owner, especially early on, if you're just getting started. You will have the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in the same day. It is crazy. You'll sell a new client and a different client will have a major fire that you have to put out or, you know you miss another opportunity or whatever and it's both of those if someone quits unexpectedly these, all these sorts of things. And it's all in the same day. And it is just a rollercoaster of emotions to be a business owner. And it sounds mean, I know it as business ownership is wonderful, and it's great. And it gets a lot of publicity and stuff, but it's hard. It's not for the faint of heart.

Gary:

Everybody can say that, you know, businesses business, you have to separate business from emotions, you have to step away from it, look at things logically, you know, and compare numbers, read the data, you cannot do that when it's your baby. You cannot even do that as a freelancer. Like I, I mean, running a business is definitely harder than being a freelancer or like a contractor, because now you're responsible for other people and other clients as well. But yeah, there are similarities when it comes to the personal emotion that you attach to your work. For sure,

David:

it is it is something that's just not talked about enough. And I just thought, since I was feeling it this week, I thought it was worth talking about that. It's okay to feel beat up a little bit.

Gary:

It's a trendy topic on like Twitter and stuff like that for people to get, you know, tweets retweets and comments and stuff. But yeah, diving into it, and actually, knowing that it crept up on you when you were not expecting it. I mean, you came off a vacation. And they were probably gung ho. And yeah, I was strong, this is going to be great. This is going to be great. And then, you know, small little things don't seem to go your way or things that you expected to happen might not or got delayed. But yeah, like you said, it's, it's not necessarily that the business is doing bad at all, we just came off of a very, very strong year. And things are looking, you know, looking up going forward, but just the gravity of all that seem to kind of crash down on your shoulders and just stockpile over the course of the week.

David:

It's, yeah, I mean, it happens, and it's okay. I think that's really what I'm trying to get at is if you feel that way, that doesn't mean your business is failing. That doesn't mean that you are failing as a business owner that let me say that again, you are not failing because you feel because you're having a hard week you are you you can, there's always another day. And I know that sounds so cliche, but it's true.

Gary:

And if you care enough to make it feel like that, then you're obviously doing something right. Because you care enough. So

David:

yeah, I just mean, business ownership is all about, it's going to be fueled off of your passion. And as long as that passion is going and you still love what you're doing, you will find success. You just have to keep banging that drum. And even when it's hard, I mean, it's not like when I when I feeling burnt out or tired or overworked that I stop, I mean, that's the thing. You got to take a break, you got to find your place to find joy. And that's one of my little tricks that I've I've said to other people before is I have little moments to find joy and it's stupid stuff but it's it's times during your day that you can get a little bit of happiness like mine. Okay, so mine is making my little coffees or going to get coffee right I will take a 15 minute break and I will go get coffee. Everyone knows that I sometimes I call on the phone when I'm walking over to Starbucks or I'm making my own or whatever it is coffee time and everyone knows I do it in the morning in the afternoon and I find joy in that I find joy in taking a lunch like purposefully stop working go somewhere or don't go somewhere whatever watch a show on your phone, whatever. But you are taking time to unplug finding those little joys because you you got to get back into it you know the world is counting on you. You are the business owner the buck stops here but finding those little joy that that's huge for me. That's how I get past ugliness because you know, it's highs and lows man. Everything is awesome. Everything is broken.

Unknown:

Comparison. I love that I wish I could take a great little metaphor

David:

it is a wonderful statement. And Joe if you can remind me of your name I looked for you I will give you credit because I certainly do not deserve it. But I do love that phrase. Um

Gary:

another great metaphor or quote from a Joe is knowing is half the battle you almost get your coffee out you did

David:

not just say that. Oh my gosh. Oh, you're so old. You're so old. Does anybody remember that? Besides me? I love those.

Gary:

Oh come on GI Joe was around for quite a meatloaf sandwiches

David:

sir. i Yeah, no, I was a huge I owned all not all of them. I owned a lot of GI Joe growing up. Here's a sad story. So my my favorite toys when I was a kid were GI Joe transformers back when they were die cast metal Yeah, the real the real ones not the plastic trash they make now speaking my language. And when I was a little older probably when I should not have been playing with toys. I got into teenage Ninja Turtles. I had large collections, you know Christmases, birthdays, all that large collections. Toys and I move out go to college. I find out that we're talking lots of toys. Right because my mom loved to buy them for for gifts us. When I leave I find out she sold all of our and he man I think I forgot to say human.

Gary:

Oh yeah Masters of the Universe.

David:

My mom sold all of our toys. I'm boxes of toys for 50 bucks. What? Just I came home and obviously I wasn't playing with them anymore. But I came home and they're all gone. They're all gone.

Gary:

You're basically describing the depressing first draft of Toy Story that got rejected by Pixar.

David:

It was only a 10 minute movie originally. It was they just sold the toys you know so sad.

Gary:

They're like we need some sort of like product like probably solving resolution couldn't do something. Yeah, see that

David:

was now they think about that's probably the most unrealistic thing of Toy Story three, that there was this moment when the going off to college that the boy takes his favorite toys and passes them on to the next generation. The real story is the kid leaves mom sells behind the back for a quick buck.

Gary:

That's the converts his bedroom into like a sewing room. Jim Yeah, Jim. Somebody's dad.

David:

Yeah, that's real Toy Story there that they don't show that. But that's that's a true story. I'm still mourning a loss of my toys. I will say also, again, we're on a tangent. But we found our joy to tuck away from the burner. And we found some of my old GI Joes. My kids did actually my were visiting my family couple few years ago, and found some of the old GI Joes. We're talking late 80s, early 90s that rubber band 12

Gary:

inch tall. Oh see, oh no, no older cousins. So I had generations of GI Joes. I had like the 1112 inch tall the big ones. And then I had the action figures when they got smaller. And then I had this swivel forearm kung fu grip ones with a rubber band waist.

David:

I had those are mine. I had the and so when you find the rubber bands of a 25 year old action figure, my son was all excited. He was probably the has to be crusty. Oh man, he went and he started to play with them a little bit, that now they're two of them. Broken. That nasty old rubber band just could not handle another child. He was not very pleased. We still have I think he still was one hiding somewhere that the rubber band did not break. But I believe it's now hermetically sealed in some case.

Gary:

Okay, let me ask this question. I know it's tangent. But it's a quick question for GI Joe. When you got the GI Joes that had the Kung Fu grip. Tell me Did you or did you not set up a string from a high to low area and make them zip line down it?

David:

No,

Unknown:

but what you missed out?

David:

I had a hole Did you? I don't remember you want SkyRanger so that's what they were called. I had a whole

Unknown:

there weren't very many. Trooper ones.

David:

They know they got yo this was a different line of toys. And they were literally the whole point of the toy was they were SIP lines. Oh, and they were plastic. They were so cool. I think they were called Sky Rangers. And I had a bunk bed and you get half of it would attach they had these little low carb you know karabiners what is that? Right

Gary:

The right word? karabiner Beiner karabiner? Yeah, you

David:

would you catch it up at the top, and then they they would separate and they would leave a line in between which of course in the cartoon was like a laser right? But it would go down and then you could shoot the guys down them. Like I was the whole point. So someone obvious was like what they're doing with GI Joe. We're gonna make the whole thing about it so much. You're looking at the Rangers.

Gary:

I remember seeing a kid do that with the GI Joe with a kung fu grip and commercial, you know, after school and the cartoons before Yeah,

David:

with the kid go to their backyard and they have that perfect desert scene back there like we all right? No.

Gary:

Oh, come on, Joe. Anyway, so yeah, I would mimic everything I saw in those commercials with my GI Joes. Yeah. Taking Zara out into the snow and watching them change color. Oh, do

David:

we live Tsar tan out over over? Okay, well, ours.

Gary:

We might turn light to the elites here. I'm sure we could do a whole two hour podcast on GI Joes.

David:

I love dark tan. Did you ever look Tsar tan? Oh, sorry. He tasted Hey, I

Unknown:

think it is time to change his

David:

tasted horrible because he was covered and all those chemicals there. Make him change colors. Don't ever do that. Don't Don't do that. Okay,

Gary:

you're the type of kid that cut open Stretch Armstrong and decided to see if it was maple syrup inside. No, I was

David:

not allowed to have a stretch I'm sure for whatever. Because call. Someone made a wise call there. Okay, let's get back to the questions. Yeah. Wow, that just went off. Sorry. But

Gary:

hey, look, you're smiling. You're

David:

smiling. what Joe was doing. Okay. So with two questions. One is by one who we all know and love. And Seiwa who's one of our project managers also asked

Gary:

both guests on the podcast that I went for and hosted on my own which happens to be our most popular podcast by though

David:

that is true. It still is. I don't know why I still can't figure that out. Because why would anyone want to listen to Gary

Gary:

for I know, but you just want to admit it. So one asked one asked

David:

who What is web three? And I'm like, Well, gosh, why don't you throw me a softball dude?

Gary:

I want to know, too, because I'm just under the impression that web three refers to this next, I guess, phase of the web growing more into a decentralized kind of financial area with the blockchain and that kind of currency model. That's just my assumption.

David:

Yeah. That's correct. That's that. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, you're right there. It's like you read an article or something. So Web, was it. The problem with web three is there's all sorts of terminologies that all kind of munge together, and I will preface this, I am not an expert. What it matters is, does web three affect business in the coming years? And right, I'll get to that. But generally speaking, web three is coined. You know what, right now we live in the world of web two, which it's a whole thing. But web two was when the web got standards social, it got no guts. No, it got standards a long time before that. It just no one paid attention. No, it web two was when we got social, we started. Okay. Could we started communicating with each other? It wasn't just social media, all of those things kind of stood up on on web two, web three. So well, if you go back a web one was when, you know, Amazon, and all of that, where they're just here is my platform, buy my stuff, right? That was web one, web two was people kind of, quote, taking back the power and saying, We're gonna create our own content, and we're gonna make the Web. Web three now is a bunch of really, really, really, really rich people have coined this phrase. And it's basically saying, Okay, now it's going to become decentralized. And no one's going to own it, the Facebook's of the world, the the Microsoft's, whatever, they're not going to own it. It's going to be owned by all the artists and all the content creators, because they're going to be able to monetize themselves through cryptocurrency. Now, there's a huge argument here, between the they're all very wealthy people, but like, Jack Dorsey, of block, he is fighting on one side. And then web three, he said, you're saying is decentralized. But the truth is, web three is being propped up by the largest investors in the world. Andreessen Horowitz, that's one of the

Gary:

Yeah, I think that's just their way of trying to say the big banks are not going to have a stake in taking their chunks out of

David:

well, but that's the problem. That's where the argument forms. Because, yeah, you're right. It's not traditional banks, but the the investors, the venture capitalists who are investing, they're writing their contract in such a way that they are really controlling a lot of this stuff. And they're the ones

Gary:

is, the scary part is they're not insured like a federal agency would be.

David:

So they're taking huge risks. I'm a big fan of private equity in general. But these contracts and stuff are making it to say, Hey, these are controlled by a small group of people. And on the other side, you have people like Jack Dorsey were like, hey, it's all about blockchain. And it's all about Bitcoin. And even that, it's kind of like, well, you say it's for the every man. But something like, what is just read this?

Gary:

Yeah, there's some steep entry levels in there. I mean, if you want, depending on whether it's just investment or if it's actual, like currency you're using, and the fluctuations are just

David:

way I mean, well, that's insane. But what's what's interesting about the blockchain and Bitcoin and all of that is 1000, the top 1000 Bitcoin holders hold 15% Of all the currency.

Gary:

Like, wow, that sounds very familiar.

David:

It's very centralized. And it's not everybody think, Oh, everybody can get in on this. And I can I can beat the people who are getting rich are the same people, we're always getting rich, it's not anything new. They're just given a new name. What, but I want to get to the point. And then you have NF T's, which is a whole nother thing, which we've talked about, but I just, I am not convinced as a real selling. So

Gary:

what is web three? What's web three gonna do for small businesses and startups?

David:

I think eventually, I do think you're going to start to see some really neat stuff happen. I think, if I am a content creator, you know, there's going to be a new way for me to monetize that I do think that will come. I think if I'm, you know, right, now, you can do Patreon. And you can do this and the other to try to eke by a living doing your blog or your video series or whatever. But now you'll be able to own it. And you'll be able to, to say, hey, you can get my latest one, and you're supporting me through cryptocurrency through this ownership model. And if you're an artist, you know, I don't have to go through necessarily a record label in the future. I don't write right, I can sell my stuff directly to the fans that was started in web two for sure. But it is going to be I think bigger. I think you're going to see a lot more microtransactions everywhere, which to me makes me cry a little inside. But I do think that's going to become pretty common. But I think the most exciting part of it is we don't know. Just like when web two started. We had no idea What was going to happen? Me tick tock and Instagram and all of that, that wasn't the thing we didn't know.

Gary:

So as an optimistic liquid be, it's kind of up to us to make it what we want it to be?

David:

Well, that's very optimistic. It's really up to the 10 people who are actually steering the ship, but they are a different 10 People that are currently staring that thing, right, what those guys see what the investors see is, I can make the next trillion dollar company. That's what they see. And they're probably right. Because when web two came around, there were no trillion dollar companies. They just didn't exist. And now there are eight of them. Crazy. I mean, Apple just crushed it 3 trillion a couple of weeks ago. I mean, just what,

Gary:

It's bonkers to try to wrap your head around that. But yeah,

David:

see what was asking about how does the pandemic affect larger small businesses? We have covered this before our first podcast, our first podcast, we talked about it. And I think what we said that and how long goes that was? This is Episode Seven this summer something.

Unknown:

So 17 weeks ago, whatever that was, it was before Omicron

David:

know what, yeah, gosh. So I still had the kind of hope we were, we were coming down off of this. Yeah, we were gonna finish it soon. I know this progress

Unknown:

being made.

David:

I think the difference is that people are I do think we're, maybe I'm way too optimistic here. But I do think Omicron is probably the last major wave, I could probably eat those words in six months, but just my hunch. And that's kind of where I keep reading about. So here's hoping but I think the long term effects of COVID are hybrid workplaces are sure, home offices, but not but not I think people got optimistic that we're all gonna work from home. I don't think that's true.

Gary:

I think certainly, that hybrid model is gonna gain some steam for sure.

David:

I think a lot of places are gonna go to work like three days a week and work from home two days a week, the home office now is a real thing. It's not just something that some people have when they have too large of a house. It's like, I have to carve out an office in my house, because I'm going to be here a day or two a week. And it could be my bedroom closet, whatever. But everyone's got a little and so there's a whole industry is aiming for that right Logitech and all that they're they're changing the way that they're making their gear, their gear, so that it's more work from home, and it's got some panache and stuff. That's fun. Absolutely. I think that Internet technologies and things like zoom, and all of that, and that sounds cliche now, but those are now everyday part of life. They've always been here somewhat. But now they're everyone knows how to use them now.

Gary:

And they're getting better and better because of the mass amount of use, you know, people kind of making more demands of what they would need from the software. And they're stepping up and meeting. I mean, Zoom now is far different than zoom when it started. You have to way easier, way more stable. And luckily, they get their privacy unlocked now, so Yeah,

David:

way better. Yeah, I mean, it's encrypted and all that good stuff. Well, and also there's a lot of competition there. Right. Slack is now has their own zoom light, I would call it and teams of course is everywhere. And

Unknown:

I go to love them. Is that still a thing? It's still

David:

there all the oldest every once in a while I'll get a client who will request like a WebEx meeting. My I'm like, Dude, what? Yours? But yeah, I get a WebEx request. I'll get a GoTo Meeting every once in a

Unknown:

while hangout. I don't think Google does hangouts do they?

David:

They do they call us Google meet. It's called Google meet now. It's still not good.

Gary:

Skype still exists. But as Skype just the mobile app, and now Skype on like your desktop is the team's. And I

David:

believe Skype is pure legacy at this point teams is Microsoft's platform, if you are chatting with someone, they want you on teams.

Gary:

I mean, even Apple took a stab at it with adding multiple users to FaceTime and you could send video links to FaceTime just

David:

that was the most Apple implementation ever. Just barely works unless you own the Apple world. Just Okay, good job, Apple. But I think I think long term, we're going to I think the people are gonna order more food for a long time. I don't think it's going to be permanent. Like we were, you know, when it was first started, like, Oh, no one's gonna cook again. They're all going to order their food everyday. No, they're not. Right? course they're not, but they are going to do it more. And now it's now ordering like you could get more than Chinese and pizza for I think that's

Gary:

the adaptations that society has made around it. And you know, when it was pretty bad in the beginning, those are just, they're not really adaptations anymore. They're just becoming more and more just how we live. So the small differences you might not notice the big differences would probably only pop up when like you said like if another major variant came through, but

David:

Well, I think okay, so I'm gonna date myself a little bit. So when I started coding, if you wanted to be a startup, and I think I've told the story before, you had to stand up a physical server, you had to have good internet in your office, or you paid big bucks and went to one of those off site places that had your server for you. Right? That but it wasn't, it was like physical server, you rented space from them. It costs 1000s 1000s of dollars,

Gary:

right? And it was actually hard drives in motion hard, hard drives, somewhere with cables plugged into it. Like it wasn't just Yeah.

David:

And so it was a big deal. It took a lot of effort, a lot of money to start up an idea. Fast forward to, I don't know, eight years ago, or something like that. Maybe 10, you started having the cloud, right? The cloud becomes real. I mean, it's been around for longer now. But it became mainstream. I want to do a business now I can stand up a server, I don't have it really, it takes me very little knowledge to do so I can get up and running. So that is super cheap. It's super fast and super easy. Hit Why am I saying all this? I think starting a business in today's world. Two, three years ago, pre COVID, I wanted to start a business and I needed to hire people. I had to have an office, I had to bring in find local people. I had to bring in talent, it was difficult and very expensive. And a lot of overhead. I think the world post COVID I'm starting the business. And now I'm not chained by that idea. Now that person can be in Florida, that person could be in, in California, they can be in Arizona or Iowa. And now I can start my business. I don't have to have an office. Everyone's remote. That's no problem. That's not a downside anymore. It used to be Oh, you're taking a video call from your house. Let me go and hide. So it doesn't look like my dog my wife walked by, that's changed

Gary:

the way the traditional business models as far as what someone kind of mentally pictures as a business, like a building with a sign and people inside. So

David:

I think that that is going to be another wave of startups. Because of this. Maybe I'm maybe it'd

Gary:

be way harder to secure catering to startups.

David:

No, I'm saying startups that people have an idea. But they were they were intimidated that I have to have an office and people and a place and oh, now I don't know, right? It's

Gary:

almost a surge of new startups coming in. It's an

David:

it's easier now to start a business than it ever has been. I can have remote people all over, I can do all this stuff. The costs go way down. The servers are dirt cheap, like always, I think you're gonna see, I think there's gonna be another wave of creativity, which is my favorite. But I didn't know that, that I think that that could be a really cool thing that happens from this pandemic. Because we broke down those walls. And I don't think those walls are ever coming back early. Not anytime soon.

Gary:

Hey, and if you create something and it goes viral, you could be almost as popular as Baby shark.

David:

Oh, there we go. Now that there it is better. That's gonna redeem myself much better. I appreciate that very much. Going out on a high note or a low note. And I know how you look at

Gary:

this. You were talking about burnout. This is one of those ear worms that will destroy you.

David:

We promised not to play it but we did see that Baby shark became the first ever YouTube video to have 10 billion views. I think that's a sign of the apocalypse. I think.

Gary:

I think that's the same you know, little kids that just keep playing it and playing this push of you know their parents car when they're going somewhere and the parents have to be wearing noise cancelling headphones. Oh my gosh, it might be illegal to drive like that. But if you have to hear Baby shark over and over and over while you're driving a long distance eventually you just might look at a you know oncoming traffic and go it might be fine. It might be a better

David:

way. I have I am very pleased to say that my kids are too old for Baby shark that wasn't the thing for us.

Gary:

My kitty well enough to make fun of it without actually enjoying it but yeah, using it as a way to annoy me and their mom.

David:

Nice. Yeah, my kids were Bob the Builder and my little pony. We did but like all the new ones now it's weird because it's constantly changing and morphing Yeah,

Gary:

and my kids were all like the Disney stuff. No,

David:

my daughter still is she watches all the teenybopper shows anyway so I missed out on the ear worm from the devil but but but they have they have crossed what I don't know as someone's making money off that right like a lot of money has to be IKEA that that seems like it's got to be a mass probably

Gary:

Mr. Beast somehow.

David:

He is or he's gonna stand up a Baby shark burger somewhere. And Alright, I think on that note, I think we are going to call this one

Unknown:

It's good to hear you laugh, man. Appreciate that.

David:

Alright, so thank you guys so much for joining us and going through the highs and lows of this one. Hopefully you will join us tell all your friends subscribe. We are everywhere that you get podcasts and send in questions please.

Gary:

Yeah thank you want to see what for the questions. And if you do have questions of your own Hello at the big pixel dotnet

David:

audio Thanks. Take care