I don't know if we can call ourselves entrepreneurs because we have not made any money but we are on the path. I guess we are entrepreneurs. We have made like $60 or so. Don't say we haven't made any money. We are the Catholics and the Orthodox because both Christmas has passed for those who celebrate of course. We are listened to all over the world and not everyone who celebrates Christmas.
Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, everything. It was an awesome year for us. Thanks for continuing to listen to us. Can you believe it's episode 50? It's actually like 55 or so right because we had some bonus episode, we had a 24 part 1 part 2 and we actually recorded 51 yesterday but we are going to publish it next week. So what are we going to talk about today?
I was going to detour a little bit but sure take the reins. We are going to talk about 2023, how it was, what did we do so far and also look forward to 2024, what's our plan for the company and the app. Quick detour though and it wouldn't be this podcast if we don't detour once in a while. So every podcast that we do it's usually recorded at least like a week before.
Sometimes a month before, like early on right when we had a lot of episodes backtab already. But this one we are recording on 9th January Tuesday and it's coming up one day later. So on 10th January Wednesday. So that's all thanks to Elias hard work right after we finish this session. It feels like it's almost real time this time. Right? I'm like the previous ones. And it's our lack of planning.
Well, everybody gets a bit of time off at the end of the year. I would personally prefer to record like the day before we publish. Maybe eventually if you can hire a full stack and a production company who can like churn this out on the 24 hour notice. We should definitely do that. But I suspect that will come with a hefty price. If you want to have both video and audio done like within at least a few thousand dollars I think per probably. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if we should try a livestream.
Okay, we'll see. Yeah, not right away. Yeah. Okay, let's do it. So here in review, let's let's talk about 2023. How about you start? What are the best things? What were the challenges? Yeah. Yeah, I think 2023 is just the beginning. We started the company met a cast in early June. I think June 7th or June 9th is the actual incorporation date. And we've been working on the product and well, let's put the timeline together.
We actually I think you and I started seriously talking about this in March or February in February. Yeah, and that's when I was like, okay, let's do this right you were like, okay, I'm leaving Google and all that. So yeah, we incorporated in June. But I think around March middle is when I actually started like prototyping maybe some of the backend looking at the podcast back and all that. Yeah, because we also applied to buy C whenever the deadline was in March, I suppose.
It was the first one in March. Wow. It was it was that long time ago. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's when things started to take shape a little bit. We wanted to launch in November, I think. And now kind of we were in 2024. So we haven't launched obviously. I mean, we shipped in a beta and people using it. But I remember we were talking about this. Okay, let's give ourselves six months and you know, we launched and then see how it goes. And now in the other
spec, just that doesn't make sense. I'm realistic. Yeah, it's it's not the unrealistic. Yeah, I was in India for the holiday break, right after like four or five years. I went to India after COVID and I met with a lot of like friends. Some people have not met like for 17 years. It was it was amazing, right. And a few of them are actually entrepreneurs who have been in this thing for like 10 plus years. And initially there wasn't enough success, right.
Even some of them are starting to see like real good success now, but some of them are still not and they're still in it. And that gives me kind of the inspiration plus I think it's basically a matter of time with the kind of effort that we're putting in. It's how long can we keep playing this game for us to finally succeed. Right. So and I think six months is totally unrealistic. Now I feel like it's not going to be less than three, four years at the very least that we're in it.
Even if we have to pivot to something else and all that. I will not be surprised if we will be in it like for 10 years. Because I think we have plenty of excitement and passion for this for podcasting for me personally for audio in general. Like unless something really really terrible happens and I become disillusioned in audio is a medium, which is a very low probability event, I would say.
The enjoyment of the job, I almost don't want to call it a job anymore because it's more like life, right. It's like so beautiful. I love 2023, the way that we worked together, but also like because we're just three people like we'd go into our like at least two, three days a week.
We're completely siloed right deep work and I had not felt that for so long. It feels amazing. For me, I think 2023 was a pivotal year on the work front. I mean work and life, but work work was specifically the aspect where basically turned it 180, you know, got the ties with corporate.
It's something that I really wanted to do for a very long time. I had my own company back like 2003, 2005. I should build some some pretty cool stuff, but it was while I was still in university and when I graduated, I don't know why I couldn't keep it going, but like maybe I wasn't ready for like doing a full time sort of entrepreneurship thing.
Well, in retrospect, it was good because I got to see the world and all that because I might still be like in my I would have never met you, you know, because I would be like still there doing whatever my local business. So I stopped that in 2005, but as early as 2007, I think I remember we were living in Moscow.
I was prototyping like a website for like a social network. I was ashamed to say this. It was like a social network site for pet owners where they would be able to post like pictures of their pets and like videos of videos of their pets because I think YouTube was starting to get traction was starting to get traction worldwide share some stories about their pets.
So it was almost like Facebook for pet owners. I never did it. I had a bunch of other ideas over the years leading up to this point and I started some of those like I never finished them like working the Amazon was also like very prohibitive in terms of what you can and cannot do. So I would never seriously commit to anything. And this also is a testament that ideas are worth nothing because execution is damn hard.
And I would say actually execution starts on the day you fully commit. That's how I'm thinking about this now. I was listening to a podcast yesterday. I forgot the name of the guy. He's like a famous YouTuber. He was an adario of a CEO podcast.
And he said that the problem with going to the gym is actually getting to the gym because once you're in the gym it's easy from there right that's the commitment. Yeah, so he talks about this thing where like I have to convince myself that I'll just do this for this.
I think for two minutes, but like once I start doing this for two minutes like 99% of the time I just keep doing it until you know, whatever. I also between 2012, 2014 that time for about three years I doubled working and like very small company startups and things like that. But it life wasn't at the right place for me to like I think do this long term full time, whereas this time it feels very different right because first of all we're working on like things that we're really passionate about.
It doesn't feel like work right. We use the app like daily ourselves. I'm working with people that I really like the trust. I feel like that you meet Jenny have that that changes quite a bit of how it feels about working. Yes, I was talking to somebody yesterday and so he was in corporate for a while like Google snap and other companies and Amazon as well.
And then he the start up that got acquired by bigger company. He said that people who are entrepreneurs or like start up as you know even like in serious B startups. They just think very differently. They don't even care what experience you had in terms of like big companies. Because that experience is almost like not necessarily not applicable, but the mindset is different. And he said that it is a principle and agent problem when you are an owner like we are right.
We are principles like we have a problem. We just go and solve the problem when you're an agent and you have a problem like an internal bureaucracy problem or something. You just learn to leave. It's almost like learning how hopelessness I think that's what happens in big corporations. Whereas if you run your own thing, you have to be resourceful otherwise.
Well, otherwise you are done. If you can solve the problem. So I really like about being an entrepreneur now. Even though I don't know if we can call ourselves entrepreneurs because we have not made the money but we are on the path. I guess we are entrepreneurs. We have made like $60 or so. Don't say we haven't made any money. But not the dollar main product. Those auxiliary sources of income.
But this whole kind of change in mindset. I'm actually in drivers it. I'm in charge. If I don't push the brake or if I don't push the gas, nothing is going to happen. And it's only me as in me or you or whoever is in that seat. We are the masters of our lives. I feel like maybe it's the other side of this coin. That's how I feel about this. Let me try to explain ownership.
Like I always felt even at Amazon. Like I would like want to take on a problem and like just take the decisions and solve it. However, the bureaucracy is what kills that mindset. Basically you have to ask for if it's a complex problem and you're taking a decision, you have to ask for validation from like other people. And that's not always a bad thing. That's a great thing. And especially because those people are really experienced and awesome people.
But it takes a lot of time. Like calendar scheduling, layer by layer, go to the next level of like engineers or management and all. And it just kills your motivation to produce things. Whereas now we have a problem. We meet, we decide what to do and we solve it. Maybe it's the other side of what you're talking about, what that podcast is talking about. But this really energizes me the way we work now.
I think you also said about working with the people you trust. And I would even say like friends with, right? That has been really huge. Because every now and then you meet people and you're like, yeah, you can work with them, right? But would you go into marriage with them, right? Or like would you start a business with them? No. Even though they're nice people and all, right? I think for us, the three of us, you know, we wouldn't go into marriage. I suppose.
But if being in the startup relationship, I mean people often refer to it as being like in the marriage. And I think in many ways it is. Because everybody has skin in the game. Everybody is committed. Everybody is dependent on each other. But I think unlike marriage, especially in us for us in the remote environment, be the marriage, right?
You see a wife multiple times per day. Like if something goes wrong, you see it immediately feedback. Yeah. But immediately feedback loop in startup, especially if you, like you said, we have those two or three days of uninterrupted work time. Like you have no visibility. What's going on? But that's good. I feel like for work. I think it depends on the level of trust though. Because I think for where we are right now with our level of trust, with our mutual respect, I think it just works fine.
But I can definitely imagine if the relationship wasn't as good. And I recently had this kind of situations in corporate world where you would be like, you don't know the motivation of another person. You don't see them enough to like fully relate, like understand them in the startup. I think it can be fatal to the startup.
So I don't know. I took us on this tangent. But I think the TLDR is that I'm really enjoying the people I'm working with, I mean, you and Jenny. And I think it's more than I could have wished for. Let's talk about what we have done in 2023. We started the episode with that timeline. Maybe let's actually try to actually straighten out the timeline now.
Yeah. So late to winter, early summer, sorry spring 2023. You did some prototyping. We applied to YC. Didn't get in June 1st is when I leave Google. I mean, it all starts also like 2022 August is when you left Amazon right. And if the listener like your curious go back listen to our episodes 24 part one and part two, we go into a lot of detail. But the TLDRDR is my spouse is working full time. So I do have that support. Ilya is a single person earner for his family.
So that was like a bit bigger or much bigger decision to take. I guess we cannot compare psychologically for whom it was like more difficult to not because you know people have different circumstances and different levels of tolerance. But I would say it wasn't agonizing decision. So it was it was very difficult. But glad you did it.
So yeah, so June 4th is when I quit my job in the start working full time and which is a go full steam ahead in August while I'm in Vancouver living in your house for a couple of weeks. We are releasing our beta version of Metacast which actually should have mentioned is a podcast app. But I guess this episode is unlikely for somebody to be the first episode because it's just so. Yeah, like I guess the title is not is not to click bait to pick it as a first episode.
So yeah, we launch our beta and you think okay by November we should launch the public version. I think by October November we start to realize that that we're missing a bunch of table stakes features that other podcast apps have. Like basic things like being able to skip 30 seconds ahead when you're driving because it's just like it's it's it's this basic all I've been able to download.
And I think we started using the app ourselves around summer and we felt these things like immediately right let even for ourselves we need these features. I remember some point we both had to use two podcast apps because some stuff just wasn't working properly. At first we only had just a bunch of podcasts available in the app. Right you couldn't search and find new ones. Yes, for anything else you would have to like go and use Apple podcasts as Spotify or something else.
Yeah, Jenny joined us in October and then I think that was another big moment, but also I think it crystallized that our velocity increased quite a lot after she joined right like right now we're almost working on. I want to say two and a half things like technical things almost at the same time well not even technical because you're doing a lot of other technical stuff too but for the app we're like working on almost two and a half features at any time right now back then I think it was.
Like maybe point eight or so because you and I were doing a lot of other administrative stuff to yes yeah I think with Jenny joining it was really. Yeah for those of you who are listening for the first time Jenny's or software developer who used to work with us at Amazon so we're part of the same team that's why we are talking about the trust and that relationship because that relationship has been built over over many many years.
Like I think at least three or four years for me and probably like seven years for you so it's been a long time she was my mentee and mentor in in some way so yeah obviously didn't trip the public version in November we set our eyes to ship in January just day we groomed our backlog. I think January is a stretch right there's still a few things important things left but what really made me kind of more comfortable with this is.
Yesterday we were recording an episode with Christian Selig who is the creator of Apollo which that episode will come out next week episode 51 yes come out next week and he said that I think from his like initial beta or alpha it took him another one
half years to get to shape that gave me a bit more enough okay it's a reference point I would say we always knew this but that you should launch early don't worry too much about launching rough and all that but talking to him also gave me a lot of comfort in like cutting lots of features
out for the first initial release I'm also thinking like maybe should we stick a bait and monitor on it when we launch yeah we'll we'll maybe that's our next metasode we'll talk about it yeah we still need to charge because there's cost to operating the app I don't know what Apple allows and doesn't allow there but I feel like it might be acceptable and then can we like truly build in public like really engage with our users that could really stand a support from these corporate behemoths but also it's something that's going to be a lot of fun.
But also it's something that I know I would personally really enjoy having like a community of users you can discuss stuff with so what are the mistakes that we made this year. Who makes mistakes obviously you don't.
But you I was asking you and you were talking about it so why don't you bring this up like could we have shipped the app faster it's not a mistake it's more like an alternative reality of like could something else have happened here's a thing knowing what I know now in hindsight right we could have left out our secret sauce that we started with and we spent
a month on right and just started with like a basic podcast app and then marketed it as like a podcast app that will like really evolve and support of the podcasting things and like stuff that that you know like there is a lot of stuff in this in our suspect that Apple
podcast is part of I don't support like what if I also try to do all garden so there is a bunch of things that we could have promised we could have released something very small promised a lot and then built it along with our users right the challenge of this approach though is that I think we would have just been working on table stakes all the time.
And would not have gotten to the secret sauce or when we release the secret sauce it would have been so underwhelming or expensive expensive to run it would have been too late to like detour from that at that time yeah also it's possible that we would not have gotten enough confidence that our app is special without
the secret sauce because we would be like we will be in the future but it's just you know just what they call it make believe right but because I know what our app is capable of right that's a big validation part was us using it but also some of our like we have what 15 20 beta testers at this point
yes like that maybe 30 but a few of them got hooked on to it and it changed the way that they use podcasts right like and it totally changed for us so I think that's the kind of believe the conviction that tells you that okay this is actually working but we do need all these other table stakes features now like playlists downloads and all that and yeah I think slipping it around
if we had just built the playlist like basically a podcast player that anybody that any other podcast player is like right now we would have completely avoided the backend and pretty much all the AI and like all the jobs a sing scheduling and all that work that we do right now so that would have saved a lot of time yeah
yeah another thing about the back and right because just for listeners so we have a backend for our podcast stuff so basically we have the podcast catalog and stuff like your playlists and what you listen to it's all in the back end either if you change your phone or like if you lose your data we have everything
stored on the cloud side as well and the intention there is that we will have a web app at some point so you can use this in the cross platform way but also it allows us to basically what I understand what our users are doing with the patterns I'm not talking about like how long you looked at that pixel like what Facebook would do right in our analytics we don't have any of the date it's all anonymized so basically we can see it in aggregate let's say people who listen to this podcast what else is listening to
which would be great for providing recommendations and better search better discovery which is one of the things that we are after going forward as well so I feel like investing in the back end will help us save time in the future because we would have to build anyway but then we would have to like synchronize whatever we have
we have unclients to the back end like manage all these different versions of the app basically everything that we've done we have been thinking like a big company that has deep pockets and lots of time which is not surprising because we have come from like decades working in that kind of environment yeah we don't
have kind of either in a deep pockets or long time but I feel like we will very soon actually even now I think we are starting to accelerate compared to where we were just because we already have most of functionality in place but also we can build a better product because of this I listen to actually an interview with the dualingo co founder Lewis van and I think his name is yeah he wasn't only how built this podcast many years ago maybe three or four years ago it really
presented with me he said that people usually get their product 90% and then they just invest in marketing we don't invest in marketing we invest in product because in long term this is important long term better product wins and this really is it because like that's what we are doing we have to believe that in long term we will win anyway so that's why it's worth investing into the kind of proper infrastructure or
let's talk about 2024 what's our plan of course immediately next plan is to launch you did like look at what else is remaining I think feature wise based on like what you and I are using what people are using it is pretty feature complete at this point but we do need to add a lot of like the launch readiness stuff fix a lot of UX kind of things that we don't want to release
it and I guess search and that sort of features but basic listening wise I feel like it's now I don't need to go to another app right this is the only app that I use for podcasts right now I think the app is definitely usable right now there are if you are corners like not being able to like skip in the car which I felt was very painful on my very long trip from South Carolina to Florida
because I listen to something podcast had a lot of ads and I couldn't skip well driving a bunch of stuff like that that you can call it a feature but it's not sexy right it's like just got get done and it will take a lot of time to do I mean it will take a few days to do all of each of those right but otherwise there are lots of small paper cuts things that we didn't pay much attention to like yeah we'll get to them later so it's just stuff like that this called paper cuts
individually they are no big deal but collectively they just create a wrong impression of the product we will have to prioritize ruthlessly before launch but I think we need to get the basic flow near perfect like like very good so that people have this feeling like oh wow I like it's app that I love that I can use and then also you know I'm looking forward to see what these people will kind of continue to develop right
but also like we should not chase perfection first for the first launch why not it's it's usable right now I feel like we should release as soon as possible right whatever the we determine these are the remaining paper cuts let's do those there's a few security and that sort of stuff that every app has to do like before you launch to the world those things and then I think we launch it and then we get feedback
we learn from people build it with people and iterate on it because it's not going to be like we're done with it I think we're going to be working on this for years now yeah I think something that we'll have to debate because one of the arguments against launching to order on mobile is that you can get a negative review and then if you in any of your community enough negative reviews it will just drag the app the downloads of your app down
people don't download apps you're negative reviews yeah if an app has like one and a half stars unless it's an app that's like a companion app for hardware that you purchased already like you're going to use that app so that's why I'm saying that I'm fully with you that we shouldn't chase perfection but there has to be a certain sort of happy path that should work
polish yeah yeah maybe not necessarily polished like but it should the utility wise it should be really really good yeah it should be to usable that's what I'm saying like I feel like it's already usable minus a few of these things so we need to maybe we're just arguing about semantics we can do that offline yeah yeah okay so yeah we want to launch it and then I think the rest of the year will depend on how that launches what kind of feedback we get it rating from it yeah yeah
and then we do have big plans for like the long term right like this is the app is just the first first of all I think I think four phases that we have talked about internally so we'll see if things go really smooth then maybe by the end of the next year we're not just the app but a few more things that we've been talking about even by the end of 2025 yeah yeah because 2024 will be this this app I think yeah yeah I think so but yeah I think the foundations really allows to build something
that's a bit less more derivative products from this I'm also looking forward to potential collaborations with podcasters that we might do I don't know how those will pop in out you know that's what's interesting about being independent right when you work for Amazon like everybody wants to launch on your name go on stage together let you on their stage just because they want to be associated with you affiliated with you if you if you're in no name
haven't yet reached kind of that recognition then you have to work your way up the ladder right working with people sort of of your level who also have like limited reach but then slowly climb up up up up up together I think I think it's a long it's a long game long term game yeah it's something that is kind of new to both of us because we are used to
doing the brand cloud from a big tech company so yeah we'll see how that goes okay so tell us the launch plan so we will first do sort of a salad well I called the silent launch we will do announcement on you know first we'll get it we'll get to we'll get to the up store no not so I think we'll just do the announcement on like our personal social media like our newsletter newsletter maybe reach out to I don't know maybe 30 to 50 people who we know
just like in direct messages just to get them to try the app maybe give us a review if they like it etc so basically to catch any unexpected last bugs or basically any blind spots once we have the pipeline we have the app we can release it Apple approved it you know all of that stuff I mean and Google actually even does in your
oh yeah they do they do yeah same but I guess not not as severe as Apple I've just been following the hay saga Apple is a more manual review all through so that it's more qualitative Google is very automated but if you failed automation then good luck but they probably also have a lower threshold yeah although they're getting more and more stringent now I think recently so when we are comfortable
we will announce on you know ready product hand obviously we'll keep beating the drum on our own social media and finally I think when we are really confident in the value that app has and you can really miss to pay for that when we have some paying users I suppose we really want to start collaborating with podcasters to work with them to be our sort of endorsers it's very familiar concept in the sports world
except that in sports world you know they pay the athletes to promote them so we'll just work with you know I guess first with our friends but cast a friend who have been on our podcast to see you know if you can establish any kind of I don't want I don't want to call it deal but it's more like can we find the partnership that's mutually beneficial
and one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about recently is there is a group of people the podcasting 2.0 crowd they have created some pretty cool stuff in our assess spec that allows for more rich content
and all that it doesn't seem like big players care about it much right so so we could do that poster child actually for the for that movement and drive the industry forward so to speak so that could be in a one of the partnerships that we potentially make and I'm really excited about that opportunity but yeah but overall it's like these all just hypothesis for now so we'll just a let we'll see how it pans out yeah
okay so I think that's a wrap for like the app and the company side of it our review of 2023 plan for 2024 let's talk a little bit about the podcast itself right it's our first episode came out January first or so 2023
it was whatever the first Wednesday of 2023 right and then it has been like we've done a lot of episodes so far so that's been a lot of like I think really enjoying fulfilling amount of work let's talk about your top three episodes of 2023 how do you find top so I think there are different ways to look at it as a listener if you put your listener hat on which ones did you enjoy as a creator of the podcast
which ones did you enjoy it's up to you you give me the top three and you tell me why they're in the top three so my top three is the Jack and John the episode which was I think episode number four the only episode where we sang so far yes well I you'd sing in the last episode little bit okay which means you didn't listen to it okay not the other so yeah Jake nap and John don't Courtney was a great episode very delightful but also very inspiring because I really
think it's Jake because he was actually my age when he left Google to like be independent and yeah he shared some stories it was really great and John is just always fun to be around and listen to his he's amazing my number two was our interview with Jason Fried and the co founder of 37 signals I think for two reasons so first I really enjoyed just his humbleness and his insights and how he talks and it was a great conversation like both is listener and as a creator the other thing is it was the
first one that felt like success anyway you know because he was the biggest name I think we've had on the podcast so far like maybe the most famous name if it makes sense that also got us a new specifically a lot of like followers in LinkedIn I think our newsletter to started gaining more and more thing traction around them yeah I think it was yeah one of those
moments and then the last one which is my favorite in terms of I guess more as a creator episode 24 part one and part two we recorded a reflection on kind of living our jobs have you thought about that our decision making process why we're doing what we are doing it was a very long discussion I think we recorded it all at once and then we just
split split into two episodes because it was too long you know how you like read the book by some business man who is successful and they would be like I knew it all like all along all they have this kind of heroic story or of struggle or something so for us we actually have unbiased three hours of documented evidence of where we were in relation what exactly we did without like you know hindsight that those
two are also in my top three as as you can see already it was I think very kind of throwback but also a lot of realization that we gain while talking about it and recording basically just talking about the journey so far it's been a long journey so it was amazing you know I'm all about the fun so my top three includes are arguably as a listener my most fun
episode to listen to was 7.5 the bonus episode where if you have not heard it listener and you like listening to us go listen to that episode but basically it started with I don't know what we were going to talk about recording and episode and then we started to be the tangent about sci-fi or like a sender that he was one of those and we ended up like talking about like 1.5 hours
instead of about like sci-fi about comics and music movies and all and then we decided it's too long let's just release this as a bonus episode yeah that was fun that that was my most I think one of my top three episodes as as a listener as well as a creator it's also probably the only episode that was not planned at all
because because everything else we have certain agenda right this one was it was basically a mistake and it happened yeah we felt it was so good and heartfelt and fun that we decided to release it anyway so that that one the other one of my top three I'd mention I mean so we have had lots of great guests just in Frankl we name that was like wow
when when he said yes and we recorded it that was awesome just in Jackson that was a really good episode I enjoyed doing of course Jason Freed and Brian McLeod the first day of the first one they thought I mean these are people I would have never had a chance to talk to in my life if we were not doing this podcast so it was amazing
but I'll mention episode 10 hearts in Taiwan that that podcast that we talked to any angel and Angela yeah that was for me I think that was the episode that emotionally connects the most because everything else like Dave Thomas Justin Jackson all of these people there in the tech space so I was already pretty familiar with their work let's say Winnie M.
or transistor FM or hey or 37 signals like I already knew about all these things so the the amount of research was more about like what exactly have they been working on what have they been on a podcast and that sort of stuff whereas this one was like I had no idea about Taiwan and I mean at a superficial level I know the challenges that Taiwanese people have gone through
but I had never done any deep reading into all this so and also the parental side of it to me that was that episode touches my heart the most so that's in my top three Angela was my co-worker at Google and actually I don't think we ever mentioned this on the podcast she and I we worked together she was a developer I should push still is developer of a
Kado developer advocate of the PM and maps and her manager actually mentioned to me like like oh you guys have a podcast like Angela has a podcast too I'm like oh wow I didn't know so I start listening to her some Taiwan I'm like oh my god they are so vulnerable so open and yes I talked her talk to her you know invited her and you to the podcast and their cousins which is also like there is
just so much interliving interliving there I know it's it's one of actually was one of my favorite podcasts for a while well I was in research I was binge-grabbed podcast and I really liked it they're not doing too many episodes I'm also subscribed to it but they have not done too many but I am on both of their Instagrams and all they do keep posting fun stuff from Taiwan as well as from the US about Taiwan so yeah it's awesome so let's finish this without a traditional section of what we are
listening to and reading now I mean you just come back from India you must have had plenty of free time and lots of sleep and all that lots of sleep yeah for I have not slept well last night I didn't sleep like 8 hours but before that it was all four or five hours every night there was a lot of meeting up with lots of like old family and friends it was super fun but before going on the
trip we had just finished the download feature so I had downloaded a lot of podcasts I did listen to two of the really long ones in there maybe this was just like holiday time two of my favorite science fiction authors both release their next audiobooks like two days before I was leaving so I was like yes download it on
audible I'll just quickly mention them right so in terms of podcasts the hardcore history Dan Carlin he has two six and a half hour episodes about the Viking age right how it started and what's the influence why do we hear about like Thor and Ragnarok and all that in our society in Hollywood all the time even now like thousands of years after that right and it was
interesting because I've never gone deep into that space highly recommended but it is six and a half hours each each episode there two of them song explorer you had mentioned it I mean it's a very famous podcast already but the first time I listen to was seals kiss from a rose I love that so how it almost didn't happen I like the serendipity of that how it came about I just for listeners some explorers were this guy called her way I think his name is
harry yeah he invites musicians and they talk about their songs some some would talk about some technical aspects of like whatever how the layered things some of them would talk just about the story like somebody died and like they evolve all that it's a fascinating podcast where you get to hear directly from the people who created the song
and I really enjoy because the song is also in there and many times right maybe sometimes you'd hear parts of the song but at the end of it you'd play the whole song just beautiful yeah I like it is beautiful yes in terms of books three books I read in the travels one was I really wanted to watch the Napoleon movie that came out which I didn't end up watching but to prepare for it I read the
Napoleon book by Andrew Roberts it's not one of those like engaging storytelling kind of history books that I like that's the Dan Carlin style of history this more like factual like what happened but there's a lot of like insights and all that too so I enjoyed that book the two science fiction books I talked about roadkill from if you know Bobby verse
Bobby versus like one of the most fun science fiction series recently he has four books in Bobby verse but he had a standalone novel slash novel it's not that long it's called roadkill it's about an alien and a guy like basically accidentally hit him on the road and kills him and what happens after that so fun fun read and then X force is this expeditionary force of the Craig
Ellenson arc of novels there's like ten of them so he had the final one in their call after math I did get lots of I thought I had not spent too much time listening to stuff but it sounds like I did maybe should have slept instead yeah during the break I mean I was here most of the time but I had to drive my son to a camp every day so I got to listen to a bunch of
podcasts I didn't read any books during this time and I've been binging on the same podcast that's kind of my obsessive podcast listening personality so I listened to probably like 15 episodes of song explorer I mean I knew this podcast for a long time ago but I just like to rediscover this podcast and a scroll through their entire what tell me the one the the one that comes to your mind
immediately of these 15 actually that's the one that I shared with you it's a teacher by full fighters where he talks about his mother's passing and how he came up with the song to answer don't like the song well I have no I don't like the song either that's why I didn't listen to it but now that you you've shared in slack like the details of it I do have it yeah
but the backstory it made me tear up you know there was also one by R.E.M. actually there was a surprise there was a lot of stuff about that there because I guess those stories make for powerful you know connection with listeners yeah there was one from and then in snails metallic and Madonna was a really good one I had no idea they used a sample from Abba actually know this song I just never I just never realized it was the same like the
example from inside a Madonna song yeah like hang up is a song from early 2000s yeah they use an Abba sample from give me give me give me give me song okay it's it's it's this kind of things so Madonna one was more like more technical they were talking more about like how they can have those things but it was just so so interesting the song explorer has like 350 episodes so far I think right yeah so I scanned the entire thing and I picked all of the names that I know
and now I think I finished them all how one that you know people might enjoy is one with Hans Zimmer he breaks down soundtrack for Dune because he used some non-centered instruments there some non-centered like effect it is very interesting I was also bingeing on rework just because they are fun to listen to you know Jason Fried and and the HH and that diary of a CEO Steven Bartlett mostly I was listening to those short moments that he has he
would take like 50 minutes of an episode just put it as a separate episode stuff about health was really interesting the one that I would call out he had guy called James Hoffman he won like a world barista championship was having back in 2007 so the guy knows a lot about coffee and so he spent basically all of his life I think he's about 45 now so so he spent like 20 plus years working with coffee he has a coffee rose to come and he won the barista championship
is this what got you started on the coffee thing again which you are having withdrawal from now yeah so yeah so I guess I told you I mean I was having the withdrawal from coffee for the last two days terrible headaches because I wanted to stop coffee for a while
and then and then I came across this episode he talks about this thing as coffee withdrawal is I think coffee in the where you have headaches like 24 to 48 hours after you stop and just generally he talks about career quite a bit there because people were telling him that he was like
too niche because he like specializing in coffee and then he said like a coffee just exploded now like coffee is everywhere oh and then there was a fun part there were Steven Bartlett the host he brings five cups of coffee that that his team got from like serenium coffee shops that Steven himself doesn't know where they're from and then they both do tasting blind test yeah like blind test and this guy James Hoffman he describes like what he feels there and he pretty angry with nails like
I think my bones as a commercial coffee that should be like expensive or if like expensive he'll be outraged but yeah and then Steven reveals to him what what these coffees are so yeah it was pretty interesting and independent coffee shop one of those five actually not surprising so another thing that I hope will not get me cancelled here I've been listening to Jordan Peterson every now and then there will be a lot of people in the west coast who disagree with
probably everything that Jordan Peterson says about just because he's Jordan Peterson because of some other things that he said but he has some really interesting things like accidentally came across this episode where he talks with the mathematician John Lennox about God the episode was called the conversation about God and the only reason why I listened to this is it it wasn't my playlist but I was driving from Savannah to Florida
and I just randomly clicked into my playlist and it started playing I'm like okay whatever I listen to it and it was very interesting because the main idea there is that if you an atheist then how can you believe in the sort of order in the universe so it's like if you believe in like randomness how come there is so much order and structure in the universe and like everywhere down to like atomic level
there is a higher level consciousness you may call it God you can you can call something else right but there's something like a higher level intelligence that actually created all of that and that's why there is so much so much order my first instinct is to disagree completely but I think I need to listen to this before form and opinion
yeah so I think I think it's important to listen to the whole thing it's about one and a half hours before you disagree and that's one of the things that maybe people actually don't do enough is like listening to the opposing points of view it's all I think black and white nowadays you're either here or there and a lot of what he says is black and white but the right occasional nuggets were like this thing about God
it's sort of not related to politics but it's interesting I always regard myself as an atheist but I don't think I do anymore yeah anyway so it was a long detour yeah okay let's wrap it up if you still don't know we are building an app
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