Racing

`4:32:17`

— The funny thing about getting into racing is I did not get my driver's license until I was 25. I grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the tax on cars is basically over 200%. So you pay for three cars and you get one. And I didn't even have the money for one car, let alone three. So I could not afford a car growing up. We did not have a car growing up, but Copenhagen is a nice city to be able to get around on a bike or with a bus, or as I did for a long period of time, on roller blades. But when I was 25, I realized I wanted to spend more time in the US. I wasn't sure yet that I was gonna move there. That turned out later to be true. But I knew that if I wanted to spend time in the US, I needed to have a driver's license. I was not gonna get around very well if I didn't know how to drive a car. So I got a driver's license at 25. Then ended up moving to the US later that year and I'd always been into video games, racing video games,

`4:33:21`

"Metropolitan Street Racer" on the Dreamcast was one of those games that really sucked me into. It was the precursor to Project Gotham, which was the precursor to essentially, Forza Horizon, I think. — Oh, okay, interesting. — I think that's how the lineage goes. Just a great game. I actually just fired it up on an emulator a few weeks ago. And it still sort of kind of holds up because it has enough real car dynamics that it smells a little bit like driving a real car. It's not just like an arcade racer like Sega Rally or something like that. But I'd always been into that. Then I got my driver's license at 25 and moved to the US, and then two years later, a friend that I'd met in Chicago took me to the Chicago Autobahn Country Club, which is this great track, about 45 minutes from Chicago. And I sat in a race car and I drove a race car for the first time. And I had the same kind of pseudo religious experience I did as when I started working on Ruby,

`4:34:24`

where I did maybe 20 laps in this basically a Mazda race car from, I think, it was like the '90s or something, like a pretty cheap race car, but a real race car. Single seat, manual gearbox, but exposed slick wheels, all the stuff. And after having had that experience, first of all it was just the most amazing thing ever. Like the physical sensation of driving a race car is really unique. And I think if you've driven a car fast, you have a maybe a 2% taste of it. The exposure to the elements that you get in a single seat race car, especially one like that where your head is actually out in the elements, you can see the individual wheels and you sensation of speed is just so much higher is at a completely different level. — So can you actually speak to that? So even at that Mazda, so you can feel, what can you feel like the track reverberating you see? You feel the grip? — Oh yeah, not only can you see the bumps

`4:35:26`

because you're literally looking straight at the wheel, you can feel all the bumps because you're running a slick tire. It's a really stiff setup. It's nothing like taking a fast street car out on a racetrack and try to driving a little bit around. — So can you feel like the slipping, the traction? — Yeah, you feel the slipping. hat's a huge part of the satisfaction of driving a race car is driving in at the edge of adhesion as we call it. Where the car's actually sliding a little bit. A couple of percent of slip angle is the fastest way to drive a race car. You don't wanna slide too much that looks great, lots of smoke, but it's not fast. How you want to drive it is just at the limit of adhesion where you're rotating the car as much as your tires can manage. And then slightly more than that and playing at it, keeping it just at that level. Because when you're at the level or at the limit of adhesion, you're essentially just a tiny movement away from spinning out. I mean, it doesn't take much. Then the car starts rotating. Once it starts rotating, you lose grip and you're going for the wall.

`4:36:27`

That balance of danger and skill is what's so intoxicating. And it's so much better than racing video games too, because the criticality is taking up two notches. I often think about people who really like gambling, where I think like, aren't you just playing poker? Like no, the point is not poker. Pokers may be part of it, but the point is that I could lose my house, right? Like that's the addiction that some people get to gambling, that there's something real on the line. When you're in a race car, there's something very real on the line. If you get it wrong, at the very least, you're gonna spin out and properly hit a wall and it's gonna be expensive. At the very worst, you're not getting out alive. And even if modern race cars have gotten way safer than they used to be. There is that element of danger that's real. That there are people who still get seriously hurt or even killed in a race car. It's mercifully rare compared to what it used to be

`4:37:28`

when those maniacs in the '60s would do Formula 1 and whatever, 13% of the grid wouldn't make it to the end of the year because they'd just die in a fiery flaming fireball. But there's still some of it there. And I think that since that there's something on the line really contributes to it. But it's more than that. There's just a physical sensation. There's activation of all your forces. There's the flow. And I think that really cements like why I got addicted, 'cause I always, I love that flow I got out of programming, but getting flow out of programming is a very inconsistent process. I can't just sit down in front of a keyboard and go like, all right, let's get the flow going. It doesn't happen like that. The problem has to be just right. It has to meet my skills in just a right moment. It's a bit of a lottery. In a race car is not a lottery at all. You sit down in that car, you turn the ignition, you go out on track, and I get flow virtually guaranteed.

`4:38:28`

Because you need, or I need at least 100% of my brain processing power to be able to go at the speed I go without crashing. So there's no time to think about the other night or the meeting next week or product launch. It's completely zen in actually the literal sense of the word. I think of someone who's really good at meditation, that's probably kind of state they get into where it's just clear you're in the now, there's nothing but you and the next corner. That's a really addictive experience. So after I've had that, I couldn't get enough. I kept going to the track every opportunity I got. Every single weekend for about four years, I would go to the track. And by the end of that time, I'd finally worked up enough skill and enough success with the company that I could afford to go, quote, unquote, "real racing." So I started doing that. I started driving these Porsches, and then as soon as I got into that, as soon as I got into, quote, unquote, "real competition," I was like, I wonder how far you can take this. And it didn't take that long

`4:39:31`

before I decided, you know what? I can take this all the way. My great hero in racing is Tom Kristensen, fellow Dane. The Mr. Le Mans, as they call him. The greatest endurance race in the world. The 24 hours of Le Mans has been won more times than any other by Tom Kristensen. He won the race nine times. So Tom just really turned me onto Le Mans. I've been watching Le Mans since I think the '80s. I have my earliest memories of watching that on TV. The race has been going since I think 20s. But in the '80s I got kind of into it. And then in the late '90s, early 2000s when Tom started winning, I like pretty much every other Dane started watching the race almost religiously. So I thought, you know what? I wanna get to Le Mans. And this is the magic thing about racing, that if I get into basketball, like I can't set a realistic expectation that I'm gonna play in the NBA, then I'm gonna go to the finals. Or I get into tennis and I'm gonna play at Wimbledon, that just doesn't happen.

`4:40:32`

But racing thing is special in this way because it requires a fair amount of money to keep these cars running. It's really expensive. It's like having a small startup. You need to fly a bunch of people around the world and buy expensive equipment and so forth. So you need a bunch of capital. And I had some through the success of the company. So I could do it, which meant that I could get to Le Mans. So I set that as my goal. I wanna get to Le Mans. And I started racing in real competition 2009. And three years later in 2012, I was at the grid of Le Mans for the first time. — We should say, so Le Mans, 24-hour race endurance. I mean, this is insane. — There are three drivers, mind you. So it's not like one guy just drive for 20 hours, 24 hours straight. But still, it's a pretty tough race both physically and mentally, especially mentally. When you've been up for 24 plus hours, you're not quite as sharp as when you first wake up. And this is funny about Le Mans too. It starts at around four o'clock in the afternoon. So you've already been up for half a day

`4:41:33`

by the time the race starts. And then there's 24 hours to go before you're done. And you'll be in the car for anywhere from usually an hour and a half to a maximum of four hours. The regulations say four out of six is the max you can do. I've spent perhaps two and a half hours in a single stint at Le Mans. It's pretty taxing. You're going 200 miles an hour into some of these turns, and there's another 60 cars on track. Whenever I'm in my normal category, which is the LMP2 category, I have GT cars, which are more like a Ferrari and a Porsche that I have to overtake. And then I have these hypercar, which is the top class that are overtaking me. So you got a lot going on and you gotta stay sharp for two and a half hours straight to do that. That is just a guaranteed way to get incredible flow for long, long stretches of time. That's why you get addicted to it. That was why I got addicted. — You gotta talk me through this video. This video of you in these LMP2s. — Oh, yes. — This is such a cool. This is so cool.

`4:42:34`

— And this was probably my favorite battle of my career. — [Commentator] And Heinemeier Hansson has beat past to add five... — Yeah, so this is me driving against Nico Muller at the Shanghai International Circuit. — You're on the outside here? — I'm on the outside in the... — How cool is it? — Blue and white. And we go a whole track around with basically a piece of paper between a seat down this back straight. I get so close to him because I wanna force him over on the other side of the track, such that he can't just box me in. And we've been fighting already at this point for basically 40 minutes straight. I've been managing to keep this professional driver behind me for 40 minutes. And he finally passes me, but we just keep the battle on for the whole time. And it really just shows both these kinds of cars. The Le Mans prototypes. We don't actually ever touch. We get within about an inch. And keep going around Shanghai circuit too. — What a cool. How did you get so good? Like what? I mean that's a fascinating story, right? That you are able to get so good. — I'm pretty good for the kind of driver I am,

`4:43:36`

which is called the gentleman driver, which means I'm not a professional driver. And like many good gentlemen drivers, when we're at our really best, we can be quite competitive with even professional drivers who have been doing this their whole life. The difference between us and the professionals is the professionals could do it every time or more or less every time. So I can't be this good all the time. When everything is just right, I can be competitive with professional drivers, but that's not how you win championships. That's not how you get paid by factories to drive. You gotta be good every time you go out. So that's a huge difference. But some of it was also just, I really put my mind to it by the time I realized race cars is what I want to do as my serious hobby. I put in thousands of hours. — Have you crashed? What's the worst crash? — I've had a lot of crashes, but thankfully, knock on wood, I haven't had any crashes where I've gotten really seriously hurt. — Have you like wrecked the car? — Oh yes, oh yes. I've wrecked many car. — So what's that feel like? Just you wreck a car.

`4:44:36`

Like how do you get... — It feels like total shit if you're in a real race and other people depend on you. It's not even so much to car, although it's also sometimes that these cars are expensive to repair and that sucks and it feels so wasteful in a way when you crash some of these cars. But the sense that you're letting a team down. Endurance racing is a team sport. Not only do you have your mechanics, do you usually have co-drivers. So when I crash I just feel like, damn it, I could have avoided this. — Yeah, but also you could have died. — Do you know what's funny? I never think about that. I don't think you can. Because I think the moment you start thinking about being able to die, you can't do it. You can't go fast. — Well, I'm sure not to go all Carl Jung and Freud here, but I'm sure that's always present in the back of your mind somewhere. You're not just bringing it to the surface. — It is in the sense that it's part of the appeal, it's part of the sense that there's something on the line

`4:45:37`

that this isn't just virtual. I can't just hit reset, restart, reboot. If I crash this car, we're gonna be out or we're gonna be disadvantaged or it's gonna get destroyed or I might get hurt. I've gotten lightly hurt a few times. I actually had the year we won 24 hours of Le Mans in our class, I've been training in this formula 3.5 car. It's a really fast car. It's a really nice exercise to do, but it's also, it doesn't have power steering. So some of these race cars, especially the open- seaters, they don't have power steering. Which means that the steering wheel is basically directly connected to the front wheels. So if you crash one of those cars and the front wheel suddenly turn, you're really gonna hurt your hands if you don't get your hands off the wheel. I hadn't raced enough of those cars to know that I had to get, or to have the instinct, to have developed the instinct that I had to get my hands off the wheel. So I didn't, and I really hurt my hand and this was just I think a month before the 24 of Le Mans.

`4:46:39`

So I thought, ah man, I'm gonna have to miss it this year. I had like a, not a cast, it was just seriously sprained. And then somehow miraculously like a week before the event, I was like, yeah, actually it's okay now. So got to do it. And that would've been grave regret if I would've seen my team go on to win the race and I would have to sit on the sidelines. But I really have been quite fortunate in the sense that most of my crashes have just been expensive or sporting inconvenient. They've never been something where I got seriously hurt. But I've seen plenty of people who have in fact, my co-driver this year and for several years, Pietro Fittipaldi drove a race car at Spa. Spa is one of the great race tracks of all time. And it has this iconic corner called Eau Rouge, which is probably the most famous corner in all of motorsports. It has a great compression before you climb uphill. It's extremely fast, very difficult corner. And just as he does the compression, his car basically sets out

`4:47:41`

and he loses his power steering and he drives straight into the wall and breaks both his legs and basically faced the prospect that maybe his career was over. I've had other teammates and people I know have serious injuries that's really hurt them. And yet what's funny, as you say, you'd think that would sink in. The year before we won in 2014, that same car had a Danish driver in it at Le Mans at the race I was driving who died. He lost control of the car when there was a bit of rain on the track and the track went unfortunately designed in such a poor way that there was a very big tree right behind the railing. And he hit that tree at full speed, pulled 90 Gs and was dead on the spot, which was just such an extremely awful experience to go through.

`4:48:41`

I finished second that year, which should have been caused for a bunch of celebration. But it was just tainted by the fact that not only did a driver die, a fellow Dane died. A guy I knew died. That was pretty tough. — So that throw that into the pile of the things that have to be considered is the weather conditions that you mentioned of the track. The weather is dry or wet. — It's a huge part of it. — Even just last year at Le Mans. It was raining and I was out, and I hadn't made a serious mistake at the 24 hours of Le Mans since I did the first race in 2012 where I put it in the sand trap with like four hours to go and we lost a couple of lap getting pulled out, but it didn't actually change anything for our result because that was just how the field was spread out. I'd made minor mistakes over the years

`4:49:42`

but nothing that really set us out. And at the race last year when it was raining, I first clobbered a Ford Mustang when I made an overambitious pass on a damp part of the track and couldn't stop in time and then felt absolutely awful as I sat in the gravel pit for two laps and knew that our race was over. A race where we were highly competitive. You're not blessed with a competitive car, a competitive team and competitive setup every year. I know how rare that is. So to know that we had had a chance that year and I sort of squandered it felt really bad, but that got compounded. I got back on track, barely made it another stint and then put it in the gravel trap again when it started raining on the entrance into Porsche. So this is part of why racing is so addicting too because the highs are very, very high. When you win a race like the 24 hours of Le Mans. It feels just incredible. There's so much emotion. But if you fuck it up, the lows are very, very low.

`4:50:44`

— What are the things you're paying attention to when you're driving? What are the parameters? What are you loading in? Are you feeling the grip? Are you basically increasing the speed and seeing what like a constant feedback system effect that has on the grip and you're trying to manage that and try to find that optimal slip angle? Are you looking around using your eyes? Are you smelling things? Are you listening just feeling the wind or are you looking at the field too? Like how'd you not hit that guy at all? You get close with an inches, right? So you have to pay attention to that too. It's really interesting about that specific battle where we're literally a few inches apart. I can't fully explain it, but humans can develop an incredible sense of space. Where I can't see the edge of the back of my car, but I can know exactly where it is. I can have a mental model in my head

`4:51:45`

that gives me the exact dimensions of this car just that I can run within a few inches of a competitor car or within a few inches of the wall and not hit either when things go well. The car is about two meters wide and it's quite long, five meters. And you can't see everything. The mirrors are actually kind of shit. There's no rear view mirror in these cars. You can't see out the back. You can only see through your two side mirrors. But you formed this intuitive mental model when you get good enough at this. But what I actually pay attention to most is I run a program. What I try to do when I go to a racetrack is I try to load up the best program I know how for every single corner. What's my break point? What's my acceleration point? What's my break trailing curve? And I try to pick up that program in part just by finding it myself and how fast I can go. But even more so than that by copying my professional competitors or not competitors, co-drivers. So I usually always race with a pro.

`4:52:47`

And modern race cars produce an absolute enormous amount of data, and you can analyze all that data after each outing. You can see an exact trace of how much you pushed the brake pedal, how much you did in terms of steering inputs. When you got on the gas, you can see every millisecond you're losing is evident in those charts. So what I try to do is I try to look at the chart and then I try to load that in and like that's what I gotta do. Oh, in this corner 17, I have to be 10 bar lighter on the brake. So I try to load that program in and then I try to repeat it now. Then there are all the things that changes. Your tires change quite a lot. These tires are made to only last 40 minutes in many cases. Sometimes at Le Mans we can go longer, but at some racetracks they'll last as little as 40 minutes before they really fall off. So you gotta manage that. That the grip is constantly changing. So your program have to suddenly fit those changing circumstances. And then in endurance racing, you're constantly interacting with other cars

`4:53:49`

because you're passing slower classes or you're getting passed by a faster class. So that's part of the equation. And then you're trying to dance the car around the limit of adhesion. So you got all those factors playing at the same time. But above all else for me is to try to become a robot. Like how can I repeat this set of steps exactly as I'm supposed to for two and a half hours straight without making 100 milliseconds worth of mistakes? — Yeah, low latency algorithm. — That's really a huge part of it actually. Your latency is enormously important in terms of being able to catch when the car starts slipping. You get this sensation in your body that the G-force are a little off, the slip angle is a little off, and then you have to counter steer. And obviously the best race car drivers just feel like an intuition. I have some intuition. I don't have all of it, so I do occasionally spin my car. But that's the challenge. — From everything you've studied and understand,

`4:54:51`

what does it take to achieve mastery in racing? Like what does it take to become the best race car driver in the world? — Obsession is part of it. When I read and hear about Senna and the other greats, they were just singularly focused. Max Verstappen is the current champion of the world and he is the same kind. Max has been fascinating to watch. I mean he is a phenomenal race car driver, but he also literally does nothing else. When he is not at the racetrack, he's driving sim racing. Like he's literally in video games doing more racing when he is not doing all the racing he's already doing. — Is there a specific skill that have that like stands out to you as supernatural through all of that obsession? Is it a bunch of factors or are they actually able to, like you said, develop a sense? Is it they're able to get to the very edge of the slip? — They're able to develop very fine tuned sensibilities for when the car's sliding. They can feel just these tiny moments

`4:55:53`

or movements in the chassis that transports up usually through their ass. That's why you call us like a butt meter that goes up and you feel like the car is loose or you feel like you're just about to lock up. You can really hone that tuning. Then the other thing is you have to have really good reaction time. And when you look at great Formula 1 drivers, they can generally have a reaction time of just under 200 milliseconds, which is awesome. And even 10 milliseconds difference makes a huge difference. You'll see it when the Formula 1 grit, for example, they do a standing start and you see the five red lights come on. And when the last light goes out, they're supposed to release the clutch and get going. And they can time this. So you can see exactly who has the reaction time. And even being off by 20 milliseconds can make the difference of whether you're in front or behind at the first corner. — How much of winning is also just the strategy of jostling for a position?

`4:56:53`

— There's some of that and some of it is also just nerve. Who wants it more? That's exactly when that sense of danger comes in. There's a great quote from Fernando Alonso when he was driving at Suzuka against Schumacher, I think. They're coming up to this incredibly fast corner. It's very dangerous. And Alonso basically accounts I was gonna make the pass 'cause I knew he had a wife and kids at home. — That's so gangster. — Just absolutely ruthless, right? — Yeah, wow. — That I knew he valued life more than I did. So there's a bit of poker sometimes in that. Who's gonna yield? There's a bit of chicken raised in that regard. And sometimes it doesn't work. No one yields and you both crash. But very often one person will blink first. — Can the pass be both on the inside and the outside? — You can pass wherever you want as long as you have just a slight part of the car on the racetrack. — And then you just improvise and take risks.

`4:57:53`

What a sport. And then Senna, of course, is like a legendary risk taker. — Yes, and even before him, by the time, I mean he died in the '90s. But by the time we got to the '90s, racing was al already a lot safer than it was when Niki Lauda raced in the '60s. That level of danger is no longer there. There's still just a remnant of it and it is still dangerous, but nothing like that. And it's a little hard to compare through the ages, like who's the greatest driver of all time. I think there's a fair argument that Senna is, but we don't have the data. We don't know who he was up against. Like how would he fare if we pitted him against Max Verstappen today. I do think sometimes that you can have a bit of a nostalgia for the all time greats, but the world moves forward and new records are being set all the time and the professionalism keeps improving. Sometimes to the detriment of the sport, I think. There's a lot of professional drivers who are not only just very good at driving, but are very good at being corporate spokespeople.

`4:58:54`

And it used to be quite different. There used to be more characters in racing that had a bit more personality that they were allowed to shine because there weren't a billion sponsorships on the line that they were afraid to lose. — Ridiculous question, what's the greatest car I ever made, or maybe what's the funnest one to drive? — The greatest car for me of all time is the Pagani Zonda. — [Lex] Okay, I'm looking this up, Pagani Zonda. — [DHH] So the Pagani Zonda was made by this wonderful Argentinian called Horacio Pagani. — [Lex] My god, that's a beautiful car, wow. — It's a gorgeous car. You can look up mine. It's the Pagani Zonda HH. So that's a car I had made in 2010 after we visited the factory in Modena. And by sheer accident ended up with this car, but it became my favorite car in the world basically. When I watched an episode of "Top Gear," I think in 2005, where one of the presenters