Radical Authenticity Over Marketing Tricks

`1:08:22`

— And you have a love of architecture, we just talked about watches, cars, the Concept Rower. When you said, "You could change your mind, David, maybe you're not podcasting in the future." — Yeah. — What I know for sure is if I ever do anything else, — Yeah. — it's going to be physical, because the same phenomenon where, — Yeah. — I barely look at numbers. I know you barely look at numbers, but it's just numbers on a screen. — Right. — And those numbers happen to be big, but you don't understand that. — Yeah. — You just don't feel it. — Yeah. — I remember, Mark Leonard of Constellation Software did this podcast. — Mm-hmm. — He talked about one of his most fulfilling jobs he ever had, was not starting and compounding whatever it was, 50 million to 80 billion or whatever he's done with pure software. — Sure. Yeah. — He was building stone walls. — Mm. — And even to this day, he said he'd go... I think he was a kid or a young man, maybe he was in his 20s, 30s back then.

`1:09:10`

But you can go to where the stone wall that he worked on 30 years ago, and he's pointing at it, he's like, "I did that." — That's badass. — "I made that." — Yeah. — Why do you draw so much inspiration from physical things? I'll take some guesses, because I don't know. Just like I don't know why I like certain flavors. I just do, right? You can't really explain these things, but if I had to guess, again, it comes back to there's something real about them. I like being able to hold things, touch things. I like texture. Something you'll see in a lot of our software products is actually texture, which is not real, it's simulated, but a lot of software these days is very flat. I like gradients and colors and lines and some texture. I just find it to be very fulfilling and real to rub your finger over something and feel it.

`1:09:55`

I like patina, I like age on things. Software doesn't age. I mean, it does age. It can look old or whatever, but software looks the same over time. A great building, a great brick, to get back to bricks, bricks are beautiful because they look even better as they get older. They collect age on them. They get stronger. They build into other things. There's something about the physical world to me that is just... We're from it, okay? We are it. We are part of it. There's something so fundamental about it that I try never to get too far away from it. I would much rather lay on the ground than fly in the air, you know?

`1:10:41`

I just want to be closer to things that are real. Now, flying in the air is real, too, of course, but you know what I'm saying. I'd rather walk somewhere. I'd rather drive. I'd like to be closer to the ground. I've begun to collect rocks that I think are cool looking. Oh, now you can move to Malibu. — Yeah. — Are these rocks crystals? — They're not crystals. I was going to save that in case you asked me. They're not crystals. I'll just find something at the beach, or I'll find something interesting with a cool pattern in it, and I just like it. I don't know. I love nature. I love all the textures and patterns and colors. Like, for example, when you're coming up as a designer, in the early days when I was designing identities, like logos and stuff, you'd go through these logo books or corporate identity books.

`1:11:27`

I think there was an organization called... I want to call it Brand, but maybe I'm wrong. Print, actually. It was this magazine that had all these pictures of business cards and stuff, and every designer I know would look through other business cards for inspiration, for color patterns and palettes and layouts, and I'm like, "Go outside." The best designs ever are right there. That leaf is the best it's ever been. Obviously, it has survived and evolved. This is a great thing, and so if you want to find great colors, look at a bird. Don't look at a book. Look at a leaf, right? Look at the ocean. Go to a tide pool and just look at the colors in that tide pool. Look at the way the light reflects. Like, that's the real stuff,