Tim Sweeney

`3:57:26`

that the rule of law in the US now is that you can launch an app in the app store. And you don't have to use in-app payment, but you can have a direct billing relationship with a customer if you just link out to the open internet when you take the credit card and then hop back into the app. And we owe all of that to Tim and Mark. We owe all of that to Epic. We're gonna launch new apps any minute now, I hope actually next week to take advantage of this that revamp the hey apps so that people who download the Hey app off the Apple app store can sign up in the app and can then use the web to put in their credit card so we don't have to pay 30%. Instead we have a direct billing relationship and such that they can take that subscription to Android, to PCs, whatever without any hassle. And we have Tim and Mark to thank for it. — Yeah, Tim, I mean, like you said founders but also specific kind of founders. 'Cause I think maybe you can educate me on this, but Tim is somebody who maintains.

`3:58:27`

to this day sort of the unreasonableness of principles. Yes, that's what I love. I think sometimes maybe even with founders you can get worn down. It's a large company. There's a lot of smart, quote, unquote, people around you lawyers and just whispering your ear over time and you're like, well just be reasonable being a, you know, this is a different thing. And to be the sort of maintain, I mean Steve Jobs did this. Still are the asshole. Who' says, "No, I'll sink this whole fucking company over this." — That's the exact language basically I used in our original campaign. I will burn this business down before I hand over 30% of it to Apple. And that sort of indignation, that actual rage is something I try to be a little careful about tapping into because it is a little bit of a volatile compound. Because I mean I have a bunch of employees, we have a bunch of customers. It would be pretty sad if the journey of 37 signals

`3:59:29`

after 25 years would come to an end because Apple would burn us down or I would burn the business down over this fight with Apple. But I think you also need that level of conviction to be able to even drive the day-to-day decisions. One of the other Apple examples, and I know we're racking on Apple a little bit here, and I don't actually hate them. I really don't. I am tremendously disappointed at the squandered relationship that did not need to be sold away for so little. Now I understand that the app store toll booth is actually a pretty big business. It's multiple billions, but Apple is a trillion dollar company. And I think in the lens of history, this is gonna come off as a tremendous mistake and I think it's already coming off as a tremendous mistake. The flop that was the Vision Pro was partly because Apple had pissed off every other developer. No one was eager to come build the kind of experiences for their new hardware that would perhaps have made it a success. So when you're on top and you have all the cards,

`4:00:31`

you can dilute yourself into thinking that you can dictate all terms at all times and there are no long term consequences. Apple is learning finally, the fact that there are long-term consequences and that developers actually are important to Apple's business. And the relationship is not entirely one sided. We don't owe our existence to Apple and Apple alone. We've built our own customer bases. Apple has been beneficial to the industry. I'm glad the iPhone exists, da da da da. It's not that it doesn't go both ways, but Apple wants it only one way. And I think that is a mistake, and it's a mistake that was avoidable. And A, that's disappointing. Certainly disappointing for me. I've literally spent 20 years evangelizing this shit, right? I've spent so much money buying Apple hardware, excusing a bunch of things they've done over the years. And then for what? For the fact that you wanted 30% of something

`4:01:31`

that I created in the most unreasonable way possible? Couldn't we have found a better way to do this? I think they're going to get forced to do a better way. But did you also have to go through the indignity of having a criminal contempt charge against you getting referred to prosecution? It just seems so beneath Apple, but it also seems so in line with what happens to huge companies who are run by, quote, unquote, "professional managers" rather than founders and unreasonable people. — Well, we should probably also say that the thing you love about Apple, the great spirit of Apple I think still persists and there's a case to be made that this 30% thing is a slice, a particular slice of a company, not a defining aspect of the company. And that it Apple is still on top in the hardware that it makes and a lot of things that it makes. And you know this is, that could be just a hiccup in a long story of a great company that does a lot of awesome stuff for humanity.