Lightning round

`1:40:37`

but I just love the movie, is fantastic. Do you have a favorite interview question that you like to ask candidates that you are interviewing to hire? I think we actually went over this one a little bit, which was, I'm always curious about what else... if you had more time, what would you do with this idea? Another one is, whose work do you admire? So it's not so much about what you can do, but what are other people doing that you think is great? I find that, that really illuminates what kind of pulse they have on the world and what they're looking at and what inspires them and what they think is good. So I like that question. In that second question, what do you look for? Is it someone that you also admire? Ultimately, in the moment, I don't care who it is. It's more about, tell me why. So someone will say, I like so-and-so, I'm like, why do you like them?

`1:41:25`

What are they doing that you think is interesting? This is kind of the thing I tend to always ask, which is, why do you think that that's interesting? I'm always trying to get behind the words and understand where this is coming from because people can prepare answers and they can sound great. But it's like, well, what's behind that? Where are you going with that? Why? What's the genesis of this? That's what I'm always after. And so whether or not I agree with the work or whatever, in the end, it plays a part to some degree but I'm more interested in, how did you get there? Is there a favorite product that you've recently discovered that you really love? Yes, although it's more of a category. I bought an old car, and I've fallen back in love with stick shifts.

`1:42:17`

I learned how to stick, and then I basically have had automatic cars for many years and I got back into sticks. And now it's even deeper than that. I got back into the old analog driving experience and how wonderful it is to feel attached to the machine that you're using, that you turn the wheel and it turns it rod and it turns the wheels, and that your leg muscle actually is what's breaking the car, to some degree. There's something about that direct feel that really surprised me. It surprised me how much is missing in modern cars and it actually... I like to draw these parallels because this is how I see the world.

`1:43:02`

It reminded me of our business, actually. I think we have a very stick shift business. We have a very direct business. Everything's very, very tight, very straightforward. There are not a lot of layers of abstractions. There are not a lot of things in the middle between the work we do and the way it feels, and I think of large businesses as automatic transmissions and modern cars where you just... everything's simulated. You don't really know what the road feels like. You can't really feel it in the steering wheel, or maybe there's some fake feel in there now. The brakes are just sending a command to a computer to squeeze the pads. The transmission is like, you don't control it, it just does its own thing. And there's a beauty in that too, but there's also a disconnect that I forgot about until

`1:43:47`

I got back into driving the old car, which is harder to drive and noisier and bumpier and creakier, but there's a real directness to it that's really special, and I think it's actually a good way to look at business and to remind yourself that staying as connected to the thing that you're doing as possible has a lot of value. That's an awesome metaphor. Next question, do you have a favorite life motto that you often repeat yourself, share with folks, find useful in work or in life? And I don't always live up to it, but basically, it's worry less. There's a great Tom Petty lyric. I can't remember which song it's in, but I think it's on Wildflowers on the album. Most of the things you worry about never happened anyway.