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`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…

`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…