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`2:04:11`

It makes me think of, again, I'm going to tie this back to Rick Rubin, — Yeah. —...since we've been talking about him a lot. He has this concept of a ruth... — Rick just has candles in his house, I'm guessing. He just doesn't... — I don't know. — I don't know. These guys…

`2:04:58`

— Yeah. — It is perfect. I know you're a big fan of Porsche. — Yeah. It seems like the silhouette, it's very similar. — Yeah. — In fact, here in Malibu, do you remember going up to PCH? There was that burnt-out... — I do, yes. Yes. — Yes. You could tell... — Towards the Palisades- — Yes. —...on the right-hand…

`2:05:46`

— Yeah. you're like, 'This guy's great.' An hour and fifteen, you go, 'Eh.'" — It's like, he should have stopped at 45. — Yeah. — It's so hard. I guess the reason I'm bringing this up, it's so hard for us to stop. — It is hard. — To stop adding complexity. — Yeah. — To just sit…

`2:06:33`

— Right. —...it's a way deeper cut. — Yeah. — But his whole point is, like, "A great vocalist with a guitar sounded great 50 years ago." — Always. — It sounds great today. Let's just go back to the essence of what we're actually- — Yeah. —...building, and I think, not many people building products... You just gave the…

`2:07:19`

They're not going to say 10 years from now, 'I wish Amazon's prices were higher.'" So, these are the core essence elements that he clearly invested in. Things are coming faster than ever. Another one is, like, "People aren't going to wake up 10 years from now and go, 'I wish I couldn't…

`2:08:06`

Because it's very easy to lose sight of those, because they can become boring. Like, "I've done that for a while. Let's do something else," and you can kind of lose sight of that. Yeah. — This is why I think people that have run companies for as long as you have are so rare…

`2:08:53`

And I was like... You did. Did the math. Yeah, you're like, "But I only work 40 hours a week." I go, "Yeah. 40 hours a week, over 27 years, Right. whatever that number is, I think it's 54,000 hours or whatever Yeah. Yeah, it's something like that. Yeah. the number is. And…

`2:09:41`

And maybe that's not even that long, all things considered, but it's quite long for most. Yeah. No, that's incredible. And it was awesome, and most of these are family-owned small businesses. They just nailed some things and got them right, and I love businesses like that have been around for a long…

`2:10:28`

But they'd rather still be doing that than something else. And so, they're in it for a long time. It's not that it's a great business, but it's a sustainable business. And that, to me, is a great business. If they can keep doing that, Right. There you go. It's the…

`2:11:15`

which I think is, is very fascinating. — Yeah. — I love it. I've often thought of our business as an oak tree. I love oak trees. Oak trees are trees that I love. — Bezos uses the analogy of Amazon as an acorn that grew into an oak tree. — Hmm. I don't think about it as the…

`2:12:03`

which is like a... You know, oak trees are very stable. They can withstand a lot of storms. They don't grow very fast. They're actually quite slow-growing. Some are faster than others. But in the Midwest, where I came from, a bur oak is a very slow-growing tree, but it lasts a long…

`2:12:50`

and weather storms. Over the years, in the tech world, there's a lot of... If something comes out, it's like, "It's a killer. It's a Slack killer. It's a Basecamp killer. It's a whatever killer." When you've been around for a long time, you see that played over, and over…

`2:13:35`

— Yeah. — Usually, an innovation invented by somebody outside your company- Right. —...you can take advantage of. — Right. The example of this, like, Coca-Cola with refrigeration, they didn't invent refrigeration, — Uh-huh. but it drastically expanded their market. — Yeah. Yeah. — Tobi! — Tobi's interview with COVID, in a sense. Like, COVID saved Shopify in a lot…

`2:14:22`

you'd do it the same way. But there are 100 different ways to do that same thing. — I want to go back to what you just said, though, "Something can be hot, it can be a fad." The maxim I have for this is, "Time is the best filter." It's the only filter I trust…

`2:15:10`

For a business, time carries most of the weight, as another maxim. I got that from Munger because, when you read "Poor Charlie's Almanack," his thing is that you should master... There's only a handful of big ideas in all these different disciplines, so, you know, biology, physics, economics. — Right. — He's like, "And if…

`2:15:56`

So, with Basecamp, for example- — Mm. —...nobody can pay us more than 299 dollars a month, okay? It doesn't matter how many users you have. So, you could be a big enterprise, and 299 dollars a month is the most you can possibly... Our prices go way low, but that's the most we allow you…

`2:16:42`

You don't want customers that you cannot afford to lose. And so, by equalizing our pricing and not letting anyone pay us more than anybody else, we create a bunch of small units, which are individual customers, and if you take one out, it's not like Jenga, where the whole thing's going to fall…

`2:17:28`

— So, one thing that we haven't touched on, which I think is really important- — Yeah. —...we've danced around it a few times, you've mentioned it a few times, is that you are all intuition. — Yeah. — I want to hear your thoughts on intuition, and I want to hear how you refined your intuition. — I…

`2:18:13`

that lead you to make a decision. And that's how I'm driven. I go by gut, I go by intuition, whether it's a pricing, or a product decision, or a feature, or a new product, or a name, or whatever it is. We don't test things. We don't do focus groups. We…

`2:19:01`

purports to be more valuable than some other feeling I have just because it has numbers on it. Now, of course, I don't want to do stupid things. I'm not going to throw 50 million dollars at a Super Bowl ad. Like, I'm not going to do that. So, your intuition has limits, too…