speaker-0: Hello everyone and welcome to Tech Magic with Kathy Hackle and Lee Kebler. We are back. We are so excited to be back. Lee, welcome back to Tech Magic.

speaker-1: I know people people were like, okay, yeah, sure. Uh-huh, people say they're gonna come back. We actually did it. It took a little while. We figured out how to do it. We got it back. We're back.

speaker-0: We're back, guys. ⁓ and we are doing this on our own. I think it's really important for folks to know that now we are independent. So we're gonna be doing this on our own. ⁓ so yeah, I'm really excited about the sponsors that are gonna be coming in, the brands that are gonna be coming in, the folks we're gonna be interviewing. I'm just really excited. This is our baby.

speaker-1: I have missed doing this. It has been too I I don't it's been quite a few months and you and I've stayed in touch. Like we've we've had our like monthly calls just to check in or whatnot. But in every one of those phone calls was like, this is a podcast episode. This is this is what we normally just would do with tech magic and ⁓ yeah, thank God we're back. I was feeling a little stir c we were I went so stir crazy that I built a whole new studio.

speaker-0: Let's talk about that 'cause I mean folks if you're if you're watching this on YouTube or you're seeing the clips on social, you'll see the studio in the back. And I'm still in my I'm I'm at I'm at home. We'll talk about traffic. But tell us about your new studio. That's so exciting.

speaker-1: Yeah, I you know, the here in Portland, my upstairs my the studio used to be in the top floor of of our of our house and that was I don't know, it was converted in the sixties and it had the wood paneling and it was very cool, but it felt like a log cabin. And so we remodeled ⁓ we took an opportunity during the time off to remodel the basement and build a proper studio. ⁓ and we just wrapped that up like a week ago. I you were actually hounding me about when can we start recording and And I like, well, I I can't yet. I can't. And then we we wrapped it up and now we're back. So here we are. New studio, new show, same premise, same people, new hot takes.

speaker-0: New hot takes. I'm really excited because I had people like reaching out, like, when is it coming back? Are you guys coming back? I'm like, Yes, we are. Just give us some time. We needed a break, and then there's the whole process of, you know, transferring transferring the podcast. And ⁓ I will say I'm really excited for several reasons. And I do I'm excited about your new studio. That's one. ⁓ but I'm also excited because we own this podcast. This is our podcast. We own the IP to the podcast. So when we partnered with AdWeek, that was the deal. Like This is our podcast. And after Can, if anyone is following all the news in Can, like it's always been a festival of creativity and brands and marketing, but creators were a big part of it, you know, creators, influencers, whatever word you want to use. ⁓ and I feel like I just feel so empowered that we actually have this little piece of IP that's ours.

speaker-1: Yes, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's it it's grown over the years and the listeners have actually reached out to me during the time down and be like, okay, so is it done, done? I was like, no, no, just give it give it some time. and so we're back and it's a whole new landscape of tech since we've been gone. I w and you and I had this conversation of tech magic was always Like, okay, yeah, I'm the wet blanket. I get it. I know my role. I know what I do. I I know I'm the pessimist. I get it. But you've gotten a bit of a pessimistic streak in you as well over over the last year ⁓ in in conversations. So it we're like, ⁓ how we gotta keep this upbeat and lively, because there's there's some real interesting

speaker-0: What's the word?

speaker-1: I don't even know how to yeah, what's the word I'm looking for? There's some real interesting global opinions starting to spiral a little bit on the state of technology and where things are going. And the landscape when we left is not the landscape it is today as we're coming back.

speaker-0: Absolutely. I think it's changed quite a bit and we'll definitely get into it. ⁓ I have been having my ups and downs with technology. I mean, we're both like I'm the tech optimist normally on the pod, right? And not that you're the, you know, the Debbie Downer, but you're more of a real

speaker-1: Let's say I'm a realist, right. I'm not a pessimist, but I think that like anything, if something gets too big, ⁓ it's you know the saying it's too big to fail. I believe that there's a situation where it gets too big to be productive, to be a positive, right? and and and I think a lot of technology has gotten to a point where It's gotten too big for it to be a net positive and that leaves a lot of people concerned. And rightly so. I get it. I I totally get it. It was everyone was super excited about the combustion engines and still we had to until we've had to figure out what smog, you know, how do we get rid of smog in Los Angeles, right? Like that that's kind of I feel like where we are with tech is we were really excited about it, but now we kind of have the smog problem with with technology and we have to figure out how to clear the air so we can keep going. That doesn't mean you get rid of the car, right?

speaker-0: We got our skis for many people. ⁓ and yeah, it's ⁓ a rec it's a moment for me the way I see it, I'm seeing this moment of recalibration. Recalibration of expectations of where the technology is, on what are the benefits to society, on approaches globally, geopolitically, of course.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah.

speaker-0: So it's a moment air re recalibration. That's that's how I would label it if I had to put a label on it.

speaker-1: You so anyone who's been following your your Instagram and I highly suggest people go out and follow the Instagram because you it's more of a game of trying to figure out where Kathy is, ⁓ as opposed to what she's doing. You can watch the videos and be ⁓ I know what she's doing, sort of. Although the most recent ones have been super like, what is happening in your life? You are all over the world. I it's a lot of dancing. It's a lot of dancing.

speaker-0: I'm having such a joyful time in the summer. I usually take vacations with my friends, and never would I think I would have danced on social. By the way, my Instagram is not like a dancing TikTok kind of thing. It's joy. Like if I'm traveling with my friends, I have started to make them dance with me on the streets of whichever city it is that we're in.

speaker-1: No, it's not Yeah, and and it's it's it's quite entertaining to figure out like, okay, where is this? So you've traveled a lot this summer. I mean, just an exorbitant amount. I'm actually surprised that you're in your studio today. ⁓ I I really didn't know you're where you were gonna be phoning in from. ⁓ so I guess welcome back. but while you're traveling, given your position, I'm sure that the conversation is happening a lot. Yeah. And you're global traveling. You're not just like going to Wichita, right? ⁓ so What is what's that through line as you're going from like country to country and you're having these conversations and there's all of this concern? Or is it strictly like a US concern? Because a lot of this technology is truly like data centers in the United States. How do we do this? ⁓ What's the balance? ⁓ but what what's going on with those conversations globally for you?

speaker-0: Here's what I'm seeing is obviously most people want to have the AI conversation. And when I say AI, I'm talking specifically about generative AI. Right. I think a lot of people haven't gotten to some people are an agentic for sure. Not everyone, let's be clear. And then physical AI and like spatial AI. I think most people want to talk about generative AI and kind of what they think it can and cannot do. That being said, I do think globally ⁓ people are starting to have more conversations around other technologies. So quantum, you know, I'm not a quantum expert, but quantum keeps coming up. I've had some really interesting conversations with governments across the world ⁓ about where can they, you know, ⁓ the reality is that there's only so much space to lead in AI, right? From a bigger macro perspective, macro global perspective.

speaker-1: Well we said this in pro past episodes of like you can only go so far in AI until you solve the quantum problem. So the fact that that even is being part of the conversation now is interesting. ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

speaker-0: And it's it's the question around, okay, if our country, because I talk to a lot of governments and I'll talk a lot of like leaders across the world. ⁓ you know, I don't this isn't important for people to understand. I'm a technology executive first. First and foremost, that's who I am, right? But then I'm also a B2B creator, ⁓ a person that's very well known in LinkedIn and technology, et cetera, et cetera. So that's what they see, right? They don't see all the behind closed doors meetings. But what I will tell you is. Some of the meetings I've had are around some countries being like, how do we lead in AI? And I pushed back and I said, Look, I think that that's being worked on right now. Like I think the leadership has been pretty much established on who the players are here. But if you look at other technologies, this is about technology convergence. It's about other technologies. Where could you lead in the future? Like if you're future focused and thinking about it, I you know, one of the things is like, is it quantum? Right. What are what are your the startups in your country doing around quantum? And it's not just quantum computing, because I think in and people in their minds are only thinking quantum computing, but it's quantum sensing, quantum communications, ⁓ and all these sorts of things. So one of the trips that I did did, ⁓ I we had already been on hiatus was to Finland. Right. For the millennial millennium pri ⁓ prize, which is one of the bigger prizes in technology. It's a really massive price in technology. and you know, the conversation I had there with one of the quantum computing companies was really interesting with their CEO. And actually they just went ⁓ they just went public a couple weeks ago. So congratulations ⁓ to Jan and Yangets and and the folks over there. But quantum, it's like, okay, where can you lead? Is it quantum? Is it material sciences? Is it graphene or nanomaterials? Once again, conversations I had in my Finland trip that are talk having to other talking to other governments about all these sorts of things. So so as much as the mind share. Let's say the global mind share of the majority of what people in tech or even in government want to talk about is AI. And in this case, I think it's specifically generative AI, the majority. ⁓ I think it's changing. I think it's evolving to expand beyond just generative AI to what are other things we should be looking at. You know, so so yeah, so I I do see kind of that broader mindset going from just this one specific thing on like this is gonna change absolutely everything. It's gonna take over the world or it's gonna eliminate us. To what are other technologies and other things that maybe we're not looking at that maybe we should look at? What is our you know, what is what are the startups in our country doing? What are the companies in our country doing around this? So so yeah, like that's my perspective is that I feel like people are starting to broaden their their conversations and look inward. ⁓ and that's the other thing. I think it's looking inward of like innovation doesn't have to happen only in Silicon Valley. It happens globally now. ⁓ there's access to capital. So yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, I totally agree. Even being just in like the Pacific Northwest, which we always kind of were a tech area, but we never consider ourselves like a huge tech hub. A lot of that is changing. And I think one of the things that I would like to see shift a little bit is and I don't know how you do this in like the age of fast investment and private equity and all of this, of like how do you start a company that actually is solving a problem as opposed to starting a company so that you can inherit a buzzword. Right. And and that is one of those things where it's like, well, it's so much easier just to start a company, inherit buzzword, get your money, and then fail. Right? That that's not considered a bad strategy. In it's am I wrong?

speaker-0: In the collective lunacy moment that we're in, ⁓ yes. Profitability, what is that?

speaker-1: That's it's it's it's like no

speaker-0: Like what?

speaker-1: And I and I do kind of like, and maybe this is another just one of my old old guy, yo, yells at the clouds things, but like I kind of missed the era of the 2010s through like 2015 where people were trying to take the technology to solve a real problem. and it may be predicated on, ⁓ this is a really interesting concept of technology and this is how I can adapt it, but I'm not even really seeing a lot of that yet. But I do think we're going back to it. As much as the horrible work environment has been in the tech environment for like the last year or two years, ⁓ that has actually opened up a lot of very smart people to build some very smart things and start from the ground up. ⁓ but it isn't it's also not financially the same place where we were in the twenty fifteen era where people and angel investors were looking for trying to figure out how do you make the next Twitter, how do you make the next, you know, fill in the blank. And

speaker-0: What I don't want is for us to end back and people are gonna laugh. Go back to the time where I'm like, I'm building the Netflix of blah blah blah. I'm building the DoorDash of blah blah like you know how people would do that when they were pitching their startup?

speaker-1: That has been okay, so so much of my career. So like I I started my career in Nashville, Tennessee, which is a big hub of like gospel music. And I worked in the music industry for a long time. And I work for a lot of like gospel and contemporary Christian music acts and things like that. And it drove me nuts when they're like, Well, if you like Blink one eighty two, you're gonna love this band, right? And that's kind of what tech did. Is they're like, Well, if you really like this technology, here's what I built that's basically the same thing but with a different, you know, yeah scale skin on it. And and I yeah, I I think AI is doing that a lot right now. I'm seeing that a lot of like, well, if you like this function in Chat GPT, I removed it out of it and made it 10 times harder, but it does one specific thing kind of okay. It's it's like, ⁓ come on.

speaker-0: I you know what I have to agree with you. I think it's it's crazy some of the things I'm seeing, ⁓ when it comes to AI. but yeah, I think it's solving issues, solving problems. I th this is another thing I'm seeing right that I think is interesting, is people starting to be like if there is an AI bubble, which many people agree there is, ⁓ and there will be a market correction, what is a safe place to be? Right. Both from an investment standpoint or also like a career standpoint or a what do I build startup kind of Standpoint. And I keep seeing a lot of conversation around, okay, where where are the areas of growth? Right. If if this is if the market crashes tomorrow and all our 401k portfolios and investment portfolios are, you know, not obliterated, but hurt. ⁓ what what where where should I be building? And I'm seeing obviously some like the convergence of new technologies, et cetera. But not everyone's gonna build a quantum startup, let's be honest. But I see a lot of people starting to be like longevity, ⁓ Not longevity, but like longevity, but also wellness and also thinking about the older population. A lot of old we're gonna have a lot of older people as we move forward, more older people and less younger people. So so I I'm also seeing that. It's like, okay, how do you maybe not do an AI startup that is the Netflix of whatever? but how do you start to create companies in different spaces?

speaker-1: There are a lot of boring technologies that are being neglected right now that are very necessary. And a lot of it happens in like if you're in development in technology, just the organization of back end databases and things like that, which are such a snooze fest. And people just assume that AI is going to go in and in and going to fix all these. And mathematically speaking, could it? I guess so, but are you willing to actually give that level of access to those databases? If you start reading headlines, you quickly come to the conclusion of no, I'm not going to do this. If you're not reading headlines, then you might do this and end up with a headline. But this this is kind of the problem that we're seeing is like, well, where do I go? That's a new frontier. I'm not suggesting you go to a new frontier. I'm kind of looking at it going, why did we stop building these really helpful pieces of technology? Because we assumed four technology companies were going to do it anyways, and then they didn't. so there's there's a lot of area of of growth of just stuff that is needed. I was I was talking to a friend of mine a couple of days ago where I was like talking about the future of Netflix. A huge Netflix fan, love Netflix. I've always believed in Netflix as a company. I think what they did was very smart, but they are genuinely struggling right now. If you go to Netflix and I'm looking for new content, I'm starting to have harder and harder time trouble finding new content or even familiar content because it has splintered in all of these publications of different ways to to get if I want to see this show that used to be on Netflix, nine times out of ten, I get a message saying this is not available in your region anymore. And I'm just sitting here scratching my head. Well, okay, now I'm spending thirty minutes Googling, trying to figure out where in the world I can watch this movie. Yeah. I think it was My wife wanted to watch She's All That.

speaker-0: ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. ⁓ my god memories.

speaker-1: Yeah. We do a throwback We were doing a throwback pizza in a movie night and I said you can pick whatever movie you haven't seen, you ha y but you have to have not seen it in like the last fifteen years and she said she's all that I was like, surely we can find this.

speaker-0: Was that Friday Print now? Who was in it? ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah.

speaker-1: Freddie Prince Jr. Yep. Yeah. And so I and I'd never seen it. I just I didn't see it. So I said, okay, yeah, we'll watch this. And it took me forever to figure out where it was streaming. And wow. It was one of those realizations of it has gotten to a point. We are at a tipping point with this level of technology where if you make it this hard to find the content, we will end up back in the Napster days. We we absolutely will. The reason people stopped the average human user stopped pirating was because you gave us a solution to find the content we were looking for. And now you've taken that away. Now I'm not saying that that movie belongs on Netflix. I'm just saying that when it lives on one obscure platform that I can't find, this becomes a problem. for me, I'm a big fan. for those who can see behind me of owning your own library. That's my vinyl collection behind me. I've got I got books over there. I've got video games way over there. I've just got a huge collection. I'm I I I believe in like physical, tangible media. And the video game situation right now is starting

speaker-0: Gaming. 'Cause I ⁓ I mean, during my travels, I did go to Aspen for Fortune Brainstorm at Fortune Brainstorm Tech. I keynote there. By the way, this is a place that like very important people keynote. I just want to tell you, not because I'm important, but because it was special when I saw everyone that's been on stage, I'm like, wow. ⁓ the one of the people I mean, great. I was like, I feel great. I was like, Wow, okay, this is bodes well for my future career. ⁓

speaker-1: Good company.

speaker-0: But one of the people that was on stage before I was, ⁓ was ⁓ with the the CEO of Xbox. And she was talking to my I asked her about world models, I asked her about new economic models that they might be pursuing. ⁓ and obviously most people, if you're on tech, you've seen the news, right? That they are gonna start to get rid of the physical discs. ⁓ that they see Minecraft ⁓ as a potential new I think this is what I see. I f I see this I see two things. Here's what I'm seeing in my, you know, in my perspective. The End or slow death, maybe? Maybe not the end, the slow death or decline of the physical media side where you don't actually own the game you're playing. You own it, but you don't really own it. And then that's one side. Let's talk about that. But then the other side is also the U UGC era of gaming, user generated content, because you've got if they open up a Minecraft, you already create your own stuff. But if they create it and make it more profitable, like a Roblox model, then you've got a really interesting moment. And then you also have Netflix. starting to open up their platforms so developers can start to do games and you can find people's games there. So let's talk about physical media and then maybe UGC gaming.

speaker-1: Yeah, the physical media thing is really a sticky situation right now. Nintendo is winning. ⁓ and they're winning handily. And it's not because they tried something different. It's because they didn't try something different. ⁓ their sales have been fantastic. The Nintendo Switch 2 has been a great selling console. I don't agree with everything that they've been doing with physical media, ⁓ but watching PlayStation and Xbox decide that they weren't going to go with physical. games on disk and go straight to a hard drive ⁓ is causing a lot of panic and I think deterring people from those consoles because there's one basic argument that can't be defeated and that is okay if I'm going to go straight to not having a physical collection, why wouldn't I just game on the PC? Wha why wouldn't I just use Steam? Right. And and and Valve is banking on that. That's what they've been baking on since two thousand and two, right? They've been the forefront leader of PC games. We stopped getting PC games on disc 20 years ago, no one batted an eye. Because if you wanted to have a you wanted to own a collection, you got a console. That was what console gaming was. PC gaming like, Okay, yeah, we're not gonna not gonna do the CD ROMs or whatever. I don't know what pla ⁓ outside of being a publication for a handful of Sony or Xbox owned IP, I'm not entirely sure how you compete in this market, right? because It's gonna be very expensive. The new PlayStations are wildly expensive. Well, yeah, we have a hardware shortage and we have all this other stuff, but there's this line of diminishing returns with video games that we aren't really equating for, and Nintendo did, right? So you can get a Nintendo Switch 2 just about at any big box store right now at a MSRP price. They're not overly sold out. They've got plenty in stock and people are still buying them every day.

speaker-0: Many reasons, right? There's

speaker-1: The components that are in the yeah, it's caused the price to go up a little bit, but they've made this hybrid between a handheld and a dockable console. And the graphics look great. They look good. They look really good. ⁓ are they PlayStation 5 locked in frames per second? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, they're not. But guess what? Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Five out of a hundred people care. And I'm not saying that that opinion doesn't matter. I'm just saying from a business perspective, what Nintendo knows is if the game's fun and we have our IP that we're gonna license out, there comes a tipping point where it doesn't behoove them as a company to try to make the most powerful system. And that's always been the case for them. They've never tried to make the most powerful system. They've just made good games that run on available hardware to try to get them into the homes.

speaker-0: I and I'll tell you this. It's not that nobody cares because I don't think people care. I think it's more like I think certain people, certain players and gamers that have access to to money don't necessarily care. I'll give you this. Like I'll I'll give you this example. So my son, avid gamer. ⁓ I kept asking him, Do you want a PS five? Like I for many, many times I have asked this question. He's like, No, I love my Switch. Yeah. I love my I mean, it's got the newer version, of course, right? But he loves his switch. He games on his Switch, and if he's playing on the PC, he's playing Minecraft. So

speaker-1: I'm just simply s saying that there are people who do care, but if you do care enough in the in the newest PlayStation or the newest Xbox is rivaling the price of owning your own PC and having a Steam computer, you would probably d default to the Steam. And here's why. Steam has done one thing very, very well. I I like Valve as a company, genuinely. I might be a Valve fanboy, even though I don't play a lot of PC gaming. They have always made sure your library was available to you. I have in t 15, 20 years, however many years it's been since I've had a Steam account, I've never lost access to a game. Even if that game goes offline. That says a lot. If the game goes offline, the publisher goes bankrupt, it's something here's a really good example. In 2016, a Warner Brothers partnered up with another company to release a Ready Player One video game. It never worked. But I was I tried it when it first came out and I thought, ⁓ this was pretty cool. It is still to this day. You can't get it. You can't go and if you if you didn't have it before, you can't go get it now, right? Like they've removed that. But if you ever had it, you still have it. Right? I can still get that. They have made sure that that was the case. That is not the case for Sony, right? Sony people bought ⁓ movies. From my understanding, they purchased full movies on Sony's platform. And then when those licensings got changed, all of a sudden their movies are gone. You don't have access to those anymore because it was never a purchase. It was a licensing agreement. But it was a licensing agreement disguised as a purchase. That to me is a problem. And that is what we are up against when we start looking at consoles that are basically licensing games. As download only, well, geez, if you ever have to replace your hard drive, I don't know what you do. Now, Nintendo's been really good with this with their digital library too. I just don't know if Sony and Xbox, they're gonna have to prove that they're gonna play in the same level as Valve and Steam when it comes to those type of things, because when people start losing their content, that's when they start realizing they never had a library to begin with.

speaker-0: They never it's an idea of ownership. Like what do you actually own, right?

speaker-1: It's a total idea of ownership. I that's why I buy vinyl records. It's why I buy ⁓ Nintendo Switch cartridges. You know, it it's why I buy books. Yeah. I have a Blu-ray collection. Yes, I'm a weirdo. I get it. But I'll tell you, most of my Blu-ray collection you can't find on a streaming service.

speaker-0: You should have bought she's all that.

speaker-1: ⁓ well, let's not get hasty. I don't I d I don't need to own on

speaker-0: Let's not get crazy here. ⁓ my gosh. ⁓ okay, so UGC gaming. Let's talk about UGC gaming and then we'll Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I really think that is part of the future. I do think Xbox like they all need to embrace this. Like so Minecraft is really interesting because my kids still play Minecraft. They love Minecraft. I think a lot of children love Minecraft. Minecraft's still a a great, you know, great game. ⁓ having worked with a lot of brands.

speaker-1: Totally different animal. Yep.

speaker-0: Going into Roblox, Fortnite Creative, or or what have you. You and I did a lot of work around there. I remember a lot of brands being like, We wanna go into Minecraft, we wanna go into Minecraft. So it's like it's virtually impossible. Virtually impossible. I mean, even knowing people in Mojang and knowing contacts. I mean, I remember I had one of the heads of one of the music ⁓ labels wanting to do something major in Minecraft. I set up the meeting. It was never gonna happen. Right, I think they've changed, but I think you're gonna start to see what happened with Roblox. when we were working on that start to happen slowly and maybe not as commercial into Minecraft. I think that they're gonna start to open it up and you're already starting to see Netflix also start to figure out like when to work with developers. So I see I think I see UGC. There's UGC content on social, which has led to amazing creators, et cetera. ⁓ but you also have the developers and the gaming creators and everything that's starting to happen with U G U G C gaming. I think we're gonna start to see more and more of that. ⁓ especially as a tangent as Hollywood starts to really understand and see that gaming IP is successful when it comes to ⁓ entertainment. So

speaker-1: I I totally agree with that. The the Hollywood has latched on to gaming IP in a way that I just didn't expect in the last couple of years. ⁓ as much so that this month ⁓ Atari themselves announced a partnership with I wanna say it was like Universal or something like it was it was a major studio to license out their IP for like asteroids and adventure and like all of these old I think Cinepede was on there. I don't know. It was ⁓ And even like Asteroids, I think, is like the perfect one to start with. Everyone knows that game. ⁓ you know, it there's a story there that you can pretty much make out of nothing because it the game never had a full story, so go crazy. We're watching Nintendo do it and be masterful at it. I'm super excited about a like new Legends of Zelda movie that they keep teasing. I want to see that live action Legends of Zelda, like they can't miss. It's gotta be good. so we're seeing those. The thing that gets me with the UGC, and it's very strange, at least from my perspective, is most of those UGC games started very independently, right? Minecraft was very much an independent. game. They didn't worry about graphics. You know, Roblox w gosh, was that 2007 when they first launched? And they were very independent, very scrappy. And we're not seeing the growth or competition coming from the independent market when it comes to UGC. They're like, okay, we got three biggies ⁓ between ⁓ Fortnite and and and Roblox and in Minecraft. And so no one's really like stepping up and trying to push further. ⁓ I think VRChat, which is not a UGC game but it has UGC gaming tendencies, is is kind of in that box. ⁓ so I I do think it's odd that we kind of got three big brands and they're like, Yeah, that's enough. We're gonna stop there. I don't know if that's just the rule of three and people are just like, Well, I'm not gonna try and get into that. ⁓ But I would love to see more independent nothing has slowed down the independent developers. That I find really strange that we've seen a natural regression of independent game development, but nothing has really actually gotten in the way. More so when you look at like UGC gaming, l like l the laws have changed and have made it harder. So like, yes, Minecraft might want to go out and compete with Roblox, but Do they really want to deal with a lot of the heavy lifting of what it means to be a Roblox? Because I'm not even sure Roblox wants to deal with that heavy lifting. Like that's a lot of hard work, but they're in a situation where they have to do it now. ⁓ and I think that they're they're taking their best efforts to do it right. I that's not a a dig at Roblox. This is where the landscape have has led humans in playing these video games. And so they just happen to be the people who have to figure it out first. And it's a lot.

speaker-0: It's lot and you know, and kudos and it's not perfect, right? I think we need to be very clear that right that's not perfect, but they're really trying, you know. ⁓ I will say, I don't know, I just feel like the financial incentive is there. The demographics of players that are growing up are there, who's playing these platforms? This is their new social network, all these sorts of things, right? I think the incentive is there. quickly. So like, yeah, like I I was like, it took this long. I know a lot of people don't want the commercial side to go into ⁓ into let's say a Minecraft. ⁓ but I you know, I I I think I'm I'm I'm seeing that. W here's a question for you. If I am is this a good time or a bad time to launch your own gaming studio?

speaker-1: ⁓ goodness, that is such a loaded question. Do you have a good idea? Like I think that that's No, no, no, no, I I know, but that's my answer. No, no, I know, I know, I know. I'm saying, but that that would actually for someone asking me that question, that would be my answer, right? ⁓ I think right now, if you can develop a game that has that it factor, you have access to the world. but

speaker-0: I'm just saying in

speaker-1: It takes a lot of time and not chasing other people's dreams. This is where I think game studios fall short a lot, is they have this like really cool idea and then they get into it. And the boring part is the work. And so they start chasing other ideas that might get them faster. And I've seen this from Game Studio after game studio, where they're like, Okay, yeah, yeah, well, we are gonna do this like passion project, what really started the studio, but Real quick, we're gonna go over here and do this because we need the capital. And then what happens is they just end up over in column B doing junk because they need the capital and they've lost sight of their good idea. And then someone else does their good idea and they're like, Well, we were gonna do that. You weren't. You weren't. Like, let's just be honest. If you were, you were gonna already do that. ⁓ it's a good time if you have the time to open a two person studio for sure. There you go. If you're

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: If you're a game developer and you are out of work and you're trying to figure out what to do with your life and none of the big tech companies are hiring right now, yeah.

speaker-0: I would build I if that yeah, I would build start to look at Netflix. How do you develop within their platform from a distribution standpoint? Smart move. How is Minecraft going to open up to the ecosystem? Really open up? Like obviously, this is a UGC platform regardless, because everyone creates their own realms, right? But I think more from a commercial standpoint. ⁓ you know, I would look at the distribution because distribution is the the name of the game, right? Who's gonna see your who's gonna see if you're gonna be building inside these platforms, these experience platforms? And by the way, they don't they're not gaming platforms anymore, they're experienced platforms now. Entertainment platforms or experience platforms. So I don't know. I'm excited. I'm excited to see who comes you know, what is what comes from this. ⁓ what idea.

speaker-1: I I am too. I'm still confused as to why Apple hasn't gotten more into the gaming side of things. I'm really they're ⁓ you know, I think they're doing everything that they can right now in without falling into an AI pit. And I gotta give them credit where it's due. People know that I've been critical about Apple, I've been critical about Microsoft, I'm critical about Kathy. ⁓ yeah, I'm just critical. I'm critical about myself. Yes.

speaker-0: I know who to talk to when I want an honest opinion on something. ⁓

speaker-1: But I also like to give credit where it's due. And I think the thing that Apple has done really well in the last couple of years is they've and you know I've I've said this many times, they've inherited the necessity of AI without the ⁓ the totality of it, right? The inevitability of it. Everyone keeps wanting talking about this totality and inevitability of AI. And Apple's like, it's like a super powerful spell check. like that's great. I do do that thing and let's, you know, not worry about huge data centers and their AI runs on the device. Great. Let's just do that.

speaker-0: They just were past NVIDIA, like as the most, you know, viable company. So Apple keep doing Apple. Like keep doing what you're doing. ⁓

speaker-1: New leadership coming in, it's very exciting. You know, that

speaker-0: Big clo you know, Tim Cook did a great job.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ I remember ⁓ for those old enough, we remember when Tim Cook took took over and there was a whole lot of question marks of like, but really can this can Apple exist without Steve Jobs? Turns out.

speaker-0: Turns out it can. And now it's got new leadership. I'm excited about what's coming. So we'll have to see. ⁓ so before we go, I want to see if there's any like, let's choose you choose one news story and I choose one news story because we share news stories all the time. Each one of us choose one, a news tech story that we found interesting. It could be weird, fun, exciting. Like, what is something that jumped out at you over the last, let's say, couple of weeks?

speaker-1: ⁓ I can tell you something that jumped out at me over the last n thirty minutes. this morning there's a ton of articles about Sam Altman saying a good use for chat GPT is connecting it to your like personal calendar and putting in information about what your kids are doing so that you can generate a daily podcast they listen to on the way to school. And the internet is not kind in their response. Holy cow.

speaker-0: Just talk to your children might be a better option. ⁓ gosh. Yeah.

speaker-1: The art the the headline here isn't like, ⁓ this is a bad idea. It is ⁓ the headline here is there's a lot of scrambling to come up with a good use case. This is not a Sam Altman thing, okay? This is across the board, right? Like this is this is the problem that a lot of people are having and why there's such a negative sentiment to AI is because it's like they're throwing spaghetti at the walls of why this technology should exist. We've told you why it should exist. It should do our taxes. It should get out of the way. It should do the things that we don't want it to do. You said it could cure cancer. Get on that. We don't need it to generate a bad podcast so that our kids have something to listen to as they're driving to school in the morning. I don't want to even listen to that, right? And so there's just a it's a it's a universally across the board in the tech space, a social disconnect of you don't understand your customer. You can have all of the artificial intelligence in the world that has scraped the complete totality of human knowledge and experience, and you still don't understand people. That's not directed to any singular person. That is to all tech leaderships. You do not understand people because you put a computer in between. Steve Jobs understood people. I might not have I might not have agreed with him. But Steve Jobs understood people. Nolan Bushnell understood people. Gabe at Valve understands people.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with you. It's the disconnect between real human connection and what tech what we what do we really want technology to do? Right? And make our lives easier and better. And it is not creating a podcast about my kids' activities. Like I want to actually have an experience with my kids talking to them. ⁓ you know. There's so many memories of being in the car as a kid with your parents that you remember now. I'm like, why would you scratch that? It's like I remember driving to school and listening to a podcast about my activities. I'm like, no. No, no. I'm with you on that one. I I thought that one was like tone deaf and you know, no no.

speaker-1: It's it's indicative of the problem.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to agree a hundred percent. And I I actually just did an interview with Common Sense Media ⁓ in Spanish on children and technology, parents and technology, because I think it's very much needed to understand like this shouldn't be a surrogate. You know, you should still tr you know, have a relationship with your kids. ⁓ so that's important. I'll tell you mine. And this one. This one's interesting. It's a little woo-woo, but it's fun. It's fun. ⁓

speaker-1: Portland, Oregon. It's nothing but woo woo up here. Go yeah. Rock and roll.

speaker-0: ⁓ and because this this is tech magic. I don't have to bring it to the table, which I think it's hilarious. It's ⁓ you mentioned how how hard the job market is, right? And how a lot of these companies are using AI for resumes, and a lot of people job seekers are using AI to create resumes, etc. ⁓ people are showing up to interviews, and it's an AI that interviews them before they meet a human. So this story ⁓ was really fun. I found it in one of my

speaker-1: three fingers. You know what I'm talking? For those who are listening, you don't understand what I just did. I put three fingers in front of my face, which is how you tell if someone's like using a generative AI.

speaker-0: Let's do it. Come on. We're real humans. It's a real podcast. anyway, that's how you actually you have to ask the, you know, if you think you're being scammed, you ask them to do that because it could be a filter or it could be a fake AI and they won't be able to do it. ⁓ but the job market has gotten so hard that some job seekers are actually buying spells from Etsy witches to help them in their job hunt. That is how crazy things have gotten. ⁓ any thoughts?

speaker-1: ⁓ Lord, how do I tackle this?

speaker-0: It is?

speaker-1: Okay, there's there's two ways. Okay, okay. You want you okay, let's get woo-woo here. Okay, there's there th you have to look at it under two lenses, right? You either believe that science is this thing of discoverable math and and we live in this world that has boundaries and rules and we just don't fully understand it. Or, and I've had this conversation many times before, I think you and I have even had this conversation, if you believe that this is simulation theory, right? And all of if you're on that train and you're like, ⁓ this is all a simulation anyways. Then sure, that stuff I guess could work. I have no I'm not I'm not gonna tell you if it makes you feel better and it's not hurting somebody, I

speaker-0: I wanna see the testimonials. I wanna see like this spell got me my job because

speaker-1: I will say I just watched the movie Obsession. I don't know if you've seen this movie. It's so good. It's so good. And so I'm just like, yeah

speaker-0: But But I let my kids my older kids watch it. It was so good.

speaker-1: It's that movie has done so well. Yeah. Incredible number. A friend of mine here in Portland ⁓ manages one of our larger movie theaters and he's like, it has just stayed. It has just lived. We can't get we can't get it out of the big screen. They normally have like this time delineation where they move it's just it's just a hit. It is a Gen Z phenomenon of a movie. And I was like, okay, it can't be like that. I watched it. So good. They nailed it. That script just works. It is so good. If you've not watched Obsession and you're okay with like, Mild horror. That's it is

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, if you're an adult and you drink, you probably will need a drink afterwards. ⁓ yeah, 'cause it's wackadoodle. It's such a good move.

speaker-1: But it makes that argument of like if you're gonna mess with this stuff

speaker-0: You're gonna mess with this stuff. Be careful. Be careful. I will say, like, I see like I heard about it through social. So I heard it through social and then word of mouth. ⁓ and yeah, like it's a whole thing. They have a new the the the guy the guy that created has a new movie coming out and we saw the preview. We went I took my kids to see the Spider-Man movie and had a preview of this new movie from this same person. ⁓ and my my son was like, We've got go see it. And I was like, Yeah. And I'm not a horror person. I do not like horror. I'm very like, you know, gentle horror. ⁓ so yeah, it was exciting. ⁓ I want to see the testimonials though on the Etsy Witches. Like this spell got me my job. I will say, and I hadn't really thought about it as much, but we you just talked about the, you know, the AI, Sam Alman saying, you know, put all your information in and podcast. At the end of the day, I still feel that jobs and the job search, as much as we have to go through all the hoops of applying, comes down to human connections. most of the jobs I've ever gotten through someone I know, someone that I know at the company or some type of relationship, right, that I had, met them at a conference or what have you, right? It still comes down to human connection.

speaker-1: A hundred percent. I agree with you, but I think one of the things that's happening right now, this is not tech focused, this is like societal and economic focused, is I think a lot of companies we're we're watching all these mass layoffs, huge rounds of layoffs, right? ⁓ and I do have this suspicion that a big chunk of this and w and if you go back two years into this podcast, I told you, do not start firing your low levels because you think AI is gonna replace them. ⁓ I've got receipts. I said this. Don't do it because it's Doesn't do what you think it does. It's a helpful tool. It is not the replacement, right? And then I start watching this happen because I knew it was going to happen. We knew this was coming. Yeah. And it's been painful. It's been hard to watch. And people have had to har start hiring back. But there is a part of me that is incredibly p pessimistic and thinks this was not necessarily planned, but once it started rolling out and proving that it wasn't working, they found the silver lining where it's like, okay, now we're going to move all of these people who were on our salary to contract employees. Yeah. And it was just a way to take a bulk action and say, we really don't want the responsibility of full time employees here and to have to give them benefits and to make sure they have health insurance and to have all of these things that every other person for the last 50 years has had in their full time job, but we still want the full time hours. So we're now going to move All thousands of these people over to contract employees. And there's a part of me that kind of thinks that this might have been an initial mistake, but then that they went and they started finding that silver lining of like, well, how do we make this work for us? And that's gonna cause a whole other round of issues societally that I don't know what's gonna happen. I really don't. So if you can build your own studio, get cracking. Do it. Get cracking. Make it happen.

speaker-0: I agree. I agree. ⁓ so yeah, I mean we're back. This is our you know, the end of our first episode. I'll let you

speaker-1: been gone a long time and I always ask you at the end of this if you're reading anything. What what it what what are you

speaker-0: Reading anything right now. I've been so busy. I'm not reading anything right now. No. I'm what I've I've been so busy with the kids and the summer and travel. I have two high schoolers starting school. Yeah, I feel I've been so like I've been ⁓ focused on kids, family, life, ⁓ getting the kids ready for school because they're I cannot believe it. It's a bad it's a bad word around here back to school.

speaker-1: Ooh wow. It's a lot, yeah.

speaker-0: It's a bad it's bad words. When I had to write it on their our family calendar, it's like back to school. They were like, No, blasphemy. No, they like BTS though no.

speaker-1: BTS. It's just BTS. Kids love BTS. Back to school.

speaker-0: Back to school Lot that beat yet.

speaker-1: How do you ruin a fan base in one sentence?

speaker-0: Damn, BTS should partner with Walmart. Yeah. Anyway, long story. ⁓ but yeah, I've been so busy. So I'm not I'm I I don't have anything right now next to my desk that I'm reading. ⁓ I'll bring something tomorrow next week.

speaker-1: Bring some br that's your homework. We're back to school here. Your homework for next week is to bring back your book recommendations. I have an album recommendation. I'm obsessed with this album. ⁓ it's by this band, ⁓ it's not a band, it's a duo, ⁓ Domi and JD Beck. ⁓ these two are incredibly talented. One plays jazz piano, the other one plays drums. They're blowing up on Instagram, but they're actually signed to Blue Note for those who are familiar with ⁓ with Blue Note Records like that's the legacy best of the best, John Coltrane, you know, level jazz music. and so they're signed with with them and they if you don't know Domi and J D Beck do a and that's D O ⁓ I ⁓ and J D Beck is the drummer, ⁓ look them up. Their music is just stunning.

speaker-0: So good. You shared something on Instagram, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I shared I so I I'm not reading anything, but I will say I did launch a travel and tech series on my socials. Yes. Where I'm gonna be showing all like lots of commentary on thinking about technology as I travel. Because I've been doing so many of these and I've filmed so many videos, I've never really shared them out and now it's like it's time. It's time. I'm a technology executive first. ⁓ but then I am a B2B creator and I work in technology and I travel a lot for work. So I've been filming all these videos in places like Greece and Japan and Turkey and Egypt and Cartagena and like everywhere. So you're gonna be seeing a lot of that ⁓ on my socials.

speaker-1: That's awesome. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in to the return of Tech Magic, where we always invite you to come for the tech stake for the magic. Special thanks to Kathy Hackle. As always, I'm Lee Keebler, and you can find our podcast wherever podcasts are listened to. We'll see you next time.