507: Jim McKelvey—A Square Peg in a Glass Hole

Jim McKelvey https://www.jimmckelvey.com/ is an entrepreneur, innovator, computer engineer, and master glassblower who helped build a billion-dollar company. That's not the usual career path, but then, Jim McKelvey isn't your usual entrepreneur. The co-founder of Square, along with Jack Dorsey, McKelvey turned a frustrating experience in his glass studio into a business that changed the way small businesses get paid. Mike talks with Jim about the art of blowing glass, his involvement with TechShop, and why a guy who helped invent the future of payments is downright terrified of AI. They also discuss The Innovation Stack https://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Stack-Building-Unbeatable-Business/dp/0593086732/ref=sr_1_1?crid=16DJ19211DKIM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9. LnS_XrhCpOKNgztkKIAoXINJkoGeIohbH6oP-jhDEf3obWMxTv-udMTlFvvns4Zjy3cTg0Wk4pgjFbGM2Ng7UD5B0dpk2036U1SisT2ekxl3mhdfabZU9MCJrPiJvzNn9yEZGUhU4tw1z5lwP1pWs91cp65qZT1ajiaWNFRhB6BwM9b7lN6JK5WsUtFl57FyTPDJkwYLk_FNFSn_DPWfo-Gdiw8LTGd0bbjHNvzEmMY. FC6VzBvANDYinQGRIjVSy31pnnFsn9rb_2Kea_cWLkE&dib_tag=se&keywords=Innovation+stack&qid=1791837266&sprefix=innovation+stack%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1, McKelvey's book about the unconventional thinking that built Square—and why sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to stop doing what everybody else is doing. BuildFreedom.us https://bit.ly/TWIHIxBuildFreedom—The best place to find a six-figure, AI-proof job. Build your future. Rebuild America. PureTalk.com/ROWE https://bit.ly/PureTalkRowe—Switch your phone service today and get UNLIMITED talk, text, data, and 30G hot spot for just $29.95 a month for LIFE! Not your phone's life—your life! NetSuite.com/Mike https://bit.ly/TWIHIxNetSuite—The #1 Cloud ER. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's FREE business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work. Chapter.com/MikeRowe https://bit.ly/TWIHIxChapter—Chapter compares every Medicare plan nationwide to recommend the right coverage for you. Call them at 804-CHAPTER or visit chapter.com/mikerowe https://bit.ly/TWIHIxChapter to get free, unbiased Medicare help. Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and standalone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan's contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don't directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Mike Rowe?

  Hello friends, Mike Rowe here and I am super excited for you to meet my new friend, Jim McKelvey. Maybe you recognize his name, but maybe not. Maybe you'll recognize his face if you watch this over on YouTube, but probably not. But I'll bet you recognize the product he created. In fact, I'll wager you've actually used it. This episode is called "A Square Peg in a Glass Hole." There, I just gave you a hint. Did you figure it out? Jim McKelvey invented Square, the payment mechanism that basically turns your iPhone into a credit card reader.

• 0:44Mike Rowe?

  And he did it years ago because he was a glass blower, an artist. And he had completed a job and he had an interested customer, but his company couldn't take American Express. Why? Because it's very expensive to take American Express. And if you're just a starving artist, or maybe not starving, but you know, if you have a small business, American Express is kind of a luxury. So a lot of people just didn't take it. This made Jim upset. It was a $2,000 sale. So he sat down with his former intern, a guy named Jack, and came up with this technology. Jack, by the way, went on to become Jack Dorsey.

• 1:26Mike Rowe?

  I mean, he was Jack Dorsey to start with, but he went on to co-found Twitter. Or did he found, I can't keep it straight. Elon Musk bought Twitter after Jack Dorsey started it, but he used to work with Jim over at Square, which is now called Block. And now Jim and Jack are billionaires and it's a great Silicon Valley success story. But the idea that this guy could create a solution to a personal problem always interested me. And as a curious sidebar, the fact that he created his prototype over at Tech Shop sort of fascinated me. If you've been following my comings and goings for the last couple of decades, you'll remember

• 2:09Mike Rowe?

  my foray with Tech Shop and an old friend named Mark Hatch. Mark and his partner, Jim Newton, set up the Tech Shop really because we took shop class out of high school and he wanted to do something to encourage people in the maker space to embrace their inner entrepreneur and do great things. Well, that's what brought Jim McKelvey into the Tech Shop where he met Mark Hatch and later with his friend, Jack Dorsey, went on to create the Square. Are you tracking all this? Because it's pretty cool. Anyway, I met Jim in Wyoming not long ago. He interviewed me at this conference and we had such a good time. I said, "Jim, sit down and let me interview you for my podcast." And he said, "Okay."

• 2:52Mike Rowe?

  So what you're about to hear is a completely spontaneous conversation with one of the great innovators of our time. Jim McKelvey really did it. I mean, he has been there and he's done it. He's gone on to start several other companies. He's got some amazing ideas which he shares in this conversation. And I was at somewhat of a disadvantage because I didn't read his book. His latest book is called Innovation Stack. And it's terrific. And I can tell you that because now I've read it. I read it after I interviewed him, which is the mark of a completely irresponsible podcast host. Nevertheless, this conversation stands on its own.

• 3:31Mike Rowe?

  It was recorded at Brush Creek Lodge not too long ago with a mind-bendingly beautiful backdrop and a pretty doggone good conversation, if I don't say so myself, with a genuine innovator named Jim McKelvey. "A Square Peg in a Glass Hole," right after this. For the record, I am not yet eligible for Medicare, but I'm gonna be. And when I am, you better believe I'll be calling Chapter to make sure I got the plan that's right for me. Think of Chapter as a way to have your current plan inspected at no cost to you.

• 4:15Mike Rowe?

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• 4:58Mike Rowe?

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• 5:41Speaker 01

  I'm so happy to be here.

• 5:43Mike Rowe?

  You know what? You were not on my bingo card. I had no idea until, like, the way this whole thing came together was so random for me. And then I looked at the guest list and I'm like, "Oh, wait a second. Jim McKelvey."

• 5:59Speaker 01

  But you didn't know my name. You didn't know what I...

• 6:01Mike Rowe?

  I didn't know you by your name.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Good. I don't want to be known.

• 6:06Mike Rowe?

  I knew you as the guy who put Tech Shop on the map 15 years ago.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Tech Shop?

• 6:15Mike Rowe?

  Because it was Jim Newton and it was Mark Hatch. And these guys, in my estimation, had stepped into, you know, the whole missing shop class thing and created this outside of schools. And they told me a story about a guy who came in there and created the Square. And I thought, "Good God, that's interesting."

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Tech Shop was the happiest place on earth. It was the vibe in there. There was only one. It was this weird place. It was weird people. One guy was building a lunar lander.

• 6:47Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  And he was serious about it. He was like, "I'm gonna send this up to the moon." And he was like, and he was having a problem with the fuel sloshing in the tanks. And I spent 20 minutes talking to him. Newton scrounged all these, you know, old electronic parts. It was maker's paradise.

• 7:04Mike Rowe?

  It was the first time I saw 3D printing.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:08Mike Rowe?

  So this was about 15, 16 years ago.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  2009.

• 7:10Mike Rowe?

  And I just was like, "What in the world?" I'm not even sure I can still articulate it, but it just seems so insane that you can type on some keys and then some things spin around.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:22Mike Rowe?

  And then you have a gun or a useful part in a machine or...

• 7:26Speaker 01

  No, usually a gun. I'm glad you just went there. Yes, you could, the worst, the worst application of 3D printing. You're just like, straight into it.

• 7:38Mike Rowe?

  Well, look, it's always, haven't you seen like this notion that it's always a vice or something that kind of leads the charge forward?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Porn is why we have good data centers.

• 7:52Mike Rowe?

  Okay, go with that for a minute.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  That's the, the original guru at Square who built our data centers, we pulled from one of the top porn sites because they had the traffic and this guy knew how to handle it. Nobody else did.

• 8:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  So we, we pulled him in and he was great. I mean, you know, he has better stories than the rest of us, but yeah, that was, he did.

• 8:15Mike Rowe?

  What are you sick of talking about? I mean, are you still introduced as the creator of Square, which became Block for some reason?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  I'm the co-founder. It was Jack and me, you know?

• 8:26Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, Jack Dorsey.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Jack Dorsey. Jack and I have been friends and colleagues for a long time. He used to be my summer intern. We decided to start a company together. Well, actually, he asked me to start a company with him, you know, after he left Twitter for the first time and that's what became Square. The idea's been told, or the story's been told a lot, which is that I was working as a glass blower, selling stuff nobody needs, lost a sale because I couldn't take an Amex card. I got pissed off, picked up my iPhone and called Jack and I said, "Hey, I want my iPhone to magically turn into a credit card machine." Because like, my attitude towards the iPhone was it magically turned into whatever I wanted.

• 9:01Mike Rowe?

  Sure, it's a casino.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Turns into anything. But it didn't turn into a credit card machine. That's what I wanted. So this is what became Square.

• 9:09Mike Rowe?

  How long did it take from that, that notion? And did you go to Tech Shop with that notion to create a prototype essentially?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  So I didn't go to Tech Shop directly. What I did was I have, I have a studio in St. Louis, Missouri. So I did a lot of work in St. Louis, but I was living in California at the time. So when I worked in California, I worked out of Tech Shop. When I worked in St. Louis, I did my work at Washington University's machine shop.

• 9:36Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  And so I used those two. And then I have a glass studio where I have a bunch of tools too.

• 9:41Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, let's go back to the, so you're just a mild-mannered blower of glass trying to make a living selling your wares. I mean, is that fair?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, look, what, what happened with glass was I graduated from Washington University with degrees in computer engineering and economics and quickly became a professional glass blower after I lost my first job. So actually, I didn't lose my first job. I quit my first job because I took a job with a startup that was run by a guy who was a crook and I just quit, like, without, without planning the next step. I just walked in. "I quit." You know how you're supposed to, "I just quit." And then I woke up the next morning, I was like, "Oh, wait a second. I gotta pay rent." And, and my skills, which were programming, which I was mediocre at, and economics, which who, who wants that, weren't valued. But then I thought, "Well, I've got this physical skill."

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Like, I knew how to blow glass.

• 10:38Mike Rowe?

  Why?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Because I took a class in college and it was fun and I got good at it. But I didn't get good enough to make a living. But it's amazing how quickly you can get good at something if you have to make a living.

• 10:49Mike Rowe?

  I think it's amazing how vocation and avocation sometimes get juxtaposed.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:57Mike Rowe?

  Sometimes they smash into each other.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:00Mike Rowe?

  You know, there's a great line in a Robert Frost poem called "Two Tramps in Mudtime" that says, "My, my object in living is to unite my vocation and my avocation so my two eyes make one insight."

• 11:19Mike Rowe?

  For only where love and need are one and the work is played for mortal stakes can the deed be truly done, right? So, I mean, I would love for you, like, I, I'm, I'm, look, you're, you're a big deal.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  No, I'm not, but thanks. Well, okay, go with that.

• 11:35Mike Rowe?

  Your efforts, your efforts, your creativity, your innovation, your imitation, your approach to everything has generated billions of dollars for yourself. And it starts with, I took a class because it was fun. And blowing glass somehow made sense to your brain, maybe in a way these other things didn't. And then way leads on a way.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, um, glass, when it's hot, is magic. It's, I mean, it's moving, it's, you know, like this thing, I mean, well,

• 12:10Speaker 01

  like, if we took this and heated it up to 2,000 degrees, it would not maintain its shape. It's all gonna sag, it's all gonna move. So you gotta keep it rolling. So you've got this balance, it's like a dance. And you can't think about it too much, because like, if, if you dance and you think about dancing.

• 12:27Mike Rowe?

  You fall.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  You fall.

• 12:28Mike Rowe?

  Or you step on her feet.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  So it becomes this, this thing that involved my brain in a different way. So I'm learning how to manage this material and I'm rolling it. It's, it's fighting me and, and, and if I'm stressed out, it doesn't, like, what's, the glass is the glass. It's not its fault. If I'm stressed out, I don't move well. And then I come in the next day and my work looks like garbage. And I do that three or four days in a row and I was like, what's wrong with me? Like, what am I stressed out about? I've learned so much for having to make stuff out of this weird liquid.

• 13:01Mike Rowe?

  What, what have you learned that's genuinely applicable to business and wealth generation? As a result, metaphorically, of bending the glass to your will?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Teamwork. So glass, any decent glass is not made by a single pair of hands. You, because you, you can't manage multiple pieces. If you're using multiple pieces of glass, you have another pair of hands. What I've learned is how to work with other people, how to communicate, sometimes when not to communicate. And also the quality of the person that I work with, like, I've got this guy, John, who I work with. When I work with John, my hands are better. And I'll give you an example, there's this, there's a shape that I make, it's very difficult, it's difficult for me. And it's one move, it's a solo move, I do it by myself. If I'm working with John and he's over here somewhere, I can make the shape. If I'm working with somebody else, so some other assistant,

• 13:58Speaker 01

  enough of my brain is worried about what this person is doing, that my hands don't move. And I couldn't figure this, it took me years to figure this out, why can't I only make this thing with John? Because he doesn't touch it, he's, he's not involved in the piece at that moment at all. But his presence, because I trust him, allows me to put my focus back on the thing that I'm doing. I mean, that's a pretty good life lesson, right?

• 14:21Mike Rowe?

  Pretty great.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Don't waste your intellect, like, you can be drained, like, okay, you've got your production crew here, right? Like, you trust this guy.

• 14:31Mike Rowe?

  Well, this is interesting and worth riffing on. I just met these guys, I just met these guys.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Oh shit.

• 14:38Mike Rowe?

  They're from Purdue. I, I, I love, again, it's a juxtaposition, but it's where opportunity and serendipity somehow inform a Forrest Gumpian trek. These guys came because I called the organizer of this event and said, look, if I'm gonna be here, I'm looking at your guest list. This is a who's who of people I'd love to chat with.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:00Mike Rowe?

  Can we set up some chairs in a picturesque view so we can see Wyoming in all its glory? If you have access to cameras and a couple of lights, I'll sit here and do podcasts for two days, which I think would be good for Brush Creek Ranch. Question is, where do I get the infrastructure that I need in order for us to have this seemingly, well, thought through conversation, which of course we're making up as we go? And the answer is, I don't know, somebody made calls, technology arrived.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:27Mike Rowe?

  A setting was created here, tangibly, but then behind us, like millions and millions of years ago, we get this. And now we got horses and now we got, I mean, I'm in the middle of a production of Wild Kingdom. And I'm talking to you about blowing glass.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:44Mike Rowe?

  None of this is scriptable, but it's all interesting.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  And you're getting like 80% of my brain because I'm worried about the sun coming out.

• 15:51Mike Rowe?

  Yep.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  And ruining your shot, because I've done enough.

• 15:53Mike Rowe?

  And the sprinklers, who knows?

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, like.

• 15:55Mike Rowe?

  Who knows how close they get?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  But, but the fact that the sprinklers might go off means that we're getting 90% of Mike or 80%. I don't know what percentage of you is here and what percentage of you is worried about.

• 16:05Mike Rowe?

  My audience is accustomed to maybe 60, 65% at any given time. I don't know what they would do if they got 100% of either one of us, honestly.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  We could OD. It's like, it's like the drugs, like, what kills you with something, actually, I don't know anything about drugs anymore.

• 16:19Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, we could bring it back to porn if you're more comfortable.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Well, weaponry was, you opened with that, I figure we have to keep going down these paths.

• 16:25Mike Rowe?

  Boyers, guns and money.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Here we go.

• 16:28Mike Rowe?

  Okay, no, no.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Dan, get me out of this.

• 16:30Mike Rowe?

  I now understand the sensible way to spend the next 45 minutes with you, honestly.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Okay. There's the sprinklers, that was beautiful.

• 16:37Mike Rowe?

  And there's the sprinklers, see, I can see. That's Dirty Jobs 101, by the way. You can't really control the world around you.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:47Mike Rowe?

  The challenge of doing that is very much, to me, similar to the metaphor you just made. Control the glass, you know? Do you work for the glass or does the glass work for you? I mean, once you get the fire going, right? He's in charge.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, the lessons I've taken out of that activity, that avocation, uh, have, have served me really, really well. And I want people to have experiences like that, not, not just glass, I mean, but tech shop's a great example of people colliding with each other. The great thing about the early tech shop was that you had to be kind of a mutt to work there. You, these were not, these were not the cool kids. Um, but they, what they were doing was really interesting. And so you'd run into these people and it was fantastic.

• 17:47Mike Rowe?

  One of the things I like best about the way MicroWorks has evolved is the way it lets my foundation partner with other like-minded entities, companies, foundations, whatever. Everybody is now up to speed with the fact that the skills gap has got to get closed. But nobody's doing more about it, in my estimation, than the Pentagon. BuildFreedom.us is a partnership I'm really excited about. It's been in the works for 15 years when I originally pitched it. Back in 2011, I guess, to Congress. Well, the government's on board. 400,000 AI-proof six-figure jobs are waiting in the industrial base to be filled.

• 18:32Mike Rowe?

  And you can find all of them at BuildFreedom.us. You know what you'll also find? $10 million that has been sent to MicroWorks, which we've earmarked to get you the training that you need. Or your son, or your daughter, or your niece, or your nephew, or your grandson, or your granddaughter. The money is waiting and the need is extraordinary. And the opportunities are incredible, these are AI-proof, six-figure jobs, building stuff that really matters in our defense industrial base. The jobs are real, the money is there. It's waiting at BuildFreedom.us. That's BuildFreedom.us, a website that truly lives up to its name.

• 19:16Mike Rowe?

  $10 million just waiting. BuildFreedom.us. Well, it was the first time I had heard of the maker space, the maker movement.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:29Mike Rowe?

  And you just always struck me as somebody on the vanguard of that. Do you think you were?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  I mean, I was a maker for sure. I don't know that I was on the vanguard because I was never public about it. I mean, I just made my own stuff. So that was not, I mean, I wasn't trying to build a brand, I was telling, trying to, you know, sell my work. But where I fell down as an artist was the self-promotional aspect. So artists, um, what I, what I discovered is that your work is worth a certain amount if it's good-looking. Okay, the rest of it is brand.

• 20:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  The rest of it is, oh, I look at that and I see that Jim McKelvey made that. And then, who's Jim McKelvey and why should I care? That is the thing that requires self-promotion. So I met Mark Costabi, do you know who Costabi is?

• 20:19Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  So he's a great artist, well, actually not a great artist, but he's a, he was a famous artist for a while, um, back in the early 90s. He got into a fight with Sylvester Stallone, he was a real asshole, but that was his public persona. And I met him under this really crazy circumstance, I was, uh, I needed to apologize to a girl. And, and it was such, it was one of those apologies that I had to, I wanted to do it in a public place because I figured she might throw something at me because I really needed. And she worked at this gallery, so I went to the gallery early to apologize. She wasn't there, but Costabi was, I didn't know who he was. So, uh, we hung around for a while. Super nice guy, invited me to come out and hang out with him in New York. And then the people start showing up for his show and he morphs into this toxic asshole.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  He's cussing out people, he's berating them, he's telling them they're idiots for buying his stuff. He got into a fistfight with Sylvester Stallone.

• 21:13Mike Rowe?

  That's something.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he called Stallone an idiot for purchasing his work. You know, and then he bought it back from Stallone and then sold the pieces for more because those were the pieces that Stallone used to own, right? He was a master at this. And, and I looked at this and I was like, man, if you gotta promote yourself to sell your work, I don't want it. So I've never gone past pretty stuff.

• 21:36Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  I, I, I make, I make very nice-looking stuff. Um, and I'm good with that. And I, the, the whole self-promotional aspect, I, I, I, I, I've never been good at it. I don't like it.

• 21:50Mike Rowe?

  Who's the goat in the, in the glass-blowing world?

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Delfi Huli, or Lino, Lino Tagliapietra is the goat. He is the best.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Glass blower in the world. He's the one that taught all of us.

• 22:05Mike Rowe?

  Tell me his name again.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Lino Taglia Pietra. He's probably ninety. I hope he's still alive. I took a class from him. He was, he is the master from which we all, from which we all learned.

• 22:15Mike Rowe?

  Okay, Lino.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Lino.

• 22:17Mike Rowe?

  Now, to your point, let's say I've got an original Lino.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:24Mike Rowe?

  And I love it, and I have it on display.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:27Mike Rowe?

  And I bring you over and I show you the Lino. And I've had this for years, and it's given me great joy to look at, to contemplate the way any great art would. And you, being a credible insider, look at it and go, Mike, I don't know how to tell you this, but that's not a Lino.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:45Mike Rowe?

  Right? That's a, that's a forgery.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  It was made by Avrosoloto, his assistant.

• 22:50Mike Rowe?

  Or somebody, right? So you know where I'm, where I'm going?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:53Mike Rowe?

  It's kind of like the Salvador Mondi thing, okay?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 22:56Mike Rowe?

  Five hundred million dollars. It's a Da Vinci, but, you know, the authenticators now are not so sure.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:04Mike Rowe?

  Now, so the first question is, as an artist, what, what would you say to me? Like, do I now derive less joy from this thing that's brought me so much pleasure because I know it's a forgery?

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Depends on the pleasure you're getting.

• 23:17Mike Rowe?

  Okay.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  There's a pleasure in brand.

• 23:20Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  There are people with half a million dollars on their wrists who are very proud of that thing that's on their wrist. It doesn't tell better time than the Timex that, you know, I've got, but they get a pleasure from that.

• 23:33Mike Rowe?

  Well, I'm asking because you're wrestling with self-promotion. I can tell you hate it. You don't even want people to really know your name.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's tough to sell a book when you don't want to go on.

• 23:46Mike Rowe?

  Which, by the way, you should pick it up. It's called The Innovation Stack. It's terrific. But I'll do it for you.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 23:52Mike Rowe?

  All of this, all of this swirls around, and we'll get to it in a sec. But I mean, I, I just think you built a prototype and got wealthy by duplicating it perfectly. I think that's important. I think AI is upon us now, and people are having this conversation about what's real, what's genuine, what's not, how can we tell? I mean, there are dozen hits on Spotify that are completely artificial, and they're attached to artists who don't exist with Instagram pages with a million followers.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Which is why you should listen to Tidal, so we can block that shit.

• 24:27Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, okay.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  And Block owns Tidal, by the way. Nobody knows this. We own a music streaming service. Isn't that embarrassing?

• 24:33Mike Rowe?

  It, it's really interesting to talk to somebody who doesn't really want to be publicly recognized, but is in the business of changing the way the public interacts and thinks about that, which is practical and real.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 24:48Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, you're a mess, dude.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm toxic.

• 24:51Mike Rowe?

  You know what people should also know? Breakfast closed here, and I didn't get any, and you came down and you, and you brought me a piece of bacon and whatever else is in here. Just because I looked at it and you could see me coveting it. So you're kind as well.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  I, I recognize hunger in all forms.

• 25:12Mike Rowe?

  You're such an unusual cat. All right. So back to the art. I think it's going to be the issue of our time. I think we're going to need authenticators and referees and umpires as we get into this place where nobody can tell the difference between a Lino and a fake, and down the list it goes.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  You know, if you're okay with the fake, I don't judge you for that. I wear a lot of stuff that's copies of stuff. I buy it, I buy clothes at H and M. Like, there's nothing original about this sweater. You know, I don't even know what it cost. I've got one sweater that cost me five hundred bucks.

• 25:44Mike Rowe?

  Why?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Uh, my wife bought it.

• 25:46Mike Rowe?

  Well, there you go.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  And it's gorgeous. But then, you know, it got a hole in it, because we have moths, and, and, but then I couldn't throw away the five hundred dollar sweater. Because it's a five hundred dollar sweater.

• 25:58Mike Rowe?

  But had it been fifty?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  I would have chucked it, but like, now I got a five hundred dollar sweater that I can put my fingers through. It's, but I can't throw it away because it was five hundred bucks.

• 26:09Mike Rowe?

  It's like in the history of the world, no one has ever taken a rental car to a car wash. What?

• 26:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:17Mike Rowe?

  It's not yours.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  No. Andy Taylor will never get his cars washed.

• 26:22Mike Rowe?

  Who's Andy Taylor?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  He owns Enterprise Rental Car.

• 26:25Mike Rowe?

  Ah, you know him?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, he's great. The Taylors are great people.

• 26:29Mike Rowe?

  Here's the danger with this conversation. I want to ask you about Southwest Airlines, because I know you know Herb.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  New Herb.

• 26:34Mike Rowe?

  Knew him.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Great man, great man.

• 26:36Mike Rowe?

  Before we start talking about influences and stuff, just land the plane on the notion of authenticity, and maybe through the lens of imitation and innovation. Because I know that matters.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Summarize the greatest, one of the greatest problems that we're about to face, which is that we are about to be inundated with artificial slop.

• 26:57Mike Rowe?

  Yes.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  And that genuine quality is going to be buried in garbage.

• 27:02Mike Rowe?

  Yes.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  And what is protecting us are a bunch of platforms that have algorithms that are designed to make more money for those platforms. And that's what's protecting you from garbage, from quality. So this is, I'm like, okay, let's take this. Let's assume that this is quality work, because you actually worked on this. We're prepared. We've got people here working on this. You're putting effort into this. You're going to have to edit this, because I'm going to say a bunch of stupid shit, and you're going to have to get rid of it. Okay, so, so here comes quality, but it's expensive to make this, and this could be buried by the YouTube, YouTube algorithm. No one will ever see it. We're depending on this company to save us. So you asked me this question, you say, oh, Jim, let's summarize that quickly before we get on and talk about all this other stuff.

• 27:46Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Look, all I can say is I'm terrified. I'm terrified because I haven't seen the solution yet. I hope it will come. I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm frantically trying to insulate myself from it. I'm frantically trying to recognize quality, respect it, thank people who do good work. I'm building a product right now called Mail Wall, which is a personal paywall for my email, so that I can charge you a penny to send me an email.

• 28:19Mike Rowe?

  Oh, that's brilliant.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  His, I, yeah.

• 28:22Mike Rowe?

  All the spam goes away.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it all goes, or, you know, yeah. Or if they want to pay you the penny, they can get through to my inbox, or whatever. You, you pick whatever number you want. You're Mike Rowe. I, I pay a dime to be in your.

• 28:33Mike Rowe?

  You pay a dime?

• 28:34Speaker 01

  I pay a dime.

• 28:34Mike Rowe?

  So you're saying?

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Mike Rowe?

  What's it called? Mail?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Mail Wall.

• 28:38Mike Rowe?

  Mail Wall.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Like, like Paywall, except Mail Wall.

• 28:40Mike Rowe?

  And can an individual, is it software? Can you put it on?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just, I'm, I'm, I'm working it out right now, working with a little team. It'll be out in a month or two. I hope.

• 28:49Mike Rowe?

  I mean.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  But I'm building stuff like that because I'm afraid of what you just asked. That product doesn't exist, but maybe by the time this video is out, it will.

• 28:55Mike Rowe?

  No, this is live.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Oh, shit. Well, then we're done.

• 28:58Mike Rowe?

  No, look, that's, I mean, people have wrestled with, like, junk mail, tangible junk mail for as long as there's been a post office.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:07Mike Rowe?

  You just can't make it go away, although I do have one hack for it. But this is so much better, because I, I have thirty nine thousand unread emails. Thirty-nine thousand.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 29:24Mike Rowe?

  Right? And I, that's not, people have much, much, many, many more. We're, we're totally inundated with it.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:32Mike Rowe?

  And you're saying, what I would say to everybody in my world is, if you want to send me an email, it's going to cost you a nickel, or a penny, or a dime, whatever it is.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  If you care enough.

• 29:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  If, if you expect me to give even a fraction of a second of my real time

• 29:47Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  to your AI-generated spam.

• 29:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to play that game. I wanted to, I wanted to switch the economics. I would say, pay me, bitch. Like, this is going to, like, this is going to cost you just a tiny amount. And if you don't care enough, that absolutely tells me what you're about. And I used to do this, I, I, I used to do this with people that wanted to meet with me.

• 30:13Mike Rowe?

  Well, wait, wait.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:15Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. If it's my, my mom, my wife, my kid.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  They're all whitelisted because you've emailed them before. I know who they are. They, they just come right through. Anybody you've emailed, any organizations you email, that comes right through. Now, we're, now, I'm not saying this is great stuff yet. Like, I burned myself, uh, when I, I built the prototype and I started using it, and I was flying Frontier Airlines.

• 30:35Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  And they canceled the flight and emailed me about it, and I never got the email. So I went to the airport, and I was all ready to go, and there was just no flight.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  So yeah.

• 30:45Mike Rowe?

  So you gotta figure that out.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  We figured this out. So all the major airlines, we're, we're, we're building the whitelist filters and stuff like that. But yeah, but that's what I do. You asked me a great, there's a great question. We should spend an hour on that, but I don't have a good answer. All I could, all I can tell you is I'm terrified. I am terrified that we will lose the real stuff, the real quality.

• 31:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  It'll buried, it'll be buried behind garbage.

• 31:09Mike Rowe?

  Well, that's why I keep coming back to that scene in The Matrix. There are so many good ones, but the one for me is when Cypher is eating his steak.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:20Mike Rowe?

  He's got it on the fork and he says, look, I know, I know this isn't real.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  I know it's not real.

• 31:26Mike Rowe?

  But I don't care anymore.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's burnt, he's.

• 31:28Mike Rowe?

  Give me the black pill. I'm staying in The Matrix.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  I think it was a blue pill.

• 31:31Mike Rowe?

  Was it?

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Actually, it might've been the red pill. I don't remember, but it was red or blue.

• 31:35Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. But that's the decision, you know, that I think with anything artistic, we're gonna have to decide for ourselves if we care that the song is fake, the art is fake, the glass blowing is fake.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Or the food is fake.

• 31:51Mike Rowe?

  Or the food is fake. And look, didn't we, didn't we try it? What was impossible meat? Had it been better, right? Had it been better, maybe, maybe it would have stuck. But right now it's just a shitty cover band, right? That's kind of what AI is in this world. It's just a cover band.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of that. And, um, and I like cover bands, but I would much rather stand in line for an hour and see Mick up there in his eighties or, or whomever. That's.

• 32:23Mike Rowe?

  I think that's the issue of our time.

• 32:30Mike Rowe?

  Some of you might recall the chaos that ensued last year, right around this time, when Pure Talk offered a very limited promotion called unlimited data for life, because that's exactly what it was. Unlimited talk, text and data for $29.95 a month for life. Not your phone's life, your life. Anyhow, I announced this offer in a television commercial and the offer was so popular, the commercial went viral. And unfortunately, lots of people saw it after the promotion had ended. And months later, people were still asking me if they could get in on the deal. Well, the answer is no, that deal came and went. But guess what? It's back. Unlimited data for life is back for a very limited time. Same

• 33:15Mike Rowe?

  deal as last year. No contracts, no commitments, just unlimited talk, text and data, along with a 30 gig hotspot for just $29.95 a month for the rest of your life, which I'm betting will last a lot longer than this offer. It's the unlimited data plan from Pure Talk, otherwise known as the deal of a lifetime. Taxes and fees not included. Some restrictions do apply. See puretalk.com for details. Offer ends 11/15/26. Unlimited data for the rest of your life. Go get some.

• 34:04Mike Rowe?

  I saw a Pink Floyd cover band once that was young, that they, they, you, you couldn't have told them apart.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:14Mike Rowe?

  They were just younger and full of energy and they played for three and a half hours.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:17Mike Rowe?

  And they were incredible. So, you know, I'd like to say that I agree with you completely and I'd rather stand in line to see the real McCoy, except I, I don't know if I'm just shining myself on.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  It, look, you don't have to be consistent here. I don't think, I don't think consistency serves you. I think you, you need to be aware. You need to be aware of the fact that most of the stuff that you really value is probably the result of effort. And I'll give you a good example. My damn book.

• 34:45Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  I rewrote eight times.

• 34:47Mike Rowe?

  God.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Eight times. Now, the publisher checked out at draft five. My publisher, um, you know, they were already like, God, fine, ship it, right? And I discovered they checked out because there was a dirty joke that I wrote because editors like editing. And I was writing this thing and I came up with this just puerile, stupid, it was a dick joke. Put it in, and I, and I immediately erased it. I was like, I can't write that. And then I was like, no, no, no, I'm going to give my editor the pleasure of catching this and just redlining it for me. Cause I knew he, I knew he'd like that. He's like, what the hell you do? Cause that's what they do.

• 35:21Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  We never caught it. And, and, and I went to him. I was like, hey, you know, there, there was a joke in here. I thought you were sure. He's like, oh, really? Well, it turns out he'd taken another job. He was checked out. He didn't care. So actually the, the joke is still in the book. I just let it go to print. But the point is from draft five, six, seven and eight, it was all me saying, this is not good enough.

• 35:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  And then seventh draft, I was fine. I was, I was there and I let my father read it. My father was, was pretty old at the time. And he read it, he read the book and he says, Jimmy, I really liked the first two sections of the book. I was like, Dad, there are three sections. He says, Jimmy, the first two sections were really good. So I rewrote the whole book again, you know, but that level of toil is what it takes, at least for me. I'm not a very good writer, but like, it takes me that time to get something that's good. And you're in this business, you will throw away a large part of this interview because it wasn't good or it didn't fit or it just didn't, you know, it doesn't work.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Sometimes you think it's gonna work and it doesn't work. I want people doing that. I want, but, but you gotta pay them to do that.

• 36:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  And in order to pay them, you have to have a mechanism that allows their work to be rewarded and doesn't pay the guy who's stealing from them.

• 36:51Mike Rowe?

  Well, you also have to know exactly what it is you're selling.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:54Mike Rowe?

  Are you selling my best finished effort? Or are you selling access to a real unscripted moment? How much authenticity goes away in the bargain when you toil and futz and agonize over that participle and, and that predicate? And wait a second, if I put the dick joke earlier in the book, maybe, maybe, maybe, see.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:22Mike Rowe?

  So like, the more you mess with the thing, I, something is getting arbitraged out of the transaction. I'm not quite sure what it is, but there is a price to pay for that.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  All right. I want the, I want the studio album and the live concert. I respect them both.

• 37:42Mike Rowe?

  That, that's it.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I, I respect. And if you record your live concert and the keldrum falls off the stage, killing the sound guy and it's all there in perfect HD, I love that stuff.

• 37:55Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  That's awesome. But that's also real.

• 37:58Mike Rowe?

  That's right. Because it wasn't part of the act. That thing wasn't supposed to fall off the stage, but on that night it did. And you were there and that's the thing you're gonna talk about for a long, long time. I was at the concert the night the amp fell off.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:13Mike Rowe?

  And crushed the guy. And holy cow, what a time that was. Or whatever.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Whatever. But I mean, this is, this is, I'm sorry, I've taken 20 minutes and now you're gonna have to edit all this out. But like, the point is you've got.

• 38:24Mike Rowe?

  So you understand.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:26Mike Rowe?

  We're not editing anything out.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:27Mike Rowe?

  I don't do it.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 38:29Mike Rowe?

  Not in this world. But in the book world, I'm just like you. Gladwell had a pretty great take on what separates greatness in art. And I'm not saying either one of us are great, but I'm, but we're both interested. And Cezanne was never finished.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:52Mike Rowe?

  And Picasso finished like that. And they're arguably the two greatest artists who have lived in that, in that world, right? When Picasso finished, he sold it. He was done. He never went back. He never thought twice and he worked fast.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:08Mike Rowe?

  Cezanne, that lunatic would show up at people's homes after they bought it.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 39:14Mike Rowe?

  And go change the color.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 39:17Mike Rowe?

  Like you, you probably went into a bookstore and, and took the innovation stack off the shelf and like, you know, would cross something out and write like you never stopped messing with it.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  I, I, we had printed copies and I wouldn't let it go. I rewrote it. I forgot printed copies that have never been released.

• 39:36Mike Rowe?

  Dude, this is so interesting, man.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  And I had a real publisher too. Like he was, they were pissed.

• 39:40Mike Rowe?

  Well, how did you get the product on the market? How did you know Square was good to go? How did you know?

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Oh, so that's totally.

• 39:47Mike Rowe?

  How did you know when you were done?

• 39:49Speaker 01

  No, so that's a totally different thing. So, um, if you're releasing a consumer product, you're never going to be finished. Get it out, get it going. Because it's going to be mediocre and a mediocre product that serves a real need will get a overwhelming chorus of.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Positive response. You got the same thing when you started Dirty Jobs. You crawl into one sewer, you interview one guy, and what's the response? Boom. Letters coming in. More, more, please. More, more, please. Look, you come out and you say, I can actually make this better if I actually put some effort into it. So you put some effort into it. Look, we shipped Square with a reader that didn't work very well, which I was responsible, with software that had known bugs. With, but that's, we got it out. And then we fixed it and we keep improving it. But that's, no, you don't, look, perfection, if you, if you hold it up as this sacrosanct thing, is an excuse for never getting out in the real world.

• 40:45Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. What is the great enemy of a, of a good plan is a perfect plan.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, Jim Collins would say, you know, the enemy of great is good.

• 40:55Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  You don't have a great life because you have a good life. And the hard thing to do is get rid of good. So that is a-

• 41:04Mike Rowe?

  The slot machine that pays off just enough to keep you standing there.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Sure, you got a good job.

• 41:09Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  You know, and you're not gonna quit, but you might really do great at this, but hey, it's too big a risk. Good is the enemy of great, and I believe that. But there's also a counterargument, which is, and I especially believe this in consumer products, speed saves you. Speed is what it's about. The ability to move quickly. But this, this happens, there's a line, okay? If you're beyond that line, so the line is what humanity knows. Humanity understands all this stuff over here. We know how to do all this stuff. Maybe you don't, but humanity has solved this stuff. And then there's the stuff that humanity has not solved. And if you're on this line, you don't get to copy anybody. That's the problem. Usually you spend your whole life copying.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Everything's a copy, it's a good copy, it works. And nothing wrong with that, I'm not knocking copying. But then if you end up, you know, trying to build something that hasn't been built before, then your only resource is the ability to fail fast and iterate. And so what happened with Square, because we, we sort of accidentally found ourselves on this side of the line, because we were building products for people that weren't in the banking system. So the entire banking system excluded our customers, which was, I mean, it was crazy because we had to build all this other stuff. We basically had to build a shadow banking system.

• 42:28Mike Rowe?

  I'm just gonna, were you surprised by how many entrepreneurs like yourself were out there in need of this thing?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. I was blown away.

• 42:38Mike Rowe?

  So you didn't know the market in advance?

• 42:41Speaker 01

  No, no, well, look, it would be impossible to know the market in advance, because nobody had ever built a product for this market. So, okay, I'll give you, I'll give you a, what's the market for personal hovercraft? They don't exist.

• 42:54Mike Rowe?

  It's pretty skinny right now.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  So let's say, but you don't know. Do you want one? Do I want, maybe I do, or maybe I'll scare the hell out of myself. Like, I don't know. But if a market doesn't exist, you can't draw that chart, you know? So there's, that slide is blank in the pitch deck.

• 43:09Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Well, actually, people just make it up. But like, the basic problem that Square had was the problem that all innovators have, which is that if it's real innovation, it hasn't been done. So you could build something and nobody could buy it, or everybody could buy, or some intermediate. So in Square's case, we put out a pretty rough first product and the world went nuts. And so we just doubled down and kept going.

• 43:38Mike Rowe?

  Jim, it's, I mean, the parallels between that and Dirty Jobs really are extraordinary. I, I didn't know. I mean, we, I don't think anybody had ever shot a show before with no second takes and a behind the scenes camera that was really functioning as the A cam.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Oh, the, the behind the scenes camera is magical. You feel connected to everybody. Bart, what's, I forget, Barsky. I mean, when he got waxed-

• 44:07Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  I almost wet the couch. I was laughing so hard.

• 44:11Mike Rowe?

  By the way, man-

• 44:11Speaker 01

  But it was just so great.

• 44:14Mike Rowe?

  The nicest thing I've heard all week, and I've heard some nice things this week, your daughter Margaret, eight years old?

• 44:20Speaker 01

  My daughter Margaret is eight years old. Can I say it? Because it's more flattering if I say it.

• 44:24Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Two nights ago, so we came in from Europe, she's jet lagged as hell, we both wake up at 4:30 in the morning. She's like, Daddy, can we go watch Dirty Jobs?

• 44:33Mike Rowe?

  I love this.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Now, she doesn't know that I'm coming to interview with this guy. She doesn't know that. Because I don't, why don't I say, hey, I'm gonna go. You brag to an eight year old? Like, no. So, she paid you the greatest compliment because she is too young to lie.

• 44:45Mike Rowe?

  She has no guile.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  She doesn't, she has no manners.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  She will tell you, you smell funny. And, and you better believe it, because an eight year old tells the truth.

• 44:56Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  And she said, Daddy, can we go watch Dirty Jobs? And I was like, yes, we can.

• 45:02Mike Rowe?

  That quality is the precise thing, I think, we've been talking around, to know that you're hearing the unvarnished truth, whether you agree with it or not. And to feel like, right now, the only place, I can't get that on Facebook, I can't get that on TikTok, I don't even know that I can get it here, to be honest with you. Heisenberg, right? The actor, the uncertainty, you observe a thing, you change the thing. It's so hard to know for so many reasons where the truth is. But if you just told me that it comes from an eight year old, who has not yet been polluted by the slings and arrows of outrageous opinion-

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Or manners.

• 45:44Mike Rowe?

  Or manners, man.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  I mean, manners are, don't tell Mike that he smells like his last Dirty Jobs shoot.

• 45:51Mike Rowe?

  You know-

• 45:52Speaker 01

  You know?

• 45:52Mike Rowe?

  You mentioned Barsky, and it's, and it's interesting, that guy, you know, we went through a lot of stuff together, and one of the most valuable qualities that he had was a kind of disagreeability. He didn't, like, he would never say he liked the thing he didn't like. He would, he couldn't do it.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:15Mike Rowe?

  And, and that quality, that can hurt you in your career, or it can make you unspeakably valuable when it's in demand.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:25Mike Rowe?

  And I think it's in demand now.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  It is, but it is so frowned upon by polite society.

• 46:36Mike Rowe?

  There is no doubt in my mind that many people are skittish about the advent of AI and the way it might shape the future of humanity. I get it. I've got my own reservations, especially regarding its impact on music and publishing and the arts in general. But I'm equally certain that AI is here to stay and that its impact on business is not something that anybody with a business can afford to ignore. That's why you really ought to consider NetSuite Next. NetSuite Next lets you ask complicated questions in plain language and then get an immediate and accurate answer.

• 47:17Mike Rowe?

  It's like having a brilliant mentor at your disposal 24/7. But the tech is only part of the story. AI is literally reshaping the way your teams can work together on the job. And that shift is already underway. That's why you should pick up a free copy of A Lining for the Agentic Era: How AI Is Changing Everyday Work. This is the definitive guide to how AI can reshape work across your entire organization and how to position your business to prosper from it. If your revenues are in the seven figures, pick up your free copy, A Lining for the Agentic Era. I've read it, it's great.

• 47:59Mike Rowe?

  This is the way AI is changing everyday work. You can get it at netsuite.com/mike. The guide is free at netsuite.com/mike. That's netsuite.com/mike.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  That's netsuite.com.

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Netsuite.com.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Netsuite.com. Netsuite, yes, Netsuite. I said netsuite.com. He said netsuite.com. Slash Mike.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Telling the truth is not popular. It'll get you banned, it'll get you canceled, it'll get, now, your version of the truth might not, Square was, and, and the problem is, have you ever had media training?

• 48:50Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Well, you must.

• 48:51Mike Rowe?

  Sure.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  I got media training in the worst way.

• 48:55Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's really good to have it, if for no other reason, so you can ignore it. But it's really good to have it.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:02Mike Rowe?

  It's really good, it's better to know.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, but media training for me is sort of like sitting in a deposition, which is like, it's not about the truth, it's about this Kabuki theater that we're playing.

• 49:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  And you're trying to get me to say something that I, no, I shouldn't say, and let's see who's better.

• 49:17Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  But it's, it's stressful. It's stressful to live that way.

• 49:21Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's stressful when you have something to lose.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:26Mike Rowe?

  It's stressful when your $500 sweater gets a hole in ways that your $50 sweater, you don't care. You have so much to lose and you have so much to give. And so that's when the media experts will come to you and say, hey, let, let us help, let us help you, save you from yourself. And you'll listen, because there's a market for that. Because you've seen other successful people go up in flames. You've seen unforced errors. We all have.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:55Mike Rowe?

  And we don't want to make them.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:57Mike Rowe?

  But we kind of revel in talking about them, because like, oof. It's like being missed by the big blue bus by just a couple inches. It's exciting.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  I fell alive.

• 50:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Yeah. So what, what did you learn from media training that's worth articulating?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  That I should not get enthusiastic on live TV.

• 50:18Mike Rowe?

  What the hell happened?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  I got burned, oh, my God. I was doing a segment on Bloomberg, I was co-hosting, it was a 90 minute segment, and they paired me with two fast-talking New York female anchors. And I'm a fast talker, but they're New Yorkers and they're professionals and they're ripping. And I'm talking fast and they're talking fast and they're asking me questions, I'm answering questions, and we're having a great time. And I got a call the second the lights went out. And it was our general counsel. And he's like, Jim, we need to tell you about media training.

• 50:50Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  And I will teach you media training in one sentence, which was, Henry Kissinger showed up once to a press conference and he said, I hope you have all prepared questions for my answers.

• 51:05Mike Rowe?

  There you go. Know, know how it ends before you start.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Yes, if I am doing media training, I will have an agenda in advance. And I paid you a great compliment today by having zero. Like, I don't know what we're gonna talk about. I figured you let us look whichever way you want.

• 51:20Mike Rowe?

  Well, I didn't have a plan either. But I learned a lot last night. Jim sort of interviewed me last night in front of a very august uh, collection of big brains. There are a lot of people here who have with a lot of initials after their names were wrestling with.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:37Mike Rowe?

  You know, the problems of our time, you know? And uh, it, it was. It was interesting to talk to you in front of that group. And it was interesting not to have a clear roadmap. I didn't know how that was gonna end last night. To your point, this is the theme of this conversation. It's, it's just inescapable. Whether it's your book, whether it's your product, whether it's the next product. The way you're thinking about things, you know? I don't think we really get to know how it ends. And look, the, the real poetry of the point, and maybe there's, this is too much information, but Bruce White. The guy whose entire vision.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:19Mike Rowe?

  Brought us here, one of the great hoteliers of all time. The exact expression, I'll probably get it wrong, but he talked about. Always began at the end. Always know, you don't need to know how you're gonna start. But to your point, he, he worked everything back from the end. And I know this because I narrated the story of his life. I wish I could quote it better. But isn't it interesting how this all kind of rhymes?

• 52:47Speaker 01

  It does. It does. And this is why I love coming to things like this. This is one of the great advantages of. You know?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  The way I get to live these days is that I, I, I get invited to the meetings sometimes.

• 53:00Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, man.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  It's so much fun. It's such an honor. And I always feel like an imposter.

• 53:05Mike Rowe?

  I was just gonna ask you. How profound is that feeling for you? And does it, does it bother you? Like, do you?

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Last night I did a terrible job of interviewing you.

• 53:16Mike Rowe?

  It wasn't terrible.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  I was bad. It was, no, no, I left the stage. I was like, I didn't get Mike out of second gear. And I'm glad it wasn't being recorded because I didn't go for it. I was polite. I was kind of, you know.

• 53:29Mike Rowe?

  You weren't disagreeable.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  I wasn't dis- I wasn't, I wasn't disagreeable and I didn't bring it. I didn't give you a chance to just. Beat me up on stage and have a ball. Like, we could, we could have had a really good argument. We could have had a really good, and I, I thought about it. And then I was like, uh, I didn't know.

• 53:47Mike Rowe?

  Jim, here's the problem. Fundamentally, and I don't know you well enough to really say this, but my sense is that we're in violent agreement on virtually everything that matters. Now, if that's.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  I would agree with that.

• 54:00Mike Rowe?

  If, I would agree more. I agree more.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  I would agree violently.

• 54:04Mike Rowe?

  I agree with that. I agree with that so hard, it hurts.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Oh, shit.

• 54:08Mike Rowe?

  No, I.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Buzz garbage.

• 54:09Mike Rowe?

  But look, but this is, but this is the point. Why would two people who fundamentally agree on the importance of reinvigorating the trades?

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:17Mike Rowe?

  Pretty much everything else we've touched on.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:19Mike Rowe?

  Why would we go up there and pretend that we don't? For the purposes of some kind of Kabuki-driven manufacturing drama.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Boring content. It's like, if you say yes and I say double yes, you know, it's just kind of bad content.

• 54:33Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, but it's, but if it's the truth, wither authenticity.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  See, this is great because now we're arguing.

• 54:39Mike Rowe?

  No, we're not.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Yes, we are.

• 54:40Mike Rowe?

  No, we're not.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  No, we are.

• 54:41Mike Rowe?

  No, we're not.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  This isn't an argument.

• 54:43Mike Rowe?

  Sidebar, if you found that, if you found the last five seconds amusing, please Google the Argument Clinic.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Monty Python. John Cleese, one of the best skits ever.

• 54:54Mike Rowe?

  I think.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  We could probably do it.

• 54:57Mike Rowe?

  No, we couldn't.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Just because.

• 54:58Mike Rowe?

  No, we couldn't. You, you, that.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  No, we couldn't because I'll break characters, the problem.

• 55:04Mike Rowe?

  That, and.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 55:06Mike Rowe?

  Do you remember how it starts? Is this the right room for an argument?

• 55:09Speaker 01

  You stupid git, you're.

• 55:11Mike Rowe?

  Oh, I'm sorry, this is abuse.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  This is abuse.

• 55:14Mike Rowe?

  And, and then he goes in the right room and he says, is this the right room for an argument? And Cleese says, I told you once. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. When? Just now. No, you didn't. I most certainly did. Wait. This is, this is an arg.

• 55:30Mike Rowe?

  Google the Argument Clinic and watch it. And then if you really want to understand why that's as good as it is, Google who's on first.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. The ultimate.

• 55:43Mike Rowe?

  I think so.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:44Mike Rowe?

  I think so. And what another sign of our times? People talking past each other, people confused, people certain. They're certain about a thing.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 55:54Mike Rowe?

  And they're wrong.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 55:56Mike Rowe?

  In their certainty, and we get to watch it and laugh. I mean, those two pieces alone, I would, I would say stand as um, two of the greatest pieces of art. Performance art that I've seen.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Damn, I violently agree with you again.

• 56:13Mike Rowe?

  See, here we go again. So boring.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  So boring.

• 56:15Mike Rowe?

  So boring. I, I, I wonder what we might, no, I, I don't think we're, maybe innovation, let's go back to that for a second.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Innovation, oh, yeah. I've spent a lot of time thinking about that.

• 56:26Mike Rowe?

  Because you were talking.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  And Fred, or Herb Keller.

• 56:29Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  If you wanted.

• 56:30Mike Rowe?

  Why did you go to the founder of Southwest?

• 56:34Speaker 01

  So I had this thesis in my book that innovation was this weird, weird thing. And I'd proven it by doing a bunch of historical research. So I came up with this very odd sort of counterintuitive take on all of innovation. It was exactly the opposite of what I'd been taught. And it was weird enough that I thought might, I, I might be just selection biasing myself into an idiotic conclusion. And all of the people that I'd studied were dead. Except for Herb. So I called Herb just out of the blue. And I asked him, you know, through voicemail, if I could, you know, come and talk to him.

• 57:12Mike Rowe?

  You'd never met?

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Never met him, never met him. Um, I mean, I knew him, he was a legend. But he, um, he called me back. No preamble, no scheduled call. He just called my phone and I, I'm a, I'm a knucklehead. I answer my phone. I see a 214 area code. I was like.

• 57:28Mike Rowe?

  At this point, who are you? Wha- wha- what have you done with your business?

• 57:32Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, I'm a billionaire. I have.

• 57:36Mike Rowe?

  Okay, so, so.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Square's a big deal.

• 57:37Mike Rowe?

  So you did it?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:38Mike Rowe?

  Okay, no, I, I just want to make sure this is, this is after you've done it.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  This is after the IPO, I'm.

• 57:43Mike Rowe?

  You're rolling in it.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Fat, dumb and happy.

• 57:45Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, but I'm worried that, that my thesis is wrong. I never intended to write a book. But I had this thesis. I, I was trying to explain how Square survived an attack by Amazon, which Amazon, when they attack a startup, wins 100% of the time. The only time he didn't win was in Square's case. Okay, so what happened there? And I tried to answer that question. I came up with an answer and the answer was bizarre. And I wanted to talk to a human who'd lived through it and Herb was the only guy I knew. So I called him and he called me up and he just blew up my phone. He's just like, Jim, this is Herb Keller. He's like, what do you need to talk about? I told him, you know, my thesis. He says, why do you come down to Dallas? So go down to Dallas. And um, it's, it's legendary. So far, you go to, you go to Herb Keller's

• 58:29Speaker 01

  headquarters by flying Southwest Airlines.

• 58:32Mike Rowe?

  You better.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Southwest Airlines to Dallas Love Field. And then you get off on Herb Keller her way. Okay, the, the thing. And then you get out to uh, Southwest Airlines and they have a monitor on the side of the wall that's Herb Keller her time. So the, the time zones, Eastern, Western, Herb Keller her time.

• 58:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  And then, like, so Herb time. And you go up to his office, which he's not an active uh, executive anymore. They've given him this executive suite. We spent the whole day talking.

• 59:03Mike Rowe?

  Was he still smoking like a chimney?

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Cool menthols. He did a pack and a half. As a matter of fact, he smoked so much that I was anesthetized. And, and the reason I wrote the book, okay, so here's what happened.

• 59:20Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Full story on the book. I'm sitting on Herb's couch, okay? And he's pacing back and forth. And he's like, so how are you gonna tell the world about this discovery? You know, because basically my thesis was that my weird little payment company and your most successful airline of all time have all these parallels. And at the end, he was like, well, I never thought about that way. But he's like, how are you gonna share this with the world? Now, um, uh, I was, I'm not very religious, but I was raised in a Catholic family. And if God ever speaks to me, I know how it's going down. It will be a male voice. It will come down from a cloud.

• 59:56Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Not unlike two and a half packs of cool menthol.

• 1:00:00Mike Rowe?

  Big Herb, you're sitting down, he's looking down at you, intoning the wisdom of the ages.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  In this deep.

• 1:00:07Mike Rowe?

  Through a cloud.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Through a cloud of nicotine. Comes the commandment, thou shalt write a book.

• 1:00:14Mike Rowe?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  And I was like, I was just, I mean, first of all, I'm high as hell. Cause it's Herb's office and I can't, can't handle my smoke. And you know, my hands are tingling. Uh, and so I said, I gotta write a book. I gotta write a book. I gotta write a book that's good enough that this guy would like it. Which is why the first five drafts of the Innovation Stack were all a graphic novel. Like, it was not even a, it wasn't even a book.

• 1:00:39Mike Rowe?

  Wait to read this, Jim. I swear to, I'm gonna read it this week, I promise.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  So it was a, uh, it was a graphic novel until I got to Herb's chapter. And then I called Herb. And I said, sir, I'm gonna give, you know, here, here's, here's how I want to do your chapter. And he said, he said, I think you're trivializing a very important subject. He said, I can't stop you from doing what you want in your own book. But if you're gonna treat me as a cartoon character, I'd rather just be left out.

• 1:01:04Mike Rowe?

  Oh my god.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  That's what I said. And I, you know, Sir Herb had a legendary sense of humor. So I, I was not expecting that at all. But he, he saved the book. Because what I realized in hindsight was that the protagonist of the graphic novel is absolutely the wrong protagonist for my book. So I'll tell you 300 pages of reading. Okay, so here's basically the innovation stack, which is you decide to do something that's never been done before. So all the tools that you've been trained your whole life, all your socialization, everything stops working. It works backwards. It's weird. You feel alone. You feel terrified. You feel like an idiot. And, and you get this very slim chance of success.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  And sometimes it works, but the, the basic problem is that you're, you're, you're off on your own and you're, you're lost.

• 1:01:54Mike Rowe?

  He's not messing with you. He's really pissed. He, he, he does not want to be in your book.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  He doesn't want to be as a cartoon character. So what happens in every case in my book is a normal person who doesn't have superpowers discovers this thing called an innovation stack. And then they build a world dominating company. And that's not a superhero story. That's an everyman's story. But think about if I'd done it as a graphic novel, okay? Who's the protagonist of a graphic novel? It, it ain't Mike Rowe.

• 1:02:25Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  It's not Jimmy Kelleher. It's not anybody in, in this room. Like at the very weakest, we have Batman who's rich as hell, you know, and has all these great toys. But it's probably some guy who got a dose of radiation and, and didn't get liver cancer. Like he, he gets x-ray vision, you know, from his radiation. So if I had written the book with the graphic novel superhero protagonist lens, what I would be saying to every reader was this ain't you. Here, here's all this great stuff that can be accomplished, but not by you, because you're no superhero.

• 1:03:01Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  You don't, you, you don't get to do this. Herb saved my ass. He saved my ass. And I couldn't finish the book before he died and it broke my heart.

• 1:03:10Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  I worked and worked and worked to get something that was worthy of putting in front of him and my father. And dad got to read it. Herb didn't.

• 1:03:19Mike Rowe?

  He buried the lead, man. After all the glass blowing and all the other stuff.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  I don't do this professionally.

• 1:03:27Mike Rowe?

  Well.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Edit.

• 1:03:28Mike Rowe?

  No, man.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Edit. I don't know how to fix this.

• 1:03:31Mike Rowe?

  Well, we don't know how it ends, but it's 9:57 in real time. And just so you guys understand, I am now supposed to go over, and I think you're supposed to come with me.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:03:41Mike Rowe?

  Some really important people are going to wrestle with some massive problems plaguing our country. And who knows, maybe something will shake loose.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Let's hope.

• 1:03:51Mike Rowe?

  Personally, I, I doubt it. These kinds of things almost never happen in a meeting. But who knows what it'll lead to?

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Maybe if there's violent disagreement.

• 1:04:00Mike Rowe?

  I, I bet there will be.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 1:04:04Mike Rowe?

  I can't find a better metaphor for blowing glass. Everything I think I know about you comes, comes back to that, back to imitation. You're going to be remembered as one of the great innovators. You turned the iPhone into a credit card machine, essentially. But you had to make the product 100,000, a million times over. And you had to do it perfectly, not like that cat in Pet Sematary.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:32Mike Rowe?

  Which is a duplicate, but not really the cat you want. That's a bad cat, right? I guess if there's a question in this, it's if you could choose, would you want to be remembered? As a great innovator or as a great imitator?

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  In, in, in my case, innovation, if I get to use my own definition.

• 1:04:52Mike Rowe?

  See?

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  But what I mean by that is I, I'm a guy who was lucky enough. And there is a hard thing to admit, but most of it is luck, I think. It's timing. It's who you get paired with. It's what happens. I got super lucky, but I survived in this world that kills most people. And innovation destroys most people. If you want to do something innovative, go have an innovative lunch. Okay, tell the chef that you want to eat that plant back there that no human has ever really ingested. Now, it might be the best plant you've ever had. It might be better than whatever they're going to barbecue, or it could kill you.

• 1:05:35Mike Rowe?

  It might be a toxic mushroom.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  The odds are very much against innovators. I was a lucky one. And I guess being remembered for being lucky is probably as best I can do. But look, it's, what I want to do is sort of say, there's nothing special about me. Which means by extension, anybody who chooses to work on a problem that humanity hasn't solved yet should at least be willing to take the shot. Because the whole thing about my book is that you're going to spend all your life basically copying everybody else. But occasionally you'll find a problem that you care enough about.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  And you'll say, hey, nobody's fixed this. I'm going to be the one who fixes it.

• 1:06:22Mike Rowe?

  I lied. I have another question.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:06:24Mike Rowe?

  Is it more important to do the thing right? Or to do it, or to do it at the right time?

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Right time, I would guess, but they're not, they're, they're not orthogonal. I mean, like you, you have, you have both variables. You have to do, you have to do it right enough and when.

• 1:06:45Mike Rowe?

  That's what I mean to say.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Oh, when is a big deal for with me. I mean, that's actually.

• 1:06:48Mike Rowe?

  That's an artistic thing, too.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Well, that's what I learned from Lino. Did I tell you the Lino story?

• 1:06:52Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  Oh my god. So, um.

• 1:06:53Mike Rowe?

  I mean, you name checked him, but yeah, let's, let's end with the Lino story.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  The Lino story, which I've told before, but I will tell it again quickly because we both have to get out of here. So it's very hard to get into Lino's class. He only accepts 15 students a year. And this is 20 years ago when I studied with him. I was 25, my god. It was 25 years ago. I studied with the best glass blower in the world. And his class, he, he speaks Italian. And during this two week class, you are allowed to ask one question. Okay? And everybody spends their time sort of formulating their questions. And these questions are very elaborate and they, you basically, the form of the question that everybody has is maestro, do the impossible. Like make this thing square and, you know, like it's, it, make it, make glass do something that I've never seen before. And then Lino grabs the blowpipe and does it like it's amazing.

• 1:07:41Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  And there are videos online of this. My question was so boring and so simple that nobody even paid attention to the answer. So I asked the best glass blower in the world how to put a foot on a bowl. So to, to explain what this is, okay, so let's say I'm making a bowl here. Okay, and I need to put a little glob of glass here. Well, I was having trouble centering this. I'd been, I'd been blowing glass for 15 years. Okay, by the time I got into Lino's class. So I was, I was a professional. But I was never comfortable doing this one very basic thing. So I wasted, I used my one question to ask the best glass blower in the world to, to do this simple thing. And what I was expecting, Mike, was that he was going to give me the answer that he gave all the other students,

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  which was he was going to show me how to do it. It's not what he did. This is all in Italian, but he basically says, make a bowl. I'm going to make a bowl. He says, make a foot. I make a foot. He says, put the foot on the bowl. And I've got the bowl in my right hand, or bowl in my left hand, foot in my right hand. I'm twirling this thing. And I'm dropping, the foot is hot, the bowl is cold. And I'm dropping this hot piece of glass on this other piece of glass. And just as I'm about to drop it, he says, wait, wait. Now, and when he said now, I let it drop. And it went on perfectly.

• 1:09:12Mike Rowe?

  Ah.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  And this blew my mind because I've been doing it right for 15 years. My technique was fine. My timing was off. And in glass, timing is really important because if the glass is too hot when you drop it, it'll take the shape and then it'll ooze out. It just keeps running.

• 1:09:30Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  If it's too cold, it doesn't make the shape to begin with. So timing is really critical. And, and here I was thinking I was going to get a lesson in how, I got a lesson in when. I got a lesson in when.

• 1:09:41Mike Rowe?

  Wow.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  From the best in the world. You don't question Lino. When Lino says something, you don't say, oh, maybe it's, no, you just say, yes, maestro. And that's how I learned when.

• 1:09:52Mike Rowe?

  Ask me what the secret to comedy is.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  What is the secret?

• 1:09:57Mike Rowe?

  Timing.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  And proving the mastery.

• 1:10:04Mike Rowe?

  Oh, man, listen. All right.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:10:06Mike Rowe?

  We're late. You're amazing. I want.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Dude, thank you so much. You are a hero to my eight year old at least, and I think probably my son now too.

• 1:10:13Mike Rowe?

  And your boy's here as well, young James. I hope he's going to do something fun today. There's like cattle rides and roundups and big brains sitting down, solving the problems of the world. You get to Southern California now and then?

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:27Mike Rowe?

  If you're inclined, come back.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  I will.

• 1:10:30Mike Rowe?

  I, I'd talk to you for hours.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  I will.

• 1:10:32Mike Rowe?

  And I will have read your book, I promise. And we will talk about everything from dead cats to unfortunate replications, etc.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  What a pleasure, man.

• 1:10:41Mike Rowe?

  Thank you. All right.

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  When you leave a review, which we hope that you'll do, tell us who you are. And before you go, whoa, whoa. Won't you leave five? Stars. Five lousy little stars.

• 1:11:19Speaker 04

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• 1:11:50Speaker 05

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, general manager at Safr Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new program that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend, Happy.

• 1:11:59Speaker 06

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