In today’s world, many of the products we rely on are becoming harder—and sometimes impossible—to fix. From farm equipment to electronics, companies are quietly shifting how things are made and maintained. At the center of this issue is a growing debate between the right to repair and what many call corporate greed. This isn’t just a technical issue. It affects … Read More
My Mind Was Blown: Understanding Planned Obsolescence
Episode Transcription
00:00 Hey, thanks for listening to things I learned last night or watching wherever you're at. I just want to update you about some shows that I got coming on. Next week, I am in Kansas City, Missouri, April 8th at the Funny Bone. And then I'm in uh St. Louis. I'm doing the whole Missouri Triangle this week. I'm doing Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield all in the same little thing. So all those shows are coming up. And then I'm in Las Vegas, Sin City, all week, April 20th through the 26th. And then I am in 00:31 Birmingham, Alabama on June 6th and Atlanta on June 7th. those are all the shows. You can find all those dates at Paul Rudd, the actor dot com and I did that. I did a show. I did a show this past weekend that we're recording and I literally got on stage and they had like the monitor in the back and I can see that they have a slide up there with my face and it says Jaren Myers, but Jaren is spelled a new way. J E R O N 00:59 m e y e r s both names and I literally that's why I'm like on stage being like yeah, don't try to spell jaron Myers dot com. Just go to Paul Rudd, the actor dot com. Yeah, comment below how you think jaren Myers is do that. I do this. Tell us how you jaren Myers is spelled. So anyway, I would love to see it. Those shows that would be awesome. So let's jump into the episode. 01:25 Hey man, have you ever heard of the Panama Papers, the Panama Papers? Oh my gosh, did we get here from Watergate? Is that how we got to this topic? Maybe I don't know honestly, I think hey actually April Fools. Oh my gosh, what are you doing? Aver falls? What do you, what do you, what do you, I want to run this episode. Oh my gosh, 01:49 Oh, no. Mark down a time. I got to get set up on my laptop. Oh, no. Are you just going to do the same shrink next door? 02:09 They go back to their little melting factory at night and they wear their little masks in their costumes and they all stand around the fire and they're like, melt, melt, melt, melt, 02:30 Things I learned last night. 02:41 Before we get going, I want to read you this comment that we got 11 hours ago. ah It says, let Tim do the topic. I always come to the topic and stay for the bits. So well, not this week. This week you're here for the topic and you're here for the bits. Sorry, sorry, Dylan May. So because here's the thing, I saw this story and I'm tired of telling you to do topics and then you just let him sit in the thing for like six months and then you and then you delete that thing. So it actually like the last topic I taught, 03:11 I have been asking you to do that for literal years. Yeah, you have. So I saw this story. It's a fun. It's a hopeful story, right, and I was like, I don't want to wait for Tim to find something about this and mess it up for me, you know, because we're talking about the story of this guy named Danny Hartwell. Have you heard of Danny Hartwell? No, okay, so what's that? You have a picture. I do have a picture of Danny Hartwell. Here's a picture of Danny Hartwell. Okay, obviously in two thousand to this 03:39 feels he like a I. What do mean? It feels like this feels like a like you went into AI and you said put a picture of me, but make me younger of me of me or no, no, not no, just like you're you're this guy and you tell AI you're like make a picture of me in two thousand and two out of gas station diner. Okay, that's what this looks like to me. Well, this is in rural Indiana. Yeah, Indiana does just scream AI. Okay, 04:09 He looks like Jim from the office. He kind of yeah yeah, but this is Danny Harwell for the audio listener. He's got the Jim Hill Halpert haircut. He's got a blue shirt. You to you goes to his barber probably not a barber. He probably in Indian small town Indiana is probably just whoever does his mom's hair. Yeah, that's usually how that works. Yeah, and you just go to her. Her name is like Teresa and you go and she does your hair and it's not great. We're making fun of this and Alex has the same haircut. uh 04:39 So but he was so he's born in 1981 in Woodgrove, Indiana. It's a it's a town kind of like Malvern. The population is actually a little bit bigger. It's population is six thousand. His dad Mark is an appliance repair guy. Okay, and so we've got new appliance repair guys that just moved in next door. Oh yeah, yeah, in this building. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that we're to mess up there? We should ask them well made. mean honestly they they might know about this. Yeah, interesting. We'll find out 05:08 um So his dad, Mark, is an appliance repair guy. My dad does subway repair stuff anyway. And then his mom, Elaine, she works part time at a community thrift store. So, you know, small town just doing stuff. And so Danny grows up surrounded by, I don't want to say junk, but just like... 05:31 But I mean like no, no, he's surrounded by like spare parts. Yeah, it's discarded machines. appliances. His mom works with the thrift store. So like just, just. Yeah. Yeah. All this is set up is that Danny's like a tinkerer. He likes to, he likes to put things together. He likes to try to invent new things. And he was growing up in the 80s. 80s. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And so, um, so he had like this, this tinkering obsession, you know, he would take apart anything it could cause hands like 05:57 He would take up microwaves, VCRs, radios, all this stuff. He built his first crude, like, mechanical helper arm at 12 using a bicycle chain and some scrap. So he was really smart. What do you mean mechanical helper arm? I was trying to find what that meant. Is it like those things where you reach and That's what it sounds like. It sounds like one of those little pincher arm things. But he made his own out of scrap parts and a bicycle chain. Is that something that everybody's grandma has? 06:26 Like does everybody's grandma have those pinchers things or is that just my grandma? Everybody's, every old person, I think you get it for your 65th. It's like, yeah, you reaching is out of reach. They're like, hey, that's dangerous, dude. Don't, don't, don't do that anymore. You cut off the punch line on that. really bad because I thought it was really funny and you're going to think it's dumb. But I said reaching is out of reach for you now. Oh, that is funny. And think that's hilarious. I like it. 06:56 Here for the bits. Did we start the timer? Great. No, we did. OK. That's funny. But anyway, he was always talking about something like he wanted to, he had a dream in the 80s too. feel like it was the world was like full of possibilities. Now, I mean, you also got to think like tech, like we talk about a lot. The difference between the iPhone from 2007 and 2015 is wild. Yeah. 07:24 The difference between the iPhone, and that's a, eight year span? Yeah. Difference between 2007, 2015, and almost all of technology. Yeah. Wild. Yeah. Difference between 2015 and now? 10 years? 11 years? Not much. Not crazy. So like, he's in the 80s though, where there's so many, I mean, we just went to the moon 10 years before he's born, right? Yeah. My nose is itching, and I'm trying to subtly do it, but anyway. You know, he's got like this 07:54 I don't know, maybe too optimistic, like this ah naive view of the world, but he wants to build something that he thinks could change the world. I mean, I think that's what, to be fair, like I think a lot of people through that time period had, I mean, even us, like up until recently, there was this idea, especially in this country, that like you can go do and build anything. We talked about this recently. I don't know if we talked about this in the podcast, but Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, how... 08:21 really in the United States since the 50s until pretty recently, a large chunk of the population, not everyone, but a large chunk of the population was at the top of Maslow's hierarchy needs. And we were all living in the self-actuation triangle. so it's like, everybody's like, yeah, live your dreams. you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. And like the world was your oyster because all of our underlying needs had been met by being a part of the wealthiest country that's ever existed in the wealthiest. 08:51 time for that country. Yeah, which will, will, will, and know, and I'm, I'm, I'm going to save the not crash up, but the, uh, I'm going to bring up that article, not what would you call that? That paper that the college paper I sent you. Oh yeah, that was really interesting. I was going to bring that up when we talk about a different character in the story. Okay. So we'll get there. All right. All right. Um, but so anyway, so Danny discovers a book called building a better machine, the Whitlock philosophy by Dr. Harold Whitlock. This is 09:18 do I want to show you old wit lock or young wit lock? Let's see. This is one of those things I was going to. It's weird that you told me that this photo looks like AI because I was like dude, here's the thing. Here's Doctor Harold Whitlock. Yeah, those papers look like AI like his desk, the back, the this is a magazine on the walls. This is a magazine shoe. This is this is the pans on the wall, the desk, everything about this screams AI. He does him 09:46 Whitlock. I'm assuming this is this is Harold Whitlock Whitlock. uh No, I was gonna say, because like the two photos I did this on purpose because like the two photos that I found or not to I found more of them, but the one I was the other one was going to use was just like this is literally just like it's an office and it's the same jacket. It looks like no way. It looks like the same jacket, but to be fair like that is that is a I was going to do that joke. 10:16 But yeah, that is a core like male experience is finding something like a just article of clothing. I that is just perfect good in and you never get rid of it. I say this all the time. If you find an outfit or like pair of pants, yeah, buy three, yeah, yeah, buy three pairs of those pants because when you go to the store the next time they're not going to have it. I did. I did just recently rip a pair of pants that I have and I 10:42 I put an order in for the exact same pair. I to, so for my special, I went to Banana Republican, some pants and uh I washed them for the first time and that's like, I spent $80 on these jeans. Yeah, this is like that's straight, like my old Navy jeans. Yeah, they get ruined in the wash. They get ruined in the wash. Go get some new ones. But like I spent money on this and I literally was like anxious. I was like, I hope anyway. So that's Dr. Harold Whitlock. Whitlock 11:11 is a... So he's the founder of Whitlock Industries, which is headquartered in Chicago. And he's known for designing modular upgrade systems for equipment. basically what his idea was, the idea, kind of like what we're doing with our headphones, like you said, you heard. His idea was everything we make, and they do... Hold on. 11:41 It sounds like, did you see this phone? I can't remember what it was called. Alex, you might remember, but in the mid 2010s, this phone came out, they were crowdsourcing it. And the concept of the phone was every component was a little block and you just plugged it into the phone. And so you had the screen and then you could just plug in the different blocks. And so if you wanted a lot of memory, you got a bigger memory block. If you wanted better speakers, you got a bigger speaker block. And for whatever you cared about. 12:09 you got the hardware for what you cared about. um And I think they ended up getting bought out and killed. Like I think like a big corporate, like a big phone corporation, just sidelined with the project. that's the whole thing is so like he was doing, he did like farm equipment and he did, they did. So my dad actually worked at a machinery shop and they made, they didn't make guns, but they made the little metal parts that go inside the guns. So with like, are you talking about bullets? Yeah. 12:39 No, like they made, they basically made a 75 % of like what an AK 47 would be, but like all the little metal parts because if you put it together as illegal, you can make it in parts and you can sell them parts. So no, but like they, you know, so there are things were universal gear assemblies, like ball joint connector packs, like different things. So the idea being from all of their products on, you know, uh farming equipment, small manufacturing equipment, machine shop equipment kind of stuff was the idea was if this breaks. 13:08 What we're talking about with that phone, you can replace just one part of it. You don't have to replace the entire thing, which as you're saying, is not, you are going to lose your mind. We need to acknowledge oh is not profitable. mean, it's profitable. It's profitable for the people making the replacement parts. No, no, no. Here's the thing. It's not, it's profitable. It's a good business, but it's not like it's not actually scalable the way that shareholders want things to be. 13:36 Right? um, and that was a big thing. keep, uh, and I've never, I'm, I'm glad you found this story because I, and I'm drawing a blank on his name right now, but we had a listener for a long time and I'm not sure if you still listen, but you'll know who you are. Uh, uh, kept recommending that we do the right to repair as an episode. And he worked in agriculture specifically about farming equipment. 14:05 and I looked into it a few times. that what this is? And I just could not find a storyline to make it an episode. But what is the right to repair? It's that if you own something, you should have the right to fix it instead of having to replace it. Yes, which is a big, it's a big issue in the farm world right now because all these products are getting put out that you literally can't fix. You have to replace. So that is the Whitlock philosophy. The Whitlock philosophy is that you should be able to repair and instead of have to replace the entire product is that 14:34 everything on this machine is designed that it's supposed to be unbelievably cheap to be able to repair these things so that you can buy one product and you can use that product for decades and just make minor repairs right so so Danny Hartwell obviously idolizes dr. Whitlock right like almost to an unhealthy degree like has posters of him has like like of that guy. mean yeah of that guy no, but I mean like like you know I yeah yeah he's on his wall. He's like I love this no, but you know what mean like he 15:03 talk about him. He's just saying he's laying in his bed at night. He's just like one day night night like luck, okay, up his cigarette, I would like joking, but not joking. That's how obsessed he is with this guy. Okay, right. So let's go into who dr. Wicclocke is. So dr. Roloc was born in nineteen forty six. He's a basically a child prodigy, kind of the same thing as dan. It's a really tinkering at a young age like my brother has that gene, whatever that is. My brother could 15:32 build computers and take things apart. m I have the creative, I don't have the mechanical brain. So he starts Whitlock Industries in 1978 in a rented warehouse. And his mission was to make machines last longer and work longer for the people who depend on them. Was his stated mission, right? And so, because a lot of what we're talking about, we've already covered this, but it's in my notes, but if you broke one part of your farm equipment, you had to replace the entire system. 15:59 there, right? And so Whitlock creates universal connector standards. So even like 20 year old machines could be upgraded for cheap. Okay. Right. And so he becomes a folk here. Rural communities love him. Farmers love him. Small manufacturing towns are like, this is perfect. This is literally like, yes. And so there is the upfront cost of converting to some of these machines, but he was also making back end products to upgrade your current, like you don't have to buy a Whitlock machine. You could, he could profit it for whatever your other thing was. Right. 16:29 And so around 2003, you know, Danny's 22 at that point, around 2003, Whitlock kind of isn't doing as many interviews anymore and isn't. He did like these not video series, but kind of like they put out these like promotional things. He was a very big, big character, big personality kind of guy and I like would have been what 57 then. Yeah. So, so not like it's not like he retired. 16:57 Right. And he just kind of started slowly disappear. He's not doing interviews anymore. He doesn't show up at product launches anymore. Like he used to be like, and he, and this was like one of those things where he was like the lovable guy. And he was kind of like the face of brand. Like he was always right. And so rumors were kind of going around that he was burnt out, that maybe he's like battling depression, that he's, you know, he's being pushed aside by the board and, the company insists that he is, he is deeply focused on research and that's why he's not being in the public anymore. 17:26 interesting, okay, but even employees who work there aren't seeing him as much anymore, which is weird, right? So um inter two thousand four, a younger executive named Victor Redden, which this is I don't even have to see him. This guy's a villain. I know he's a Victor. Oh, no, this guy is and this is like a life like gosh. This is the early form of so my mom and dad got wedding photos around this time whenever 17:55 Okay, first of all, look at how wet his hair looks. His hair is so wet. This is style, My dad did this. like and I did this like I see if I can find a picture of me when I was that. Let's see if I can. That's I he looks like he genuinely looks like and I always I always want to call this the show's not severance. It's the other show where it's like they're all like they're the rich family and they dress like that. They look like that and it's what it's not severance. I always want to call it severance. It starts with an S. 18:22 But ever since Severance came out, I just always think it's Severance. You watched it. I watched a little bit of it. I didn't make it very far. It was like an HBO show and something with a business. Do you remember what I'm talking about? Oh, succession succession. Yeah, that's what that's like a succession. to you. does. And like he just looks like that little smirk is gross. Oh, yeah. No, he looks slimy. And so this is Victor Redden and his hair looks funny. He's a he looks like a slimy person. 18:52 with slimy hair. This is the kind of guy, this is what we're talking about. Optimization is everything to this guy. And this is even like 2004, dude. This is like before the... He was early to the movement. Yes. And so I actually listened to a podcast this weekend about performative excellence. Do we talk about that on the phone? We talked about it on the phone, yeah. Performative excellence being that instead of like actually moving toward goals or doing work, a lot of these guys in the... 19:21 tech bro world. This guy's for sure looks like a finance bro like just freaking came out of what's McKinsey or so. I you know and just talks you know and his wife's name is Chelsea. He doesn't like her and uh but her dad was cool and rich and that's why he married her and I like to play golf with them. You know 19:50 Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of things. I learned last night. If you like this show, we would love to see in our Patreon. It's a great way to financially support the show. We don't make money from this. It just helps us to pay the people who do make money from this like Alex and Robert, her editor and maybe one day, one day me and Tim, maybe one day, know, but only if you join only if you join, can't wait. We can't get paid until you pay. Can't feed Tim's kid until you join. He's so 20:32 I was trying to find a picture of myself from that time anyway. It was in two thousand four. You know your hair would looked wet. That was like that was put hair gel in and it looked and it wasn't like like now like people use palmate and powders. So it like looks more natural, but then it was gel and it was his gel and it was supposed to look. It was hard, so thick and like hard yeah yeah. It was bad and that was the style. It looks so bad. So anyway, 20:59 so Victor Redden, he's a Harvard MBA. He's got a consultant background, so I wasn't kidding. And he's obsessed with efficiency. Yeah. Yeah. So he immediately starts shifting Whitlock Industries toward a more what he calls modern profitable model. Oh, no. Right. And so he cancels all affordable modular upgrade lines. Isn't that like the business though? Like what are they doing if because wasn't the business like everything is upgrades? Yes. But what his idea was, his thought was 21:28 was that now we have such a brand loyalty from these manufacturers and these farmers that we can now get them to upgrade to our new machines that they can't upgrade that that they can't fix what they didn't. I don't think they knew that at the time I think that's right. They expected so he calls it the red replacement initiative, which is full replacement products instead of parts. 21:55 I hate this guy so much already right, which forces people to buy expensive new models, which starts crushing low income customers and rural people right and so warranty policies start lock. How many how many Whitlock is primarily the farm equipment? It's manufacturing equipment and farm equipment, so I mean it was a pretty broad set of products and so I could give you an example like trackers or like I've never heard of like I've 22:22 I heard of John Deere. I played farming simulator. I don't know if I recognize a Whitlock tractor right so there's a W series modular gear kit. So let's see it was designed for midsize agricultural harvesters from 1988 to 2002 models replaced the entire transmission units for 40 % of the cost. Do we have Whitlock like unit link three point one interface hub like this is all you know I'm talking about this is all actually retrofit. 22:50 so like this is for hydraulic presses look up here. I'm going to look up wit lock. No, don't look up stuff. I want to see like the tractors though. Okay, do I? I'm really, I don't think they have wit lock tractors. Let me do the story later. 23:10 I just I don't think they were putting out like they're putting out conversion kits, but now they're putting out instead. So it basically is like instead of refurbishing this or replacing this one small part of the element like so like say for example, there's a coupling system. See, you're asking me questions that don't. Now I understand I'm too deep into the stuff. Well, I want to know. I just want to know if I know these charges for far. You don't know that they don't make tractors. They make harvesters. They make parts for harvesters. Okay, 23:40 but now or the more we say wet like the more I'm like maybe there was a wet lock and maybe there is looking up after this anyway, kids, not thinking about I'm that like so they changed like warranty language. The parts that were twelve dollars are now unavailable entirely kind of situation that happened to me the other day and by the other day, I mean a few years ago, the are the pump in our fridge water 24:11 dispenser uh broke ah because I was replacing it and I I took a new wrong a little too hard. Yeah, so the thing broke just out of nowhere. It broke and it was well because I was working on it. The hose broke. I wasn't working on it because it was broke the hose. It was broke because I was working on the hose sprung a leak. There was like a little tear and I replaced the hose and when I was taking it off 24:38 I didn't realize the type of connector on it. And so I was just like, let me just take a wrench to it and just get it off. And I got it off and I broke the pump. And so I went to try to replace that though, and you can't get that pump. And so our fridge, water dispenser just didn't work until we replaced the fridge. I had to replace the whole fridge to get the water dispenser to work. And I didn't do that until the fridge So more of what they're doing is less like full like product replacement and more, like for that example, 25:08 is that they used to make things and design things so you could replace that one sealant spot, but now you would have to replace maybe not the whole fridge, but at least the entire hose, that entire, yeah, that entire part of the whole, the whole assembly. Yes, yeah, and so that's what I mean is like there's not like a wit lock refrigerator. don't maybe there is, but I mean like those kind of repairs, right? Yeah, so this brings us back to Danny who around this time, 2004 as Redden has taken over 25:35 and is starting to do all these changes. Danny doesn't really know about that because it's not like his major news, but he's obsessed with Dr. Whitlock. And Danny has been for his entire life. And going to these conferences expecting to see Dr. Whitlock and he's not there and he's like, where is Whitlock? Where is Whitlock? Where is Whitlock? Dry your hair. uh He's in the crowd echoing him. 25:58 Dry your hair. Dry your hair, you wet loser. hair looks so wet. Dude, that's the thing about these efficiency guys. It's the same thing as Brian Johnson. Why are you so wet? So Danny creates a compact multi press joint, basically a universal connection hub for small tools. 26:21 and and he's been trying to sell this around a small town and a couple people have said like man, this is a really good product like you should take this to Whitlock yeah because there was still like a little bit of an idea of like I can just show up at Whitlock yeah and try to apply for and that's how and a small Indiana brain was like I can just go to Chicago yeah, so that's what he does. 26:42 So Danny takes a greyhound to Chicago, a backpack full of parts, hundred and fourteen dollars in cash and he expects to a hundred and fourteen dollars in cash. Just you know he's got that's like us going on tour when we were nineteen. We said that bag of cash we took. We we were gone for thirty days. We spent thirty days on the road and I think between the two of us, we left with two hundred bucks. Yeah, we like this will be enough and you know what it was. was enough. We made it through 27:12 that is the craziest part of that story. I how we did that. We ended up getting through the God we did us. We did. Was it Houston? That guy was like Dallas. I remember him for all of my life. He's like he's like he's like hey. I think God just told me to fill up your gas tank and then he filled it up yeah and fill up our gas and then he also told us that he goes yeah. I just got a large inheritance. I'm set for life and we were like did it okay, okay, good happy for you man cool man. 27:39 Thank you for the gas. Yeah, can you actually buy us something else? Yeah, did you buy some? I was drinking a lot of monster energy drinks that I think about the food we ate on that run. That's what sucks. That's the stuff that I'm like how did insane and here's the thing and I'm not trying to be gross. Where did we poop? I don't remember any. I what I I think we did thirty days and I don't think I move 28:04 what I remember clearly though. I do remember this so clearly. We packed up that bus. We had all the gear for the show. We had our suitcases and not exaggerating, not twelve packs, but like cases, cases of like twenty four packs of I think four cases of bah, ha, blast, ha, blast baby and it just come out finished that before like 28:26 hundreds of Bob, so it was. mean I and I was like and I was a person who was like why am I four hundred? I could not figure it out, could not figure it out. So yeah, so days guy we were. They were the same age as Danny at this point. Danny's like three, so we were a little younger, bright eyed. We were twenty bushy years like I'm gonna go meet Doctor Whitlock. Yeah, you know, so he shows up to headquarters, which this is their headquarters. Pretty cool building honestly. 28:53 villainous. It is a little well when that is one of the red in perspective, maybe but like it is a if you look at it with hope, you know what I'm about. So that's in Chicago and ah and so he shows up. He's just like yeah, I've got a thing I invented yeah and security is like no get out. goes. Can I meet with Dr Whitlock and they were like no and I don't know. We lock's dead 29:21 And it almost... Here's the thing about Danny. Danny's pretty perspective, because he's in the lobby and he's one of those guys that he was planning on sitting in the lobby and he was just like, okay, I'll just wait. And he's like, I'll just wait for him to leave. But he does notice that the security team, when he was like, hey, can I just have a meeting with Dr. Wirtlick? And they literally were like, do you have an appointment? People don't meet with Not like people don't meet with him. They were like... He's not here. 29:49 that's the vibe that Danny was like what he and they were like yeah, he works off site now and Danny was like where he got he got repaired so Danny's he he just has this like sixth sense where he's just kind of like something's off right. There's a strange vibe. The employees look like they don't they're not supposed to talk to people in the lobby. You I'm not where he's just like he's like people are avoiding me. I'm trying to be like hey and they're like yeah and like 30:20 or he looked like a farmer who took a bus to Chicago or he looked like or they were like they were doing this whole day. like don't he had a bunch of like metal sticking out his backpack and people like I think that's a bomb, but he does go to like the coffee shop inside the thing and he he meets a girl, a woman, I guess who's around his age, yeah, Carolyn price, okay and 30:45 He's because he's trying to ask random people how because he's yeah, he's if there's one thing he's taking a Greyhound bus He's gonna be dark. Yeah. Yeah, you know, kind of waste that piece and he's trying so he's talking to Carolyn and you know She's having her coffee on her break. He finally get she says this she says you didn't hear this from me, but things are Not what they're looking like right now this company this company is doing a really weird shift and she says because one of the guys like I can get you meeting with Redden and he was like, that would be awesome. and then she says 31:16 you shouldn't take that meeting interest. don't. shouldn't trust this guy, which first of all again, can't trust that guy, can't trust that guy and trust that guy, can't trust that guy, not trust. Well, so so you know, and he leaves there with a little bit of crush on Carolyn because she was cute and she was the only person to talk to him. I think that's like the rules. If you're from a small town in Indiana, it doesn't take a lot for you to fall in love with somebody yeah and it didn't take a lot for me. I mean I that was I was like that 31:42 Yeah, well, I any girl who talked to me. I was like that's my wife. I think I mean you she acknowledged me. You leave you leave that small town where you knew literally every woman and then we go that's true out and then a woman talks to you and you're like that's true. She's into me so so Danny leaves feeling we just got a lot to get to. I'm trying to get to it, so he leaves feeling frustrated and he actually starts going to different shops around town. Okay, 32:09 um and just trying to different like maintenance shops and trying to you know show them his new okay, so he's going to like ace hardware being like look what I made yeah, but he's hardware is like a company he's going to like man, pa yeah he's going to mom, pa shops trying to to gauge interest in all this stuff and he meets a guy named Frankie Delgado now Frankie. It was a cool name right. He's got a blot have a he's going to blow up Victor, but we can imagine what Frankie Delgado might look like 32:38 and uh in Frankie, he starts telling him how do you he got this weird sense at the thing and Frankie goes. I know where Dr. Woodlock is, which is crazy, and this is a small town guy who's just like where is he take me to him? You know, so Frankie takes him to the South Bridge area where scrappers sort out old industrial parts. Okay, right, 33:04 and ah he shows Danny these piles of Whitlock upgrade kits that are brand new upgrade kits that have been seized. so he Frankie describes to Danny what's happening is that not only have they discontinued those products, but they are actively going on to the resell market and scry in the products back and melting them down, getting rid of them so that they can't exist. I hate Victor. 33:32 Right. I hate Victor Redden is awful. And so frankly, Frankie explains that the Reddens run that facility and that the person who runs that facility is actually Victor's mom, Agnes. Oh, so Victor's mom. Okay. So Victor's mom was like, we got to melt some more stuff. We're running out of stuff to melt. And Victor's like, I got an idea, mom. I'll go work for the place that makes a bunch of stuff and we'll bring it over here. So we'll just pollute together on this. Right. And then they, they go back to their little melting factory. 34:02 at night and they wear their little masks in their costumes and they all stand around the fire and they're like no actually more like melt, melt, melt, melt, and then they drop a little little tractor component in there and so and then we're like yeah. 34:31 Oh boy, am I sick? I sure do need Tim stones. Get well quick trick. And what is it? It's simply chug an entire gallon of orange juice. Wow. I forgot. And then this shirt reminded me, I'm so glad that I have this shirt as a public service announcement, a public health service to other people around me. Do your part. Get this shirt. 35:00 shop.tilland.com. 35:07 weird family. They love it though. They love it though. So ah so Frankie kind of breaks down the game to him and says this is what they're doing. Okay. And it sounds a little bit conspiracy stuff, but it is a little bit like that's what they're doing. Yeah. Right. And so ah so Frankie says, listen, Whitlock's not in the office. He's not missing. He's hiding because he claims a Whitlock is living out of his old research annex. Why is he hiding? 35:38 So Danny says, can you get me a meeting with him? Yeah, and so Frankie takes into like this, you know, graffiti building. Is it really? It's almost like what we were at in the West bottoms, like an old place, right? When I say graffiti, like it's, it's not like a toy, it's the West bottoms, you know? And ah and he takes him, it looks like people shouldn't live there ah and uh they sneak inside this half open loading doc door. 36:08 And the place is cluttered with half-finished prototypes and old sketches and all this stuff. And there they find Harold Whitlock living in this rundown building. so what with? Does Whitlock have a family? Whitlock committed his whole life to this company. Wow. So he's not married. Wow. And this is his passion. And this is like, they find him, he's not homeless. This is not like a, you know. Well, this is a home. 36:37 that's what I'm saying. Like he's but it's not like he's like living in a shack. I'm saying it's like it's like if he lived in our west bottom studio, it's like there's like got a little apartment. He put together a little apartment. He's there. He's probably getting taken care of by the company at least a little bit like he's not, but he is not involved in the company at all. We're that he's just and it's almost like he's having this like I don't want to call it like a depression thing, but he is fully uh reverting back to the beginning of his company where he's just like yeah, I'm just back tinkering. I'm doing 37:06 just trying to invent a new thing, just trying to, you And he's just like, this is what we're doing. And so he says that he was forced out after arguing with Victor about the company's mission and that the board forced him and that they pressured him to retire for the optics and that this was a great time. And then once he retires, the stock is going to go up because we got fresh young people in. public company? Yes. Okay. And so Victor and Agnes have been planning that shift for years, apparently. 37:32 And Whitlock has this mental breakdown and retreats to his little place. And he says, and one of the things that Danny said is that he was so heartbroken that Dr. Whitlock said, I didn't think anybody needed me anymore. And so Danny then shows Whitlock what, and Whitlock was convinced that Victor Redden was like a young guy. 37:57 who was going to continue the mission. It was just going to update, like bring the new technology into things. And so Danny says, Hey, hey, look what they're doing. Look how wet he is. This is look how wet that guy is. And Whitlock was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. What? I never saw it before. He tells him how people back home in Indiana are suffering because these price, these price increases and that this is going to cause this entire industry. 38:25 Yes, of course, Whitlock Industries will make money, but this is going to cause a lot of disruption. Is this a true story? Yeah. This feels like a setup for like a, mean, honestly, like an early 2000s buddy comedy where these two became buddies and now they're going to take down Victor Redden. Like now the whole movie is they're going to take him down. Like that's what this feels like we're setting up. I don't think you're going like the way this ends. Great. 38:50 Well, maybe, I don't know. Let's go for it then, huh? Because Whitlock still owns 37 % of the shares. Yeah. Which is a pretty... That's a majority stake. Probably a majority. Right. Yeah. And uh I think Victor assumed after the mental break that he wouldn't show up again. Yeah. Right? And so Danny does kind of help him snap out of the stuff and like... 39:12 it and this is all we're condensed. This is like two days right take some debt back down to the any ends up living in Chicago for like a full year. It's you know like I wonder what he's going to know. He just moved essentially right. He moved to Chicago and and this is like after months of spending time. It is a little bit like a buddy coming I guess because like they really did like become close. Yeah, there's like the super cut of them and in the warehouse or like take around with stuff things together afraid and they're like 39:40 put things to bomb bomb bomb, I'm like walking the streets of Chicago yeah, nice cream ice with their components of course, and then they've invented a new thing that holds their ice cream, so that it's not like melted and it catches the ice cream when it falls off that's crazy. So here's the thing he does convince them over this full year that there is a board meeting coming up yeah and Danny does convince Whitlock that he can go into that board meeting and he can he says 40:09 you're like it was almost like you know Whitlock's this old guy who just got pushed around by the board and didn't realize like oh wait, I do have power here, you know, because he doesn't have a wife at home or kids to be like dad, don't let him treat you like that. Yeah, yeah and so Danny kind of becomes like the voice is like you can't like just let them steamroll you like this and so so Whitlock shows up to the board unannounced to this board meeting and Victor tries to spin it. He goes, he goes Victor straight up in front of the board is like this guy is unwell. 40:39 that there's a reason that he's been he's been we voted him out he's uh he's clearly had a mental breakdown right. Whitlock gives this I don't want to say like incredible speech, but like he talks and says I built this company to help people who could not afford these new machines and what you're doing is putting them in a position where we're going to make a lot of money here and you're going to make a lot of money here, but we're going to destroy these small businesses and so the board breaks out in the panamonia. 41:07 You know, shareholders are furious about the deception. Several board members turn on Victor instantly, but some of them are like loyalists, right? And so Whitlock calls for an emergency vote to remove Victor as CEO. Nice. Which it passes. Nice. Yes. Yeah. And, and Whitlock was reinstated permanently. And so Whitlock restores the upgrade program within six months. 41:28 turns the company around, he issues a public apology for disappearing, and he launches a new community program giving discounted parts to those small shops that were affected by those upgrades. And so he also puts in a new warranty that's like, hey, listen, we'll fix whatever. Like if you bought these new machines, like you're not going to have any more expenses past that. yeah, good God. And he hired him as a, he hired Danny as a junior engineer at the company. So a junior straight up. I don't know. 41:56 Thank you for being a junior engineer. Right. This whole thing was just an elaborate recruitment ploy to get Danny on the payroll. They were like, there's a really young inventor. It looks really smart. And I mean, like, you know, Danny gets hired. It's great. I'm so nervous right now. What do you mean you're so I just I just feel like I just feel like it's going to drop. Like I feel like you're going to pull the rug out from underneath me. Woodlock is going to get shot in the street and Victor take the company over. 42:23 Well, I was saying like it's a happy ending because Danny did start working at the company and like gets to actually in fact change and also like he and Carolyn got married or whatever. We can say whatever we can say or whatever, because here's the thing about this story. It's here's the thing about this story is that it's not true. In fact, Tim, I need you look at the screen. This is just the plot to the two thousand five animated movie robots. 43:09 So Danny Hartwell is Rodney Copperbottom Dr. Hill Whitlock is big weld. 43:19 Oh my gosh! 43:24 So these are AI images! All those weird AI images! I clocked it! These are all AI images! 43:33 you said give me a wet CEO. Well, I mean look at like what here's every full of a picture of what this is what the bad guy uh and you said make this a human. said give me a two thousand four corporate head shot of this guy. Oh my God turned into a steer. That is insane. So oh yeah, these are all AI. I literally 44:02 because I because I thought that even with victor's I was like it's like this. This also looks a little AI, but not as much as the rest of these. This is a I do that bill doesn't exist. Yeah, that is very ominous. It does. It didn't seem like a weird fish islands, so I clocked this new day when you were like when you were first of all you were like these are AI images. I was like oh no and then you're like this sounds like a early two thousands buddy comedy and I was like oh no, no, 44:29 dang so crazy. That's I didn't realize April Fools man, how much the plot of the movie it's called robots robots. Yeah, I didn't. I watched it when it came out. I remember that movie coming out, but as a child, I guess I didn't connect that this is like actually like accurate. have the worst movie yeah it's. I mean it's phenomenal. I actually re watched it this year. This is why I wanted to do this. So I re watched the movie one night and uh it first of all, do you do you know who voices the 44:57 you remember who voices the red guy now Robin Williams is in this. Oh really, I know the red guy is Finder. It's Frankie Dogado. That's in our story. um Did you have a make up those days? Did you come up with this? Oh, I is that a I make up all the names. I give me a retelling of this ah yeah, so yeah, that's I would have looked up Whitlock Industries. That's was like the of the company. It wouldn't pull up anything. I was not the name of the company 45:27 it's not here. I don't know because big weld is the is the yeah. I was sitting there. I was sitting there. I was like with log industries. I was like maybe I have seen that in farming simulator and I was like kind of convincing myself. I was like you know what? There are harvesters and harming simulator called woodlock harvesters. I'm so glad that worked. That's crazy. Oh no, it's interesting. It's interesting because it does. It does make you like 45:52 we we had these recommendations to talk about the right to repair concept right right and how like everything you're saying is a real problem for farmers right now. Yes, but there is no there is no positive stories of people defeating it is the problem yeah and that and that's the problem and not to crash out, but like when we talk about like public companies like what happened in this fake story where the board is like hey. If we keep making products, then we allow people to repair them are 46:22 our revenue numbers can't go up every quarter. Exactly like we can still be a profitable company. We can still be a successful company, but our revenues doesn't go up every quarter. And that's the point. So you're a public company. The other thing too, like the subscription model that most things have changed to is that the the incentive for a company is no longer to make a better product to make more money. The idea isn't let's put an upgrade that no other competition has so that we are better than other people. Yeah, it's almost with Adobe specifically and I'll call him out. I don't care. Yeah. 46:51 like the premier in Photoshop is a seventy dollar a month subscription yeah that used to be forty thirty nine ninety nine by the way yeah and well used to be seventy dollars one time. It was never seven. It was like five hundred dollars for Photoshop. You had to you know, but now I'm paying seven eight hundred dollars a year yeah yeah for what I would have paid one time as well. Yeah and it used to be like yeah they'd come out with a new version every couple years and it would be better than the last version or whatever it and now getting 47:21 it's a subscription model that now they're more incentivized not to make a better product, which they're making. It's fine, but it's not like it's better than Da Vinci or and but they are incentivized more to make it so that you can't unsubscribe. Yes, yeah, they're making it so that's like okay. Well, these files you can't open in Da Vinci. Yeah, yeah, can't open all of your previous stuff. They make it and that's what saying is like. They make the cost of switching higher 47:50 rather than making the the good of the product better or like I think the Sims for I don't know if you played the sims games. It's the same. Yeah, sims for the whole. They removed no for real. Oh yeah, it's like Sims for uh Sims for removed a bunch of features that came with Sims three and then you had to pay expansion packs to get those feature and so you buy a sixty dollar game. 48:15 but then to get even just the same amount of features you had three, you'd have to spend another sixty dollars on expansion. That's what we talked about. We did a whole episode on micro transactions yeah yeah and maybe that's an episode that we referenced for this is that hey at the end of this go watch micro transactions because it's exactly that where it's like let's make the game free but in order to actually win this game you do have to spend a bunch of money over and over and over you would have if they just had a normal and that so there's a there's a book that I was getting ready to buy um 48:45 the extraction economy, yeah, where that that's what he's talking about. Yep is that it's where it's just built to extract as much. You're a crash out about that nurse thing yeah crash out about that. Oh my gosh, I didn't know about this. I find out about this this past week is that they're company called. Do know what that come? have no idea. Um, it's a week. We can just call it a data come. It's just a data company. We don't nurse payment algorithm. Let's see. Um, so the way that they're doing 49:15 paying for travel nurses is that there's an every you should say not everyone, not everyone. There's people who use this who use this service. The company is that this data company has uh access to credit scores and it can see what someone's debt to income ratio is and then it can figure out you know what's the lowest amount we could pay this person that they have to say yes to this because because they can't make less than this a month. They have to pay their debts back. 49:43 Yeah, and so it's an algorithm that figures out what's the lowest amount we can pay them that they're there now because they're desperate enough for that, which is and and you should know hell that's crazy that that is there because because they're just trying to figure out what's the lowest we could pay you that you could pay your debts, but you can't put any away for savings. Yeah, yeah, you have to say yes to this because there's no other option. Yeah, yeah, you can actually like that life that sucks risks than losing you as an asset. 50:12 and also oh my gosh, spend more for and we and that's the whole thing is that so many of these things have moved to an extraction model where it's like yeah it's like that movie was two thousand and five yeah that's twenty years ago and the point of that movie was like hey they're making it so that we can't repair and replace the things or like the HP printer subscription stuff insane that we live in this world so so anyway. 50:36 Yes, it was robots the whole time. That's hilarious. Do you want to talk about that paper? You said you were going talk about that. Oh, I was going to talk about that with that with the optimization guy. Yeah, there was a there was a 50:44 college paper. Maybe we'll just read that in the after the fiddle. Okay, yeah, how about with that? Let's do that. So the after the fiddle is what our patreon supporters get. You could support us on patreon. You get next week's episode and you get bonus content every single week. We after the fiddle music plays, we keep talking for a couple minutes and you get that content and so sometimes it's three minutes. Sometimes it's twenty. Who knows depends how much more we crash out of us. No, but please go check out the micro transactions episode and it also one again. My shows Paul read the actor dot com 51:11 I've been doing a lot of shows and till and fans show up. It's really cool because you get to meet each other and also get to meet me, which is fun for all of us. No for real. That's great. Thank you for being here. We'll see you next week.