Ted Audio Collective.
HBR presents. Hi everyone, you're listening to After Hours.
I'm Yang Mi. This is Mi here, and I'm Felix.
Hi guys, how are you doing?
Mi here, you have been around the world in 80 days.
How was your trip? It was like 8 days, but yeah, it was great.
It was wonderful actually I saw a bunch of After Hours listeners, got a lot of love for that.
It was really wonderful.
And I am finally getting back in the rhythm of life with getting my sleep back.
I don't know, do you guys have ways to get back in the rhythm of life with your sleep when you travel?
Felix, you've got to have some kind of sleep hack.
I have to say, I used to be a little nervous about, you know, oh my God, I'm awake in the middle of the night.
And now it's basically just, I sleep whenever I'm tired, when I'm awake in the middle of the night I get up, I work.
That works best for me, like just to be completely unbothered by when I'm tired and when I'm semi awake.
How about you, Mi here?
Well, I recently have done Z -Quill, which is they now provide the night quill without the cold medicine.
And it's actually called Z -Quill.
And Z -Quill turns out to be remarkably good.
How about you, Young Mi?
What's yours? Well, I don't really have one, but I have to say that on my most recent overseas trip, I decided I was going to try Ambien.
Oh, okay. Yeah. And?
And apparently I made the rookie mistake of trying it in a high -stakes situation.
And so, I had a very important meeting, and I missed it.
I showed up very, very late.
It was really embarrassing because my alarm went off and I didn't hear it.
And I didn't realize that that was what it was going to do to me.
So I really learned my lesson on that.
It was very embarrassing.
So anyway, okay. So we have a lot to talk about this week.
And so we're going to try to squeeze in multiple topics.
We have to talk a little bit about the coronavirus.
So we'll spend a little bit of time on that.
And then Felix, you brought in a topic.
Yeah. So I would like to talk about 5G.
I'm starting to see advertisements for 5G everywhere now.
So let's unpack that and then me here.
I was just thinking it's been a crazy earning season.
So I was hoping for some quick hits on earnings.
So let's do that, too.
Okay. Perfect. Okay.
Coronavirus. I'm so interested in hearing what you guys have to say about coronavirus.
Do you think people are overreacting to coronavirus?
So I think in a way, they're both kind of overreacting and underreacting, right?
So by comparison to influenza, the number who have died is relatively small.
So in some sense, it's overreaction with people doing things like wearing face masks in situations where it probably doesn't make sense and they're stoking fear.
And then there's a little bit of underreaction, which is, you know, wow, this is the world we live in, which is there are potentials for really big pandemics and we need public health efforts that are really comprehensive to address them.
So I think there's a little bit of both.
I think it's over and under.
I think the novelty aspect is really important because it points to just how little we know, even about the basic danger.
So Johns Hopkins University has a fantastic map that shows how the virus spreads.
The most stunning thing about these maps is that out of the 725 people who died at this time when we're talking, 699 are in Hubei.
I mean, one interpretation is that that has to do with this is where the virus is most concentrated and it's actually much, much more dangerous than we realize.
It might have to do with in the beginning, people didn't really know that it was a really dangerous virus.
And so maybe they didn't go to the doctor, they didn't go to the hospital.
But that to me, like, as I look at the numbers and how the virus spreads and how it develops, that's maybe the one thing that is just like, what is going on here?
Felix, I think that is such an important point.
And when people compare this to the flu, I think that's the point they're missing.
The flu, we have a pretty good idea of how it spreads through a population.
So the epidemiology of the flu is really well developed.
The epidemiology of coronavirus is completely underdeveloped and there are so many unknowns.
So if you take something as simple as the contagion factor, if you have the flu, you're likely to infect 1 .3 other people.
With the coronavirus, there are indications that it is more contagious than that.
And the New York Times had this really fascinating graphic that showed even if it's incrementally greater than 1 .3, let's say it's two people instead of 1 .3 people, it makes a dramatic difference in how much more quickly the virus spreads to the population.
And then you have an incubation period that can be as long as 14 days, a fatality rate that's really unclear.
And so there are just so many unknowns.
What's interesting to me is we had SARS, we had MERS.
It's not exactly the first epidemic of this kind.
And yet some of the very basic questions like, is lockdown a good idea?
Should people go to the hospital or should you send doctors out to a house?
We don't really seem to have a well -established protocol.
And so I guess my next question is, what are some of the lessons that you are drawing from just watching this unfold?
I think of three big lessons.
The first is, I think just the infrastructure around public health and these organizations like the WHO and the CDC, who are just enormously important globally for spreading knowledge and then helping at times like this.
You know, I mean, if this were to spread to countries that are less well -equipped than China, poorer countries, then I mean, my gosh, it's really hard to imagine.
And so just thinking about those providers of public health, I think is really interesting.
The second is, we are so levered to China in so many ways right now.
Just tourism in Southeast Asia is so levered to China.
Forget about like iron ore or like, forget about all these markets.
The whole world is kind of linked to China in a different way than 15, 20 years ago.
And that to me is also the lesson here.
And then finally, you know, I think what's really interesting to me about this is information and trying to understand how information might have been used a little bit more aggressively early on.
Or are we getting all the information?
This is the moment where information and the distribution of information become so important.
And I think they were much better than last time.
But if a government tries to monopolize information, it can become really problematic.
That to me is also the lesson here.
This is actually, I find this such an interesting question.
So the doctor who first reported that this was something that looked like SARS.
He was essentially forced by the police to sign a document that said it was wrong of him to spread false rumors.
And of course, now knowing what happened consequently, and like that is such a terrible move.
You should have taken this doctor's advice and you should have alerted everyone much earlier.
Just because we know what the outcome is.
Compare this to the rumors around vaccines and autism.
Exactly. Right. And now all of a sudden maybe not allowing every rumor to spread is like not the dumbest thing on the planet.
You're absolutely right, Felix.
I mean, the vaccine thing is the one that came to my mind as well, which is we've allowed a really bad idea to promulgate itself through scientific journals and elsewhere.
And it's been very costly.
I think at these moments, though, these kind of pandemic moments, they're a little bit different.
And I confess I kind of would err on the side of the free flow of information in those moments.
But that's my taste.
And I think this is one of those times where you really see that trade off, though.
We really don't have a playbook for this stuff.
I mean, watching China respond to this, you can't help but imagine how the US how we would respond if the same thing were happening on our soil.
They built a hospital in 10 minutes as an example.
I don't know if you saw that video in seriousness.
I think it took about 10 days.
So there's some things where your jaw just drops at the utter efficiency and the decisiveness with which this country is responding.
On the other hand, because we know so little about the epidemiology of this virus, you can't help but wonder, does this make sense?
Are we overreacting?
We really don't have a playbook.
I am going to go back to some of the lessons, though.
I do think it so underscores how deeply embedded China is in the global economy.
So both on the demand side, but also on the supply side.
Every market is being affected.
And then the second point, it has really brought into sharp relief the huge divide between rich and poor countries and how some countries, they might not make all the right decisions, but at least they're equipped.
They have the resources to respond.
If this were happening in a much poorer country, the outcome would be very, very different.
Yeah. I think it is also these moments where I just feel like the fragility of what we take for granted, it becomes apparent, like seamlessly traveling everywhere and the supply chains and everything that we just take for granted and have taken for granted for the last 30 years.
It kind of just feels like, oh, wow, that world is so much more fragile than I thought it was.
That to me was one of the kind of lessons of all this.
Okay. Well, obviously, we're going to continue to watch this story.
But even though it's sort of a moving story, I did want to get your thoughts on it.
Okay. So let's move along.
Felix, you wanted to talk about 5G.
5G is here, finally.
So, you know, it was promised for quite some time.
And we heard about how it's just going to really radically change the way people live, the way people communicate.
It'll take a few seconds to download every Star Wars movie ever made and so on and so on.
So my opening question really, how excited are you about 5G?
All right. Youngme, you go first.
So listen, intellectually, I completely get it.
I understand the technology is designed to make things much, much faster, but also reduce network latency and it's going to lead to the Internet of Things.
And I get all of that.
But emotionally, it's very difficult for me to get excited.
I mean, remember the excitement over 3G?
I mean, the excitement over 4G?
But, you know, intellectually, it is really, really interesting.
You know, 5G networks operate in a very different way, which means that because it reduces network congestion and lag, many more devices can talk to each other immediately and seamlessly without clogging up the network.
Right. Which means devices can talk to other devices.
So if you were to think of a couple of use cases, the one that everybody mentions is in a world of autonomous cars.
Cars can tell each other when they're braking or turning right.
Or a much more mundane example is imagine you never having to turn a light switch on and off again because when you walk into the room, your smartwatch is talking to the electrical system in your house and the lights go on and off as you walk through your house.
But again, emotionally, it's harder for me to get excited.
I think it's interesting, young me, right?
Because I think in some sense, it's both undersold and oversold.
So it's undersold in the sense that people don't understand the power of this Internet of Things.
And that, in combination with the declining cost of sensors, is going to make everything be able to communicate with everything else.
And then it's oversold in the sense of, yeah, like I get 100 milliseconds faster download of the video.
Do I care about that?
My sense is probably worth distinguishing the different flavors of 5G.
So the most advanced version, I think what you're talking about when you're thinking about autonomous cars, what is called millimeter wave 5G, that is really seamless communication at speeds that are, at least by today's standards, almost unimaginable.
That is not what most of us will see anytime soon.
And there's two reasons for that.
Those signals travel relatively shorter distances.
And then lots of obstacles, walls and other obstacles continue to be a real problem.
So you should think millimeter wave 5G is not going to be what we get.
What we get is the regular kind of 5G, and they're literally like the only change.
So we know a little bit from South Korea, because as always, South Korea is like way ahead of everyone else.
And basically what it does, it reduces latency.
So when you go from one website to the next, you have to wait a little bit.
And there I'm totally with you, me here.
And then the third flavor that we get is actually the worst kind.
That is the AT &T type, where they just rebrand a part of the 4G network 5G.
Isn't that totally ridiculous?
Just for all our listeners, if you have a 4G phone and all of a sudden your phone company, your operator, sends you a little thing that says a 5G icon, something is not quite right.
You cannot have 5G on a 4G phone.
This is the puzzle, Felix.
What is the virtue of doing that?
What is the marketing game here?
I guess I'm a little puzzled by it.
Oh, no, but it's an opportunity to reset everything.
It's an opportunity to reset your pricing.
It's an opportunity to reintroduce all of your service bundles.
It's a marketing opportunity.
So I think that distinction you made is so important.
And in some ways, it really feeds into the cynicism people have when they start to introduce.
And rightly so. Yes, because we hear about, wow, I'm never going to have to turn on a light switch again.
And meanwhile, the reality that we live is so distant from that.
So let's talk about the business case.
So I think the tensions that we see, this desire to have marketing run way ahead of where we actually are, I think is the tension between the cost of investment and then consumer willingness to pay for more and faster speeds.
So what is the business case for 5G?
Is there a business case even?
Again, I'm a little cynical about this.
But if you describe the best case scenario on how 5G is going to unfold, for one thing, all of our devices are going to need to be upgraded in order to be compatible with this new vision of the future.
And then someone's going to have to pay for it all.
In other words, do you really want to pay $20 more for a toaster oven that talks to your smartwatch?
It's not clear that people really want all of those things.
I would love that. The toaster?
I think that application I would love.
So what I haven't heard is what the killer app for this is going to be.
What's the thing? And I think the Catch -22 the telecom companies are in is, on the one hand, they have to upgrade because if everybody upgrades and you don't upgrade your network, then you could end up at a competitive disadvantage because you can't market your 5G.
So all these big telecoms are making these huge capital investments.
And it's unclear as to whether they're ever going to recoup that investment.
So what do they do?
They overmarket something that feels sort of like vaporware.
But would you ever advise one of these telecoms to not make the investment?
I mean, I wouldn't.
I would say, no, you have to.
In other words, the business case is not clear to me in a really specific way.
It's clear to me in a more amorphous way.
But regardless, it feels like the march of progress demands that these telecom companies upgrade their networks.
Yeah. I mean, it seems clear to me in a kind of B2B way or in a business setting, right?
By the way, I have to say as the local ledite, I'm so delighted to hear your cynicism because I was thinking I was going to be the guy who had to be like, oh, what a snooze fest.
But I'm so happy to hear other people think it's a snooze fest.
But that doesn't mean it's not important.
Actually, I think it's really, really important.
I think it's going to be important in a economy -wide way.
And it's going to be important in the way of autonomous vehicles and of just the amount of tracking of information that we can do.
And they can be many applications.
So yes, young me, I think they have to do it.
And it's worthwhile.
The question is whether the kind of souped up marketing drive at the retail level is going to pay off.
I do wonder if there isn't a better way to do this because I can totally understand the temptation to sort of paint the far away future, which looks really amazing.
But isn't that the trap that you fall into?
So when they now tell us, oh, the next generation of phones is going to have, I don't know, 17 cameras.
Yeah. And I think what we've learned, like, I couldn't figure out the difference between two cameras and three cameras.
So what's my willingness to pay for the 17th camera?
It's no increment. And I fear even though this might be sort of rational in a very short term sense, I think what is going to produce longer term is that we look at all these promises and we'll say, nah, it wasn't so great around last time.
Why should I expect these dramatic differences now?
I was trying to think by analogy here, which is always a little tricky, but I was thinking about like, you know, if there was like a brand new PVC pipe that was like way better and way cleaner, it was like a revolutionary PVC pipe.
OK, you know, PVC is a material used for piping all around the world.
Like, that is exciting.
And like municipalities and everybody should be buying all this new PVC piping and construction people should be buying new PVC piping.
But like, I don't need to be marketed to about the new PVC pipe.
Actually, PVC pipes is a super interesting example, even though it's clearly the much better technology.
It took decades to roll it out.
So it was available for a long time.
Just no takers whatsoever.
You guys are so nerdy.
OK, this is getting really, really nerdy.
OK, we need a whole segment on PVC pipes.
Wait. But OK, getting back.
Getting us back on track, I don't want to be completely negative about 5G because it's potentially a non -incremental improvement.
So I'm like the move from 3G to 4G, which was an incremental move.
This is a non -incremental move.
And so again, if I were advising a big telecom company, would I advise them not to invest in 5G?
Of course not. You have to do it.
You have to do it because there are these big potential value unlocks that could really have huge, huge consumer benefit.
But in the meantime, I think consumers are just going to have to pay for something that's not that much better than what we already have.
I mean, the smart point was the killer app that even created all this demand for connectivity.
If another killer app, maybe autonomous driving comes along, I think we will see something very similar.
The question of us is, of course, how will that value be divided up between the operators and whoever comes up with the killer app?
Yeah, absolutely. Space to watch.
We will talk about this again in 2028 and we'll debate the state of 5G at that point in time.
Can we do a full episode on PVC pipes?
I think we need a real full episode.
Yeah, it's actually the history of PVC pipes is super interesting.
I'm telling you. OK, we hear you wanted to talk about earnings season.
So we just got through earnings season and we're going to do quick takes.
You want to go first here?
Yeah, sure. So I mean, I guess I've been paying a lot of attention to Alphabet and their announcement, I thought, was really fascinating.
So it's fascinating on two levels.
One is they change the way they report.
So they broke out YouTube for the first time in terms of revenue.
And that number was 15 billion dollars of revenue.
And in some sense, it was underwhelming because if you compare it to something like Instagram, where they generate like 20 billion dollars of revenue.
Wow, YouTube is not performing at least as well as I might have thought relative to something like Instagram.
But it also makes you think, man, that is an underutilized asset.
Like they could do a lot more with YouTube.
So I thought Alphabet's earnings were just really fascinating.
Part of what's really interesting about the YouTube numbers is also that, of course, when you look at video consumption, YouTube is enormous.
Yes, right. So we generally think that it's mostly the older legacy media that has a serious monetization problem.
But you see that same monetization problem with Google's assets also, where you get consumption like you couldn't believe and then monetizing, you know, it's not that easy.
And I don't know your experience, but my sense is that the pre -roll and the mid -roll ads, you couldn't push that much more.
They are deeply unpopular forms of advertising.
So even like, where do you take YouTube?
Not so clear. But if they could make it work, it would be a me.
I mean, it should be, but it feels like, man, that's an underperforming asset.
The comparison with Instagram is really interesting and to me speaks to execution.
So just as a consumer, the advertising on YouTube is so poorly executed.
It's just noise. And it's super aggravating as a consumer to have to ingest it.
On the other hand, Instagram, the way they are doing their advertising right now, I find it to be stunningly effective.
And even though it is intrusive advertising, my sense is that it is not perceived by consumers as being nearly as aggravating.
But don't you have a sense that also for Instagram stories is much more difficult than the regular feed?
I think there's something about video, it's just more intrusive.
I think that's right.
But when I look at YouTube advertising, there's so many consumer unfriendly things about it.
I can understand why they're there from a sort of push perspective.
But my sense is that they have really poorly calibrated that line between pushing something onto consumers and making it more consumer friendly so that the ad itself isn't ingested in such a negative way.
The final thing I'll say is, so we're trashing YouTube, they're still selling more ads than ABC, NBC, Fox combined.
Let's just keep it all in perspective.
OK, Felix, quick take on earnings.
Yes, earnings. So I was amazed by the earnings results of the big banks.
So to just pick out one, JP Morgan Chase, 20 % growth in earnings, 7 % revenue growth, stellar results also for Citi, Bank of America, little more mixed.
And then, you know, Wells Fargo is Wells Fargo, what can you say?
But it's really remarkable for two reasons.
The first is lower interest rates always work against banks.
And so to see that they're doing so well in an environment where interest rates have come down, I think is really quite interesting.
And then when you look a little more fine grained at the data, you see that their revenue grows much more slowly than their earnings.
And that speaks to increases in efficiency.
It's almost like a miracle, even though these banks are so much larger than they were during the financial crisis even.
And yet, everything says they have economies of scale that get bigger and bigger and bigger over time.
And so the question is like, where does this come from?
Like, typically, if the company gets larger, you would think economies of scale are harder and harder to get by.
And here it's the exact opposite.
Part of it is IT spending.
And then I think the second source of efficiencies is how their deposit base just grows dramatically.
And it's so sticky.
And it's so sticky.
When I chose my bank, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, I would very carefully think about things like, you know, number of ATMs, number of branches, all those kinds of things.
Now that people move to mobile banking, of course, what's the banking app that you download?
The banking app that you download is the banks whose name you can remember.
And so that favors the large national players in incredible ways.
And so even in relatively difficult macroeconomic circumstances, they really write these stellar numbers.
Quite an astounding story.
I think the other interesting angle on this Felix is look around the world and you don't see other big banks in different markets doing as robustly as American banks do.
Right. So think about what Deutsche is just year after year struggling with and think about what's going on in the UK and even in Asia.
But, you know, it is quite startling to see the US big banks do so well for the reasons you said.
But then also in contrast to what is happening around the world, that contrast between US big banks and rest of world big banks, I think is only growing.
And that's interesting.
The only thing I have to add to this is I think it's really interesting to consider the flip side of this story, which is how much more difficult it has become for small banks to compete in this context.
There's so many forces working against small banks right now.
So the regulatory environment, which raises your costs and makes it very, very difficult.
The fact that we now have a set of consumer expectations when we sign up for a bank, including a technology infrastructure that includes an app that works really well.
And these are the kinds of technology investments that small banks can't necessarily make.
You want a particular kind of product portfolio that has the kind of breadth that a lot of smaller banks struggle to provide.
You want the best rates out there.
I mean, you know, it used to be that if you lived in a town, it wasn't unusual to say, oh, I'm just going to bank in my little corner local bank.
And I think now the likelihood of people doing that, particularly as millennials begin to age, that's a generation that is just much more likely to want to go with a bank that has a multitude of services.
In a way, it reminds me a little bit of when the movie industry globalized, it also completely changed who wins and who loses.
It's basically the big blockbuster phenomenon that came.
We now have national competition that is real, and which always was, you know, there was like, yeah, there were national banks, but like much of the competition wasn't really national.
And the moment that happens, so much changes.
Yeah. OK, I'm going to do mine now.
We have to talk about Tesla.
Yes, that was OK. So let me just lay the groundwork here.
Tesla reported good results, you know, strong earnings, good news on the operational front.
But holy cow, this stock, which had already been on a tear, has continued its tear with some additional volatility to throw in there.
So just a little perspective.
Tesla stock ended the year at four twenty and it had been on a tear to get to four twenty.
It's now sitting at about, I don't know, seven fifty, although by the time you hear this, who knows, could be much higher, could be much lower.
So this is market euphoria, market mania, the likes of which we don't see that often, even in these frothy times.
It's possible that there's some technical explanation for this.
Short sellers buying in their shorts or whatever.
But my own sense here is that this really is a case of market euphoria.
And it has been something to behold.
It's totally something that we have never seen before in some sense.
And I think fundamentally it's a question of whether Tesla is a car company or a software company.
And it depends what you believe.
And so if you believe it is a car company, your euphoria comment comes in young me.
If you believe it is a software company, then all kinds of things are possible and you can think of it as having the economics of Google and Facebook.
And then all of a sudden you talk yourself into, yes, it's a trillion dollar market cap because it's a software company and economics are amazing.
OK, but let's go one level deeper.
What does it mean to say, oh, they're a technology company.
So the most fantastically optimistic view plays out in one of two ways.
So the first fantastically optimistic outcome is that the automotive ecosystem changes dramatically and Tesla comes to dominate this new ecosystem.
So an example is how Apple and Android have come to dominate the mobile phone ecosystem.
Not because their phones necessarily, but also because they operate app stores and maps and everything else you do on your phone.
So it could be Tesla software sitting on 25 percent of the world's cars or it's battery technology or autonomous driving technology or something like that.
So that's one fantastically optimistic outcome.
A second fantastically optimistic outcome is that Tesla uses all of the leverage and competencies in technology and infrastructure it builds in the automotive sector to begin to dominate additional sectors.
So this is the Amazon scenario.
Amazon starts selling books and then other products.
It builds a logistics empire and then it uses that to penetrate other spaces.
So in the case of Tesla, I guess you could say maybe, I don't know, other transportation sectors or space or maybe alternative energy, something like that.
And just, you know, two other examples of companies that punch far above their weight, of course, were Amazon and Netflix.
Right. Exactly. There was a point four or five years ago, Amazon's valuation began to exceed that of Walmart.
And people thought that was insane.
And now it's three times that market cap.
And people don't think it's insane anymore.
There is a point a couple of years ago when Netflix was the world's most highly valued media and entertainment company above Disney, above Comcast.
People thought that was insane.
That is yet to play out.
So is this insane? I mean, Tesla is now valued more than GM and Ford combined.
I think the answer is to the valuation puzzle.
We have no idea. And we really don't.
Implied volatility is now close to 100 percent.
If you bought a 900 strike call a week ago, it traded at five cent yesterday.
It traded at more than one hundred dollars.
I think that goes to this point, Felix, which is it is a trading asset.
I think what happens in these stocks occasionally is companies, stocks become trading assets and they are effectively just vehicles for people to express their beliefs and to speculate.
But then don't look at the prices and think they tell you anything about the fundamentals.
They don't know. That's right.
And also it can be a fun thing to short.
And it has been a fun thing to short and it can be a fun thing to long.
But it is really only for people who are willing to do that activity in a very kind of carefully calibrated way.
And if you really enjoy it, this goes to our discussion about investing is either consumption or saving.
It is like very much a consumption thing.
Right. Like you got to really enjoy that ride.
The media is very much part of this.
I remember seeing this segment in CNBC when I had a guy.
They ridiculed him because he shorted the company at some point in time.
And then much to their credit, they brought him back to the show and yet made twenty five million dollars on the trade where they had ridiculed him before.
So I think that the media frenzy around the fundamental.
I think the two scenarios that you painted me.
Those are exactly the kinds of visions that are out there.
Can we attach any sort of reasonable probabilities to these visions?
No, we can't. Exactly.
And I think you guys are spot on.
This has become the stock to own as sport sport.
Yeah. As an example, it has become the most heavily traded stock on Robin Hood.
And of course, Robin Hood is an app very popular among millennials.
And my guess is people who are trading the stock on Robin Hood don't own very many shares, but they're doing it a sport.
Yeah, it's sports. If you go to Google right now, at least the day we're taping this and you type in, should I buy and you know how it completes the number one auto complete is Tesla stock.
Number two is should I buy a house?
Number three should I buy a car?
But number one is should I buy Tesla stock?
OK, who wants to go first?
I'll go first. I should preface my pick saying I'm not an animal person.
I grew up with dogs.
I love dogs. But if I go with you to the zoo, you must be my favorite cousin in particular than animals on television.
I find, oh, my God.
But I have seen this new program BBC America shows sort of a programming rapper that they call Wonderstruck.
And it's basically 24 hours off the most stunning animal images that at least I have ever seen.
So it starts Saturday morning at eight and it runs all the way Sunday morning at eight.
And it's just nature and animals.
I have even less of a relationship with fish.
I saw this like amazing.
There was this one guy, he had a headlamp and then somehow the light attracted things that he could eat.
Just like the craziest image like stunningly beautiful BBC America, Wonderstruck.
So Felix, did this make you revise your idea of going into the ocean because there might be fish in them?
Because I remember that so vividly.
Oh, yes. There's a very clear separation here.
If I'm in the ocean, everything else has to go.
When I walk over the ocean, do we empty?
If BBC America shoots movies, I don't mind if they fight.
I see. But not when I'm in the water.
Also, I can't believe that you in general don't love animals.
How can you not love animals?
What's wrong with you?
I like dogs. What about cats?
I like cats from afar occasionally.
On TV he likes animals.
You're not human if you don't like kids.
Okay. The only time I have trouble with animals is on a plane.
Because you know, people are bringing all kinds of animals on planes now and it's a little disconcerting.
Okay, I have a really interesting pic for you.
Have you ever heard of this app called Be My Eyes?
No. No. So this is an app that, you know, there are a lot of people out there who are either blind or very low vision.
And they find themselves in circumstances where they need some help.
And so you can sign up as either someone who is of low vision or if you're blind or you can sign up as a volunteer.
And what ends up happening is that whenever anybody needs help, you get pinged and if you respond, you're immediately connected to someone who needs help.
And it's a fascinating experience because suddenly you're essentially FaceTiming somebody who might be, for example, in the grocery store and is buying milk and can't read which ones are 2 % versus low -fat.
And they're just pointing the camera and you're just helping them navigate to the right kind of milk.
Or they're holding up two t -shirts and they want to make sure, is this white or is this blue?
And so what's crazy about it is that you're just going about your day and then suddenly you're connected with someone anywhere in the world who is in a situation where they just need maybe 30 seconds of help.
That's fantastic. That is so interesting.
It's amazing. Yeah.
And it's so thrilling that it has made me think there should be so many more apps like this.
There should be many different kinds.
I need help with my math problem.
Or how do I conjugate the sentence?
The other thing that I find interesting is that you're now more likely to get help from someone at the other end of the planet.
You're connected to an app as opposed to just asking the person right next to you in the grocery store.
Yes. Isn't that something?
But I was struck by how powerful the human connection is even though the interaction is very small.
And I thought to myself, you know how you travel and you're in a place where you don't understand the language.
And there are all these apps you can use to translate for you.
And I thought it would be so much cooler if you needed a translator in the moment.
Like you're in a store, you need a translator.
And instead you just used an app and you are connected to a real human being who was just there by video and translated for you.
I think that would be so much more meaningful as a human interaction.
Anyway, so that's my recommendation.
Me here. So that sounds great.
So I have maybe a public service announcement and quasi -recommendation.
So I just went through two months of kind of fairly harrowing time with data and pictures on a hard drive that failed.
And my little public service announcement is make sure you're back up.
So what happened? Well, you know, fortunately in conjunction with some fabulous people at HBS IT, we are in the process of trying to get it back via a company called Drivesavers.
But it's a very elaborate process because it was a really failing hard drive.
And I think it's all going to be fine.
But to everyone out there, you know, for me, I kind of slipped like between computers and like the cloud and sums of the cloud, sums on an external hard drive.
And I hadn't taken the time to really think concretely about everything.
And I just would encourage everybody to not go through the process I just went through and to have really good backup procedures in place.
I don't have a specific recommendation, but that's my PSA.
And then I do have a specific recommendation if I can try to slip into, which is I just started reading and I finished this book by Emmanuel Correr, who is a French author.
And it's called ninety seven thousand one hundred and ninety six words.
And it's just essays, but it's the best nonfiction I have read in a decade or two.
And he is absolutely masterful in combining really rich nonfiction with like his own personal reminiscences.
So it's kind of like a little blurry kind of memory kind of nonfiction thing.
But he covers, including some really gruesome cases, he covers them in the most captivating way.
So not since like Truman Capote can I think of somebody who writes nonfiction so well, and I think it's just great.
So his name is Emmanuel Correr.
And the book I read was a collection of essays called ninety seven thousand one hundred and ninety six words.
So that's my recommendation in addition to back up all your data.
Wow. OK. I'm not sure which one of those I should react to.
But that sounds like a really great book recommendation.
I mean, for any book to be on your list of best in the last one or two decades, that's really that's an accomplishment.
It's something that's really amazing.
That's great. I'm going to check it out immediately.
OK. All right. So that's it for this week.
Thanks, everyone, for listening.
This is after hours from the H P .R.
Podcast Network. Thank you very much.
