Ted Audio Collective.
HBR presents. Hi everyone, you're listening to After Hours.
I'm Yang Mi. I'm Meher.
And I'm Felix. How are you guys doing?
Doing okay. Yeah. Have you been productive at home?
I have decided to call this period of my life the great write off.
You know, it's like when accounting, it's like the great write off.
Turn your back on the last month and a half and just call it a big write off.
It is a good time to get some house projects done though, right?
That is true. I'm very pleased with my most recent house projects.
Oh, what are you doing?
So I am de -branding my house.
So I'm going room by room.
Oh my God. I'm taking any label and eliminating it with the exception of the brands I love.
If you think about your bathroom counter, every shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, it's like a NASCAR automobile of branding.
And I just took all of it away.
Wait, wait. How did you take it all away?
Are you going into like little small plastic bottles?
No. So if the shape of the bottle is something I like already, I just peel it off very carefully.
And in many cases, it comes off really cleanly.
And you can create a bathroom counter, a kitchen counter, a home office that just looks so pristine and clean.
You mean like an Apple store?
This is like the most brilliant procrastination project ever.
My sons, they're like, mom, I can't tell the lotion from the conditioner.
Should we add this project to the urgent reasons why we need to end the lockdown?
What do you mean by the fact that our professor here is getting rid of all the brands in our home?
Yeah, that's really troubling.
No, no, no. Because the ones that you decide to keep, then they really pop.
This is like the Marie Kondo of branding or something.
Like only the brands that spark joy do you keep in your home.
That's exactly right.
And it's kind of like it's like cleansing your palate.
You know what it's like?
It's like the slice of ginger between each bite of sushi.
It's like the little sorbet between courses and a seven course meal.
Exactly. So Felix, you have a good idea for what we might talk about tonight.
You know how people say during a crisis true colors are revealed.
You learn things about people and companies and even countries that normally, either you don't pay much attention to it or it's hard to see.
And then during really unusual times, it brings out the character.
And I thought we could talk about this.
I love this idea. True colors.
Fantastic. There are like so many soundtrack possibilities with true colors.
Yes. Well, turn it into a movie if it turns out nice.
Exactly. All right, Young B, what's your best example of true colors during this pandemic?
So when you mentioned true colors, my head went not to a particular company per se, but more to a phenomenon.
If you think about it, we now have two global crises that we're dealing with simultaneously.
We have the coronavirus, but we still also have climate change.
And to me, this has really underscored the psychological power and the narrative energy of a crisis that's perceived to be acute and exceptional, as opposed to a crisis that's perceived to be ongoing and slower moving.
For all of the really valid criticisms about how we're managing coronavirus, one could make the argument that it is enormously impressive how our country and other countries have responded.
If you had told me a few months ago that we would have the ability and the will to shut down the entire economy on the basis of an invisible virus that a lot of people are skeptical about, I wouldn't have believed you.
And yet we've done it.
Meanwhile, when it comes to our other global crisis, climate change, we not only find it difficult to muster up any momentum, we actually seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
So even over the past couple of weeks, the current administration has continued to roll back environmental protections.
And in fact, over the past four years, this administration has repealed or weakened close to 100 environmental regulations.
So I find the contrast here to be so revealing, and I find the ironies to be everywhere.
So for example, the coronavirus has totally heightened, I think, our appreciation for the outdoors for being able to be outside, feel the sunshine, smell the air.
And it's given us a glimpse of what our cities could look like with less smog, less pollution.
They're cities where wild animals are now growing the streets, which is kind of amazing.
Yeah, that is amazing.
And scientists are already predicting the largest annual drop in carbon emissions in modern history.
But they're also predicting that 2020 will still be the hottest year on record.
And so I find the contrast in how we think about these two things to be really revealing.
What's interesting to me about that, Young Me, is that you could imagine this playing out in two different ways.
You could imagine that actually the coronavirus amplifies our efforts to fight climate change because of some of the reasons you said.
And you could equally imagine it the other way, which is the economic pressure that's going to come from the need for an economic recovery is going to make people want to put aside environmental regulations because of so -called jobs lost.
And both sides are getting ready to make their argument even more strongly than before because of the coronavirus.
So they're going to use the argument.
You know, some people will use it to kind of lessen environmental standards because they feel like the job losses are too great.
And others will use it as a view to say, well, this is exactly why we have to save the planet.
What's interesting to me about this particular example is I always had a sense that climate change is so hard because we used to predict that the severe consequences are so far in the future.
And so the moment we had the fires in California or in Australia, my intuition was this is going to change everything because all of a sudden now we see this is not something that will happen sometime in the future.
This is something that happens right here, right now, and we need to act right here and right now.
And then for some reason, it didn't really happen that way, even though now the manifestation is so clear, it's so in your face.
We don't have the reaction that I at least expected.
And I'm still puzzled by that.
I mean, you could imagine us talking about climate change in a much more urgent way.
Right. We need to flatten the curve.
The next three years, the next 10 years are really critical and therefore we need to radically shift our behavior.
You just don't see that kind of momentum.
Super, super interesting.
Felix, what did you bring in?
So I have observed the response of companies to the current crisis.
And I have to say, I have so much admiration for the small number of companies that just have proven to be exceptionally nimble and adaptable.
I'll give you a few examples.
There is a smallish grocery chain based in Austin, Texas, AGB.
They're just remarkable in every aspect of their response.
Maybe the most marvelous part about what they have done is they have recognized very early on that, yes, there will be peak demand for some products, but it also means that there will be slack in supply chains in other respects.
You know how everybody is always talking about the completely stressed out supply chains and there's no capacity to do XYZ.
But at the same time, of course, it's also true that big parts of supply chains have been shut down.
So, for instance, they partnered with a delivery business that usually caters to restaurants.
All the restaurants are closed.
You can use all of these trucks to bring food and supplies to the grocery stores.
The beer distributors in Texas now use their trucks to transport eggs to AGB.
And it's this ingenuity that I find completely fascinating and then, frankly, in such stark contrast to much of agriculture.
You probably heard about the miserable response.
We're dumping millions of gallons of milk.
There is a single farmer in Idaho who has destroyed more than a million pounds of onions.
There is a chicken farm that destroys 750 ,000 eggs every single day.
And when you drill down and you ask why, you basically get two answers.
Well, it doesn't pay to give away the food to food banks, which given that this is an unusual situation, seems like a very weak argument.
And when you push, you know, the logistic is complicated.
I understand the logistics is complicated, but dairy farmers of America, that's a cooperative with profit last year of more than one hundred million dollars.
Do you really want to tell me they don't have the financial resources to somehow reconfigure their supply chain so many times in this crisis, I'm just in complete awe of what some people can do and then like just really, really disappointed that big agriculture, big farms, I think, have just completely
failed at a time when food banks are out of food at a time when there's miles and miles of traffic jams, people trying to feed their families.
The great thing about that example, especially the story about AGB and all these grocers are doing interesting things is, you know, we've spent like the last decade or two just basking in the ingenuity of tech and they're these whole sectors of the economy where people are so ingenious and they're using
kind of really interesting innovations to adapt to change really fast.
And we've lost sight of all that.
That's what I love about that story.
I think there's also just such an important lesson here for any consumer of business news.
And that is whenever you see a company doing something that looks sort of ridiculous, like dumping a bunch of food or throwing tons and tons of milk away, and you ask them what's going on there?
That looks ridiculous.
They will always have a really smart reason for why they're doing it.
It's not a dumb reason.
So true. Yes. And they will explain in great detail that re -engineering a supply chain requires new relationships and contracts between suppliers and distributors and retailers.
It requires different packaging for shipping and merchandising, different production processes, different trucking routes.
And so it's a money -losing proposition to try to do it.
And even if we wanted to do it, we couldn't do it.
And so you think, oh, okay, that makes so much sense.
It's really hard to do.
That's why they can't do it.
And then you turn around and you look at a company that's actually figured out how to do it.
So true. And it could be a small company or it could be a big company, but they figured out how to do it, even though nothing about the reason to not do it, none of that's wrong.
In fact, it is hard.
It's hard to re -engineer your supply chain.
It's hard to package different.
It's hard to change your production processes.
But yet some companies make the decision that they're going to go down the path and try to do it, and other companies just don't.
And I think it's really important to absorb rationale for why companies do illogical things with a little bit of skepticism, because even though they might be right in their explanation, it's still not necessarily a satisfactory explanation.
Yeah, I think that's so true.
And as you point out, Yang Mi, I think there's lots of questions, but there's also, are you really dying to do this or not?
And in particular, I'm thinking of the $22 billion in subsidies that we spend on farming in this country every year.
And frankly, it breaks my heart to see so little initiative that really then rises to the occasion.
Mihir, what else do you see out there?
Well, you know, so we talked last week a little bit about the Federal Reserve, but I think this whole crisis is shining a light on banks in a really interesting way.
So we know the disappointment with the Paycheck Protection Program about how smaller customers have been left aside, how bigger companies have done much, much better in terms of getting access to credit.
But the real thing I think that we've learned is banks have really lost the kind of frontline contact with customers.
And so we're in a situation where we rely on them with the Federal Reserve to do so much in the economy.
And yet we know that they are more and more not the main line touch with consumers.
So for example, we know through consumer credit that it's increasingly being originated outside of banks.
We know mortgages are increasingly being originated outside of banks.
We know lending, especially riskier lending, is increasingly being originated outside banks through the leveraged loan market, through hedge funds and through private equity.
And we know that a lot of individuals barely think about deposits anymore because they put it into a Robin Hood app or they go to a digital bank.
To me, the interesting thing that we're seeing here is, man, we think we can use banks to solve big problems in the economy.
And yet they're kind of out of touch with customers more and more.
And to me, that has been a real lesson.
To me, it's also illuminated the cracks in how we create different business segments.
So, for example, the Paycheck Protection Program, there's been a lot of conversation about small and medium sized businesses.
Right. That is a segment that encompasses everything from a business with 10 ,000 employees to a single individual proprietor, a one man or a one woman shop.
So what you're pointing out is that the line between that micro business and a consumer is actually very, very small.
And the chasm between a single individual business and a medium sized business is enormous.
And so to expect a bank to be able to cater to both in a similarly nimble way, it doesn't surprise me that the banks have proven themselves to be remarkably clumsy at this.
It's a hard thing to do.
That meaning, how do you trade off?
Like there's a 10 ,000 person firm who wants some credit and there's one person and in some sense we have outsourced it to them.
And I think on top of that, I guess I feel like they understand customers less well than they used to because of the changing role of the credit markets.
My first intuition was that is a manifestation of our reflex to always side with small business.
It's somehow the mythology.
We know that much of what's good about business comes from big businesses.
Big businesses are innovative, big businesses pay their worker betters, treat their worker betters.
Everything you want from business is more true for large companies than for small companies.
And yet we're just in love with small companies for as far as I can tell, almost no good reason.
So I thought this is just like another example of how everybody's up in arms.
If the loan goes to the 500 employee company as opposed to the two personal company, if you care about the efficiency of these programs, why would you want to process a loan if it protects the paycheck of two people when with essentially the same amount of work, you could protect the paychecks of 500
people? If you're the manager in that bank, what should your priorities be?
Of course, you should prioritize the bigger business, but somehow in the press and I think the general response is just to say, oh my God, you're only catering to the large enterprises.
I'm more troubled by the fact that there's a demonization of the larger small businesses.
That's the part that troubles me.
I actually think there's a strong argument for why if you're going to put out a program that is designed to be a bailout for small businesses, including micro businesses, then you have to bail out the micro businesses.
But I don't think that gives you license then to attack the larger small businesses who happen to be able to receive their bailout checks.
In part, the reason I linked it to the banks is the whole idea in a way behind the larger picture is, oh, banks have information and they know these people and therefore they'll be able to the right way to distribute all these loans.
And I guess my lesson from all this is I don't know if that's true anymore.
I don't think they have the connections with customers in the way that we kind of think in our minds that they do.
And that to me is the revelation.
Youngme, what else do you see out there?
So I wanted to talk about Amazon.
Oh, OK. I really think this is revealed so much about Amazon.
In many ways, it has exacerbated my already love -hate relationship with Amazon.
So on the love side, for so many people, Amazon has become absolutely indispensable during the shutdown and it has had to make a series of dramatic changes in order to do so.
So to Felix, your point earlier about the rigidity of some companies and their inability to pivot versus other companies that are able to pivot.
Amazon is an example of a huge company that has pivoted dramatically.
It's been hiring like crazy.
It's shut down a lot of its business associated with non -essential goods.
It's ramped up its supply of essential goods for a company this large to pivot so quickly without fanfare, without drama to change its logistics supply chain purchasing flow so effectively.
It's amazing. Imagine saying to Target, starting tomorrow, we want you to turn off your entire supply chain behind clothing, toys and oh, by the way, quintuple your supply of essential goods.
I mean, you can't imagine Target being able to do this.
On top of it, it's worth noting how critical AWS and other cloud services have been in this crisis.
So we talk about services like Zoom and we've praised them for how well they've handled the dramatic increase in traffic.
But a lot of that credit should actually go to AWS and the other cloud services that carry and support that traffic.
So Amazon is propping up a big chunk of the economy in ways that we take for granted.
And yet because this is a company that is built on the backs of hourly workers who have limited power and limited leverage, it continues to be hard to be a cheerleader for this company.
And for the record, I find so much of the media coverage on Amazon to be unfair or lacking context.
And also, as we've discussed in this podcast, I find a lot of the antitrust arguments about Amazon to be unconvincing.
But I still find it really hard to dismiss the criticisms that they could be doing even more to protect the health and safety of their hourly workers.
And I do think it's probably the case that I'm holding Amazon to a higher standard, because my guess is the working conditions are not any worse than they are at companies like FedEx or Walmart.
But given how strong this company is, I do hold them to a higher standard.
I think, Yangmi, this is a great call in a way because I too have felt an intensification of the love and the hate, right?
Which has always been love and hate with Amazon.
And I feel it even more pronounced today than ever before.
And I too share your concerns about workers rights.
I wonder if our love -hate thing is maybe two sides of the same coin, which is I think if an Amazon person was here, they would say, it is that flexibility.
It is the ability to do what we can do with our workers that allows us to be able to respond in this way.
Now, I wouldn't make that argument.
But I'm wondering if in their eyes it is two sides of the same coin.
Yes, we are fantastic at adapting and delivering.
Well, guess what? That's because we have a flexible workforce and we do these things.
And I hate to say that, Yangmi, but would you buy that argument?
You know, I buy parts of it, particularly when it comes to some of their operational processes.
But when there are problems that could be solved by throwing more money at it, that's where I think the argument breaks down.
This is a company that does have financial resources and there are some things that they could be doing better paid sick leave as an example.
I mean, things that you can solve by just throwing money at it.
Their stock is at an all time high.
I mean, the economy is at a standstill.
The stock is at an all time high.
If there were a company that could afford to invest additional resources in their employees right now, this is a company that its investors would absolutely, absolutely tolerate that.
And so that's the part I really struggle with.
Yeah, that's interesting.
It's an interesting combination of flexibility and inflexibility.
Right. Operationally, when it comes to their supply chain, they're hugely flexible.
But when it comes to this complete focus on customer needs and get customers as quickly as possible at the lowest possible price, that is actually very inflexible.
And that's sort of the philosophy is very fixed, but the management practices around that are much more flexible.
All right. What else do you have me here?
So the other thing that has been really interesting to me to look at is we tend to think about big tech as monolithic and as being very cozy with each other.
And I think what we're going to start to see with advertising coming down, we are going to see rivalry, I think, amongst big tech players that maybe we've never seen before.
And so if you think about Facebook and Google, the two big advertising businesses, but of course, young me, as you've pointed out before in this podcast, the increasing strength of Amazon on advertising as well.
I think when you see what are going to conceivably be really significant reductions in ad spending and potentially in digital ad spending, of course, the bigger players will get more powerful and get larger shares, but it is going to be the first time that the pool is really dwindling.
And if it dwindles in a really significant way, I think the rivalry we're going to see emerging is going to be really, really intense.
And so we tend to think of big tech as kind of all these big players who are monolithic and super powerful, but in an advertising crush, which is conceivably what we'll have, what happens?
Because they've all grown up in a rising tide.
So here, Amazon just fired arguably the first salvo because they pretty radically slashed the affiliate fees they pay by like 80 percent or something.
Right. I mean, it's crazy.
So we are going to see competition and dynamics that we've never seen before in that advertising world.
And I think people who worry, oh, my God, these people are all monopolies and they're all too big.
You're going to see them just fight it out.
And just the competitive dynamic between them alone is going to be something to watch.
And of course, a huge difference between businesses where advertising is a compliment, Amazon, versus where advertising is the main product.
Advertising is your main product.
Wow, you are in deep trouble right now.
If you're Google, if you're Facebook, that second revenue stream doesn't really exist.
So this is just the beginning of this advertising driven world, you know, maybe coming apart at the seams.
So I think it's going to be really interesting to watch.
Do you have another one, young me?
You know, I just find that one of the things that this crisis has revealed is how weak the corporate communications function is in so many companies.
When the crisis hit, my inbox began filling with emails, first from my bank.
Hey, here's what we're doing about coronavirus and we want you to know we are in this together.
And then from every hotel I've ever frequented, from every airline, from my electric company, my cable company.
Of course, the real purpose behind the emails was actually to communicate the opposite and tell us, hey, if you need something and need to call us, no one is going to answer the phone.
The other thing that has really been revealed is how bad companies are at giving bad news.
We are canceling your flights.
We are not issuing refunds.
Sorry. But hey, we want you to know we are in this together.
Companies are so sophisticated at so many things.
Can it be that? You've seen this, too, right?
Oh, yes. Like everybody goes.
And then in the beginning, one, you can forgive easily.
But if you're the two hundred and ninety seven company and you know you have not been particularly fast, maybe you think you would have learned something from the mass communication that went out before.
But actually, no, you're just repeating that same mistake.
But I'm puzzled. Why is it like inattention at the C -suite level or is it like just everyone is so ham -fisted about these things?
Or is it that they try to accomplish too many things at the same time?
So I think under normal operating conditions is something that doesn't get a lot of attention.
Accepted companies that have truly made a commitment to real customer service.
I mean, there are exceptions and the exceptions really stand out.
And I also think companies under appreciate how much positive affiliation can result from getting it right during times of crisis.
But look, the same is true for internal communications.
You've seen a lot of companies have to furlough workers.
And you've seen companies just going about it in the most insensitive, horrible way.
And then you've also seen companies who have bent over backwards to think really hard and creatively about how to provide as much of a safety net as possible to those furloughed workers.
So you see the full spectrum.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Felix, you've got one more.
Yes, I have one more.
So as I was thinking about True Colors, I was actually thinking about one of the suggestions that you had made very early on here.
Remember how you said, oh, interest rates are really low.
The next thing that we should do is a really big infrastructure project.
And it's happening except it's China.
It's not the United States.
And what's particularly interesting about this push in China is a significant fraction of it is geared towards what they now call new infrastructure, which is sort of the wave of the future, because if anything, you know, China has enough roads and trains and everything you can possibly want.
And so now they're making a really concerted effort.
It's investments in data centers, artificial intelligence, 5G networks, and then particularly important ultra high voltage transmission, which they really emphasize now.
Just, you know, using this moment and they're placing their bets in, I think, a very smart way.
I remember you mentioned it in one of the first coronavirus podcasts we did, and it was a little too early for me to even begin thinking about that because it really is sort of the next step.
It's like the emergency rescue plan.
It's sort of the next step.
But it's not too early now to start thinking about it.
And what is interesting about your comment about China, Felix, is every time this topic gets mentioned here domestically, the conversation gets shut down almost immediately, even though even the president seems to have some appetite.
It's just the likelihood of something getting done seems so low right now in our political climate.
And the paradox to me is before the pandemic, it looked as if Democrats and Republicans might actually agree on some maybe not a huge effort, but, you know, some sizable effort.
Next thing you know is interest rates go down.
We now have negative real interest rates, and then all of these plans evaporate.
And of course, the closer we get to the election, there's going to be zero economic preparedness to do anything.
So that's a real shame.
OK, PICS, Felix, what's your PICS this week?
So my PICS is to go to an online museum.
So you know how lots of museums basically have their collections online.
It's essentially Google Images.
Yes, exactly right.
It's Google Images.
And then if they're a little more sophisticated, it's like Google Maps where you can walk to the museum.
But I think there's a good number of examples that are actually really interesting.
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, they have a really interesting way.
So you choose a particular painting and then you have a slider right next to it and you slide the slider back and forth.
And you can see similar kinds of paintings or you can see the same theme still, but someone that had a very different take on the same topic.
That I think is for me is a really nice example of something that you can do in digital that is basically impossible to do if you go to the actual museum.
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis has this interesting combination of particular pieces of art and then short films, almost like video installations that you would see in a museum.
And again, you can play around with the various combinations or you can go back in time.
If you go to the Palace Museum in Beijing, they have all their exhibitions since 2005.
And so you can see how the way things get exhibited, how that changes over time.
All of those, I think, are examples of experiences that you cannot easily have in a real museum, but in digital museums, I think those are really nice.
That's a great call, Felix, in part because museums are really suffering right now.
And I don't know if there are monetization possibilities alongside this, but, God, if there's an industry that's really hurting, it's these non -profit museums who are just stuck.
So that's a great pick.
That's nice. I like that.
Here, what do you have?
So just a quick followup, which is after I recommended Wallander last week, Felix noted to me that there is a Swedish original version and it's with Christor Henriksen, who I have now watched, Felix, and it is fantastic.
It's good too, right?
In some ways it's better actually than she just ran off.
So anyway, so there's a Swedish original version, which I think you can also take a look at, but that's not my pick.
My pick is - Wait, so we're doing follow -ups now to our recommendations?
Well, I might just reiterate, yeah, we'll just then better call Saul the final finale with us last week, Young Me, and it was even better just to follow up to your - Mehears picks are like a weed.
They grow and grow every week.
Mehears could do an entire podcast.
Actually, my pick for next week is going to be a weed.
Anyway, welcome back.
So my pick for the week is, obviously we've all been doing lots more cooking at home, and I have found that one pot recipes are fantastic.
And in particular, my recipe pick for the week is a Dutch baby.
Excuse me? Yeah. A Dutch baby is a fantastically simple pancake.
It's eggs, flour. You put it into a mixture with some butter and you put up it in the oven.
And it's a one pan recipe.
The recipe on The New York Times by Florence Fabrikan is legendary.
It's a legendary recipe.
You just mix it all together, put it in a cast iron skillet and you bake it and it puffs up and it's a beautiful pancake.
And kids love it. So this is a 10 minute way to look like a hero because you create a puffy, beautiful - It's almost like a Yorkshire pudding kind of a thing and kids go crazy for it.
You put some powdered sugar on it.
And it's called a Dutch baby?
It's called a Dutch baby and it's a weird origin.
Is it just egg and flour?
It's German pancake actually.
So it's kind of has its origins as a German pancake.
And the best part about it is it's so fast and you look like a hero because it comes out almost like a moose kind of like that.
Anyway, so Dutch baby, super easy way to look like a professional chef and give your children breakfast in a really easy way.
Fabulous. I don't know that I could pull something called the Dutch baby out of an evidence.
I'm telling you, you'll take your 10 minutes, make it for the boys.
Is it because people in the Netherlands are so tall?
You know, I actually tried to look into the origins of the name and I couldn't find it.
I'm going to challenge our listeners.
If anybody knows the origins of the name, please let us know.
All right. So my recommendation is for the subset of our audience who really, really miss live sports.
ESPN is airing a 10 part documentary called The Last Dance that takes a look at Michael Jordan's final season as a Chicago Bull.
And it's just so delicious to watch.
You know how sometimes you watch athletes from a previous generation and they're not as fast, they're not as athletic.
What's riveting to watch in this documentary is Michael Jordan in his athletic prime.
There's just no question that if he were to play with today's players, he would still completely dominate.
It's also going to be because I've only watched the first two episodes.
It's going to be riveting to watch the birth of his marketing power, his emergence as a brand icon.
And then as an individual personality, he was a really somewhat controversial person because he wasn't a great teammate.
He was tough to play with and it's all apparently there.
I saw the first episode.
I don't pay attention to sports now, but back then I was like a huge basketball fan.
And I have to say, it's fantastic.
ESPN does such a great job with those longer documentaries.
I mean, they're just stunningly good.
As you point out, what's interesting to me, young me is he's a kind of controversial guy, both because of the personality stuff.
He's super competitive.
I mean, crazy competitive and then the marketing side and also the apolitical side to him.
So he's fascinating.
But then watching him play, you forget how absolutely magnificent he was.
So anyway, that's my pick.
That's a great one.
Felix is scrolling through art museums and I'm watching Michael Jordan doing 360.
That's it for this week.
Thanks everyone for listening.
This is after hours in the HBR podcast now.
So just so you know, guys, the ones that I ended up not using about true colors.
Number one, men and facial hair.
Oh my God. I mean, everyone has these big beards now.
I don't, my sons are all growing their hair out.
But usually young me, you, I don't know for you, like you've been giving us compliments about the facial hair.
Let me be clear. I love six o 'clock shadow.
When it starts to get bushy.
But you know, I think for your sons, the problem might be that they don't recognize the bottle that has the shaving cream because there's no brand.
Exactly. You know what?
I should give you a video tour of my bathroom.
It's unbelievable. This is the greatest procrastination project I've ever heard, young me.
