Latest / The Innovation Show / EP 665 Paul Nunes — Motorola, Combinatorial Innovation and the Treasure in the Trash
Transcript
- 0:00innovation has countless examples where it's been critical in the
- 0:06success and sale of products.
- 0:08So I would encourage listeners, as they think about it, you know, when's
- 0:12the last time you thought about your suppliers as your partner in innovation?
- 0:18Because as we move to an increasingly modular and combinatorial innovation
- 0:22world, that supplier innovation is gonna become ever more critical to maintaining
- 0:30continuous innovation, if not breakthrough innovation when you're at the pinnacle of
- 0:35your success, you want to shout it and you want-- and you've got the money to do it.
- 0:40But it's almost the natural precursor to the downfall
- 0:44it's
- 0:44not that we didn't know what to do, it's just that by the time it-- we had
- 0:48to do it, we didn't have the people to do it." Because the key is we
- 0:52fired all those guys, or they all left 'cause they were all bored and that.
- 0:55The constant pressure of technology to deflation, and more naturally deflation
- 1:02'cause it's easier than innovation real innovation, is potentially the,
- 1:09fundamental challenge of strategy today
- 1:13before we start, I want to thank our sponsor, Kyndryl, who runs
- 1:15and reimagines the technology systems that drive advantage for
- 1:18the world's leading businesses.
- 1:20With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed
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- 1:37Today's episode came about through collaboration, conversation,
- 1:43communication, and friendship with my friend Paul Nunes.
- 1:48It is always a pleasure to have you back on the show, my man
- 1:50Always a pleasure.
- 1:51Always a pleasure.
- 1:52Always enjoy our discussions, and it's been too long, so
- 1:55it's good to talk to you again
- 1:56Always too long, man.
- 1:57Always too long.
- 1:58And let's give a bit of context here.
- 2:01Paul and I would share each other articles every so often.
- 2:05He is unbelievable thought leader.
- 2:07And by the way, for those watching us, on the shelves there you have four of
- 2:11his books, Big Bang Disruption, Mass , Affluence, which we'll be covering in
- 2:14the future, Pivot to the Future, and Jumping the S-Curve, which we've covered.
- 2:18But we haven't done Mass Affluence, and we were going to do Mass Af-
- 2:21Affluence, and then he sent me a couple of papers, and one of them was, , a
- 2:26story that I just had to share , because I was working on this article Based
- 2:32on the Concept of a Lazarus Taxon.
- 2:34Now, if anybody remembers the episode we did with Sam Arbesman,
- 2:38Sam was the one who put me onto this.
- 2:39He talked about this, this fish called a ceelocinth . A prehistoric fish
- 2:44that everybody presumed was dead, and a Lazarus taxon is a species that
- 2:49people presume , extinct, that has been living away somewhere else all the
- 2:53time, and that's exactly what company we're gonna talk to you about today.
- 2:57I was thinking Nokia.. But Paul discovered multiple other companies like that,
- 3:03but one of them that he put me onto was Motorola, and we're gonna share
- 3:07that with you today, and then draw on a lot of the concepts Paul teaches
- 3:11in his work, in his books, et cetera.
- 3:13Paul, maybe you'll set us up and, tell us what the hell Aidan's talking about there.
- 3:17I think what we're talking about here is this really interesting
- 3:21aspect of companies that seem to resurrect themself from the dead.
- 3:25Which I think, you know, people know the term Lazarus, right?
- 3:28So Lazarus taxon or taxa is the plural.
- 3:31these are fossils that have disappeared from the record and then reappear,
- 3:37you know, millions of years later.
- 3:42Now, there's not a lot of companies that can claim to reappear millions of
- 3:45years later, but there are a few that do seem to appear 20, even 30, , 50
- 3:51years later and seem to have like, these fish and these other fossils have sort
- 3:57of, you know, reappeared from the dead.
- 4:00so it's always been fascinating to me because it ties interestingly
- 4:04and nicely with jumping the S curve and this idea of jumping the S curve
- 4:08, This idea that have to keep reinventing yourself tier after
- 4:13tier, in order to be a, what we termed in the earliest days with
- 4:17Accenture, a high performance business.
- 4:19So, "What is a high performance business?" "Well, it's certainly not
- 4:23one that's a, a one-off you know, a fly by night or a one-hit wonder.
- 4:29has to have some permanence." But then the question is, well, how
- 4:32much permanence does it need to have really for it to be important?
- 4:37And that really ties into this whole thing is like, well, what
- 4:39is a failed company really?
- 4:42And we can say, you know… So one of the things we talked about then was,
- 4:46well, maybe a failed company is a company that loses more in its afterlife or
- 4:51in its late life than it actually ever made in profit, and that's a really
- 4:54interesting segment of businesses, right?
- 4:57Is those that spend all their profits.
- 5:00you brought that up real recently, and that's another real area we can
- 5:03go down into the real interest, which is this idea of are you doing with the
- 5:07savings from technology and AI, are you putting it into something good?
- 5:11Are you just blasting it?
- 5:14by necessity, are you giving it back to the shareholders?
- 5:18But then there's this idea of, well, what happens when you fail, when you
- 5:21really collapse at the end of a curve?
- 5:25we've talked about that a bunch and we looked at that in, in the books and stuff.
- 5:28And so, you know, Fujifilm was always the great example versus Kodak because
- 5:33Fujifilm was sort of prepared for the end.
- 5:36It was able to reuse a lot of its technologies with other industries
- 5:39that it had already been in such, so it didn't really disappear or fail entirely.
- 5:46But there's another class that seems to be wiped out . but they too tend
- 5:50to r-restore on numerous occasions.
- 5:53So it was really fascinating.
- 5:54So where we had gotten into the discussion, as I had sent you the
- 5:56thing on Motorola, because it had just reoccurred to me that Motorola was in
- 6:02the process of, of this rebirth you know, the short of the story is that
- 6:07it split, I guess it was around 2000 into two businesses of necessity,
- 6:13Motorola Solutions, which took all of the traditional sort of army, I call it
- 6:20walkie-talkie, but it has another name.
- 6:22But but you know, the walkie-talkies and the radios of World War II and
- 6:25all of that, and, for all the first responders, radio gear and all of
- 6:30that was huge business of Motorola's that most people didn't think about.
- 6:34Sort of off in Motorola Solutions, but then there was also Motorola Mobility,
- 6:38and it has its own history which is pretty interesting as well in terms of, you
- 6:44know, absolute collapse sale to Google, mostly for intellectual property rights.
- 6:52We'll talk a bit about that.
- 6:54But then also sold onto Lenovo where it then pioneered a number of new
- 7:00entrants, mostly for the mid consumer market and low-end consumer market.
- 7:07And has really repositioned through some technology tricks, like foldable
- 7:11screens, into a real position of rebirth and renewed positioning.
- 7:18I just found that fascinating and so, and I loved, you know,
- 7:21and you were the one who kind of taught me this term Lazarus taxon.
- 7:21So, that was the origin
- 7:28Brilliant.
- 7:30So l- let's talk about one of the concepts you put me onto that I learned
- 7:34from, I think it was Big Bang, the idea of combinatorial innovation.
- 7:39The, the great example you gave, and I've seen some of your talks before as
- 7:43well, where you talk about, well, you've, you've, your company at the end of your
- 7:49curve, there's, treasure in the trash, if you will, or there's assets in the
- 7:52ashes, where you, you go, "What can I…
- 7:55What, what's still useful from this thing that's, that's no longer in the
- 8:00context that it was very successful, is no longer successful, but, but something,
- 8:04something's useful from it?" And you talk about this at, at the end of life
- 8:09of companies that they can do this, and maybe we'll share that concept.
- 8:13You might give us a couple of examples, because it's a nice segue
- 8:16for what happened with Motorola
- 8:19Yeah.
- 8:19Combinatorial innovation sounds very fancy, and I sort of liked it for
- 8:23that reason, but what it really just means is that a lot of innovation
- 8:28doesn't come from absolute scratch from, you know, pure greenfield.
- 8:33It comes from putting all of the pieces that are available to you on
- 8:36the table and saying, " What else can we do?" Sort of like the Apollo 13
- 8:41solution, which was, you know, what do we actually have in the module?
- 8:44And how do we build this thing, for those who've seen the movie or know the story.
- 8:49But there's an interesting thing that an awful lot of innovation is
- 8:52of a particular nature, which is that it doesn't start from scratch.
- 8:56It simply recombines things.
- 8:58So putting a cell phone and putting a screen into a refrigerator, for example,
- 9:04creating the Internet of things.
- 9:05And so there was the whole thing that, you know, we can use a camera the refrigerator
- 9:11to look at whether or not there's milk left and reorder, and we'll… But
- 9:16this isn't all about reinventing the…
- 9:18I don't have to invent a camera.
- 9:20I don't have to invent a cellular network to transfer that data or a
- 9:24Wi-Fi network to transfer that data.
- 9:26I don't have to, I don't have to invent a lot of stuff.
- 9:28I just have to create some software that kind of pulls this stuff
- 9:31together, and I have to buy some of these parts from other people.
- 9:35in a world of what we term in one of our books, near perfect market information,
- 9:41which is another complicated term, which just basically means I can see everything
- 9:45that everybody's selling on the internet.
- 9:47I've got endless shelf space, and I've got
- 9:50endless
- 9:51ability to now see every part that's out there.
- 9:53And I always used to talk about, you know, even now, recently, I fixed my
- 9:57washing machine, a small digression, because I was able to find the part
- 10:02that was needed online and simply pay for a $10, you know, sort of fake
- 10:08part, not OEM, because it was online.
- 10:11It was on Amazon.
- 10:13know, a part for a, a, an Electrolux washing machine on Amazon.
- 10:18Fix it yourself This is combinatorial innovation in the sense that
- 10:23like, well, what if I wanted to build my own washing machine?
- 10:25I could get 90% of the parts, maybe 100% of the parts off of
- 10:30Amazon, let alone the internet.
- 10:32So what we do is we start to recombine all these pieces.
- 10:36Now for innovation, and so drones is a perfect example.
- 10:39Why did drones become such a big solution or has come- become such a big product?
- 10:45Well, nobody was inventing drones from the very beginning, right?
- 10:49What is a drone?
- 10:50A drone is really a flying camera.
- 10:53It's a gyroscope.
- 10:54It's a… And I was like, "Well, where do I see these products?
- 10:57Where do I see these things?
- 10:58Hmm, who's making a lot of cameras that doesn't need cameras anymore?
- 11:03it's the cell phone industry and needs another place to sell cameras to."
- 11:09who do I know that has gyroscopes and gyroscopic and you know, all these
- 11:13sort of motion detectors, all the gaming industry and the cell phone
- 11:16industry, again, all of these things.
- 11:19So it turns out that all I'm really doing is putting a cell phone
- 11:22on wings with propellers, right?
- 11:25And creating some software to sort of manage that, but that's a drone.
- 11:28And so you can see the speed at which I can design, you know, send
- 11:33to third party, you know, makers, get it into a supply chain and sell it.
- 11:41You know, the speed at which that went from zero to 60, zero to you
- 11:45know, 10 million, 100 million units sold was tremendous, and that's
- 11:50what's going on everywhere else.
- 11:51Now, where it becomes really important, I think, for this idea of Lazarus
- 11:57ta- taxon is When we start to look at failure and we look at like,
- 12:03you know, well, who are the, cats?
- 12:06Who are the bottom feeders?
- 12:07I hate to call them that, but it really is this idea.
- 12:09But you see that it's like to treasures, or we just say the treasure in the trash.
- 12:14I find it fascinating to be thinking about, well, who are the ones, you know,
- 12:18the private equity firms sometimes, who are the ones that are actually going out
- 12:22and sort of saying, "All right, where's the treasure, you know, in the trash?"
- 12:26And I hate to call it that as well because yeah.
- 12:29And then, and how do you extract it?
- 12:32which is fascinating as well.
- 12:35so one of the treasures in the trash, you look at IP you look at talent, look
- 12:42at-- So there's all kinds of categories that we see that you can break down
- 12:46and start to say, okay, you know.
- 12:48And I think one of the great things, if you want to get a feel for it,
- 12:50that I've been doing a bit lately in my own retirement s-semi-retirement,
- 12:55been watching these shows.
- 12:56I'm always fascinated with these people who restore cars, right?
- 13:00Because a, a car restoration in many ways is a perfect example
- 13:04for what has to go on here.
- 13:06You gotta break it down.
- 13:08You gotta take it all the way down to its parts.
- 13:11You know, they're all rusty, some are broken, some can't be replaced.
- 13:14You gotta tear it all down, what you have, and then build it
- 13:19back up in a sequence of steps.
- 13:22Because if you don't clean the metal in a car and get all the rust off
- 13:28and everything else, and you just quickly rebuild it, you're gonna
- 13:30have a nice car, but it's gonna rust out again on you in two years.
- 13:35you really have to do it by step, and you have to do it right, and
- 13:40you have to do it completely.
- 13:41And so some of the research that I see going on, some of the research that I've
- 13:45been conducting for myself and my own thinking, think really ties into a lot
- 13:49of stuff that you've been saying is, we know about that rebuilding process?
- 13:54You know, what do we know about the restoration process of companies?
- 13:59And we don't know, I think, you know, I haven't found, we don't know as much
- 14:03because it's a lot more easy, it's a lot easier for us to study successful
- 14:08companies and, you know, all of the wonderful stories and those, and
- 14:13even those that can jump an S-curve.
- 14:15But we don't really study the companies that have been restored
- 14:20like a great, you know, car or you know, airplane or whatever
- 14:25th- there could be a future for you, man, instead of a show on restoring
- 14:30cars, restoring old washing machines.
- 14:33Yeah.
- 14:35Paul Nunez presents Washing Machine Rebirth, or the Phoenix Washing Machine.
- 14:40Bring it back.
- 14:42Well, I-- it is serious is because there's an, an important other big idea
- 14:46that's buried in that, is the idea of the necessity of modularity, and it ties even
- 14:53into mass affluence and everything else.
- 14:54Everything that's more expensive is human talent.
- 14:58And as we go into a diminishing population, right, as we go into a
- 15:01shrinking and imploding population, and with how hard it is to find people
- 15:08committed to the trades, you can't find people to fix washing machines.
- 15:13So we either have to fix them ourselves, we have to reach into a level of
- 15:17modularity says, "I can fix it myself," because I'm going to just throw out
- 15:25it… You know, there's only ten parts to it, and I take the one that
- 15:27isn't working, and I throw it out.
- 15:30So design for mo-- You know, I know it seems like a bit of a digression,
- 15:33but it is tied in together with that because there's a design for modularity.
- 15:38And to bring it back to Motorola that we're talking about, and I won't profess
- 15:43to know , too much about the details of it, it's pretty clear that the
- 15:48technologies in the phone are built off of chips and chip designs and aspects
- 15:55that were pretty easy to reassemble.
- 15:58And in fact, actually, the move to Android as an operating system
- 16:02the phone was, again, part of the simplicity and repair thing.
- 16:06Motorola couldn't keep up with its own software.
- 16:09Who could?
- 16:09And the cost of that and the people and everything else.
- 16:12So you lose the customization, but you get simplicity and modularity, and you
- 16:16also get, well, all of the phone software refreshes come straight from that.
- 16:22this idea of the necessity of partnering with other companies
- 16:27that not only will provide the parts but provide the resuability
- 16:32that provide the the maintenance of that and the continual upgrade.
- 16:38Because who's going to improve?
- 16:40When you think about it, and this is a really interesting thing that
- 16:42we found in our research about automobiles and stuff and in the
- 16:46study of innovation, which is if you don't have what we call supplier-based
- 16:50innovation, which is, you know, I've got a windshield in automobiles, right?
- 16:57Tempered glass.
- 16:58Well, tempered glass comes out of, you know, makers like Corning.
- 17:02I don't know who invented it.
- 17:03I won't say that.
- 17:03But glass is the glass that's structured, so that it breaks
- 17:07into little pieces instead of really razor-sharp shards, right?
- 17:11Well, whose job is it to invent that?
- 17:13Is it the automaker or is it the glass supplier to the auto?
- 17:17Because there's a glass supplier.
- 17:19And so that ability get all of your component makers on board with
- 17:26making your product better, whether they're simply doing it by making
- 17:29the supply better or whether they're doing it intentionally for you.
- 17:34in fact, in our studies, and this is really important from an innovation
- 17:39standpoint, which is what all this is about you know, at the highest
- 17:42level that we talk about, from an innovation standpoint, there's
- 17:46customer-supplied innovation.
- 17:48The sources, there's nine-- We identified nine sources of innovation, customer
- 17:52innovation, leadership innovation.
- 17:55You know, at the Westin Hotels, it was the CEO who was tired of sleeping in a
- 18:00bad bed, apocryphally, as the story goes, simply came in and said, "You know, I
- 18:05don't care that we're a hotel company, and I don't care whatever. We're gonna
- 18:10make a good bed because I'm tired of sleeping on a bad bed, and I think others
- 18:15are gonna enjoy it too." So, but that's often, you know, this CEO-led innovation.
- 18:21But getting back to the original point, innovation has countless
- 18:27examples where it's been critical in the success and sale of products.
- 18:33So I would encourage listeners, as they think about it, you know, when's
- 18:37the last time you thought about your suppliers as your partner in innovation?
- 18:43Because as we move to an increasingly modular and combinatorial innovation
- 18:47world, that supplier innovation is gonna become ever more critical to
- 18:54maintaining continuous innovation, if not breakthrough innovation
- 18:58I don't wanna come too far off the trail, but you know us, man.
- 19:02We do this all the time.
- 19:04The… By the way, this is like a conversation out loud
- 19:06our conversations we have.
- 19:08Total nerd fest.
- 19:09But one of the things you said there, I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago.
- 19:13You're modular.
- 19:14You have a partner.
- 19:15That partner say it's a windscreen company.
- 19:18And I think this is quite important in the age of AI, is that I have my expertise,
- 19:22you're a supplier to me, but then now you kinda go, "Hmm, we've become pretty good
- 19:27at this. Let's go after, I know we're a windscreen company, but let's actually
- 19:31build the car around the windscreen."
- 19:33And it's kind of what happened with BYD.
- 19:35They were a, an energy company, a battery company, and they built, they go, "You
- 19:38know what? Let's wrap the, let's wrap the battery in a car." And to huge
- 19:43success, because the context changes.
- 19:45And this idea of the partnering and the, the frenemy of the partner.
- 19:52Sometimes the, and we've seen it in the, the innovation literature, that
- 19:56the supplier actually becomes now a competitor and actually steals your
- 20:00lunch, and happens in China quite a bit.
- 20:02I know you've talked about this.
- 20:04Maybe you'll say a word on that.
- 20:05And particularly in an age of AI where, say, for example, I, I know
- 20:10this shouldn't happen, but I am using an enteri- enterprise partner, one
- 20:15of the big companies, an AI partner, and I'm putting my IP into it.
- 20:19And then, and sometimes I'm actually putting in implicit tacit knowledge into
- 20:25the thing, and then the thing's available for everyone else that can then access
- 20:29it, because you're just essentially making the pie of knowledge bigger.
- 20:32So there's a lot in there, but maybe you'll, you'll give us your thoughts.
- 20:36what's really interesting is almost all profitable advantage comes
- 20:42from closed systems of technology.
- 20:45But to close the system only encourages everybody else like Unix and whatever
- 20:50to band against you and create some large open system And the, the, the
- 20:59users of Unix might not make as much money, at least they don't-- they're
- 21:02not held, hostage to your closed system.
- 21:06And it's really the only way to sort of compete.
- 21:10So the history of technology, and I've been fortunate to, you know,
- 21:15to be a small student of it over the years, but the history of technology
- 21:19shows this forever yin and yang of closed system, open system.
- 21:24There's almost no way around it because, again, the the abnormal
- 21:28rents to use, you know, sort of things, the above average rents, the
- 21:33profits come from a closed system.
- 21:36It's much easier to make money in a closed system.
- 21:39So you're always gonna have that sort of tension.
- 21:43I think where there's opportunity in a bunch of places, one is there's
- 21:50finite supply, and we'd even talked about how, you know, Apple i-in the
- 21:55book on Jobs, they talk about sort of cornering the market on camera lenses.
- 22:00We've talked about that that, well, if there's only so many camera lenses,
- 22:04you can only make so many phones.
- 22:07matter if you have all the other parts, doesn't matter.
- 22:10So this idea of, of having proprietary technologies in the ecosystem of parts,
- 22:19there's the two ways of competing.
- 22:21One is, you know…
- 22:21And you have to be the best because it is, it's accelerated to the point of
- 22:26almost instantaneous commoditization.
- 22:28You're only as good as your last version anything because, you
- 22:33know, this interchangeability.
- 22:35So there's that tension, but if it's interchangeable and I find it
- 22:38cheaper or better in the ecosystem, yeah, I'm likely to trade up.
- 22:43this is where I think even AI can't conquer and where there's a lot of things
- 22:48like there's an awful lot of human and human relationship in the nature of
- 22:54structuring these ecosystem solutions.
- 22:59Now, AI will be able to tell you where your opportunity is.
- 23:02AI will be able to tell you very quickly, "Hey, much better, cheaper
- 23:06options to this part out there."
- 23:09But AI may not be able to tell you exactly how reliable really that new
- 23:14other vendor is, nor will it be able to tell you exactly what the true
- 23:19value of your relationship with this other company is as well, right?
- 23:25So I mean, maybe eventually long-term, you know, I don't know, 50, 100 years out,
- 23:29but probably not in our lifetimes anyway.
- 23:32But so this idea of understanding and building some level of human-based
- 23:38connection across a competitive ecosystem, because if it's all just about the
- 23:43cheapest parts then it's like, well, might as well just let the computers run, right?
- 23:48Which is what everybody sort of thinks is gonna happen with AI.
- 23:51It's like, we'll let AI figure out what the best combination of
- 23:54parts is and just constantly cancel contracts and start new contracts
- 23:59and get me new parts and da, da, da.
- 24:01But, you know, you can get this vision of, a great Dr. Seuss thing,
- 24:06you know, the Star Belly Sneetches.
- 24:08This is pretty random for those who don't have kids, but there's
- 24:11a great part of this book of Dr.
- 24:13Seuss's, which has all these characters, but they're all running around chasing
- 24:16each other's… their tails because they don't know if they want multiple
- 24:19stars or fewer stars or all of that.
- 24:22So you can imagine the chaos that comes from trying to perfectly
- 24:27optimize parts, you know, inventory, say, and your parts usage.
- 24:33The other thing relates back, so we can tie it back to the Motorola aspect,
- 24:37which is designing to a custom segment, might even be an enormous segment, which
- 24:44is the financially limited market or, you know, whatever you wanna call them.
- 24:50Now, that requires using more affordable parts, and that's actually where Motorola
- 24:55had a, a great advantage because nobody could touch combined, the combinatorial
- 25:01solution that Motorola had come together to put a- an approximate hundred and
- 25:06eighty to two hundred dollar phone.
- 25:09They basically, you know, the, the… And then what they said is that, you
- 25:13know, because they don't-- you don't have power and charging capabilities
- 25:18all over, and it's great 'cause, like, in Africa, you see, in my travels,
- 25:22you, you see these huts, right?
- 25:24And they have cell phone-- They have solar panels on them.
- 25:28And it's like, "And what's that for?" It's like, "Well, that runs the LED
- 25:32lights at night and the phone chargers." And the phone charger, because
- 25:37Wow
- 25:38you don't have a power grid, you don't have phone chargers.
- 25:44So battery-- Where am I going with this?
- 25:46Battery life is important.
- 25:49It's not important to the mo-- to the f-the first world model,
- 25:52whatever you wanna call it, to the, you know, to the affluent world.
- 25:57But it's certainly important, you know, battery, l- how long the battery lasts
- 26:01is really important to a certain class.
- 26:05. Cutting down the design of using the processor at full power all the
- 26:10time, but conserving battery for that, designing, building that into
- 26:15the hardware design of a phone is actually enough of a differentiation.
- 26:21So regardless of the perfect solution idea of AI in a world of
- 26:28infinite parts, there's still the opportunity that's honest to say,
- 26:32well, where's the market segment?
- 26:34Where's the opportunity?
- 26:36Where's the combination that actually really peaks on a, a market of size
- 26:44and value, that's an opportunity?
- 26:46And again, tying it back to where Motorola has, has helped its rebirth
- 26:51is by finding that profitable segment in that opportunity.
- 26:56And I think that's where a lot of other companies are gonna have to, to think
- 27:00It's a great point, man, and y- Christensen talked about it.
- 27:04He called it the concept of a non-consumer and this whole… It's your biggest
- 27:09customer, the customer who's not actually buying from you today, , this happened
- 27:13with General Motors and Ford when Toyota entered the States in the 1950s.
- 27:16They look at it and they go, "That's terrible. I can't believe they're trying
- 27:20to compete with us." And you're going, "They're not. Be- they're competing with
- 27:24somebody who can't afford a car." And I think that concept is so, so important
- 27:28that that becomes your biggest customer.
- 27:30And actually, there's a whole segment there.
- 27:32You reminded me of my son, who's now 16.
- 27:36His first phone was a phone, I think it was called the Rugged Phone.
- 27:40Like, this phone was a little, basically unbreakable.
- 27:44And you're like, "I'm not gonna give my kid an iPhone where he can smash
- 27:47it and I have to get the screen changed time and time again. I'll
- 27:49buy something that's good enough."
- 27:51And I think it's that idea of good enough, and it's really,
- 27:54really valuable for this concept.
- 27:56But th- this, one, one of the other things you said and we come back to,
- 28:00I'm just looking at my notes here, is the, the, the IP question again.
- 28:06And I, I just wanna bring that to the, to the fore again because it becomes, , so
- 28:11important in the age of AI, where IP is, a lot of people feel is at risk.
- 28:17But IP in the concept of selling it, what's useful from
- 28:23all the stuff you've built.
- 28:25Kodak is another kind of, in a way, a Lazarus taxon, in that they had
- 28:29so much, so much IP, and they had so many pa- patents that they're
- 28:34still making money from that.
- 28:36, Kodak is an excellent part of the story, even long after Kodak had sort
- 28:41of failed or disappeared, it was still making billions of dollars, billions
- 28:47a B, on IP and licensing deals.
- 28:52There is this idea of, you know, what are you creating and what
- 28:56are you protecting as your assets?
- 28:59I… the relevance of IP, you know, it, it's just a, it's a really big topic in
- 29:04the sense of there ways to get around IP?
- 29:08Do you design little things, you know, so what is the real
- 29:11protectable and what's the lifespan?
- 29:13How long does that stuff remain relevant?
- 29:16So you can't bet on it forever, but I think it's an enormous
- 29:20element and question for those who are going to restore cars.
- 29:24You know, if you're gonna restore a business or, or chop shop a, a car, right?
- 29:28Because the other option of restoring an, an old
- 29:31Washing machine
- 29:33an old, well, no, an old car, but the, the, you know, you can
- 29:36either, you can either take it…
- 29:38But this is even true of, you know, when you talk about restoring cars, right?
- 29:41A lot of times there's value.
- 29:44There was, just to digress slightly, but there was something like a million-dollar
- 29:49Porsche that was found in a garage, and it may be a bit apocryphal.
- 29:53But a million-dollar Porsche found in a garage that couldn't be restored,
- 29:57but it had so many of the missing original parts for other restored
- 30:04Porsches of that year that its value, and so again, you know, talking about
- 30:11hidden treasure, was, "Oh, you know, I can never restore this Porsche.
- 30:16I don't want it." It's like, no, somebody bid like a million dollars
- 30:19for it because they knew they could chop it up into 50,000, $100,000 parts,
- 30:24$10,000 parts that would all go to lots of these other cars to be restored.
- 30:30And so that's really the nature of where it goes into in that.
- 30:33And I think what's interesting to tie it back to technology is, even AI, is It's
- 30:40fair that we didn't think a lot about this previously, and this is always when
- 30:44I think about thought leadership, it's always important to think about why now,
- 30:49If you're gonna have a topic about why now, so I think the reason it-- what
- 30:52justifies us talking about this right now is even 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago, we
- 30:59would never be able to think about how you could resell all those parts of a
- 31:03Porsche 911, you know, '62 Porsche 911.
- 31:08Today, you couldn't, you know, 30 years ago, you couldn't really think about,
- 31:12well, how am I gonna disassemble a company and all its component AI and
- 31:18try and figure out and find who are the companies that are gonna buy that AI?
- 31:22Who are the thing?
- 31:23now this idea of Disassembling and reselling a company for value is so
- 31:31much easier, so much more possible.
- 31:35The potentiality, the potential in that is so much higher thanks to technology right?
- 31:42I get visibility into who potential buyers are of the IP or products or capabilities.
- 31:49And it's not just IP, 'cause the other thing that's really important
- 31:52is manufacturing capability, manufacturing capability and processes.
- 31:58Then also I think even the talent, and this is something
- 32:01that we wrote about 40 years ago.
- 32:05Eh, 30 years ago.
- 32:06I don't wanna date myself too much, even 30 years ago, there
- 32:10was this thought of like, well, what if you had a group working on
- 32:13something that failed at a company?
- 32:15if you just resold that research group?
- 32:18What about this idea?
- 32:19And this was one of our, you know, as I used to dabble in sort of sci-fi
- 32:22thinking, is that, no, you would actually be moved and sold as an HR not as a…
- 32:29We always think of HR, we always think of HR staffing as individuals, right?
- 32:36Generally, or as an entire company.
- 32:39we never really think about the, the tiering of, well, what if I put four
- 32:44or five people together and said… I mean, 'cause everybody knows when you
- 32:48hire an executive, you're hoping to hire the four or five other people they
- 32:52worked closely with, and you're hoping that these people are gonna jump ship.
- 32:55But what if we formalized the process of hiring teams units or divisions
- 33:04and cutting them up in these tranches of the humans, just the capabilities
- 33:11and the IP and everything else?
- 33:12'Cause a lot of times we think, well, they're just workers in a
- 33:15factory, so we'll just ship them along with the parts, right?
- 33:19But this idea of all the value, and I think that's gonna become increasingly
- 33:23interesting, if not important, at least more interesting as an idea as
- 33:28we think about, well, what's AI going to do to some of the simple thinking?
- 33:32And then what's gonna be the importance when we talk about the importance of
- 33:36relationships, but how do we kinda quantify the value of relationships?
- 33:42And I'll give you another specific that I was just covering recently that fascinated
- 33:48me, was the, the story of Fairchild Semiconductor and the oh, I forget what
- 33:54they call them, the, the Traitorous Eight.
- 33:57So most people don't know that basically it was oh, and I forget
- 34:00the name of the company, I apologize, beforehand, that the eight people that
- 34:05started Fairchild Semiconductor came
- 34:08Shockley.
- 34:09Shockley Semiconductor.
- 34:10Yeah, but the eight include like, you know, Noyce and,
- 34:15Gordon Moore and of Moore's Law.
- 34:18And, and you think about, and it's like, and this is j- it's a
- 34:21traditional story, but probably lost to a lot of younger, readers
- 34:25and that 'cause it's so historical.
- 34:27But it's like, wow, this company but we loved it as an important story of talent
- 34:32when you really think of the talent.
- 34:34It's like this company had these eight people that were outrageously
- 34:38talented, outrageously, and they were allowed to leave together
- 34:42because they were dissatisfied and then went off to do these things.
- 34:46And that's actually got us a nice tie in that I'll just
- 34:48throw out to kind of close that.
- 34:51, shockley had all that talent.
- 34:52Shockley should be a name we still talk about today.
- 34:57another nerdy thing I was doing was I was thinking of doing a series on
- 35:02football shirt sponsors that are gone.
- 35:05So all these companies that were like, I remember Sharp on the Man United
- 35:10football shirt, shirt, and all these companies, and they're just like,
- 35:14they're all, all people might remember them is from the old football jerseys.
- 35:18But they, they were, they're earning that much money that they
- 35:21were sponsors at these teams at a time where it was very expensive
- 35:25Bingo.
- 35:26Bingo.
- 35:27And this is where some might say, and I think I've probably said it and
- 35:31others would say it, but is the first sign that they lost the thread, right?
- 35:37They lost sight of the ball.
- 35:38They took their eye off the ball.
- 35:40Because when you're more worried about getting on a, a Manchester shirt
- 35:45you are about good quality stuff to customers for good prices and everything
- 35:51else, this is the thing of, you know, why is it always the people who put
- 35:56their names on buildings that wind up disappearing five years later?
- 35:59Not always, not whatever, but like stadiums.
- 36:02Why is the stadium sponsorship-- mean, it's the same thing, but
- 36:05it's like stadium sponsorship, you know, sort of the last refuge.
- 36:11Or it- it's the pinnacle of when you're at the pinnacle of your success,
- 36:16you want to shout it and you want-- and you've got the money to do it.
- 36:20But it's almost the natural precursor to the downfall because it's like executives
- 36:26are worried about who I'm going to impress with the visibility of my name.
- 36:29Because people will argue as, you know, you could say, people will argue, "Well,
- 36:33no, it's about name recognition and it's, you know, it's about keeping in
- 36:37the whatever." the science of it is there is a certain amount of signaling that
- 36:42goes on with it in, with advertising, so we can't be unscientific about this.
- 36:46It's like, yes, that you can buy a Super Bowl commercial is
- 36:51a commercial in and of itself.
- 36:53It signals to consumers that you have enough money or enough wherewithal
- 36:58or enough backing to be able to afford a million dollars a minute
- 37:02or three million, whatever it is now, of Super Bowl advertising.
- 37:09But it's also a question of, when you think about the stages of marketing and
- 37:15starting with awareness, awareness to understanding, to preference, to purchase.
- 37:23You know, do you really need to build awareness?
- 37:26Has anybody not heard-- Has anybody in the copier business not heard of Sharp?
- 37:32You know, so, so the whole vanity project.
- 37:35So I think you raised a great point, but I just wanted to add that little extra
- 37:38context of things that we've looked at is, you know, to what extent is that actually
- 37:43scientifically a marker of a company that may be at its peak or losing its way?
- 37:49So your aver- observation is right on.
- 37:52I was thinking about Moneyball and that whole idea of the, the, I, I can't
- 37:56remember what it was called, science metrics or something, that the whole,
- 38:00the, the science of sport and, you know, what type of player is best for
- 38:03a team and all that kind of stuff.
- 38:04That marketing in a way has gone there, and you, you can be sure
- 38:09that somebody, you know, maybe it's a CEO, this was a dream.
- 38:13I, I wanna be a Super Bowl ad or I wanna be on the cover, the, the
- 38:17jersey sponsor, et cetera, et cetera
- 38:19is no question about that.
- 38:20That, I mean, that's I think even in the literature of, know, it's a,
- 38:27you know, it's always that there's a huge amount of vanity to it.
- 38:30I don't think anybody could argue having your name on a stadium or par- I mean,
- 38:35particularly if your name is the name of the company for these, you know, we won't
- 38:42name particular names, but you can think of buildings, buildings in San Francisco,
- 38:46buildings in, you know, other places.
- 38:50Building, your building, your stadium, your
- 38:53Sears Tower
- 38:55exactly.
- 38:56Yeah, the, but I, I just can imagine, right, so somebody on, maybe listeners to
- 39:01this show, so you're a, an advanced type of marketer, you're head of innovation.
- 39:07You're kind of going, "What I could do if I had that money, how I could use it," and
- 39:11it goes back to this concept of if you're making savings through AI efficiencies,
- 39:16are you reinvesting it or as, as you told me, are you eating your seed corn?
- 39:21Or, you know, not even seed corn.
- 39:23Are you, are you using this excess resource that you have for vanity
- 39:27projects, or are you actually gonna to grow the next academy of the sports team?
- 39:32Because most companies don't, which is actually the last thing I'd love
- 39:35you to finish on, because one of the very valuable things is I, I think if
- 39:40you're a company, you should map, as you said, your suppliers, your, your
- 39:45innovation that's coming from, your capabilities, your talent on S-curves.
- 39:50You, it's a whole system of S-curves.
- 39:52I often think of those, you know, when you're a kid and you
- 39:54make the paper doll and you pull them out, except it's S-curves.
- 39:57You pull out a lot of S-curves and you go map every subsystem
- 40:01of the company to an S-curve.
- 40:03But one of them, as you talk about, one of the disappearing ones, and
- 40:06one that people don't realize until it's too late, is the talent curve.
- 40:10So oftentimes a new strategy, there's a change in the business environment,
- 40:15there's a new strategy needed, but nobody in the company can carry
- 40:18that strategy 'cause you don't have the capabilities in the company.
- 40:21So there's two sides to this coin.
- 40:22One is letting that happen.
- 40:25The other is, like you said, relationships is an S-curve.
- 40:28So if a lot of the glue that joins your, your industry is based on relationships,
- 40:35along comes maybe some type of private equity money, buys your company, and sees,
- 40:40kind of go, "What the hell does Paul do?
- 40:42What does Nunes do, apart from fix washing machines?" And they go, "Well,
- 40:46you know, he knows buttloads of people.
- 40:49He knows them well.
- 40:50He meets them regularly.
- 40:51He meets them for coffees.
- 40:52They like him." That's of no value to PE or somebody coming into a company, 'cause
- 40:58they actually don't see the value of that thing until it's gone, and, and that's
- 41:03often that happens in so many companies.
- 41:05I'd love your thoughts on that because I, I can just see it coming, Paul, when
- 41:10you have this AI efficiency, and say a company has heavy investment from
- 41:16private money, and then you go, "Well, let's get rid of the, all those guys,"
- 41:21you know, , the relationship-based, non-transactional sales team.
- 41:25What the hell do those guys do?
- 41:26Bringing people to Man United games with Sharp on their jersey.
- 41:30What are they doing for us?
- 41:31And you're going, loads of stuff.
- 41:33It's hard to actually articulate it, but actually loads of stuff.
- 41:37Not interested, get rid of them.
- 41:39It's a great question.
- 41:41A great thing to add, 'cause there were two actual unconventional wisdom things
- 41:45I did want to raise with you, which will be a perfect way to sort of close.
- 41:49And it really is a big point because you know, sort of where to start from that.
- 41:54One is that
- 41:57Part of what happened down in the old curve, so let's start with the old curve.
- 42:00The old curve had the inventor, then you had this rise, and the- during the
- 42:06climb, fired all the people that cost too much and that were inventors 'cause they
- 42:11were trying to do something different.
- 42:12And I always like to use sort of Starbucks.
- 42:14Like, once you figure the, the colors, like, you know, I know
- 42:17what the counter looks like, I know what the store design looks like.
- 42:19All I'm trying to do is stick a lot more of these stores all
- 42:22over the place, 'cause the more stores, more revenue, more profit.
- 42:26in this wild growth thing.
- 42:27And then the thing is that, well, but if I keep hiring managers or I keep
- 42:32all my R&D, it's like I don't need R&D 'cause I'm not changing anything.
- 42:35'Cause if I change something, I might screw up the business.
- 42:39So there also becomes the whole you know, thing against innovation, the
- 42:43whole management push against innovation, which says, you know, "Every new thing
- 42:48you're recommending to me, it's like, what's the marginal utility of that?
- 42:52I shouldn't play with a good thing and a good formula." And so you get the
- 42:56Jack Welches that just basically tear out and you get the Six Sigma crowd,
- 42:59and we talked a little bit about this.
- 43:01get to the top, and this is where all of the s- a ton of the CSOs that
- 43:06I talked to over the years, and I know and stuff, they always said
- 43:09it's
- 43:09not that we didn't know what to do, it's just that by the time it-- we had
- 43:13to do it, we didn't have the people to do it." Because the key is we
- 43:16fired all those guys, or they all left 'cause they were all bored and that.
- 43:20So what we saw in jumping the S curve is that it was critically important
- 43:23that you had enough new projects.
- 43:25Like, why do you have to start the next curve early?
- 43:28Now get this tension.
- 43:29If I start the next curve too early, I may be ahead of the technology of the
- 43:33next curve, and that's a huge problem.
- 43:35And hopefully we'll have another time to talk so we can go into
- 43:39this problem of trying to force of technology, which you just can't do.
- 43:44You can throw all the money you want at battery technology.
- 43:46It hasn't turned into exponential improvement.
- 43:50Nobody knows when and if that's gonna happen for real.
- 43:53So we can talk about
- 43:53, a great case is that actually the Geoffrey Cain book I was telling
- 43:56you about about NeXT Computer.
- 43:58I mean, Jobs was trying to do that.
- 44:01He was trying to jump the curve, and the curve wasn't ready.
- 44:04The technology didn't exist for what he, his vision was.
- 44:07And actually, he was lucky he got another bite of the cherry
- 44:10or the apple as the story went
- 44:13This is perfect.
- 44:14No, exactly.
- 44:15But yeah, but it's real easy, and we can go someday into a lot of the
- 44:19stories of these companies that, you know, even GE and Predix and stuff.
- 44:23It's like you can throw billions and billions and billions into trying to
- 44:27accelerate the technology, not the innovation, which is the use of the
- 44:30technology, but if the core technology just won't give up the ghost, just
- 44:35won't improve on the timetable that you need it to you can wind up throwing
- 44:40a lot of good money after bad or you can bankrupt yourself chasing that.
- 44:44goes to the thing, so gets compressed, and then there's a second challenge now,
- 44:50which is that technology, and this goes to things that you've been talking about
- 44:53recently and is really important, is this idea of what to do with the money.
- 44:56Well technology can do two things.
- 44:58It can help you innovate, but it can also take costs out of a system, right?
- 45:02Most of w- the easy thing, the easiest way to innovate, quote unquote, is to use
- 45:07technology to take cost out of a system.
- 45:10Taking those costs out, even like AI, right?
- 45:12I don't need all these analysts, so I'm gonna fire all these analysts
- 45:15and just use the AI answers.
- 45:18Well, that's gonna save you cost, but what are you gonna do with that money?
- 45:22And the key is, all right, what if I fire all these people, but now I don't
- 45:25have these people who've learned anything about my business for later on, so
- 45:29maybe I should repurpose those folks.
- 45:33But so we get into this compressed nature of where's the money coming from?
- 45:37And I'm not sure that in some of the stuff that you've been talking
- 45:40about one of the things I did wanna talk about is this idea that
- 45:45Technology really lends itself to taking out costs and price deflation.
- 45:50So one of the things that we didn't have to fight so badly 'cause it was
- 45:53slower, the nature of a technology learning curve, a business learning
- 45:57curve that takes out cost, 'cause that's where your profit comes from.
- 46:01But if consumers know you're doing that, they want the money.
- 46:06So the more consumers are aware of the deflating nature, the, the price
- 46:10deflation nature, you're getting-- You as a buyer, again, combinatorial
- 46:13innovation, you're getting everything cheaper because all of those suppliers
- 46:18are bringing it to you cheaper.
- 46:19But the, the problem today is, again, with the near perfect market
- 46:23information, the consumer knows this.
- 46:25So the consumer is not gonna let Apple raise its price to fifteen hundred or
- 46:31two thousand dollars for the new 19 or whatever the iPhone is coming out, right?
- 46:36It's gonna be about a thousand dollars or twelve hundred with a little inflation.
- 46:41now you're gonna have to tell me how much more stuff you're
- 46:43gonna jam into this phone, how much more value you're gonna get.
- 46:47But, you know, we forget that even in previous dollars, we used to
- 46:52buy PCs at three thousand dollars, you know, a desktop, right?
- 46:57When's the last time anybody bought a three thousand dollar
- 46:59desktop in terms of a mass market?
- 47:03So as a consumer, we are in a an unprecedented and
- 47:07wonderful world of deflation.
- 47:11But deflation is real, and so this will be a topic for another discussion there.
- 47:15But companies need to really think through deflationary pressures.
- 47:20China was a great one.
- 47:21You know,- I even saw that there are some… just the thing is that
- 47:26China might not have been in a hurry for cheaper oil because that
- 47:29would accelerate their deflation problems, and real risk in China.
- 47:35So anyway, it's a huge thing.
- 47:38And so while it sounds simple to just sort of say, "Hey, you've got this money.
- 47:42Where to put this money?" The constant pressure of technology to deflation,
- 47:49and more naturally deflation 'cause it's easier than innovation real
- 47:54innovation, is potentially the, the fundamental challenge of strategy today
- 48:01man, we said we'd do 15 minutes.
- 48:05It's nearly an hour.
- 48:07Coming up on an hour.
- 48:08This is what happens all the time.
- 48:09We say, "Let's catch up and see what's going on." And
- 48:12yeah, it's always a pleasure.
- 48:13And Paul, by the way, 'cause you mentioned there, people might be
- 48:16wondering what was he talking about that time where you said during your trails.
- 48:19So he's been traveling the world.
- 48:21How many countries have you done, man?
- 48:23How many left?
- 48:24Oh, I don't even like to say.
- 48:25I've got 130.
- 48:27Got another 64 to go.
- 48:29amazing, amazing.
- 48:30This is on the bucket list.
- 48:31And you're getting through it.
- 48:33Just back from Papua New Guinea, just off to Turkey.
- 48:36So living, living the life, man.
- 48:37Living the life.
- 48:38One last thing, actually, I, I, I'll say, and it's just 'cause i- it's, I
- 48:42think it's quite relevant is, I mentioned about how PE can come in and go, "Okay,
- 48:47get rid of those people that we don't need anymore, or we don't feel we need."
- 48:51The, the people who created the curve we're on, perhaps, or the people who
- 48:56have those ro- those nondescript roles, which is actually often people in, in
- 49:02roles I've worked in, and many of the listeners of the show, that will work on
- 49:05new concepts, new projects, new ideas, trying to bring new blood to the company.
- 49:10But then there's another thing happening, where I've seen this, where
- 49:14you have a new what was used to be a third world country, or a country that
- 49:22didn't have massive economic prosperity before, and there's a shift in those
- 49:28people in senior leadership in those.
- 49:30And , it kind of goes to the idea of the DNA changes of the organization.
- 49:36And in some countries, the culture might have been very tire- top down
- 49:40or hierarchical, and not so much like, you know, let people make mistakes and
- 49:45let people learn, et cetera, et cetera.
- 49:47It becomes very computer-like, 'cause this is what triggered this memory, was , we're
- 49:53talking about AI can't do those things.
- 49:55But companies are becoming more scientific, if you will, and less human.
- 50:00And in there, there's no space, there's no, no tolerance for white
- 50:04space or, or ambiguity, which is where innovation really lives
- 50:09well, I think you posit a great theory worth exploring.
- 50:15concern might be, or my position would be, not sure that's true.
- 50:20I'm not sure we've lost white space.
- 50:22I'm not sure that we don't have as much time for thinking and being with people.
- 50:28Heck, you know, me, just my nature, it's a long story, but we spend too
- 50:34much time talking to each other.
- 50:37And, you know, when you think about it, like the meetings, the conferences,
- 50:42the whatever, I mean, taking the pulse of what everybody else is
- 50:46thinking has become the fundamental job of so many businesses, right?
- 50:52But it's not real though, man.
- 50:54I don't think it's real.
- 50:55I think it's, I think it's, it c- it just
- 50:57not real until it gets real.
- 50:59But I, I haven't solved that yet.
- 51:00I haven't figured out whether or not there is something profound in the nature
- 51:05of that or whether it's all garbage.
- 51:09Now, what's interesting from the Motorola story is they had to go
- 51:13from 20,000 to 3,800 employees just to manage the cost structure.
- 51:21And so, you know, so… A- and if you think about when Elon Musk bought
- 51:27X or, you know, Twitter, now X, the amount of headcount that was taken,
- 51:34he took out a billion dollars or whatever it was, and don't quote
- 51:37me on that, of headcount, right?
- 51:40And it's like, did it ever stop running?
- 51:43Did we ever not-- As a consumer, did you ever notice where that
- 51:47billion dollars headcount went?
- 51:51that's sort of two sides of the same coin.
- 51:52So how people add value, how the relationships with people add value,
- 51:57we just don't know that magic.
- 51:59I don't think we know why those eight people got together and why those eight
- 52:03people were even at Shockley to begin with, but we do know what they do.
- 52:06And, you know.
- 52:08And I would actually maybe, you know, from the nature of people in relationships, the
- 52:13risk is always, 'Cause I think it's great, do you-- have you ever heard of a Learjet?
- 52:18, Yeah, from you actually, bro.
- 52:20Private,
- 52:20Yeah
- 52:21jet, right?
- 52:22A Learjet.
- 52:23Well, guess what Lear did before he created He created eight-track tapes.
- 52:29He created the alternator in a car.
- 52:32created, with his buddy, the first radio, car radio that was sold to Galvin and
- 52:42his brother at Galvin Manufacturing.
- 52:45So Motorola grew out of the same guy who created the Learjet Who knew?
- 52:52Only to say that we don't know the na- we don't know everything about
- 52:57people in HR, but we need the, a- and the nature of sharing ideas,
- 53:02working ideas, and the value of that.
- 53:05I'm not too worried about it.
- 53:06I think people will figure it out.
- 53:08I guess I would close with the idea of something saw recently that I
- 53:12just felt was so wrong, I wanted to scream it to, to somewhere.
- 53:17But somebody said, you know, "Technology is gonna advance beyond the ability
- 53:21of people to use it." And I just thought, you know, my 40 years in the
- 53:27business says technology has never outstripped people's ability to use it.
- 53:34It's fundamentally constrained by people's ability to use it
- 53:41and adapt it, and adapt to it.
- 53:43Adopt it and adapt to it.
- 53:46So fear not, the world is a lot better , than, you know, people say.
- 53:51Get excited about it
- 53:53Awesome.
- 53:53And what I'm gonna do actually is I'm gonna get, if somebody, Paul,
- 53:57I, the opinion there I shared with Paul, I love your opinion.
- 54:01Email us at admin@theinnovationshow.io or on Substack or LinkedIn.
- 54:07Get in touch with me.
- 54:08Tell me what you think about that idea of the DNA changing, what Paul's
- 54:11point was and my point, and I have a copy of one of Paul's books for you.
- 54:15Not Mass Affluence, 'cause I don't have m- multiple copies, but I have loads.
- 54:19You can't see.
- 54:20I have a top shelf up there and I have loads of Paul's books because
- 54:23he will be coming to Ireland soon.
- 54:25I'm putting that out there, Paul.
- 54:27Bringing him over, and we'll be doing a session together, and it
- 54:30will be hopefully next year in 2027.
- 54:33Paul, for people who wanna find you, LinkedIn the best place?
- 54:37LinkedIn's the best place
- 54:39Brilliant.
- 54:39Okay, man.
- 54:40I wanna thank finally our sponsor, Kyndryl, who runs and reimagines the
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- 54:59You can find out more about Kyndryl at K-Y-N-D-R-Y-L.com, kyndryl.com.
- 55:04Paul, anything else before we sign off?
- 55:07That's good.
- 55:08Great as always to talk to you, man
- 55:10Always, always a pleasure, man.
- 55:11Enjoy Turkey.
- 55:13Don't, don't go, don't go missing on us over there.
- 55:16We need you back.
- 55:17We've loads more to talk about.
- 55:19Paul Nunes, thank you for joining us
- 55:22Thanks, Aidan
- 55:23Nice one, bro.