Waymo, Texas Culture, Airline Lounges, OpenAI & Uber Eats - Rory Sutherland

Welcome back. Good to see you.

It's a pleasure. What a joy. And And

here in Austin, too.

You're in Austin. Uh Bies. You went to Bies. Tell me.

Bies. Tell me.

Absolutely. I actually brought you a present.

Oh, I thought uh you know, it wouldn't be fair if I didn't bring you some local specialtities.

And of course, some uh some some beef jerky as well. Jalapeno honey, which I thought would be good. But the BIES thing is particularly good because they have a brand partnership with the uh TX dot, the Texas Department of

Transportation.

Okay. So, they licensed the don't mess with Texas advertising slogan.

Okay. Now, this may surprise you. The

don't mess with Texas. The rights to it actually belong to the Texas Department of Transportation cuz it was an anti-littering campaign.

You're kidding. No.

How old is this?

It dates back criy to the I think the 70s or or at least the very early 80s. I

think the 1970s. Okay. And it's a kind of famous advertising case study because how do you tell Texans not to litter?

Okay. Now, in other parts of the world, you know, simple kind of blandishments or appeals to their sort of, you know, you know, higher order concerns might

work, but this is a uniquely text and message lowkey aggression unspoken.

There's a kinetic interaction. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And actually,

funnily enough, when they presented it, one of the people said, "I find this a bit abrupt. Could we not make it, please

bit abrupt. Could we not make it, please don't mess." But of course, that doesn't

don't mess." But of course, that doesn't work, does it?

No. Unfortunately,

rather rather beautifully bies, which for the benefit of non-exan um audiences is it's one of those things which I think is proof that one of the great things Americans do is it proves

that you can take something that at a small scale is atrocious and if you make it big enough, it's a work of art. And

Bies has done this with the gas station by making it so enormous. You take it from something, you know, compar ghastly. Marching bands would be another

ghastly. Marching bands would be another case. You know, if you go and watch the

case. You know, if you go and watch the Texas A&M marching bands, marching bands are appalling at a small scale. I think

they're until there's 100 people or more.

But if there are 500 people doing it, it suddenly becomes magnificent.

Yeah. Well, I think the the interesting thing about Bies, for the people that haven't been, again, it's 100 pumps, maybe 200 pumps, something like that.

And then the biggest Costcoized building behind that sells everything from life rafts to barbecues to jerky to deer corn particularly. I think they

seem to go very big on deer corn which is not something I think I don't know whether it's a hunting thing. I mean

whether it's just that you want to attract deer to your I suspect that's unlikely. I suspect it's a hunting thing

unlikely. I suspect it's a hunting thing that like a trap or whatever. It's a

kind of way in which you sort of create a trail of deer corn and then they wander into your sights or something.

Bookie is one of the in fact the only fuel station gas station that I've ever been to that has so many pumps that even if you're not filling up for gas, you just pull up outside of one of the

pumps.

Well, I had an ethical dilemma as a Brit because my wife said, "Look, all these other cars next to the pumps are actually empty. The people have just

actually empty. The people have just left their car by the pump and they've gone into shop cuz it's under the shade." Now, you wouldn't do that in M&S simply foods back home. You know, you fill up, then

back home. You know, you fill up, then you pull into one of the parking spaces and get out of the way. But you're

right, there's so many pumps that the pump doubles as a parking space.

Yeah. It's also the only way that because that's covered over, right?

You're in the shade and so it just means that you don't get to be too hot.

They also have about 50 electric car chargers as well. They they've gone big.

Speaking of which, have you been in a Whimo yet?

Uh, no, because I tried to register.

Now, it's it's an Uber partnership in Austin.

It is. If you get an Uber, they'll But when I asked asked for when I asked for it, they said you're on a trial or something that I'm on some sort of maybe it's because you're British.

It could be. It could be some weird thing. Um, but interestingly, I'm I'm

thing. Um, but interestingly, I'm I'm still trying to get a Whimo. I had a friend who took one in San Francisco.

Actually, took about 10 because he became addicted to taking Whimos.

And his judgment, I don't know whether you agree with this, he's pretty comfortable in a driverless car just being driven around town. He

said out on the open highway if we hit 60 I'd get a bit nervous but he said at kind of town speeds he was he was pretty content.

I think the fastest that I'll have been will have been 35 mph. It's just a little But I I do have a theory. I'm

going to give you this one. So

I noticed when I was ordering Whimos on the app, it would say it's 10 minutes away or 5 minutes away and it would almost always be between 50% and 100% more time than it said it was to get to

me. It wasn't getting lost. It wasn't it

me. It wasn't getting lost. It wasn't it wasn't accidentally going somewhere and then when I got in my journey was also taking way longer. What I've realized is there's only two reasons I think that

humans behave on the road in regards to other drivers. One is fear of

other drivers. One is fear of retribution and the other is the guilt of inconveniencing another person. But

with a Whimo, both of those are taken out of the picture because the back windows are so blacked out that you can barely see if there's anyone in. There's

never anybody in the front seat. And

what retributive? They're not going to tailgate you and beep their horn. You

know, in America, road rage is a mortal endeavor given that everybody's armed.

So basically, every time a Whimo is at a junction, it gets no one lets it out. No

one behaves courteously to it. Everybody

knows if they pull in front pass pedestrians. I do it all the time when

pedestrians. I do it all the time when I'm walking. If I see a Whimo in front,

I'm walking. If I see a Whimo in front, I'm like, it's a little close. I'm like,

it's going to slow down. I mean there's an economist Douglas McWills in the UK and he and I occasionally talk about this because we're both car enthusiasts about the extent to which motoring

uh actually teaches social skills, social calculus.

So one of one of the little bits of social calculus a good driver would probably perform is that your readiness to let someone in from a side junction uh would be dependent on how fast you're

going already. If you're stuck in

going already. If you're stuck in traffic, okay, the calculus is, well, no skin off my nose. If I let this person in, I lose 5 ft of road or whatever, you

know, by being generous. Consequently,

we engage in those small acts of kind of altruism as motorists. We're also hugely sensitive to when you perform a favor, whether the person thanks you. So, one

of the great inventions which I think originated in Japan is the idea of flashing your hazard lights to say thank you if someone lets you in.

I've never had that in America.

I've seen it once or twice here. It's

less common, but it's spreading. It's

one of those strange things. It's it's a kind of I truck drivers kind of propagated it in the UK, but I mean I was remember talking to Robert Trivers

who's kind of like, you know, the kind of Diane of evolutionary.

Triv is a [ __ ] legend. Oh my god.

He he was talking about in Jamaica where you know your entire emotional reaction if you perform an act of generosity is nothing to do with the cost of the act of generosity. It's whether it's

of generosity. It's whether it's acknowledged.

Right?

So if you actually let someone through in East Kent in London nobody does it but in East Kent I noticed that if you pull in to allow someone to come through a you know a narrow it's usually

alongside a row of parked cars and you don't at least give them a little wave. It's

little wave. It's that's bad form. bad form. It's really

really not done. Um and but also we learn this kind of calculus of okay, how much does it benefit them versus how much does it cost me? And there's a kind of nonzero sum

domesticating effect being on the road.

So I I think that's probably true.

I wonder if that's contributing to some of the extended adolescence delayed development thing we're seeing among Gen Z.

They don't drive. the fewer and fewer people if you're not careful can be quite psychopathic.

Mhm. There's that guy in London, right, that catches people that do that illegal U-turn.

What's his name? Isn't he Australian?

Exactly. He's actually I think he's Zimbabwean. White Zimbabwean originally.

Zimbabwean. White Zimbabwean originally.

Oh god, that's a terrifying combination.

It's not promising. I don't want to get on the wrong side of the white Zimbabwe.

Interesting on the the road thing.

Cycling Mikey, he's called. Yeah. uh in

the US. So if you in the UK, if you are in front of the car that is in the lane that you're trying to get into and the car that's in the lane you're trying to get into isn't moving quicker than you,

you're either moving at the same pace or around about the same pace, it is almost maybe 90% of the time the car that's in the lane you're trying to get into should pull back, give you a little flash, and alert you to go in.

Right? If you're more than about half a car length in front of them, they can see your your indicator, you do that. In

the US, people treat their lanes like it's their territory. They're so [ __ ] Texans, interestingly, despite their reputation for individualism. Texan

drivers seem to be quite generous. I

mean, apparently Massachusetts is the worst place. But you're right about the

worst place. But you're right about the whole thing of lane possessiveness. Um,

that it's more extreme here than it is over in the UK. But your point, by the way, is quite worrying because it occurs to me that we're breeding a generation of young urban people who can't drive

and therefore that sort of domesticating uh influence is is lost. If you just sit around in public transport, you lose that social calculus. And it occurred to me

that when I say they can't drive, they may have passed their test and they may have a driving license, but there's a problem because very different to being able to drive.

Well, if you live in London, two problems, okay? One, you don't drive

problems, okay? One, you don't drive very often. All right? Secondly, driving

very often. All right? Secondly, driving

in London's horrible anyway. It's not

really enjoyable. But the third problem is something had to be driving is only really enjoyable when you do it frequently. So, you'll know this

frequently. So, you'll know this experience. Okay, you pick up a higher

experience. Okay, you pick up a higher car, you're in an unfamiliar country.

The higher car is unfamiliar. You're not

quite sure where the indicator thing is.

Um the the the country may have sort of weird norms like four-way stops that you're unfamiliar with. For the first 24 hours of driving, you don't enjoy it.

You know, you're fumbling around. It's

it's system what is it? It's system two, not system one, to use a carnival phrase. It's only with frequency that

phrase. It's only with frequency that driving becomes system one. So now I've been in Texas for 5 days. I'll pretty

much pick up the car outside the hotel and I'll drift off pretty contentedly.

The first, you know, the first 5 hours of driving were a little bit fraught.

And it suddenly occurred to me that a lot of people, if you live in a city and you don't drive frequently and you only rent cars, you don't know what it is to enjoy driving.

Yeah. You're always in that alien sort of alien kind of initial zone where it's, you know, it's kind of um you haven't got over the hump.

Mhm.

No, I love driving. I've heard you say that.

So, what have you, Given that you've lived in Texas for a few years, what what have you gone for? I've got to ask about this.

Uh 6.2 L V8 Camaro.

Fantastic. Okay, that's brilliant. Yeah,

you you've assimilated. Correct. I've

gone totally [ __ ] feral, I think, rather than assimilating.

Uh, it's beautiful. It's really fun, dude. It was

dude. It was 40 grand, 45 grand USD.

Oh, don't I know? It's insane. Don't for

a 22 model. It was beautiful. It was

everything that I wanted. It's got

wireless Apple CarPlay. It's got cooled seats that you can uh press the remote start and it'll turn the engine on and begin air conditioning the car before you get in, including cooling the seats

down, which in 105° weather is actually literally it's [ __ ] lifeanging. Yeah,

exactly. And I was like, and this is 35 grand GBP, 30 less than that maybe.

I mean, they they pay for cars in dollars less than we pay for them in sterling generally.

It's crazy. So, uh yeah, I love it. I

love it. It's it's

Yeah, I hope actually This is one area where Trump's tariff negotiations. I'd

quite like to volunteer for the Trump team negotiating with the UK trade people on the grounds, you know, compulsory and zero duty on Mac trucks.

Well, exchange. You can have our Land Rovers, you can have our Rolls-Royces, you can have our Mini Coopers, and we'll You want a Corvette?

Yeah. Well, you would upgrade your Mustang Mache.

Yeah. No, no.

Have you still got it?

I've still got it. Love it. Actually,

I'm debating. There's an interesting question about whether the new Cadillac L will be introduced which is electric um and is arguably perhaps uh what would I say? Well, you know, it's an

I say? Well, you know, it's an extraordinary I I like luxury cars.

Okay, so this is this is slightly embarrassing. I used to have a German

embarrassing. I used to have a German boss and I used to really really rile him by saying things like Lincoln Town Car, best car in the world. Okay, cuz

when you got off an 8-hour flight in New York, that's what you want to sit in, isn't it? To be driven into New York.

isn't it? To be driven into New York.

And I think Europeans are absolutely unhealthily obsessed with cornering on the grounds that you don't do it right.

Acceleration is really valuable. You

don't throw your passengers around corners at extreme speed. I don't, you know, I don't drive as if I'm on the [ __ ] Nuremberg ring, okay? I drive in a way that maximizes sort of I like a

little bit of speed and maneuverability, but I I don't want all this y about hurling things around hairpins. So, a

really good American car. This is not a fashionable opinion, I might add, in Britain, but my love of American cars is unabated. Yeah.

unabated. Yeah.

Good. How would you improve airport experiences? I've spent a lot of time in

experiences? I've spent a lot of time in airports recently.

So, I mean, one of the interesting ones is they're too big. I mean, the you know, the the shopping center component, which was novel when it first started,

has now become obligatory, and you basically have to walk through the Houston Galleria before you can catch your plane. Um and um London City

your plane. Um and um London City Airport. You've probably used that, have

Airport. You've probably used that, have you?

No, I've never been.

I've never Okay, it's what this is. This is what's so funny.

Okay, so there's an idea I'm playing with in marketing generally and in innovation, which I call reverse benchmarking. Okay, so the idea is what

benchmarking. Okay, so the idea is what most companies do is they benchmark themselves against their competition.

Now, the great writer on this is a guy called Roger L. Martin who's my own personal he's Canadian my own personal business guru extensive writer he was dean of the Rottman school in Toronto

and he wrote a piece called benchmarking is for losers okay that all you do is you you diminish your margins by making yourself in direct competition with your

other competitors so you don't benefit uh your uh your profits or your shareholders and also you don't benefit your customers okay and And the reason you don't benefit

your customers is because they're then deprived of choice and and differentiation. And you don't benefit

differentiation. And you don't benefit the overall category because the category loses value because it's more homogeneous. Okay. And my argument is

homogeneous. Okay. And my argument is and I got this inspiration from that great book, you've probably had him on, will have you ever had him on?

No.

Okay. Unreasonable hospitality.

Fantastic book about a guy who ran 11 Madison Park. He's a major sort of food

Madison Park. He's a major sort of food innovator in all kinds of ways.

I think he's married to the woman who invented cereal milk, which I think is one of the most brilliant inventions, which is, you know, the milk you get at the bottom of cocoa pops would be the British, which is tastier than anything

else you've ever drunk. And she had the inspired idea of just flavoring milk with breakfast cereal and selling it as a drink, which I think is just genius.

Okay. Now, his brilliant thing was he's number 50. I've told this story a lot,

number 50. I've told this story a lot, so apologies to people who heard this before. He's number 50 uh restaurant in

before. He's number 50 uh restaurant in the world in the San Pelgrren restaurant awards. It's a three star Michel

awards. It's a three star Michel restaurant New York. That's 2011. He

wants to get to number one. Pretty, you

know, remote ambition. It's not going to be easy. But one of the things he did

be easy. But one of the things he did was what I call reverse benchmarking. He

took his team to the number one restaurant in the world and they started doing what we all do, which is how are we doing compared to them? They do this

really well. Let's copy it, etc. And at

really well. Let's copy it, etc. And at the end of the whole experience, Gdara just goes to seem, I'm not interested in any of that stuff. They're already doing that. Well, if we merely copy them, no

that. Well, if we merely copy them, no one will notice. What I want to know, given that you've just been to the best restaurant in the world, according to San Pelgrino, um, is what what was a bit

disappointing, cuz we're going to double down on that.

All right.

And the the approach was they finally came up with two things that were a bit disappointing which was one the coffee was nothing special. I mean I found American coffee quality unbelievably

high variance and they just said it was fine. The coffee wasn't disgusting. It

fine. The coffee wasn't disgusting. It

was just there was nothing particularly interesting about it. And of course because he taken a few people to the kitchen along a few of them wanted to drink beer. And the beer drinkers were

drink beer. And the beer drinkers were treated a bit like secondass citizens compared to the wine drinkers who are given all manner of [ __ ] with a you know sleier and a load of conversation

about the terois you know and so he goes back to his own restaurant and he appoints one of his guys who's a coffee obsessive the coffee sleier and another

guy I think from the kitchens who is obsessed with American craft beers or all craft beers he makes him the beer smell now imagine you're in this restaurant now most of the people in the restaurant aren't going to ask for beer

here, but 10 or 20% of them will. Okay?

And and they're expecting, yeah, we got Sam Adams on draft or we've got this in bottles. And instead, they get a beer

bottles. And instead, they get a beer menu from the beer simlier with suggested beer pairings. You know, the citrus IPA goes really, really well with

the cod or whatever it might be. Now,

those people, you've blown their minds.

Okay? It's not a question of, "Hey, that was a bit better than I expected." So

this reverse benchmarking is find out something that your competitors have completely overlooked, do it really, really well and I would argue as a marketer and then actually

turn it into a feature, you know, spotlight it. And you could you could

spotlight it. And you could you could almost take this and make it into a I'm not going to say it's everything, but it's a generalized theory of innovation,

which is, you know, what Steve Jobs did was take a field where everybody was focused on the tech and the capability of the machine to the complete exclusion of any aesthetic or usability consideration.

You made it beautiful.

And what he does is go, okay, now what what I'm not saying is you can be [ __ ] at the technology so long as you make it lovely. No, you merely have to be kind

lovely. No, you merely have to be kind of, you know, what you might call top desile in what you do somewhere else.

But then you go off and you find the area which everybody else has ignored.

And I I look at things like I'm a big fan of the Moxy hotel chain. I often

talk about that. And what that is is double down on the ground floor. You

know, make the ground we work on the ground floor. Don't feel

weird when you've checked out.

And that that's one of the marvelous benefits you discover through experience. uh you know that actually

experience. uh you know that actually after I've checked out of a moxy I every other hotel makes me feel homeless but the moxy you you know you okay take your shopping trolley and your plastic bags

and go and push them through the streets until your flight leaves whereas in the moxy you just hang out for another 5 hours and get on with some [ __ ] and order their coffee and you don't feel

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wisdom and modern wisdom a checkout. So

what would you do to airports? Right.

That's a really interesting question. Um

uh what interests me about London City Airport is the fact that there's a natural benchmarking tendency which is that when I was a kid the rich kids had been to you know they might have been to

actually wouldn't have been Dubai back then would have been char but they've been to Skipol or they've been to Changi in Singapore they it's amazing their shops you know it's like because back then we hadn't seen a shopping center

before and it was really novel you know I bought Walkman you know it was fantastic right And then suddenly all airports became like that. Okay. And

suddenly people went, if you've been to London City, it's incredible. You go in and 6 minutes later you're at the gate.

There hardly any shops. It's brilliant.

Okay.

So there is a really really interesting idea. I mean there is scope, lots of

idea. I mean there is scope, lots of scope for really interesting innovation.

Um I think it's a lot easier. Also, it's

worth noting it's a lot easier if you want to premiumize an experience. It's a

lot easier to in innovate on the ground than it is in the air. Now there is a fantastic thing which a friend of mine called Jeremy Stone tells me about which is at Washington Dallas where they still

have these vehicles which I think were designed by Ero Sarinan the Finnish kind of inventor where your lounge drives to the plane.

Okay. So you get in something that looks like a room where you're all sit sitted down and you know you've got a few little tables and you're comfortable and then the actual lounge is on wheels and drives to the plane.

Wow. Now, it's a really really interesting innovation because there's a Soviet era innovation thing called Tris,

uh, which is it it's the Russian fora technique for creative innovation or something. And they have a whole list of

something. And they have a whole list of kind of principles, one of which is make the thing that stays still move and make the thing that moves stay still.

It's just something in kind of mechanical and engineering innovation which is a different way of looking at things. And so what's interesting about

things. And so what's interesting about that of course is you the planes don't need then to go to a gate. So the

constraint first of all you probably save a lot of fuel because the plane doesn't have to spend so much time taxiing. The plane can be parked pretty

taxiing. The plane can be parked pretty much next to the runway.

Can have a much smaller number of gates or whatever it is.

And you and it means that every time you expand your airport, you just buy a few more vehicles. You don't have to go into

more vehicles. You don't have to go into a $1 billion.

Well, you treat you treat your airport more like a car park in a building, right? How can we slot these different

right? How can we slot these different maneuvering Lego pieces together so that they can [ __ ] off in a straight line toward where the plane is?

Here's a weird one. So, one thing would be nothing to do with airports themselves, but it occurred to me the other day. I was thinking I was trying

other day. I was thinking I was trying to do a bit of reverse benchmarking. No

hotels offer you a monitor, okay?

You might have a 4K You might have a 4K, you know, 85 in TV, but in order to plug your laptop into it, you'd have to rip the thing off the wall. Okay. It's weird

to me that no hotels offer a dual screen experience. And it's weird to me that

experience. And it's weird to me that car hire companies, if you wanted to, if you wanted to employ all of America's young people in the summer, see see if

you agree with me. If you could pay a car hire company, very simple thing. You

pay a hundred bucks, okay? And it's big money, okay? We will meet you at the

money, okay? We will meet you at the arrivals gate and with your keys and we will walk you to your car. Oh yeah,

that's good. Like a concurge because Yeah, because that's the wor a car hire is terrifying. If you if you're familiar with the airport, it's fine.

Okay, but if you're going Where's the AIS? Oh, no. That's the

Enterprise.

We We've moved off site, so there's a shuttle bus.

There's a huge queue that I need to get through.

Yeah, I haven't pre-registered my driver's ID. All of this stuff hasn't

driver's ID. All of this stuff hasn't been submitted. Here's a QR code. Here's

been submitted. Here's a QR code. Here's

a single piece of ID that says I'm the person with the QR code. Here's a

one-time password that's texted to the phone that two factor authenticates the fact I'm here. Hello, sir. Have you ever been through uh Dubai airport or or the Middle East and been met by one of those conc?

Sibaya, I think it's No, I haven't got that right. That's wrong. There's a word

that right. That's wrong. There's a word for it which is an Arabic word for hospitality or welcome.

So, you get off, you walk off the plane.

There might be a book by someone in the 12th century. So, don't don't ignore

12th century. So, don't don't ignore that bit. Okay. Uh you walk off the

that bit. Okay. Uh you walk off the plane and someone meets you there. It's

the same as being picked up by a driver at the arrivals gate exit, but it happens as you get off the plane at the gate and then they say, "Oh, Mr.

Williamson, here let me take your bags.

Let me take you through a special bit of immigration. Here's a a ar a rivals

immigration. Here's a a ar a rivals lounge that you can get into. Please

give me all of your documents. I'll go

and speak to the people for you. This is

and it's airond conditioned and lovely and there's water and a cool towel that smells of cucumber and they look after your immigration experience in I've only ever done this once and it wasn't me that was paying.

It would be nice as well if I mean because actually the airport experience if if you do it if you go through it frequently does get weirdly stressful and annoying precisely in a weird way

because it's repetitive and there's that paranoia that you're only one lost bit of paper away from complete we we were debating this. Why is it that airports

debating this. Why is it that airports are so stressful? Now, there are a load of things. Why is it that the uh the

of things. Why is it that the uh the boarding pass is completely unlike the dimensions of your passport? Shouldn't

it have kind of 3M sticky post-it note glue on the back?

Well, imagine if every imagine if every um passport around the world just had a small number of magnets on each corner and you could have a tiny bit of printed on the printed paper, a tiny bit of

magnet. It snaps onto the back the same

magnet. It snaps onto the back the same way that your um iPhone has the Mag Safe thing on the back and all that you need to do is hand the person, hey, here's passport and boarding pass. Cuz that's

the thing, you know, you don't ever know when you're going through TSA at the front. Sometimes they seem to want your

front. Sometimes they seem to want your passport. Sometimes they seem to want

passport. Sometimes they seem to want your boarding pass and I can never [ __ ] tell before I get there.

There's, by the way, a very interesting hack there. I mean the various hacks,

hack there. I mean the various hacks, one of which is and I can do a bit of product placement here for the hotel Emma in San Antonio which is absolutely fantastic by the way. Um is I do actually carry an open bag because the

trouble the trouble with having everything zipped up as I said the spectator is that every time you want to retrieve something it's like making love to a goth. You know they're just too

many zips. Okay, right? You know you

many zips. Okay, right? You know you know you know what I mean? It's it's

kind of you know this te Oh god I left that thing. Oh, which of these 17

that thing. Oh, which of these 17 compartments is it in? And I think a lot of a lot of baggage design has gone in the wrong direction, which is multiple sealed compartments. But you actually

sealed compartments. But you actually need one thing where you just go, I'll chuck it in there.

I have a friend who uses a workman's bag, like a carry that you would have drills in.

You you unfold.

No, no, no. Imagine that, but cut the top half off and make the handles longer. So, it's basically a tray.

longer. So, it's basically a tray.

Clever.

Yeah. And it would have, you know, this is where the hammer goes. This is where the drill goes and you can see everything from above and he just picks his bits out and puts them back in.

So, London City Airport, which I recommend you because I think you can fly to Newcastle from there. I'm not

quite sure.

It has some pretty good strengths in that they have the new scanners so you don't need to take your laptop out of the bag. Now, it's amazing how

the bag. Now, it's amazing how irritating that is. It shouldn't be, okay, but you know, the kind of rigmmoral you've got to go through deciding what goes into your check luggage, what goes into your hand

luggage is really, really tedious. M

um so there are technologies which are starting to improve things undoubtedly um cuz I I mean it is kind of weird uh

why that's so unpleasant but I suppose I suppose what it is is there's something about going back to school about an airport which is you're at the mercy of various being dictated to you got to wait in cues you can't you can't do the thing you want another element

a slightly weird one I would think which is oh you great privileges in you're in group one uh which means you get to wait in an unair air conditioned air bridge for 11 minutes

standing there like a pratt before we'll let you onto the plane whereas I imagine the people in the later groups can just breeze straight on I don't know what's going on sometime so I think it's an interesting

one at least in America uh something I've noticed I live 12 minutes maybe 15 minutes from Austin airport the reason that it gets stressful to me is that

there's an inverse curve of tolerance that you have because you start to take the piss more and more. You assume that with experience, you're able to navigate the airport more quickly, but it's

mostly out of your control. Yes, maybe

you've got all of your stuff in the right places. You've packed the night

right places. You've packed the night before. You've already pre-ordered the

before. You've already pre-ordered the Uber. You know when it's going to come.

Uber. You know when it's going to come.

You know that if you order Uber Black XL that it actually arrives a little bit quicker or they can take a different road because of the HPV people or whatever the [ __ ] But then when you get

there, if TSA is slammed or if you, you know, you forgot that it's the beginning of spring break or something else that's going on, you're still going to be screwed. So for me, the problem is as

screwed. So for me, the problem is as you get more experienced at it, you try to take the piss more, but your experience isn't able to impact how quickly you can really go through the airport experience.

So you know this, you know this weird thing that you know the biggest car company in the world doesn't own any cars. That's Uber. you know, the biggest

cars. That's Uber. you know, the biggest lodgings company in the world doesn't own any property. That's Airbnb.

And I always wondered whether you I'll piggy back on Ryionaire, which for American listeners is a bit like Spirit Air, okay? Uh in the US, it's a very

Air, okay? Uh in the US, it's a very ultra lowcost carrier. Okay? And this is how you do it. You basically produce, you have a luxury airline, which was totally benile in the air, but then

that's only an hour and a half anyway in Europe. Okay? So, you'd buy a country

Europe. Okay? So, you'd buy a country house near Stanstead airport and it would cost you £600 return to go to, let's say, Madrid, okay? And you'd turn up at the country house, park your car,

there'd be a party going on like something out of Eyes Wide Shut or you know the beach party in the the Wolf of Wall Street, you know, there'd be fine wines and Belgian chocolates and then

you'd be driven to your Ryan airplane.

Okay, cost of flight £17.95.

Okay. And then you be kind of met at the other end.

So in other words, in other words, you take a totally benile experience in the air, but you absolutely make the ground experience fant in parenthesis of something that's wonderful.

So there's I mean there's emphatically scope for creating a kind of parallel network of uh air routes which are small airport to small airport simply because

you know Austin probably is a is a lot easier than say Houston or Dallas.

Although Dallas Dallas gets very high scores from users.

Um great.

It actually Dallas DFW employed its own behavioral scientist, someone called Courtney Moore. I don't know if she's

Courtney Moore. I don't know if she's still there, but she had some very very interesting ideas. So how do you stop

interesting ideas. So how do you stop people feeling compelled to queue before the gate has opened? And one of her ideas was you made the gate ambiguous until it you were ready to board.

So you don't know where you're supposed to. basically say, you know, your flight

to. basically say, you know, your flight to London from DFW is boarding from gate 47 or 48. So you go, well, there's no point of me standing in a queue cuz I might choose the wrong gate and I'll look like a pratt, so I'll go and sit in

the coffee shop instead.

That's clever.

And then only when the gate opens does it become obvious which gate is actually your gate.

It's interesting with gates because you can be more and less lucky based on where the gate's located and what the close uh retail spots are around it. If

you're in between the DKNY and the Louis Vuitton shop, you think, "What the [ __ ] I wanted to be next to the Starbucks."

Heathro Terminal 5. Everybody thinks

Pamon good. If you're going through Heathro Terminal 5, you need to go to Predtoon. It's a British staple, even

Predtoon. It's a British staple, even though I don't think it's British. It's

not meant to be.

I think it's it's built in Britain, but Ptoon is hardly a [ __ ] You might be right. It might be owned by McDonald's actually.

I think it is. Okay.

Um, but if you if you're looking at the main Prets at the far side, you've come in from the back. If you take a left all the way down toward the lower numbers away from the business class lounge behind you really hacked this

keep all keep going all the way all the way all the way down to the end. Take a

left. Keep going. Keep going. Keep

going. There is a much smaller prep that's there that still has everything but it's down and on the side and there's never any queue. You've got a little walk in. You go past the WHNS.

Have a little look at any of the box.

But it is a There used to be a brilliant EasyJet hack which was that there was a pillar at the end of the checkin desk. I don't

think it works anymore at Gatwick. And

the pillar led people to believe that there was only one gate there, but there were actually two, but the queue was the same length. Okay. So, it was actually

same length. Okay. So, it was actually uh because because nobody could see the extra little check-in desk.

Effectively, the queue moved twice as fast.

Um I think they've changed it now so everybody cues in one line, but there used to be a rather brilliant I mean, there are little hacks you can find. So,

an interesting Okay, here's an interesting theory for airports. Okay.

which is that generally people who fly infrequently aren't that bothered by streamlining the whole process whereas George Clooney and up in the air if

you're a totally frequent flyer you get almost unhealthily obsessed with streamlining the process and one clever thing you can do as an airport it probably wouldn't work at the

scale of something like Heath Row is you could build in secret shortcuts which were known to your uh the tube has them.

I mean, the London Underground. So,

there are places where it signposts the exit is over there. But the Kanye know that if you turn right down a, you know, down a funny little tunnel, you cut 150 yards off your walk.

But it wouldn't do to advertise it because it couldn't handle the traffic.

Advertise it. You simply allow them to be Easter eggs.

Okay. So, let me give you, let me give you an Easter egg, which is going to ruin this for everybody that's listening. Uh, Amsterdam Skipple

listening. Uh, Amsterdam Skipple Airport. If you go to their

Airport. If you go to their That's a really annoying airport, by the way, because they should have made it two terminals. Really? Yeah.

two terminals. Really? Yeah.

Okay. So, what they've done is they've endlessly expanded that airport, you know and D E F G and if you're if you're from gate whatever is C48, I mean, frankly, you

could have walked home, you know.

Um, so most of the a lot of people have layovers in Amsterdam. It's a real hub.

It's well well positioned. Uh, problem

is it's kind of a bit of a [ __ ] on to find somewhere to relax. It's really

difficult. And the way that they've done this, kind of the same way that those benches have been designed in New York City to mean that homeless people can't lie on them because they're precisely the inverse of the shape that a human

spine is supposed to make. Some weird

medieval torture device that's masquerading as a [ __ ] piece of art next to the street.

Um, but gate D2 in Amsterdam Skipol airport is the only one that I've found that doesn't have armrests in between the seats. So, it's a low bench that's

the seats. So, it's a low bench that's padded and there's no armrests in between it. D2 Skipple. Is that right?

between it. D2 Skipple. Is that right?

D2 Skipple. And you can lie down, put the put the thing on, you can lie flat on this. I've spent many of time at

on this. I've spent many of time at there's a gate in London City, which is most people stay in the main kind of holding pen, but if you walk towards gate three or something, there's a little cafe and a seating area next to

it, which most people don't know about.

So that's that that's whoever whoever staffing the [ __ ] Yeah. Whoever's staffing the Easter egg

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That's nomatic.com/modern

wisdom. Talk to me about uh takeaway food. We you linked me in with some guy

food. We you linked me in with some guy that makes crazy Indian takeaway food.

Oh yes. It's Nostalgia Foods and um Narish Sara. Yeah. Who's a food

Narish Sara. Yeah. Who's a food scientist at Berkeley who uh like most Indian immigrants and indeed British immigrants to the United States.

Definitely wily disappointed.

Well, not always. There are there are very good Indian restaurants in in the US, but they're few. Okay. I mean

certainly in proportion. I mean of course there wasn't much of an Indian population and of course your spicy food is partly taken care of with things like Texmex etc. M okay but anybody who's

either British or or Indian or Pakistani Bengali etc uh would feel a bit deprived and so he's found this technology where you basically you can ship chefs over

from hydrobad uh they then prepare biryani which you then preserve using NASA food preserving technology and I've tried it and I've shared it

with other people and it's astounding.

Was it was it the parathas that you were talking about?

Oh that's a different one. That's a

thing called a frozen paratha, which you probably could get here. Um uh uh and that's that's an extraordinary thing cuz you just weirdly you don't thaw them.

Take them straight out of the freezer, bang them with a bit of oil in a frying pan. Uh about 1 minute each side and

pan. Uh about 1 minute each side and it's fantastic. Yeah. I I can't believe

it's fantastic. Yeah. I I can't believe I the email thread that I was put in was somebody somebody at berkeley.edu edu telling me that my industrial-sized

order of NASA freeze-dried [ __ ] Indian food had been I was like what how have these five different things contributed to result in me eating Indian food but rank

he makes he also makes haleem which is one of my favorite things of all time by the way if you've never had item it's it's usually I think lamb and I think wheat grass which is kind of soaked overnight in some shape so it's

like the only way you can describe is like a very meaty porridge and then you and pimp it. If you ever go to Saloo in Kennon Street in London, they they then bring you a little tray which has little bits of chili, little bits of ginger,

little bits of something else, maybe saffron, and then you pimp the top of it by sprinkling these things over like you make your own pizza.

Yeah. Yeah. And then it sits probably sits on top of rice or or Yeah.

Typically, I think it would come with rice. Absolutely magnificent thing. It's

rice. Absolutely magnificent thing. It's

wonderful. And he makes haleem. He makes

biryani. Um and and hydrai biryani is considered the kind of gold standard in India.

Okay. um what's happened with changes in people's ordering preferences given that so much of this is now done over screen.

You look at McDonald's, you look at even I I would be very interested to know the difference between a touch.

Okay, this has a really interesting I don't normally talk about AI because everybody else does. But one thing that strikes me as interesting about AI is when you change the context and the

choice architecture within which people choose. So it's a screen rather than

choose. So it's a screen rather than face to face. Okay, they make different choices.

If you want my frank opinion, I think the whole property market is broken because everybody searches for property in the same way. Okay. Uh now one way in

which you can innovate very reliably is it's quite hard to change a million people's behavior. Okay? Because people

people's behavior. Okay? Because people

are driven by habit and they you know they've already got a I mean they've already got a solution to the problem a lot of the time. Yours may be better, but they're, you know, I mean, literally when mobile phones were invented, we

forget this because your generation think nobody had mobile phones. They

invented the mobile phone, everybody bought a mobile phone. It was about 20 something years before it reached kind of, you know, mainstream adoption. Now,

part of that was price, part of that was technology. A lot of it was people

technology. A lot of it was people saying things like, "Why would I want to make a phone call on the street?" I mean I literally because they didn't really envisage the value that a mobile phone

brought you until they owned one. Okay.

And there's also the whole social proof thing that in the early days of owning a mobile phone you were a bit of a wanker.

Okay. So translation for Americans jerk.

Okay.

Now uh what's got interesting there is that behavior is slow to change. Okay. But if

you change the context or the or the interface which people use to make a decision, everybody's behavior changes.

And so in McDonald's, one of the things they found, I think people tend to order a bit more when they order on a screen.

I think I've heard anecdotally that the number of particularly males who order a meal with two burgers in it has gone up a lot because you felt awkward doing that face to face even with a complete

stranger who you are never going to meet again in your life. You just felt a bit awkward, okay, doing it. Whereas when

when you're ordering on a screen, they don't even know how many of you there are, okay, because it's a screen.

Obviously, upselling may or cross-elling may become easier. You know, there's a limit in a spoken conversation. So it

does strike me as interesting with AI which is if which is possible. You know there's this new device I think Johnny Ives been involved in I wanted to talk about that which is a thing which you wear around

your neck and it uses the processing power of your mobile phone but it basically talks to you.

Okay. I think you'll also need a matching eye piece.

I think that the glasses pieces would be quite good. I think wouldn't I could see you. That stinks of you.

Absolutely stinks of you.

the digital monle. Yes. the digital

ponet for uh yeah or or lunette you know those things on a handle which you but um uh they um uh if you change the way

in which so if if suddenly instead of going to a screen I'm going I need to renew I need to rent a car I you know I' I'd like you to show me details of this I need to choose a toaster and that

changes from being screenbased to say conversational and iterative then everything changes okay Well, there's a okay there's a possible way in

which AI will make me completely redundant which is not in the way that most people anticipate which is advertising generally is a business trying to reach consumers.

Okay. The natural

direction of travel of an AI empowered world would surely be the other way round where consumers appoint agents to find them things to buy.

So actually once you have unlimited what you might call search there are no search costs you know okay right for the consumer effectively in the sense that

the searching is being done by an AI uh agent then effectively what you're doing is the consumer is appointing an advertising

agency to find them stuff rather than the company appointing an advertising agency to find them customers.

And I can't see, you know, um, now I'm sure there, you know, I'm sure, you know, I don't think I'm going to starve to death, but it does strike me that that would seem a pretty natural direction of travel. And, for example,

things like the, you know, the real estate industry now. Okay. Now, that

that sort of works with fairly crude search, but it's not I I think it's very very simplistic, which is where do you want to buy a house? How much do you want to spend? Do you want a flat? Do

you want a house? Do you want to buy? Do

you want to rent? Okay,

that's actually it seems perfectly satisfying to the person going through that process, but I don't think it's a very any more than dating apps are a great way of finding a lifetime partner necessarily.

Okay. Uh, you know, the process of dating probably should be highly iterative, which is that you use what you find in the marketplace to refine your preferences.

Yeah. You train it over time. You do it with your YouTube algorithm. Even

Spotify. Spotify suggests new bands and songs to me. Like this really know. I

wouldn't have even picked that and it knows. And that going back to your air

knows. And that going back to your air fryer girlfriend, not a Corvette girlfriend idea. Experience good. Look,

girlfriend idea. Experience good. Look,

just trust. Trust that I know your preferences.

There are things where the experience is better than the promise. There are

things where I mean the classic case where I always think the experience and the promise are absolutely loggerheads in consumerism is camping equipment. So

you buy a tent or a sleeping bag and the thing that really impresses you is how small it is when it's in the bag. Okay?

And then you use that sleeping bag, you take it out of its bag and it turns into something, you know, basically the size of the Hindenburg, right? Okay. You

think that is magnificent. How do they manage to get that sleeping bag into that tiny bag? And then it's raining and it's 8:00 the next day and you've got to get the sleeping bag back in the bag wet. Okay. Wet. And it's a living

wet. Okay. Wet. And it's a living [ __ ] nightmare. So you could say there are air flyer girlfriends and there are sleeping bag girlfriends.

Okay. There girlfriend is wow this is much better than I you know it's much more than it said on the tin and the sleeping van girlfriend is god it looks

so great but I mean that about all kinds of things are like that which is you know the conflict between the promise and you know and you know undoubtedly advertising I think sometimes overpromises and underdelivers and then

there are experiences where you underpromise and overd deliver um interesting with the way that dopamine works with that stuff right that overpromising on the front end is good for getting people through the door and

I imagine that you can launch businesses very hard with that but how do you get repeat purchase and how do you get good customer satisfaction with that actually I wish very interesting question

actually I wish there were there are a few things this is the whole question of how search works and it's it really comes into the field of sort of decision

science and choice architecture okay so at the moment you tend to at ratings for restaurants. And I've always wanted in hotels. And one thing I've

always wanted Trip Adviser to offer is a list of uh the most polarizing hotels, okay? Because really interesting hotels

okay? Because really interesting hotels are going to be slightly divisive. Okay?

The moxy would be divisive actually.

You know, if you turned up, if you're a family of four, if you're a family of four, you [ __ ] there's no kids club.

But anything that's really good for some people is probably going to be deficient on some other measure. You know, I mean, the most extreme I've always given this example, the hotel I stayed in in East

Berlin, uh, where it was, it was a former East German police station. The

the rooms had been cells. Okay. You

actually slept on a large platform above your own shower because there wasn't room in the cell to have a whole bed and separate shower. There was one

separate shower. There was one television in the room. It was black and white. Wasn't even a flat screen, one

white. Wasn't even a flat screen, one channel. And it showed still does show

channel. And it showed still does show to this day the big Labowski on continuous loop. Now if you'd turned up

continuous loop. Now if you'd turned up expecting the Marriott, okay, it would have been literally traum traumatizing.

Okay. On the other hand, if you wanted something that was authentically Berlin experience holiday and I ought to make the point, okay, um I ought to make the point that in the middle of the hotel, it was a bit like

the moxy in that thing in that we invest in the communal areas, not in the rooms. Okay. There was a barista and a coffee

Okay. There was a barista and a coffee shop. You sure it wasn't a panopticon in

shop. You sure it wasn't a panopticon in the middle of that or everybody's room being looked at?

I'm I'm pretty sure you're right. It

should have been a panopticon. You

shouldn't That would have been real authentic.

In the middle in a kind of courtyard was literally a a coffee shop where I had probably the best flat white I've had in my life.

When are we going to get a Hindenburg?

We spoke about this last night.

The derigible.

Yeah. What's Talk to me about everybody's desire to have a derigible.

Well, I've always wondered, by the way, I didn't fully answer the first question about star ratings, but I've always wondered, you mentioned repeat purchase.

Nearly all businesses overinvest in acquisition and underinvest in in in um customer retention, right? And the

reason is I I'll tell you the companies I don't think do that. I think

family-owned companies tend not to because they've got kind of reputational skin in the game and they've got longerterm time horizons and they're actually building a brand. Okay. I think

companies that are owned by like private equity, companies that have short-term time horizons are obsessed with quantification. And it's always easier

quantification. And it's always easier to quantify and measure acquisition of customers than it is to to actually measure retention of customers because retention of customers is harder to

measure, but it's also slow. Okay? If

you do something, but I would argue, and this is when I this is where I was going to go, the only really obviously it doesn't work for one-off purchases like marriage. Okay. Right. It wouldn't work

marriage. Okay. Right. It wouldn't work for Okay. But repeat purchase, you know,

for Okay. But repeat purchase, you know, Amazon should have a kind of repeat purchase ometer. Obviously, again, not

purchase ometer. Obviously, again, not on things you'd only buy once in your life.

But actually, it's a pretty significant measure.

It's not just how many people bought this thing. It's how many people that

this thing. It's how many people that bought this thing before rebought.

So, to tediously go back to air fryers, okay, very simple question. If your air fryer broke, would you go and buy another one the next day? Yes, probably

you would. Okay. Now that's not true of yogurt makers. Okay.

yogurt makers. Okay.

And so they consumers would benefit enormously. Now interestingly there are

enormously. Now interestingly there are some libertarian economists who believe in this that it would be perfectly acceptable for the government to collect information on certain things and to

share it with consumers to make them better informed. So one interesting

better informed. So one interesting thing would be people who enter this category. So you might have you know

category. So you might have you know yogurt maker. I'm being a bit unfair to

yogurt maker. I'm being a bit unfair to yogurt makers. I'm sure they're people

yogurt makers. I'm sure they're people who love them for I can never be bothered. The second

bothered. The second churn our own butter as well. Why don't

we do that?

Exactly. Let's pretend we're 17th century peasants. Yeah. I don't really

century peasants. Yeah. I don't really get that. Um but it would be useful for

get that. Um but it would be useful for the government. You know, electric cars

the government. You know, electric cars interestingly generally have a very high repeat rate within the category that you know it's it most people who actually go electric don't revert.

Question on that. I wonder how many of those situations are due to the fact that when you've planted your flag in the ground and your next door neighbor's gone, "Oh, Rory, that's a oh, that's an interesting. Who's that? It's a Mac E.

interesting. Who's that? It's a Mac E.

It's an electric one. Oh, well, you it's the future, you know, it's four years later when the car needs to be renewed." And you go, "Yeah, I got I

be renewed." And you go, "Yeah, I got I got the 6.2 L V8 [ __ ] Camaro." You

go, "But what about the whole you said about the and it's you have to eat your own prize."

own prize." Part of its consistency bias, by the way, part of its regret minimization.

Part of it maybe sunk cost which is it took me three months of effort to become really good at owning an electric car such that I could turn up more or less anywhere charge the thing not look like

an idiot having invested that cost okay I'm more likely to actually reap the rewards which is in a sense you know in dating market that's why women have to play hard to get

okay which is the cost of acquisition probably translates into into loyalty and consistency absolutely yeah I mean You don't want to give somebody the job as they're at the interview at the first time that you see

them. It's usually not a good indicator.

them. It's usually not a good indicator.

Currently, places like Goldman Sachs not only will subject you to about six interviews, okay? Probably three of

interviews, okay? Probably three of which are entirely gratuitous, but they don't even offer you a job. They wait

for you to rig an ass.

No way.

Somebody literally told me this test of agent. Literally, they said, "It's

agent. Literally, they said, "It's really weird because I had six interviews and they all went really well and I haven't heard back." And somebody said, "You won't hear back.

They want you to ring up and actually pester them. Um now that it was

pester them. Um now that it was certainly one New York in New York investment bank that literally would do that. They go I'm not going to actually

that. They go I'm not going to actually offer the guy a job. You know we we've done six interviews but um it's on him now. We did six interviews.

It's now on him.

There are products by the way which is almost certainly good to add a degree of friction because if there's a degree of difficulty I mean I have this the IKEA effect I have. Yeah. you the effort you put

I have. Yeah. you the effort you put into the acquisition of something contributes to the perceived value of the thing.

Yeah. This is your bit about uh the difference between cheap strawberries and pick your own strawberries.

Yeah. Yeah. That fundamentally they mean something different. One of them is I

something different. One of them is I put effort into the creation of value here and therefore that the low price is destigmatized. Whereas if you made IKEA

destigmatized. Whereas if you made IKEA really really easy furniture to buy, I think they had to offer a delivery when they moved to the US, didn't they?

because they were met with complete incomprehension or something. Uh because

Americans had a high expectation of service.

But fundamentally uh pick your IKEA is pick your own strawberries. It's I've

put some effort into the creation and and uh accumulation of this items. Therefore, the low price is partly a reflection of my own effort rather than just low product quality to begin with.

Yeah, there's double effort as well. For

the people that have never been to an IKEA, first try and find the nearest IKEA to you. is a real experience.

Halfway around there's great quality meatballs, but it's a there is a big one near Austin, isn't there? I seem to remember.

there? I seem to remember.

It's not far. It's just in round.

I remember driving past it. Yeah,

it's just in round.

It's not quite as big as the Gigafactory, but it's pretty vast.

Yeah. Um, you walk around this big maze for ages. So, not only did you have to

for ages. So, not only did you have to build the thing yourself, look at the instructions, have an argument with your wife about how it was going to work.

Even before that, when you were in the selection period, you had to go through we are here to get kitchen stuff. Well,

we've got to walk through the bedrooms and we need to walk through the lounge.

We got to go through the lighting department. Oh, we're at the kitchen.

department. Oh, we're at the kitchen.

Okay, that piece of art over there is quite No, we're on kitchen. Yeah, it is an ADHD sufferers nightmare.

You could actually sort of sell IKEA blinkers, couldn't you? Which is sort of, you know, to focus you in effectively. Yes.

effectively. Yes.

But well, you could get a you could do the concurge service again. Sir, I'm

going to take you directly to to the kitchen. Exactly.

kitchen. Exactly.

It's like being put a sack over your head.

Being [ __ ] abducted. Exactly.

But I'll lead you straight to the kitchen section.

We'll get back to talking in just a minute. But first, some things are built

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When are we going to get a Hindenburg?

When are we going to get one?

Yeah. Oh. Oh, yeah. You're absolutely

right. Blimps.

Yeah. So we had this conversation that actually helicopters are not only dangerous but actually they're a poor status marker because they suggest you're time poor. And so the theory was

that the air yacht which by the way did exist. You can see it on YouTube there

exist. You can see it on YouTube there was a after World War II there was a company that turned something like Boeing Stratafortresses into flying luxury yachts which I think could land

on water. So actually wouldn't have been

on water. So actually wouldn't have been the Strata Fortress, it must have been some sort of sea plane. Okay. And um

there's actually a tragic thing of a family who set out to fly around the world and were actually killed by people somewhere in the Middle East because they landed somewhere in the middle of

some tribal conflict. Um but the the airship um would be extraordinarily high status as a mode of transport because it

suggested you had money but you also had spare time and of course you could have a degree of luxury which is difficult in all but the largest aircraft. M I mean I've always wondered about it which is

why is it that yachts are high status but RVs are low status relatively cuz I think American RVs did you ever watch Matt's RV reviews on YouTube?

I did. Yeah.

Matt Foxworthy absolute genius in my opinion.

Um and actually by the way interesting detail about salesmanship. Three things

we like about this motor home. Three

things we don't like. Actually that's

it. It would give that's your one star five star reviews again. Right. actually the admission the

again. Right. actually the admission the admission of what you might call disarming cander uh is actually a good element of salesmanship because it actually contributes towards trust

that the too good to be true heristic kicks in and people actually get a bit unnerved and one way of doing it of course is just to say it is expensive but it's worth it okay but some

acknowledgement of a downside um can be actually particularly I think Robert Chaldini's close to the point of sale can be very convincing Uh Jay Leno on Jay Leno's Garage talks

about the fact that he won't buy a Ferrari because the whole thing is mired in all sorts of weirdness. Okay. But he

was very impressed cuz when he was buying a McLaren, he said, "I'm quite interested in the ceramic brake discs or whatever it is." And the guy said, "Are you planning to track the car?" No. He

said, "I'll mostly be." He said, "Don't need it. Let me save you $20,000

need it. Let me save you $20,000 straight off the bat." You know, because um if you're driving around LA, they take ages to warm up. You'll end up hitting the car in front. Now, that's a

brilliant way of establishing trust, of downselling someone slightly. Um, who

else? Alex Hozi is very, very good at this.

I mean, that guy is an absolute genius in my opinion.

Yeah, he's one of the best funnel hackers in the world. Yeah,

absolutely brilliant. I mean, it's fascinating to watch. Um, you know, I feel like, you know, um, but, um, but the but the airship because I always thought when you think about RVs, okay,

um, 99% of the world's interesting things are actually found on land, aren't they? really. Okay. And so there

aren't they? really. Okay. And so there are also problems with the very big yachts which is you can't go into small harpers.

So you end up next to an even bigger yacht feeling that you failed in life, you know, at the Monaco Grand Prix. And

I've always thought that actually having, you know, if I if I was supremely rich, having a really really luxury land yacht would be a great thing.

Didn't we think about the fact that a hot air balloon is even more high status than a blimp? Because at least with the blimp, you have a tiny little turbine at the back that can direct you roughly.

Hot air balloon says, "I've got money.

It have to be a luxury hot air balloon.

I've got money. Um, I've got lots of time to spare and I don't really care where I've go." Yeah,

go." Yeah, I'm so rich that I'll make it good wherever I go. I mean that that's very much the weird finding on airlines which is that when you have a flight that's canled and people have to travel uh the

ne on the next day. The general finding of airlines is that the people in the middle of the plane are really angry about it. Okay. The people at the you

about it. Okay. The people at the you know some of the economy travelers they're like students. Okay. You give

them a free night in a four-star hotel.

They're going off to Asia for you know five weeks anyway. Okay. This is a bonus. They're delighted. Okay. They you

bonus. They're delighted. Okay. They you

know they get a night in a hotel. It's

all a bit of a novelty. The people at the front of the plane just go, "Yeah, that's fine. I'll just go back into the

that's fine. I'll just go back into the Seavoy and I'll book an extra night."

And then they're not bothered either.

The people in the middle are going absolutely premium economy are [ __ ] I I mean the whole question, by the way, of you know, one of the most interesting things, you know, we're both fans of evolutionary psychology.

And one of the great predictions made in evolutionary psychology uh was made by Jeffrey Miller in his book spent and the mating mind. Have you

had him on?

I multiple times.

Multiple times. Okay. This is a case of someone actually getting a bang on the money. He predicted that social media

money. He predicted that social media would fundamentally change not the human urge to display status but what the currencies were. So he predicted that

currencies were. So he predicted that travel would become much more valuable as a status marker because you can now photograph yourself in front of Machu Picchu. Okay. And basically, you know,

Picchu. Okay. And basically, you know, while all your friends are at work in the rain, okay. And that the nature of the things that would actually enable you to display status through digital

means would and cars would be probably diminished or you know household possessions except to the extent that you can photograph them would be kind of diminished

and that prediction has been pretty much borne out and what your I mean what's interesting there is that you know a very interesting question would be

status of a job Okay, there was no debate, okay, that it was better if you had to work in London, okay, it was

better to earn 100x than 50x. Okay,

if the choice becomes to today's young, you can live in Lisbon or Fort Ventura or for that matter, you know, in the middle of the New Mexico desert. You can

live there for 50 or you can live in London for a 100. It's not altogether a slam dunk to decide who's got the better job. You know, when you were both

job. You know, when you were both competing for identical resources and that the only variable in employment was how much you got paid, how long you worked, how much you got paid, that that that was employment economics for, you

know, hundreds of years. Basically, it

was it was assumed that place was a given, that when you worked was a given, and so the only variables were effectively uh you know, how long you worked, how much you got paid, maybe commute,

and yeah, I guess I guess I mean there would be people who' choose jobs because the commute was easier. Um, famously

there was one London bank that moved next to a railway station and they found they could never get rid of their older staff because it was they'd all moved to the country, bought an F-off house and they just rumbled in on the train and

walked walked 100 yards to the office and they were those guys weren't going anywhere.

Um, but suddenly you have this technical employment market where as well as free time, there's free where and there's free when. So if you can work where you

free when. So if you can work where you like when you like and a colleague of mine Brian Featherstone Hall said also if you can work with whom you like all

of those things are now negotiable value counters alongside the money.

And so you know it's it's a really interesting debate. If you're an

interesting debate. If you're an employer and you want to you want particularly talented people but you haven't got the immense budget which enables you to compete with JP Morgan or something

well offering lifestyle benefits or locations where near affordable housing strikes me as a pretty smart place to go.

What would you do to improve food delivery apps? This in the US there's

delivery apps? This in the US there's even more than there are in the UK. So

many different We have we have Deliveroo which you don't have do you? We have Just Eats, which you don't have.

No. And Just Just Eats kind of feels a little bit sort of internet in 2005 to me up against something like an Uber Eatats.

Um I mean, Deliveroo, interestingly, is I mean, they'll probably move into delivery of not just food as well, which is interesting. I mean, what what

is interesting. I mean, what what ultimately happens there uh is fascinating.

Um what what's so you use Door Dash presumably Uber Eats? I use Uber Eats but one thing they do this slightly annoying thing that I always find which is oh yeah okay your meal comes to $35 you that's a bit

expensive but hell they're delivering it what the hell and then they go pay us another $5 we won't urinate on your food that's another $7 and by the time you go out I'm finished.

Have you ever done this? So if you go into Hit me with it. If you go into the Uber app, just normal Uber app here, and then it's got this suggestions thing in the middle. Now, everybody below your two

middle. Now, everybody below your two most recent places that you've been and whatever it is that you're going to type in about where you need to go. Everybody

forgets that. If you go to suggestions and you look here, car hire, bikes, stuff for teens, and then if you go down, get anything delivered. Food,

grocery alcohol convenience health personal care, baby, gourmet, pet supplies flowers retail electronics you can Oh, get anything done. a courier

or a store pickup. So if you've left your watch in a gym, you can send the [ __ ] Uber guy to go and get it for you or you can get your uh pharmacy delivery. You can get them

to get pretty much anything.

What they're interestingly suffering from is the interesting thing which is kind of the Starbucks PR dilemma. Okay,

which is PRET is mentally known for food in the UK and they want to sell more coffee and Starbucks is known for coffee and they want to sell more food. And

what's what they're doing there with with Uber, which is quite clever, is they're obviously predominantly associated with one particular application. Okay. And people have got

application. Okay. And people have got into the habit of getting food delivered because they had food delivered before.

You just booked it by telephone. You

know, it was a pizza in 1989 or whatever. That was Domino's whole stock

whatever. That was Domino's whole stock in trade. And so actually getting people

in trade. And so actually getting people to broaden their repertoire within it's quite a common marketing dilemma which is it's almost it's almost a marketing

equivalent of the innovators dilemma.

You get known for one very good thing.

Now Starbucks I think possibly you know I think Howard Schultz was conscious of this. They were so desperate to sell

this. They were so desperate to sell food because they saw it as incremental value. You see? Okay. And so, you know,

value. You see? Okay. And so, you know, in other words, it, you know, the coffee stuff was one thing, but the food they more or less saw was incremental profit that you then start diluting your coffee

credentials if you're not careful.

Yep.

And, you know, it's it's interesting with, you know, for example, PRE, um, I think, you know, has experimented with various subscription services and so on and so forth. Um, uh, you know, to get

people to up the coffee consumption.

Well, like a loyalty card. But what

Uber's doing there is it's quite because they do trains in the UK obviously you don't you know so you you literally you can book you can book any train on Uber.

No way.

And coaches and I think um uh a few other things.

[ __ ] me I haven't been back to the UK for long enough. Wow. That's cool.

And so but but I mean the where's your uh what's the problem you have with the because I I find that I' I've used Uber Eatats and apart from that slightly weird thing of continually demanding extra money for uh for you know

I'm a I'm a fan of Uber Eatats. I think

the the main issue I've got at the moment when it comes to the intersection of food and digital is I'm still often overwhelmed and confused when it comes

to choosing, especially in a city that I'm not familiar with.

Yeah.

And I don't quite know what the metric is that I want. So

distance from where I am, especially if I'm going to go somewhere, you you land in Manhattan, you're on the Upper East Side, you think, I I want to go for some food this evening. And maybe you don't even have that specific. your MS can't

decide whatever you go [ __ ] like okay so I need to kind of reverse engineer what I think it is that she wants and she says she doesn't want anything but I need to if I get this wrong I'll know and if I get this right it's acceptable claims to be lactose and gluten

intolerant which makes things even more tedious right okay so I'm looking on Google Maps and I go okay well I'll I'll order by first off I need to filter by open now that seems pretty important given that

I'm trying to go now but after that it's just this it's really difficult to okay well this one's 4.5 stars, but it's only got 100 reviews. This one's a fourst star, but

reviews. This one's a fourst star, but it's got 2,000 reviews. And you It's You're probably a Brit, so you'd like to order the food by degrees of spiciness in some cases. Would you?

That I mean, I I do. It's certainly a a criteria I look at. Yeah. It's just I I struggle and especially if I'm somewhere new and I'm on Uber. Okay. I can either order Sweet Green or Carver Flower Child

for the millionth time or I can try and get something that's at least remotely like localized to wherever it is. This

is going to be a unique experience, but also I've got such potential buyers regret here that I think, God, this is my only sustenance for the evening. I've

had to wait 50 minutes for it to get to me and I'm going to hate it.

I agree. Yeah. By the way, by the way, I think all these people will start start to have to start offering Mojaro portions soon.

Okay. uh you know because actually if you look at the effects of what are they GLP1s on people's calorific consumption it seems to affect all sorts of impulsive behaviors actually seems to have an

effect on sort of gambling addiction and and and we never anticipated um but if you look at Walmart had a lot of good data on this because they obviously have pharmacists but they also

have their loyalty card data so they can see the effect that it has on what people buy. uh what you might

people buy. uh what you might purchasing. I I I saw talk from the

purchasing. I I I saw talk from the chief economist at Visa about 2 days ago and purchased now some of this is people eating out more and shopping a bit less

but purchasing which was on a constant upward trend purchasing of food from the grocery aisle which was on a constant upward trend seems to have flatlined.

Now, what's interesting about that is that's with probably 8 to 10% of the US population on some sort of GLP1 um treatment.

Now, if it causes flatlining with 8%, what the hell happens when it's 25?

Mhm. Mhm.

Um so, now I don't think the prognosis is all bad. I think that people on those things will actually have small which maybe maybe maybe this is you know the

direction of of capitalism I would argue or the desirable direction of consumer capitalism of which I'm something of a fan is actually less but better

you knowity rather than having a chocolate bar this you know that's the size of a small field you have you know you in other words you treat yourself to smaller quantities of things that are of a

higher quality and you become more mindful about your enjoyment of them.

Did you see that speech at the end of the White Lotus where the lady from you haven't watched it? Okay. She gives a speech which is you know effectively we're the most privileged 1% of people

in the history of the world. We have a duty to enjoy ourselves. It's a

it's a wonderful argument.

Wonderful argument.

And it was it was interesting because she wasn't an altogether sympathetic character. It's probably fair to say.

character. It's probably fair to say.

Although um the whole family were actually more interesting in many ways uh than anybody else. Um it was I don't know why they were chosen as being from North Carolina. I think she there's a

North Carolina. I think she there's a whole lot of American nuance in there that he went to Duke and she went to UNC or something, you know, or Okay. There's

a whole lot of weird sort of stuff in there which as a Brit I couldn't entirely disentangle. Um but um

entirely disentangle. Um but um uh there's a there's a there is actually a degree of validity to that which is that you know if if you're in a privileged

position, it's actually slightly rude to your ancestors. It's disrespectful to

your ancestors. It's disrespectful to your ancestors in a sense and to other people less fortunate than you to go around not enjoying the things that you have some active form. There's a meme

that's floating around on the internet at the moment and it's a guy stood in front of this sort of cosmic backdrop and it's millions and millions of small silhouettes of people and it's my entire

ancestral lineage watching me lift weights instead of talk to a girl for the 3,000th time.

Perfect.

Yeah.

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I mean, that that's an interesting one as well, isn't it? which is the uh I mean one of the other things the economist revealed is the amazing number of single person households

uh you know in other words people not in a relationship um I think the most common living arrangement for a man under 35 is still at home with his parents over 18 and under 35 the most common living

arrangement is still with parents and that I I you're going to unfortunately bring me on to one of my other hobby horses which is the need for um uh land value tax uh to make property

more affordable and basically to get these oldsters out of houses which are bigger than they need.

Um because family formation has become impossible. Okay. Now this is one of

impossible. Okay. Now this is one of those cases which I often talk about which I think we need to be permanently alert to where something comes along as an option and becomes an obligation.

Explain that for me.

Okay. So Nim Talib taught me all this stuff. a huge difference between an

stuff. a huge difference between an option and an obligation which is I personally I hate drinks parties right I like dinner parties I hate drinks parties last night last night for me was what 1

2 3 4 5 6 that's close to my upper bound I think when you get to seven uh 7 to 8 that's starting to get a little much for me but back at home in Monmouth there's a man called Wilson plant who was an

extraordinary man I mean he you know he sat in the pub sort of presiding in the pub and someone would have a discussion and you get a bit intellectual and go, "Well, how do you know DH Lawrence thought that?" And he'd reply, "Because

thought that?" And he'd reply, "Because he told me so." See, he knew everybody.

Nancy Mittford. I mean, he was just one of those people who in his 20s and 30s, he'd just be been in sort of London society. And he had a rule for a pub

society. And he had a rule for a pub conversation which is between the graces and the muses. Now, I think I've got this right. There are three graces and

this right. There are three graces and there are nine muses. And his argument is that once a pub table, you know, once a pub table gets below three, it's time to go home. Okay? Once it gets above nine, you should split off and form

another 10.

I am in agreement.

I I think I think it's And by the way, I don't mind drinks parties in the garden.

Uh because you can wander off.

Well, that's little clusters.

But if if if particularly when you're 59 inside, you can't hear a [ __ ] word anybody's saying. Anyway, so back to

anybody's saying. Anyway, so back to your land value.

That's my options and obligations thing.

Okay. So, interestingly, the only good thing about a drinks party is you go, "Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Saturday

night." And if you don't feel like going, you don't have to go. Whereas a

dinner party, if they've actually prepared food and they're they're going to be eight of you and they don't, you know, they want to match up the genders or whatever it is anybody does. I don't

know if anybody does that anymore. Okay,

but you have to go basically you have to have a really good reason not to go. So

that's an obligation whereas the drinks party is an option. Okay,

and you the ultimate option is six of us are going to the pub this evening. If

you feel like it, come along. That

that's an option. Okay. Whereas um Dave Stag party is a [ __ ] obligation.

Right. Okay. Now Nim taught me this distinction which obviously understands perfectly from finance. You know it's a massively important distinction whether you own an option on something or

whether you have actually an obligation.

Now what happens quite a lot I think and we need to be really alert to it is something comes along. Now a classic example of this would be parking apps.

Okay. Now, the parking app comes along and you still have machines. You still

have meters that take coins. Uh you

still have a pay and display machine as we call it in the UK. Okay. But if you want to, you can pay by app. And you go, "Oh, that's fantastic. I really like that. That's great because I don't

that. That's great because I don't always carry a lot of coins with me.

This makes it really convenient.

Absolutely fantastic." And you go, "Isn't this good? The world's getting better." And then the people who operate

better." And then the people who operate car parks notice that they that it's a lot cheaper if they just get rid of the pen display machines. Mhm.

Okay. And also they probably lose a bit of money from fraud or theft maintenance, maintenance and all that stuff.

And then suddenly you're stuck with only the parking app.

Uh if you're 70 or 80 years old, this sort of [ __ ] is starting to turn the world into a nightmare. The extent to which you're expected to have a smartphone and have the eyesight to use

it uh and master a pace of change which is actually to some extent imposed on us. It's not chosen by us. That's

us. It's not chosen by us. That's

becoming and by the way you're talking about airports. Okay. Uh there is there

about airports. Okay. Uh there is there is nothing at an airport between disabled request a wheelchair and walk.

Okay. There's no halfway house for someone who's a bit elderly but doesn't actually want to be wheeled through. And

I you know I think I think you know given the fact that wealth is more and more concentrated again among the old nowadays the extent to which a lot of modern built infrastructure is extremely

disrespectful to people who are just a bit elderly in other words they're not fully registered disabled but they are constrained I think is is monstrous.

Anyway another example of what starts as an obligation and as an option and becomes an obligation is actually the two income household. Okay. So there was a period obviously women entered the

workplace married women particularly entered the workplace a little bit during World War II. I think it was I mean 10 to 15% of of women were actually working in war work. That changed

things. But for a long time it was do we want to actually both go out to work and have a pretty blinged up you know fancy ass lifestyle option or would we prefer

that one or either you know it doesn't have to be man or woman or will we prefer if one person stays at home and one person goes out to work. Now for

that blissful period it was still possible to maintain a household with children on one salary.

The two-income household was great news for property owners. It was great news for the government because you had twice as many people you could tax. What it

meant for the typical family, now I'm not making any value judgment about this. I'm just simply saying what's

this. I'm just simply saying what's true, is you lost 40 hours of discretionary time each week without necessarily enjoying a market improvement in your um discretionary

income. Because all that happened was

income. Because all that happened was that house prices basically went up to mop up the spare income that was made possible by two people in a in a relationship working and therefore the

gains went to land owners, land landlords or or indeed you know your our parents' generation to some extent rather than to the people actually doing the work.

We were all exit liquidity for everybody else. What do you make of Gary

else. What do you make of Gary Stevenson's ascendancy and that sort of messaging that's happening in the UK?

Well, first f frivolous point which is uh if you want to help with wealth redistribution, Gary, go out and spend some [ __ ] money, right? I mean, he was earning like two or three million pounds a year and only owning earning

one pair of shoes, okay? And his mates from school were working in JD Sports and I did help I couldn't help thinking reading the book, Gary, Gary, just go down to G JD Sports and just buy a few

pairs of shoes, help out your mates, okay? Uh you know, get a hot tub, you

okay? Uh you know, get a hot tub, you know. you know, but his fundamental

know. you know, but his fundamental insight unbelievably stingy. Do you not think you do that book?

I haven't read it. I've seen him talk.

But jeez, Gary, just go and you know, enjoy it for cry out loud. Okay. Think

you get that weird thing actually in banking, which is so much of your enjoyment stuff back then was covered by an entertainment budget. Okay. That you

got really really resentful about spending your own money. You see, you see what I mean? Most of us the money comes in 80% of it walks straight out again because we piss it up the wall you

know you know you know I haven't got an air fryer for the second bedroom you know but there are people who kind of you know if you're in that very corporate world where more or less all your fun is taken care of by some

expense account you actually find you spending your money disproportionately painful. He's absolutely right in his

painful. He's absolutely right in his insight that um money is becoming unhealthily concentrated um in that two things I would say. He's absolutely

right that economics uses these single representative agent models which don't capture inequality.

Okay. Um I would argue personally Gary that you need to read up a bit about georgism which I think the great ideas of Henry George and the land value tax would actually take care of a lot of

that. uh in my view if you tax land

that. uh in my view if you tax land ownership because property ownership is effectively you are buying the right to impose taxes

on the on the younger generation. So

what you what you I mean when people invested in gold okay it doesn't do anybody else any harm because I I can make do without any gold. Okay I'm not massively into bling not hugely into

jewelry. Okay we can all get by without

jewelry. Okay we can all get by without gold. Unless there's a bloody um uh a

gold. Unless there's a bloody um uh a Dutch tulip boom, okay, I'll just switch to gladioli.

Okay, but I can't substitute for property at some level. If your employer demands you work in a major city, okay, and land and commutable land is scarce

other than the blimp of course where you could just live tethered above Barkley Square 400 ft up. Okay, other than your blimp solution, there's no escaping the

depradations of rent seeking land owners. And what has happened is that

owners. And what has happened is that we've in a way we've sanctified wealth and being pretty mean on income.

Okay? So we've taxed away income discrepancies pretty energetically, but they aren't that big. Okay? I mean

what I mean by that is if you look at income inequality even before tax never mind corrected after tax you know there the number of people who

earn like you know 20 times median income okay is they exist but there are very few of them and they pay an enormous amount of income tax I mean huge amounts of income tax in other

words that's someone who's probably like a high-end lawyer in a partnership in you know a London magic circle law firm now there are a lot of people I'd rather the money went to than people in law firms. But nonetheless, those people pay

a lot of tax, whatever you think about it. Okay. By contrast, wealth inequality

it. Okay. By contrast, wealth inequality is monumental. I mean, there are people

is monumental. I mean, there are people who if they walked into a football stadium, the every single person on average in that stadium would now be a multi-millionaire simply because Bill Gates walked in. Okay? There aren't

inequalities like that of that kind of extreme form in in actual earned income.

And yet we have this incredibly aggressive system of redistributing earned wealth. And yet we treat wealth

earned wealth. And yet we treat wealth that's actually resident in asset values and things as completely sacrosan.

And the problem is until you actually get to that point where you start actually taxing. Now Texas does it

actually taxing. Now Texas does it amusingly because you have quite heavy land taxes. So, ironically, what's often

land taxes. So, ironically, what's often stereotyped, I think, unfairly as, you know, the most conservative state in the union, which in fact is not, okay, but, you know, it's a highly conservative

state, you actually pay quite a lot of tax on the value of the property you own. So, the property taxes in Texas, I

own. So, the property taxes in Texas, I think around 2.5% if you own it.

Now the great effect that has is that it makes property less expensive because you have to pay tax on it and it prevents you using property as an

extractive store of wealth.

Okay.

And the extent to which I think you have to argue that speculation in property has been absolutely del has led to enormous redistribution of wealth

effectively to the not necessarily very deserving old at the expense of the hardworking young is I I I just find it impossible to

dispute. Okay, I'm 59 by the way. I did

dispute. Okay, I'm 59 by the way. I did

okay. I surfed the wave. I didn't surf it very well. I now own, you know, a couple of flats. I don't own a house.

Nothing blingy. Okay. I now own a couple of flats sort of outright. Um, but there are people who bought a house in 1974

whose children, this is literally a case I know of. Okay. So, there's a woman living on her own in a five- bedroomedroom house not far from where I live, which is probably worth with the

garden 4.5 million. Okay. Or 3.2 or something like that. She has no money to spend. She has all this money tied up in

spend. She has all this money tied up in a totally liquid form of wealth.

So, you know, she's kind of going down little and comparing the price of lemons even though she owns a [ __ ] off, you know, 3.5. Her children are kind of

know, 3.5. Her children are kind of worried about how they replace the shock absorbers on their car. And then the argument would be why should those children go out and work really hard?

What I do to be absolutely honest is get into debt, go off to Barbados, wait for your mum to die, me.

No, no, but that's but but nothing you do working, let's say, as a school teacher. So, there's this great book,

teacher. So, there's this great book, you must get her on called The Inheritocracy.

Okay.

By a woman called Eliza.

Oh god, I'll remember it in a second.

You're becoming increasingly leftwing here Rory.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm left I'm pretty right-wing in terms of people's earnings because you have actually earned them. So Henry George effectively

earned them. So Henry George effectively the way to understand Henry George is it was an approach to life which actually had a brief but extraordinary success uh

popular success in the United States.

The game of monopoly is based on it's trying to interest people in George's principles of extractive rent seeking.

Okay. And the basic principle of Henry George is that it's it's now I I'm going to qualify this. It's extremely free market and capitalistic with regard to

the fruits of your labor. Okay? Anything

you do, any anything you build on your land is yours to keep, but it's effectively highly socialistic in terms of land ownership and arguably ownership

of uh of limited resources. So a

georgist would also tax uh oil for example um uh you know anything that and the argument is you didn't make those things there would have been in the 19th century they would have said this is

God's creation and you're only you know you're actually you don't own it because you didn't make it you don't have the right to own this thing because you didn't make it what you are is a

custodian of it and you pay commensurate tax on the land you own okay whereas you would in purest Georgia circles you have no income tax at all. Okay, that

probably a bit extreme. Um, but it's there it's sometimes called geoism and it's um there's there's also a school of thought which is kind of environmental georgism which is you tax the

consumption or you tax anything where you rivally consume something of which more can't be made.

Right. Yep.

Okay. And what happens in Texas, quite interestingly, is all these Californians apparently move to Texas and they go, "God, the land here is really cheap.

Let's buy loads of it." And then six months later, they get hit with a massive tax bill for their land ownership. And they go, "What the hell's

ownership. And they go, "What the hell's going on here? We bought this land cuz it's cheap." And the Texans reply,

it's cheap." And the Texans reply, "That's why it's you pay 2.5% tax on it."

it." Did you ever look at that issue with fighter pilot seats that was designed for average?

Yeah, that's a brilliant point. So

that's similar. That's analogous to Gary Stevenson. Have you had Gary on, by the

Stevenson. Have you had Gary on, by the way?

I haven't. He was supposed to come on in London a couple of months ago, uh, when we had last had you on.

I hope he's out shoe shopping instead.

I'm here advertising. Meet me halfway, Gary. I'm trying to Well, there's an

Gary. I'm trying to Well, there's an interesting If you want to redistribute wealth, it does help if rich people occasionally go out and buy something.

Yeah. There's an interesting there's an interesting debate going on about whether or not Gary Stevenson is basically thinly veiled performance art that you've got this the get up the the same pair of joggers that all the rest

of the stuff it is I don't know it must be difficult to have I I think I think he's um okay apart from his consumption patterns um I

think he's fundament so there are a few things where the problem with all these models is is that the assumptions of the model that are nec necessary to simplify the model eventually come back to bite

you and looking at average wealth as if it's somehow representative of you know that that a successful one that's getting richer on average. The fact that for

30 [ __ ] years in the US and the UK we presented rising property prices as a good news story is monstrous. I mean that was just the

is monstrous. I mean that was just the most monstrous misrepresentation of information. You don't say petrol's got

information. You don't say petrol's got gasoline's gone up, but good news, you've got a full tank of petrol, so your car's not now more valuable, right?

Is it is it a case of kind of a luxury belief that the sort of people who would be writing and consuming those and understanding those sorts of stories are likely to already be people who own property, so their lesson is not going

to be, holy [ __ ] it's going to be hard to get on.

You're absolutely true. Uh even worse, of course, every single MP in London uh throughout the 70s, well ' 80s, '9s, 2000s was basically heavily invested in

the property market because they got a massive perk. They got their mortgage

massive perk. They got their mortgage paid on a London home. So there wasn't a single person there with a possible exception of someone, you know, was Ken Livingston ever an MP? I'm not sure he was, but apart from a few very, very

principled leftists or possibly a couple of georgists in the Conservative party.

It's a weird, by the way, it's a weird sort of philosophy because it it's it's both leftwing and right-wing and so it has it at the same time.

Milton Friedman was a fan. So was um uh god I always I always forget her name married to Malcolm McLaren you the fashion designer Vivian Westwood she was also a geologist you get Richard Nixon

Winston Churchill it has its adearance crosses the spectrum but what what happened in the model was that Adam Smith thought there were three sources of wealth creation which was

land capital and um labor and future generations of economists thought it's too complicated having three things because it makes the maths difficult so we'll pretend that capital and land are the same thing and they're not because

capital is potentially limitless and you can create more of it. Land is

effectively a bottle an artificial bottleneck. It's a it's a rentseeking

bottleneck. It's a it's a rentseeking device.

I'm interested whether or not you've got any insights around painkillers. Every

single time that I think about uh a psychological effect of something that people assume has got some sort of a drop off rate. I I know that there's some studies saying that more expensive painkillers are interpreted as being

more effective. So even if

more effective. So even if yes no no no no that's under I mean I I'm the only person who complains you can't buy expensive aspirin anymore because my argument is I haven't got a 30p headache I've got a two pound50

headache you I mean by the way I think there are a whole load of things where in the human brain the X has to be commensurate with the Y okay so the reason if you're buying a house the

reason you have to have a posh estate agent is because fundamentally if I'm spending this amount of money I expect a certain amount of money to be spent on

the act of persuasion and it may be perfor highly performative but it's just a kind of idea of what's proportionate you know if you turned up to look at a sort of four $5 million mansion outside Austin and the guy just turns up and

goes here the keys go and have a look yourself you if something be it's a bit like the fact in women's fashion that if you spend if you spend $150 plus you've got

to get a rope handle bag right it's the there's a commensurate amount of [ __ ] s necessary to accompany any activity in order for it to seem somehow

natural and right. Um, lovely finding by the way from the visa chief economist about the American South including Texas. They look at what happens to

Texas. They look at what happens to consumption patterns when people suddenly get more disposable income.

Okay, typically gas prices fall.

Suddenly disposable income goes up right across the board. Okay, what happens?

Two things that are really different.

Women's expenditure on clothing, massive spike. men's expenditure on clothing

spike. men's expenditure on clothing flatline. Okay. Because in the south, if

flatline. Okay. Because in the south, if you got a pair of jeans and a shirt, you're fully dressed. That's it. I think

that's fantastic. Um but

the the no I mean Gary's point by the way about that thing which is that the single representative agent model the average model uh is is flawed because

actually one of the most interesting philosophically okay the perfect place to live is not somewhere where everybody's a lot poorer than you.

Right? Because their consumption patterns will then mean that there's nothing for you to buy. So,

standard of coffee.

I always had this slightly socialistic idea when I was watching Downtown Abbey.

Okay, if I'd been the Marquis of Downtown, right, those people were immensely well, they had been broke, but he married the Canadian, didn't he? So,

they were kind of rich again. Uh there

was a whole period where nearly all aristocrats had to marry Americans because it coincided with a massive fall in agricultural prices and and there's a there was a kind of after World War I there was kind of agriculture. Oh, I

don't that's Do you know what it was partly? Uh, it was refrigerated

partly? Uh, it was refrigerated shipments of beef uh from Latin America and grain from Canada.

So, suddenly the value of agricultural goods in the UK fell off a cliff and so the the aristocracy basically headed west to try and pick up an airs. Um, but

what I always thought about those people is they you obviously lived in a [ __ ] house, you know, down to Abbey. Um and

but they ate food cooked by the same woman every single night. And my theory was that what I would have done her in the market of Dantine is I would have trebled the salaries of all my servants.

Okay. And I would have given them three days off a week because then an interesting Indian restaurant would have opened in the nearby village and you would have had somewhere else to eat.

Okay.

Oh wow. Do

you see what I mean? Yes.

You know and then there there'd be a car dealership and there'd be a bit of other stuff to cater to these richer people.

Then actually redistribution of wealth in some ways is not altogether a bad thing because you want everybody around you to be a bit poorer than you. Have

you you know let's be honest about it. You

want you want your neighbors to be a tiny bit poorer than you so you can show off a bit.

Turn up there's also [ __ ] [ __ ] off 6 by2 L Camaro. Is there not is there not a rule

Camaro. Is there not is there not a rule supposedly about you never want to own the most expensive house in the neighborhood?

There is an argument that says you buy the cheapest house on the most expensive street, not the most expensive house on the cheapest street.

Um, I've also got various property rules for how to game it, which is like find out something that everybody else hates that you don't mind next to a pub. Okay,

if you're thinking really long term, you might think that with car electrification, being next to a busy road isn't the downside that it once would have been.

It's going to get quieter up.

It's going to get a bit quieter and and your worry about pollution might diminish. But that's that's quite a long

diminish. But that's that's quite a long game.

Yeah.

But, you know, don't worry about the school district if you haven't got kids or you're not planning to have kids. all

there are there and one of my complaints about the property market is there aren't mechanisms for you to look for negatives because actually a negative I don't care about is actually a positive

um but no in terms of drugs by the way you're getting back to the placebo effect on on drugs and do they have to be expensive does the packaging matter and you know there's a serious issue

here which is I don't think vaping would have taken off if you medicalized it if you demanded people went and got uh vaporizers on prescription and they came

in sort of you know typical medicalized packaging. I think the fact that it was

packaging. I think the fact that it was a bottomup trend with all the marketing halaloo and pizzazz and packaging and flavors and you know all the

extraordinary kind of uh you know the distribution uh you know I think that contributed to the successful adoption of it. I think if you if you'd made it

of it. I think if you if you'd made it medicalized I think you would have got about a quarter of the rate of adoption.

Similarly, low alcohol beer and low alcohol, no alcohol beer fascinates the [ __ ] out of me. Partly

because I think it's placebo beer. I

think that when we drink and zero alcohol beer, we still enjoy some of the psych psychoactive effects of drinking alcoholic beer by the power of

association. I would love to see a

association. I would love to see a behavioral observational uh experiment go on to see what's the words per minute, how many swear words does somebody use, how much does their body

language loosen up having not ingested any alcohol but drunk something which is supposed to masquerade as it. There's a

bit of a theory that among regular drinkers that you drink alcohol to give you the license to behave like a drunk person,

not that that it it it's kind of both.

Do you see what I mean? It's partly that the alcohol loosens you up, but it's partly that the fact that you are drinking alcohol makes you feel you can uh you can loosen up. M

um I've certainly experienced a weird effect which quite a lot of people I've spoken to have had the same effect which is you go out for the evening typically I take a train out of London back to Otford as it happens and then drive home

from there and once or twice I've been out and I've had two or three pints of zero alcohol beer and I'm suddenly driving home from the station I go [ __ ] okay I'm over the limit no no no I

haven't had any alcohol at all but I' I've had two or three of those kind of weird panic moments where I go because mentally Somehow I've been out for two or three beers and yet obviously

as far as the breathalyzer is concerned I'm sober as a judge.

Edward Slingland wrote a really interesting book about the history of alcohol. So two cool facts on it. One,

alcohol. So two cool facts on it. One,

drinking alcohol makes you a better lying detector. So your ability to

lying detector. So your ability to detect deception improves that's where it comes from because I heard that from somebody else Edward Sling. Uh and the second thing is

Edward Sling. Uh and the second thing is that drinking reduces your ability to deceive. So you have this really

deceive. So you have this really wonderful effect.

Oh, so in venino veritas which is effectively that both you're a better lie detector and you're a worse liar. So

this is now if you think about it the argument there might be that by suppressing certain what you might call highly literalist parts of the brain,

we actually gain powers of sort of intuition over things like lying.

Um because the part of the brain that processes language might you know this is going Ian McGill. Have you had Ian Mcgillist? Yeah. So Ian Mcgillist would

Mcgillist? Yeah. So Ian Mcgillist would probably say the left brain tends to have a very literalist interpretation of language but it processes much language but metaphor or analogies are processed in the right part of the brain.

A little bit broader and it's a bit broader. So one of the things that might be absolutely true of alcohol consumption is it makes you less literal which may explain why it you know

increases I mean there is that weird view of alcohol that it's you know that being a human is kind of tiring and this gives you two or three hours of knowing what it's like to be a bit of an animal

you know what I mean regress back to a feral state you you will you know no human is ever as happy as a cat that's found a warm place to sleep there Maybe they're making

four be as deep is about being like a cat.

It's you effectively start just in you know people seem to react hugely differently in my experience. You know

some people become violent some people you know but there is that element to alcohol that it probably enables you to enjoy the sheer physicality of being

because it quietens down those parts of the brain which without the awkwardness of thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh interesting one related to people being tired of being themselves. Parents are all in on

themselves. Parents are all in on all-inclusive travel again. Demand for

kid-friendly all-inclusive resorts is up 70%. Luxury tailored to parental

70%. Luxury tailored to parental burnout.

So that's the all-inclusive, which is basically you have um uh part of that of course is choice reduction, isn't it? that I mean

if you've got an Italian restaurant and an Indian restaurant and a Chinese restaurant and there's a buffet you don't actually need to choose where you're going every single night it's self-contained the whole thing is so I always wondered

about this which is one of the reasons I always recommend I've got a few recommendations for holidays from my 30 years experience one the only generalization I'll make is that holidays where I rent a car are better

than ones where I don't because you get serendipity okay now you can achieve that through walking in a But that business where you know I ended up stopping on the outskirts of Florence

to recharge an electric car and then because I had nothing to do for 20 minutes I wandered around the corner and there was a kind of leisure center and public swimming pool. Not the kind of place you'd ever visit as a tourist in Florence. And then I walked a bit

Florence. And then I walked a bit further and then my wife and I discovered this fantastic cafe which was just, you know, it was totally casual cafe, but it was just glorious. And it's

one of those things you, you know, pleasant surprise for pleasant surprises. And the problem with having a

surprises. And the problem with having a really planned holiday is that you don't get any surprises.

In fact, you tend to get negative surprises. Um, so that's why I'm a big

surprises. Um, so that's why I'm a big believer in car rental, uh, you know, on, uh, on on holidays because you you just stumble on things that nobody else knows or a beach that nobody else goes

to and you just feel great about it. Um,

and also it means that if the hotel you happen to book is absolute [ __ ] there's almost certainly something pretty good 10 miles away and you can just get up in the morning and go and escape. I mean,

I've never booked a hotel that's absolutely [ __ ] but I booked hotels you wouldn't want to stay in for too long.

But on the other hand, there's an element, this is the contrary point, which is one of the reasons I quite often go on holiday to an island is there's a limit to the number of things

you feel obliged to do.

You know, the curse of Tuskanyany, okay, is that within about 90 miles there are, you know, there's Sienna, there's Luca, there's there's Florence. You go, you've got to go over the mountains of the moon

to see the pier [ __ ] Francesca's. And

you go, [ __ ] hell. I just want to sit by the pool and get quietly pissed, you know. And so the great thing about

know. And so the great thing about islands, you know, is that, you know, they constrain the number of things you feel obliged to do and the second time you go back, you've already done the things you were obliged to do. So you

don't get to do the things you wanted to do.

So there is an element to things where you know actually um choice choice limitation presumably child care is taken care of. One thing I I've I've repeatedly said to the hotel industry,

by the way, um talking about when you said child-friendly, all-inclusive, uh and I said I actually said this to Expedia in their headquarters, so I hope they listen, okay? You've got to get rid

of that designation adults only. Okay?

Because I know what it means. It means

you don't allow kids. Okay? But I see adults only hotel. I go, look, perverts.

Perverts. Okay? I you know I go you know I swingers you know I'm quite quite keen on a quiet thing without too many noisy kids but it doesn't make me think that it makes me think I got to have spend my

whole week in a [ __ ] mask while a German dentist urinates on me now I don't want to do that you know call me oldfashioned right and um so adults only is a

terrible designation I did a competition on Twitter and loads literally 15 people came up with better alternatives to adults only what was some of the one of them was just grown-ups You know, hotel for grown-ups was one

brilliant suggestion. Just grown-ups and

brilliant suggestion. Just grown-ups and adults.

Because if you were to call it a mature hotel.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or you just, you know, you just go, you know, quiet hotel or you just say, oh, you know, over 16s only would be fine.

Mhm.

But adults only. I'm going tell 59, you know, I don't awful demarcation. You're right. Uh

awful demarcation. You're right. Uh

skims are now selling a bra with a nipple piercing in.

Oh, that's not really. So the bra is pierced but not the nipple.

No. So it's it's got sort of silhouette.

It's got the silhouette of a piercing.

So it looks like you've got a nipple piercing but you don't.

I have to confess the tats and piercing thing. I was born in 1965 on the Welsh

thing. I was born in 1965 on the Welsh borders. Okay. I've never really got my

borders. Okay. I've never really got my head around that [ __ ] I No, no, no. I

don't mind. I told my daughters they could get tattoos if they wanted to so long as they said dad.

Okay. That was the that was the only thing to do. Yeah. Had a heart. A

massive heart. That was allowed. nothing

else of course. Um,

but that's it's quite clever. It's a

Trump loy nipple piercing. Now, the only problem there is it is false promise, isn't it? Because uh people who are

isn't it? Because uh people who are really into that piercing stuff are going to be disappointed.

Are going to be suddenly disappointed.

Yeah. And people who would be turned off by it are going to look at somebody who doesn't have doesn't have a nipple piercing.

So, it's not going to work. I mean, you did hear that wonderful story, did you?

It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard about the problems of the rich, which is the great complaint of Carolyn Klein's daughter. You never

heard this?

No. That um this is not a problem you ever anticipated about coming from a family where your your parents is rich or famous, which is Kelvin Pine's daughter. His great complaint was that

daughter. His great complaint was that just at the peak moment of getting romantic with a man, you are suddenly confronted with your own father's name in inch high letters.

Now, I've you know, my wife, okay, has never has never had to pull down my trousers to be confronted with Clive Whitmore written across written across the elastic band in huge letters. You

can imagine that's a bit of a turnoff, isn't it? Um, you know, it's slightly

isn't it? Um, you know, it's slightly alarming.

It doesn't set the mood.

That's [ __ ] brilliant. Uh, ad

campaigns that have cuddly animals that are anthropomorphic.

Yep. Here we go.

There we go. Bies for everybody who hasn't been. It's the Texas Disneyland.

hasn't been. It's the Texas Disneyland.

But you say that ad campaigns that include a cuddly animal that talks to you are more successful.

Fundamentally, I've always wondered whether the theory is that um the odd extreme, the extreme opposite of that was for many many years in the UK, BMW

advertising would never show people. The

most you allowed to show was the silhouette of someone driving the car.

I remember thinking that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Oily windscreen type thing. Yeah. And

and the whole and the argument is what's your user imagery, right?

And the cuddly animal is a brilliant brilliant cheat to that because user imagery is problematic. Okay. In that

I'll give you an example. Okay. The

average person who buys a car from new, let's say it's a, you know, Citroen. I'm

probably out of date. Yeah. Okay. Let's

say a small car from New Volkswagen Golf. Okay. Average age of the person

Golf. Okay. Average age of the person buying those from new is in I think the late 50s quite a you know that means um that might be median age actually but it's certainly in the late 50s by the

way do you know the car brand that has the lowest average age profile of any purchaser and you're never going to guess well one of the lowest I I I need

to qualify that it's not the lowest you know Rolls-Royce really yeah uh footballers rich young people oh of course you

So interestingly interestingly, Rolls-Royce has quite a young profile because if you make it rich young, you're more likely to buy a blinged up car as a rich young person than you are as a rich old person,

aren't you? all well for obvious reasons

aren't you? all well for obvious reasons I suspect some of them reproductive um and um uh but the user imagery is always problematic because some of your users

probably don't necessarily like your so obviously ads for small cars do not show 59y old men driving them or 65y old men they show 27y old women which is a tiny

niche of purchases of new those cars new it's quite it's quite a common purchase of those cars secondhand but new very very few. You know, you got to be

very few. You know, you got to be pretty, you know, you got to be pretty rich at 20ome to buy a new car at all.

And um uh the so so you have this problem with user injury. Now the you know the typical BMW driver what's aspirational to some people might be repellent to others. Okay. So showing

people is problematic because you immediately get into questions of class and age and everything else. Now,

sometimes you can play that game brilliantly, as with John Smith's Beer, where you show, you know, an old bloke in the pub with his dog, Tonto, you know, which is obviously not intended to be emblematic of the people who bought

the beer, but it's kind of emblematic of people who, you know, in a sense were beer connoisseurs, you know, that kind of thing. But actually, animals are a

of thing. But actually, animals are a brilliant, brilliant escape from this because most people were like that Bkey's beaver. Okay.

Bkey's beaver. Okay.

Mhm. in a way that a a person even so in some cases a celebrity spokesman, you know, may not be liked by everybody. It

may be repellent to everybody, but animals both attract attention for evolutionary reasons. We we look at

evolutionary reasons. We we look at things that are uh that have two eyes.

The whole thing in paridolia, you we see faces and things.

Mhm.

Okay. We see faces in clouds and all that sort of stuff. And that's because we're evolved to be highly attuned to spotting not only other human faces, although that's obviously important, but

actually spotting anything with a face.

Okay. Um

and um uh you get extraordinary biomimicry by the way. I fantastic things where you

the way. I fantastic things where you know if you have orchids that look like the genitalia of insects, things like that because is this Sam Tatum stuff again?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it that's the wonderful book the um evolutionary ideas by Yeah. You you looped me in with him four

Yeah. You you looped me in with him four years ago, something like that. For the

people on he has he came on for revolutionary ideas. People that need

revolutionary ideas. People that need that love this imagine an intersection between David Bus and Rory Sutherland and you've got Sam Tatum. Uh yeah, that that was fascinating. But no, it's uh

it's interesting to think about this seems like what you're doing what you're doing is you're hacking perception. Yeah.

You know that it's what you might call uh I never remember what it's called.

It's um there's there's a field of sort of philosophy which is called phenomenology.

Mhm. which is how humans actually perceive the world. In other words, the yawning gap between what is as is measured by engineers and physicists and

what we feel. Now, the simplest example of which they do in the United States, I think it's fantastic. Okay. Uh is the difference between the temperature and the feels like temperature.

Mhm.

Okay. Because you can sometimes I wander around Phoenix, Arizona. I I hate hot humid weather, but I wander around Phoenix, Arizona, you know, at 100 degrees. is I'm pretty happy. And so the

degrees. is I'm pretty happy. And so the feels like temperature is much more important to my sense of well-being and what I wear and where I go than the actual temperature.

The place that's got the most the the highest variance of within a day intraday variance for that is New York.

If you go to New York, oh god, like March time.

You're rude about the London climate.

This really pisses me off that New Yorkers are always dissing London. But

actually, it probably rains more in New York than it does in London. I wouldn't

be surprised. But also, the city's uninhabitable for about three months of the year.

Well, look, if you leave the house on a morning in March and you need a big coat, a large coat with a hoodie underneath and by midday you wish that you put [ __ ] shorts on.

I know.

It's unacceptable. Rory Sutherland,

ladies and gentlemen, an absolute joy. I love you to bits.

Thank you for being here.

What a pleasure. We haven't had any of your We hadn't had any product placement. We had We've done a good job

placement. We had We've done a good job for Bies.

Yeah. Rory, come on. Do us a little ad.

Do a quick ad to camera for New Tonic.

Well, I was trying um I was trying to start the uh interesting precedent where guests on podcasts got to advertise their own stuff cuz I thought they've done all the traveling. You know, why is it the host that What do you want to What do you want to

advertise?

Uh why don't I say Busy's Bites in Westerum, which I think is Kent's finest Jamaican Italian cafe. There we go.

So, there we go. I'll I'll advertise them. I always think they're wonderful.

them. I always think they're wonderful.

Busies. This actually is extraordinarily drink drinkable and it may well be you know a component of it I'm sure is the placebo but it does seem to be to be actually efficacious. So there

actually efficacious. So there that's what we wanted to hear. Seems to

be efficacious. Exactly what I needed.

Thank you very much for tuning in. If

you enjoyed that episode with Rory, the fulllength conversation with Naval Rabacant is just here, who's kind of like a a skinnier, more Indian version of Rory

from America kind of.

Yeah, Rory's okay with that. Anyway, you

should go and watch it. Press that.