Aboard Podcast

If a huge company wants to “partner” with your small business, can that ever be a fair partnership? Paul describes a recent mentorship dilemma to Rich, and they discuss the dynamics that make the position of the smaller player in that scenario so challenging. Plus: Musings on public-spectacle trials past and present, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and the existential dread prompted by even the most innocent Slack notifications.

From copyright violations to environmental concerns to the looming threat of the singularity, AI is a hot-button topic these days. Paul and Rich talk through many facets of this conversation, and discuss how they think about the AI components of Aboard. Plus: A little roleplay in which we learn that Paul thinks Aboard is an earnest mid-century cartoon character.

Most weeks, the Aboard Podcast is only sponsored by Aboard—but this week, Paul and Rich celebrate Aboard’s relaunch by devoting the whole episode to their shiny new AI-powered product! After they take a (technical and non-technical) look at exactly what’s going on under the hood, they discuss the ways Aboard uses AI to help humans, not supplant them.

Just a quick update today, because....WE'RE LAUNCHING A SHINY NEW VERSION OF ABOARD!!! Paul and Rich will be back on Thursday with a full episode (which, as you can imagine, will be about the shiny new version of Aboard). In the meantime, check out all our changes—open up the app or visit Aboard.com!

This past week, the big news in the design software world was Canva’s acquisition of Affinity, and Paul and Rich kick off the episode by asking, “Is this a failure on Adobe’s part?” But of course Adobe remains a massively profitable company—so what drives the impulse to frame a giant tech company’s misses as overarching “failures”? As they mull over various motivations, they discuss how to reframe success on your own terms, outside the simple metrics of competition or industry trends.

Can we all agree that the vibes are off? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich dig into our broader societal malaise (the effects of the pandemic; our phones as an endless portal to misery) and discuss how business leaders can combat these feelings. Plus: Some early analysis of the DOJ’s antitrust case against Apple, and a story about a Formula 1 team using a single Excel spreadsheet for…everything.

Algorithmically innovative? An important tool for connection? A grave national security threat? Paul and Rich discuss the recent bipartisan vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to ban TikTok—and whatever you think of the platform itself, they argue that the move says something significant about the American government’s relationship with big tech.

How do you build a company that has an exciting product—but has nice, boring, stable qualities, too? Paul and Rich tackle this question from a variety of angles, from tax strategy to the value of marketing to treating the user like a spouse who might cheat on you if you stop putting any effort into the marriage. (And yes, don’t worry: There is also a fair bit of synth talk. And synth noises!)

Will generative AI give us the answer or lead us to the answer—or is that the wrong question entirely? Paul and Rich assess the promise of AI through a lens of lightly skeptical optimism, trying to sort out hype from reality and figure out how exactly these tools might be embedded in everyones’ lives someday.

As the last decade’s big social media platforms crumble, Paul and Rich reflect on the (false) promise of the “global town square,” and the suggestion that putting millions of people in a giant room together could be productive in any way. If the era of building software to facilitate networked connections is truly on the way out, does AI promise a return to an earlier, utility-based era of technology?

When Paul suggests recording a podcast about public figures they admire, Rich has a counter-offer—why not talk about people they hate instead? But this particular exercise has a catch: They can only discuss things they admire or feel they can learn from said figures, a very tricky exercise with certain politicians! A countdown of five business and political leaders that some large number of people hate—plus listen to the very end to hear exactly how Paul compares himself to Taylor Swift.

When Paul injures himself and is advised by his wife, Rich, and ChatGPT (seriously) to seek emergency medical attention, he goes to the urgent care and marvels at their utterly Byzantine technological set-up, from parallel, disconnected patient portals to being handed a literal CD-ROM with his X-rays. What can we learn from systems built for the captive user—and how does that apply to enterprise software more broadly?

What makes a person pay $120 for a tote bag—or fall in love with your software? Paul and Rich use a recent article about a TikTok influencer’s pricey (and popular!) tote bag to discuss our relationships with the things we buy, from unboxing videos (“commerce translated into emotional satisfaction”) to technologists’ largely incorrect assumption that adding one more feature will fundamentally change the way users feel about their product.

Paul tries to talk about his current obsession—synthesizers—on a hardware and software level, but Rich turns the tables to talk about Paul’s obsession itself. After Rich repeatedly asks Paul, “What are you doing?” they discuss the appeal of minimally online hobbies (and, by extension, software) in an extremely online world.

Men will literally record a podcast about their anxiety rather than go to therapy. How do you run a business when the world is on fire in so many ways? Paul and Rich talk about the state of things—including whether their perceptions of said things are even accurate—and how they should work, what to consider as they grow their company, and when to turn off. Gotta keep going.

Our friends find themselves in a new, corporate co-working space, determining that this, finally, is the thing that will push their digital product over the edge. Then, in a typically wide-reaching (cough) conversation, Rich and Paul discuss the current status of free speech discourse, in the context of the drama around Substack, and—well, as Rich puts it—“Who the hell asked technologists to be the arbiters of free speech?” Paul confesses that he dislikes mess, which would deeply shock anyone who saw his office desk.

Rich and Paul ring in 2024 assessing the biggest technological development of last year, this year, and possibly many future years to come: Generative AI. Why did AI truly find a mainstream foothold in 2023—and how is the space going to evolve in the coming months? Plus: They engage in some (corporate) roleplay, and get really into character.

Rich and Paul talk about their willingness to be humiliated in a corporate context. It sounds just a little like they crave it. Especially Paul. Which is weird but whatever. Then they talk about how you can't automate relationships—how you can't remove interaction from the loop. They discuss what they learned this year, and what they hope to learn next year.

Our friend Jim Nielsen cataloged all the podcasts we didn't record, so Paul and Rich doubled down and recorded five new podcasts in a hurry. The end result is exactly what you would expect. YouTube edition features extra-ridiculous stock imagery.

Now longer than three minutes! (Sorry, tech glitch.) Rich and Paul talk about that most evergreen and thrilling of subjects—the marketing funnel! How it starts, where it goes, what makes it better or worse, and the great and deep importance of onboarding in this world.