#118 – Kickstarter, Open Source RC & Modelsource - Facinorous Financial Foulness

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast, recorded October 21st, 2012. Episode 118, Fasenoris Financial Foulness.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV Blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of ChipReportTV and Chris Gammell's Analog Life.

Dave Jones: What's up?

Chris Gammell: Hey, man. What's happening? Just another day, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah, Monday. Well, it's Monday here. It's Sunday night. Monday, right. Yeah, Monday morning here. Monday. Pretty depressing. Even when you work for yourself, it's kind of still depressing. Yeah, you still have that hangover thing, you know? You're going up in the lift and you talk to people. Yeah, it's Monday. Hey, you know, everyone grumps. Yeah, it's just, you know, one of those leftover things. But I don't work on the weekends much.

Chris Gammell: I figure if I worked for myself, I'd work all weekend, though. That's the thing. So I don't see the difference.

Dave Jones: Exactly. But I'm, you know, that's the deal with the wife, you know? It's a good deal. I do as little work as I can on the weekends, even though she doesn't work either, right? So, you know, she's a full-time mummy. And, yeah.

Chris Gammell: No, I mean, it's really smart from a life balance thing. But just given my current life, I mean, I work a day job and then I come home and I work all night. Work five different blogs, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's just stupid. I'm a dumbass. No comment. I'm literally an idiot. My brain is melting. But, you know, there's always beer, so. Right. At least I have a scapegoat.

Dave Jones: How many blogs are you and what websites are you trying to maintain at the moment?

Chris Gammell: Oh, well, I got Chip Report. There's a new Chip Report. I can link that in this week. Of course. Might as well get the plug in. Yeah, why not? Then I got my Chris Gammell's Analog Life, like I talk about. Which you don't do much on anymore, do you? No, I don't. I just reformatted it, but, yeah, I don't write there anymore. And then Engineer Blogs is kind of dead. That's a shame. Yeah, it's too bad. I actually like some of the articles on that. Yeah, I know. Well, it was everybody else, too. It might come back. I don't know. And then the Engineering Commons is the other podcast, so. How's that going? All told, yeah, a couple. It's going good. It's going good.

Dave Jones: Okay. And you've got other ideas as well, which you haven't actually launched yet, right?

Chris Gammell: No. Yeah, I have another podcast in the Dreaming, and then they, uh... Yeah, yeah. Well, then you and I have been talking about, you know, not starting a combined Kickstarter, but I've been noodling the idea, and it's a terrible idea. It's just an absolutely terrible idea.

Dave Jones: Why? The actual project itself, or the fact that you want to crowdsource fund it?

Chris Gammell: No, the fact that I think I can fit something else in my life without dying. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. I don't know. Like, you know, like, there was that, uh, that talk that, uh... What's his name? Nathan from SparkFun gave about, you know, the different stages and everything. Yes, and the pit of despair. You know, yeah, the pit of despair. And it's like, I know it's not a guaranteed thing, but there is a legitimate chance that, like, you know, if I started a Kickstarter and it did okay, that I'd have to quit my job, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, of course, yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's a big deal, right? Yeah.

Dave Jones: And you would be left in that middle ground. Because, you know... Well, not necessarily. Well, if you don't go on and make something of that business that started from the Kickstarter, if you just sold a couple of thousand of your widgets and you went, oh, shit, I've got to deliver a couple of thousand, and then that's it, it ended, then, well, you're out of a job and you're, you know...

Chris Gammell: Right, yeah, no, that's what, yeah, that's what you and I were talking about, right? Yeah. It's like, Kickstarter's not meant to start businesses, but at the same time, if you don't, like, what do you do? You just, hey, boss, I'm back. Yeah, exactly. You know, like, what do you do? I look good.

Dave Jones: Done quite, yeah. Yeah. And a lot of them fold as the top of the list here on today's thing. That's right, yeah. So what is this one? I know people don't like us talking about this, but we've talked about this on the show before, the open source remote control thing. I'm sure we've talked about it, like, maybe a year ago now, right? It was a long time ago. And a really funky looking remote control. It had everything. It had everything. It was the everything. Kitchen sink, yeah. And it was brilliant. And, yeah, but I just got...

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe not.

Dave Jones: Well, I just got a message this morning. I don't even know if it's public yet. I went to their website and there didn't seem to be anything there on it, but I was... Oops. Yeah, oops. Sorry if you're looking at this, but I was sent a message this morning via YouTube, of all places, from the guy who runs it. I'm not sure if it was a mass message or whether or not it was individually. It's hard to tell on YouTube. Yeah. And he said, yeah, sorry. Sorry. The quote is, let me get it. Let me get it. Come on, interwebs. The open source RC is now dead, quote, due to insufficient funding and lack of support from the open source community. Which translated, I think, means just they didn't get enough money. End of story. I think they had plenty of support. Heaps of people waiting for it. Was there a Kickstarter for that or no? I don't recall, so I'm not going to say yes or no. I mean, obviously, if there was a Kickstarter and it met the funding target, then, well... Right. That's it. You don't have to...

Chris Gammell: I mean, you don't have to follow through, but then you're supposed to give the people the money back, so...

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well...

Chris Gammell: Right? I mean, that's how it works. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So I'm not sure how it was funded or how they were trying to get funding for it. I don't recall it all. We don't do research here on the Amp Hour for our stories. I just added this, you know, 20 minutes ago, so...

Chris Gammell: Right, right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think this is an interesting idea, though, from the... I mean, this is a pretty classic case of pricing problems and then also, you know, feature creep, right? I mean...

Dave Jones: Feature creep, maybe biting off more than you can chew, and also competing in a market that, as Alan Garfield pointed out on Twitter when I tweeted this thing, he used to work in an RC company or something, and he said that, yeah, the remote control unit itself has always been built down to the lowest price point or something, something like that. I mean, I bought one for my quadcopter, right? 50 bucks for this... That's what I was thinking. ...for this nine-channel remote control and included the receiver and everything. It's a Turnagy brand one, you know, not exactly the Dux guards, right? But it's 50 bucks, and it's nine-channel and digital and everything else, like with the LCD screen on it and all the configurations, setup, everything. How can you compete with that?

Chris Gammell: Well, I remember when we talked about this project the first time, I think that was one of my first exposures to at least the remotes. You know, I knew quadcopters needed remotes or something, but I remember seeing it, and then that kind of anchored the price, and this one was like, it was targeted at like $800 or something. It was pretty expensive. That's all the features. Yeah. It's pretty expensive, right? And then I remember a couple weeks or months later, I saw on Hobby King, I think it was, where I was looking at the actual controllers, and someone told me, you know, yeah, it's like a $50 controller, and it's like, really? $50? That's like 1 16th of what I thought it would be, you know? Exactly. And like you said, it had tons of features anyways, so, hmm.

Dave Jones: I didn't know where it came from. I mean, granted, the quality of my Turnagey one is pretty poor, like the battery cover, you can't even put it on. It's a, you know, the quality, it's really built down to 50 bucks, but it works. It's 50 bucks, you know? I mean, jeez.

Chris Gammell: Well, it depends on the market you're playing, too. I mean, if you're playing in a hobby market, then you're going to need hobby prices. People are going to chase the lowest cost. Of course. If you're playing in a quality market, and even, I think, a lot of people these days are chasing low cost regardless, you know, even companies. Yep. But, you know, like, you need to actually have pricing that meets your market, which just sucks, you know? Yeah, well, exactly.

Dave Jones: Well, you can pay a couple of hundred bucks for a top quality Futaba remote control or one of those Japanese brand, you know? You can't, you know, serious enthusiasts pay, you know, might pay three, four hundred dollars for their remote controls, but, you know, they're like...

Chris Gammell: But that's the lesson in economics, right? At the top, you know, at the top end of the scale, you're just going to have fewer customers. That's right. You know, like, there's... I took economics once. I know what I'm talking about, kind of, sort of, not really. And, you know, you charge more, you make, you know, like, you have fewer customers, but you need to make more margin. That's it. I knew about that at one point. Right. So that's too bad, though. I mean, that sucks that the, you know, you never want to see a project end, but... Yeah. It could just have been expectations or whatever else, but... It's too bad. Yeah. It's a shame. But it's part of the cycle, right? It's all. It is.

Dave Jones: So let that be a lesson to you. Not all open source hardware projects go to plan.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Some of them fail miserably. And speaking of, it's not just open source hardware as well. It's, you know, big funded projects, like the battery company, right? A123. Oh, they're gone tits up. They're gone too, yeah. So they were, they had a couple hundred million, I think, invested in them as well.

Dave Jones: Only a couple hundred million, yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: Only a couple hundred million. And now they're selling off all their stuff, and they're saying, yep, we're gone. And this is the one, I mean, and if people don't know who A123 is, I mean, this is like, this is like our guest, Bob Simpson. He had designed an A123 packs. I believe the A123 are in the Tesla as well. I could be wrong about that, but...

Dave Jones: I thought Tesla rolled their own.

Chris Gammell: I, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Who knows?

Dave Jones: Anyway, they make battery packs for, what, the leading developer of battery packs for EV cars? At least for the aftermarket.

Chris Gammell: Why not? Or do they do one for the... They're in the Chevy Volt, too. Oh, okay. I mean, they're in the Volt. Oh, there you go. I mean, yeah, not exactly a small thing, but it's just a, you know, it's an economics thing, right? You run out of money eventually.

Dave Jones: Well, are their customers going to let them fail? It's one of these things where, you know, it's like the chip companies, right? None of these automotive manufacturers are going to let their prime chip company fail because they produce the chips for them. They're contracted to produce the chips. So I suspect this mob is too big to fail, like a chip company. They're going to be bailed. No? No, they're not.

Chris Gammell: They sold all their stuff to Johnson Controls, who's another big maker, basically.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but they will continue on, right? So their contracts will probably switch over to the new company. Exactly. It's not like they go into business and then the, you know, Chevy GM, they're scratching their heads. Oh, shoot. Where do we buy our batteries from? No, no. They'll just move over to Johnson, right?

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: That's how it works. So technically, yes, they were too big to fail.

Chris Gammell: Hey, I don't know if I agree with that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but they didn't just fail, right?

Chris Gammell: I mean, maybe the product line was too big to fail, but...

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, yes, the company failed, right? I mean, they'll sold for pennies on the dollar, but their market remained, right? Their customers remained. Their customers weren't necessarily left holding a bag, I don't think.

Chris Gammell: No, that's true. Yeah, they're not...

Dave Jones: That's what I'm talking about, in terms of too big to fail, you know? Yeah, that's not what too big to fail is, though. Well, yeah, I know. Yeah. I know.

Chris Gammell: But, yeah. That's like... Maybe I'll give you, like, too important to fail, or too entrenched to fail, but no, not too big to fail. Too big to fail is something totally different. Right. It's stupid.

Dave Jones: Well, too big to... Like, they failed, but they didn't go out of business, if you know what I mean. Maybe that's a better term. Maybe too big to go out of business, like, completely, like, literally turn off the lights and go, well, bye-bye, you know? No. All this stuff was bought out. Right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I'm going to just let this one go. Anyway, let's... Yeah.

Dave Jones: I think we're flogging a dead horse here. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: But it sucks, because they... They, you know, it's... You know, battery technology is really important, you know? It's just like...

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And it's not getting any... You know, there's no big jumps in batteries. You keep hearing all this stuff. You see all these articles on Spectrum, and, you know, in E.E. Times and stuff like that. And, oh, this new technology and this new chemistry. And it's like, man, it's just a grind. It's just... Ah! You know? We need some kind of, like, leap forward, and it's just... It's really tough to do.

Dave Jones: That's why I'm wondering. How did they fail? Was it just bad mismanagement? Because I... You know, I thought they would have had contracts to sell all these batteries. You know? They had...

Chris Gammell: They had a big... They had a recall at one point.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right. That could have stung them real bad. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And there's a tech review article that I'll link in as well about what happened to A123.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: And, yeah, it sucks, you know? Hmm. But...

Dave Jones: Are the jobs staying there?

Chris Gammell: Or a good percentage of them? They sold off... It says they sold off their assets to Johnson, including the factories in Michigan and China. So... Right. I... You know how it goes when companies kind of... Oh, of course. Yeah. I've been there, done that. ...move and stuff like that. Right. Exactly. So it's... I'm sure not every job will be the same. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, a new company comes in, they always have to clean up the books and make things look good and find efficiencies, yada, yada, yada. But, uh...

Dave Jones: Well, the company failed for... Companies fail for one reason. Finances. Right? That's the reason they fail. Nothing else. Unfortunately, yes. Really. You know, that's pretty much, right? They run out of money. Oops. Right.

Chris Gammell: And that can be driven by different things, right? That can be driven by... It can be. Market. Yeah. You know... Draws up or whatever. Yeah. It could be market. Like, that's what happened with Solyndra, right? They have a product recall. Recalls and other ones. With Solyndra, it was apparently the... They bet on the wrong technology, right? Oops. Yeah. Well, that's a strategic... Yeah. So that's a big thing, right? Yeah, of course. So they bet on the fact that polysilicon at the time was $400, and then basically all of this new polysilicon production came up in the States and elsewhere, and it dropped to $30. And so basically, it became really cheap to make these now silicon wafer solar cells versus doing thin film or whatever Solyndra was doing, those cylinders. And basically, so they just got flooded with all these other... Everybody else would be able to make it way cheaper now. And so, like you said, the market, that's when that kind of thing happens. Oops. Or it could be, you know, your executives could run off with cash, or there could just be mismanagement. I mean, there really are a lot of ways, but like you said, it always does come down to eventually, at some point, either your bankers are calling you for, you know, payments and you can't make them, or, you know, your board shuts you down, or your board kicks someone out.

Dave Jones: Oh, hey. Yes. Yeah. What's going on there? Now we're getting into some real news here. Yeah. This is huge. What happened here? It took me by surprise, and it took most people, pretty much everyone in the industry by surprise. My former company, Altium. Nick Martin, who's the original founder, founded in Tasmania here in Australia, and back at, what, 25, 27 years ago or something? He was just booted out by the board. Clearly booted out by the board. We'll link in the Altium press release to the stock exchange, and yeah, he was given the ass. And that is clear, of course.

Chris Gammell: I always liked that term.

Dave Jones: Given the ass. Given the ass. Yeah. Ass. Not ass. Ass. Ass. Ass here in Australia. Ass. And yeah, that's very clear from the standard industry terminology here in the, shall I read it? Some of it?

Chris Gammell: Oh, sure. Go ahead. Maybe abridged. How about that?

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. No, I'll read the one paragraph. While Altium has made considerable progress over the past 12 months, having relocated its global headquarters to China and returning to profitability, it is the board's decision that it is in the best interests of Altium to adopt a different style of leadership, with focus on returning value to shareholders. End quote. Which means... Bullshit. Which is, of course, absolutely industry standard terminology. We need to have like an airborne. Oh, shit. We booted out the CEO because we didn't like him and we didn't agree with him. So, end of story. Like, he is gone, apparently. He is like, I don't know if they marched him out the door, but he is, he, yeah, it says he has been removed from, or he has stepped, he stepped down, of course. He was asked to step down. That's how it works here. That's how it works in big companies like that. And he stepped down from all of his positions within the company with an immediate effect. There you go. Jeez. And, yeah. That's crazy. I mean, this is the guy who's been the head, the, you know, face of Altium for its entire life. You know, he set the technical direction. He did everything. He was still a very hands-on CEO. He was one of the very few hands-on CEOs of any company, let alone an EDA company, you know, in terms of still getting in there and, you know, and cutting code and, you know, playing around with the product and actually using the product and all that sort of stuff. Really, really hands-on guy. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's gone. The board absolutely booted him out.

Chris Gammell: So, how's it feeling? I mean, is this like a... Let me try and say this word again, because I got it wrong the last... I think I'll probably get it wrong again. Schadenfrude? Schaden? Schaden? Schaden? No. Schadenfrude? I'm going to stick with that. Schadenfrude. Gesundheit. I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, right. Yeah. No. It's a German word, basically feeling good when other people have pain. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: No, no. I like Nick. He's a nice guy. And he got the raw end of the... He got booted out. Whether or not people think he might have deserved it for the direction he took the company, you can't knock his commitment and devotion to the company over 25 plus years.

Chris Gammell: A nice endorsement from David L. Jones. Well, no.

Dave Jones: He's a nice guy. I've got nothing against the guy. Did I agree with his direction? No. Just like a lot of... Most of his directions? No. Just like a lot of people in the industry. You know, that doesn't mean I don't like the guy. You know? Yeah. That's... And he will probably... I mean, if Altium fail now, right, Nick will be the hero and the board will be the, you know, the evil board who booted out the... Oh, yeah. You know, the charismatic leader, you know? Yeah. So the board have to follow through now and actually...

Chris Gammell: So they set themselves up, basically. Yeah. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: And by the way, I don't think there's anything I can say here that's not publicly available information because I don't know anything, like, you know. So it's all... Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You're not on the board, right?

Dave Jones: No, I'm not the board. I don't actually know any of the board members personally. So, really.

Chris Gammell: No, that's how it usually goes. Yeah. You'll never meet them. Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, it's right. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I always wonder what those meetings are like, too. You know? Like, it's... Yeah, I know. It's so high level, right? It's just like... I don't know. You know, like, basically, boards are there to kind of rein in CEOs, right? They're supposed to represent its shareholders, yada, yada, yada. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I have a hard time. I mean, like, granted, I'd ever have a very good view of this stuff in the first place, but really? Like, what are they really... I mean, like... I don't know.

Dave Jones: I'd love to be on a fly on the wall. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I would, too. Oh, man. I'd love to be on a board. Those guys get paid, like, 25 grand for showing up for meetings. Yeah. Like, honestly, that's, like, what it ends up being. Well, no. There you go.

Dave Jones: These ones, I think the lowest paid is about 60 or 70 grand just for showing up to a couple of meetings a year, I think. Oh, I meant per meeting.

Chris Gammell: I meant 25 grand per meeting.

Dave Jones: Oh, per meeting. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. There's only, like, four meetings a year or something, I think.

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. And they'll get paid, like, you know, or they'll get paid in stock or whatever else. Yeah, exactly. Man, how do I get that gig? You know? How do I just get to... It's like, you know, like, telling people what to do from far away and getting paid for it. It's like this, except, you know, getting paid.

Speaker ?: Wow, that's true.

Dave Jones: And interestingly, Nick Martin is still the largest shareholder. He's still the largest shareholder. He owns, like, a quarter of the company. Like, 22 million shares or something. So, he is still, you know... I bet he wishes it was 51%. Yeah. Top dog as far as... Well, yeah. I bet he was wishing, yeah. That's right. But, um... I mean, you know, it's no... It's no industry secret that, you know, Nick drove the direction of the company. That was all... You know, he drove the direction, the... You know, the technical direction of the company into these, some people say crazy directions. You know, the FPGA stuff when they floated, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But ultimately, you know, it pretty much was a public failure. Pretty much. It still looks good on the marketing blurbs. But, uh... No, as a, you know, as a technical support kind of thing, they pretty much ultimately failed on that. And other directions with the cloud and, you know, everything else rather than focusing on the core tool set, which is what I and probably 90% of the users ultimately wanted, um... Right. ...was just to, you know, work on the core... But hey, that's where... He had the vision to follow all that stuff, right? And that's what he did. And it seems that the board weren't... Have determined that that wasn't returning value to shareholders. So... But... There's not too many... As far as I know, there's not too many shareholders, really. I think the board own a hell of a lot. Altium... Nick Martin owns a quarter. There's... I think the rest are just dregs, you know? So... And there's a big shareholder employee plan or something. Employee-shareholder plan or something. So... I don't know. Yeah, that never does as much as you think it would. There's not too many shareholders, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, I don't think there's any, like, mysterious external shareholders that own two-thirds of the company. You know? I don't... Right. I don't think that exists. So... Hmm. I don't know. It's hard to read this one. It's... But he's certainly not booted, that's for sure.

Chris Gammell: Well, what I was going to say is that... Is that... The nice thing is that... Hopefully it means that the software will be around for a long time yet. And that's all I care about, to be honest. I don't give a crap about the company or anything else. And I think... I don't think I'm alone here. I mean, I know that you're more invested in this because of, you know, your history with it. But, you know, most people that are Altium users, they just want to make sure it's going to be around, right? No one wants it to go away.

Dave Jones: Yeah. No one wants their tool to vanish. Exactly. And I'm hoping that, yeah, they'll return to the core feature set. I'm sure that's what most users are hoping. Oh, Nick's gone. Great. No more, you know, no more cloud crap and all that sort of stuff, you know? No more vision speak. No more, you know, just give me PCB and schematic and fix those bugs, you know? Yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: You know, with these big moves and these big, you know, board-sponsored whatever the hell these things are, right? I mean, like, you know, kick on CEO or whatever. I really wish that they would just, you know, like, they're all saying, oh, well, this is for the shareholders, whatever. It's like, well, what about your frigging users, right? Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: Well, no, but...

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's like, like, with...

Dave Jones: Unfortunately, that they are legally, as a publicly listed company, they are legally obligated to do what's in the best... They are... They have fiducial responsibility to...

Chris Gammell: Fiducial.

Dave Jones: Fiducial responsibility. No, not fiducial. That's the wrong word, yeah. Fiduciary responsibility, I think, is the correct word. Fiduciary? Don't take financial term advice from electronics engineers.

Chris Gammell: We're both wrong, yeah.

Dave Jones: Right? They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. That's their number one responsibility as a publicly listed company, like it or not. Whether or not it's a good idea. I mean, there's a lot of industry experts who say that is bad. If you don't focus on your customer, you're screwed, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. Right. And that was my thing. Because it's not just Altium, right? There's a story this week about ST, ST Micro. And they're talking about breaking up the company. Let's see. And they're going to break it up between the analog, the digital section, you know, and everybody else, right? And because, oh, well, it's down... You know, sales are down to... Excuse me, 10 billion this year. Oh, okay. Only 10 billion. Jeez. Right. It must be hard to manage the books. I mean, I know these are big companies, right? ST is not a small company by any stretch. But it's really frustrating because, you know, what it really comes down to is that, you know, even if you get one of those letters that says, oh, well, we'll have chips around for 10 years or whatever. Yep. It's like, yeah, that stuff is totally valid until your company breaks in half. And it's like, well, screw you guys. You're making it harder for me. I'm never using your parts again. You know, like, how do you possibly maintain any semblance of trust with your customers when, you know, like, you can't... You know, you overextend yourself so much that you can't even hold together, right? It's like, oh, we're going to have to break it off. This isn't working out. It's not you. It's me, right?

Dave Jones: It's like, screw you.

Chris Gammell: Oh, boy. Yeah. So it's... And it's... You know, I know it's like a big game, you know, to all these people. It's just money. It's just numbers on a balance sheet, whatever. It's like, no, this is real stuff, man. This is really, really affects a lot of people. And not just... Not even just me from a stress standpoint of, you know, I got to design someone else's part of it now. It's like, no, you got 50,000 employees, you know? And it's like... And it's like... The only reason it really bugs me is because, you know, when they take on projects that are super out there, right? I mean, they're leveraging the whole company and everything. I mean, like, Freescale is doing... You know, like, they had a big problem with that a long time as well, where they were super leveraged, and then they went public, and then they went private, and then public again. Right? And then there's this news now about the buyouts actually being rigged. Like, it's like, really? All this stuff... Yeah, fake? All this stuff is just... It's just... Just so that we can make someone some money. Not even we. Just so you idiots can make some money on chip companies? Couldn't you go and do this with railroads or friggin' medical companies? Like, couldn't you leave the chip companies alone? Idiots, they are not.

Dave Jones: That's why they're rich. Bastards is what they are. Idiots, they are not. Right. Because they're rich and we're not. Yeah, that's true.

Chris Gammell: That's true. Yeah. Hey, we're the idiots that are just, you know, making stuff, right? Yeah. Well, exactly.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Doing it for the love of it. Go figure. And interestingly, that's what Nick has been doing. I believe that's what Nick's been doing for the last 25 years. He does it for the love of it. And I think that's probably what the board got sick of, right? He just loved coming up with new ideas and following all these vision things. And the board finally went, well, you know, that's not going to do us any good.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, we need to make money now, right? Yeah, exactly. And that is admirable, right? To do that kind of thing. Of course.

Dave Jones: That's why I don't dislike the guy because he had a passion for this and he followed it. Granted, I don't think it was very practical. That's the issue I had, you know, was that some of the things they followed were not practical for an EDA company. But, you know, you can't doubt the man's passion.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and make no bones about it, right? We'll make no bones about it that, you know, if you are a technical founder, eventually you are going to get pushed aside. That is just how it goes.

Dave Jones: That's how it goes, yeah. Yeah, sadly.

Chris Gammell: Or, you know, the other option is you become, you know, business-minded or something like that. But if you're just a technical founder, you know, it's just, it sucks. It's just how it is. You know, it's just like, look at like, like even, you know, Bill and Dave and HP, right? Yep. Like, those guys, they started out technical founders and they actually morphed. They morphed into becoming, you know, big businessmen and they kind of grew up with the company and that kind of thing. And then, but look at HP these days, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, eventually they retired and then they had no control over it and it just became this megalith, right? Of, you know, you can't do anything about it at that point. Even if your name's on the frigging wall. Yep. So, that sucks. Yeah, there's very few.

Dave Jones: I mean, if anyone knows of any technical companies of this scale, you know, Altium's like a, you know, a $50 million a year company, right? They're quite, quite large-ish. Not as large as they used to be, but certainly still large-ish. If you know of anyone who's still been run by the original founder in their, with their direction, they said everything, then let us know. I mean, Altium did it for a long time. Well, you can say ever since they floated in 2000. So, they've been doing it for 12 years. They've been getting away with it for 12, been doing that for 12 years, pretty much.

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: Because as soon as you float a company, of course, it's all over, right? You cease to own the company yourself and, you know, that's when the board can throw you out as the CEO. Bang. Right, right. Like, you know, Jobs and everyone else, you know, Steve Jobs and whoever.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You want to know.

Chris Gammell: Well, you know, the one example I would have is probably Bob Dobkin. And every time I see that guy, you know, talking about something, he's from linear technology for people that don't know. That guy is, he's not in control still. I mean, he's definitely still an influencer around there.

Dave Jones: Was he ever in control? Did he ever, was he ever involved in the financial managerial side of the business? Or did he always say, stay technical as a CTO or something, for example? I'm not sure.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I want, I really want to get on the show sometime. We'll definitely have to have him. He's definitely like at the very top. Yeah. Like him and the Woz and a couple other people, you know, they're at the top of our, you know, getting on the show list. But he's still the chief technical officer. He's still involved. He's still doing stuff. That guy is awesome.

Dave Jones: Maybe he's smart enough just to stay away from the board and the financial and management side of things.

Chris Gammell: That's very possible. You know, that stuff can get messy and stupid and, you know, and LT is a listed company. They're, you know, billion plus revenue and they're publicly listed.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So maybe Nick would still be there if he was just the CTO.

Chris Gammell: That's a good question.

Dave Jones: If he didn't try to set the direction of the company, perhaps. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's very possible. That's why I don't know. And, you know, you read about like startup stuff too and they talk about, you know, getting a CEO in after the founder, you know, like that kind of thing. And it's like, yeah, I've always, but like at the same time, like, do you really want to deal with that stuff? I mean, like look at Google, right? Like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, right? Like they're not, I mean, I guess Larry Page is now in charge again, but for a long time there, like Eric Schmidt was in charge, right? I mean, like they actually had a different person and it can change a lot of stuff. You know, it really does. You wouldn't think that one person matters that much, but it can change the culture, right? That's what really that ends up coming down to.

Dave Jones: Yes. But it can also ruin a company as well. I mean, you know, Altium have been financially in trouble a lot of times over the years, for example, because they've followed all these, some people call crazy visions, right? It's stepping into outside their main product stream, you know, and spending a lot of money as a result, trying to follow these things that ultimately didn't work for them financially. So, you know, it's not necessarily, so the founder is not always the best person to run the company. Yeah, that's very possible. Sometimes you need to get a CEO in who, you know, who runs it like a, you know, who has some adult supervision, so to speak, you know, financially and managerial and all that sort of jazz.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, I guess the question is, is, you know, if EEVblog Incorporated, right, if that started someday, would you stay in charge or what do you think?

Dave Jones: Of course I bloody well would.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you've got a thousand employees and you'd go to just managing them? I mean, that's what it ultimately comes down to is you do have to give up a lot of stuff.

Dave Jones: It wouldn't happen. No, I certainly would not. No, if I started up my own company where it could get to that point where it became a big organization, no, I can't see myself managing the thing. But I can see myself doing a nick and setting the direction of the company for sure. You know, I certainly wouldn't want to give up that. I certainly wouldn't want to give it to some bloody guy in a freaking suit and a tie. CEO running the company. NBA playbook in his back pocket. Yeah, exactly. Screw that. Screw the NBA playbook. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But at the same time, I would have to admit.

Chris Gammell: You'd pick that up if you're the CTO. Well, that's right. If you're just the CTO.

Dave Jones: If I was just the CTO, I would be the chief technology officer, assuming I'd run a technology company and not just some mail or company or something.

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, Dave Jones fruit smoothie stand.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Oh, boy. Don't laugh. There's big money in that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah? Fruit smoothies are a growth industry, huh?

Dave Jones: They are. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: We're lobbying the government to lower the price of fruit and ice.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. So, yeah, no. I would have to admit that I wouldn't be able to run a company like that, I don't think, from a financial and all that big industry point of view. Well, A, because I wouldn't give a shit for a start. Right, exactly. I just wouldn't care.

Chris Gammell: You'd be like, oh, the quarterly reports are due tomorrow? I'm doing electronics over here. Come on, man.

Dave Jones: Bugger off, man. I just got this farted novelty toy. I'm going to play with this. Bugger that.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yep, exactly.

Dave Jones: It's like, you know. And I think most people like us would be in the same boat, right?

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: For sure. That's how I think the Bob Dobkins and the Nick Martins roll, you know? They just don't give a shit, you know? Well, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And if you look at the personality profiles, too, right? Oh, yeah. Like the INTJ versus the whatever. The interesting thing is if you do look at a Meyer-Briggs thing like that, the INTJ is a lot of engineers, right? You and I are probably both INTJs.

Dave Jones: What's this Meyer-Briggs INTJ thing?

Chris Gammell: Oh, it's like a four-letter thing, so it's intuitive. Right. It's a personality profile thing. Yeah, it's a personality profile, right? There's like 16 different types. Right. But the interesting thing is the INTJ is most engineers and scientists. Oh, okay. The ENTJ, the only difference there is internal versus external or whatever that would be. The ENTJs are usually CEOs. That's what's interesting. And it's so, not so close, but because that is a pretty big difference of, you know, being internally focused versus externally focused.

Dave Jones: Oh, got it. Got it.

Chris Gammell: You know, like having to be calculating and everything else, like that is very important for running a big company versus, you know, being an engineer or a scientist. So, it's kind of crazy. But at the same time, if you can't bridge that gap, if you can't go from the internal to the external, then you're probably never going to make it, you know? Got it. So, I'm guessing, I would postulate that the people that...

Dave Jones: Well, you're not going to make it past CTO, right? CTOs would be the I's, like us. Correct? Right.

Chris Gammell: Correct. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And what I'm saying is that in order to get to be a successful CEO, you'd have to go from being an I to an E, right? You'd have to be able to focus on other people, right? And even if you're just faking it, you know, whatever works, you know? You'd have to actually care what other people think and, you know, focus on others. Yep. Interesting. If I have that right at all. I'm not sure if I do. Right. I can post some stuff about that.

Dave Jones: That sounds absolutely correct.

Chris Gammell: It's creepy when you read INTJ profiles, you're like, oh, crap, that's totally me. You're right. I guarantee if engineers read it, they'll be like, oh, man, that's totally me.

Dave Jones: Right. Is there like an online survey you can all take and actually post our results? That'd be great.

Chris Gammell: That would be great, actually.

Dave Jones: We'll see if we can find one after the show. We'll see if we can find an online quiz, you know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And then we can set up like a Google... Google Doc or something. We can maybe... We can all put in what we are and stuff.

Dave Jones: I think by our very nature, anyone who listens to this show is going to be internally focused, I think. Yeah. Well, there's other stuff, though, too. That's a tad bias, did I?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. The J is judging. So, you know, you have to be like good, like with analytical skills. Oh, okay. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So.

Dave Jones: Very interesting. So. Definitely. Back to the question that you had of whether or not the Altium product, because this is important, right? So many people care. So many people in our industry and our listeners rely on this product, right? Yeah. Is it going to be good? I mean, is it going to change? Are they going to more focus? I have no idea. But I am, I personally have my concerns because a lot of the programmers who I worked with when I was there are now gone. So that's, that's public fact. You know, they've moved on in one way, shape or form. They're no longer with the company. So I, so I hope, I do hope that they've managed to put on sufficient talent to compensate for that. Because Nick, as I said, was a very hands-on guy as well. That's another, you know, that's more hands-on deck that are gone from Altium. So I, yeah, I have no idea. I guess the, you know, whether or not we wait for an announcement from them or whether or not in the next major update of the software, it'll be obvious where they're headed, I guess. Yeah. You know, they're still going to, but it's, they're implying in this press release, it's a bit warm and fuzzy as these press releases always are. You know, they contain a lot of wank words and financial speak and, you know, but they sort of indicated that they're really going to continue with the web-enabled devices market, you know, which I think it will be an absolute dismal failure for them. Um, as I think most people, I mean, shit, this is a company that has one product. Okay. They make a PCB and schematic tool. All right. It's, you know, it's, it's pretty hard to fail in a, you know, with a, with a, with one product. Okay. And with an existing market of loyal customers, you just keep those loyal customers happy and what they want. And I think if they're going to follow this web-enabled bullshit, I think they're going to fail dismally. I hope they don't. I hope they don't. So, but, geez, I, I don't know. It doesn't sound good from the implication I get from this, uh, press release anyway. So, I mean, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, I wouldn't take press releases too much. No, yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: That's why I'm going to, yeah. We, we have absolutely no idea until the next version of the tool comes out and, you know, we, we see where they're actually headed with it. But I think they might head down the, you know, trying to rent the software or something like that. That's the sort of vibe you get. You know, no one will be able to, you know, because they've moved over the last couple of years, they've moved more towards the subscription model of things as most of these EDA companies have, right? You don't buy the software, you rent it, so to speak, you know, and you have to pay a yearly subscription fee in order to get updates and everything like that. So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, because that, from a financial point of view, that's brilliant for a company because it brings in sustained revenue. So it forces. Right, right.

Chris Gammell: You don't need to have a good, a good, a good, uh, new product each year. You can just have one good product and it just continues.

Dave Jones: It continues to update and if you want your bug fixes, you pay your subscription fees. But yeah, the sort of the vibe you get from this is that they're going to, you know, more of the functionality or more of the, uh, more of the, uh, um, you know, like libraries and stuff like that. I mean, if they're going to follow that idea where, you know, people are going to buy libraries from an online store or something, that's just going to fail dismally. I think we may have mentioned that on here before.

Chris Gammell: That's just insane. No, and actually I have a story about that this week.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Do tell.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. There's a, uh, there's a completely free tool. So DesignSpark just released a new web. They just redid their website. Groan. And they actually, well, yeah, but, but part of that is this thing called model source and it's got 80,000 different components basically. And you can go through and you can browse it and you can, and you can find footprints basically for whatever you want to. Now the, the search is a little wonky. It's, you know, you have to actually go through like a shitload of menus.

Dave Jones: It's similar to what other, well, similar to what Farnell are doing with Element 14, doing with Eagle and what Altium are doing with, uh, Altium Design. No, no, no.

Chris Gammell: This is, this is cross, this is cross, um.

Dave Jones: A cross EDA tool.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. That's where it's killing it.

Dave Jones: So you can go find Altium footprints with DesignSpark. You go find a part. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You go find a part basically. And then you pick out what, what type of, uh, footprint you want. So you can get Altium, you know, you can get, uh, P, pads, you can get Eagle, you can get.

Dave Jones: That's very commendable, but very foolish on their part because they bought DesignSpark. They're trying to flog DesignSpark. Maybe they've realized they're failing there and well, we may as well be nice guys. Right. And give, and support all the other packages as well. I, cause I know Eagle and Element 14 don't do that. Element 14, you know, they want you to stick with Eagle and, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's true. But this isn't, this is just about basically giving, giving another tool. Basically this is another tool that they can sell. You know, this is to pull people into their, their ecosystem, right? That's the idea here. Right. And, uh, the fact that they have a PCB software, I don't think that they, I mean, that's, isn't there the free, that's another free one, isn't it? DesignSpark.

Dave Jones: It's a free one. It's completely free, I believe. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah. And that's fine. But, um, you know, at the same time, they also have this other thing. So, I don't know. I like it. Right. All right. Fair enough. Like, other than, other than the search tool itself, it's not bad. But, to the same point, you know, like, why would you, why would you pay for a service then? Right? I mean, like, I had, I had put something on the list a couple weeks ago, actually, about there's a different service where you can pay for that. You know, it's actually like a guaranteed, um, it's, it's the same kind of thing where there's like a, there's like a standard generalized format that this company owns. And then, uh, and then basically you can convert it to any other type of footprint. Although, KiCat is not on either of these, which kind of cheeses me off. Right. Whatever. Uh, I'll make my own damn library. You know what? You guys, I'm going home.

Dave Jones: Oh, dearie.

Chris Gammell: But I think we, we might've talked about it before, but basically there was, there was another, hey, I'm trying to find it on here. There's another, um, uh, footprint library that you can basically buy and basically it's guaranteed to, oh, here we go. It's, uh, accelerateddesigns.com. Right. It's, uh, um, so that's, that's another one where you could, you could pay like, you know, upwards of five grand a month or a year or something.

Dave Jones: And they will do libraries for you. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Basically they'll, they'll be your librarian. Yeah.

Dave Jones: There's services like that. But a few, I think that's a losing model because most companies in the industry do their own footprints. They have to, for one reason or another, because it's specifically, they're tied into some, they're tied into their assembler and they have to tweak their footprints for an individual thing. Or they just do it from a design rule check point of view.

Chris Gammell: Yep. I mean, that's just. Yeah. At the very least they're going to have IPC, right? At the bare minimum.

Dave Jones: Yes. But yeah. And then they're going to at least check them. You know, they don't rely on most companies, most good companies will not rely on a footprint that is. Oh, you mean in a library.

Chris Gammell: Not, not the, not the, the library.

Dave Jones: The end user company who's actually designing the widget. Yes.

Chris Gammell: Right. So, yeah. Yeah. And you know, I, I talked to some people about like starting some kind of centralized service like this before. No. And I've, you know, I've seen it before and everything. And it's like, it's not worth it. You know, like even, even if it works 99.9% of the time. Yep. That 1%, that, or that 0.1%, it just kills you. Right? That could be, that could be a $500,000 mistake or a $5 million mistake. Exactly. You just don't know. So that's why, like you said, they just say, every time companies say, nope, we got to check it. We have to do it ourselves. Yep. Even if, even if the statistics said that that causes more errors, companies will always say that, that we'll check it internally.

Dave Jones: And, and it can cost more time and money to check it than it does to produce the footprint in the first place.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's true.

Dave Jones: You know, just in terms of man hours and paperwork. Yeah. And, you know, crap like that. God, it's so annoying. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I hate it. I hate it.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. So yeah, that's a losing ticket. If any company out there thinks that they can start selling footprints and stuff, you're not going to go anywhere. It's just not going to work. It's been proven over the...

Chris Gammell: Well, it'll work with, it'll work with some people. Well, there's a niche, maybe there's a small niche there, maybe, you know, but... But you're not going to be able to charge a lot. You're not going to, you're not going to charge, you know, like, like, you're not going to charge like the, the board house at TI that's making all their dev boards or, you know, another, another, another big CM, right? You're not going to be able to charge them because they're, if they're sufficiently large enough, they'll just develop an in-house and just do it themselves, right? Yep. That's, like you said, so that's, it's tough.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, the EDA CAD market. So what, what is Nick going to do now? I don't think we've heard the end of him. I think he's got too much passion to, yeah. Yeah, maybe.

Chris Gammell: Maybe he'll do like George Dyson's doing. That guy's all over the place. George Dyson? James Dyson, rather. Sorry, James Dyson. The guy that did the, the Dyson vacuums.

Dave Jones: Yeah? What about him?

Chris Gammell: Now he's investing, what is it, $8 million in an incubator.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: Just like, I make really expensive vacuums and now I'm going to give some of that money away.

Dave Jones: Fund the next generation of startups. Yeah. Well.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so he, and I think it's actually, sorry, I should say it's, it's Sir James Dyson. I think he's been knighted. Yes, he's British. So he's been knighted. Fancy pants. Right. Do people get knighted in Australia?

Dave Jones: Yes, I do, because we're part of the, we're part of the British Commonwealth. Huh. So yes, you can get knighted.

Chris Gammell: So someday you could be Sir Dave Jones, right? I certainly could be.

Dave Jones: Oh. Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: That would be hilarious.

Dave Jones: I'll be walking around the lab with a sword, you know, sheathed in my belt.

Chris Gammell: You put blinky LEDs on it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah. Ah, boy.

Chris Gammell: Anyways, though, he, yeah, he's starting up a student incubator, basically. Cool. At the Royal College of Art. But apparently that's what happens when you make a lot of money. You just got to get bored and you kind of give it away.

Dave Jones: That's what I'd do if I had a shitload of money. I'd be investing in startups and helping people and doing all that sort of, you know, opening a hacker space and, I don't know, doing all sorts of crap like that.

Chris Gammell: Do you think it gets better at a certain point where you're like, you're just like, well, I'm rich. I don't have to, you know, check footprints on a PCB, you know, like, so maybe it gets more fun at that point. I mean, like, not that electronics aren't fun, but like, there are some crappy parts to every electronics job, right? Yeah, of course. You just don't have to do it when you're rich. I mean, hire someone else. Hire one of us idiots to do it, right?

Dave Jones: I don't know. I'm too much of a nerd. You know, I'd probably still...

Chris Gammell: You're also never going to be a knight.

Dave Jones: Oh, damn it. Don't crush my dreams.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, sorry. Bastard.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no, I'm, yeah, I'm too much of a nerd. I'd still be doing a lot of the hands-on stuff. I don't know.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Please. Can I win Lotto so I can find out? Oh, God. And I can blog about it. I can blog about my experiences of being rich and... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I can imagine every video popping up in the EEV blog YouTube stream is like, just Dave showering himself in dollar bills, you know?

Dave Jones: Sitting on a throne of cash.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, there you go.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. How much money would you need to be in that position? It'd be in the tens of millions. If you only had a couple of million, that shit, that doesn't even buy you a decent house in Sydney, you know?

Chris Gammell: Well, let's see. I've done this math before. I think it was like, so 5% of 10 million is what, 500,000?

Dave Jones: Okay, so you're doing the interest rate thing that you could just sit back on your throne of cash and live off the interest. Yeah, I've always done that. Yeah, I'd say it's like 10 million bucks, you know, where you could, you know, you could actually throw away half a million or a million a year, spend it or invest it on something and without any sense of getting a return on that money. And you could still live for the rest of your life rich and comfortable. Yeah, I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Most technology weenies like us, right? I mean, to make $10 million is not a trivial thing. We know that. Mm-hmm. Unless you're like an investor, right? And then it's like, yeah, whatever. I mean, like you're probably doing a little work, but probably not, you know, you're not like a founder of a company work, right? People that are doing, the really successful technology people, the Bill Gates of the world, the Larry Pages, Sergey Brins, all them, right? They're working really hard to make that money. Like, I don't think anyone would argue with that.

Dave Jones: No. And the thing to be pointed out is that if your business is worth $10 million, right? You know, if you're making $10 million of sales per year, you are not worth $10 million.

Chris Gammell: Oh, totally not.

Dave Jones: If Dave Jones Inc. was turning over $10 million a year, I wouldn't, you know, I would not be worth that money. Most likely, when you reach that point, right, you're, you say, for an example, Artifruit, for example, I think they're turning over about $10 million a year or something, right? But they've got 50 employees now or something, right? So, you know, so it's like the owners aren't worth $10 million, you know?

Chris Gammell: Right, right. And they're rolling money back in, right? I was watching their Ask an Engineer last night. They just got a new space that looks awesome. Oh, excellent. Cool. And they said they bootstrapped that. They're paying for that themselves, which is awesome. That is really, really cool. It's a huge space. Exactly. And, you know, that's going to pay long-term dividends for them, right? But like you said, it's like, even if you get $10 million in revenues, it doesn't matter. It's got to be either $10 million in profit or you got to be $10 million of stock or whatever. And at that point, it's like, yeah, it's a totally different ballgame.

Dave Jones: Because a business that is doing well, like in an average industry, you know, Joe Blogs Corp in Joe Blogs industry, you know, if you're making 20% profit per year, you are a really good business, right? You are a very profitable business, right? So if you're turning over $20 million a year, that's $2 million a year profit for the company. And then you have to divvy that up among the owners and everything else, right? Shareholders. And that's probably before tax. That might even be before tax, right?

Chris Gammell: EBITDA, right?

Dave Jones: EBITDA. EBITDA. EBITDA. Earnings before income. Earnings before interest.

Chris Gammell: Interest, taxes. Yep. D and A. Yeah, all that financial. My wife's the accountant now. She's studying accounting. Right, okay. I'll ask her. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, my point about that all was, even if you're, you know, if you're working really hard to get to that point, you know, like, you're not going to slow down, right? Bill Gates still hasn't slowed down, right? That guy's, you know, super philanthropist now, right? Yeah, of course. The Google boys are still super crazy about their stuff. It's just, it's about the really successful people have that drive to start with, and it doesn't go away when you make money. Money is just a side thing, right? Even Warren Buffett, right? Warren, I love Warren Buffett. You know, like, I used to study stocks all the time. That guy doesn't give a crap about money. That guy gives a crap about winning and about finding good deals. That's all he cares about.

Dave Jones: Yep, yep, that's it.

Chris Gammell: And that's awesome. Exactly. Exactly. Money's just a side thing. So, yeah, we talk about it, but, you know, it's, I don't, I don't think you'd slow down. I mean, I don't, I don't think I'd slow down either. You know, like, it's just, you know, you gotta keep going. Exactly. You know? Yeah, so, it's.

Dave Jones: But if anyone who wants to donate me 10 million bucks, I can, we can certainly run a controlled experiment here.

Chris Gammell: Of course. Of course.

Speaker ?: Hmm.

Dave Jones: Reminder, go out at lunchtime, buy a lotto ticket. But you're anti-lotto. Right. So the dream's never going to come true to you. You're going to have to do it the bloody hard way, you poor bastard.

Chris Gammell: The real way, yeah. Yeah. The realistic way.

Dave Jones: Do you have any rich, you know, family who are about to cark it? You know, some distant relative and distant uncle who's going to cark it soon and leave you 10 million bucks or something? Nope.

Chris Gammell: Nope. Nope. I'm not from a mean family.

Dave Jones: It reminds me of the movie Richard Pryor. Was it Richard Pryor? Oh, what's it called? Brewster's Millions. Brewster's Millions, where he inherits. I love that movie. I know, it's cool.

Chris Gammell: It was 30 million in 30 days or something like that, and you had to keep giving it away. Yeah.

Dave Jones: His choice was, what, to take 3 million in cash now?

Chris Gammell: No, no, no, no, no. He didn't have a choice. Yes, yes, he did. He had to spend...

Dave Jones: No, no. At the start, he had a choice. They gave him a choice of he can take the wimp clause in his uncle's will or whatever, had this wimp clause where he could take 3 million bucks cash now and be gone of the whole thing, or he can try and spend 30 million in 30 days to win 300 million. Was that what it was? That was the premise of the movie. I focused on the 30 million in 30 days. I didn't remember the wimp clause. I can guarantee you that's how it was. There was this wimp clause in quote marks, and he chose, no, I'm going to try and spend 30 million bucks in 30 days. So he ran for governor or something. That is a ridiculous movie. That's great. If you haven't seen it. It's good.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's... Anyway, so what would you do if you had that choice?

Chris Gammell: What would I do?

Dave Jones: This is an electronic show, but who cares? If you had that wimp clause, take 3 million bucks cash now or...

Chris Gammell: Oh, there. I thought you meant what would I do with a lot of money. I don't know. I don't know. It's never going to happen. Okay.

Dave Jones: How would you spend 30 million bucks in 30 days?

Chris Gammell: If I had that million dollars, if I had that money, I'd do like... I like the tech shop idea. I mean, I'd open up like a tech shop or something. Yep. You know? Why not? I don't know. It's cool. Yeah. Actually, there's a thing about tech shop on our list. Tech shop teamed up with a hardware store around here.

Dave Jones: As in a nuts and bolts hardware store?

Chris Gammell: Like, well, it's like a big box hardware store. It's called Lowe's. Oh, right. So it's got like a lumber yard and everything. It's got everything, basically.

Dave Jones: Lowe's is a clothing store here in Australia.

Chris Gammell: Oh, really?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's interesting.

Speaker ?: Hmm.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So they're like Home Depot here as well. Right. Okay. And basically, they... But basically, they're sharing the space, basically, because it's this big warehouse, effectively. Yeah, exactly. And so tech shop down in Austin, they teamed up with Lowe's. And so I think that's a really cool idea because then you think about it...

Dave Jones: Because all the tools are there, right? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You need an extra tool, you pop over, you go buy one. Yeah. Or like you need materials even. You know? You need like lumber. Yeah. Yeah. It's all there. Well, I'll go next door. That's easy.

Dave Jones: You can buy it. Yeah, exactly. It's all on site there.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. That's terrific. So my question is maybe we'll see like hardware stores start selling like electronics stuff too, right? It doesn't seem that unusual.

Dave Jones: Well, it won't happen here in Australia, but...

Chris Gammell: No? Why not?

Dave Jones: No. Oh, no. Our industry's different here. Our market's different. How so? How so? Well, we don't have the same technical culture you guys do over there.

Chris Gammell: Explain.

Dave Jones: Like I said, we've all those hackerspaces and all the tech shops and the startups. You guys have hackerspaces? Right? Yeah. Like two.

Chris Gammell: So what do people do over there?

Dave Jones: Not much. We don't know. Like I said, right? You know, you guys have more job openings, more technical job openings at one company than we do in the entire country.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but we're also a bigger country too, right? I mean, like we have 310 million.

Dave Jones: It is, but it's not proportionally, but you know, yeah, you guys have got 10 times more, like 15 times the population we do, but you have like 100 times the amount of jobs we do or 1,000 times the amount of jobs we do. Yeah, I guess so. There's not a direct relationship there between the population and the job and other availability.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and that's going to be an economy's scale though thing too, right? I mean, like you're going to go where the largest job market, the labor market is, right? I mean, look at China. China's got tons of available engineers and a lot of stuff went over there, aside from the, you know, the whole cost thing. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's unfortunate for you. You should probably move to the States.

Dave Jones: No, thanks.

Chris Gammell: And then you could start a Kickstarter.

Dave Jones: Right. I heard Kickstarter moved to the UK. Why hasn't it moved to Australia yet?

Chris Gammell: Because you guys are too tiny. You guys are smaller than, you guys are a subset of the UK.

Dave Jones: Yes, we are.

Chris Gammell: You guys are the cast-offs of the UK. Ah, boy. That joke is always funny.

Dave Jones: We don't want it anyway. No, I'm just being bitter. I know.

Chris Gammell: That's okay.

Dave Jones: Because we don't have it. Bastard. Oh, boy. But, no, it's getting harder to, you know, a lot of people get into it. Getting more skeptical about those sort of things. But we shouldn't talk about Kickstarter on here. We do it too often, don't we?

Chris Gammell: We do. Yeah. We do. All right. What else should we talk about? We've got a little time left, right? A little bit. Yeah. Time's up. We always go over. Right, usual.

Dave Jones: That's just what we do. What's this business about bloody Amazon? Oh, yeah. Maybe.

Dave Jones: The rumor has it trying to buy their own app processors from TI. I think this is a load of crap. Oh, well, it might be. But it has one of those air of credibility stories, you know. Like, it could be like an April Fool's joke, but it's got enough air of credibility to it. Yeah. And it could be true, right? Because the Kindles and the, you know, all of the Kindles, both their e-readers and their tablet, use the OMAP processor. Right?

Chris Gammell: Here's my argument against it, right? We were talking about executives before. Jeff Bezos is one of the best executives out there. I don't think he's that stupid. Getting into chips is one of the dumbest ideas you could possibly make.

Dave Jones: Not necessarily. When you're a huge corporation. Oh, I totally think so. I totally think that's a... Apple are going that route to get more control. And to squeeze more margin.

Chris Gammell: You do not see them buying ARM. The day they buy ARM, I'll agree with you, right? The day that they buy the OMAP line, I agree with you. Well, no, they can't buy ARM.

Dave Jones: They'd be foolish to buy ARM because then they'd be supporting their competitor as well who uses ARM, including Apple. Right, but okay, how about this?

Chris Gammell: The day they stop using ARM. The day they draw their own core, right? Right. Because effectively, that's what it is. OMAP is its own core. Wait. Yes. Oh, maybe I'm wrong about that.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, maybe I'm wrong too. Is OMAP a variation of ARM? I think it might be. Oh, crap. Oh, here we go. Let's Google.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is great on live radio here. Click, click, click. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. OMAP.

Chris Gammell: Processor.

Dave Jones: Is it General Purpose ARM Architecture Core? Yes, it is, according to Wikipedia. Oh, okay. So there we go. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Chris Gammell: See, we're not afraid to say we're wrong. Okay, so that's why. Okay. All right. So it's just a family. That's right. And I was thinking of that too because when I was saying that it's a role on your own, and then I was thinking about BeagleBoard, right? That's what BeagleBoard is based on is the OMAP. Yes. But then I remember Jason Kreidner saying something about ARM and A9s and all this other crap.

Dave Jones: But the OMAP processor has lots of cool value-added stuff to it. It's got the memory, you know, flipped on top of it. It's got like graphics processes and stuff built in and all that sort of stuff. Right, a lot of DSPs that are integrated. It's a single chip solution. Yeah. So it's a very expensive chip, which, you know, because it's got all that functionality built in, which kind of, you know, means that, you know, it kind of makes it viable for someone like Amazon to buy that so that they can, because that would be one of the key component costs in their products would be the OMAP processor. Maybe.

Chris Gammell: But like, all right, so here we go. OMAP 4430, right? That's the, I think that's not the most recent. But if you look at the list of what it's used in, BlackBerry, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Panasonic. I mean, like, maybe if it's like we're buying it so we can screw our competitors kind of thing, but they're used all over the place.

Dave Jones: Well, maybe they buy it because they think it's a really viable business in its own right, let alone that they can get the spinoff benefit of having the chips cheap themselves. Right? So they might run as an independent business. Who knows? Anyway, this is all rumor. Maybe I just need to keep an open mind.

Chris Gammell: Because if you told me, you know, three months, three years ago that Amazon was going to buy a robotics company, then I'd say, yeah, you're crazy. Yeah. But they did, right? I mean, they bought Kiva Systems, which is their, now their, you know, their warehouse company. So I guess it does have an air of creditability, but.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But it's a total rumor. I think they're idiots.

Chris Gammell: Being in a chip company, like, you know, like I haven't been in the industry that long, but owning a chip fab, it seems like a terrible idea. It's a shit on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Low profit margins and everything else. Like, you want to get rich, do not buy a chip fab. Oh, that's just terrible.

Dave Jones: But Amazon are so big, like the apples of the world. They are. They are so big that they can absorb this as chump change. You know, they can absorb a fab like it's chump change. You know, a couple of billion dollars, ah, chump change. Right?

Chris Gammell: No big deal, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Who cares if we don't make money from it? You know, we can get our chips cheaper. It looks better on, you know, it's a tax write-off, you know? Who knows? It's, you know, ah. That's it. You know, those businesses are so huge. I don't know how anyone can understand it, like, at the board level. Imagine being the CEO of, you know, and trying to understand exactly how the financials would work. Another reason why you wouldn't want to be bloody CEO for quids.

Chris Gammell: Well, the financials are easy, but you know what the tough part would be for me? And I think this happens a lot with, like, the big ones like Bezos and everyone else. It would be, like, how would you not be able to, like, say you're a CEO of a big company. How would you not be, like, talking to anyone in your company and being like, this guy's lying to me just to keep his job. That's exactly what I would think in every interaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy's totally full of crap. Yeah. He's just trying to save his neck. And, like, that would be so frustrating. Can you imagine how awesome it would be to get, like, have someone frankly tell you, no, you're doing this wrong. Like, I would give that person a hug at that point.

Dave Jones: That's what would happen. Thank you. That's what would happen in EEV Blog Inc. I would instill the culture in any company I've formed where bullshit is, you know, the calling bullshit is rewarded. You know, and I want you to argue with me. Not just rabble rousing. Yeah, I want you to get in my phone. I want you, the lowly guy on the production floor, to get in my face as the CEO or the CTO and tell me I'm full of shit and I'm doing it wrong.

Chris Gammell: Make your case. And that's why you'll never be a CEO.

Dave Jones: And that's why I'll never be the CEO of a company. Never ever. Oh, yeah. You know, because I want people to criticize me and tell me I'm doing it wrong. And don't give me any bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Right. And you want to get in a row, right?

Dave Jones: And that's how I worked at all companies have worked at. And that's why I was never promoted beyond. I was sat in a corner. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Never even made it to CTO. Never even made it to manager or anything.

Dave Jones: Yep. Just sit in the corner and we'll tap you on the shoulder when we need you. Just connect the dots, man. Just connect those dots. Exactly. Yeah. But no, that's how I would run a company.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Probably to its detriment. But eh, who cares?

Chris Gammell: You know.

Dave Jones: I'd be sitting on a throne of cash. It wouldn't matter.

Chris Gammell: One last article about connecting the dots. There, I found this really, I'm sure that you've seen this stuff before. But I've never, I've never really done any like really, really big BGA packages before. I've done a couple of little ones.

Dave Jones: The big 1500 pin ones. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Xilinx has an interesting app note about, I guess it's, or it's actually part of an app note because whoever's hosting it, they like chopped it up. But it's actually this really good guide on like, on like how to actually route a BGA and like, you've done these kind of things before. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I've done, I've routed out 1500 pin BGAs and it is, yeah, if you don't do it right, you're, you know, you can do it by trial and error, right? You can start out and you learn this stuff pretty quick when you start, oh, you routed out your first 200 signals and then you find, oops, I just backed myself into a corner. I can't, I need to add an extra four layers to my already eight layer PCB, right? Yep. You know, and there's an art because multi-layer PCBs are expensive, right? Every time you add an extra two layers, you've got to go up in a two layer chunk. You know, every time you add two layers, you add, you know, your price might, you know, it might not double, right? But it's, it's going to be a very significant.

Chris Gammell: No, it's a couple of bucks each time. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I think when you go above eight, eight is like a, most fabs can do eight fairly cheaply. And then when you jump, you know, if you jump to 10 or 12, you can double your costs.

Chris Gammell: Right. If you move to any kind of machine that needs new technology in order to make the boards, then you, you know, if you move out of the low cost board houses, then you're going to pay.

Dave Jones: And then if you don't do it right, and then you find, oh, I'm going to have to do a via in pad or something like that, which on BGAs is, you know, you, you can really end up with big troubles there. And, you know, so it is an art to route out these BGAs and you can write a whole book on it. And they've got very extensive app notes.

Chris Gammell: And if you look at it too, like, so they, they have, they have like, they, they show all the different layers next to each other. And actually I was thinking that, that it looks, it kind of starts to look like Rorschach tests basically, because it just how like all the different. Rorschach. Rorschach. Rorschach. Yeah. What's that? Yeah. It's like, you know, like the ink blob tests where you look at it and you're like, oh, that's a butterfly or that's like, yeah, that's a Rorschach test. That's, that's two, that's two psychology references today, basically between Rorschach and the Myers-Briggs. You've been reading weird shit, haven't you? No, I just, you know, I'm just, I'm a, I'm just a man of the world, Dave.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yeah. Right. So you're, you're an external guy. I've also seen the Avengers. So you're not one of these eyes. You're, you're not one of these internal guys. Uh, I don't know. I'm getting the vibe that you're more of an external guy, dude.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah? You're saying I'm a CEO material, Dave? Is that what you're saying?

Dave Jones: No, I'm a CEO material. You're full of shit. Yep.

Chris Gammell: I'm totally full of shit. Oh, you have no idea. I love it. Yeah. Oh boy. All right. Well, we should probably call it. But one last thing that I will say is that we have a new layout on the Amp Hour.

Dave Jones: I like it except for that shitty font.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. I meant to change that. I will be changing that actually. Yeah. Yeah. We have like a cursive font on there right now. Yeah. It's horrible. But now you can see every episode. A nice, easy way to see a crap load of episodes. You know, like whenever there's a player and hopefully people like it. If you don't, you know, you can let me know. Blow it out your ass. Yeah. It'll probably be that. Because it doesn't matter much. I mean, how often do people go to it? Exactly.

Dave Jones: No one cares. You know. Right.

Chris Gammell: It's just a site. Come on. You're here for the audio. That's right. Audio should be unchanged.

Dave Jones: Everyone's going, you have a website? I thought this just magically appears on my iPod.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah. If you're doing it right, that's how it goes. You never have to see our ugly mugs or terrible writing. Horrible formatting. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. We will have another guest next week, right?

Chris Gammell: Oh, yes. And they are very well defined. And we know who they are already. Definitely not another mystery guest.

Dave Jones: Well, it's always good to have a very well defined guest.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. CEO material here, folks. CEO material. Oh boy. All right, man. Well, we'll see you then. Catch you later. Bye.

Speaker ?: Bye. Thank you.