How to Engineer a Life You Love - Mark Rober

Chris Williamson 0:00 I never knew that you worked on the Mars rover for NASA. That's so cool.

Mark Rober 0:04 Well, what's really wild is my name, Mark Rober, is only two letters off from Mars rover.

Chris Williamson 0:10 (laughs)

Mark Rober 0:10 If you change the K to an S and the B to a V.

Chris Williamson 0:13 (laughs)

Mark Rober 0:13 And honestly-

Chris Williamson 0:14 It was meant to be.

Mark Rober 0:15 ... it took me, like, four years working at NASA to realize that. And just one day, I'm like, "Oh, dang."

Chris Williamson 0:20 What did you do?

Mark Rober 0:21 So I'm a mechanical engineer, uh, by trade. I got my bachelor's and master's in that. And I worked on the rover that's on Mars for, like, seven years. So the way it works is they just throw you into the deep end, and like, I'm- I was responsible for a chunk of the rover. And so, you know, I designed what it should look like. I, you know, you test it, you integrate it, you put it together. You have a team of people working with you. They have gray beards, they call them at NASA, who look at your design and tell you all the reasons it sucks, so you go back and change it.

Chris Williamson 0:52 This sounds like some, uh, Gandalf the White, like you need to go and pay homage to the dude at the top of the mountain.

Mark Rober 0:59 That's effectively what it is. (laughs) But they're smart. They know what they're doing. They've put stuff in space before.

Chris Williamson 1:04 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 1:04 And so they give it to the young, the young folks who are just coming up to... And they literally, you're, I was in charge of a chunk on the top of the rover, the arm go digs in the dirt, takes that sample, puts it into the belly of the rover. And like, I designed the hardware to accept that. And it's still working, fingers crossed, on Mars, but-

Chris Williamson 1:20 So that's still going?

Mark Rober 1:21 Yeah. Which is wild when you look up at the sky. You know, all the stars look the same. Mars has a little bit of red tint to it, right?

Chris Williamson 1:29 You know where your baby is.

Mark Rober 1:30 Yeah, and it's like, that's 90 million miles away, and I have, I've touched and integrated, I've touched something that's rolling around on, on that dot in the sky. And what's really cool is on Earth, things oxidize and break down, so they, they crumble and go away, right? So let's say, you know, thanks to AI or whatever (laughs) you want to say, a million years from now, our species is done. There won't be any... If you came here, you would just see nature. Like at that point, everything's broken down and crumbled and rusted and gone away. So the aliens would come and they'd just see this lush planet, and then they'd go to Mars and be like, "What the hell are these?" Because on Mars, there's no oxygen, and stuff doesn't break down. So a million years from now, those rovers are just gonna be sitting there space-

Chris Williamson 2:13 The shit's gonna still be there.

Mark Rober 2:14 And it's like, "Where the hell did this come from?" (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:18 What did you learn that you didn't understand about, uh, payloads going into space? What's interesting about that?

Mark Rober 2:27 (sighs) Um, you know, one thing that's interesting about space is, like, there's no air resistance. So once you get up there and you, you, you start... You just, you just thrust at the beginning, essentially. You get up to about 20 thou- 25,000 miles per hour. That's like five times faster than a bullet. And then you just coast for the rest of the period, right? You just accelerate, and then you go to where Mars will be in nine months. And they have... And you get like three or four times to do little course corrections, but those motors, we call them mouse fart motors, because when you're 90 million miles away and you're just getting that initial thrust at the beginning, you know, fractions of a degree mean you miss the planet by, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousand, a million miles.

Chris Williamson 3:11 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 3:12 So it's just the tiniest little boof just to the side. And because of that, okay, now you're gonna hit, now you're gonna hit Mars when it comes around. So it's really interesting, the math orbital mechanics. It seems really complicated, but because there is no friction, it's like, you know, for a computer, it's, it's pretty easy to do. And then we, we eventually learn tricks of like orbital slingshots. So you actually go around planets and you pick up speed. It's kind of like whoof.

Chris Williamson 3:38 Yup.

Mark Rober 3:38 You kind of slingshot around, right?

Chris Williamson 3:39 Yup.

Mark Rober 3:40 So it's, it's a really fascinating, you know, science. But it, it's the equivalent of h- of hitting a golf ball in New York City and getting a hole in one in LA. That's the scale of landing a planet on... um, landing something on Mars. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 3:56 (laughs) Uh, have you ever read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson?

Mark Rober 4:00 Uh, no. Heard of it.

Chris Williamson 4:01 Really cool, really cool book. Great. Anyone that wants a sci-fi recommendation-

Mark Rober 4:04 Yeah, sci-fi.

Chris Williamson 4:05 ... should read it. Um, the moon explodes in the first land, uh, the first line. Sorry. The, like, the first line of the, the, the book, it's the moon exploded.

Mark Rober 4:12 That's a hook.

Chris Williamson 4:13 And, um, th- during that, you learn a lot about orbital dynamics because they repurpose the ISS into what will be the habitat for Earth, 'cause if this happened... And Neal Stephenson's-

Mark Rober 4:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:26 ... hard sci-fi technically-

Mark Rober 4:27 Love that.

Chris Williamson 4:27 ... so it should be correct.

Mark Rober 4:28 Love it.

Chris Williamson 4:29 Um, basically, what would happen, it, it breaks apart and you never find out why it broke apart. It just did.

Mark Rober 4:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:34 And there's, uh, seven pieces that it breaks into, but they realize that over time, those seven pieces would all be orbiting around each other and they would crash into each other and they would make 14 and 28.

Mark Rober 4:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:47 And then it would basically turn into what they called a hard rain, which would be all of this material, when it was no longer able to sustain itself in orbit, would come down to Earth, and it would just be... Or so it's 5,000 years or whatever it is, um, that it's inhospitable. So you need to go up there. So they, I think they have 300 days to get themselves off the planet.

Mark Rober 5:04 I see.

Chris Williamson 5:04 And they're using all of these pods, and there's all the diplomacy, there's all of the politics-

Mark Rober 5:08 Wow.

Chris Williamson 5:08 ... of what's happening down on Earth, like how many people want to go from... And obviously all of the politicians are using every bit of fuckery that they can to get their family off-

Mark Rober 5:16 (laughs) Right.

Chris Williamson 5:16 ... and, you know, playing with the system, and th- then they have to have new laws in space. What does it mean if you kill someone in space? Is it-

Mark Rober 5:21 Of course.

Chris Williamson 5:21 ... prison? Do you just put them-

Mark Rober 5:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:22 ... out the airlock? And, uh, one of the things that I was learning about were, um, uh, apogees and zeniths-

Mark Rober 5:28 Yep.

Chris Williamson 5:29 ... and the way that orbital dynamics and orbital, um-

Mark Rober 5:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:31 ... uh, getting two things to come together, because it's not, it's not just three dimensions.

Mark Rober 5:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:36 It's also the angle and the speed and the mat-

Mark Rober 5:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:39 It's, uh, so even if it is easy for a computer, uh, it sounded pretty fucking hard.

Mark Rober 5:45 Yeah, and it's a real problem, like the concept of space junk-

Chris Williamson 5:48 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 5:48 ... of like if, to your point, if two satellites crash into each other in space and they each create, you know, 5,000 pieces of debris, now you have to track all 5,000 of those, and you could have a runaway problem where just stuff just starts crashing-

Chris Williamson 6:03 Like when the moon exploded.

Mark Rober 6:05 Yeah, exactly. But with our own satellites. So that's why we track everything over the size, I think it is a golf ball.... we know where it is at all times, orbiting our planet.

Chris Williamson 6:14 'cause there's no vacuum cleaner to just go up and-

Mark Rober 6:16 No. (sighs) Not yet. But there are missions of, like, "How do we clean up space junk?" They're actively working on ways to go up and, like, clean defunct satellites. And now if you put something up, we just- I just built a satellite, which is wild you could do that, where you- we put it into space, you can upload your picture to it, and there's a screen that will display a picture, and then there's a camera that will take a picture of that. So basically, you get a selfie in space. You go to spaceselfie.com. We did it for free as, like, an outreach to kids to get stoked about space. And we built this and launched it, uh, like six months ago. We have a million pictures people have submitted. We're actively taking them every day. But part of that is when you put that up, they- you have to prom- you have to have a de-orbit plan. So in five- about five years, it will come back down and burn up.

Chris Williamson 7:02 Wow.

Mark Rober 7:03 Right?

Chris Williamson 7:03 That's like, um, being allowed into a country on a visa-

Mark Rober 7:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:06 ... and them saying, "And when do you intend on leaving?" (laughs)

Mark Rober 7:08 It- that's 100% ... (laughs) And when do you present on, like, suiciding yourself?

Chris Williamson 7:12 Crash-

Mark Rober 7:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:13 ... crash-landing this- this thing back.

Mark Rober 7:14 Yeah, well, it burns up, right? So the friction is so high.

Chris Williamson 7:17 Oh, that would be enough.

Mark Rober 7:18 Yeah. So most stuff, there's very few-

Chris Williamson 7:20 That's disposable.

Mark Rober 7:21 Yeah, essentially. (laughs) Yeah. So that's why. As long as you- decommission means you come to a low enough altitude, there's enough air molecules there that you start getting more and more drag, it starts heating up, and nothing makes it to the ground.

Chris Williamson 7:33 Wow. Okay.

Mark Rober 7:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:35 I learned about, um, astro politics.

Mark Rober 7:38 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:39 Now that, I think, is s- who owns the moon?

Mark Rober 7:41 Yeah. Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 7:41 Who owns this particular meteor? Uh, is the geostationary territory directly above your country yours?

Mark Rober 7:48 Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:49 How far out?

Mark Rober 7:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:50 What if I create something that's geostationary and is a little bit further out than that?

Mark Rober 7:54 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 7:54 And, uh, I think- I- so- that sort of stuff, to me, is- it's the perfect intersection of this should be sci-fi, but it has to be real life.

Mark Rober 8:01 Yeah. And- and what's even happen when we go to Mars? Like, who owns- you know, if Elon gets to Mars first, does he get- just get to claim it?

Chris Williamson 8:08 Hm?

Mark Rober 8:08 Is it the country that owns it, right? About to get weird.

Chris Williamson 8:11 Well, I mean, also, what would happen if we got- uh, we captured some asteroid and managed to double the entire planet's lithium or gold?

Mark Rober 8:20 Right. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:21 W- what happens to the stock market? What happen- what does it mean? 'Cause almost all of the way that those resources are put together is done based on a- a closed system.

Mark Rober 8:29 Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Chris Williamson 8:30 And then if you start adding stuff into the closed system, all the maths breaks.

Mark Rober 8:34 Well, this is where, like, AI gets weird, right? It's just, like, all the rules that have normally applied just, like, don't. And I don't know. There's a world where we see some pretty fundamental changes. But, like, I'm- well, I mean, just, like, going, you know ... You've heard this analogy before, but, you know, going from the, you know, farming, agriculture, to the Industrial Revolution, like, that was a big change for society. To go through that was kind of painful. There was a lot of farmers that ended up having to go to the factories, right? And I think (sighs) we're ab- we're going to see that in the next 10, 20 years, like a similar change, uh, where it just- a- a big- instead of just, like, "Oh, here's a better way to farm. Here's a better way to farm," those are incremental changes over time. Farming to the factories was a big, massive step change.

Chris Williamson 9:22 Hm.

Mark Rober 9:22 And I feel like those kind of things are coming down the pipeline. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:26 There was a- a whole industry, I think it was muck shovelers in New York City-

Mark Rober 9:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:31 ... for the horses-

Mark Rober 9:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:32 ... 'cause everything was horse-drawn carriage.

Mark Rober 9:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:35 So it's not just the main thing, it's all of the ancillary industries that trickle down from it.

Mark Rober 9:40 That's right.

Chris Williamson 9:41 And that's gonna go.

Mark Rober 9:43 Yeah. But almost potentially even more, because it's like the computers can do just all of the jobs. (laughs) You know? It's like generally you can go from, "Oh, there was this hill, the water rose. Okay, now let's go over to this other hill." You know ... At some point, are there hills left, right?

Chris Williamson 10:00 Hm.

Mark Rober 10:00 And what does that mean?

Chris Williamson 10:01 Hm.

Chris Williamson 10:02 What are some of the things you learned from working at NASA that sort of permanently rewired the way that you approach projects or productivity or efficiency? There must be some fundamental principles that were pretty novel there.

Mark Rober 10:15 Yeah, I think it's this idea of just, like, you know, uh, of, uh- you know, I like building things, right? Um, and the- the number one mistake people make when they try and make something is try and ma- they try and make the final version first. Like, "I wanna build a bird feeder. I'm going to build a bird feeder, but I'm gonna build the final version of it out of the gate." As opposed to, which is how you put stuff on Mars and really make anything, uh, prototypes. You just do a- k- something quick and dirty first. In fact, you do like four of 'em. And you- you tweak and try, and- and those- they shouldn't be pretty, they're ugly. They're meant to just be tests, and you learn from them. And then once you've established all those learning- and s- by the way, some of those prototypes, you break. You intentionally fail them to learn the limits.

Chris Williamson 10:57 Hm.

Mark Rober 10:58 And then once you've done all that learning, now you know enough to attempt the final thing. And so really ingrained in the philosophy of NASA, which is something I've now taken into my life and how I make builds for my YouTube channel and even approach YouTube, is like, "I don't know. Like, I don't know the answer, but you know what? I could test to find out." So whenever (laughs) we do anything, it's like there's so many versions that fail before you get to the final output. And failing is the goal.

Chris Williamson 11:26 Hm.

Mark Rober 11:26 Like, you want to break this thing. So if I know I have to design the wheels for the rover, you know, I'm gonna make 'em out of three materials, I'm gonna do some analysis on a computer, and then I'm gonna have a bunch of different thicknesses, and I'm gonna test it, and I'm gonna smash it, and I'm gonna break it, because now I'm confident when I have my final answer. I know exactly why it is and the full limits of it, like what it's capable of.

Chris Williamson 11:46 What's your relationship like with failure?

Mark Rober 11:50 I, like- I embrace failure, and I, like- I teach that. So in my videos ... So we just did a video where we made a goalie robot that goes back and forth at, like, 40 miles an hour, and then you track the soccer ball, the football, and then the goalie will move to stop the shot from going in. And we trusted- uh, uh, Cristiano Ronaldo tried to go against it.

Chris Williamson 12:12 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 12:13 And the- the punchline is he has no prayer.Even from the penalty kick spot, kicking it 80 miles an hour, this thing, in the first six-

Chris Williamson 12:21 Dink.

Mark Rober 12:21 ... in the first six milliseconds, we knew where the goalie needed to be. That means the ball goes from here. Once it's moved an inch, we know exactly where we need to be.

Chris Williamson 12:29 How?

Mark Rober 12:30 Uh, because you just have three points. We're tracking at, uh, 500 hertz.

Chris Williamson 12:34 Right.

Mark Rober 12:34 Uh, or sorry, uh, yeah, 500 hertz. So it's like every two milliseconds, we take a snapshot, snapshot, snapshot. And so you just three points make a... Two points make a line. Connect that line, "Okay, we need to go right there." So literally, it's, it's less than a blink, half of a blink of an eye, and it's already on the spot.

Chris Williamson 12:52 It feels like it's... It probably hasn't even left his foot.

Mark Rober 12:55 Yeah, that's right. Uh, uh, when we know and then it takes a little bit of time, even at 40 miles an hour, it takes some time.

Chris Williamson 13:00 A tiny bit of wobble, yeah.

Mark Rober 13:01 Yeah, just whoop. Uh, so in that, though, we failed so many times, right? And to me, failure is part of the process, and I want to show, you know, especially kids who watch the video, I want them to know that, that this is the case, right? We started a company called CrunchLabs that is like basically these toys they deliver to your month- porch every month. You put them together, and then there's a video from me where I teach you, like, the juicy physics that make the toy work. A lot of times with those toys, they don't quite work perfectly. Like, we intentionally make it so right when you put it together, like the disc launcher's the first one, it's not optimal flying. If we want them to tweak and to change, "I'm going to move this rubber band here, I'm going to push this a little bit. Oh, and now, oh, now I'm getting it to go farther."

Chris Williamson 13:44 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 13:45 And that victory feels so much better than if it just worked out of the gate, right?

Chris Williamson 13:49 You know the IKEA effect?

Mark Rober 13:51 Yeah, I think I've heard of this.

Chris Williamson 13:53 Same thing.

Mark Rober 13:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:53 It's the difference between, uh, pick your own strawberries and cheap strawberries, right? You go, "I, I picked my own strawberries. I really care about this thing."

Mark Rober 14:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:01 People, you can go to IKEA, which is nice budget furniture, I guess, uh, and people love their IKEA pieces more than nicer, more expensive pieces that were prefabricated and made for them.

Mark Rober 14:14 And I think they measure that by, like, how long you hold onto it, right? You're mu- you're much less likely to give away the fur- the IKEA furniture 'cause you put that...

Chris Williamson 14:21 Fucking spent an afternoon with it.

Mark Rober 14:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:22 We had an argument about that. Not gonna give it away.

Mark Rober 14:26 So to me, like, I treat my... I, I treat challenges sort of like a video game. It's like gamification, where, you know, a lot of times what happens is people internalize failure, and they say, like, "You have a bad test? I'm just, I'm, I'm bad at school." A bad breakup? "I'm not good at the love thing." Business fails? "I suck at business." But in, like, video games, you know, if you pick up the controller and you go and you fall into a pit, you're not like, "Oh, I'm bad at video games, and I don't want to do this. This sucks." Immediately, you're like, "Oh, shoot, I wanna try this again."

Chris Williamson 14:59 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 15:00 "Like, what did I learn? I'm gonna go a little faster. I'm gonna jump a little earlier," right? You're excited because you're not, you don't view it as... You're, you're not viewing the failure as internally, and you're focused on, you know, rescuing Princess from Bowser. You're focusing on the end goal.

Chris Williamson 15:15 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 15:15 And so if you can treat your life challenges and this failure like that, kind of gamify it, it's a framework that really works, and I feel like this is my approach for the videos we do, like this Ronaldo one, or really any one that I've attempted. We did another one of a dart board, same thing, that moves, tracks the dart. Although, in that one, if your buddy, you give the dart to your buddy, then it can register that it's his dart, and then the board moves the opposite way. So instead of getting a bull's-eye, he can't even hit the board. (laughs) And th- there are, again, tons of failures, but it wasn't like, "I suck at this." It's like, "Okay-"

Chris Williamson 15:48 Hmm.

Mark Rober 15:49 "... I know one more way not to do this." It stings. It still stings, just like it stings in a video game-

Chris Williamson 15:54 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 15:55 ... but you're like, "You know what? Let's get back on it. Let's try again."

Chris Williamson 15:58 What do you think is the difference between people that play video games and happily will have a go at the same level over and over again, and people that go, go through a breakup, or, uh, try to give a presentation at work and it doesn't go well, or apply for a job? Uh, you're right. The, the fundamental is the same, that this is an iterative game. You have multiple lives at this thing. H- how successful have you been at being able to take the learnings from science experiment across into real life?

Mark Rober 16:30 I mean, I think it works in real life, too. Like, you see this, for example, with kids, like toddlers, right? When they're learning to walk. When they don't s- m- like, successfully walk, they're not like, "Oh, I suck at this," right? They're immediately excited to try again, and as a result-

Chris Williamson 16:46 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 16:46 ... we learn more in the ages of zero to five than we do at any other period, 'cause we're just like, "Failure isn't in our brains." We're just excited to learn and do cool stuff, right? And I, I do genuinely feel like in my life, I love opportunities for, for mastery and opportunities to get better at something and to view it like a video game. Like, I don't like public speaking, truly. I hate it. It makes me really nervous, and that's one of my goals right now that I'm working on. I've got, like, a speaking coach. I've got a TED Talk coming up in April. Like, I, I really want to get the, the... Public speaking is, like, something I actually enjoy-

Chris Williamson 17:20 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 17:20 ... right? And I feel like I'm really good at it. Or like, you know, w- going to the gym, um, I'd never worked out really at all in my life. Two years ago about, I was like, "I think I just wanna try this thing," and it's an opportunity every day for an hour where I could just be perfect. I can just give it everything I can, and, and to see the incremental results of literally like a video game leveling up.

Chris Williamson 17:42 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 17:42 Sometimes some stuff doesn't work, some stuff does. Like, I've, I crave those opportunities, and I've lost... I've gained like 30 pounds of muscle, lost 15 pounds of fat in two years now. Just-

Chris Williamson 17:54 Those noob gains, dude.

Mark Rober 17:55 (laughs) The noob gains.

Chris Williamson 17:57 Oh, man. I remember them so well.

Mark Rober 17:59 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 18:00 The difference is it was like 20, nearly 20 years ago for me now when I started training. Yeah, I mean, it's great. It, it's one of the few things in life where you get a preview of what you will be like if you keep doing this-

Mark Rober 18:11 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:11 ... in the future, the pump preview.

Mark Rober 18:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:13 So the fact that if I try to build a car-

Mark Rober 18:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:18 ... I'm not as good as I will be at building cars in six months' time now-

Mark Rober 18:22 Mm.

Chris Williamson 18:22 ... because I just tried to build a car.

Mark Rober 18:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:25 But if go to the gym and get a pump on, that is me flat-

Mark Rober 18:29 Mm. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 18:29 ... in six months if I keep going.

Mark Rober 18:31 I love that. I've never heard of that.

Chris Williamson 18:32 One of the few things that you get a preview of the future. Try and learn Italian.

Mark Rober 18:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:35 You don't briefly become better at Italian before becoming worse at Italian. Like, you just accumulate it over time and over time and over time.

Mark Rober 18:41 That's so good. I've never heard of that or thought of it that way. Does that still work then? If y- You said the noob gains. Now what happens when you get the pump on? You're like, "I will never be that. That's only my pump self."

Chris Williamson 18:49 Uh, I suppo- Well, I guess it depends how consistent your training. Ev- That is one of the reasons it's so addictive, that people keep going. Even if you, you think, "I've hit my limit. This is as much muscle as my body's going to be able"-

Mark Rober 18:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:59 "... to carry without adding in some, you know, uh, enhancement."

Mark Rober 19:02 Mm.

Chris Williamson 19:02 Uh, you still wanna chase it, because e- even if it's just for the rest of the day, you're like, "Well, I still look pretty jacked."

Mark Rober 19:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:09 Um, what

Chris Williamson 19:11 are ... Talk to me about that mastery thing. I think that you're right. We maybe both have a eye for detail-

Mark Rober 19:17 Mm.

Chris Williamson 19:18 ... um, degree of obsession. Um, how have you come to learn balancing that? Because there's a lot of benefits that come from it.

Mark Rober 19:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:28 Um, but there's also, it can be a painful compulsion to have.

Mark Rober 19:33 Yeah. Yeah, it's like with everything, it's like moderation, like taking it to a limit. I think I am good at saying no to a lot, and which can help, so it's like I don't take a lot on. Like if, you know, I've got like five really close friends as opposed to like 50 kind of good friends.

Chris Williamson 19:52 Hm.

Mark Rober 19:53 A, a similar thing, um, so I'll pick a handful of things that I will go deep on. I think where it could get tough is you're trying to go deep on everything, and then you're gonna get overwhelmed and burnt out. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think there's a cost for everything. Like I probably ... Yeah, where it's like if you, if you are, if you're too m- focused on a thing at the cost of a lot of other things, then it can be a challenge, and I do have some, you know, I have this conversation with MrBeast. He's another YouTuber. He's like the biggest YouTuber in the world. And he's like, um, he's like, "You could be me or you could be happy. Like, choose which one."

Chris Williamson 20:35 (laughs)

Mark Rober 20:36 And he admits, like-

Chris Williamson 20:37 Poor Jimmy.

Mark Rober 20:37 ... he has a very dopaminergic brain.

Chris Williamson 20:39 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 20:40 And like dopamine isn't ant- Dopamine isn't interested in having things. Dopamine is interested in getting things. Like that's the reward chemical, right? And he loves leveling up, but it's really hard for him, you know, if he gets a video that gets 300 million views, he's like, "Why couldn't that have been 330 million?" Right? And I'm quoting him here. (laughs) He's self-aware, but it doesn't change the fact that it's like, you know. And so, when you look at someone like that, or like an Elon Musk is sort of a similar brain. It's like, you don't want their brains. And like they'll tell you, you don't want their brains. Like, they can't ... There's a level where they can't be satisfied 'cause they just need more, and it leads, I think, a lot of the amazing change that has come in our world historically, you know, if you look back, was kind of people with similar brains who are just so driven for more that they affect history.

Chris Williamson 21:35 Well, it's very adaptive, right, to keep on pushing, because you only need one or two people like that in a tribe.

Mark Rober 21:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:40 And they will find the new valley that's got the bushes that have the fruit.

Mark Rober 21:44 Yes.

Chris Williamson 21:45 And some of them will die, but so what? Like only a few of them will die, but the ones that do decide to k- I think about Bryan Johnson, how-

Mark Rober 21:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:50 ... Do-

Mark Rober 21:51 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:51 ... like this. Uh, he, uh, I think of him or like an Elon or even a MrBeast, they're kind of like scouts in an army.

Mark Rober 21:57 Totally.

Chris Williamson 21:57 What would you do to have an army filled with scouts? I don't, frankly, I don't wanna be a scout.

Mark Rober 22:01 Right.

Chris Williamson 22:01 I don't wanna climb up that cliff that probably treacherous and very well may die.

Mark Rober 22:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:06 Uh, but they'll go up there and tell us, they'll come back and tell us what they've seen.

Mark Rober 22:10 Yeah, and I told-

Chris Williamson 22:11 We all benefit from that.

Mark Rober 22:12 That's right, and I told Jimmy this, and he's aware of it. He's like whacking through the bush, and so many times he whacks on a path that was just terrible. MrBeast Burger, right? (laughs) Whatever.

Chris Williamson 22:21 Yep.

Mark Rober 22:21 He's had a lot of, admitted like dead ends, but what's beautiful is that then I see the ones that work and it's like, "Oh, thank you. Now I can trod this path that's hacked down basically."

Chris Williamson 22:30 Yes. Yes.

Mark Rober 22:31 Um, and obviously do my own versions of that, but like the main path, people like that help break these glass ceilings-

Chris Williamson 22:38 Uh-huh.

Mark Rober 22:38 ... and that benefits a lot of others.

Chris Williamson 22:40 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Rober 22:41 I, I do think though that that feature of (sighs) sort of the dopamine wearing off, I, I do feel like that is a, that is a feature and not a bug of our brains, right? In the sense that like let's say you had a, let's say there's like a coyote chasing a bunny and like the bunny leaps out of the way and makes this amazing move and survives that, right? You're gonna get a lot of reward chemicals to your brain being like, "Good job. You lived. Now I have a chance to continue to pass this DNA on that's inside you." You're gonna get rewarded. And there is probably some bunnies in the population who had that dopamine last for like three weeks, just being like resting on the laurels of this sick move.

Chris Williamson 23:23 I'm the fucking LeBron James of running away from the fuck-

Mark Rober 23:25 I'm the LeBron James just-

Chris Williamson 23:26 ... Yeah.

Mark Rober 23:26 ... sitting back, relaxing-

Chris Williamson 23:28 Eating.

Mark Rober 23:29 ... thinking about that immediately those genes are removed from the gene pool because they l- they basked in that. So there's this like sweet spot of like I'm gonna make you feel good about this, but then I'm gonna make it go away so you want to try again. And I think that's a mistake people make with burnout is like I could, I, it's kinda like running on a treadmill. When you get on the treadmill, it's exciting. You're getting those reward chemicals. This is really fun. And what happens eventually though is like those reward chemicals subside, but you're still sprinting because you crank this treadmill 'cause you could, 'cause it's exciting.

Chris Williamson 24:03 Mm.

Mark Rober 24:03 And I think burnout is when, you know, you're still putting in the same input, but you're not getting the reward chemicals for it. And so one thing I really try and do is like keep my treadmill at like a jogging pace. Like I can do this. I c- There was a time in the YouTube algorithm where like they wanted, if you did daily vlogs that was like what you need to do to be successful. And I was like, "I can't do that, but I can do like one a month."... and I've just kind of, like, tortoise and the hare this thing-

Chris Williamson 24:30 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 24:31 And now, 14 years later, we have got, like, 72 million subscribers.

Chris Williamson 24:34 And still going.

Mark Rober 24:35 And still going, and still stoked, and like, I'm as far away from burnout as, as I, as I's ever been.

Chris Williamson 24:40 Mm.

Mark Rober 24:41 Right?

Chris Williamson 24:41 You know the Red Queen effect?

Mark Rober 24:42 No.

Chris Williamson 24:42 Are you familiar with that?

Mark Rober 24:43 Uh-uh.

Chris Williamson 24:43 So, uh, there's a scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice is running around the tree, and she has to run faster and faster and faster and faster and faster-

Mark Rober 24:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:52 ... and, um, doesn't get anywhere, and the queen says, "You see, my dear, you now have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place."

Mark Rober 25:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:01 And I think about when people overcomplicate their lives, um, which w- everybody falls prey to, like, this is-

Mark Rober 25:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:07 ... me speaking to me.

Mark Rober 25:08 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:08 Not... fucking speak down to (inaudible) .

Mark Rober 25:10 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:10 But, um, when people overcomplicate their lives, uh, you're able to d- I think humans are pretty good at dealing with pace.

Mark Rober 25:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:22 They're a- able to deal with difficulty but not complexity.

Mark Rober 25:25 Mm.

Chris Williamson 25:26 And I think that it's w- it's the complexity, complication really is damaging to the system.

Mark Rober 25:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:31 If you've got a day and you look at it and there's five different things that you need to do and it's, got to b- f- finish my taxes, I've got that really important call to do with the team-

Mark Rober 25:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:39 ... and that, my mum's coming round, I'm gonna have to have that conversation with her and that's gonna be awkward-

Mark Rober 25:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:43 ... and then I need to write that thing for... It, it feels horrible, whereas if you just had a, a full day of one of those things back to back-

Mark Rober 25:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:50 ... it feels a little bit more simple if that was all you did with your life.

Mark Rober 25:52 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:53 So couple of things, like, putting too much on your plate, um, would be like going into a buffet and piling, literally piling up all of this workload and then assuming that your stomach would expand to be able to fill it.

Mark Rober 26:06 Mm.

Chris Williamson 26:06 Like, "Oh, I'm gonna be able to fit all of this in. Because I said I would do it-"

Mark Rober 26:09 Right.

Chris Williamson 26:09 "... I will be able to do it."

Mark Rober 26:10 Right.

Chris Williamson 26:11 Which is not the way that it works.

Mark Rober 26:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:12 In the same way as, no matter how delicious the buffet is-

Mark Rober 26:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:15 ... your stomach isn't gonna just infinitely expand to be able to fit the food in.

Mark Rober 26:18 Yeah. There's only 24 hours in a day.

Chris Williamson 26:19 Correct.

Mark Rober 26:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:20 And then the same thing for the complexity point, that your system is built to handle, uh, work, but it's not built to handle complication. We'll get back to talking in just one second, but first, if you have been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a huge role in your energy, your focus and your performance, but most people have no idea where theirs are or what to do if something's off, which is why I partnered with Function, because I wanted a smarter and more comprehensive way to actually understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year, they run lab tests that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They've got a team of expert physicians that analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan. And seeing your testosterone levels and tons of other biomarkers charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to actually improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better. Getting your blood work drawn and analyzed like this would usually cost thousands, but with Function it's just $499, and right now you can get $100 off, bringing it down to 399 bucks. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save that $100 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdom.

Mark Rober 27:29 That's an interesting point. I wonder if there's a correlation to, like, really successful human beings who can, like, handle, like, a lot of complexity. Like, certain brains probably can just handle it better, right?

Chris Williamson 27:39 100%, I think.

Mark Rober 27:40 To be fair, like, I mean say what you want about Elon, but, like, I think that is something his brain does well with.

Chris Williamson 27:45 He's parallel processing king.

Mark Rober 27:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:48 Yeah, that, the, the executive function thing, but this is why you have sort of maker mode and manager mode, in Paul Graham language, or-

Mark Rober 27:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:55 ... you know, you tend to have a-

Mark Rober 27:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:56 ... a, a COO.

Mark Rober 27:57 That's right.

Chris Williamson 27:57 And then you have, like, a, a chief innovation officer or something, and the two, they might be friends, but they've got fuck all in common-

Mark Rober 28:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:04 ... apart from the fact they work for the same company.

Mark Rober 28:06 That's me and my COO Jim, 100%. Like, he is very... I'm good at, like, building a train, and he is good about, like, keeping the trains running on time and just, like, you know, all the things with the train station that I'm not good at.

Chris Williamson 28:19 Mm.

Mark Rober 28:20 And not interested at.

Mark Rober 28:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:21 You also secretly worked at Apple.

Mark Rober 28:23 Yes.

Chris Williamson 28:24 What was that like?

Mark Rober 28:25 Uh, I was there for, like, five years. I was working in their special projects group doing product design on the Apple Car. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:34 Ooh, that's fucking sick. So you went NASA-

Mark Rober 28:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:39 ... Apple?

Mark Rober 28:39 Uh, technically, there was two years in there where I worked for a Halloween company. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:44 Like costumes?

Mark Rober 28:45 Yes, costumes. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:46 Okay. That feels a little bit like a pivot.

Mark Rober 28:49 (laughs) I think you could say that from NASA, from NASA engineer to making Halloween costumes.

Chris Williamson 28:55 Brief hiatus in between NASA and Apple.

Mark Rober 28:57 It was like an entrepreneurial thing, 'cause my first video ever was a Halloween costume where I had an iPad on front and an iPad in back of me, and you, like, cut a hole in the shirt, and it looks like you have a hole in your body if you do a FaceTime call. Because the FaceTime camera pointing forward will record the hand and it shows it on the back. And it went really viral. I, that was my first ever video, and I was like, "Dang, I have more ideas than this." So I've basically done one video a month since then. But part of that were people like, "Cool idea, bro, but I don't have $1,200 for a Halloween costume." So the next year I was like, "Oh, we just had a, a design on the shirt." Uh, let's say it was, like some guy's, scary guy, looking eye, and then I made a free app that had an eyeball that I filmed that was moving around. So if you cut a hole in the shirt, duct tape your phone to the back of the shirt, it looks like you have this, like, animated T-shirt that looked wild. And it, that was pretty successful. So I did that, like, nights and weekends, grinding, made this free app, made the T-shirts, and it went well enough that like a year later I sold the whole thing to these guys in the UK who make more suits, Halloween c- costumes, and then I worked for them for two years.

Chris Williamson 30:02 Wow.

Mark Rober 30:02 And so that was like, it was more of like an entrepreneurial opportunity.

Chris Williamson 30:05 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 30:05 And people were like, "How could you leave NASA for that?" But like, it was, you know, it's one of those things that in, in the moment, it made a lot of sense. It wasn't-

Chris Williamson 30:12 Well, the Rover's on Mars. So, you know.

Mark Rober 30:13 Yeah, what are you gonna do? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:14 Okay. Then you do Apple.

Mark Rober 30:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:16 I went and looked at all of the patents that you've got registered online. It's not just a small number, there's quite a few. You got q-

Mark Rober 30:22 Well, there's one that I was, like, lead author on, which is actually a funny story because someone at Apple was like, "Hey, you have all these cool ideas for YouTube, where's your bigger idea for Apple?" And literally like t- a week and a half later, I'm in the meeting about some stupid software tool, and then I had this idea of like, what happens when you combine your virtual reality with a self-driving car? Like, what are the implications of that?... and I literally started shaking 'cause I was like, "Whoa, there's so much here." Essentially, like, a car is the world's greatest motion simulator. So if you go to a amusement park and you have motion simulators to simulate moving forward, they just tilt you back like this. But then y- your butt's like, "Wait, but now there's no pressure on my butt. That doesn't feel quite right." But in a car, you could actually simulate moving forward by moving the car. So it's like, there's a lot of entertainment and just ways not to get motion sick, right? Because like, 40% of people struggle from motion sickness. We're gonna be in these self-driving cars, but we're gonna have all this time, but you can't use it if you still have to stare out the window. So is there a way with virtual reality that you can actually be way less motion sick and actually watch movies or work on your computer? And there's a lot in the patent, and we got, like, everything we asked for, which means we're sort of the first ones to really look at this, and-

Chris Williamson 31:35 Wow.

Mark Rober 31:35 ... I, I still think that's coming down the pipeline. Um...

Chris Williamson 31:38 Could you do something like... Because it, it's typically the back of the car's not the front, right, that people have with motion sickness.

Mark Rober 31:45 Yeah, but that's only because you can't see what's going on.

Chris Williamson 31:48 So my point being, I wonder if you could somehow make the windows project the whatever you need in order to be able to help people feel better, as opposed to having to ............................ I'm trying to work out how you integrate it into the car itself.

Mark Rober 32:01 Yeah, but I mean, imagine though virtual reality and augmented, they're gonna get to the point where it's essentially wearing sunglasses.

Chris Williamson 32:07 Huh.

Mark Rober 32:07 So it's not this big luggy thing. And as long as then, you know, as long as you have things in your visual field showing the motion of the car and where it's gonna go, you can solve a lot of motion sickness.

Chris Williamson 32:17 Right.

Mark Rober 32:18 And so then you can have your computer screen there and be working on it as long as you're getting the inputs. But you can also do, like, gaming stuff, (laughs) where it's like, you pull up... You know, you're leaving your house, but it's like a Grand Theft Auto insane where it's like, you put this on. Suddenly, your buddy just robbed a bank. They're coming down the steps. They're like, "Go, go, go." And you're accelerating in real life and feeling that, but in the game, you're actually, like, feeling that's actually happening, 'cause it knows your destination.

Chris Williamson 32:44 Right.

Mark Rober 32:44 And so when, in the game, you're coming up an alley and it's like, "Oh, there's nowhere to turn." You're hosed. But at the last second, it's like, "Oh, you make a right." In reality, that was just a right turn, but in the game, it was like this insane thing. Also, you have all these other cars out. You know where all the potholes are. If you close your eyes... I've done this test. If you go over a pot or a speed bump, it's, it feels a lot like running over a zombie.

Chris Williamson 33:04 (laughs)

Mark Rober 33:05 But in the game, right, there's actually... You, where the potholes are-

Chris Williamson 33:07 You may, you need autonomous driving for this, because there's gonna be some people that are really not ............................ the road.

Mark Rober 33:11 Oh, no, no. This is... It's autonomous driving.

Chris Williamson 33:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.

Mark Rober 33:13 This is virtual reality combined with autonomous driving, and what is the implication?

Chris Williamson 33:16 I was just thinking about if somebody was to do this whilst trying to drive normally.

Mark Rober 33:20 (laughs) Yes, that's bad.

Chris Williamson 33:21 "Hey, guy, you're not allowed

Chris Williamson 33:22 to do that." So, okay. What's your perspective, given that you've done a lot of work in the AR/VR space, you've thought about it a good bit, what's your perspective on kind of how it's delivered? Because I think... I had a... ex-ex-ex-girlfriend got me an Oculus Go, which was the all-in-one.

Mark Rober 33:39 Mm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 33:41 Fuck, s-... eight years ago-

Mark Rober 33:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:43 ... something like that.

Mark Rober 33:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 33:44 And, uh, I remember thinking, "Wow, I mean, this is like pretty not bad." I, it's-

Mark Rober 33:48 Nice.

Chris Williamson 33:48 It's a bit pixely, but this is not bad.

Mark Rober 33:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 33:51 Surely, surely, no time at all, this is gonna come-

Mark Rober 33:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:54 ... Apple Vision Pro, w- we'd like... Well, I think-

Mark Rober 33:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:57 ... as many people t- returned them as bought them.

Mark Rober 34:00 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:01 Um, which for Apple is like, "Oh."

Mark Rober 34:03 I know.

Chris Williamson 34:03 And maybe it's the V1, and it's gonna be expensive, and the trickle-down. It's three grand, but then it's only gonna be 500 in a few years time and so on and so forth. How do you think the world of AR and VR technology has sort of delivered on the promises that we assumed? And w- w- what's gone on? What's the journey there?

Mark Rober 34:18 They just don't have the killer app, right? Like, it's... Everyone who puts it on is like, "This is the most, craziest thing I've ever experienced." And they love it, and then they put it on the shelf and never take it off the shelf, myself included. I've had a Go, a Rift, and a Apple Vision Pro.

Chris Williamson 34:35 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 34:36 And I never use them. And it's like, I wish they just had the killer app. Like, I would want, I w- I-

Chris Williamson 34:41 What would... What, what's the killer app?

Mark Rober 34:42 I don't know, being like courtside at a basketball game.

Chris Williamson 34:44 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 34:44 Right? Give you access to like... I wanna watch the basketball game real time like I'm courtside, or even better, in a seat you can't even get. Put it on the crossbar at a s- at a soccer match.

Chris Williamson 34:56 That's cool.

Mark Rober 34:56 Right? You can't sit there.

Chris Williamson 34:57 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 34:57 But now I get to watch everything. Like Messi's coming down and it goes in, right? I don't understand why they haven't just attacked that aspect of it. But like live sports seems like a great first place to start.

Chris Williamson 35:10 I'm very non-conspiratorial. That's a... Like, m- my tendency. I, I tend to believe the, like, mainstream-

Mark Rober 35:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:17 ... to a degree.

Mark Rober 35:18 Same.

Chris Williamson 35:18 Skeptical-

Mark Rober 35:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:19 ... of most people, but-

Mark Rober 35:21 Do you... Okay, so what is your opinion on conspiracy theorists? Like, why, why does, why do they exist? Like, what is...

Chris Williamson 35:27 Uh, my opinion on conspiracy theorists, I think that they're exciting. Like, the, the, the theories are exciting.

Mark Rober 35:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:35 A much more exciting way to think about the world.

Mark Rober 35:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:38 A big part of it is this idea called compensatory control.

Mark Rober 35:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:41 So if you, uh, ima-... Uh, get people to imagine an uncertain medical diagnosis-

Mark Rober 35:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:47 ... they're more likely to see patterns in random, meaningless static.

Mark Rober 35:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:53 Uh, the same thing happened, I think, during COVID. Uh, before there was enough evidence to know that the lab leak was legitimate, uh, a lot of people hooked into that-

Mark Rober 36:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:04 ... because it's way easier to think that this global pandemic is because of some malign scientist-

Mark Rober 36:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:12 ... than the chance mutation of some silly little microbe. If it's up to chance, what control do I have over this? But if I can personify it... So it's myth, it's archetype.

Mark Rober 36:22 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:23 Right? It's mythology.

Mark Rober 36:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:24 It's like a, uh, a personification of this.

Mark Rober 36:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:27 There's good and there's bad and there's evil, and ooh, I could have... Uh, I think a lot of it is to do with control. And-

Mark Rober 36:32 So like having a reason.

Chris Williamson 36:34 A design ............................

Mark Rober 36:34 If, if the Illuminati exists and is running everything, it's a nice, it's a nice model that just explains everything.

Chris Williamson 36:41 Absolutely.

Mark Rober 36:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:42 Yeah. I mean, it's not everything. There's, uh... I'm sure there's a million reasons. I've had some really great guys on, um, that, that do, uh, uh-... conspirituality, uh, Derek Beras from that-

Mark Rober 36:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:52 ... uh, podcast was real interesting. They know, they wrote a book about, uh, the psychology of conspiracism. But I'm a, I'm kind of fascinated by it, um, even though I'm not, I get to watch it. It's like, I don't know, someone else loving a sport and you not being a fan of it.

Mark Rober 37:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:07 Like, "Huh, it's kind of interesting to watch this." What do you think? What's your perspective on conspiracy theorists?

Mark Rober 37:11 I think similar. I think as humans we're just hardwired to recognize patterns. Like, that's probably evolutionarily, like, been good and helped us survive. If you, you know, every time those bushes moved, you know, f- four to five times a tiger came out, I'm gonna make a pattern that that's what's happening, right? Um, uh, I think, I think... I have empathy for them, really. Like, when people, even like flat-Earthers and stuff, and they're like, "You idiot," like, you know, they're not willing to look at evidence that goes counter to what they believe, because they're incentivized to keep those beliefs. They have a community, they have friends.

Chris Williamson 37:52 Belonging.

Mark Rober 37:53 They belong.

Chris Williamson 37:54 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 37:54 And guess what? Like, pretty much everyone listening to this, myself included, all have some beliefs like that.

Chris Williamson 38:01 Just want that.

Mark Rober 38:02 Well, and we have those, right? Where it's like if you can't tell me five things that you agreed with with Charlie Kirk, or take it the opposite way-

Chris Williamson 38:10 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 38:11 ... that you agree with with, like, AOC, if you really think everything, thing, like you've, you've never actually listened to what they say, you just know they're the bad person on the other side-

Chris Williamson 38:20 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 38:20 ... you're in the same camp. Like, you haven't investigated truly what someone on the other side thinks, right? You know, I think there's an argument to be made for r- r- religions, right? Where it's like if you have your religious belief, are there... You know, you're really incentivized to keep those beliefs. It works for you, and that's great, but you can't be making fun of flat-Earthers and say they're morons and idiots, because they're not willing to look at the truth. We all have elements like this in our life-

Chris Williamson 38:47 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 38:47 ... that, that serve us, and we're not incentivized to look at, like, how true they are.

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Chris Williamson 40:05 You know one of the ones that I've seen recently which I thought was really cool, you know what the fundamental attribution error is?

Mark Rober 40:11 Yeah. What is... Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:11 Yeah, so, uh, somebody cuts you off in traffic-

Mark Rober 40:14 Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:14 ... it's 'cause they're a dick. You cut somebody off in traffic, it's 'cause you were late.

Mark Rober 40:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:17 There's sort of a, a, a, a attribution to motive-

Mark Rober 40:20 Right.

Chris Williamson 40:20 ... and, um, like, a s- uh, an inner sense as opposed to, for us, our shortcomings are because of situation, circumstance.

Mark Rober 40:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:30 Um, something that I noticed was an equivalent, but around people's parents.

Mark Rober 40:35 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:35 They call it the parental attribution error, which is, it's kind of a rite of passage in pop psychology to blame your parents for your anxious attachment style-

Mark Rober 40:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:46 ... or your hyper vigilance-

Mark Rober 40:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:47 ... or your obsession-

Mark Rober 40:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:48 ... or your depression, or whatever it might be. But unless you're prepared to lay at the feet of your parents, your strengths as well-

Mark Rober 40:55 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:56 ... you can't lay at the feet of your parents' weaknesses.

Mark Rober 40:58 That's great. Wow, that's great.

Chris Williamson 41:00 I think that calls out a lot of people-

Mark Rober 41:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:02 ... that you want to be able to own your wins-

Mark Rober 41:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:06 ... but hand off your losses, and, um, let's not forget that sometimes your wins and losses are just two sides of the same coin.

Mark Rober 41:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:13 So yeah, you're hyper vigilant, but that's your obsession to detail which has allowed you to become a fantastic musician.

Mark Rober 41:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:19 Uh, uh, yeah. Perhaps you are, um, overly concerned about upsetting other people, but that's made you a really great friend, which means that people really care about you a lot.

Mark Rober 41:28 Yeah, and if you need, have constant need for approval, like, actually has motivated you to accomplish a lot in your life.

Chris Williamson 41:33 Absolutely. Your, um-

Mark Rober 41:36 That's me, man.

Chris Williamson 41:36 ... feeling that nobody supports you has made you isolate yourself, which makes you a little bit lonely, but it's also meant that you're very self-sufficient so that you can work in solitude and you went and started a business.

Mark Rober 41:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:46 Like, you know, you just keep on ru- That's one version of this, which is where the coin is the same-

Mark Rober 41:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:51 ... but at other times you've just been given a bit of a mixed bag-

Mark Rober 41:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:54 ... and you're like, "This coin is kind of dark on both sides," but in the same bag-

Mark Rober 41:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:58 ... are some that are light.

Mark Rober 41:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:00 Your, you know, your parents taught you something else as well-

Mark Rober 42:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:03 ... and, uh, yeah, sure, some people's bags are a bit li- lighter or a bit darker than others-

Mark Rober 42:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:07 ... but for the most part if you're going to say, "My shortcomings are because of my parents," you have to say your strengths are too. And you, it's okay, I don't mind if people go, "No, everything is self-altered by me." I think it kind of denies behavioral genetics-

Mark Rober 42:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 42:19 ... which is a bit of a shame, but, "Everything is self-altered by me and nobody gets to tell me what I did," well, okay, that's fine, but you have to own your weaknesses too.

Mark Rober 42:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 42:27 That means that your hyper vigilance and anxious attachment and athlete's-

Mark Rober 42:30 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 42:30 ... foot and daddy issues are your fault.

Mark Rober 42:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:33 As are your strengths.

Mark Rober 42:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:34 Or the inverse, which is everything is laid at the feet of the parents. So yeah, parental attribution error.

Mark Rober 42:39 I love that. I think that's great. On the attribution error, it's interesting if someone cuts you off in traffic. If someone does that in real life, stands in front of you, like, in line, we're so much more willing to, like, forgive them or, I guess, give them grace and stuff. What is that? You think you're just, you lose the anonymity and you, like, you see the human in front of you?

Chris Williamson 42:56 Oh, that's a good point.

Mark Rober 42:57 Do you know what I mean? Like, if someone cuts you off and you're waiting in a queue-... and you're like, "Oh, excuse me. Oh, it's okay." Like, you're a lot more patient than in a car, you're like, "I'm gonna kill your family."

Chris Williamson 43:06 God. (laughs) Yeah.

Mark Rober 43:07 "I'll fucking shoot you."

Chris Williamson 43:08 (laughs) Um, well, a few things there. First off, humans still have not fully, um, gotten used to being in a three-ton missile that moves at, you know-

Mark Rober 43:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:19 ... multiples of the speed that we ever have before.

Mark Rober 43:21 Sure.

Chris Williamson 43:21 Now, m- I'm a very comfortable driver. I'm sure you are, too.

Mark Rober 43:23 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:25 We're still very maladapted to doing that at that speed.

Mark Rober 43:29 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:30 And when you're in a car, you're kind of in a bubble.

Mark Rober 43:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:32 And it feels like nothing... Y- you're standing still-

Mark Rober 43:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:35 ... and the rest of the world's moving past you.

Mark Rober 43:36 Yeah, relative.

Chris Williamson 43:37 And then when something happens, you're kind of reminded of the precariousness.

Mark Rober 43:41 Mm.

Chris Williamson 43:41 So that's one part of it.

Mark Rober 43:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:42 I think another part of it is, the- the reason that we have anger, the reason that it's adaptive-

Mark Rober 43:46 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:47 ... is that before laws, I needed to have a way to say to you-

Mark Rober 43:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:51 ... "You've crossed a line."

Mark Rober 43:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:53 You have encroached on some sort of boundary-

Mark Rober 43:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:55 ... that you shouldn't do.

Mark Rober 43:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:56 And my response to you is going to, oop, shock you into not doing it again.

Mark Rober 44:01 Right.

Chris Williamson 44:01 The, um, externality of somebody cutting in front of you in line-

Mark Rober 44:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:06 ... is, well, usually not great, but-

Mark Rober 44:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 44:09 ... usually not life and death.

Mark Rober 44:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:11 The difference, kinetically, it's way more dangerous. But the final thing is that, like, when somebody cuts in front of you in line, if they turn around and notice, and they see you-

Mark Rober 44:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:20 ... almost nobody has an issue. Like, you have to be a real dick for somebody to cut in front of you-

Mark Rober 44:25 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:25 ... not knowing you were there, or making some sort of a mistake.

Mark Rober 44:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:27 "Not r- I didn't realize you were waiting." And for you to still have a problem after they've said sorry and then stood behind you.

Mark Rober 44:33 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:34 Um, but the same isn't true when driving.

Mark Rober 44:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:37 If someone flashes their hazards, you're still pissed.

Mark Rober 44:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It helps. I mean, if someone does this-

Chris Williamson 44:42 Yeah.

Mark Rober 44:42 ... you're like, "Okay, but still, you, you suck." You know?

Chris Williamson 44:44 Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's a little bit of you in the back of your mind that's like, "Oh, I'm gonna keep an eye on that guy."

Mark Rober 44:48 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably right. There's something about the disconnection and anonymity. 'Cause you see this online, too, where there isn't the danger of driving a kinetic missile-

Chris Williamson 44:56 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 44:57 ... where we're a lot quicker to make judgments if it's just some anonymous name and you're commenting anonymously.

Chris Williamson 45:02 Well, there's n- no, uh, collateral damage, right? You can say whatever you want.

Mark Rober 45:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:06 Like, there's no repercussion.

Mark Rober 45:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:08 The- Jordan Peterson says, "The problem with the internet is that the proximate price of being a prick has fallen to zero."

Mark Rober 45:13 (laughs) Yeah, yeah. Whereas in real life, yeah, um...

Chris Williamson 45:17 You might get punched in the face.

Mark Rober 45:18 (laughs) Exactly. I like that. Yeah, I think... Yeah, there is something, too, about, like, I mean, you said anger, where you... There's something about, like, if someone cuts in line, let's say 20 paces in front of you, isn't that funny how, like, your- y- your sense of justice is just like, "That is not what we do." And I think that has to be evolutionary, because it's like, "We have rules in this tribe."

Chris Williamson 45:39 I know. Yeah.

Mark Rober 45:39 "We have rules in this tribe, and w- if we don't all enforce them, then bad things happen."

Chris Williamson 45:44 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 45:44 But it's so funny how some people just like... We were at the airport recently, and we had to make this flight, actually to come back and film for a Sesame Street thing, and there was- there was lines that was like quadruple what they were 'cause there's like a new policy, and we literally had to cut to the front of the line. Luckily, my partner's like, she's very good at talking to people. I was like, "Oh, gosh." It's like, that's the worst thing for me. I'm a rule follower.

Chris Williamson 46:07 I'm not broke.

Mark Rober 46:07 Yeah, but other people were cutting not as good as us, 'cause we didn't get booed, and they were just like booing and yelling and like, it was chaos. It was primal.

Chris Williamson 46:17 Wow.

Mark Rober 46:18 Because everyone's in this stressful situation, but, like, you could just hear, like, it was just, it had just, like, deteriorated to, like, base human emotion.

Chris Williamson 46:26 Watching somebody sprint through the airport is a special type of pain.

Mark Rober 46:29 (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 46:29 'Cause we've all been there. We've all been there. The connection got delayed, and the next thing, "They're holding the gate," but, you know, it's 72 and it's 24, and...

Mark Rober 46:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:37 Ugh.

Mark Rober 46:38 Yeah, I think that's why traveling is so stressful, is the cost for mistakes are so high. Right? It's like-

Chris Williamson 46:44 I'll al- I mean, this is a life hack. Whenever booking something that's got connections, if it's under 90 minutes, I know that the airport says that you can make it, but the increase in stress-

Mark Rober 46:55 Mm.

Chris Williamson 46:55 ... is just not worth it. The- For me, the risk, uh, uh, anything less than 90 minutes, I won't do as a connection.

Mark Rober 47:01 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:01 I'll always have a 90-minute connection at- at an airport. It... Is it too much? Yeah, but the price is I maybe have to walk around and get a coffee.

Mark Rober 47:08 Always, though? If it's like an- if there's ten flights i- in a day, it has to be a function of that, right?

Chris Williamson 47:13 Mm, it's... I'll think about that a little bit more-

Mark Rober 47:15 Okay.

Chris Williamson 47:15 ... but typically, I'm doing stuff that's a little bit more of a quirky route-

Mark Rober 47:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:18 ... if I'm doing connections.

Mark Rober 47:18 Or international.

Chris Williamson 47:19 Exactly.

Mark Rober 47:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:20 Um, but then, yeah, watching... We were on a flight the other day coming back from tour, and, um, it'd been super delayed, and it was real annoying, and it was late, and there were loads of people, and would've been the last flight out.

Mark Rober 47:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:32 And we did that thing where everybody stood to one side, and you just saw this stream of people.

Mark Rober 47:35 Mm.

Chris Williamson 47:35 Oh, uh, let me give you this one, uh, the poverty parade on planes. So there is a nine-time increase in passenger violence on planes where economy has to walk past first class.

Mark Rober 47:47 Really?

Chris Williamson 47:48 Nine times increase.

Mark Rober 47:49 Really?

Chris Williamson 47:50 Yeah. It's huge.

Mark Rober 47:51 That's fascinating, but pass those assholes just on their laptops already.

Chris Williamson 47:55 Well, what are you reminded of? You're reminded of your place in the hierarchy. This is status, right? You're reminded of the status hier- this is m- from Michael Easton's b- second book on, uh, yeah, the poverty parade, nine times increase in passenger violence.

Mark Rober 48:07 And it's just on planes. That's what he calls it, the poverty pla- parade.

Chris Williamson 48:09 Uh, that's what I called it. Uh...

Mark Rober 48:10 Yeah, yeah. I see. (laughs) That's so... And is it, the violence is from the folks who are sitting in the back?

Chris Williamson 48:15 Yep.

Mark Rober 48:16 But the ones in the front, at least, it's like nine times less to come... (laughs) They're like-

Chris Williamson 48:20 Probably. I'm... Fuckin' peasants behind me. Yeah, exactly.

Mark Rober 48:22 ... "I've made it." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:23 Yeah. Um,

Chris Williamson 48:25 lots of excitement around AI and stuff at the moment. One area that I th- again, AR, VR, I don't mean to shit talk on the engineers, I'm sure they're trying hard, but I've been disappointed. Like, I'm a bit sad. I wanted super cool glasses. I haven't got super cool glasses yet.

Mark Rober 48:39 AR is coming, though. Like, AR is getting there. I think that's the future, for sure.

Chris Williamson 48:43 And what will that look like? Something that can project up into a space so we could watch something 3D in front... Is this like Tony Stark-style stuff, or what-

Mark Rober 48:50 Uh, no. Like, I- I mean, G- Google's and Meta's latest are p- Have you tried those on?

Chris Williamson 48:55 Uh, no.

Mark Rober 48:56 Li- little bulky stereo, but getting there where it's like, it will, you know, illuminate the path. You're getting directions.

Chris Williamson 49:02 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 49:02 It's pretty functional. I mean, there's...

Chris Williamson 49:04 That's the one with the little band that you can do the, the, you-

Mark Rober 49:08 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like-

Chris Williamson 49:09 ... like a little...

Mark Rober 49:09 ... it gives you pretty good, like, I'm going somewhere walking directions, okay, turn here. It's like actually mapping it onto your real world. It's decent, I mean, getting there. Also like real-time translations for like if you're traveling. Um, you know, there's an argument, there's a lot of, if you didn't have to pull your phone out and you wanna like, "Hey, show me a restaurant around here," you know, or even talking to someone, (laughs) uh, there's a lot of like where r- reminding the name of the people you're looking at, right?

Chris Williamson 49:37 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 49:37 Like at a party or something.

Chris Williamson 49:39 Just slides over the top.

Mark Rober 49:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:39 Yeah, you've got the best assistant researcher ever.

Mark Rober 49:41 Yeah. Like, yeah. Uh, like there's a lot of use cases where I think it would be really, people would find it very useful. Whether or not that's good for society, that's a different conversation, but like I think there, that is, that makes more sense to me than VR at this point.

Chris Williamson 49:56 Well, certainly the Meta glasses, I've got, I've got two pairs in the house. I bought, uh, uh, two pairs as gifts this year as well, including the Oakley's ones, the-

Mark Rober 50:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:06 ... big wraparound one.

Mark Rober 50:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:07 And, um, being able to take a photo-

Mark Rober 50:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:10 ... without having to get your phone out.

Mark Rober 50:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:12 Being able to track what you're doing, just to press a button and it hold and it do the thing-

Mark Rober 50:16 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:16 ... is, oh my gosh, it is so wonderful. I went to a gig in, uh, LA the other night at the Roxy. I saw President play.

Mark Rober 50:23 Mm.

Chris Williamson 50:24 500 people, real small, real intimate, and the stage is three feet high.

Mark Rober 50:29 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:30 It's not high at all. And, um, there was a girl, a woman in front of me, 30s or something, and the entire show she watched through her phone. And this is so trite for me to say.

Mark Rober 50:42 I know.

Chris Williamson 50:42 There's that famous, uh, was it s- the Champs de Elysee in Paris on New Year's Eve a couple of years ago, and it's just this single shot from the back and it's just a sea of phones.

Mark Rober 50:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:54 Which is, it is what it is, but people wanna take memories. They wanna be able to-

Mark Rober 50:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:58 ... recall this thing.

Mark Rober 50:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:00 How much better would it be if you didn't have to sacrifice? And I think that's the best use case. I don't like the Meta, "Hey, Meta, tell me what I'm looking at." Like, I know what I'm fucking looking at.

Mark Rober 51:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:10 I don't need you to do that for me. But at the moment, those Ray-Bans, being able to take a photo, being able to press and hold and take a video up to three minutes now-

Mark Rober 51:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:18 ... they're really cool.

Mark Rober 51:19 Yeah, that is cool. I know. Like for me, I've kind of had my own moment with this. Like how many times have I ever gone back and looked at my, you know, fireworks on the 4th of July videos, right? (laughs) And yet every year you'd be like, "No way." Right? Or like concerts are a great example. Like you never go back and look at those.

Chris Williamson 51:36 You just need one, I think, for those sorts of situations.

Mark Rober 51:38 Yeah, that's right. 100%.

Chris Williamson 51:39 Where was I? Remind me what it felt like. I can fill the rest in.

Mark Rober 51:42 That's right.

Chris Williamson 51:42 You just need one.

Mark Rober 51:43 That's 100%.

Chris Williamson 51:44 Um, so anyway, AR, VR, eh, like maybe it's getting there, whatever, whatever. Robotics, yeah, I think when you compare with AI, um, robotics is a, a promise that everybody had expected. There's this new HomeBot thing with the fucking knitted-

Mark Rober 52:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:01 ... jumper as a-

Mark Rober 52:02 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:02 ... it's got like your jumper on as a, uh, home assistant.

Mark Rober 52:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:04 And somebody put a video of it trying to close the dishwasher and said it looks like a guy on ketamine at an afterparty.

Mark Rober 52:11 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:12 Um, what's going on in the world of robotics? This is much closer to your wheelhouse.

Mark Rober 52:16 Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, AI still needs humans right now to like push buttons, especially when you say like AGI. Like once you have robotics, there's an argument that like now humans are truly redundant as like it makes sense that we're going into robotics. I think it pairs naturally with AI. Um, I don't know what it mean, I don't know how great it is for our species. I was, I'll, I'll tell you this. I don't wanna say a name here, but I was talking to someone who's like you know in Silicon Valley. He said he was at a dinner at his house with like 10 other people who are like leaders in Silicon Valley with AI.

Chris Williamson 52:55 Mm.

Mark Rober 52:56 You would know half the names very well.

Chris Williamson 52:58 Mm.

Mark Rober 52:59 They had a vote that said by the year 2050, what's the chance our sun is covered in a Dyson sphere? Meaning, a Dyson sphere-

Chris Williamson 53:07 Type 2 Kardashev.

Mark Rober 53:08 That's right. It's a type, basically, it, it's basically a solar panel that goes all around the sun so you capture all the energy-

Chris Williamson 53:14 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 53:14 ... and then you could use that energy then to populate the solar system and the universe ostensibly. And of this group of folks, eight of 10 said greater than 50% chance by 2050 our sun is ca-

Chris Williamson 53:28 Really? Fucking do it on Kalshi, dude. Put it on Polymarket. Put your money where your mouth is. Don't give me your bullshit around the t- I, I don't understand w-

Mark Rober 53:38 But no, but the point is to get there you need robotics.

Chris Williamson 53:40 Yeah. Okay, okay.

Mark Rober 53:40 Like that, this is my point.

Chris Williamson 53:41 Right, right, right, right, right.

Mark Rober 53:42 This is the connection, 'cause you need robotics to, if you can make a million-

Chris Williamson 53:46 Instruct this.

Mark Rober 53:46 ... workers in, you know, 20 days and then those workers make factories that make more, that's when you truly go crazy exponential. So like the only way to get to that is a robotics revolution.

Chris Williamson 53:58 So that does seem to be on the cusp, at least for some people.

Mark Rober 54:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:01 And even if it's not get it up, do the Dyson sphere Kardashev 2 thing.

Mark Rober 54:05 The point is, is that, again, going back, like society is at a pretty fundamental changing point if you can have, you know, the thinking machines and the doing machines who are gonna be more specialized than us humans who have all this like vestigial traits of millions of years of evolution that just aren't necessary for today's world.

Chris Williamson 54:24 Yeah. You know, walking around with appendixes and pancreas-

Mark Rober 54:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:27 ... and stuff like that.

Mark Rober 54:28 And like, uh, yeah, coccyx and-

Chris Williamson 54:30 Yeah. We do-

Mark Rober 54:30 ... toenails. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:31 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Stupid, stupid idea. Uh, uh, it'll be interesting, man. If we can get to the stage where AI programs, robotics, that's when we're...

Mark Rober 54:39 This is my point, right? And then robotics builds more robotics.

Chris Williamson 54:43 Correct.

Mark Rober 54:44 So you, turning the wrenches is now...

Chris Williamson 54:46 Bro, I had Eliezer on the show and he was telling me about how one of the ways that a super intelligent general AI would be able to, um, accumulate compute power without taking it away from servers that people would realize, is it could reprogram the leaves of trees.

Mark Rober 55:06 Whoa.

Chris Williamson 55:07 It's like bio-... biotranscomputation or something, and he had this book, this series of books behind him on the, the biology of trees. He's like, "Oh, well it's a relatively simple process. If you were to, you do this and then you do this, and then you reśmy program to this thing, and then you reprogram to this thing, and then all of the trees are doing your compute for you." And you're just using the trunks and the roots, and you just draw up all of this power. And that would be the way, and it would just slowly seep its way into the biosphere, and before you know it, the shrub in your back garden is working out how to kill you.

Mark Rober 55:40 (laughs) I, I do feel like anthropomorphizing robot, I get the argument for making robots that looks like humans 'cause the world is basically built for humans-

Chris Williamson 55:49 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 55:49 ... but I think it's like a first cut, like trying to make that where you... I think it makes a lot more sense to make like factory robots. Like robots who you could sell to a car manufacturer-

Chris Williamson 55:59 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 55:59 ... that can move around their factory, that could, in one year, save them the cost of 12 of your fleets of robots you're selling t- Like, I feel like the winner of the robotics revolution will be the one who goes after manufacturing businesses first, not homes. For people who could afford it.

Chris Williamson 56:16 Oh, wow, yeah. That's a good, that's a great point. Because how many people want, need, and can afford-

Mark Rober 56:23 And those who can afford it already have a-

Chris Williamson 56:25 Person.

Mark Rober 56:25 ... staff of people who do it.

Chris Williamson 56:26 Yeah, but it's a person. Yeah, 'cause-

Mark Rober 56:27 Right.

Chris Williamson 56:27 ... it's not that cheap.

Mark Rober 56:29 No.

Chris Williamson 56:30 I think that thing was f- f- maybe 500 bucks a month.

Mark Rober 56:32 No. That's right. And it doesn't do it that well.

Chris Williamson 56:35 I think 500 bucks a month, like what's a cleaner? Like a, to get a maid to come round is maybe, even for a good-sized home, 200 bucks? Okay, so you can get them every other week.

Mark Rober 56:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 56:46 And you'd still have 100 bucks to save on this robot of ketamine.

Mark Rober 56:51 The, yeah, the ro- the addressable market seems very small versus, "Hey, I'm gonna make a robot that can wheel around your factory floor." It is, by the way, it's, it's torso can stretch eight feet to screw in that thing and then come down. Like make a specialized robot for that factory. Still kind of probably looks like a human, but give it six arms because it's, all its job is to drill in the six bolts on the bottom, right?

Chris Williamson 57:12 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 57:12 And then make those robots, like that immediately will have a massive ROA for a company that has money to pay for it, right?

Chris Williamson 57:19 I saw a new type of warehouse robot. So, um, instead of warehouses being built upward-

Mark Rober 57:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:26 ... this begins the warehouse high and builds it low. So all of these things run over the top of, like tubules that come down.

Mark Rober 57:32 Mm.

Chris Williamson 57:33 So imagine that you've got your warehouse and you don't stack shit from the bottom up. You have the robots running over the top, and they get stuff, bring it up to the top, and then they run around here-

Mark Rober 57:42 Oh, interesting.

Chris Williamson 57:42 ... with like a little grid formation and then-

Mark Rober 57:43 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 57:44 ... below each grid. So not only does it restock stuff, it also then goes and, and pulls it out.

Mark Rober 57:49 Oh.

Chris Williamson 57:49 And, um, it was, I can't, it was some absurd space-saving efficiency.

Mark Rober 57:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:55 This, this warehouse is eight times denser than a normal one because everything is just packed side by side.

Mark Rober 58:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:01 You don't need any space to run between-

Mark Rober 58:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:05 ... the stock because the stock is the floor. The whole floor is just stock.

Mark Rober 58:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wild.

Chris Williamson 58:10 Isn't that cool?

Mark Rober 58:10 I see. Yeah, I think, I think the winner of the robotics r- uh, the first big winner takes all, the NVIDIA of the robotics will be ones who address like factories first.

Chris Williamson 58:22 Mm.

Mark Rober 58:22 And then there'll be knock-on effect of like-

Chris Williamson 58:24 They'll bootstrap it from there.

Mark Rober 58:25 ... then how do you perfect that for the home, not the other way. I'm surprised we're starting with the home.

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Mark Rober 59:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:46 ... it's not there. Okay. For anyone who hasn't seen your Glitter Bomb series, please explain that.

Mark Rober 59:51 (laughs) Well, like a lot of my idea, people are like, "Where do you come up with your ideas?" And it's like, I don't know, like my brain's just always on in the sense of like thinking of like, "Oh, that's a good idea," right? And so someone stole a package from my porch and I felt really sad. Have you had a package stolen from your porch?

Chris Williamson 1:00:11 No. Well, actually, maybe but I haven't known that it's happened.

Mark Rober 1:00:14 (laughs) It's very, it's an American thing apparently. Apparently, this doesn't happen a lot in other countries.

Chris Williamson 1:00:19 Yeah.

Mark Rober 1:00:19 But you d- you do really feel violated, and this was like a $3, I don't even know what it was. Something from Amazon. It doesn't matter, right? And at first I was, the police obviously won't do anything about it. But then I was like, "You know what?" Like, "I helped build the Mars rover for heaven's sakes. Like I could probably do something about this." (laughs) So I designed a bait package basically that had four phones in it that could, I could track the phone so I knew where the package went, but they were also recording so it could upload that footage to the cloud. So even if they destroyed the package, I would have footage of the, the theft. But more importantly when you lifted off the lid, it had a cup that used centrifugal force to spray like a pound of the world's finest glitter. And then to make sure we got the package back after like two minutes, it'd spray just a uncharitable amount of fart spray. So they were incentivized, and y- then I played fake police chatter like ƒ�pâge â?â?â?â?â? you know. "We have a report of â?â?â?" You know. And so we always got the packages back. Sometimes in better shape than others.And I don't know, I think it was- it just really struck a chord for a lot of people who have had the same thing. To make a viral video, you just have to evoke a visceral response. Like, that is the key to making a- That is- that is the key. Like, if you want to know how to, that's it. So you have to feel vindicated, it has to make you feel- You know, it has to be funny, it has to make you feel angry. That's a trick that's used a lot these days in making people angry to get them to share. And so this one just- it checked a lot of those visceral response buttons.

Chris Williamson 1:01:46 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 1:01:47 And yeah, I went- So I did it for like- Each year I would improve and go cr- Eventually we had drones that came out and sprayed the glitter in the house, (laughs) you know, when they open the lid. Each year I would like- As an engineering challenge, how can I take this to the next level? And I did it for like, I think six or seven years. Eventually went to San Francisco. I had like fake luggage that- Because cars get stolen from there all the time. And I would- I would work with the police, you know. Any time I got footage, I would- I would, if the police wanted it, I'd give it to them. And also, this is a crazy fact, probably about half the people's faces are blurred, half of them aren't. And people argue like, "Well, how do you make that decision?" If you're not blurred, you signed a release, which means they were willing to let me put their face on-

Chris Williamson 1:02:33 Who signed a release?

Mark Rober 1:02:34 Every single criminal whose face isn't blurred in the glitter bomb.

Chris Williamson 1:02:38 Where did the release form go to?

Mark Rober 1:02:40 I gave it to them because I would like know the houses, right? They took it to their house. So we would knock on the door and be like, "Okay, we got you. (laughs) Are you cool if we show you in a YouTube video?" And you might be like, "Well, why would they agree to this?"

Chris Williamson 1:02:53 Yeah.

Mark Rober 1:02:53 And you just have to offer them the correct compensation, which in most cases was like a Starbucks gift card. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:01 You're kidding.

Mark Rober 1:03:01 No. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:02 You- you got people to admit to having their face on one of the biggest YouTube channels in the world as a criminal-

Mark Rober 1:03:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:11 ... by offering them a Starbucks gift card?

Mark Rober 1:03:13 Like, by the way, like a $10 Starbucks gift card. This wasn't like 200. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:17 Wowee.

Mark Rober 1:03:18 But it's just, what you'd find is just like, we value our reputation a lot. And you think- you think other people have the same frameworks and think like you, but some of them are like, "Hell yeah." Like, "Let's do this."

Chris Williamson 1:03:33 Well, I mean, you thought that you were going to get a parcel, you didn't. You got sprayed in fart spray. Now you go to Starbucks, you know?

Mark Rober 1:03:39 Yeah, it's kind of a win.

Chris Williamson 1:03:40 Aim for the stars, land in the clouds.

Mark Rober 1:03:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:43 Land in Starbucks. Uh, yeah, I- I mean, that's one of my favorite series that you've done. I thought it was so great. And I- Another one, your, um, like scam phone call-

Mark Rober 1:03:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:54 ... abroad s- taking advantage of old people thing. The relationship that you have with technology, you're obviously very pro technology. It's something that you- is your love. It's something that you're working on, you're trying to encourage other people to do their own. Have you got, when you see things like that, when you see phone centers that are trying to scam old people out of money, does that become conflicted for what technology sort of enables for you?

Mark Rober 1:04:19 I mean, at the end of the day, I think technology is amoral and it can be used for tremendous good, it could be used for tremendous bad. And oh, you hope the good outweighs the bad. Um, and my job, (laughs) you know, is to use some of the good to try and outweigh the bad. And in that case, uh, literally that video was born. I was making one of the glitter bombs and I got one of those like Microsoft scam calls, you know, or like, "Your car warranty is expired." I'm like, "Who's behind these things?" So eventually I worked with another YouTuber, Jim Browning. We hacked into some of these scam centers in Kolkata, India. So we got access to their CCTV.

Chris Williamson 1:04:52 How did you access the security system?

Mark Rober 1:04:54 So their trick is that when they come to take over your cont- computer, so you pretend you're an old- you know, some, "I don't know what's going on." And they're like, "Okay ma'am, let me help you with your computer." Well, that's a two-way connection. So when that happens, if you know what you're doing, you can remote into their computers.

Chris Williamson 1:05:10 Wow.

Mark Rober 1:05:11 So that's what Jim Browning does, is he's very good at computers. And you don't just get access to their CCTV, you get access to like their mainframe. So we know exactly- It's kind of a normal business, by the way. It's kind of boring. They have like scam training. They have like HR, right? They have like goals of how many scams you're going to do a month, like pizza parties I was going to say, you know what's happening for lunch that week? Yeah, (laughs) exactly. It's kind of hilarious. But we'd see how much- You know, they're making I think like $30 million a year running three shifts, 24 hours a day. They'd been doing it for a decade, three of these. So we went there with, you know, our glitter bombs. Well, first of all, I hired like eight people to work undercover for eight months just to learn, just to like find out what the weak-

Chris Williamson 1:05:53 To work there?

Mark Rober 1:05:54 At a scam center, yeah. To- I wanted to learn their weaknesses. And it- one of them, it turns out, is you can bring lunch boxes out onto the floor. You- you can't bring phones, you can't bring anything else, but they let you bring your lunch and like a water bottle. So we designed like a lunch box that we put (laughs) like 100 cockroaches in, but then it had a ball screw and a remote timer on a trigger, so the- the- the wall would move forward. So basically these cockroaches would start getting squished and then a door opened, so all the cockroaches would run out at once. We had a smoke bomb in there, of course, sent them a glitter bomb, and then we filmed it all on the CT- CCTV footage. And it's hilarious footage. And so, you know, my thing is like, I could have made a PSA on what these scams are and how to avoid them.

Chris Williamson 1:06:40 Mm-hmm.

Mark Rober 1:06:40 That wouldn't have evoked a visceral response. That would have got 100 views. But if I can wrap this in a story and entertain you and make you feel a lot of things, well now you're going to share that video. And sunshine is a great disinfectant. And eventually- effectively, that's what happened. We released this video, it has like hundreds of millions of views now. And because what was happening is you had a few bad apple police officers in these cities who were being paid off, they didn't have that spotlight on them, but now it made it impossible to defend them because The Times of India is covering it. All these people are up in arms and like protesting, and all three of those scam centers got shut down. The top- I think there was like 18 officials arrested.... from this stu-

Chris Williamson 1:07:20 This, this real, real world impact.

Mark Rober 1:07:22 This is from a stupid YouTube video.

Chris Williamson 1:07:24 Do you know the Greek god Hephaestus? Have you heard of him?

Mark Rober 1:07:27 No.

Chris Williamson 1:07:28 So he was the god of, uh, craftsmanship and fire-

Mark Rober 1:07:32 Oh, really?

Chris Williamson 1:07:32 ... metalworking and stuff.

Mark Rober 1:07:33 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:33 He's kind of the archetype of the tinkerer.

Mark Rober 1:07:37 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:38 By the way, Hephaestus.

Mark Rober 1:07:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:07:39 Or Hephaestus. And, um, he's the only Greek god that was crippled, so he's like a chubby guy, and he sort of needed crutches and he needed a wheelchair. And I think he was, he was, um, betrothed or maybe even married to one of the most beautiful of the gods, and the super chad god was sleeping with his wife behind his back, and he knew that this thing was happening, and he'd discovered them, and he was heartbroken. And it's kind of a tale as old as time that the nerdy tinkerer-

Mark Rober 1:08:11 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:08:11 ... has his good-looking girl stolen by the sort of chad bully.

Mark Rober 1:08:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:15 Uh, so he gets back at her and him, and he designs this unbelievably strong cage.

Mark Rober 1:08:21 Glitter bomb?

Chris Williamson 1:08:22 No. Ah, it could have been.

Mark Rober 1:08:24 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:08:24 Cockroaches. Uh, this really strong cage that is positioned over the bed, and he waits until they get down into bed, and then this thing drops, and he invites all of the other gods, and all of the other gods come in and laugh at them. And it's the, it kind of reminds me of your story-

Mark Rober 1:08:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:08:38 ... that there's this sort of tinkerer who uses innovation and ingenuity to sort of righteously, um, even the scales.

Mark Rober 1:08:47 Yeah. (laughs) I love that. That's great.

Chris Williamson 1:08:50 Cool story. Yeah.

Mark Rober 1:08:52 Yeah, it's like, I don't know, it's just, that was so lovely to see, 'cause it's kind of like this, "What can I do?" Like, if I would've s- if we would've got that information from the scan centers and given it to police, nothing would've happened, right? But if I make a story that makes you feel something and evokes an emotion-

Chris Williamson 1:09:08 Tension.

Mark Rober 1:09:08 ... now suddenly, right, now suddenly, something happens. And I think, I don't know, it's like a powerful example of, like, agency. It's like, what can you do, in your spot, in your position, you know, to affect the world?

Chris Williamson 1:09:21 Best question about agency. You're stuck in a third world jail and you've got 24 hours to get out and only one phone call. Who do you ring?

Mark Rober 1:09:30 Probably Jimmy Kimmel. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:09:33 (laughs) That's a good one. That's a