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

Go see Chris live in America - https://chriswilliamson.live Rory Sutherland is one of the world’s leading consumer behaviour experts, the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Advertising and an author. The world is evolving at an unprecedented pace. With the rise of AI, we're witnessing a collision between the old world and the new. As technology advances, the question becomes: how can innovation repair outdated systems and shape the future in marketing and beyond? Expect to learn about Rory’s first experience to Buccee’s, what Rory’s thoughts are on Waymo, Autonomous driving and the current experience of going through airports, what are some unknown gems in the UK to visit that no one knows about, how Rory would improve food delivery apps, the future of AI in marketing and AI wearables, Rory’s advice for what people should do to optimise for attention, and much more… - 0:00 Don't Mess with Texas 3:31 Driving Etiquette in the US vs the UK 13:02 The Genius Behind Reverse Benchmarking 20:13 Improving the Airport Experience 36:28 How AI Changes Your Decision-Making 45:50 How Can Businesses Generate Repeat Purchases? 55:31 Should We All Start Using Blimps? 01:03:12 Improving Food Delivery Apps 01:12:46 Is it an Option or an Obligation? 01:19:18 Is Money Becoming Unhealthily Concentrated? 01:31:10 How to be Smart with Your Money 01:40:31 Should We Get Rid of 'Adults Only' Areas? 01:44:37 The Great Complaint of Calvin Klein's Daughter 01:46:25 The Brilliance of Cuddly Animal Marketing 01:52:08 Rory's Product Ad - Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get a 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostRory Sutherlandguest
Jul 28, 20251h 53mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 3:31

    Don't Mess with Texas

    1. CW

      Welcome back. Good to see you.

    2. RS

      It's a pleasure. What a joy it is. And, and here in Austin, too.

    3. CW

      Here in Austin. Uh, Buc-ee's. You went to Buc-ee's. Tell me-

    4. RS

      Absolutely. I actually brought you a present.

    5. CW

      Oh.

    6. RS

      I thought, uh, you know, it wouldn't be fair if I didn't bring you-

    7. CW

      This is-

    8. RS

      ... local specialties. And of course, some, uh, some, some beef jerky as well.

    9. CW

      This is-

    10. RS

      Jalapeno honey, which I thought would be good.

    11. CW

      Thank you.

    12. RS

      But the Buc-ee's thing is particularly good because they have a brand partnership with the, uh, TXDOT, the Texas Department of Transportation.

    13. CW

      Okay.

    14. RS

      So they licensed the Don't Mess With Texas advertising slogan.

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. RS

      Okay? Now, this may surprise you, that Don't Mess With Texas, the rights to it actually belong to the Texas Department of Transportation because it was an anti-littering campaign.

    17. CW

      You're kidding.

    18. RS

      No, no, no.

    19. CW

      How old is this?

    20. RS

      It dates back, crikey, to the s- I think the '70s or, or at least the very early '80s. I think the 1970s.

    21. CW

      Okay.

    22. RS

      And it's a kind of famous advertising case study because how do you tell Texans not to litter? Okay. Now, in other parts of the world, you know, simple kind of blandishments or appeals to their sort of, uh, you know, (laughs) their, you know, higher order concerns might work. But this is a uniquely Texan message, which takes-

    23. CW

      So low-key aggression, unspoken threat of-

    24. RS

      Uh, there, there's a slight un-

    25. CW

      ... kinetic interaction.

    26. RS

      Exactly. Exactly.

    27. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

    28. RS

      Yeah, yeah. And actually, funnily enough, when they presented it, one of the people said, "I find this a bit abrupt. Could we not make it, 'Please don't mess with Texas'?"

    29. CW

      (laughs)

    30. RS

      But of course, that doesn't work, does it? No.

  2. 3:31 – 13:02

    Driving Etiquette in the US vs the UK

    1. RS

      they've gone big.

    2. CW

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

    3. RS

      Uh, no, because I tried to register. Now, it's, it's an Uber partnership in Austin.

    4. CW

      It is. If you get an Uber, they'll send you a Waymo.

    5. RS

      And, but when I asked for a, when I asked for it, they said, "You're on a trial" or something, that I'm on some sort of beta test.

    6. CW

      Maybe it's because you, maybe it's because you're British.

    7. RS

      Uh, it could be. It could be some weird thing. Um, uh, but interestingly, I'm, I'm still trying to get a Waymo. I had a friend who took one in San Francisco. Actually, he took about ten because he became addicted to taking Waymos.

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RS

      And his judgment, I don't know whether you agree with this, he's pretty comfortable in a driverless car just being driven around town. He said, "Out on the open highway, if we hit 60, I'd get a bit nervous."

    10. CW

      Mm.

    11. RS

      But he said at kind of town speeds, he was, he was pretty content.

    12. CW

      I think the fastest that I'll have been will have been 35 miles an hour.

    13. RS

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      Uh, I mean, it's just a little ... But I, I do have a theory. I'm gonna give you this one. So, I noticed when I was ordering Waymos on the app, it would say, "It's 10 minutes away," or, "Five minutes away," and it would almost always be between 50% and 100% more time than it said it was to get to me. And it wasn't getting lost, it wasn't, it wasn't accidentally going somewhere. And then when I got in, my journey was also taking way longer. What I've realized is there's only two reasons, I think, that humans behave on the road in regards to other drivers. One is fear of retribution.

    15. RS

      Yeah.

    16. CW

      And the other is the guilt of inconveniencing another person. But with a Waymo, both of those are taken out of the picture, because the back windows are so blacked out that you can barely see if there's anyone in.

    17. RS

      I see.

    18. CW

      There's never anybody in the front seat.

    19. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    20. CW

      And what retributive ... They're not gonna tailgate you and beep their horn. Uh, you know, in America, road rage is a mortal endeavor, given that everybody's armed. So, basically, every time that a Waymo is at a junction, it gets ... No one lets it out, no one behaves courteously to it. Everybody knows if they pull in front... Pass- uh, pedestrians, I do it all the time when I'm walking, if I see a Waymo in front, I'm like, "Uh, it's a little close." I'm like, "It's gonna slow down."

    21. RS

      I mean, there's an economist, Douglas McWilliams in the UK, and he and I occasionally talk about this because we're both car enthusiasts, about the extent to which motoring, uh, actually teaches social skills.

    22. CW

      Yep.

    23. RS

      Social calculus.

    24. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RS

      So one of, one of the little bits of social calculus a good driver would probably perform is that your readiness to let someone in from a side junction, uh, would be dependent on how fast you were going already. If you're stuck in traffic, okay, the calculus is, "Well, no skin off my nose if I let this person in. I lose five feet of road or whatever, you know, by being generous." Consequently, we engage in those small acts of kind of altruism as motorists. We're also hugely sensitive to, when you perform a favor, whether the person thanks you.So one of the great inventions which I think originated in Japan is the idea of flashing your hazard lights to say thank you if someone lets you in.

    26. CW

      Mm-hmm. I've never had that in America.

    27. RS

      I've seen it once or twice here. It's less common, but it's spreading. It's one of those strange things.

    28. CW

      Interesting.

    29. RS

      It's, uh, it, it's a kind of a ... Truck drivers kind of prop- propagated it in the UK, but I mean, I just remember talking to Robert Trivers, (laughs) funnily enough who's kind of like, you know, the kind of doyen of evolutionary psychology-

    30. CW

      Trivers, Trivers is a fucking legend.

  3. 13:02 – 20:13

    The Genius Behind Reverse Benchmarking

    1. RS

      yeah.

    2. CW

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

    3. RS

      Oh. So, I mean, one of the interesting ones is they're too big. I mean, the, you know, the, the shopping center component, which was novel when it first started has now become obligatory, and you basically have to walk through the Houston Galleria before you can catch your plane. Um, and, uh, London City Airport, I, you've probably used that, have you? It-

    4. CW

      No, I've never been.

    5. RS

      ... oh, you've never, okay. It's, wha- what, this is, this is what's so funny, okay? Tha- so there's an idea I'm playing with in marketing generally and in innovation, which I call reverse benchmarking, okay? So, the idea is what most companies do is they benchmark themselves against their competition. Now, the great writer on this is a guy called Roger L. Martin, who's my own personal, he's Canadian, my own personal business guru, extensive writer. He was dean of the Rotman School in Toronto. And he wrote a piece called Benchmarking is for Losers, okay? That all you do is you, you diminish your margins by making yourself in direct competition with your other competitors, so you don't benefit, uh, your, uh, your profits or your shareholders, and also you don't benefit your customers, okay? And the reason you don't benefit your customers is because they're then deprived of choice and, and differentiation, and you don't benefit the overall category because the category loses value because it's more homogeneous, okay? And my argument is, and I got this inspiration from that great book, you've probably had him on, Will Guidara, have you ever had him on?

    6. CW

      No.

    7. RS

      Okay, Unreasonable Hospitality, fantastic book about a guy who ran Eleven Madison Park. He's a major sort of food innovator in all kinds of ways. I think he's married to the woman who invented cereal milk, which I think is one of the most brilliant inventions, which is, you know the milk you get at the bottom of Coco Pops-

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    9. RS

      ... would be the British, which is tastier than anything else you've ever drunk. And she had the inspired idea of just (laughs) flavoring milk with breakfast cereal and selling it as a drink, which I have to say (laughs) I think is just genius, okay? (laughs) Now, his brilliant thing was he's number 50, I've told this story a lot, so apologies to people who've heard this before. He's number 50, uh, restaurant in the world in the San Pellegrino Restaurant Awards. It's a three-star Michelin restaurant in New York. That's 2011. He wants to get to number one. Pretty, you know, remote ambition, it's not gonna be easy. But one of the things he did was what I call reverse benchmarking. He took his team to the number one restaurant in the world, and they started up doing what we all do, which is, how are we doing compared to them? They do this really well, let's copy it, et cetera. And at the end of the whole experience, Guidara just goes to his team, "I'm not interested in any of that stuff. They're already doing that well. If we merely copy them, no one will notice." What I wanna know, given that you've just been to the best restaurant in the world according to San Pellegrino, um, is what, what was a bit disappointing? 'Cause we're gonna double down on that, all right? And the, the approach was they finally came up with two things that were a bit disappointing, which was, one, the coffee was nothing special. I mean, I find American coffee quality unbelievably high variance. And they just said it was fine, the coffee wasn't disgusting, it was just there was nothing particularly-

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RS

      ... interesting about it. And of course, because he'd taken a few people to the kitchen along, a few of them wanted to drink beer, and the beer drinkers were treated a bit like second class citizens compared to the wine drinkers who were given all manner of bullshit with a, you know, sommelier and led a conversation about the terroir, you know. And so he goes back to his own restaurant and he appoints one of his guys who's a coffee obsessive the coffee sommelier, and another guy I think from the kitchens who is obsessed with American craft beers or all craft beers, he makes him the beer sommelier. Now, imagine you're in this restaurant. Now, most of the people in the restaurant aren't gonna ask for beer, but 10 or 20% of them will, okay? And they're, and they're expecting, yeah, we got Sam Adams on draft or we've got this in bottles. And instead, they get a beer menu from the beer sommelier with suggested beer pairings, you know, the citrus IPA goes really, really well with the cod or whatever it might be. Now those people, you've blown their minds, okay? It's not a question of, "Hey, that was a bit better than I expected." So this reverse benchmarking is find out something that your competitors have completely overlooked, do it really, really well, and I would argue as a marketer, and then actually turn it into a feature.

    12. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RS

      You know, spotlight it.

    14. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    15. RS

      And you could, you, you could almost take this and make it into a, I'm, I'm not gonna say it's everything, but it's a generalized theory of innovation, which is, you know, what Steve Jobs did was take a field where everybody was focused on the tech and the capability of the machine to the complete exclusion of any aesthetic or usability consideration.

    16. CW

      He made it beautiful.

    17. RS

      And what he does is go, okay, well, now, what, what I'm not saying is you can be shit at the technology so long as you make it lovely. No, you merely have to be kind of, you know, what you might call-... top decile in what you do somewhere else. But then you go off and you find the area which everybody else has ignored.

    18. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RS

      I, I look at things, like, I'm a big fan of the Moxy Hotel chain, I often talk about that. And what that is, is double down on the ground floor.

    20. CW

      Yep.

    21. RS

      You know, make the ground-

    22. CW

      We work on the ground floor, don't feel weird when you've checked out.

    23. RS

      Yeah. Y- y- and th- that's one of the m- marvelous benefits you discover through experience. Uh, you know, that actually after I've checked out of a Moxy, I, every other hotel makes me feel homeless. But the Moxy, you, you know, you make... (laughs) Okay, take your shopping trolley and your plastic bags-

    24. CW

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

    25. RS

      (laughs) ... and go and push them through the streets-

    26. CW

      Fuck off, yeah.

    27. RS

      ... until your flight leaves. Whereas in the Moxy, you just hang out for another five hours and get on with some shit and order their coffee, and you don't feel remotely unwelcome.

    28. CW

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  4. 20:13 – 36:28

    Improving the Airport Experience

    1. CW

      So what would you do to airports?

    2. RS

      Right, that's a really interesting question. Um, uh, what interests me about London City Airport is the fact that there's a natural benchmarking tendency, which is that when I was a kid, the rich kids had been to, you know, they might have been to, actually wouldn't have been Dubai back then, would have been Sharjah or something, but they'd been to Schiphol or they'd been to Changi in Singapore, they go, "It's amazing, those shops." You know, it's like, 'cause back then, we hadn't seen a shopping center before, and it was really novel, you know, "I bought a Walkman," you know, it was fantastic, right? And then suddenly, all airports became like that, okay? And suddenly people went, "Have you been to London City? It's incredible. You go in, and six minutes later you're at the gate. There are hardly any shops. It's brilliant."

    3. CW

      Yep, yep.

    4. RS

      Okay? So there is a really, really interesting idea. I mean, there is scope, lots of scope for really interesting innovation. Um, I think it's a lot easier also, it's worth noting, it's a lot easier if you want to premiumize an experience, it's a lot easier to in- innovate on the ground than it is in the air. Now there is a fantastic thing which a friend of mine called Jeremy Stone tells me about, which is at Washington Dulles, where they still have these vehicles which I think were designed by Eero Saarinen, the Finnish kind of inventor, where your lounge drives the plane. Okay? So you get in something that looks like a room, where you're all sit- seated down and, you know, you've got a few little tables and you're comfortable. And then the actual lounge is on wheels and drives to the plane.

    5. CW

      Wow.

    6. RS

      Now it's a really, really interesting innovation, because there's a Soviet-era innovation thing called TRIZ, uh, which is, it- it- it's the Russian for a technique for creative innovation or something. And they have a whole list of kind of principles, one of which is make the thing that stays still move and make the thing that moves stay still.

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. RS

      It's just something in kind of mechanical and engineering innovation, which is a different way of looking at things. And so what's interesting about that, of course, is you, the planes don't need then to go to a gate. So the constraint... First of all, you probably save a lot of fuel because the plane doesn't have to spend so much time taxiing. The plane can be parked pretty much next to the runway-

    9. CW

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

    10. RS

      ... and you shunt the passengers. And it means that every time you expand your airport, you just buy a few more vehicles. You don't have to go into a $1 billion building project.

    11. CW

      Well, you treat, you treat your airport more like a car park than a building.

    12. RS

      Hmm.

    13. CW

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

    14. RS

      Here's a weird one. So one thing would be, now nothing to do with airports themselves, but it occurred to me the other day. I was thinking, I was trying to do a bit of reverse benchmarking. No hotels offer you a monitor. Okay?

    15. CW

      An external screen.

    16. RS

      Y- you might have a 4K, you might have a 4K, you know, 85-inch TV-

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. RS

      ... but in order to plug your laptop into it, you'd have to rip the thing off the wall.

    19. CW

      Yep.

    20. RS

      Okay? It's weird to me that no hotels offer a dual screen experience. And it's weird to me that car hire companies, if you wanted to, if you wanted to employ all of America's young people in the summer... See, see if you agree with me. If you could pay a car hire company-

    21. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    22. RS

      ... very simple thing. You pay a hundred bucks, okay? And it's big money, okay?

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. RS

      We will meet you at the arrivals gate and with your keys, and we will walk you to your car.

    25. CW

      Oh yeah, that's good.

    26. RS

      Right?

    27. CW

      Like a concierge.

    28. RS

      Because the, uh, yeah, because that's the wor- a car hire is terrifying if y- if you're familiar with the airport, it's fine. Okay? But if you're going to an unfamiliar-

    29. CW

      Where's the Avis? Oh no, that's the Enterprise.

    30. RS

      Oh no, don't worry, we've, we've, we've mo- we've moved off-site, so there's a shuttle bus to take you here.

  5. 36:28 – 45:50

    How AI Changes Your Decision-Making

    1. CW

      Talk to me about, uh, takeaway food. We... You linked me in with some guy that makes crazy Indian takeaway food. I want-

    2. RS

      Oh, yes. It's Nostalgia Foods and, um, Naresh Sankara-

    3. CW

      Yeah.

    4. RS

      ... who's a s- food scientist at, uh, Berkeley, who, uh, like most Indian emigres and indeed British emigres to the United States, definitely-

    5. CW

      Woefully disappointed.

    6. RS

      Uh, well, not always. There are, there are very good Indian restaurants in, in the US but they're few.... okay? I mean, certainly in proportion, uh, I mean, of course there wasn't much of an Indian population and of course your spicy food is partly taken care of with things like Tex-Mex, et cetera.

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. RS

      Okay. But anybody who's either British or, or Indian or Pakistani, Bengali, et cetera, uh, would feel a bit deprived. And so he's found this technology where you basically, you can ship chefs over from Hyderabad. Uh, they then prepare biryani, which you then preserve using NASA food preserving technology.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. RS

      And I've tried it and I've shared it with other people and it's astounding.

    11. CW

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

    12. RS

      Oh, that's a different one. That's a thing called a frozen paratha.

    13. CW

      Right.

    14. RS

      Which you probably could get here.

    15. CW

      Right.

    16. RS

      Um, uh, uh, and that's, that's an extraordinary thing because you just, weirdly you don't thaw them. Take them straight out of the freezer, bang them with a bit of oil in a frying pan, uh, about one minute each side-

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. RS

      ... and it's fantastic.

    19. CW

      Yeah. I, I can't believe I, the email thread that I was put in was s- somebody, somebody at berkeley.edu telling me that my industrial sized order of NASA freeze dried fucking Indian food had been, and I was like, "What? How have these five different things contributed s- to result in me eating Indian food?" But Rangi-

    20. RS

      He makes, he also makes haleem, which is one of my favorite things of all time, by the way. If you've never had it-

    21. CW

      What's haleem?

    22. RS

      It's, it's usually I think lamb and I think wheat grass, which is kind of soaked overnight in some shape. So it's like, the only way you can describe, it's like a very meaty porridge. And then you can pimp it. If you ever go to Salou in Kinnerton Street in London, they, they then bring you a little tray which has little bits of chili, little bits of ginger, little bits of something else, maybe saffron.

    23. CW

      Mm.

    24. RS

      And then you pimp the top of it by sprinkling these things-

    25. CW

      Oh, ver- like you make your own pizza.

    26. RS

      Yeah, yeah. And then it sits, eh, probably sits on top of rice or, or, uh, yeah, typically I think it will come with rice. Absolutely magnificent thing. It's wonderful. And he makes haleem, he makes biryani, um, and, and Hyderabadi biryani is considered the kind of gold standard in India.

    27. CW

      Okay.

    28. RS

      Um-

    29. CW

      What's happened with changes in people's ordering preferences, given that so much of this is now done over screen? You look at McDonald's, you look at even ... I, I would be very interested to know the difference between a touch-

    30. RS

      Okay. This sounds a really interesting ... I don't normally talk about AI 'cause everybody else does, but one thing that strikes me as interesting about AI is when you change the context and the choice architecture within which people choose, so it's a screen rather than face to face, okay? They make different choices. If you want my frank opinion, I think the whole property market is broken because everybody searches for property in the same way, okay? Uh, uh, now one way in which you can innovate very reliably is it's quite hard to change a million people's behavior, okay? Because people are driven by habit and they, you know, they've already got a sol- I mean, they've already got a solution to the problem, uh, a lot of the time. Yours may be better, but they're ba- you know. I mean, literally when mobile phones were invented, we forget this 'cause your generation think nobody had mobile phones, they invented the mobile phone, everybody bought a mobile phone. It was about 20 something years before it reached kind of, you know, mains, really mainstream adoption. Now part of that was price, part of that was technology. A lot of it was people saying things like, "Why would I want to make a phone call on the street?" I mean, I don't ... Literally. Because they didn't really envisage the value that a mobile phone brought you until they owned one. Okay? And there's also the whole social proof thing, that in the early days of owning a mobile phone you were a bit of a wanker. Okay? So translation for Americans, jerk. Okay? Now, uh, what's quite interesting there is that behavior is slow to change.

  6. 45:50 – 55:31

    How Can Businesses Generate Repeat Purchases?

    1. RS

      ...

    2. CW

      Interesting with the way that dopamine works with that stuff, right? That over-promising on the front end is good for getting people through the door, and I imagine that you can launch businesses very hard with that. But how do you get repeat purchase and how do you get good customer satisfaction with that?

    3. RS

      Actually, I wish ... A, a very interesting question, actually. I wish there were ... A, there are a few things, and this is the whole question of how search works. And i- uh, it's, it really comes into the field of sort of decision science and choice architecture. Okay. So, at the moment, you tend to get ratings for restaurants. I've always wanted hotels. And one thing I've always wanted TripAdvisor to offer is a list of, uh, the most polarizing hotels. Okay?

    4. CW

      Oh, wow.

    5. RS

      'Cause really interesting hotels are going to be slightly divisive, okay? The Moxy would be divisive, actually.

    6. CW

      Mm.

    7. RS

      You know, if you turned up expec-

    8. CW

      If you're a family of four.

    9. RS

      If you're a family of four, you go, "Oh, my God, this is a living-"

    10. CW

      Where's the fucking pool?

    11. RS

      Yeah.

    12. CW

      There's no kids' club.

    13. RS

      But anything that's really good for some people is probably going to be deficient on some other measure, you know. I mean, the most extreme ... I've always given this example. The hotel I stayed in in East Berlin, uh, where (laughs) -

    14. CW

      (laughs)

    15. RS

      ... it was, it was a former East German police station. The s- the rooms had been cells, okay? You actually slept on a large platform above your own shower 'cause there wasn't room in the cell to have a whole bed and separate shower. There was one television in the room. It was black and white, wasn't even a flat screen, one channel, and it showed - still does show to this day - The Big Lebowski on continuous loop. Now, if you'd turned up expecting the Marriott, okay, it would've been literally traum- traumatizing, okay? On the other hand, if you wanted something that was authentically Berlin-

    16. CW

      An experience holiday.

    17. RS

      And I wanna make the point, okay ... Um, I wanna make the point that in the middle of the hotel it was a bit like The Moxy in that thing in that we invest in the communal areas, not in the rooms. Okay? There was a barista and a coffee shop.

    18. CW

      Are you sure it wasn't a panopticon in the middle of that hotel?

    19. RS

      No, no, no (laughs) . Imagine (laughs) -

    20. CW

      With everybody's room being looked at.

    21. RS

      No, it wasn't. I'm, I'm pretty sure you're right. It should've been a panopticon. We shouldn't have-

    22. CW

      That would've been-

    23. RS

      But actually-

    24. CW

      ... real authentic.

    25. RS

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

    26. CW

      When are we gonna get a Hindenburg? We spoke about this last night. We want-

    27. RS

      What, the, the dirigible?

    28. CW

      Yeah.

    29. RS

      Yeah.

    30. CW

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

  7. 55:31 – 1:03:12

    Should We All Start Using Blimps?

    1. CW

      When are we gonna get a Hindenburg? When are we gonna get one?

    2. RS

      Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah, you're absolutely right. Blimps.

    3. CW

      Yep.

    4. RS

      See, we had this conversation that actually helicopters are not only dangerous but actually they're a poor status marker 'cause they suggest you're time poor. And so the theory was that the air yacht, which, by the way, did exist, you can see it on YouTube, there were l- uh, after World War II, there was a company that turned something like Boeing Stratofortresses into flying luxury yachts, which I think could land on water. So it actually wouldn't have been a Stratofortress, it must have been some sort of seaplane, okay? And, um, there's actually a tragic thing of a family who set out to fly around the world and were actually killed by people somewhere in the Middle East, because they landed somewhere in the middle of some tribal conflict. Um, but the, the airship, um, would be extraordinarily high-status as a mode of transport, because it suggested you had money but you also had spare time. And, of course, you could have a degree of luxury, which is difficult in all but the largest aircraft.

    5. CW

      Mm.

    6. RS

      I mean, I've always wondered about it, which is, why is it yachts are high-status but RVs are low-status, relatively? 'Cause I think American RVs... Did you ever watch Matt's RV Reviews on YouTube?

    7. CW

      I did, yeah.

    8. RS

      Matt Foxworthy. Absolute genius, in my opinion.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. RS

      Um, and, and actually, by the way, interesting detail about salesmanship. "Three things we like about this motor home, three things we don't like." Actually, that's it, it would give a-

    11. CW

      That's your one-star, five-star reviews again, right?

    12. RS

      Th- th- actually the admission, the admission of, uh, uh, what you might call disarming candor, uh, is actually a good element of salesmanship, 'cause it actually contributes towards trust.

    13. CW

      Mm.

    14. RS

      The, the too-good-to-be-true heuristic kicks in, and people actually get a bit unnerved. And one way of doing it, of course, is just to say, "It is expensive but it's worth it." Okay?

    15. CW

      Mm.

    16. RS

      But some acknowledgement of a downside, um, can be actually particularly c- I think R- Robert Cialdini says close to the point of sale can be very convincing. Uh, Jay Leno on the Jay Leno's Garage talks about the fact that he won't buy a Ferrari because the whole thing is mired in all sorts of weirdness, okay? But he was very impressed, because when he was buying a McLaren he said, "I'm quite interested in the ceramic brake discs," or whatever it is. And the guy said, "Are you planning to track the car?" "No," he said, "I'll mostly be dri-"

    17. CW

      Don't need it.

    18. RS

      He said, "Let me save you $20,000 straight off the bat," you know, because, um, if you're driving around LA they take ages to warm up, you'll end up hitting the car in front.

    19. CW

      Yeah.

    20. RS

      Now, that's a brilliant way of establishing trust, of downselling someone slightly. Um, who, who else... Alex Hormozi's very, very good at this.

    21. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    22. RS

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

    23. CW

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

    24. RS

      Absolutely brilliant. I mean, it's fascinating to watch. Um, you know, I feel like, you know, um, but, um, but the, but the airship... Uh, 'cause I've always thought, when you think about RVs, okay, um, 99% of the world's interesting things are actually found on land, aren't they? Really. Okay? And so there are also problems with the very big yachts, which is you can't go into small harbors. (laughs)

    25. CW

      Mm.

    26. RS

      So you end up next to an even bigger yacht, feeling that you've failed in life, you know, at the Monaco Grand Prix. I've always thought that actually ha- you know, if I, if I was supremely rich, having a really, really luxury land yacht would be a great thing.

    27. CW

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

    28. RS

      Well, a hot, a hot air balloon says, "I've got money." It'd have to be a luxury hot air balloon. "I've got money, um, I've got lots of time to spare, and I don't really care where I go." (laughs)

    29. CW

      When you do- Yeah. (laughs)

    30. RS

      (laughs) Um, you know-

  8. 1:03:12 – 1:12:46

    Improving Food Delivery Apps

    1. RS

    2. CW

      Mm-hmm. What would you do to improve food delivery apps? This in the US is even more than there are in the UK. So many different-

    3. RS

      So we have, we have Deliveroo, which you don't have, do you? We have Just Eat, which you don't have.

    4. CW

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

    5. RS

      Um, I mean, Deliveroo interestingly is... I mean, they're probably moving into delivery of not just food as well-

    6. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RS

      ... which is interesting. I mean, what, what ultimately happens there, uh, is fascinating. Um, what, what s- so you use DoorDash presumably or Uber Eats?

    8. CW

      I use U- I use Uber Eats, but one thing-

    9. RS

      They do this slightly annoying thing that I always find, which is, "Oh, yeah, okay. Your meal comes to $35." Yeah, it's a bit expensive, but hell they're delivering it, what the hell. And then they go, "Pay us another $5 and we won't urinate on your food."

    10. CW

      Ah.

    11. RS

      That's another $7.

    12. CW

      Yeah.

    13. RS

      And by the time you've got out and finished-

    14. CW

      Have you ever done this? So if you go into-

    15. RS

      Go on. Hit me with it. Yeah.

    16. CW

      If you, if you go into the Uber app, just a normal Uber app here, and then it's got this suggestions thing in the middle. Now, everybody, below your two most recent places that you've been and whatever it is that you're gonna type in about where you need to go, everybody forgets that. If you go to Suggestions, and you look here, car hire-

    17. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      ... bikes, stuff for teens. And then if you go down, "Get anything delivered, food, grocery, alcohol, convenience, health, personal care, baby, gourmet, pet supplies, flowers, retail, electronics." You can, oh, "Get anything done, a courier or a store pickup." So if you've left your watch in a gym, you can send the fucking-

    19. RS

      You could send Uber to go and pick it up.

    20. CW

      ... Uber guy to go and get it for you. Or you can get your, uh, pharmacy delivery. You can get them to get pretty much anything.

    21. RS

      What they're interestingly suffering from is the interesting thing which is kind of the Starbucks-Pret dilemma.

    22. CW

      Okay.

    23. RS

      Which is Pret is mentally known for food in the UK-

    24. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RS

      ... and they want to sell more coffee. And Starbucks is known for coffee, and they wanna sell more food. And what's, what they're doing there with, with Uber which is quite clever, is they're obviously predominantly associated with one particular application, okay? And people have got into the habit of getting food delivered because they had food delivered before, you just booked it by telephone. You know, it was a pizza in 1989 or whatever. That was Domino's whole stock in trade. And so actually getting people to broaden their repertoire within... It's quite a common marketing dilemma which is, it's almost su- it's almost the market equivalent of the innovator's dilemma. You get known for one very good thing.

    26. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    27. RS

      Now, Starbucks I think possibly... You know, and I think Howard Schultz was conscious of this, they were so desperate to sell food because they saw it as incremental value, you see, okay? And so, you know, i- in other words, it, you know, the coffee stuff was one thing, but the food they, they more or less saw as incremental profit, that you then start diluting your coffee credentials if you're not careful.

    28. CW

      Yep.

    29. RS

      And, you know, it's, it's interesting with, you know, for example, Pret, um, I think, you know, has experimented with various subscription services and so on and so forth, um, uh, to, you know, to get people to up the coffee consumption.

    30. CW

      What, like a loyalty card?

Episode duration: 1:53:17

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