Borja Rojano

In this episode we have Gabor Lieber as a guest to discuss the recent launch of macbook pro computers and the consequences of the 2016 election for the tech industry.00:00Read John Gruber's Take on the new macbook:Back in 1998, Steve Jobs presented a simple four-quadrant lineup for Apple’s entire Mac line: a consumer notebook (iBook), pro notebook (PowerBook), consumer desktop (iMac), and pro desktop (Power Mac).01:29Affiliate Link: Amazon.com: AllEasy 3-in-1 Mini DP Adapter, Mini Displayport(Thunderbolt)to VGA DVI-HDMI Adapters Cable for Mac Book, Imac, Mac Book Air, Mac Book Pro-White: Co01:41Kurson says he’s proud to have voted for Donald Trump, and to work for his son-in-law, Observer publisher Jared Kushner.01:55We discuss the Forbe’s piece on Jared Kushner that highlights his leading role in Trump’s winning campaign.02:18image: What the mac?

Much has been said about this week's article on the NYT about apple and podcasting. I talk with Victor Marks, host of AppleInsider Podcast, who knows a thing or two about the topic.00:00image: image link00:57Victor Marks  is a good friend of mine and the producer of AppleInsider Podcast.We are going to be discussing the much commented article published this week in the New York Times about apple and podcasting.First, Victor gives us an historical overview of podcasting and the role Kevin Marks (no family connection) played in bringing it to life.07:03What is the implication of asking apple to give publishers more data?I try to make the point that downloads can be way higher than actual listens, and that by getting that data about actual listens, podcaster may shoot themselves in the foot.17:22Links: Marco Arment's reply to the article.Mac Stories reaction.21:36Forget about audible channels. - Victor Marks24:12On Advertisements and podcasts29:44"There is no javascript on audio". This was a great quote. Link:The Article About Re-Code Victor mentions.Nerd Talks is not sponsored by Mailkimp. Thanks for listening.

Tomorrow we present a new feature that I believe can reshape an industry, and I am so excited about it that I made it the subject of today's talk.00:00image: image link00:47"Disruption" is an overused word. It does not mean "becoming hugely successful", but reshaping an entire economic sector. Napster, for example, was a hugely disrupting company but not a successful one.01:58From tomorrow you can place an affiliate link from Amazon on your cards.Having the link on your cards means a call to action which is linked to the audio, so you can act on it when you hear about the product. It reduces friction and makes it more likely that people will actually buy the product.[Hear my  talk about Aggregation Theory or read the original blog post]06:58image: The model above is an ad agency, we are the bottom.08:00By allowing anyone to choose and read their ads we allow optimization. People will find the ads they think are optimal. They also can pay more than agency ads! 

If you think about Tesla as a car company you are missing the bigger game. I use Aggregation Theory -again- to make the case that Tesla can become the ultimate disruptor energy generation.00:00image: The original Tesla, father of AC distribution01:51I want to make the point that Tesla is not a car company but an Energy company, wherein the car is just a device that consumes that energy. 03:32I don't think you can justify Tesla's product launch, which by some metrics may be the most successful in history, with classical marketing theory. I compare Tesla's top-to-bottom strategy with the seemingly identical move by Porsche years ago when launching the Boxter.08:10We don't have an energy problem in this planet, but an energy density problem.Tesla's battery is the most energy dense in the car industry, but is still way behind hydrocarbons. This is not an issue, though, for most people with normal car usage. 11:42image: Tesla is doing this to the energy distribution industry.

Today I talk about a Medium post and a podcast that point in the same direction: media outlets need to focus on quality over quantity, and make people pay for it.00:00image: A still from John Carpenter’s “Prince of Darkness”00:34Today I talk about a Medium post by Joshua Topolsky "Your Media Business Will Not Be Saved" and link it with an interview with Ben Thompson from Stratechery. Both pieces point in the same direction. The only thing that will save media companies is to focus on quality and make people pay for it.

I use aggregation theory to discuss why food delivery apps will fail and why whoever cracks the "Airbnb for your kitchen" will create the next Unicorn.00:00image: image link01:37Find out more about aggregation theory here. UberPreviously, taxi companies integrated dispatch and fleet management. Uber modularized fleet management by working with independent driversUber is integrating dispatch with customer management, enabling it to scale worldwide03:49Facebook (and Ad Networks)Previously, publishers integrated content and advertisements. Facebook modularized advertisements by allowing advertisers to target customers directly, not via proxyFacebook integrated News feed ad inventory and profile data, enabling it to sell highly effective advertising06:11AirbnbPreviously, hotels integrated vacant rooms and trust (via brand). Airbnb modularized vacant properties by building a reputation system for trust between hosts and guestsAirbnb is integrating property management and customer management, enabling it to scale worldwide07:10Why is the "Uber for handymen" failing? They are integrating demand, but there is nothing in the supply chain to unbundle. Supply is already modular! This business model is a marketplace, and as such it is subject to competition.09:23With integration theory in mind I explain why Deliveroo is not a platform and it will probably fail, and why whoever cracks "Airbnb for your kitchen" can create the next unicorn.This show is not sponsored by Audible. Or Mailkimp.

Why Uber and Airbnb are eating up the world but so many "Uber for X" are failing? I have found a beautiful theoretical framework that explains it.00:00image: image link00:12I am launching this project to force myself to record at least 10 minutes of tape a day, with three goals in mind:Find my voice, and train it. I want to get better at broadcasting.Find interesting ideas and read them critically.Fin an audience, no matter how narrow or small.I will be talking about the intersection between business, tech and arts.02:20Ben Thompson is the author of Stratechery, and he has come up with Ben Thompson. This framework beautifully explains why some platforms are eating up the world and some others are failing, like "Uber for handymen".04:26Hotels integrate rooms with reputation. Their demand is, however, modular.When you can comoditize reputation with user reviews you can unbundle rooms and make supplymodular. At the same time, you can use technology to reach an infinitely scalable customer base. In other words, you integrate demand. 

One of the main pain points I have as a listener of podcasts is how bad adverts which come with them usually are. We want to help publishers make a decent living and save listeners from alienating experiences. Here is how we want to do it.00:00The problem with ads in podcasts is that they suck.00:58Imagine my mother, who lives in Spain, would ask me today what series should she watch. I would recommend she would watch Breaking Bad. This is, in my opinion, the best series ever made.Now, imagine she would go to netflix, download the first episode, and when she starts watching the series, the first minutes of what she would watch would be American commercials from 2008. She would feel totally alienated by the experience and chances are she would just choose something else to watch.This example may sound ridiculous but it is exactly what happens with podcasts.01:32image: Stop trying to sell me Wealthfront, Tim. I am not in the US and have no wealth.02:07The way ads are hard coded into the podcasts themselves is bad for everyone:- Listeners feel alienated because they are being served mistargeted ads and may give up before they ever  get to hear the actual content.- Advertisers are wasting money by reaching people who cannot buy their products, even if they wished to.- Publishers can only sell ads for a given episode once. 02:29The best-known example of an ad screw up is Serial, the hot podcast of 2014. When they started they had no clue they would be such a success, so when they negotiated their original advertisements with Mailchimp, they probably offered a pretty sweet deal, seen in retrospective.Podcast ads are based on forecasted downloads instead of actual listens so when you have a hit you cannot backpedal and ask for more money easily.02:58In fact, the producers of Serial did just that. When their show went mainstream, they renegotiated the ads with another brand and they changed the ads in their back catalog as well. Since the way podcasts are distributed (RSS syndication) is so outdated, this meant that the old episodes with the new ads were recognized as new episodes so hundred of thousands of people (me included) got all the old episodes downloaded to their phone. 03:32We are open to working with publishers and advertisers as soon as they want so we can serve ads alongside the content. If you are a podcaster and want to include a pre-roll ad before your tape, we can do that but we will screen it to make sure it is relevant for the audience it reaches.04:24We see a future in which there is a marketplace for brands and publishers to connect inside TapeWrite.05:01Better ads will mean more CPM, which in turn will mean better content and a closer relationship between the audience and the publisher. That relationship will make ads even better, so the publisher gets more value out of having bought the advert, and the listener isn’t put off by content that isn’t relevant to them. It’s a positive cycle, rather than that breaks with the first negative experience.05:43If you want to bring your partner brands with you to TapeWrite we will help you do it and not take a single cent.

I have produced this Tape using my laptop's internal mic and free software which automates all the post production and I explain to you how to do it. All you need for a good sounding Tape is your imagination.00:00The only thing you absolutely need for creating a Tape is a computer with a microphone (all laptops have one) and something to talk about. The rest can be done with zero knowledge and zero spending. To follow this tutorial, please download audacity  and get a free account at auphonic. If you want to record skype or hangout interviews, get a free account at zencastr. 01:04A Tape begins with audio you complement with cards. You can start with the audio and create the cards later or, as I like to do, create the cards first as a script in google docs.My rule of thumb as a TapeWriter is to always have in the cards something relevant to what I am saying so if my listeners want to react to what they hear, they can keep context.It is also worth knowing that tapes have a reading view in which all content of the cards is presented as a blog post. I personally like my tapes to look good in the reading view so I plan the content of the cards so it works both ways.01:51I did this tape with the internal mic of my laptop. Modern laptops, specially apple ones, have amazing internal mics.If you have a bit of cash to invest, getting an external mic will make a huge difference. I recommend the ATR2100. This mic has everything you need to create professional level recordings and should cost around 50 EUR (54$ in Amazon as of this recording). See this review of the mic for more information. We'll be reviewing other entry level microphones soon.Whatever mic you get, I advise to get a dynamic microphone and not a condenser one but you can get started with no mic at all. 02:32image: Record your audio with audacity. You only need to adjust the recording level.04:13image: You can easily cut out sections from your recording. I make one take and then edit out stuff.04:37image: Export to .wav or .aiff so we can do a good post production.05:02image: Let's go to auphonic and post produce the sound automatically. I am totally impressed by it.05:45image: Upload the file and select mp3 at 112 kbps as output. Select a file name.06:06image: Here is where the magic happens: the audio algorithms.06:53If you want to interview someone via skype or hangout, you need to get zencastr. I will not explain how to do it because they do it really well in this videoJust make sure you use the automatic postproduction (explained in minute 5:30 of the linked video) so you get a good sounding mix of your interview. If you want to edit out parts of the interview, just use audacity as we explained before. When you are done, you can export directly to mp3, since zencastr already post produced the audio for you. Easy, right?

Fast growing internet startups are not exclusive of Silicon Valley. They also exist on this side of the Atlantic and I would like to research this topic in a series of tapes. We begin with Johan van Mil, a venture capitalist based in Amsterdam.00:00Johan van Mil is the founder and senior partner at Peak Capital, a Dutch VC firm. I did this interview on behalf of the Startup Study Group, a global community of founders, angels and advisors I am proudly part of.  For those who don't know what a Venture Capitalist is, the short explanation is they invest in fast growing tech companies, taking high risks and expecting a high return on their investment.00:46image: Johan van Mil01:22Johan's firm receives 50 to 60 investment proposals a month. They take the time to review all of them to assess whether they need to find out more about the company or even invest right away.The main focus is on the team behind the idea, since they operate as early stage VCs. 03:47We like to invest in founders with experience, even if they have failed in their previous companies.04:32We discuss the difference between European VCs and their US counterparts. "The main difference is the size of the market. Theirs is much bigger, so the returns they can get are also far greater. This allows them to take more risks".However, Johan sees a lot of new players entering the VC and angel sector due to the flood of cheap money we have in Europe.05:52There are downward valuations of post-IPO companies but I am not sure we are in a bubble right now.06:51Peak Capital's involvement with companies they invest in goes beyond just providing money. In the weeks right after financing, they have direct hands-on involvement with the startup so they can guide them through the growing pains.They have entrepreneurial experience so they can advice in the right steps to take to ensure growth. Once the company reaches cruise speed, they remain involved as well, with a couple meetings a week.09:33We discuss how to self asses whether a company is ready for investment by his firm. Johan advises to consider the following points:- You need to be in product-market fit phase. We don't invest in ideas.- Is your team complete? We need teams which have at least hacker, a hipster and a hustler. If you are missing a hustler you can find it but if you miss the hacker you have a problem.However, it is a good practice to open up a dialog with VCs before being investment-ready.13:18In the Netherlands there are lots of seed capital investors available.13:43In the last part of this interview I pitch Johan TapeWrite as a company. I was not at the top of my gam that day but it went decently. I will not transcribe the pitch or spoil the result. If you are curious, press play and listen to it.Thanks to Johan van Mil for taking the time to talk to me.

One of the motivations for building TapeWrite was to have conversations with inspiring people and to be able to share them with the World. For this first interview, I visited Debra Barraud, the human behind the lens of Humans of Amsterdam.00:00Debra Barraud is the human behind Humans of Amsterdam, one of the most successful blogs of  The Netherlands with over 350 thousand followers. She roams the streets of Amsterdam searching for interesting people to portrait, both with pictures and words.Debra knew from childhood she was not a good fit for the school system, but this was never a problem for her parents. His father recognised her potential and encouraged her to be herself instead of trying to make her fit into a normal education. 02:12As kids we never had a lot of toys, but we built our own. I learnt that if you don't have something you can make it.02:51Contrary to what most people would believe, Debra did not have a background as a photographer when she started Humans of Amsterdam. In fact, she learned how to use a DSLR camera by creating the blog. What she had is a drive for documenting her life with pictures. Now everyone can buy a camera and call themselves a photographer, but Debra says the eye is more important than the camera: "you have to find your niche. If you do something edgy and different, there will be people supporting you".06:03image: I discovered the power of storytelling in Israel and it inspired me to start HoA09:20Inspired by a work experience with an NGO in Israel, Debra started her blog. In retrospective, she sees this period as a combination of being naive about the challenge, but focused on an idea. She just went on the street one day with a clear goal in mind and an "I'll figure it out" attitude. Learning first and then doing does not work for her. 11:18If I had stopped after the first person I approached said "no" to me, the whole project would not have existed.13:19Even if HoA is really big today, it actually took one year to get to 10.000 followers and only afterwards it exploded to the whooping 357.000 they have today. Debra gets asked constantly how does one get so many followers, to which she responds:"I don't know. I just work hard and make sure there is always content. I have come to the conclusion that the most important thing is the blog, even if there are side projects which could be more lucrative". 16:14Making a living as a blogger is hard unless you have a fashion or lifestyle blog and you can partner with brands. Debra knew she would not have any sponsoring for the kind of work she does but she is happy that way:"We live in a time when people think content is free. When I created this, I was not even thinking about money. I just wanted to create something I believe in."Currently, she gets her income from side projects and spin-offs, such as her column in Metro, a Dutch newspaper.18:38I would like to publish a book, but I haven't yet found a publisher to work with.20:34When asked how to experience Amsterdam, Debra says the best way is to quickly get away from the canal area, since -although beautiful- it is way too crowded."The cool part and fun things are not there. I would recommend visiting other neighbourhoods like Oud West or perhaps Oost, where there is a great place to hang out called Roest. It is the kind of place where artists hang out and there is a little beach they have created. "21:30image: Roest, a cool place to hang out away from tourist crowds21:51We could not avoid discussing food in this conversation. Debra's favourite place is Spang Makandra, a tiny Surinamese. She recommends trying the wide offer of exotic food in Amsterdam: Surinamese, Indonesian, Vietnamese...I had to ask her where does one eat good Dutch food and how does that actually look like?"We have this culture of eating Dutch food at home and going out for something exotic, so, if you want Dutch food, you need local friends who cook for you. I love herring and kroket ".23:31Asked about her professional plans besides the blog, Debra says she prefers to focus on the power of HoA as an agent of change.She likes to use Humans of Amsterdam for promoting good causes, such as helping a lady who started buying winter coats for refugees arriving to Amsterdam. "It is crazy to have two thousand people with no winter coats. It is going to get cold".Learning new tools for storytelling is something she is working on. Perhaps she will produce tapes?26:21I would not be where I am without my parents. As a kid, the most important thing you need is self esteem27:14We end the conversation discussing how we live in an era of infinite access to information. Now the challenge is to focus on something:"I am not a naturally focused person. For me, having worked on HoA for three years is quite an accomplishment. What I have learnt in the process is that the key for success is a combination of hard work and focus".This was an inspiring conversation for me and I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks, Debra, and good luck with Humans of Amsterdam!

This is the very first Tape I ever recorded. I wanted it to show how you can use TapeWrite as a space for publishing spoken essays and open up discussions. I talk about the dichotomy between violent sports and the violence in society. Explicit language.00:00I would like to share with you a story about how my relationship with violence in different forms has changed during my life. This tape will go as far back as my childhood but I would like to start by telling you about the day when I discovered my favourite sport.After a stint in New York City I found myself back in my home country Spain, desperate in need to rid myself of the results of the American lifestyle. I needed to burn all that fat and I knew that kickboxing would do the trick. Someone I  had just met told me to look into Mixed Martial Arts instead. I did, and what I found would change my life. 00:44I typed MMA in the YouTube search bar and saw  there was a video that had been posted that same day and had several million views. That video is no longer available but you can see the same content here.It started as a regular kickboxing match between two very scary looking guys. One was Brazilian and looked like a psychopath and the other was a military looking Croatian. 01:03image: Wanderlei Silva vs Mirko Filipovic (credit serdog.com)01:16I immediately noticed how small the gloves were. They looked like the ones you would use to hit the bag in the gym but these gloves did not cover the fingers. I knew from my time training thai boxing that to punch a human skull with those gloves is not a good idea. Boxing gloves have a lot more padding for a reason. To be fighting with such tiny gloves meant that every punch could result in a KO and every contact with the face could cause a cut. 01:36It took  just a few seconds of the fight for me to find out why these gloves were open. The Croatian took the Brazilian down to the ground and he started punching him. WTF? This was not just kickboxing. This was total fighting and grappling was as important as punching and kicking. A fight could end with a KO or you could force your opponent to tap out. This was the definitive answer to the old question “which  martial art is the most effective?”.02:12I felt guilty for enjoying watching two human beings beating the crap out each other like that but I did. A fucking lot.02:42Today, MMA is the only sport that I passionately follow. I have trained it and can honestly say that   while I don’t do it any more, I still miss punching people in the face and being punched back.What does this say about me? Do I have a sadistic personality? Am I a violent person? Why are violent sports very popular in some societies like the US, Brazil or Japan but  ignored in other countries?03:09Let me tell you about my upbringing  on the beautiful island of Gran Canaria. What images does that name evoke ? Calm, idyllic holidays for families and retired people? Well, you are right. The island is blessed with eternal spring, dramatically beautiful natural landscapes or all-inclusive resorts by the beach, if this is your thing.What no one expects to find in Gran Canaria is a violent society, yet is one of the most aggressive I know.03:24image: Gran Canaria (credit Patronato de Turismo Gran Canaria)04:14The neighbourhood where I spent my childhood was rough. The kind of place where people breed  pit bulls for fighting and have relatives in jail. I was a late bloomer, all sinews and bones, so during the critical teen years I felt weak. At the same time I am competitive so I felt the need to develop and overly aggressive personality as a coping mechanism.04:33We all invent ourselves once we leave childhood behind. I chose not to be the bullied kid.05:17Then I discovered muay thai . If you are a certain age, you will remember the epic action movies of the 80’s. There was a revolution in my school when the TV aired “kickboxer” by Jean-Claude Van Damme. I got a  VHS  from a friend and I just could not stop watching it. I wanted to do that! Avenge my brother and save a village by kicking the crap out of the bad guy, just like Jean-Claude. What could possibly be better than that?05:41image: KickBoxer (1989) - Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia05:58Now, what would you expect from the people who train full-contact martial arts? Those guys -and girls- who day in and day out learn how to punch and kick other humans in the most destructive way possible. They must love violence, right? They probably learn these skills because they are looking for better ways to be the toughest bully around. That’s at least what I thought I was going to find when I started muay thai.06:24Bullies do not last long in contact sports. At the gym, people punch you back, hard, and they do not like it.07:31In fact, many of the most talented and tough martial artists I have seen were actually bullied and turned to fighting sports as a way to learn self defence. Uriah Hall is a famous case: a kid who went from considering suicide due to intense bullying to become a decorated professional mixed martial artist. I would pay to see the faces of the guys that used to bully him when they see the lethal weapon his body has become.07:49image: Uriah Hall at the UFC. Go bully him now! (credit sheerdog.com)08:02I told you at the beginning I was surprised by the amount of violence which I saw in  the MMA combat. In any other combat sport I know, when a guy falls down you do not keep hitting him. I thought it was brutal and unjustified until I discovered that there is a little thing called Brazilian jiu jitsu that teaches you how to beat an opponent in multiple ways when you are on the floor and he is on top of you. 08:33If you see people training MMA it looks like they want to kill each other but when the bell rings they smile and hug.08:59What may also surprise most of you is that most mixed martial arts practitioners are much less likely to get into a fight outside the gym than the average guy. I have experienced this first hand. When you know you can destroy the guy who is threatening you in a bar or on the street you’ll keep your cool and this is normally enough to signal the other guy you are not to be messed with and the situation usually will not escalate. 09:45I now live in The Netherlands. This country perfectly embodies this dichotomy between combat sports and violence which I am trying to explain. I have never seen a more peaceful society. I live in a city centre where the people go out and get drunk , yet never have I seen any violent behaviour. It still amazes me after 6 years how different social interactions are around here. Sometimes I actually find myself being the overly aggressive one.10:07The Dutch are anything but weak, though. In fact they are really, really good in kickboxing and muay thai, even having produced several world champions. It is perfectly normal for those calm, peaceful kids that I see getting drunk near my house have been training martial arts from a very young age.10:24Now that I am a father, I frequently think about violence and how to teach my kids about it. I am very happy they are growing up in such an advanced and peaceful society. At the same time, I know  there is a world out there that is not so safe, so I do not want them to be completely sheltered from violence, and I have already made my decision that martial arts is going to be a vital part of their education.

A late-night brainstorming session turned into the most beautiful project we have ever done. In this first Tape, I introduce the team and explain the motivations behind building this new place on the Internet. It is so cool to see you here!00:00This project started in the summer of 2015 with a crazy idea that rocked my world. Although I love podcasts, lately I was frustrated with the lack of social interaction of the format. You normally listen to podcasts alone, when your body is busy and your mind is free, but this does not mean it has to be a lonely experience. 00:43That night, it hit me: we need a new format that is audio with a second side to it, that is readable and social.01:44Then I told myself the thing that has gotten a lot of people in a lot of trouble:I can build this.I knew I could not build this alone and that I needed someone whom I can trust. A bassist trusts his drummer, so Gabor was the perfect co-founder for TapeWrite. We teamed up with my brother Javi and Nacho, who are experienced developers and, after a coding and design marathon, here we are. 02:35This is Tapewrite and what you are seeing is a Tape. It started as an audio file, but, with our online editor, I added cards to it. With these cards you always have information on your screen that is relevant to what I say. You can comment, bookmark or share any of the cards, so all your social interactions with the tape are in the right context.03:02TapeWrite is your canvas. We want you to push the limits of this medium and surprise us with your creativity.03:29The only limitation we have set is that your tapes cannot contain ads or sponsored content. We are on a mission to help publishers make a living with their Tapes and we need to start with ad-free tapes.To find out more about our plans for partnership and monetisation, comment on this card and we will get back to you.03:45For those of you who would need a bit of help and direction to get your voices heard, we have the perfect community coach.We found Jaga on Medium mixing audio with text and images to deliver powerful storytelling. He was doing a proto-tape!We needed to have him on board and luckily for us, he has joined the TapeWrite community. Welcome, Jaga!04:20We want this community to be an inclusive one. Please use your common sense and read our community guidelines. Remember that behind every tape and comment there is a human being. If you feel harassed, offended or that your rights have been violated, please reach out to legal@tapewrite.com and let us know. 04:34image: On behalf of the Gabor, Javi and Nacho, I welcome you to TapeWrite!