THE AMP HOUR http://theamphour.com/ SERIES: The Amp Hour EPISODE: #118 DATE: October 21, 2012 TITLE: Facinorous Financial Foulness SPEAKERS: Dave Jones & Chris Gammell SOURCE FILE: http://theamphour.com/podpress_trac/web/2145/0/TheAmpHour-118-FacinorousFinancialFoulness.mp3 FILE ARCHIVE: http://wp.me/p11gRi-yB DESCRIPTION: This week Chris and Dave get talking about the intersection of money and electronics and all the craziness that can ensue. SHOW TEASE: It's time for The Amp Hour. Chris and Dave talks about the latest news like the Open Source RC Project being stopped, A123's filing for bankruptcy, Altium's Founder and CEO being booted out and a lot of stuff involving the intersection of money and electronics. CHRIS GAMMELL: This is The Amp Hour podcast. Recorded Oct. 21st, 2012. Episode 118. Fascinourous Financial Foulness. DAVE JONES: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. CHRIS GAMMELL: And I'm Chris Gammell of ChipReport.tv and Chris Gamell's Analog Life. DAVE JONES: Wazzup? CHRIS GAMMEL: Hey man! DAVE JONES: What's happening? CHRIS GAMMELL: Just another...another day. You know? DAVE JONES: Yeah, Monday. Well, it's Monday here and Sunday night there. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah right. DAVE JONES: Yeah, Monday morning. CHRIS GAMMELL: Mondays... DAVE JONES: Pretty depressing. Even when you work for yourself is kind of still depressing. Just sort of...Yeah! You still have that hangover thing, you know when you going up in the lift and you talk to people, "Yeah, it's Monday". Yeah! I've won, gramps. Yeah. It's just a one is leftover. I don't work on the weekends much. CHRIS GAMMELL: I figure if I work for myself, I'd work all weekend. That's a thing. So I don't see the difference. DAVE JONES: Exactly. But I last a day with a wife. You know? I... CHRIS GAMMELL: No, it's a good deal. DAVE JONES: I do as little work as I can on the weekends even though she doesn't work either, right? So... CHRIS GAMELL: Alright. DAVE JONES: She's a full time mommy and yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Good. I mean it's really smart from a life balance thing but just given my current life. I mean I work a day job and I come home and I... DAVE JONES: Work for different blogs. Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, just stupid. Dumbass. Literally that it is. My brain is melting. But you know, there's always beer so... DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: At least I have an escape goat. DAVE JONES: How many blogs do you and what websites you try to maintain at the moment? CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh... Well, I got ChipReport.tv. There's a new ChipReport. I can link that in this week. DAVE JONES: Of course. Once you get plug it. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, why not. Then I got my Chris Gamell's Analog Life like I talk about. DAVE JONES: Which should I do much job any more day? CHRIS GAMMELL: No, I don't. I just reformatted it but yeah, I don't write there anymore. And then Engineer blog is kind of dead and... DAVE JONES: That's a shame. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, it's too bad. DAVE JONES: I actually liked some of the articles on there. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, I know. I was everybody else too. It might come back, I don't know. And then the Engineer comments is at the other podcast so... DAVE JONES: I was kind of old here. CHRIS GAMMELL: A couple. It's gone good. DAVE JONES: Okay. And you've got other ideas as well which you haven't actually launched yet, right? So... CHRIS GAMMELL: No, yeah. I have another podcast in the dreaming. Well you and I have been talking about not starting as combined kick starter but I've been doodling the idea and its terrible idea. Absolutely terrible idea. DAVE JONES: Why? The actual project is self or the fact that you want to crowdsource fund it. CHRIS GAMMELL: No. The fact that I had think I can fit some nails. DAVE JONES: Alright, okay. Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's like dying. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. I don't know like you know, there's the talk-- what's his name? Nathan from Sparkfun gave you know... DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: The different stages and everything. DAVE JONES: And yes, the fate of despair. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. The fate of despair. And it's like, I know that's not a guaranteed thing but there is a legitimate chance that like you know, if I started the Kickstarter and it did okay then I'd have to quit my job. Right? DAVE JONES: Yeah, of course. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's a big deal, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah. And you would be lift in that middle ground because... CHRIS GAMMELL: You know that's sincerely. DAVE JONES: If you don't go on and make something of that business that started from the Kickstarter, if you just sold a couple of thousand of your widgets and you went, "Ohh, shit. I've got to deliver a couple of thousand". And then that's it, it ended. Then well... CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: You're out of the job and you're...you know CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. That's when you and I were talking about, right? Kickstarter is not meant to start businesses but at the same time if you don't, like what you do you just"Hey boss, I'm back". DAVE JONES: Done quite, yeah. In a lot of it from [Inaudible] fault [0:04:20] as the top of the list here on today. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's right, yeah. So, what is this one? DAVE JONES: I don't like us talking about this...But we're talking about this on the show before. The Open Source Remote Control thing. I'm sure we've talked about and like maybe a year ago. That was a long time ago. And really funky looking Remote Control. CHRIS GAMMELL: It had everything. DAVE JONES: It had everything. CHRIS GAMMELL: It was the everything. DAVE JONES: It just sync. Yeah. It was brilliant and, yeah. But I just... CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, maybe. Maybe not. DAVE JONES: Well, I just got a message this morning. I don't even know if its public. I went to their website and I haven't seen to be anything there on it. But I was... CHRIS GAMMELL: "Oops". DAVE JONES: Yeah oops, sorry if you are looking at this. But I was sent a message this morning though via Youtube, of all places, from a guy who runs it. I'm not sure if it was a mass message whether or not it was individually top tell on Youtube. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: And he said, "yeah, sorry the code is...Let me get it, let me get it." Come on into webs. The Open Source RC is now dead quote "due to insufficient funding and lack of support from the Open Source community". Which translated I think means is just they didn't get enough money. End of story. I think they have plenty of support. CHRIS GAMMELL: Was there a sort for [Inaudible] [0:05:39] DAVE JONES: I don't recall. So I'm not gonna say, yes or no. I mean obviously if there was a Kickstarter and it met funding the tag then well... CHRIS GAMMELL: In ride. DAVE JONES: That's it. CHRIS GAMMELL: I mean, you don't have to follow through but you're supposed to give the people the money back so... DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, right. I mean that's how it works. DAVE JONES: Yes. I'm not sure how it was funded and the hell that would try to get funding for I don't recall at all. We don't do research here in The Amp Hour. For us to... I just added this 20 minutes ago so... CHRIS GAMMELL: Okay. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, I think this is an interesting idea though from the... I mean this is a pretty classic case of pricing problems and then also feature creep, right? I mean.. DAVE JONES: Feature creep? Maybe bad enough more than you can chew and also competing in a market that as some Alan Garfield pointed on Twitter when I tweeted this thing. Hey, he used to work in a nazi company or something and he said, that yeah, the Remote Control unit itself has always been built down to the lowest price point or something like that. I mean... CHRIS GAMMELL: That makes sense. DAVE JONES: I bought one for my [Inaudible] code [0:06:49], 50 bucks. For this nine channel Remote Control included the receiver and everything. It's a Turnigy brand one, you know. I know exactly the Docks guts, right? But its 50 bucks and its nine channel and digital and everything else like with the LCD screen on it and all configuration and setup. Everything. How can you compete with that? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. I remember when we talked about this project the first time, I think that was one of my first exposures to..at least the Remote. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: I knew quite Remote or something. But I remember seeing and that kind of anchored my deprice and this one was like it was targeted like $800 or something. DAVE JONES: It was pretty expensive CHRIS GAMMELL: Proudest features. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's pretty expensive, right? And then I remember a couple of weeks or months later I saw on the HobbyKing. I think it was where I was looking at the actual controllers and someone tell me, "Yeah". It's like a $50 control and I was like, "Really? $50? That's like 1/16th of what I thought it would be." DAVE JONES: Exactly. CHRIS GAMMELL: And like you said, it had tons of features anyways so... DAVE JONES: I mean the quality of my Turnigy 1 is pretty full like a battery copy. It can even putted on. The quality it's really go down to 50 bucks but it works. It's 50 bucks, you know I mean... CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: Geez. CHRIS GAMMELL: It depends on the market you're playing too. Like if you're planning a Hobby market. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Then you're gonna need Hobby prices. People are gonna chase the lowest costs. DAVE JONES: And of course. CHRIS GAMMELL: If you are playing in a quality and any that I think a lot of few people this days are start chasing low costs regardless, even companies. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: But...you need to actually have pricing than meet your market which is sucks, you know. DAVE JONES: Yeah, well exactly. Well, you can buy a couple of hundred bucks right top quality foot tab or remote control or one of those Japanese brand, you know. A serious enthusiast might pay 3-400 dollars for their remote controls. CHRIS GAMMELL: But yeah, that's a less in economics, right? The top you know...the top in the scale, you're just gonna have a fewer customers. DAVE JONES: That's right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Like there's... I took Economics once. I knew what I'm talking about that sort of not really. And you know... you charge more, you make like fewer customers but this is getting to make more margin. DAVE JONES: That's it. CHRIS GAMMELL: I knew about that at one point. So it's too bad though. That sucks, you never want to see it for a project to end but yeah. It could just been the expectations or else but...it's too bad. DAVE JONES: Yeah. It's a shy. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's part of the cycle, right? That's all. DAVE JONES: It is. So I let that be a lesson to you not all open source hardware projects go to plan. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Some of them find it miserable... CHRIS GAMMELL: It's not just Open Source hardwares as well as the big funded projects like the battery company, right? A123... DAVE JONES: Though they gone. Cheats up? CHRIS GAMMELL: They're gone too, yeah. So they had a couple of hundred million I think invested in that well. DAVE JONES: I think a lot of million, yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. And another selling off all their stuff and they are saying, "Yep, we're gone". A few people know who A123 is...this is I mean, this is like our guest Bob Simpson. He designed an A123 packs and blew the A123 in a test as well. I could be wrong about that but... DAVE JONES: I thought chasing a role of their own. CHRIS GAMMELL: I--maybe I'm wrong. DAVE JONES: Anyways, they make battery packs for... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: The leading developer battery packs for EV cars. At least for the after market. CHRIS GAMMELL: They are in the Chevy Vault too. Not exactly a small thing but its just an economics thing, right? You run out of money eventually. DAVE JONES: Are the customers gonna let them file? It's one of this things where it's like the Chip companies, right? None of these automotive manufacturers gonna let their prime chip company file because they produce the chips forms. They contracted to produce the chips so I suspect this move is too big to file like a chip company. They're gonna bailed. CHRIS GAMMELL: No, they're not. They sold all their stuff to Johnson Controls who's another big maker basically. DAVE JONES: Yeah. But they will continue on, right? So the contract will probably switch over to... CHRIS GAMMELL: Johnson Controls. DAVE JONES: I mean the company. Exactly. It's not like they're going business and then you know, the Chevy GM, they are scratching their heads. "Oh, shoot. Why do we buy batteries from there?" That would be private to Johnson, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: That's how it works. So technically, yes. They were too big to file. CHRIS GAMMELL: Hey! I don't know if I agree with that. DAVE JONES: Yep. But they didn't just file, right? Johnson orders to stop. CHRIS GAMMELL: I mean it's too big to fail but... DAVE JONES: Well, yes. The company files, right? This is natural for pennies on the dollar but their market remain, right? The customers remain. The customers weren't necessarily left holding the bag on that thing. CHRIS GAMMELL: No, that's true. Yeah, they're not... DAVE JONES: That's what I'm talking about in two tenths a too big to file, you know. That old customers were just left. Well, yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: I know. CHRIS GAMMELL: That would be too important to fail. Too entrenched to fail but not too big to fail. Too big to fail is some totally different. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's stupid. DAVE JONES: Too big to get like they filed but they didn't go out of business, if you know what I mean. Maybe that's a bit of turn. Maybe if we go out of business like completely like literally turn off the lights and go well, "bye, bye". You know. No all of the staffs were board out. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. I'm just gonna let this one go. DAVE JONES: Let's yeah. I think we're gonna get[Inaudible] [0:12:25]. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. But it sucks because they-- battery technology is really important. DAVE JONES: It's like, yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: There's no big jumps in batteries. You keep hearing all these stuffs. You see all these articles spectrum and E-times and stuff like that. "Oh, there's new technology, there's new chemistry." And its like, "man, it's just a grind. It just, ahhh, you know." We need some kind of like a leap forward and its just really tough to do. DAVE JONES: That's why I'm wondering how did they file, was it just bad mismanagement? Because I thought they would have contracts to sell all these batteries. CHRIS GAMMELL: They had a recall at one point. DAVE JONES: Oh, okay. We'll write that. That could have stunned them real bad. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep, yeah. And there's a tech review article that I'll link in as well about what happened to A123. And yeah, it sucks, you know. DAVE JONES: Are the jobs staying there? 50% to John? CHRIS GAMMELL: It says they sold off their assets to Johnson including the factories in Michigan and China. DAVE JONES: Right. You know. How it goes when dark core CA... CHRIS GAMMELL: Been done that stuff like that. Right, exactly. So I'm sure not every job will be the same because new companies comes in and they always have to clean up the books and make things look good and find efficiencies. But... DAVE JONES: The company files for one reason: finances. Alright, that's the reason they file. CHRIS GAMMELL: Unfortunately, yes. DAVE JONES: That's pretty much. Right. They ran out of money. Oops! CHRIS GAMMELL: And that can be driven by different things. It can't be driven by... DAVE JONES: Market. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Draw myself to whatever. CHRIS GAMMELL: It could be market like that's what I recall. Recalls and I remember with Solyndra it was apparently they bet on the wrong technology. DAVE JONES: Oops, yeah. Well, that's a strategic. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. So that's a big thing, right? I mean like so they bet on the fact that polysilicon at that time was $400 and then basically, all of this new polysilicon production came up in the States and elsewhere. It dropped to 30 bucks and so basically became really cheap to make this now silicon way for solar cells versus doing thin film or whatever Solyndra is doing those cylinders. And basically they just got flooded with all these other, everything else to be able to make a way cheaper now. And so, like you said the market that's when that kind of thing happens. Or it could be your executive could run off with cash or there could be just mismanagement. I mean there's...there really a lot of ways but like you said it always come down eventually at some point either your bankers are calling you for payments and you can't make them. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: Or...you know. Your Board, sets you down or your Board kicks someone out. DAVE JONES: Yes. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah! DAVE JONES: Now we get into some real news. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah! DAVE JONES: This is huge. CHRIS GAMMELL: What happened a year? It was a little surpise... DAVE JONES: And it took most people pretty much everyone in the industry by surprise. My former company Altium, Nick Martin who's the original founder, founded in Tasmania here in Australia back in what, 25-27 years ago or something. He was just booted out by the Board. Clearly booted out by the Board. We'll link in the Altium press release to the Stock Exchange. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: And yeah. He was given the...given the [Inaudible] arse [0:16:09]. And that is clear, of course. CHRIS GAMMELL: I always liked that term. DAVE JONES: Given the arse. CHRIS GAMMELL: Given the arse. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Not 'ass'. Arse. Arse here in Australia. Ass. And then, yeah. That's very clear from the standard industry terminology here in the...shall I read it? Some of it? CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh, sure. Go ahead. Maybe a bridge of that. DAVE JONES: Oh yes. I'll read the one paragraph. "While Altium has made considerable progress over the past twelve months, having relocated its global headquarters to China, and returning to profitability, it is the Board's decision that it is in the best interests of Altium to adopt a different style of leadership with focus on returning value to shareholders." Which means... CHRIS GAMMELL: Bullshit. DAVE JONES: Which is of course, absolutely industry standard technology. CHRIS GAMMELL: We didn't have like an airborne...Bullshit.... DAVE JONES: We booted out because we didn't like human, we didn't agree with him. So end of story. Like he is gone apparently. He is like I don't know if they much open the door but it says he has been removed from...He's stepped down, of course. He was asked to step down, that's how it works. That's how it works in big companies like that. And he's stepped down from all of his positions within the company with immediate effect. There you go... CHRIS GAMMELL: Geez. DAVE JONES: And yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's crazy. DAVE JONES: This is the guy who has been the head, the face of Altium for its entire life, you know. He set the technical direction. He did everything. He was still a very hands on CEO. He was one of the very few hands on CEOs of any company little known in ADA company. You know, in terms of still getting in there and you know and cutting code and you know, playing around with the product and actually using the product and all that sort of stuff. Really hands on guy. So... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Yeah. It's end, he's gone. The Board absolutely boot him out and... CHRIS GAMMELL: So...how does it feel? I mean, this just like...And let me try to saythis word again because I got it wrong in the last. I've been bragging it wrong again. Schadenfreude. Shaded from the schadenfreude. I'm gonna stick with that. Schadenfreude. DAVE JONES: Because I have no idea what you are talking about, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, right. It's a German word basically. Feeling good when other people have pain. DAVE JONES: Oh, right! No, go ahead like Nick. He's a nice guy and he got the roaring of it. He got booted out whether or not people think he might have deserved it for the direction he took the company. He can't knock his commitment and devotion to the company over 25+ years. CHRIS GAMMELL: And they sent endorsements from David L. Jones. DAVE JONES: He's a nice guy. I've got nothing against the guy if they don't agree with his direction. No, it was just like a lot, most of his directions know just like a lot of people in the industry. It doesn't mean I don't like the guy, you know? And he will probably, I mean if Altium file now right? Nick will be the hero and the Board will be the evil Board who booted out the charismatic leader. Yes. So the Board have to follow through now and actually... CHRIS GAMMELL: So it set themselves out basically. DAVE JONES: Yeah so... And by the way, I don't think there's anything here I can say that's not publicly available information because I don't know anything like you know so... CHRIS GAMMELL: Alright, yeah. You have like...on the Board. DAVE JONES: No, not the Board. I don't actually know any of the Board members personally so..really. CHRIS GAMMELL: No, that's how it usually goes. DAVE JONES: Yeah so. CHRIS GAMMELL: You'll never meet them. DAVE JONES: Yeah, I know. It's right. So... CHRIS GAMMELL: I was wondering what those meetings are like to...you know? DAVE JONES: Yeah, I know. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's so high level, right? It's just like, I don't know. Like basically Boards are [Inaudible] [0:20:07] that kind of reigning CEOs. Right. They're suppose to represent the shareholders yaddy yaddy yadda. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: I have a hard time. I mean like I never ever have very good view of this stuff in the first place. But really, like what do they really? I mean like, I don't know. DAVE JONES: It really just being a fly on the wall. CHRIS GAMMELL: Heh. I would too. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: I love to be on the Board. Those guys got paid like 25 grand for showing up for meetings. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Like honestly that's like what it ends up being. DAVE JONES: Well or not like these ones, I think the lowest paid is about 60 or 70 grand just for showing up to a couple of meetings a year. I think that's a little publicly viral meeting... CHRIS GAMMELL: 25 grand per meeting, yeah. DAVE JONES: Ah per meeting. Yeah, that's right. It's only like four meetings a year or something I think. CHRIS GAMMEL: Right, exactly. And you'll get paid like you know, you get paid on stock or whatever else. DAVE JONES: Yeah, exactly. CHRIS GAMMELL: Men. How do I get that gig? It's like telling people what to do from far away. You get paid for it. It's like this except getting paid. DAVE JONES: And interestingly, Nick Martin still the largest shareholder. He's still largest shareholder. He owns like a quarter of the company. CHRIS GAMMEL: Oh well. DAVE JONES: Like 22 million shares or something. So... CHRIS GAMMELL: Anybody wishes 51%. DAVE JONES: As far as...well yeah, I bet he was wishing yeah... CHRIS GAMMELL: That's right. DAVE JONES: I mean you know, it's no industry secret that, you know Nick drove the direction of the company that was all, you know. He drove the direction, the technical direction of the company into this some people say "Crazy directions". You know the FPJA stuff when they floated which probably... CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: Like a good idea at the time but ultimately, you know pretty much was a public [Inaudible] fourier [0:21:47]. Pretty much. Still looks good in the market and [Inaudible] bloats [0:21:49]. But no, as a technical support kind of thing. They pretty much ultimately failed on that and other directions with the cloud and you know, everything else rather than focusing on the core tools set which is what I probably 90% of the users and I ultimately wanted. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: Was justice, you know. Work on the code but hey, that's what he had the vision to follow what stuff, right? And that's what he did. And it seems that the Board weren't have determined that wasn't returning value to shareholders. So...but hey. There's not too many as far as I know there's no too many shareholders really? I think of the Board own a hell of a lot Altium, Nick Martin owns a quarter. I think they rested just driggs. You know? So and there's a big shareholder employee plan or employee shareholder plan or something. So, I don't know. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. I never did as much as... DAVE JONES: There are not too many shareholders, you know? So yeah, I don't think there's any like a mysterious external shareholders that own 2/3 of the company, you know? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: I don't think that exist so. I don't know. It's hard to read this one. It's pretty certain not.. CHRIS GAMMELL: What I have to say is that, the nice thing is that's-- hopefully it means that the software would be long, round for long time yet. And that's all I care about, to be honest. I don't give a crap about the company or anything else. And I think, I don't think I'm alone here. I mean I know you are more invested in this because of your history with it. But most people that are Altium users, they just wanna make sure it could be round, right? No one wants it to go away. DAVE JONES: Exactly. No one wants it to totally vanish exactly. You know, and I'm hoping that yeah, they'll return to the core feature set. I'm sure most of the users are hoping, "Oh, Nick's gone. Great. No more, no more cloud. Crap!" CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: That's sort of stuff. You know. No more visions speak. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: No more...just give me PCBs schematic and fix those bugs, you know. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. Yep. You know, he's big moves in this big Board sponsored whatever the hell these things are, right? I mean like kick out CEO or whatever. I really wish that they would just, you know like they'll say, "Oh, this is for the shareholders whatever". It's like, what about your friggin users, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Exactly. DAVE JONES: Would know what? CHRIS GAMMELL: I mean it's like with... DAVE JONES: Unfortunately that, they are legally as a publicly listed company. They are legally obligated to do what's in the best. They have fiducial responsibility to. CHRIS GAMMELL: Fiducial. DAVE JONES: Fiducial responsibilty. CHRIS GAMMELL: No, fiducial. That's the wrong word. DAVE JONES: Fiduciary responsibility, I think is the correct word. Don't take financial term advice from the Electronics engineers. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, we're both wrong. Yeah. DAVE JONES: Right. They have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders, that's the number one responsibility as a publicly listed company. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's correct. DAVE JONES: Like it or not. Whether or not it's a good idea. I mean there's a lot of industry experts who say that is bad if you don't focus on the customary, you are screwed, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, totally. Right. And that was my thing. Because it's not just Altium, right? There's a story this week about STMicro and they're talking about breaking up the company. They are gonna break up between the analog, the visual section, you know and everybody else, right? And because all looks down, you know sales are down to 10 billion this year. Oh, okay. DAVE JONES: Oh, only 10 billion. Geez, right? It must be hard to manage the books. CHRIS GAMMELL: I mean I know these are big companies, right? ST is not a small company by any stretch but it's really frustrating because what it really comes down to is that even if you get one of those letters that says, "Oh, we'll have chips around for ten years or whatever". DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's like, yeah. That stuff is totally valid until your company breaks in half. It is like, "Well, screw you guys. You're making it harder for me. I'm never using your parts again." You know like, how do you possibly maintain any semblance of trust with your customers when you overextend yourself so much that you can't even hold together. Right? DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: We're gonna have to break up. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: This isn't working out. It's not you, it's me. Right? DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Screw you! DAVE JONES: Oh boy! CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. I know it's like a big game, you know with all this people. It's just money, it's just numbers on a balance sheet or whatever. It's like, no! This is real stuff, man. This is... DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: Really affects a lot of people and not even just me from a stress standpoint. I'm gonna design someone else's part. It's like no, you got 50,000 employees, you know? It is like, the only reason that really bugs me is because you know when they take on projects that are super out there, right? I mean they are leveraging the whole company and everything. Freescale, is doing...they had a big problem with that in long time as well where they were super leveraged then they went public and they went private and public yet. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. And there's this news now about Buy out that's actually being rigged. It's like really? All this stuff, all this stuff is just so that we can make someone some money and [Inaudible] [0:27:11]. Just so you idiots can make some money on chip companies. Couldn't you go and do this free roads or friggin medical companies like...couldn't you leave the chip companies alone? DAVE JONES: Idiots, they are not. That's why they are rich. They boosted is what they are, idiots they are not. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. Yeah, they are not. DAVE JONES: Because they are rich and they are not. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, that's true. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Real idiots that are just making stuff, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah. Well, exactly. Yeah. Doing it for the love of it. Go figure? Interestingly, that's what Nick has been doing. I believe that was Nick's been doing for the last 25 years. He does it for the love of it and I think that's probably what the Board got sick off, right? He just love coming up with new ideas and following all these vision things and the Boards finally went well, you know? That's not gonna do it. CHRIS GAMMELL: We need to make money right now, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: And that is unbearable, right? To do that kind of thing. DAVE JONES: Of course. That's why I don't dislike the guy because he had a passion for this and he followed it. I don't think that it was very practical, that's the issue I had. You know? It was some of the things they follow would not practical from an ADA company. But... CHRIS GAMMELL: You're right. DAVE JONES: You can't doubt the man's passion. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. And make no bones about it, right? We'll make no bones about it that if you were a technical founder eventually, you're gonna get pushed aside. That is just how it goes. DAVE JONES: That's how it goes. Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: So either or the other option is you become business mind or something like that. But if you're just a technical founder, it's just sucks. It's just how it is. You know? It's just you look it like even Bill and Dave in HP, right? DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: Those guys, they started out technical founders and they actually morphed. They morphed in the becoming big businessman and they kind of grow up with the company, that kind of thing. And but look at HPD's dead, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah, exactly. CHRIS GAMMELL: Eventually, they were tired and they had no control over it and it just became as megalith of...You can't do anything about it at that point. It's, even if your name is on the friggin wall. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: So that sucks. DAVE JONES: It's very few. I mean if anyone knows, if any technical companies of these sky. You know, Altium is like a $50 million dollar a year company, right? They quite lavish. I'm not as lavish as I used to be. But certainly, still lavish if you know of anyone who's still been run by the original founder with their direction, they said everything and let us know. I mean, Altium did it for a long time. Well, you can say ever since they floated in 2000 so they've been doing it for 12 years. They've been getting away with it for 12 years, been doing that for 12 years. Pretty much. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right, right. DAVE JONES: Because as soon as you flow the company, of course. It's all over, right? When you used to own the company yourself and you know? That's when the Board can throw you out as the CEO. Bang! CHRIS GAMMELL: Right, right. DAVE JONES: Like Jobs and everyone else, you know. Steve Jobs and whoever. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: You wanna die? CHRIS GAMMELL: You know the one example I would have is probably Bob Dobkin and everytime I see that guy talking about something. He's from Linear's Technology. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: It would be if he done that...that guy, he's not in controls still. I mean he's definitely still. DAVE JONES: Did he ever in control? Did he ever....Was he ever involved in the financial managerial side of the business? Did he always stay as technicals as CTO or something for example? I'm not sure. CHRIS GAMMELL: I don't know. I want... I've really want to get on the show sometimes. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Would definitely have to. CHRIS GAMMELL: He's definitely like at the very top . DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: We'll be like him and there was a couple of people you know. They're at the top of our getting on the show list but he's still the Chief Technical Officer. He's still involved. He's still doing stuff. That guy is awesome. DAVE JONES: Maybe he's smarter...it's like stay way from the Board. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's very possible. DAVE JONES: Financial and management side of the things. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's very possible. You know that stuff can get messy and stupid. And LT's a domestic company. DAVE JONES: Yeah, of course. CHRIS GAMMELL: They are growing in gross revenue and they're publicly listed. Yeah, so. DAVE JONES: It's not Baby Nick would still be there if he was just a CTO. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's a good question. DAVE JONES: If he din't try to set the direction of the company perhaps. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: So that's very impossible so I don't know. CHRIS GAMMELL: You read up like about start up stuffs too. And they talk about getting a CEO and after the founder. You know like, that kind of thing. And it's like...heh, I have always but at the same time like do you really want to deal with that stuff? I mean like look at Google, right? Like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, right? They're not... I just learned Larry Page is now in charge again but from a long time, Eric Schmidt is in-charge, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: I mean they actually had a different person and it can change a lot of stuff. It really does, you wouldn't think that one person matters that much but it can change a culture, right? That's what were really coming down to. DAVE JONES: Yes. But it can also ruin a company as well. I mean... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yes. DAVE JONES: You know Altium have been financially in trouble a lot of times over years for example because they followed all these, some people called 'Crazy Visions'. Right? Stepping into outside their main product stream, you know? And spending a lot of money as a result trying to follow these things that ultimately didn't work for them financially. So, you know it's not necessary so the founder is not always the best person to run the company. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yes, that's very possible. DAVE JONES: You need to get a CEO who runs it like a, who has some adult supervision. So to speak. You know? Financially and managerial and all that sort of jest. CHRIS GAMMELL: I mean I guess the question is if EEVBlog inc. right? If that started someday, would you stay in charge or what do you think? DAVE JONES: Of course. I bloody well would. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, yeah. Good. You got a thousand employees and you go to just managing them. I mean... Do you have to give up a lot of stuff? DAVE JONES: It wouldn't happen, no. I certainly would not. If I started my own company were it could get to that point where we became a big organization. No, I can't see myself managing the thing. But I can see myself doing a Nick and setting the direction of the company for sure. You know, I certainly wouldn't wanna give up that. I certainly wouldn't wanna give it to some bloody guy in a freaking suit and the tie. CEO running a company, no. CHRIS GAMMELL: He's got an NBA playbook is his back pocket. DAVE JONES: Yeah, exactly. Screw that. Screw the NBA playbook, exactly. But then again, I would have to admit... CHRIS GAMMELL: Right, right. But at the same time like you would have to give it up if you were the CTO, right? DAVE JONES: Well, that's right. CHRIS GAMMELL: If you were just the CTO. DAVE JONES: If I was just the CTO. I would be the Chief Technology Officer. Assuming I run a technology company and not just some mail order company or something. CHRIS GAMMELL: It says, Dave Jones' Fruit Smoothie Stand. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Oh boy, you speak money in that? CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh yeah. Fruit smoothie is a growth industry. DAVE JONES: They are..Oh boy. CHRIS GAMMELL: We're rallying the government to lower the price of fruit and the ass. DAVE JONES: Oh boy. I would have to admit that I wouldn't be able to run a company like that. I don't think. From a financial and all that big industry point of view. Well I because I wouldn't give a shit for a start, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right, exactly. You mean like, "Oh, the quarterly reports are due tomorrow? I do the electronics over here. Come on, man". DAVE JONES: Bye girl. Man, I just got this party toy, I'm gonna play with this. Like it that? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep. Exactly. DAVE JONES: And I think most people like us would be in the same boat, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh yeah. DAVE JONES: For sure. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: That's how I think the Bob Dobkin's and the Nick Martin's role. They just don't give a shit. CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, yeah. If you look at like the personality profiles too, right? I like the INTJ versus the whatever. The interesting thing is if you do look at like a Briggs' thing like that. Like the INTJ is a lot of engineers, right? Like you and I are probably both INTJs. DAVE JONES: What is the INTJ thing? CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh, it's like a four letter thing so it's like Intuitive, DAVE JONES: Right. That's a personality profile. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yes, that's a personality profile. Right.There's like 16 different types. But the interesting thing is the INTJ is most engineers and scientists. DAVE JONES: Oh okay. CHRIS GAMMELL: The ENTJ would be the only difference there is internal vs external. DAVE JONES: Ah, okay. CHRIS GAMMELL: Or whatever that would be. The ENTJs are usually CEOs. That's what's interesting. Not so close because that is a pretty big difference being internally focused versus externally focus. DAVE JONES: Oh, good. Got it. CHRIS GAMMELL: You know, like having to be calculated and everything else like that is very important for running a very big company versus... DAVE JONES: Cool. CHRIS GAMMELL: Being an engineer or a scientist so... DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's kind of crazy but at the same time, if you can't bridge that gap. You can't go from the internal to external then you're probably never gonna make it. You know? God. I'm guessing. DAVE JONES: You're not gonna make it pass CTO, right? CTOs would be the eyes like that. Correct? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. Correct. Yeah, exactly. What I'm saying is that, in order to get to be a successful CEO, you'd have to go from being a I to an E. Right? DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: You're gonna focus on other people even if you are just faking it or whatever works, you know. But you'd have to actually care what other people think and focus on others. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: Interesting. If I have that right at all. I'm not sure if I do. DAVE JONES: Right. That sounds absolutely correct. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's creepy when you read INTJ profiles, you're like..."Oh, crap! That's totally me". I guarantee if engineers have read it like to be, "Oh man, that's totally me". DAVE JONES: Right. It's there like an online survey that we can all take. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: They can actually post their results, that would be great. CHRIS GAMMELL: It would be great, actually. DAVE JONES: Let see if we can find one after the show. Let's see if we can find it online quiz, you know? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. Like a Google doc or something. We can maybe, we can all put in what we are and stuff so... DAVE JONES: Right. INTJ. Anyone who listens to this show is gonna be internally focused, I think. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. It depends on the...Yeah. The J is'judging' so you know you have to be like good like with analytical skills. DAVE JONES: Oh, okay. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah so... DAVE JONES: Very interesting. So.. CHRIS GAMMELL: Definitely. DAVE JONES: Back to the question that you had of whether or not the Altium product because this is important, right? So many people care so many people in our industry and now listening rely on this product, right? Is it going to be good? I mean, is it going to changed? Are they gonna be more focus? I have no idea but I personally have my concerns because a lot of the program is who I worked with when I was there are now gone. So that's public fact, you know. They have moved on. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: In one way shape or form, they're no longer with the company so I do hope that they have managed to put on sufficient talent to compensate for that. Because Nick as I said was a very hands on guy as well. That's another... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: That's more hands on deck that are gone from Altium. So I have no idea. I guess whether or not we wait for an announcement from, whether or not in the next major update of the software would be obvious where they're headed, I guess. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: You know? But they are implying in this press release it's a bit woman fuzzy as this press releases always are. They can tied a lot of wank words and financial speak. But they sort of indicated that they are really going to continue with the web-enabled devices market. You know which I think it would be an absolute [Inaudible] [0:39:19]. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, maybe. DAVE JONES: I think most people. I mean shit, this is a company that has one product, okay? They make a PCB and schematic tool. It's pretty hard to file with one product, okay? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: With any existing market of loyal customers, you just keep those loyal customers happy and what they want. And I think if they gonna follow this web enabled bullshit, I think they are gonna fail dismally. I hope they don't. I hope they don't. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Geez. I don't know. It doesn't sound good from the implication I get from this press release anyway. So I mean... CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, I wouldn't take press releases too much. DAVE JONES: Yeah, I know. That's why we have absolute no idea until the next version of the tool comes out. You know, we see whether they actually headed with it. But I think they might head down the, trying to rent the software or something like that. That's a sort of [Inaudible] buy [0:40:24]. No one would be.. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's interesting. DAVE JONES: You know because they had moved over the last couple of years. They had moved towards the subscription model of things as most of these ADA companies have, right? You don't buy the software you rendered so to speak and you have to pay a yearly subscription fee in order to get updates and everything like that so... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, yeah. DAVE JONES: Because that from a financial point of view, that's brilliant for a company because they bring to sustain revenue. So it forces if you want... CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. You don't need to have a good new product each year. You must have one good product that just continues. DAVE JONES: That continues to update if you want your bug fixes, you pay subscription fees. But yeah... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: The sort of the vibe you get from this is that they are going to more of the functionality and more of the library and stuffs like that. They're gonna follow that idea where people are going to buy libraries from an online store or something, that's just gonna fail dismally. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: I think we might have mentioned that on here before. That's just insane. CHRIS GAMMELL: No. I actually I have a story about that this week. DAVE JONES: Oh! Okay. Do tell. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. There's a completely free tool. So Design Spark has released a new web, they just re-updated their website... DAVE JONES: Great. CHRIS GAMMELL: And they actually...Well, yeah. But part of that is this thing called Modelsource and it's got 80,000 different components basically. You can go through, you can browse it and you could find footprints basically for whatever you want to. Now, the search is a little lonky. You have to actually go through it and shit a lot of menus. DAVE JONES: It's similar to what other, well its similar to what [Inaudible] [0:41:55] with Element 14 and doom with Eagle and what Altium and doom... CHRIS GAMMELL: No, no, no. This is cross... DAVE JONES: A cross ADA tool. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: That's where you can go find Altium footprints with DesignSpark... CHRIS GAMMELL: You find a part. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: You go find a part basically and then you pick out what type of footprint you want. You can get Altium, you can get PE Pads. You can get Eagle. DAVE JONES: That's a very commendable but very foolish on their part because they bought... CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, yeah. DAVE JONES: They're trying to plug DesignSpark. Maybe they have realized they are failing there and well yeah, we may as well be nice guys. Right? And support all the other packages as well cause I know Eagle and Element14 don't do that? Element14, they want users to stick with Eagle and you know... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, that's true. But this is just about basically giving another tool basically. This is another tool that they can sell. This is the pool people under their ecosystem, right? That's idea here. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: And the fact that they have a PCB software, I don't think that they-- I mean that is not a free one, isn't it? DAVE JONES: It's a free one. It's completely free I believe. Yes. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. Well, yeah. And that's fine. But you know at the same time, they also have this other thing so I don't know. DAVE JONES: Okay. Alright, they are not. CHRIS GAMMELL: Other than associate tool itself, it's not bad. But at the same point, why would you pay for a service then right? I mean like I put something on a list a couple of weeks ago actually about, there's a different service where you can pay for that. It's actually like a guaranteed, it's the same kind of thing where like there's a standard generalized format that this company owns and then basically you can convert it to any other type of footprint. Although KiCad is not an either of these which kind of cheezes me off. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Whatever. I'll make mound, Dave, a library you know what? You guys, I'm going home. DAVE JONES: Ah theority. CHRIS GAMMELL: We might have talked about it before. But basically there's another, I'm trying to find it on here. There's another footprint library that you can basically buy and basically its guaranteed. Oh here we go, it's Accelerated Designs.com. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's a...So that's another one. You can pay like upwards a five grand a month. DAVE JONES: And they would guarantee... CHRIS GAMMELL: A year or something. DAVE JONES: They would do libraries for you, yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. Basically. DAVE JONES: There are services like that but a few, I think that's a losing model because of most companies in the industry do their own footprints. They have to for one reason or another because its specifically they are tied into their assembler and they have to tweak their footprints for an individual thing or they'll just do it for me. Design road check point of view. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep. DAVE JONES: I mean that's just... CHRIS GAMMELL: The very least, they are gonna have IPC, right? At the bare minimum. DAVE JONES: Yeah, yes. And then, they gonna at least check them. You know they don't rely on most company, most good companies will not rely on a footprint that is in a library. CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh, you mean in a library not that the library. DAVE JONES: The end user company who's actually designing the widget. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: Yes. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right, right. DAVE JONES: So yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: I talked to some people about like starting some kind of sensualized service like this before and I have seen it before and everything. And it's not worth it, you know. Even if it works 99.9% at a time. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: That .1% it just kills you, right? That could be a $500,000 mistake or a $5 million mistake. DAVE JONES: Yeah, exactly. CHRIS GAMMELL: You just don't know so that's what I, like you said they just say, everytime company is saying, "Nope, we gotta check it. We have to do it ourselves". DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: Even if the statistics said that causes more errors, companies will always say that. They will check it internally. DAVE JONES: And it can cost more time and money to check it than it does to produce a footprint in the first place. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, that's true. DAVE JONES: You know just in terms of main awesome people work and you know crap with that. CHRIS GAMMELL: God, it's so annoying. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: I hate it. I hate it. DAVE JONES: Oh, boy. So yeah, that's a losing ticket if any company out there thinks that they can start selling footprints and stuff. You're not gonna go anyway, it's just not gonna work. That's being proven... CHRIS GAMMELL: It will work with some people. DAVE JONES: Well there's a niche. CHRIS GAMMELL: Small companies. DAVE JONES: They may have maybe. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: You know but... CHRIS GAMMELL: You not gonna charge a lot, you not gonna charge like the Board house the TI that's making a lot of devboards or another big CM right? You not gonna be able to charge then because if they are sufficiently large enough, they'll just develop an in house and just do it themselves, right? DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's like you said so that's... DAVE JONES: Oh boy. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: The ADA CAD market so what is Nick going to do now? I don't think we've heard the end of it. He's got too much passion... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep. Maybe. Maybe he'll do like George Dyson's doing. That guy's all over the place. DAVE JONES: George Dyson? CHRIS GAMMELL: James Dayson rather, sorry. James Dyson. They got it. The Dyson vacuums? DAVE JONES: Yeah. What about it? CHRIS GAMMELL: Now he's investing, was it $8 million in an incubator? DAVE JONES: Oh, okay. Got it. CHRIS GAMMELL: Like really expensive vacuums and now I'm gonna give some of that money away. DAVE JONES: Funding the next generation of stars. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. And I think its actually, sorry I should say its 'Sir James Dyson'. DAVE JONES: Oh wow! CHRIS GAMMELL: I think he's been knighted. DAVE JONES: Oh wow! CHRIS GAMMELL: Yes. He's British. So... DAVE JONES: Fancy fancy? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. You don't get knighted in Australia? DAVE JONES: Yes, I do cause we're part of the British Commonwealth. So yes, you can get knighted. CHRIS GAMMELL: So someday you could be Sir Dave Jones? DAVE JONES: I certainly could be. Yeah, right. CHRIS GAMMELL: That would be hilarious. DAVE JONES: I'll be walking around the lab with a sword, you know. CHRIS GAMMELL: You lick on it and use it. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Oh man, that's hilarious. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Oh boy. CHRIS GAMMELL: Anyways though, he started up student incubator basically. DAVE JONES: Cool. CHRIS GAMMELL: At the Royal College of Art. But apparently that's what happens when you make a lot of money, you just gonna get bored and you kind of give it away. DAVE JONES: That's what I do if I had a shit load of money. I'll be investing in start ups and helping people and doing all that sort of you know opening a hacker space and other than doing also it's a crap like that. CHRIS GAMMELL: You think it gets better at a certain point where you like you just like, "Well, I'm rich. I don't have to check footprints on a PCB". DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: You know maybe it gets more fun at that point. I mean like not that Electronics are fun but like there are some crappy parts to every Electronics job, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah, of course. CHRIS GAMMELL: You just don't have to do it when you're rich. I mean you hire someone else to do it, right? DAVE JONES: I don't know. I'm not too much of a nerd. CHRIS GAMMELL: You're also never gonna be a knight. DAVE JONES: Oh, damn it. Like crashing dreams. CHRIS GAMMELL: Sorry. Yeah, sorry. DAVE JONES: Bastard. Yeah, I'm too much for nerd. I'd still be doing lot of the hands on stuff. I don't know. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Please... Can I win lotto, so I could find out? CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh God. DAVE JONES: I'm gonna blog about it. I'm gonna blog about my experiences of being rich. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, yeah. I could imagine every video popping up in the EEVBlog Youtube stream. It's like just Dave showering himself in dollar bills. DAVE JONES: That's silly. Throwing of cash. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, there you go. Oh man. Its ridiculous. DAVE JONES: Yeah. A lot of dime. How much money would you need to be in that position? It have to be in the tens of millions if you own only a couple of million, that's shit. That doesn't buy you with a decent house in Sydney, you know. CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, let's see. I've done this Math before. I think it was like, so 5% of 10 million is what 500,000? DAVE JONES: Okay. So you are doing the interest rate thing today. Yeah. You can just sit back on your throne of cash and leave of the interest. Yeah, I've always done that. I'd say its like 10 million bucks, you know. Where you could, its a theory you can actually throw away half a million or a million a year spended or invested in something without any sense of getting a return on that money and you could still live the rest of your life. Rich and comfortable. CHRIS GAMMELL: Here's the thing, most technology weenies like us, right? I mean to make 10 million dollars is not a trivial thing. We know that. Unless, you're like an investor. It's like, yeah or whatever. I mean like you're probably doing a little work to probably not. You're not like a founder of a company, people that are doing, the really successful technology people. The Bill Gates of the world. The Larry Page or Sergey Brin. All of them right? They're working really hard to make that money. DAVE JONES: And... CHRIS GAMMELL: I don't think anyone would argue with that. DAVE JONES: No. Anything to be pointed out is that if your business is worth $10 million, if you're making the $10 million sales per year, you are not worth $10 million. CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh, totally not. Right, yeah. DAVE JONES: If Dave Jones' inc. was 13 over $10 million a year, I would not be worth that money. Most likely, when you reach that point you say for an example Adafruit. I think they are turning over about 10 million bucks a year or something, right? But they've got 50 employees now or something, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. You're gonna look at it, what is it? Profit line or something. DAVE JONES: Yeah. So it's like the own design profit, $10 million. You know, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right, right. And they are rolling money back in, right? I was watching their Ask an Engineer last night, they just got a new space that looks awesome. DAVE JONES: Oh cool. CHRIS GAMMELL: They said they bootstrapped. They're paying for that themselves which is awesome. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Awesome CHRIS GAMMELL: That is reallly really cool. DAVE JONES: That's a smart way to do it. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's a huge space. Exactly. And you know, that's gonna pay long term dividends for them right? But like you said its like even if you get $10 million revenues, it doesn't matter. It's gonna be either 10 million a profit or it gonna be $10 million of stock or whatever. At that point its like, hey it's a totally different ball game. DAVE JONES: And because a business that is doing well like in every geniustry. You know Joe Bloggs corp in the Joe Bloggs industry. You know if you're making 20% profit per year, you are a really good business right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. You're a rockstar. DAVE JONES: You are a very profitable business, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: So if you are turning over 20 million bucks a year, that's $2 million a year profit for the company and then you have to divide that up among the owners and everything else right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Shareholders. DAVE JONES: And that's probably before tax that might have been before tax, right? So... CHRIS GAMMELL: EBIDA, right? DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: EBIDA. DAVE JONES: EBIDA. CHRIS GAMMELL: Earning before Income... DAVE JONES: Earnings before Interest... CHRIS GAMMELL: Interest, Taxes. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: D and A DAVE JONES: Yeah. All that funny. CHRIS GAMMELL: My wife is an accountant now. She studied accounting, I'll ask her. Yeah. DAVE JONES: Oh boy. Yeah, so... CHRIS GAMMELL: My point about that always even if you are working really hard to get to that point. You know like, you're not gonna slow down right? There would be stills and slow down right? That guy's a super philantropist now right? DAVE JONES: Yeah, of course. CHRIS GAMMELL: The Google boys are still super crazy about their stuff. It's about the really successful people have that drive to start with and it doesn't go away when you make money. Money is just a side thing, right? Even more in buff with it, right? I'll love one [Inaudible] [0:53:14]. You know like, I used to study stocks all the time. That kind of doesn't give a crap about money, that kind of guy gives a crap about winning in about finding good deals. That's all he cares about. DAVE JONES: Yep, that's it. CHRIS GAMMELL: And that's awesome. DAVE JONES: Exactly. CHRIS GAMMELL: Exactly. Money is just a side thing so we talk about it but I don't think you'd slowed down. I mean I don't think I had slowed down either. You know its like just --You gonna keep going. Yeah so its... DAVE JONES: If anyone who wants to donate me 10 million bucks so we can certainly run a controlled experiment here. CHRIS GAMMELL: Of course. Of course. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Reminder. Go out at lunch time and buy a lotto ticket. But you're empty loaded. So the dreams never gonna come true to you. You gonna have to do the bloody hard way. You pull box. CHRIS GAMMELL: The real way. Yeah. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: The realistic way. DAVE JONES: Do you have any rich... CHRIS GAMMELL: No. DAVE JONES: Family who are about to cocked to reunite some distant relative and distant uncle who's gonna cock it soon, and leave you 10 million bucks or something? CHRIS GAMMELL: No, no. I'm not from a mean family. DAVE JONES: It reminds me of the... CHRIS GAMMELL: I'm from Maddy's background. DAVE JONES: Richard Pryor. Was it Richard Pryor the what's it called name where he inherits... CHRIS GAMMELL: Brewster's Millions. DAVE JONES: Brewster's Millions were he inherit. CHRIS GAMMELL: I love that movie. He spend 30 million in 30 days or something like that. Then he keep giving it away. DAVE JONES: Yeah. He's choice was what to take 3 million in cash now. CHRIS GAMMELL: No, no, no. He didn't have a choice. He had to spend... DAVE JONES: No, no. At the start he had a choice. They gave him a choice of he can take the wimp clause in his Uncle's will or whatever had this wimp clause where he could take 3 million bucks cash now and be gone of the whole thing or he can try to spend 30 million in 30 days to win 300 million. CHRIS GAMMELL: Was that what it was? DAVE JONES: That was the premise of the movie. CHRIS GAMMELL: I focused on the 30 million in 30 days. I didn't remember the wimp clause... DAVE JONES: No, no. Up to the end, I can guarantee that's how it was. There was the wimp clause in quote marks and it shows, "No. I'm gonna try spending 30 million bucks in 30 days". so he ran for a governor or something... CHRIS GAMMELL: That's a ridiculous movie. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: It's good. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Anyway, so what would you do if you had that choice? CHRIS GAMMELL: Do I do? DAVE JONES: This is an Electronics show but who cares. If you had that wimp clause, take 3 million bucks cash now... CHRIS GAMMELL: Over there. I [Inaudible] [0:55:48] order is to do a lot money. I don't know. I don't know. It's never gonna happen. DAVE JONES: Hey, okay. CHRIS GAMMELL: How would you spend if I had... DAVE JONES: 30 million bucks in 30 days? CHRIS GAMMELL: If I had that million dollars, if I had the money? I'd like the TechShop idea, buddy. I mean I'd open up a TechShop or something. Why not? I dont know. It's cool. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Actually there's a thing about TechShop in our list. TechShop teamed up with a hardware store around here. DAVE JONES: I see the Nuts and Bolts Hardware Store. CHRIS GAMMELL: Like it's a big bucks hardware store, its called Lowe's. It's kind of like a lumberyard, its got everything basically. DAVE JONES: Lowe's is a good clothing store here in Australia. CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh, really? It's interesting. yeah. They are like home depot here as well. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Basically they are sharing their space basically because is this big warehouse respectively. DAVE JONES: Warehouse. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, exactly. And so Tech Shop now in Austin, they teamed up with Lowe's and I think that's really cool idea. DAVE JONES: That's pretty good because all the tools are there, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. You could buy one. You need materials like even you need lumber, okay. Go next door. That's easy. DAVE JONES: You can buy it exactly. It's all inside there. CHRIS GAMMELL: Exactly. My question is maybe we'll see like hardware stores selling like electronics stuff too, right? It doesn't seem that unusual... DAVE JONES: Well, it wouldn't happen here in Australia. CHRIS GAMMELL: No? DAVE JONES: Not. Oh, no way. Industries is different here. Markets are different. CHRIS GAMMELL: How so? DAVE JONES: We don't have the same technical culture you guys do over there. CHRIS GAMMELL: Explain. DAVE JONES: Like I said with all this hacker spaces and all the tech shops and the starter. CHRIS GAMMELL: How many are these hacker spaces? DAVE JONES: Yeah. Like two. CHRIS GAMMELL: Some other people do over there. DAVE JONES: Not much. We don't have, like I said right? You guys have more job open, more technical job open at one company than we do in the entire country. CHRIS GAMMELL: In the Electronics industry too right? I mean we have 310 million ... DAVE JONES: But it is not proportionally but you guys have got 10x more, like 15x of population than we do. But you have like a hundred times the amount of jobs we do or thousand times man jobs as we do. There's not a direct relationship their between the population and the job. CHRIS GAMMELL: They can be economy's a skill do thing too right? I mean like you're gonna go with the largest job, the labor marlet it is right? I mean you look at China, China's got tons of available engineers and a lot of stuff are over there. Aside from the whole cost thing... DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: But, yeah. DAVE JONES: What a nuff. CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, its unfortunate for you. You should probably move to the States. DAVE JONES: No thanks. CHRIS GAMMELL: And then you can start a Kickstarter. DAVE JONES: Oh right. I heard Kickstarter moved to the UK, why it isn't moved to Australia? CHRIS GAMMELL: Cause you guys are too tiny. You guys are smaller. You guys are a subset of the UK. DAVE JONES: Yes, we are. CHRIS GAMMELL: You guys are the cast offs of the UK. That joke is always funny. DAVE JONES: We don't want it anyway. No, I'm just being bitter. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's okay. DAVE JONES: Because we don't have it. Bastard. Oh boy. But no, Australia is getting hotter. A lot of people are getting more skeptical about this sort of things but we shouldn't talk about Kickstarter on here. We do it too often, don't we? CHRIS GAMMELL: We do. DAVE JONES: Yeah, alright. CHRIS GAMMELL: What else do we talk about? We got little time left, right? Little bit. DAVE JONES: Yeah. Time's out. I mean boys go home. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right usual, a little bit. Just a little bit. DAVE JONES: What's this business about Amazon and maybe... CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh yeah.. DAVE JONES: Rumor has it trying to buy.. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. This is interesting. DAVE JONES: The OMAP processes from TI. CHRIS GAMMELL: I think it has a load of crap. DAVE JONES: Oh well, it might be. Has one of those air of credibility store like it could be like an April Fool's joke but it's got enough air of credibility to it. That could be true right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Because the Kindles and all of the Kindle [Inaudible] [0:59:59], E-readers in their tablet use the OMAP processor right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Here's my argument against it. We're talking about exactly this before, Jeff Bezos one of the best executives out there. I don't think he's that stupid. Getting into chips is one of the dumbest ideas you could possibly make. DAVE JONES: Not necessarily when you're a corporation... CHRIS GAMMELL: I totally think so. DAVE JONES: Apple are going on that route to get more control and to squeeze more margin. CHRIS GAMMELL: You do not see them buying ARM. The day they buy ARM, I'll agree with you right? The day that they buy ARM... DAVE JONES: No. They can't buy ARM. They'll be foolish to buy ARM because then they'll be supporting their competitor. As well it uses ARM including Apple. CHRIS GAMMELL: The day they stop using ARM, the day they draw their own core right? DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Because a fact of it is what it is. OMAP is its own core. DAVE JONES: Yes. CHRIS GAMMELL: I'll lead them wrong about that. DAVE JONES: Yes. I could be wrong too. Is OMAP a variation of ARM? CHRIS GAMMELL: I think it might be. Oh crap. DAVE JONES: Oh here we go. Let's google. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: This is great a live radio click. CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh yeah. DAVE JONES: Yep. OMAP. CHRIS GAMMELL: Processor. DAVE JONES: Is a general purpose ARM, architecture core, yes it is according to google. CHRIS GAMMELL: Okay, so there we go. See, we're not afraid to say we're wrong. Okay, so that's why. Alright, it's just the family. That's right. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: And I was thinking that too because what I was saying that it is wrong in your own, then I was thinking about Beagle Board right? That's where Beagle Board is based on as the OMAP. DAVE JONES: Yes. CHRIS GAMMELL: But then I remember Jason [Inaudible] [1:01:24] said saying something about ARM and A9 and also the crap. Yeah. DAVE JONES: But the OMAP processor has lots of cool value added stuff too and it's got the memory flipped on top of it. It's got like a graphic processes and stuff built in and all that substart. Its a single chip solution. Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: A lot of DSPs that are integrated. DAVE JONES: Its a single chip solution. Yeah. So its a very expensive chip because its got all that functionality built in which kind of, it means that it kind of makes it viable for someone like Amazon to buy that. So that could be one of the key component costing their products would be their own OMAP processors. CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, maybe. But like OMAP 4430 right? That's, I think not the most recent but if you look at the list of what is used in, Blackberry, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Panasonic. I mean like maybe if its like were buying it so we can screw our competitors kind of thing. DAVE JONES: Oh men, I would not. CHRIS GAMMELL: They use it all over the place. DAVE JONES: Well, maybe they buy it because they think its really a viable business in its own right. Let alone that they can get this spin off benefit of having the chips shape themselves right? So they might run this an independent business, who knows? Anyway... CHRIS GAMMELL: Maybe I'll just keep an open mind because if you told me, three months, three years ago that Amazon was gonna buy a robotics company. Yeah, your crazy. But they did it, right? I mean they bought Kiva Systems which is their now warehouse company. So I guess it does have an air of credibility but I think they are idiots. Being in a chip company, like I had never been in the industry that long but owning a chip fab, it seems like a terrible idea. DAVE JONES: It's a shit, yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Talk about low profit margins and everything else like you wanna get rich, do not buy a chip fab. That's just terrible. DAVE JONES: But Amazon has saw big like and like the Apple's of the world. CHRIS GAMMELL: They are. DAVE JONES: So big that they can absorb this as chump change. They can absorb a fab like its chump change. A couple of billion dollars are chump change right? CHRIS GAMMELL: No big deal right? DAVE JONES: Yeah, exactly. Who cares if you don't make money from it, you know? We can get our chips cheaper. It looks better on. It's a tax riddle fee. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Those businesses are so huge. I don't know how anyone can understand it at the Board level. Imagine being the CEO in China understand exactly how the financials would work and another reason why you wouldn't wanna be bloody CEO for queens. CHRIS GAMMELL: Well, the financials are easy. You know what the tough part would be for me and I think this happens a lot like the big ones like Bezos and everyone else, would be like how would you not be able to-- Let's see, you're a CEO of a big company, how would you not be like talking to anyone in your company and be like, "This guy's lying to me just to keep his job." That's exactly what I would think in every interaction... DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Those guys totally full of crap. He's just trying to save his neck and like that woudl be so frustrating. Can you imagine how awesome it would be to get like have someone frankly tell you, "No. You're doing this wrong." Like I would give that person a hug at that point. Thank you. DAVE JONES: That's would happen in EEVBlog inc.. I would instill the culture in any company or form where you're going bullshit is rewarded. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. With evidence, right? Not just harassing. DAVE JONES: I want you the lowly guy on the production floor to get in my face as the CEO or a CTO and tell me, "I'm full of shit." And I'm doing it wrong. CHRIS GAMMELL: And that's why you'll never be a CEO. DAVE JONES: And that's why I'll never be the CEO of a company because I... CHRIS GAMMELL: Never, yeah. Oh yeah. DAVE JONES: Because I want people to criticize me and tell me "I'm doing it wrong. And don't give me any bullshit". CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. And you wanna get known in a rue right? DAVE JONES: And that''s how I work to do, all companies I have worked at thats why I was never promoted beyond. I always sat in a corner and... CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. And you never made it to CTO. DAVE JONES: Yeah. I never even made it to manager or anything. Yep. Just sit in the corner. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep. DAVE JONES: We'll tap you on the shoulder... CHRIS GAMMELL: Just connect the dots, man. Just connect those dots. DAVE JONES: Exactly. Yeah. But no, that's how I would run a company. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: Probably to as detriment but hey. I'd be sitting on the throne of cash, it wouldn't matter. CHRIS GAMMELL: One last starting to call about connecting the dots. I'm sure you had seen this stuff before but I never really done any like really really big BGA packages before. I've done a couple of little ones. DAVE JONES: Yeah. The big 15000 pin once. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. Xilinx says the interesting thing happen to App Note about-- I guess its essentially a part of an App Note because whoever is hosting like chopped it up. But there's actually this really good guy unlike to how actually route a BGA and like... DAVE JONES: I've routed out 15 under pin BGAs and it is if you don't do it right... CHRIS GAMMELL: You can fix an App Note? DAVE JONES: Right. You can start out and you learn this stuff pretty quick when you start or you routed out your first 200 signals and then you find, "Opps! I just back myself on the corner. I need to add an extra four layers or ready have my PCB right?" CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep. DAVE JONES: And there's an art because multilab PCBs are expensive right? Everytime you add an extra two layers, you gotta go up in the two layer chunk. Yeah. Everytime you add two layers, the price might not double right? But its gonna be a very significant... CHRIS GAMMELL: No, it's a couple of bucks each time. DAVE JONES: Yeah. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. DAVE JONES: I think when you go above 8. Eight is like what most fabs can do 8 fairly, cheaply and then when she jumped. You know I have jumped to 10 or 12, you can double your cost so... CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. If you move to any kind of machine that needs new technology in order to make the boards. DAVE JONES: Yep. CHRIS GAMMELL: If you would have the low cost boardhouses, then you're gonna pay. DAVE JONES: And then you find, "Oh, I'm gonna have to do a bearing pad. Well, something like that." CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh good. Yeah. DAVE JONES: Which one BGAs were here, you know. You gonna really end up with bringing troubles there and so as an art to route out these BGAs. You could write a whole new book on it and they've got extensive App notes. CHRIS GAMMELL: You'll get it too like so they have like they show the different layers next to each other and actually I was thinking that. It kind of starts to look like Rorschach Test basically. Because its just how like all the [Inaudible] [1:07:44] DAVE JONES: What test? CHRIS GAMMELL: Rorschach. DAVE JONES: Rorschach. What's that? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. It's like Inkblot test when you look at it. DAVE JONES: Right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh, that's a butterfly. DAVE JONES: Right. I get it. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's Roschach Test. That''s too psychology references that I have read basically between.. DAVE JONES: Oh, very good. CHRIS GAMMELL: Roschach and the Myers Briggs. DAVE JONES: You've been reading weedsheet everyday. CHRIS GAMMELL: No. I'm just a man of the world, Dave. DAVE JONES: Alright, okay. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, right. I don't know if you have seen the Avengers. DAVE JONES: So you're not one of these guys, you're not one of these internal guys. I'm getting the vibe that you are more than an external guy than I do. CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh yeah. You're saying I'm a CEO material, is that what you're saying? DAVE JONES: I see you a CEO material, you're full of shit. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep. I'm totally full of shit. Oh, I have no idea. I loved it. Yeah. Alright. We should probably call it but one last thing that I will say is that we have a new layout on The Amp Hour. DAVE JONES: I like it except for that shitty font. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. We have to change that. I will be changing that actually. Yeah. We have like a cursive font on there right now. But now you can see every episode and that's the easiest way to see a crap load episodes. You know like whenever there's a player and hope people you like it. If you don't, you can have anything else. DAVE JONES: Blog like your ass. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah, probably. Gonna probably that. DAVE JONES: Okay. CHRIS GAMMELL: It doesn't matter much. I'm gonna show off for the people to go there. DAVE JONES: Exactly. No, I kiss. CHRIS GAMMELL: Right. It's just a site, come on. You're here for the audio so... DAVE JONES: That's right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Audio should be unchanged. DAVE JONES: You have a website? CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. DAVE JONES: It magically appears on my iPad, you know. CHRIS GAMMELL: That's right, yeah. If you're doing it right, that's how it goes. You'll never have to see our ugly mugs or terrible writing, horrible formatting. DAVE JONES: Damn right. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yep. DAVE JONES: Oh boy. We will have another guest next week, right? CHRIS GAMMELL: Oh, yes. And they are very well defined and we know who they are already. Definitely not another mystery guy. DAVE JONES: Well. It's always good to have a very well defined guest. CHRIS GAMMELL: Yeah. CEO of material here, folks. CEO material. DAVE JONES: Oh boy. CHRIS GAMMELL: Alright, we'll see you then. DAVE JONES: Catch you later. [End of Audio] [1:10:20]