Jay Adelson

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, I'm Jason Howell, host of the Techsploder podcast. I want to let you know that I'm making some changes to the show that are going to take place immediately. For now, you can expect new episodes to arrive on a monthly basis. And to be frank, I personally enjoy the conversations with my friends too much to just let the show go entirely. But the weekly cadence has become too difficult for me, this one man shop to support entirely.

[00:00:27] Now, my hope is for that to change in the future, to get back to a weekly schedule. But for right now, I really have no choice. I got to simplify. I hope you can understand. So please stay subscribed. I promise once I have a new conversation to share, you will see it appear in your feeds automatically. And thank you so much for your ongoing support. And now, on with the show.

[00:00:51] Nothing ever filled the gap for me of that interactivity that that pet created. And I needed to have that forever after that.

[00:01:28] Hello and welcome back to the Techsploder podcast. I'm your host, Jason Howell. And took a little bit of a breather break. For those of you who weren't aware, my apologies for not doing an effective job of communicating it.

[00:01:47] But I had to kind of move the podcast back to a less constant release schedule. I can't let go of this show, though, because I just love it. I have these wonderful conversations with people who I admire, who I respect. And so I'd say expect an episode every month-ish. Stay subscribed. You'll see them.

[00:02:07] And as I can kind of increase that over time, I will. Because I want to kind of get back to the regular kind of cadence of the show. Anyways, that's a little bit of housekeeping right off the top. I just want to apologize straight up.

[00:02:20] But let's talk about today's guest, because I'm super thrilled to welcome Jay Adelson. And actually, previous guest and a big-time friend of mine, Ron Richards, works closely with Jay Adelson.

[00:02:33] And he's been saying, Ron's been saying, you got to get Jay on this show. He would be wonderful. And I have to admit, it was a wonderful conversation.

[00:02:40] Jay Adelson is a renowned American internet entrepreneur, technology visionary. He co-founded Equinix.

[00:02:49] So really powered a lot of the early internet, a global leader in data center and interconnection services.

[00:02:56] Later became a pivotal figure in the Web 2.0 movement as co-founder and CEO of Digg.

[00:03:03] Also, Revision 3. So if you caught any of the shows on Revision 3, you know the work of Jay.

[00:03:09] Named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2008, Adelson has continued to shape the tech landscape

[00:03:16] through ventures like Simple Geo and Opsmatic. Currently, he serves as co-founder of Scorebit,

[00:03:23] a company devoted to interconnecting the history of pinball machines to the internet and each other, along with Ron Richards.

[00:03:30] This was an excellent conversation. Absolutely had a blast. So let's get right to it. Here's Jay Adelson.

[00:03:37] All right, Jay Adelson, it is a pleasure and a privilege to get the chance to sit down with you.

[00:03:42] Thank you so much for hopping on TechSploder Podcast with me today.

[00:03:44] Hey, it's my absolute pleasure to be here. I'm honored.

[00:03:48] Well, I am honored. And I have to say, like our mutual friend, Ron Richards, who has also been on the podcast before,

[00:03:56] I can't tell you how many conversations I've gotten into with Ron over the years.

[00:04:00] We do the Android Faithful Podcast together, where your name has come up, where your mutual project slash business,

[00:04:07] Scorebit, has come up. And he just always has nothing but wonderful things to say about you.

[00:04:13] So when I brought him onto the podcast and have been talking to him about kind of what it's all about,

[00:04:19] he's like, oh, dude, you need to get Jay Adelson on.

[00:04:23] That's funny. I mean, you know, Ron likes to sometimes say that he's not as much the tech guy

[00:04:30] and that he's more of, you know, business or marketing. The reality is he's as nerdy as I am.

[00:04:37] Oh, yes.

[00:04:38] At the core. We both love the same kinds of things. And, you know, he'll do something like,

[00:04:45] one time I saw him wearing a T-shirt that was the Karataka game.

[00:04:51] Oh, I've seen that T-shirt. Seen him wear it. Yep.

[00:04:53] And I was like, oh, you, you and I, like, we both know what that is. He goes, yeah. And that's,

[00:05:01] I mean, how much more techie can you get than that, really?

[00:05:04] Yeah. That's a real techie, nerdy throwback that I appreciate. What was the, yeah,

[00:05:11] what was the system that you, you played your Karataka on?

[00:05:15] Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. Um, I mean, it was, it was more than that. I knew,

[00:05:22] and I don't know how I knew at the time, but I knew about Jordan Mershner. Like I knew about,

[00:05:30] about, um, swashbuckler. Cause I had played that game in the past, which was like the first one that he

[00:05:36] did. Right. And then, and then of course, Prince of Persia. And I remember I even bought,

[00:05:42] I bought a book on assembly language programming.

[00:05:48] Thinking that if I just read the book, I'd, I'd learn how to do it.

[00:05:53] You could do it too. Yeah. It's as easy as that.

[00:05:55] Meanwhile, this is assembly that we're talking about.

[00:05:58] Also, I was 11.

[00:06:02] So, so give me a, you know, but like 11, 12 years old playing these games on the Apple.

[00:06:08] Well, actually I, by the time that was, I was 12. So I got my Apple two when I was 12 years old. So,

[00:06:14] so seeing that t-shirt on and Ron is younger than me.

[00:06:20] Ron and I are about the same age. Yeah.

[00:06:22] You know? And so it's like a, huh? Like you actually know what that is. Okay. That's pretty badass.

[00:06:28] Oh man. So yeah. He's, he and I share a lot of shared interests. I think the other one that

[00:06:35] is unusual is in television. We both loved in a stupid way in television. I don't even know like

[00:06:46] how proud I should be of, of talking about that, but.

[00:06:51] Very. I mean, you're in the right company to be very proud of in television. I never owned an

[00:06:57] Intellivision, but I definitely had friends who had an Intellivision and yeah, I, I've, I've fond

[00:07:03] memory. It was that. And then I had another friend that had the ColecoVision.

[00:07:06] The ColecoVision that everybody had one friend of each.

[00:07:09] Yes.

[00:07:10] I had the Atari. Everybody had the Atari. And then when those new consoles came out,

[00:07:14] there'd always be one friend that would have them. What's interesting about Intellivision

[00:07:21] was the same kid who got Intellivision first is the reason I got into computers in the first place.

[00:07:31] Oh, no kidding.

[00:07:34] So I don't, everybody must have the similar stories because it, particularly if you're my age,

[00:07:40] because not everybody had a computer. Right. And so when I was like, I want to say nine,

[00:07:47] 10, 10, I had this friend, Jeff, who, whose dad was a principal in a local school.

[00:07:56] And the dad would bring home on the weekends, a Commodore pet.

[00:08:02] So for those of your viewers who may not be familiar, if you Google Commodore pet, you will

[00:08:10] see this like giant TV looking thing with an attached keyboard on it that didn't have any

[00:08:18] hard drives back then. So it had like a tape cassette drive that was like connected to it.

[00:08:25] I mean, yeah, that's it. That's it. It was absolutely enormous. And so for this, for this,

[00:08:31] for his father, Jerry to bring this thing home every weekend and cart it in the back of his giant

[00:08:38] station wagon or whatever he was driving. And then we'd put it on Jeff's desk in his bedroom.

[00:08:46] And there was, we would do this every weekend. And all we would do is we would load one game

[00:08:54] that was called Scott Adams Pirates Adventure. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know what that is?

[00:09:02] I'm, I, yes, I'm pretty sure. I want to pull up the art just to know for sure that I'm thinking

[00:09:09] of the same thing. I mean, there was cover art, but this sort of predates

[00:09:15] graphics. It's sort of like a go North, stay yo-ho kind of thing.

[00:09:21] Okay. I might be thinking of, I might be thinking of a different, but this, this appears to be the

[00:09:26] graphic. 1979. Okay. Okay.

[00:09:30] That's not the graphics of the, like the game had no graphics.

[00:09:33] Right, right, right.

[00:09:35] And I remember, cause I was like a Dungeons and Dragons kid too. Like I would sit there in front

[00:09:40] of his computer with him and it would say, you're standing inside a London flat. You're,

[00:09:47] you see a rug and the windows open, you know, and a rat scurrying across the ground. You can use two

[00:09:56] word commands, like look, examine, go North, Southwest. You had to like stand on the ledge

[00:10:04] and say a password and it would like teleport you to this, this Island. And it was just,

[00:10:11] insane the amount of hours we spent on it. And then one day I come to his house and he's got

[00:10:17] a game console. He's got the Intellivision. And then it became that, right. But nothing ever filled

[00:10:28] the gap for me of that interactivity that that pet created. And I needed to have that forever after

[00:10:39] that. Oh, well talk about a rabbit hole. Yeah. I love that rabbit hole. Um, I, so my first computer

[00:10:48] was a Commodore 64 and I would say that's like peak, like technology nerddom for me in my,

[00:10:54] my childhood, like, you know, so much of everything that came after it, as far as my passion around

[00:10:59] technology and computers and everything is because of the Commodore 64. I never had the experience with

[00:11:04] the pet. So I'm actually, I love hearing about it because it's one of those obscure technologies that

[00:11:12] is, is obviously so interconnected with the thing that's so important to me yet kind of out of my

[00:11:19] reach. I've never had an experience with it. I mean, it was typically a computer that would only be in a

[00:11:26] school because it really was too big for most people to have at home and it was too expensive.

[00:11:32] Also it took like 20 minutes to load the game. You'd have this cassette tape cassette, right? Yeah.

[00:11:40] And then these two stars would appear on the screen that would flash back and forth and sometimes it

[00:11:46] wouldn't work. So you'd have to start over. So when I'm like, when my kids are our adults now,

[00:11:52] but when they were like growing up and we'd be in traffic, like in a freeway on the way someplace,

[00:11:58] and I would seemingly be unfazed and they'd be like, how, how can you just sit here with nothing

[00:12:05] happening for so long? I'm like, well, do you like video games? They're like, yes. I would say,

[00:12:11] well, imagine if you had to wait 20 minutes every time you played a video game for it to start.

[00:12:18] You've developed some pretty good skills for waiting.

[00:12:21] Yeah. Yeah. Indeed.

[00:12:24] It was nuts. Load runner on the Commodore 64.

[00:12:28] Oh, love it.

[00:12:30] You know, it was worth waiting for. But yeah, gaming, gaming was big. It was,

[00:12:35] it was a big part of, I don't think I'm the only Gen X to say this, but like,

[00:12:43] it kind of shaped everything. It was the gateway to all things tech for me.

[00:12:50] Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can agree with that. I mean, that's, you know, again, that's,

[00:12:54] that's where my passion really stemmed from with the Commodore 64. I love the, the,

[00:12:59] the way you framed that like anticipation, the waiting, the 20 minutes of waiting for a game

[00:13:06] there because there's so many, there's so many examples of that. I think in modern tech lifestyle

[00:13:12] that go counter to that, that need to wait for, for what's the, for the gold on the other end of

[00:13:20] that waiting, right? Like music used to be, you had to go into a record store and you had to be very

[00:13:24] selective and pick the one thing that you could spend your $15 on. That's right. You'd listen to

[00:13:29] it time and time and time again, because you didn't have infinite resources to listen to anything at

[00:13:36] the spur of the moment. And now, you know, and that's just one example, but now technology has

[00:13:40] made everything so immediate and so vast that certain things have gotten lost in the way, like

[00:13:47] 20 minutes to wait for a game seems like a real downside. But I remember at the time that

[00:13:54] anticipation was so much part of the fun. It was like, Oh man, I can't wait for this thing to pop

[00:13:59] on the screen, you know? Well, and if you're a pirating stuff, like I was over the not internet,

[00:14:04] like, yeah, I would like find a download site for some obscure stupid game. And it would like

[00:14:11] download at 300 bot or 1200 bot all night long. And then like, you'd wake up in the morning and like,

[00:14:18] it had like, you know, hung up on you and you'd have to start over and you just got used to this

[00:14:24] company. Yep. And you know, there were other things. It's interesting because I've never really

[00:14:29] made this connection before. Um, so the other thing that I was really into at that time was

[00:14:36] filmmaking, which sounds weird to put that way. Um, because you have to remember that that meant a movie

[00:14:48] camera, super eight or eight millimeter. And then each film had to be lit like, cause you know,

[00:14:57] you, you couldn't just shoot in regular light, which might sound really strange to anyone who just

[00:15:03] shoots video on their phone. Like it's nothing, but like you had to light the scene. Sometimes you

[00:15:09] had to use a filter in the camera. If you were doing color and, and different things, indoor tungsten

[00:15:14] outdoor. Um, and it was incredibly short. So five minutes max per roll. And then there'd only be

[00:15:28] like usually one place you could drop it off and then you'd have to wait two weeks for it to come

[00:15:34] back. And then nine times out of 10, you blew it. So it like would not, you wouldn't know,

[00:15:40] like, you know, but like in a similar vein, it made making movies more fun for me because there

[00:15:49] was this anticipation of waiting to find out what, what was going to happen and sometimes weeks.

[00:15:58] Um, and when I ended up, when I, when I went to college, I had a real personal crisis of whether or

[00:16:07] not, I wanted to spend my life waiting for computer games to start or, or wait for film to be processed

[00:16:14] because I actually went to school for both of those things for filmmaking and for, and for computers.

[00:16:22] And, uh, you know, there is something to be said about the magic is partly the anticipation.

[00:16:30] Cause I do think one of the reasons I ended up going more away from filmmaking was because it became

[00:16:37] almost commoditized in a way. And the magic part of it was like, you know, practical effects,

[00:16:44] you know, and that kind of thing started to become abstracted. Um, it's, it's, it's,

[00:16:51] yeah, I've never really made that, that connection before, but that's interesting.

[00:16:55] Meanwhile, the, the, the practical, the effects that you're talking about moved,

[00:16:59] ventured further into the technological realm versus the kind of, yeah, like, like you said,

[00:17:06] the, the practical realm, which is what they were up to a certain point, they became very digital.

[00:17:11] It just required a completely different skillset. It required a higher level of cost

[00:17:17] and education. And I mean, it's, yeah, not, not that super eight filmmaking was like, you know,

[00:17:23] gave you direct access to creating cinematic Hollywood feature films, but that pushes it

[00:17:31] even further away when, you know, now you have to have a, a team who knows exactly what they're

[00:17:37] doing in order to do it. Cause you can't do it all. Yeah. It's a, it is kind of interesting.

[00:17:42] And now it's coming full circle where people are doing more practical effects again, because they

[00:17:46] find that it looks a certain way that they can't, maybe it's uncanny Valley problems, you know,

[00:17:52] whatever. But, uh, I've always been fascinated with that kind of stuff and I'm, um, and I'm still,

[00:18:00] I'm still fascinated by it. I'm, I remember, um, when Ron and I worked together at revision three

[00:18:06] years ago, there's a group that still makes a show called film riot where they like show you how to

[00:18:15] use after effects to like, make like a lightsaber duel, whatever. I was hooked on that show. Like,

[00:18:22] and I, I wasn't supposed to play favorites or anything like that. Cause I was like chairman of

[00:18:27] the board or whatever, but, uh, but wow. I mean, I would watch that every, every episode. That's just

[00:18:34] really cool. Now I can't claim to have any actual filmmaking skills, but I'm just fascinated by it,

[00:18:43] you know? Um, I would argue that, that the same is true with computers. I never was particularly

[00:18:50] good at coding. I love coding, but I'm not good at it. Well, you, you started with a flat row of

[00:19:02] nothing but numbers with, uh, with assembly and machine language. So your roots are strong.

[00:19:06] Anyone who starts there, man, it's, you can only go up from there.

[00:19:11] Any parent will tell you, like, if there isn't a, if there isn't a small success early in your

[00:19:17] relationship with something, you don't keep doing it. And I think that might've been kind of my

[00:19:23] downfall of coding was like assembly just doesn't make any sense to me. And then as soon as I like

[00:19:28] years later, got back into it and I was in a college and I'd be sitting in a computer lab and

[00:19:37] you'd be programming in a more English like way. That would be, that was when I was like, oh,

[00:19:45] there might be something here for me. But I, but I ended up, uh, going ironically graduating with a

[00:19:52] degree in film that I never used. And then, um, ending up working in tech. So how did that?

[00:19:59] Yeah. Ending up working in tech, but you also worked in, in media. So I imagine some of your

[00:20:04] film, film studies, you know, could be put to use there somehow.

[00:20:09] I actually wanted to work in the control room as an intern and the CEO. So at that point I was

[00:20:17] chairman and we had hired a CEO to run revision three. And, and he said, no, like I was like,

[00:20:25] well, wait, you know, I mean, I founded the company. Can't I, you know, apprentice and learn

[00:20:32] how to operate, you know, the, the switching board and all that. And he's like, no, you intimidate

[00:20:37] the interns. What does that mean? Intimidate the interns? They don't want to mess up. They don't

[00:20:46] have the head cheeses. They, uh, like that, but yeah, I understand that. They may not know that

[00:20:52] they might not know that. Yeah. No, I never got to play with the, with the tech and I never got to

[00:20:58] get involved in the production. Uh, the closest I got was, um, one of the producers there, David Prager

[00:21:07] asked me to do a show in 2010 or something like that, 2012. And we shot 79 episodes of like how to

[00:21:18] start a company kind of stuff called ask Jay. It's still up there. And I get like, I get like emails

[00:21:26] from folks in, in Brazil saying that they've got some venture backed startup and they watched my

[00:21:32] series and they have questions. I'm like, Oh, the show's been out of production for,

[00:21:37] for almost a decade. So good luck with that. Do any of the, uh, the, the information that you have

[00:21:45] there? Do you, do you feel, I mean, I would, I would guess that it's all still totally relevant

[00:21:49] at this point. Like have, has starting a company shifted so much in the year 2024 compared to 2010?

[00:21:56] I mean, I guess in some ways it probably has a lot, but what's your take on that?

[00:22:01] That's a really good question. I mean, I, I honestly think it hasn't changed very much. Um,

[00:22:07] that some of the, the, the nomenclature, you know, the lexicon around it has changed a little bit.

[00:22:13] Um, it's funny because, because, uh, when you raise venture capital, you know, what we used to call

[00:22:22] a seed round is what I think in 2012, you would have called an A round, you know, like there's

[00:22:30] these different names, but I mean, but by and large, the, the rules are basically the same.

[00:22:36] The investor wants to make a hundred times their investment and they'll tell you that they only

[00:22:42] need to make 10 to make you less anxious. But the reality is they're not investing unless they

[00:22:47] imagine in their head, they're going to make a hundred times, which is extremely unlikely,

[00:22:53] even if you're successful. So already you're not aligned with those guys from the first day.

[00:22:59] And then the, the net of it is, is that, um, the startup experience,

[00:23:07] the things that have changed is that nobody comes to the office anymore

[00:23:12] because, you know, work from home culture and some of that wackadoodle work till midnight thing,

[00:23:21] which was really unhealthy anyway, um, doesn't happen anymore because nobody's,

[00:23:28] everyone's on Slack for their, for their job. It's, it's interesting because, uh,

[00:23:36] uh, while starting the company in many ways is the same execution on your idea is very different.

[00:23:45] The people that you need, there's fewer people in certain areas. There's more people in other areas.

[00:23:52] You can outsource so much more, um, particularly for tech companies. Uh, there's a commoditization

[00:24:03] of certain pieces of the, of the supply chain. There's things like, um, well, your prototype,

[00:24:11] you know, as a great example, like you always have to build a prototype and now AI can build you

[00:24:17] your prototype. So what does that mean? Um, yeah. Well, what quality of prototype is an AI building by

[00:24:29] a comparison. Yeah. Terrible. Uh, but I had, uh, uh, you know, occasion to, to watch an episode of my old

[00:24:40] show as it related to, uh, going and pitching a VC because it had been so long. Cause I, so for your

[00:24:50] viewers benefit, I had been an entrepreneur for a lot of years. I had started a bunch of companies

[00:24:57] and then I became a VC for a while. I started my own fund thinking that I would like that. It turned

[00:25:03] out that while I liked my business partner, we had a really great time doing it together. I really didn't

[00:25:08] enjoy being a VC. Um, and I hadn't pitched anyone myself in a very long time. And recently I had to do

[00:25:22] that again. And so I was like, I don't even know where to start. Like, I'm pretty sure you learned

[00:25:27] from yourself. So I went back and I watched this, like, what was my hair doing? Um, video of me

[00:25:51] and I listened to my own advice on this one. Uh, no, but I did, I, I went through it again and I raised

[00:25:57] money for a company that I started with Ron and, uh, and yeah, it, it, it, a lot of the same, same

[00:26:08] things are true, you know, 10, 20 years later that were true back then. Yeah. Um, the amount of money

[00:26:16] you raise is the same. It's really, it's really, has, has anything changed in the, in the, see,

[00:26:24] I've, I've never, uh, I mean, outside of, you know, this, this media company that I'm crossing my

[00:26:30] fingers and doing all the things that I can to get it working, uh, from a content perspective,

[00:26:34] uh, you know, to do things that are important, like make money. But, um, when I look into kind of

[00:26:42] the, the world of tech entrepreneurship and creating a technology company and everything,

[00:26:48] so often the outlook that I see is, well, you just, it doesn't, making money doesn't matter for a very

[00:26:58] long time. It's all about increasing the amount of users and blah, blah. We've heard this a million

[00:27:03] times. Is that still true? Is that as relevant or, or was it ever relevant? Is that just like,

[00:27:09] like one of those myths that, that perpetuates throughout technology and entrepreneurship?

[00:27:15] It's really the core question for an entrepreneur in many ways, because I, I think that there are many

[00:27:24] kinds of entrepreneurship and, and for those who, who derive satisfaction from achieving,

[00:27:33] a, a particular metric or growth or ubiquity for your product, then that user number matters,

[00:27:43] you know, and, and it matters at different levels, regardless of whether it makes you any money or

[00:27:48] not. Right. Um, and the older I get, the, the more important that satisfaction metric,

[00:28:00] like checking with yourself at the beginning and deciding what that is before you start really has

[00:28:07] a huge impact on your actual ability to succeed because otherwise you are often chasing the wrong

[00:28:13] goals. You know, the, the, the old, the old adage of a million users, you know, whatever. Um,

[00:28:20] a lot of that mythology actually comes from the investor side of the equation where the investor

[00:28:28] would say, Hey, I'll only give you money. If insert KPI here that you have to hit, you know,

[00:28:36] read Hoffman famous, famously said million users or whatever. Um, but the actual measure

[00:28:45] personally has to be what gets you up in the morning and excited and creative. Right. And that

[00:28:53] could be very different. And, uh, conversely on the investor side, the actual metric is not a million

[00:29:00] users. It's have you found product market fit? And is, is there some indicator that you're going to get to

[00:29:09] an inflection point of growth? The irony being that if you can find that company as an investor

[00:29:17] that is just about to hit it and it hasn't hit it, hit it yet, you're, it's a better investment

[00:29:26] than one that's already proven it and de-risked it, but no one wants to take risks. So they always

[00:29:33] wait to see like what part of that curve they're on. Um, but I have never started with a plan to hit

[00:29:43] a metric, like a million users or whatever. I've always been like, Hmm, I really think this is

[00:29:49] something that should exist. Let's just see if we can make it exist and then we'll figure out the rest

[00:29:58] later. Um, it's, I mean, that's, that's create creation, right? That's like, um, yeah, it's like a

[00:30:07] writer writes a book, you know, a painter paints a painting, uh, a software developer. Well, there's

[00:30:15] different kinds. There's ones that, that need the whole thing to exist. Others that are just very

[00:30:20] excited about having made that recursion work and that function. Yeah. And that particular part.

[00:30:26] Yeah, exactly. And, and I, it's all good. Um, I think that, that, uh, for, for me to get excited

[00:30:37] about something also, I kind of wanted it to be bigger than me one day, the take a life of its own

[00:30:46] sort of critical mass. I don't know what you call it network effect, something where it's like,

[00:30:51] kind of rolls and you're like, Whoa, that's had no idea that it was going to be that that's really

[00:30:56] exciting for me. That's a big piece, but it, it, you know, your mileage may vary.

[00:31:02] How, how certain do you have to be about what you were just talking about in order,

[00:31:07] like how, how much, yeah. How much influence does that have over your idea? Like I, I,

[00:31:13] I know in my own perspective from my own limited perspective, right. Doing this kind of content thing,

[00:31:20] it's really, it's next to impossible for me to envision how, what I'm doing right now might

[00:31:25] become something that's bigger than me. Cause I'm so focused on the now.

[00:31:30] Yeah. It's, that's a really great question because I, I, I'd be lying if I said I had that much clarity

[00:31:38] on what that might be like, it, it changes a lot. You know, if you had asked me about score a bit,

[00:31:44] our current project when we started, I think I would have told you that my expectation was

[00:31:51] that it like, my first goal was, can we overcome this weird technical challenge of extracting game

[00:31:59] data from a machine and getting it up to the cloud? And that's about as far as I went. And then like,

[00:32:07] once we achieved that, it was like, okay, can I, can I design something that actually makes a game

[00:32:13] more fun to play? Cause I've never been a game using that data, using the data, somehow overlaying

[00:32:21] something. And the first time we ever had like our product unlock an achievement for a game that

[00:32:27] was made in like 1977, my mind exploded. That's amazing. I mean, that's an accomplishment,

[00:32:33] right? I mean, it's like, I didn't know that was possible and now it is. And now it wasn't

[00:32:38] possible before. Yeah. And then I, and then you look around you, like you have these moments,

[00:32:42] this is like a classic, I think entrepreneur experience where you have this moment where

[00:32:47] something like that happens. Right. And then you look around you and you go, so did y'all,

[00:32:52] y'all think that's as cool as I did? Right. And then you realize it was very much a personal

[00:32:58] thing. Um, and then once in a while you do that and, and everyone around you goes, Oh,

[00:33:05] hell yeah. And then you're, and then you're on this train and with score of it, that's kind of

[00:33:12] what happened after we got to a certain point, particularly during the pandemic. Um, yeah,

[00:33:19] our old website, I mean, we, you're just having fun and everybody suddenly wanted to connect their

[00:33:25] pinball machines to the internet during the pandemic. Go figure.

[00:33:30] You know, I still, I mean, I have ideas of where we're taking the company obviously,

[00:33:36] cause we raised money on it and we, um, you know, we hired a team and we're rebuilding our

[00:33:42] entire business, you know, but, but I like surprises.

[00:33:50] I like discovering things that I didn't know about and opening that door and saying, you know,

[00:33:58] this product is actually really cool in this new direction that I wasn't expecting.

[00:34:05] Well, I am, I am completely impressed. Like, um, I, I don't know that I've ever been this close,

[00:34:13] you know, Ron is, I would consider a very great friend of mine. We've been podcasting since 2010,

[00:34:20] I think at this point. Uh, so a very long time we've gotten to know each other really well. And

[00:34:25] I don't know that I've ever been this close to someone who's created something so highly like,

[00:34:32] like hardware is a really hard thing to create and to do what you're talking about. I can only

[00:34:39] guess had a lot of technological challenges, not to mention the building of the business,

[00:34:45] but just the technological aspects of, of pulling that data from these ancient pinball machines

[00:34:52] and, and, and equating the data that's coming from old machines to the data that's coming from

[00:35:00] new machines and making it all kind of interconnected. Like it's, it's been really cool from my perspective

[00:35:06] as, as a friend of Ron's to kind of witness the, the, the process, you know, the, in, in such a

[00:35:13] close way. Cause I just, I haven't had this kind of, um, close to a project like this before.

[00:35:19] I don't think, I don't think I have either. I mean, okay, let me, let me, let me be, be clear.

[00:35:26] So I've started businesses that had a product that took a long time to get to market, right.

[00:35:33] Mm-hmm that, that ended up succeeding in the end after some, you know, massive war is fought,

[00:35:39] you know, whatever, but, but I've never had one that was more of like an accident.

[00:35:46] Like usually in those cases, like if you look at like Equinix, right? Like Equinix,

[00:35:51] we knew that people needed data centers. We had this problem with congestion at the core of the

[00:35:55] internet. We had these sort of like long visionary goals that we wanted to set in place. And we raised,

[00:36:00] you know, a billion dollars to do it, you know, all this kind of crazy stuff.

[00:36:05] Um, but it was always a business. It was always like we could see what the product would look like

[00:36:14] and how people might consume it, you know, in the end. And I think that with this, what was really

[00:36:20] interesting, it was almost like an archeological expedition where we were like, uh, you know,

[00:36:26] let's meet some people from the industry that have retired, you know, or at the, you know,

[00:36:31] parts of their careers where they're, where they're still involved in companies, but they're not

[00:36:35] necessarily in, you know, the person who created defender or the person who created, you know,

[00:36:41] uh, the hardware behind, you know, vector graphics or like, you know, you meet these,

[00:36:46] these people, we would see like the, like, so when I started doing, um, uh, pinball stuff,

[00:36:55] Ron would invite me to these trade shows and be like, Hey, like, look at every video game that's

[00:37:00] ever been made and every pinball machine that's ever been made on this floor. And they would have

[00:37:05] these tracks where like the dude from, you know, uh, who created, I don't know, uh, you know,

[00:37:13] Robotron or whatever would like come and give a talk. And of course I would go to these talks.

[00:37:19] And one of the things you realized very quickly is that as you were doing this archeological

[00:37:24] expedition and like uncovering different parts is that, is that these people were really,

[00:37:31] really interested in telling you how it all came together. And when you told them kind of your ideas,

[00:37:38] they would collaborate with you because they were like, Oh, that's really neat. You could take this

[00:37:42] game that I made in 1995 and add all this capability to it. Um, at one point. So we had this idea that we

[00:37:52] wanted to extract data from the displays of games and then maybe change the displays of games, you know,

[00:37:58] like to say like your player two or whatever. And we were trying to figure out how to decode it.

[00:38:03] And so, um, we Googled, you know, Williams electronics display decoding or something. I don't know. We,

[00:38:15] we Googled it and, and we find this white paper on this like very nineties style website written by a

[00:38:22] guy with photography explaining how he reverse engineered the Williams dot matrix display for this

[00:38:30] category of games and all of these processes and things. And he had his email address was on there.

[00:38:37] Um, which was like a personal email address. So we, so I emailed the guy and I'm like, Hey, Ed,

[00:38:41] his name is Ed Chung. I said, Hey, Ed, we're, we're really interested in, in this, in this problem.

[00:38:48] And you wrote this white paper about it. Can you help us like do this? He goes, Oh, that sounds really

[00:38:52] cool. Sure. I wrote that white paper in 2005. You sure? I'm like, yeah, I, yeah, I know it's been a

[00:39:00] while, but like, are you willing? He's like, sure. So we're trading information back and forth and he's,

[00:39:05] and he sends us some code, the code works, you know, it helps us kind of unblocks us.

[00:39:10] And then I finally Google him and I learned that he's a senior robotics scientist for NASA's ISS mission.

[00:39:23] He, he has, he's been knighted by the Dutch royalty for his work on the Hubble space telescope.

[00:39:33] I had no idea. That is what this has been like every corner you go, you peer around and like,

[00:39:39] there's all this wonderful knowledge and, and then suddenly you have this new way of solving a problem.

[00:39:46] Yeah. Yeah. It's unlike anything I've ever done before. And it's so much fun. And the hardware was

[00:39:52] just a necessary evil. Like if I didn't have to do hardware, I wouldn't, but you know, we have to,

[00:39:58] a lot of these new manufacturers actually don't bother with the hardware. They just put our

[00:40:03] capability in their machine before they ship it. Oh, that's amazing. Right? Like that's really

[00:40:10] simplifies things for you that they're just doing that. Oh, that's really cool. That's, that's a,

[00:40:16] that's a real stamp of approval right there. I know we just put it up on the internet and said,

[00:40:21] hey, this is open. Anyone can do it. It's shocking. It's a really different experience

[00:40:27] that we're having and our team has fun every day. Yeah. Well, it's pinball. I hope so. But,

[00:40:38] but I know that's not a guarantee, right? Like there are many facets of technology that

[00:40:42] are on the outside looking in very enjoyable, but then, you know, the, the company culture is awful

[00:40:50] and, you know, not enjoyable at all. It's, it's business first, you know, at the expense of

[00:40:55] everything else. I mean, it does help that the founders, me, Ron and Brian, Brian O'Neill,

[00:41:04] really weren't out to build originally anything like big and business-like we were just trying to have

[00:41:10] fun. And then years later when it was like catching on and people were buying the product

[00:41:17] and start growing, we're like, oh, I guess we better find a business model because, you know,

[00:41:23] we, we kind of want to keep doing it. And the fact that now we're all paid to do it is,

[00:41:29] is just great. Um, it's amazing. It is now we have a lot of work to do though. Like it's just starting

[00:41:36] where, where, um, our product is, is growing rapidly. Our app, which was made like J with

[00:41:43] Photoshop. Like it's not, it's not a quality, you know, UX experience. And, and so now we have

[00:41:51] professionals on it and it's, oh, don't know. It's on your website. It's actually me probably from my

[00:42:02] thirties or something. I don't even know what that avatar is from. Um, the app looks a little

[00:42:09] better than that. No, it doesn't. It still looks just as rinky dink. Well, I mean, I, you know,

[00:42:15] the, the show that I've done with Ron for more than a decade and a half at this point is about Android.

[00:42:21] We've seen thousands upon thousands of apps and I can tell you right away, like, uh, I've seen,

[00:42:27] like, this is actually pretty solid compared to many of the apps that, that we've experienced over

[00:42:32] the years, which I'm not surprised you've, you've got Ron on Ron on the team. He's, he scrutinizes

[00:42:36] apps. So he does. And, and to his credit, um, he's kind of kept me honest with all that. You know,

[00:42:44] we, we had a lot of volunteers helping us build this thing over the years. And then we hired a bunch

[00:42:50] of contractors, um, to help us develop the app more quickly back in, in 2021, 2022. And a lot of them

[00:43:03] were Ukrainian. So imagine. So we have this like team, like committing code on like a weekly basis

[00:43:11] and like really engage with us every day. And then one day they're gone because like all of that base,

[00:43:18] when the Ukrainian war started, they just disappeared. And so if we had a bug,

[00:43:24] there was no one to fix it. And if we had a new feature idea that was like almost ready,

[00:43:30] it was put indefinitely on hold. And, you know, at the time I wasn't really sure what to do

[00:43:38] and run, you know, who all along has way more experience with apps than I ever would,

[00:43:45] you know, help me prioritize and say, okay, you know what, what's actually most important is that

[00:43:54] this new version of Android's coming out and it's going to break wifi. So focus on that right now.

[00:43:58] Um, and I learned to code again in my fifties, which is kind of crazy. Um,

[00:44:10] at the time I was using YouTube classes to teach me and I'm not a greatest student at this point.

[00:44:20] I'm very impatient. And then fortunately in the summer of 2023, AI shows up.

[00:44:28] Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:44:29] And so I'm like, Hey, you know, we got this. So we have this feature, um, where after you played a game,

[00:44:36] it shows you a timeline of the game, like from the beginning at the end and all the modes you've

[00:44:42] unlocked and everything, and you can run your finger across it. And it shows you like the timeline

[00:44:46] of like what's happening at what point during the game session. Right.

[00:44:51] So that particular game of that particular game. Got it. Okay. So the idea would be like, okay,

[00:44:57] well maybe I want to look at Ron's game. He played at that tournament where he scored really high and

[00:45:02] figure out what he did to achieve that goal. There's lots of different uses for this data,

[00:45:08] but I just wanted to visualize it. And I had no ability to get Android working. Like I had iOS working,

[00:45:16] but I could not. And I just loaded up, get up, go pilot. I said, what the heck?

[00:45:24] I've got nothing to lose here. I mean, I might as well just ask it to unblock me. And it,

[00:45:30] it was amazing. It helped me through like, but it was really good. It didn't really write code for

[00:45:36] me, but what it did do was it, it told me enough of what to do to unblock me. That makes sense.

[00:45:47] And when you say told, told you enough of what to do, is it, it's providing an example of code that

[00:45:53] it thinks solves your problem. That becomes sort of kind of like a template or the skeleton of what

[00:46:00] you can then take that code and understanding now kind of how, where, where it's not, I was going

[00:46:07] to say thinking, even though it's AI, it's not thinking, but where, where it's going with that,

[00:46:11] you can then take that example and know versus staring at a blank screen and going, how do I start

[00:46:16] this from square one? Exactly. I see. I think, I think we're in this like Goldilocks period of AI where

[00:46:27] it gets like 20% of it wrong, but, but if you're good at prompting and you're like,

[00:46:36] and you understand that going in, it's kind of like having a coach more than an employee. Right.

[00:46:42] I mean, now there are people who use that analogy. I hadn't heard it put that way. I like that.

[00:46:48] That's, I think that's totally accurate. And my, my daughter studies computer science and she was

[00:46:52] telling me about like how, how for her, and it's probably like that for me too. Like there's a,

[00:47:00] there's a pair programming mentor, mentee kind of thing where you go to the lab

[00:47:07] and it was so novel to her because in this current world, people don't need to go to computer labs

[00:47:12] anymore for anything because they have a laptop and whatever. They all have it. Yeah. But, um, but she

[00:47:18] would go because when she was in a group of people and she had a question, there would be this TA that

[00:47:24] could like walk up to her and, and help unblock her or stare at the problem with her and say,

[00:47:29] I don't know why that's working. Let's think about this together, you know? Um, and the office was like

[00:47:36] that. If you were in a collaborative room with a bunch of other programmers and you're like,

[00:47:39] I'm really struggling with this thing. And you had this sort of collaborative world,

[00:47:42] but then since the pandemic, since we're all working from home, that serendipitous mentor is gone.

[00:47:52] Yeah. So what's interesting about AI, now AI is different for different people, but for me,

[00:47:58] it's the chat bot thing where I'm like, it's back to pirate's adventure. You know, I'm standing on the

[00:48:08] corner of the building and, uh, I want to say the word yo-ho and be teleported something to me typing

[00:48:16] into that chat bot is like pirate's adventure. And I'm not sure what it's going to answer, but it will

[00:48:25] be collaborative in nature and then unblock me. And then sometimes it will give me code snippets that,

[00:48:32] that I look at, but I think the real value for me is that I'm like, I don't really understand what you

[00:48:39] just showed me. So can you explain it? You know, that's huge. And so different people use it different

[00:48:49] ways. Some people use it for code review. Some people use it, um, uh, you know, to actually write

[00:48:57] full functions. Uh, one time I used it to comment a bunch of one of the Ukrainians code.

[00:49:03] Uh, code, uh, commits that like, just because it, it was half completed, it wasn't commented. So I

[00:49:10] needed to like, see what it all meant. Um, that's kind of cool. That's super cool. But I think it,

[00:49:18] unfortunately, I think it is the Goldilocks period because I do think that it's getting better and

[00:49:22] better and better to the point where, um, it kind of just does the work for you. Like there will,

[00:49:29] I think there will come a point when the value you have as a developer becomes almost more of a curator

[00:49:41] and prompting.

[00:49:43] Don't get me wrong.

[00:49:45] Yeah. No, that, that makes a lot of sense. It's, it's the directive from, from the companies and

[00:49:52] the people who are thinking about these tools is to make it better and better at a certain point.

[00:49:58] Does it get so good that yeah, we end up being traffic directors more than we are like the, the model

[00:50:06] that you're talking about right now, it's a very educational model, right? It's an assistant or it's a

[00:50:11] coach and it's a tool to, um, to allow me as the user to broaden my skillset and my understanding

[00:50:20] because of it. But at a certain point, if it gets so, so big and so, uh, knowledgeable,

[00:50:27] if you can use that word that my, my input is less needed, then, then my job becomes knowing when to

[00:50:35] direct that AI in that direction or this direction to do the things. And is that a job I really enjoy?

[00:50:41] Do I want to be the traffic director? Maybe I enjoyed the other thing.

[00:50:46] Yeah. I, you know, that's, that's a, that's a good, that's a good question. I,

[00:50:51] I mean, you could spend an entire podcast on sort of the moral quandary of

[00:50:58] sort of displacement piece. Sure. Sure. And, and I'm,

[00:51:04] I just know what I kind of enjoy when something new comes on the horizon that empowers people.

[00:51:14] Yeah. And so I love the parts of it, which amplifies someone's voice or capability.

[00:51:23] You know, I love technologies that do that. Um, I hate it when they, when they can be used to do the

[00:51:31] opposite. You know, it's like, I love dig. Dig was one of my favorite products I ever worked on

[00:51:38] because it was, it was, um, encouraging conversation. It was pulling people out. It was exposing

[00:51:48] information that otherwise wasn't necessarily curated by an editor somewhere. And that was great. But then

[00:51:56] when dig started to be more of a popularity contest, it just was the same problem all over again.

[00:52:03] Right. And, and, and, you know, what data is getting suppressed as a result of this, this trend. And,

[00:52:11] you know, it's like, everyone talked about how empowering crypto was for, you know, independence

[00:52:18] and, uh, sort of distributed financing. And then of course it it's used to take advantage of people. And,

[00:52:27] and so, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's one of the, probably the, the, the fun byproducts of working in the

[00:52:36] pinball industry is it's very hard for someone to corrupt our technology for evil. Like it's, it's not, I don't

[00:52:48] see it happening. I don't think it's going to happen. Um,

[00:52:55] People just haven't figured it out yet, Jay.

[00:52:57] No, you know, when that happens, move on to the next thing.

[00:53:02] I'm out. I don't know.

[00:53:02] I'm out.

[00:53:04] I don't want the, I don't want the, uh, the burden of that. I,

[00:53:10] I, you know, okay.

[00:53:11] I understand.

[00:53:11] To be fair, every, every technology has its, of course it's an application in,

[00:53:16] in one side of that or the other. Um, my daughter thinks I'm responsible for climate change.

[00:53:25] Because, because Equinix is like the largest data center company, you know,

[00:53:29] like, yeah, but, but I mean, what is it powered?

[00:53:36] What is it created? What is it allowed for that wouldn't have been there? You know, who knows?

[00:53:42] Yeah.

[00:53:44] Yeah.

[00:53:44] Now I live on a farm outside of Ann Arbor, like in nature.

[00:53:49] I don't, I'm, I'm a half hour from Ann Arbor and I live on a dirt road,

[00:53:55] literally next door to my childhood best friend.

[00:54:00] That's kind of, um,

[00:54:01] as far away from that machine as you could possibly imagine.

[00:54:05] And I got to say, you know, um,

[00:54:11] you, you just sort of take these,

[00:54:14] these, these things, they come at you and you just take your swing

[00:54:18] and you get yourself into a position to either,

[00:54:22] you know, take the best advantage of it.

[00:54:24] You can, or as my wife likes to say, we all just do the best job we can

[00:54:28] and then hopefully get to kick back on the farm when we're all done.

[00:54:33] Yeah.

[00:54:33] Yeah. That's, I like that, that outlook. That's solid.

[00:54:38] Even if I don't have a farm, you know,

[00:54:40] we're all just trying to do the best job we can.

[00:54:42] I'm just glad that my,

[00:54:44] my buddy thought I was okay enough after 40 years to,

[00:54:50] to move in next door.

[00:54:52] Next door.

[00:54:54] That sounds delightful, man. Oh, I love that.

[00:54:56] It's great. We made a path between our houses.

[00:54:59] He's got a barn, you know, and he's like teaching me how to use a tractor.

[00:55:04] And, uh,

[00:55:05] Oh, how awesome.

[00:55:07] It's kind of enjoyable.

[00:55:08] Uh, before I let you go,

[00:55:09] do you have a room with a bunch of pinball machines or,

[00:55:12] you know, I, I do have,

[00:55:17] so I just,

[00:55:19] I need to explain when I lived in California.

[00:55:22] So I grew up in Michigan and then I moved to California.

[00:55:25] Um,

[00:55:26] when I graduated from college and when I lived in California,

[00:55:30] I had a garage that was filled with pinball machines,

[00:55:36] both mine and other people's pinball machines that we would like do research

[00:55:39] on and all this. Right.

[00:55:40] Well, when I moved here,

[00:55:42] we hadn't actually seen the house that we bought and it was like one eighth

[00:55:48] the size of the house we moved out of.

[00:55:52] So there are pinball machines in my bedroom,

[00:55:55] in the living room,

[00:55:58] in the laundry room,

[00:56:01] like in the hallway.

[00:56:02] Right.

[00:56:04] And my wife has said,

[00:56:06] Brenda,

[00:56:07] she was,

[00:56:07] she said to me,

[00:56:08] if I don't get them out,

[00:56:10] then I will be out.

[00:56:14] I'm sick of sharing space with these pinball machines in every room.

[00:56:17] So the plan is to have an office space with a bunch of pinball machines in it.

[00:56:24] Love it.

[00:56:24] And I'm supposed to execute on that now.

[00:56:29] ASAP.

[00:56:31] ASAP.

[00:56:31] Build a barn,

[00:56:33] you know,

[00:56:33] build a pinball barn,

[00:56:35] the pin barn,

[00:56:36] whatever you call it.

[00:56:37] That is the thing.

[00:56:39] People build these pole barns here and fill them with pinball machines.

[00:56:41] And it's like a thing in Michigan.

[00:56:43] Love it.

[00:56:44] Isn't that great?

[00:56:45] I think that's,

[00:56:46] I think that's the blueprint for what you need to do.

[00:56:49] My opinion.

[00:56:50] For sure.

[00:56:52] Jay,

[00:56:52] it's been an absolute joy getting the chance to talk to you for an hour,

[00:56:57] to finally meet you after all this time,

[00:56:59] hearing about you through Ron.

[00:57:01] And of course,

[00:57:01] I,

[00:57:01] you know,

[00:57:02] I was a huge fan of revision three and everything you guys were doing back in

[00:57:05] the day,

[00:57:05] worked with a,

[00:57:06] worked with a lot of the folks there when I was at CNET and twit.

[00:57:09] So very familiar with all of your work.

[00:57:12] And yeah,

[00:57:13] you're just a lot of fun to hang out with.

[00:57:14] Thank you so much for coming on today and talking to me about everything that

[00:57:18] you've done.

[00:57:19] Yeah.

[00:57:19] Anytime,

[00:57:20] man.

[00:57:20] And if you ever want me back,

[00:57:22] just,

[00:57:22] just wave.

[00:57:23] I've got,

[00:57:24] I've got nothing but respect for the stuff you're doing here.

[00:57:28] This is,

[00:57:28] this is,

[00:57:29] this is great.

[00:57:30] This is great.

[00:57:31] Really enjoyed it.

[00:57:32] Thank you,

[00:57:32] Jay.

[00:57:33] All the best.

[00:57:34] And we'll talk to you soon.

[00:57:35] All right.

[00:57:35] Huge.

[00:57:36] Thank you to my guest,

[00:57:38] Jay Addison.

[00:57:39] It was just such a pleasure.

[00:57:41] So like,

[00:57:42] I love the shows,

[00:57:44] the episodes that dive deep into the nostalgia quality.

[00:57:47] And my conversation with Jay really brought me there.

[00:57:50] So Jay,

[00:57:51] thank you for your time.

[00:57:53] And thank you at home or wherever you happen to be for watching and listening.

[00:57:57] All things tech sploder can be found at tech sploder.com.

[00:58:01] And you know,

[00:58:02] you can just go there.

[00:58:03] You can subscribe to the podcast.

[00:58:04] So you don't miss a single episode.

[00:58:06] You can also catch it on the YouTube channel.

[00:58:08] That's youtube.com slash at tech sploder.

[00:58:12] Tech sploder patrons get exclusive access to things.

[00:58:15] So if you want to support us on,

[00:58:17] on Patreon,

[00:58:18] you can do that.

[00:58:18] Uh,

[00:58:19] the live pre recordings,

[00:58:20] you get access to that.

[00:58:21] You get some pre show hangouts,

[00:58:23] uh,

[00:58:24] when we're holding those,

[00:58:25] some ad free shows,

[00:58:27] early access to my YouTube videos,

[00:58:29] discord community.

[00:58:30] There's a whole bunch of stuff wrapped up in the Patreon.

[00:58:33] We also offer the chance to be an executive producer of the show.

[00:58:36] Not only do you get that label,

[00:58:38] you also get a tech sploder t-shirt just like this week's executive producers,

[00:58:42] Bill Rutter,

[00:58:43] Jeffrey Maricini,

[00:58:44] John Cuny,

[00:58:45] Taylor Sunderhass,

[00:58:46] and WPVM one of 3.7 in Asheville,

[00:58:50] North Carolina.

[00:58:51] That's patreon.com slash Jason Howell.

[00:58:54] Huge.

[00:58:54] Thank you to my patrons.

[00:58:55] And thanks to our guests,

[00:58:56] Jay Adelson.

[00:58:57] Once again,

[00:58:57] thanks to you for watching and listening.

[00:58:59] I'm Jason Howell.

[00:59:00] I'll see you next time on another episode of the tech sploder podcast.

[00:59:03] Bye everybody.