Learn, Make, Learn

Starbucks’ Struggles & Lessons for Product People

• Ernest Kim & Joachim Groeger • Season 1 • Episode 29

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What can product people learn from Starbucks’ recent struggles, and how are these lessons linked to a venerable British book retailer, an upstart French running brand, and a barmy Japanese watchmaker?

INTRO & FOLLOW-UPS – 02:47
Starbucks closing stores
SPVs, Credit, and AI Datacenters
This is How the AI Bubble Will Pop
Neue Klasse – 60 Years of the BMW 1500
World Premiere of the new BMW iX3
BMW Hofmeister Knick—Behind the Lines

STARBUCKS’ STRUGGLES – 14:08
No Logo at 20
Globalization and Its Discontents
The Walmart Effect
100 Cups of Coffee in a City on Fire

ANTI-HOMOGENEITY FTW – 21:08
Why high street coffee chains may have had their day
Why Are Independent Coffee Shops Succeeding?
Starbucks' Digital Dilemma

LESSONS FOR PRODUCT PEOPLE – 36:00
Seeing Like a State
Metis matters
Lessons learnt from Waterstones’​ turnaround
Personality Disorders and Culture
SATISFY
How Satisfy Got the Cool Kids Into Running
Ernest’s G-SHOCK Frogman
Ibe Kikuo and the Development of the G-Shock
G-SHOCK GA-V01

LESSONS FOR PRODUCT PEOPLE – 57:19
Alien: Earth
Alien: Earth soundtrack
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe

CLOSING – 01:11:08

****

Rant, rave or otherwise via email at LearnMakeLearn@gmail.com or on Threads @LearnMakeLearnShow.

CREDITS
Theme: Vendla / Today Is a Good Day / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
Drum hit: PREL / Musical Element 85 / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com

Ernest:

Hello and welcome to Learn Make Learn where we share qualitative and quantitative perspectives on products to help you make better. My name is Ernest Kim, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host Joachim Gregger. Hey Joachim. How's it going?

Joachim:

Good. I think, I wanna say, I wanted to complain and say I'm tired, I'm trying to stay positive because we have a lot of stuff to talk about. but No, we're good. We're good. It's, um, it's already the autumn. We were just

Ernest:

Right?

Joachim:

the summer and now we're in the autumn.

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

Um, but. Yeah, hopefully, we'll, we'll get the cadence up a bit, but, um, yeah. How is the, uh, the beginning of autumn treating you in Portland?

Ernest:

Oh, pretty well. Um, it was absolutely beautiful today. I actually ran the half marathon in the Portland Marathon this morning,

Joachim:

Whoa, whoa. Oh my goodness.

Ernest:

it, it, it was just absolutely perfect. Uh, it actually, the race actually started before sunrise, and so we were able to see the sunrise as, you know, over the course of the race. And, uh, it was, it was pretty amazing. The weather was absolutely perfect, uh, for a race, so that was great.

Joachim:

Am am I allowed to ask what your time was, or is

Ernest:

Oh,

Joachim:

faux

Ernest:

sure. Yeah. Well, I was, my goal was to finish anything under two hours and I, uh, yeah, so that would, I've never done that. I've only, this is just my third. Half marathon. My first road half marathon was actually this May, I'd never run a, a road half marathon prior to this May, and I did that in like 2 22. I completely blew up. I walked for a bunch of it. Uh, so for this one, my goal was to finish under two, and I finished in 1 58, 31.

Joachim:

Nice.

Ernest:

So with a little margin,

Joachim:

Yeah,

Ernest:

uh, thanks. Uh, uh, uh, I was happy. I had originally actually signed up for the marathon, but I, um, developed this, um, injury in my foot, uh, posterior tibial tendonitis. And, uh, it still hasn't gone away. So I just realized I'm, I'm just, it's gonna be, if I am able to finish a marathon, it would be terrible. So let's actually have fun and switch to the half instead.

Joachim:

I mean, the half is no joke, so it's still a big deal. Well done.

Ernest:

Oh, thanks. But I, that's why I love the half, I think it's a good, it's challenging, but it doesn't wreck you like the marathon wrecks you. So, um, you could still actually have fun. But yeah, so fall has been great.

Joachim:

Wow. What a start putting us all to shame.

Ernest:

No, gosh. Uh, well, you know, you talked about our episode cadence. This is actually episode 29, and, uh, our topic today was actually sparked by current events. As we've, uh, intimated here, we're, recording this in early October of 2025. In the week following the disclosure from Starbucks, CEO, Brian Niccol, that, uh, the company, uh, would be closing about 1% of its retail locations across North America and, uh, would be laying off and actually has now laid off 900 non-retail employees. For context, non-retail employees are people who don't work at Starbucks stores, but instead in corporate roles such as hr, it, product development, et cetera. Now this layoff is on top of the 1,100 non-retail employees that the company sacked in February. So upwards of 2000, uh, corporate jobs cut this year, and 1% of stores which analysts estimate as equating to anywhere between 430 to 520 locations already closed as of this recording. It's clear that Starbucks is struggling and we're gonna share our perspectives on the reasons behind the struggle through the lens of product. We'll then highlight lessons that we think will be applicable to people like you and us who are in the business of making products. But before we dive into that, uh, we just wanted to start by sharing some follow up to previous episodes. Joachim, do you have any follow-ups you'd like to share?

Joachim:

Yeah, we had an off the cuff episode a while back. And I had a title, it was like Off the Cuff and AI Nonsense. So we're talking about AI stuff there. And uh, I stumbled on this pretty interesting article by Paul Kedrosky, which we'll link to in the show notes. Um, and was, the title of the piece is SPVs Credit and AI Data Centers. Um, and it was kind of horrifying. So I was, if you care about companies, results, um, uh, meta announced pretty healthy profits still from its ads business. Of course it is an advertising company. All the other stuff is just for fun. Um, and, you know, hiring people for a hundred million dollars is just for show. The primary business is selling pixels and people's eyeballs. And actually this week they just announced that they would be selling the, information from people's prompts to advertisers for targeting. So, you know, they're just. Kind of the same business model. Still nothing's changed. It's just the, the thing that they're selling, it's still you, but via a different medium. But anyway, the results looked great. I was so confused. I was like, how is this possible? They're investing this insane amount of money in data centers. Uh, and so this piece, um, came across my feeds and, uh, it basically just explained it very straightforwardly. So it's just account trickery. There's no, like, nothing special going on here. They haven't figured anything out. They are raising money, um, using alternative vehicles. And this article basically breaks down what they're using. They're using special purpose vehicles, um, via the private markets. So they're not going in a public way wrecking their balance sheets. They're basically forming special companies that then build the data centers. They are the majority shareholder of those companies. uh, debt issue with providers are a minority owner in that thing. And so all this debt sits with those companies that Facebook controls, but it's not fa, oh, it's not Meta's debt. It is that company's debt of which they happen to be the majority shareholder and so on. So they, these special purpose vehicles are the way that they're keeping huge amounts of debt their books and. These markets and the way this is done is super opaque. They're paying a premium over the interest rate they would normally get as meta, precisely because they're willing to pay that to keep it off their balance sheets. And, um, who knows? That's, that's kind of what this piece is asking is like, what do we know? What, what does this do when there's actually this extra risk that's being put into the system, but it's not gonna get priced in'cause of the account trickery. So, that was just a little follow up to the whole, the craziness of the hype, which has, you know, just gotten more insane as time has passed. It's pretty crazy. I thought we were. Some crazy point before and, and now we're at this very crazy closed loop world of, my goodness, I don't know what's going on anymore. So this was a very sobering piece of writing where you could just say, oh, it's not that difficult. They're just like hiding stuff. Um, and they're using tricks. So it's accounting tricks right now. Who knows what the benefit is gonna be of these things, but, um, I thought that was quite nice to read something sobering like that. So that was my quick follow up to AI nonsense. It continues. That's basically the theme. AI nonsense continues, right?

Ernest:

I think that's a, a really good one. that reminds me, actually, I also heard a great podcast and we'll include a link to this as well. I, I can't remember now, which of the dozens of podcasts I listen to, it was, um, from, but it was on this exact same topic of, um, the chicanery that these companies are using to hide these enormous costs from their balance sheets. And it, it, this episode raised this added risk because they're, um, not only offloading, apparently offloading the risk from their books, but also extending the risk out to other segments of the economy. So, you know, a lot of people might think that, oh, this downside risk is limited to these big tech companies, but actually it's not anymore because of the way this debt is being distributed.

Joachim:

Yes.

Ernest:

It's a, a, an important topic to highlight.

Joachim:

Yeah, that. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly it is the kind of, are we potentially looking at a risk level that's like 2008 where people are

Ernest:

Right,

Joachim:

this stuff and we are all indirectly exposed to it and we don't even realize that's, we're

Ernest:

right, right.

Joachim:

yeah, it's pretty, it's a little bit worrying to put it bluntly. Yeah.

Ernest:

Um, I have one quick bit of, uh, follow up as well. It's to our most recent episode on, uh, Raymond Loewy and the Maya principle, or most advanced yet acceptable. Uh, I just, uh, since we recorded that episode, I thought there was a great example of Maya being brought to life in, uh, BMW and the launch of their latest Neue Klasse, um, in the form of this new model that's coming out next year called the iX3. It's, uh, they're calling it their Neue Klasse once again. Um, and it's their, uh, completely from the ground up. New, class of vehicles built on this completely new electric architecture. It's, it's very exciting. Um, the, the guts of it are all new, including a whole new compute architecture. But I thought it was a great example of Maya in that while offering lots of newness, like it's very huge departures for them in, in many different ways. They've tapped into, um, a, a more acceptable design language. You know, we talked about in the Maya episode, BMW and the launch of their i3 and which were their first electric vehicles, and they were really out there, and you, I think a lot of car geeks like me, loved both of them, but they were huge failures in the marketplace because they weren't, they, they failed to deliver on that Maya, you know, they weren't acceptable, they kind of pushed too far in every way. Uh, so BM BMW clearly has learned their lessons from this. So even though this latest Neue Klasse has, uh, completely new gubbins, um, the shell. Is very approachable. Um, taps into the original Neue Klasse that was launched in the sixties. You know, if you're a car geek, you'd really recognize some of the design cues from those classic, beautiful cars, uh, but modernizes them, in a way that, uh, feels new, but, you know, still feels a little bit familiar. So I thought that was a great example of Maya being brought to life, in a very concrete way by BMW. But, uh, Jo, I was wondering if you had familiarity with the Neue Klasse of

Joachim:

Yeah, it's uh, I think that period of BMWs is kind of, you're into the vintage retro BMW period, that's basically where the. for everything that BMW is today comes from, from that period. kind of interesting that BMW leans on that phrase again because the Neue Klasse in the sixties was there to basically save the company from insolvency

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

were in deep, deep trouble, uh, and were, I think almost taken over by Mercedes or something like that. Like they were, they were done. This reset for them establish them as this sporty luxury brand. But it's also the period that, um, a specific designer is attached to, which is, um, his name is, what's it? Vi

Ernest:

Mm-hmm.

Joachim:

And Hofmeister is famous in the BMW lore because he is the creator of the Hofmeister knick,

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

at the, the last window on the passenger side, which has this little angle to it. We'll send a share image of it because it doesn't make sense otherwise. But it's the basically this little angle that is unique to BMW and they've always had it, it's kind of their reference. If you go through all of the BMW cars, there's a hofmeister nick, um, which is the hoof maister bend. And of course in this NAYA cluster, it's still there last window. It's got that little connect. So it's very nice and they've, you know, they've reduced the size of that kidney and the, the grill and all that stuff. So it feels much more palatable, much more acceptable. But um, yeah, I just found it curious that they would use like the, the way they, I mean it seems like internally they probably were feeling that they were facing an existential crisis about who they are, what are they doing? and I have been seeing a lot more, um, electric BMWs, that, that look like normal three serious sedans, but they're electric, uh, and people like them. I mean, I,

Ernest:

Mm-hmm.

Joachim:

way more than I was a year ago. so those are very much the, the acceptable face of, uh, the modern BMWs. So maybe someone realized that they needed, uh, a reset and, and this was the way to do it, but, um, yeah, it's, it's an interesting. It's an interesting thing to see. a lot of these electric cars, I mean, Hyundai was an example They are leaning on things from the past and they did it way, way earlier than everyone else. retro, very kind of eighties modern tech tron like design

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

Um, and super successful. The Ioniq 5, I mean, that thing is very, very successful electric car. Um, so I'm sure BMW was probably kicking themselves that they didn't lean more into that direction and understanding now that this is what people want. They want with the, the, you know, the obvious technology benefits of an

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

with instantaneous torque and all those things. I don't think the shape of the car needs to reflect it. Once you get in and drive it, you'll know it. So, we'll see what, what comes next from this, this, uh, reset for BMW. It should be quite interesting.

Ernest:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm really excited as well. Alright, well let's, uh, jump back to our main topic for today, which is Starbucks, why they couldn't beat, uh, local coffee shops, and also what lessons this can offer for people in the business of making products. Now I noted at the outset that Starbucks is struggling and they have been for some time now, and this is quite a departure from the heady days of the early aughts when Starbucks was on average opening an astonishing 1500 stores per year, with 2,500 new locations in 2007 alone. This hypergrowth was presaged by Naomi Klein in her enormously influential book, no Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, which was first published in December of 1999. Uh, for those who perhaps aren't aware of the book, I'll share a brief passage from a 2019 piece by Dan Hancox in The Guardian titled No Logo at 20. Hancox Writes, quote, reading no logo back then in my first year at university was hugely formative. The book, mixing eye opening reportage with sharp tongued analysis of consumer capitalism was a Bible for understanding the world my generation was growing up in and the motor behind a new kind of grassroots politics. The battle lines were clear as ordinary citizens around the world stood in opposition to corporate greed, sweatshops, union busting, mc jobs, privatization and environmental destruction, and the avatar for them all the increasingly unavoidable logos of Western super brands, unquote. Joachim. Had you read No Logo? Was it a book that impacted you as well?

Joachim:

It's funny, I think this was a very interesting period in general actually. Like the, the no logo thing, was not a book that I read, but it was very, it was out there. The book that I did read was Joseph Stick, lit's Globalization and His Discontent, was of this period when, in the late nineties where everyone was questioning global free trade, the W-T-O, I-M-F, world Bank, these institutions that were going around and making countries sign up for all kinds of crazy stuff. Financial institutions pushing money in and pushing money out and having World Bank and IMF helping with bailouts, putting crazy conditions on these countries to go through austerity. I mean, it was in the air. And is also the period that we had the big protest in Seattle

Ernest:

Right,

Joachim:

the World Trade Organization meetings where they smashed up Starbucks cafes, you know, that was part of the protest is like you, that they were in the late nineties. Um, Starbucks was a symbol of globalization run amok, and mega brands destroying everything that we thought was nice about the world. I did read her magazine beforehand,

Ernest:

Uh,

Joachim:

that they were publishing before she wrote the book, which was called Adbusters.

Ernest:

yeah.

Joachim:

yeah. And so I remember flicking through that, and that was kind of interesting, very specific angle, but then she started broadening it out with the, the no logo stuff.

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

Had you read it at the time when it came out, or was it something that

Ernest:

I hadn't read it, but as someone who was working in the ad industry, it was definitely a topic of discussion. It's funny how many people in the ad industry read Adbusters. Um, it was, you know,'cause I think we, yeah. Uh, but we, we felt that too. I mean it, you know, obviously we're all people and, um, we see and feel the same currents and she tapped into something that, um, I think a lot of people in the industry also, uh, fears and concerns that were shared.

Joachim:

Yeah.

Ernest:

so yeah, it had a huge impact. Uh, I remember how, how. Influential it was at the time. Um, and as you mentioned, you know, one of the super brands that Klein singled out was Starbucks. Uh, in a section titled Clustering the Starbucks model. Klein wrote, and I'm quoting, uh, the book here, Starbucks' combination of the big box and clustering approaches to retailing is having a transformative effect on the retail landscape. Though they represent very different retail trends, the combined effect of the Walmart and Starbucks models has been to gradually erode the market share of small business in what was once one of the few fields remaining, where independent operators stood a solid chance of competing head to head with multinationals. Whether they're using their clout to drive prices down to impossibly low levels, to keep them artificially high or simply to seize near monopolistic market shares, the net effect is the same: a retail arena in which size is a prerequisite, and small companies can barely maintain a toehold unquote. And this was certainly true of Starbucks for a time, uh, and remains true of Walmart. You know, in the case of the latter, there's even a name for the phenomenon, the Walmart effect. Uh, and we'll include a link to an excellent, uh, piece published last year in the Atlantic that documents this effect. Just set a quick snippet, uh, from that piece. Quote, new research suggests that Walmart makes the communities it operates in poorer, even taking into account its famous low prices. The theory is complex and goes like this. When Walmart comes to town, it uses its low prices to undercut competitors and become the dominant player in a given area, forcing local mom and pop grocers and regional chains to slash their costs or go outta business altogether. As a result, the local farmers, bakers, and manufacturers that once sold their goods to those now vanished retailers are gradually replaced by Walmart's array of national and international suppliers. As a result, Wiltshire finds, uh, and this is a reference to economist Justin Wiltshire, and on, uh, an author of one of the studies cited in the piece, five years after Walmart enters a given county, total employment falls by about 3% with most of the decline concentrated in goods producing establishments, unquote. So there's strong evidence that this, uh, Walmart effect is real and durable. But why hasn't that been true of Starbucks as Klein and many others, myself included, believed very strongly would be the case? And here I'll quote Jacob Grier, a Portland based journalist who wrote a piece on this topic just a couple of weeks ago for Slate. Quoting that piece, it's funny to look back now on the early two thousands fear that Starbucks would use its deep pockets and market dominance to wipe out in the coffee shops. Naomi Klein's influential book, no logo compared Starbucks to Walmart and warned that w it would have a similarly destructive impact on smaller competition. But today, Starbucks is struggling to course correct from a tilt towards serving glorified milkshakes and to go orders placed via mobile app, attempting to lure customers back inside with comfortable seating and ceramic mugs. Groundbreaking ideas for the 1990s as he writes. Um, as for the indie shops, they're simply operating on another level. It has never been easier to find places making good to great coffee all over the world, unquote. So why hasn't Starbucks done to local coffee shops, what Walmart has done to local retailers? And are there lessons in this for people in the business of making products? Joachim, what do you think, you know, why hasn't there been this lasting Starbucks effects, that parallels the really pernicious Walmart effect?

Joachim:

Yeah, it's one of those, impossible questions to answer. Not a cop out. I was just gonna ex I was just gonna explain because of course, have no way of understanding what could have emerged in the absence of Starbucks. What other incredible businesses could have emerged from this? Heterogeneous mix of shops doing all kinds of things, who knows what other things could have been possible. And now, to a certain extent, with the decline of Starbucks, we're seeing a little bit more what's possible, especially with the indie coffee shops. Indie coffee shops aren't just coffee shops, right? I think Starbucks laid the groundwork for sure in the way they were pricing coffee. That was a big deal. And so they were making pretty expensive cups of coffee. Everyone knew that they could have a coffee for a fraction of that price at home. So they created that margin and that big buffer. Um, and as Jeff Bezos liked to say, but in a different, with a different kind of conclusion, he says, your margin is my opportunity.

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

Um, uh, in Bezos's case, as we know, that meant just I could undercut you

Ernest:

Mm-hmm.

Joachim:

if you have that fat margin, I can eat into it and I can start undercut you. the indie coffee shops probably realize actually that margin is that's gonna help us because we can use that extra buffer to do a little bit more and elevate what's going on. So I think that allowed them to first buy better beans, focus on different types of roasts, experiments a bit more, start roasting themselves, start forming these relationships themselves and educating. The customers to not want the same coffee all the time. I think that was also part of the deal that you would be used to. And this hap, I mean, and we're also a little bit in our bubble of coffee, but, um, in the Pacific Northwest up here.

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

is, you know, every coffee shop will rotate through different roasters. They'll rotate through different regions. Um, and of course there's huge variety in the, the flavor profiles. Uh, like this is, I'm, I'm gonna have to listen back to myself discussing coffee and edit this. I, enjoying this moment, but I also hate what I sound like right now. But it's true. They're so different. You know, Colombian coffee and Kenyan coffee, Ethiopia coffee, these are radically different beans and they have such different flavor profiles. I think that margin that Starbucks created, um, allowed mix of coffee companies to emerge and it's really changed the way the coffee industry operates. I mean, as a result of, the indie coffee scene, I think the role of the coffee futures is far less important now. Coffee

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

are being fully commoditizing beans, and then creating these futures markets where you can insure against, uh, hedge against price risk, right? So you're gonna try and lock in contracts today and try and price things appropriately because you want no uncertainty in the system. You just want to get these beans, get'em roasted, and then get them to the coffee shops as quickly as possible. for specialty coffee makers, that's not part of the

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

They're like, whatever the farmer has, that's what will we do. And they, and we will roast it with care and it will taste great. So. The customers of indie coffee shops are used to variability, variety, and are okay with that, you know, and they're okay with some beans only being available for a short period of time and not there being a full harvest. To just draw a small tangent to another point, natural wine has also gone to that has, you know, wine with its traject movement towards natural wine has also embraced this idea that certainty and homogeneity is not good all the time.

Ernest:

All right.

Joachim:

it's great, but we want that variety. And so things fluctuating and moving around with the seasons. People enjoy these things in these very, um, essential experiences like taste and flavor. So I think kind of, these are the characteristics of an industry that does not lend itself to commodification commoditization. Starbucks's business model, which is exactly like the Walmart business model is homogeneity. Commodification of everything and trying to micromanage and turn everything into like an optimization problem for the coffee shop. We will build a machine. It's fully automated, it's gonna knock off two minutes from the pro uh, production time of a coffee, and that way we'll be able to drive volume and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, like factory work is like making widgets. But the initial appeal of Starbucks was idea of the third place and all of

Ernest:

Mm-hmm.

Joachim:

know, they were doing it in this dinky way, but for a lot of towns, that was the first version of that. And so it was a, experience for them. So I think, you know, they educated people, they created the margin Starbucks. fundamentally, this is a product that does not lend itself to commodification. It

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

that is very inherent to the local community and what the people want. And most coffee shops are trying to match that. Walmart is a, what are they selling, like packaged goods. Like by definition those are packaged and they're homogeneous I need to like eke out every efficiency in the supply chain as as much as possible, you know I mean, people build trucks, especially for Walmart, they can dictate the fuel efficiency requirements for trucks because they're such big customers and they control this market and you know, to an incredible extent. um, it's difficult to compete against the Walmart because they have this machinery and that machinery is what gives them margin and allows them to compress way, way down, way lower than anyone else. They have these economies of scale for this consumer packaged good. And so I think that's part of the, the variance between Walmart and Starbucks. tried to mimic that and it worked to a certain extent. then, know, you become, you are trying to sell this warm feeling

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

a vibe of a third place. And people will then realize after a while when there are 20 of them within a square mile, is no vibe. This is all manufactured and we are very sensitive to that, I think as human beings about the energy of, of a place. And I think being anti Starbucks became an identity. And then these independent coffee shops were there.

Ernest:

Mm-hmm.

Joachim:

And this was your way of actually. Participating through your consumption in some sort of activism, the laziest form of activism that there is. But nevertheless, it did shift a lot of things inside of the coffee culture. So these are the kind of the ingredients that I was looking at, you know, when we started talking about this episode and I was like, ah, this may be easy, but then you did the Walmart comparison. That got me really thinking, and I was like, what is it that these things should translate? But I think that's exactly one of the lessons there. It's like, is this one of those spaces where I just need to shift a widget from one place to another place? And once I've done that, it's the same freaking thing and it doesn't matter. Like there's no vibe. It's a box store, right?. But what about you, Annis? Have you, do you have another angle on this? Uh, the Walmart effect and, and the Starbucks effect.

Ernest:

Well, uh, for me it's a facet of what you've already talked about in terms of the, um, the desire to move away from these homogenous environments. Um, I came across, uh, an article from, um, a publication called The Week. Uh, and it was actually an article they published just last month that was titled Why High Street Coffee Chains May Have Had Their Day. And this was, uh, you know, as the title suggest is based out of the uk and because they were talking about Costa Coffee, which is a big chain there, which is also struggling. Um, and they quote, uh, Sahar Hashmi, who, uh, as the article notes co-founded one of Britain's first modern coffee shop chains called Coffee Republic. And in the article, Hashmi says, uh, quote, the real energy in the market is coming from the independence. And specialty roasters. There are people queuing on the street for a blank street coffee because the indie style chains are offering a lifestyle experience, unquote. Now, for Context, blank Street is a coffee house chain that actually started in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2020, but now operates, uh, almost a hundred, uh, locations across the US and uk. And, uh, this notion of offering a lifestyle experience, it sort of, kind of gives me the hives. Um, but it, it is something that came up again, again and again in my research into it as to the why. Behind the success of local, independent coffee shops versus the behemoths of Starbucks and Costa and et cetera. Um, and interestingly, this isn't a new discovery, right? Uh, there was a piece I came across in a trade journal called Modern Restaurant Management. Exciting, uh, publication. But they, uh, highlighted this, uh, opportunity as far back as 2018. Uh, the, in this article I'm gonna quote from, they said that the coffee shop industry is booming, not just because of the well-known coffee chains you see on your way to work every day. Experts state the coffee consumers are moving towards artisan products and a premium coffee experience, which are typically offered by indie shops. Offering more personal service, bespoke decor, and unique atmosphere. Could be reasons that the independent coffee shop is driving over more recognizable stores that offer similar menus and a replicated layout and level of service, unquote. Now, another word for replicated could be cookie cutter or homogenous, right? Um, so just to the point that you're making and that that same article makes another observation that I thought was pretty interesting, it notes that, again, quoting that piece, it can be argued that making significant changes to services and products for customers in thousands of stores on an international scale is far more time consuming and difficult than doing the same as a single outlet. As a result, this could also be helping drive traffic to independent shops, unquote. So, you know, again, building on the point that you've made, which is that that scale and economy of scale that's so fundamental to the game plan of these super brands has actually emerged as a weakness for Starbucks in the coffee space and a strength of the independence. Right. So, um, you know, I really just facets of the same points that you've, you've made already this, um, uh, move to a more, uh, unique experience and this anti homogeneity that, um, is, is, you know, what defines these big chains because that's just kind of fundamentally how they operate, right? That's the way that they can achieve the profits and scale that they're able to achieve.

Joachim:

Yes. It's interesting because we are highlighting that, I think this is something that been on my mind more and more is that the structure or the DNA of the business, which in this case was make coffee at high scale, super cheap, take over the world there, it almost within, that contains the seeds of its destruction that it

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

it is operating in this highly homogenized environment on a product that really isn't homogenize because it is a little bit of a, yeah, sorry. It's a lifestyle thing. Um, and I think another aspect that's very interesting is, um, and I shared this with you, is the trunk fans analysis of Starbucks's payment system. payment system, was. Very smart because it was able to cash in hand and you basically were using Starbucks like your bank, right? You're depositing money onto your Starbucks account, and then you use that to pay for stuff in store. And already creating this new parallel digital ledger ba that you ledge ledger balance that you carry around. The article that we, I share with you tr uh, about Trong fan, we will put in the show notes, explains how some of those unused funds can be then booked as revenue after a certain period of time has elapsed. And it's a sizable amount of money that is just pure profit. It just comes in because people put money on their thing and they don't use it straight away. Then, um, the efficiency of that and the fact that everyone then started using that app to pay for things meant that the business leaders were like, oh, this is great. Everyone's using the app. This is like a bureaucrat and dictatorship's dream is to have all of these stream of data and say, oh, if they do everything through the app, we all know the customized drinks. know how they're doing their payments. When we know what their drinks they want, we'll know what to order ahead of time. Everyone started ordering on the app. Everything got litigated through that app, and then the shop was just a place where you picked it up. And so what happened is that, and, and I think everyone has noticed, if you've been to a Starbucks, maybe I went, went to one last year. I will be going soon because it is pumpkin spice latte season. So I will be going, but the thing that you notice is you walk in, uh, and it takes forever to get your order.

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

Even though there's no line, no physical line, and you see the digital orders line, epic. freaking epic. So in that drive for crazy efficiency, they have super commoditized this, they've turned this into a in and out type of situation and they have all of this square footage for absolutely nothing to just have a counter there. And so then the question becomes is do we just wanna have a counter? Do we not have anything else? Is that what the brand is? What are we doing? You know, again, the, the seeds of what was gonna come was very clear, like you turned it into this hyper digital experience. Then yes, the store is irrelevant and you are now defining your strategy based on these data streams. That are discrete signals on what's happening. And of course you're gonna miss the forest for the trees because you're just looking at these specific streams. You're missing the fact that here's a missing data point you won't see. You won't see every customer walk in, get ready to order something and just get pissed off that they're not getting their order. You won't see it, you won't see the people walking in, walking out, not understand, you know, like, why am I not getting served? Why is this taking so long? All of that frustration And so of

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

I think they would miss this. And then they're surprised when everything eventually starts coming down. Like, wait, where does, where did the money go?

Ernest:

Well, I think that is a really good segue into our kind of next phase of this conversation, which is what all this could mean for people in the business of making products. So, uh, I mean, you kind of started on this already, but Jo I was just curious, do you have any thoughts on. How the success of independent coffee shops versus Starbucks could translate to product creation or product strategy in other domains.

Joachim:

Yeah. So I'm gonna start by discussing the work of James C. Scott, who is a political scientist and anthropologist, and who wrote a book called Seeing Like a State. Trust me, we're gonna get to the point. But, um, James C. Scott wrote this incredible book how institutions, um, have this beautiful intention to achieve a utopia by creating order and rationality inside of anything city planning, agriculture. Um, you know, all of these things have to be in the view of the technocrat made legible. They have to be turned into something legible. Um, I. So, for example, James c. Scott's book, Seeing Like a State, starts off with an example about scientific forestry and specifically about Prussian forests. And I, you know, I, I use this example so much, God knows if there's an episode of one of ours where I've mentioned it before, but, basically the Prussians in the incredible drive flow efficiency, were trying to extract and eke out more from forestry to get more timber. And so what they did is they, you know. Chop down all the forests that were already in existence and they started planting trees in straight lines. Um, with enough space between the rows so that they could get a horse and cart through there, chop the wood immediately loaded onto the cart and then just drive it through the place, and Bobs your uncle. It is gonna be chopping down trees like it's no effort at all. Whereas before the forests were uneven and there were all kinds of plants and you know, it was a very diverse, um, biome. So first couple of years that they do this, it is incredibly successful, hugely successful. The yields are off the charts. Everyone's happy, rational farming has succeeded. then the forest started failing'cause they had eliminated all of the biodiversity that was actually creating nutrients in the ground and protecting the forest and the trees from, um, insect life and stuff that was destroying it. So. Everything was gone. There was nothing left. And they had completely missed the fact that there was so much complexity the ecosystem and they were living off that for those few periods where they were able to just extract everything. And that little rational approach was going really well, they were literally planting on top of the rich, rich nutrients, soil that had been building there and growing there for generations. And I feel like that is kind of in a nutshell, a lot of what is wrong with a Starbucks approach to this stuff, because these are complex problems. And I think you alluded to it, uh, in previously you said, you know, having that, the scale is everything, right? But it's homogenized scale. So how do you come up with a non homogenous heterogeneous scale? That's the question, right? So part Prussian forestries, people are trying to get everything legible, straight lines. If system is legible, this machine, you push a button, it's gonna make a latte in one go. That's it. We will see it. We will know how many beans, how many cups. We'll understand. We're gonna turn these people into machines, to baristas machines. We're gonna track everything in the digital app. We're gonna know what people are doing. It's like all of this stuff turn everything legible. But in the process, missing the complexity of the interactions and the human moments inside of the space, which are not legible, not measurable, incredibly difficult to do. And so what, so this sounds all very negative. I'm sorry. I'm just saying it's complicated, it's complex. It's an ecosystem that doesn't lend itself easily to legibility and taking this hyper-rational approach is not gonna work. in some sense you need to lean on something else. And James C. Scott also mentioned this in the book, and uh, um, he refers to this other kind of knowledge is not. Taken from a textbook or something that can be compressed into a set of lessons in a textbook. So James, Scott refers to this special kind of knowledge, metis: M-E-T-I-S. It's not techne, which is the kind of academic knowledge. Metis is a knowledge that is, uh, created by the people who are actually engaged in the activity itself. So it is knowledge that you can, you learn you accumulate by doing the task and living inside of the complexity of that task. Metis is that thing that is really, really hard to quantify. Your people metis. And I think you notice that like if you go to a Starbucks, that's nice. There are people that they, they're engaged in the, the work and they engage with the community. They know people and they're kind of actually in some sense, in a very subversive way, breaking free of the constraints that Starbucks would like to put on them.

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

They're having a chat that's taking their time, they're talking to the person. All these things at an independent coffee shop builds everything on top of that. So metis is the thing. People who are in that locality will understand it, and I don't think there's a way to, and especially in the coffee shop world, have this ho homogeneous, commodified thing. You need to let the local knowledge speak up

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

and you need to allow those people who know what's going on in that locality decide a lot more about what should happen in that coffee shop. No. So giving the local shops that autonomy to also shape that store the way they want it to be will kind of give you a little bit of that independent ma magic. And I think there is a lot of magic in everyone's knowledge percolating through the system. So, like another thing to realize is if you are running a business and the only way you run your business is one way, you will not know where you're going wrong. No one in the Starbucks head office can say, oh, those Starbucks places in Idaho are running differently and they're weathering quite a serious storm. It's because we've allowed them to figure something else out, right? So I'm not saying that everyone doing their own thing will lead to success, but it will give you the heterogeneity and the diversity of ideas that you can then learn to refine and say, okay, that's the thing that works for now. Okay? But if everyone continues to be in that explore mode, the head office, this corporate structure can be there picking up all of these signals and saying, oh, we see it now, it's there. This is a pattern. We can pass this to the other places, or not. Maybe it only works in these regions, maybe it only works there. But the idea that there's only one way of doing Starbucks: that's what kills you.

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

monoculture. There's no biodiversity and there's no metis in that. But there's a perfect example of this right now that's happening, started in the UK and is now spreading back into the us. Um, Waterstones was a very large book chain that for a period was incredibly dominant. then they started facing trouble. They had a ton, very similar to, uh, the typical commodification scale model. I just need to get the books into the shop, you know, I just need to get the top sellers books. That's it. Just give everyone Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, you know, like just keep feeding that stuff. That stuff sells. And every bookshop was the same. So all you could hope for is that you know when your bookshops are far away enough, they become like just the local monopolists and then no one will ever cross over. But there's also no reason to ever be if you go to another part of town, look in the bookshop

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

it's just gonna be the same crap. So, um, private equity outfit bought them out, bought out Waterstones, and they brought in a new CEO who was the founder of Daunt Books, which is a small Notting Hill bookshop. And he had a few other shops. And so he started changing the Waterstones model and he basically said every shop should be allowed to pick its own stock, and decide what the local community would like to have. They can also change the interior, the decorations, things that go in the window, like literally de-homogenizing the whole thing. It shouldn't be that you go into every waterstone shop and you know what you're getting. The Starbucks model was I go into every Starbucks and it's the same freaking coffee and that's what we're gonna give you. It's exactly what you want, and it's never gonna be anything different. The variety is missing. So Waterstones has been able to weather many storms, including the onslaught from Amazon

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

they have these local shops that are all different and can, and can respond flexibly to the incoming signals that they just see by interacting with customers and finding out what's going on. They've also come back to America and he is now involved in the Barnes and Noble,

Ernest:

Mm. Right.

Joachim:

reset. And part of that reset is what he is telling him is like trying to build the muscle for the local shops to figure out what works there. And so there's something in that, right? There's something in that. I'm not, we don't know how successful this is gonna be, but there's definitely something to be said about shouldn't we be letting places figure stuff out themselves and then we gather the full set of the possibilities.

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

Starbucks only only knows one thing and that's why their business plan looks the same. So anyway, that was a very long excursion, but I do think there's something to be said for a decentralized, um, collective intelligence approach to the problem. And also giving those, give your people the power to do these things. If you do that, I guarantee you lot of people will happily work and invest in that company if they feel pride in this is their store and we're doing things differently and other people can learn from us if we figure something out. I mean, there's something to be said that each coffee shop becomes its own lab. So, yeah. That's kind of my big, big, big take to, to all of this.

Ernest:

I, I think it's interesting you mentioned Waterstones'cause um, uh, the book space is another product category where independent bookstores have been on the rise for over a decade now. I think there's a pretty good data on this and I thought that was a pretty interesting example. Example, because you could say that at a fundamental level, books are commodities'cause they're selling the same books that you can get on Amazon. Right. But it's purely that experience, partly the assortment. Right. You know, as an independent bookstore, you're gonna bring in books that you think are relevant to your community. But I think it's kind of, to your point, so much of it is that. Meet us. That experience of someone comes in and says, Hey, I've read this, what else might I like? And that wisdom that is in that person, you know, that staffer there, um, that gives you that next great book that you're gonna read and you wouldn't have discovered if it weren't for that you uniquely human experience and that uniquely human wisdom that's in that staffer that you interacted with. So, um, I think it, I mean it gives me, um, a lot of optimism, right? To, to say that, okay, yes, this Walmart effect is very real and it's impacted lots of kind of traditional retailers, but there are categories where. That effect doesn't apply, that, you know, this anti homogeneity is a kind of superpower, uh, that you can tap into. I think toy stores are another category where, you know, the toys are us effectively has gone outta business. The brand still exist, but as a shell of its former self and independent toy stores are, you know, on the rise. So I think there's lots of examples of it. Uh, the, the piece of this that I wanted to highlight is very similar to your point in that fundamentally it's rooted in the complexities of humanity. But, um, the angle on it is for me, in terms of product creation. I think from what I've seen, the most important thing you could do if you're a person that's kind of working in this area of creating products is to have a point of view, to have a, an individual human distinct point of view. And then. To create products that are, uh, an outgrowth of that. But that point of view is what comes first. You know, I think it's just not enough for your product today to simply be the sum of its features, right? Like the bullet points that are gonna be on your product description page.

Joachim:

Yeah.

Ernest:

Um, it has to be an expression of, or an enabler of a culture. Um, I think that might lead to a question of right then what is, what is culture, right? My. Favorite, the favorite definition I've come across that's, I think really nice and concise comes from a book titled, um, funnily enough, personality Disorders and Culture. Uh, I'll provide a link to it, but, um, the authors submit that, uh, I'm quoting them here. Culture is a set of meanings, behavioral norms and values used by members of a particular society as they construct their unique view of the world, unquote. I think that's a great definition of culture, particularly in the context of what we're talking about here and creating products, uh, that are the product of a culture. Um, I think another way of thinking about this is instead of approaching product creation through a traditional product marketing or product management lens, where our product, uh, our primary deliverable is a set of product requirements captured in a very dull, dry brief that no one wants to read. Um, I think there's a need today for people like us to think and operate more like. A novelist or a filmmaker, you know, we need to articulate a vision of a world that we want to occupy, you know, a world as we want it to be. And then offer a vision for a product that makes that world real for our, our customers, right? That, that, you know, allows them to kind of, um, touch that world in a concrete way. Um, and you know, I know this might sound very grandiose, uh, but I think it is a key factor in the success of Indie Coffee shops, of indie bookstores, and of some of the most popular product brands today. And one example that comes to mind in the running space, um, for someone you know, who thinks a lot about running, is a French brand called Satisfy. Have you ever heard of satisfy?

Joachim:

No, I have

Ernest:

Yeah, there's, there's still, you know, not, uh, mainstream, but, um, so, you know, for anyone who isn't familiar with the brand outside of piece from Esquire that was published last year, so quoting this article, satisfy arrived in 2015. It was a running brand with a, a difference influenced just as much by founder Bryce Partic love of music and fashion as it was performance and ability and, uh, peritus French. And so the brand is based out of France. When Satisfied launched its uniqueness was something that made it stand out amidst the athletic core that had dominated the running sphere. Nike was the largest supplier in manufacturer of athletic shoes and apparel at the time, with a 22.9% market share. While many traditional sports brands marketed running as an act of self-discipline and competitiveness, satisfy challenge that, uh, and this is quoting, uh, partier, it was obvious that the problem wasn't, that there was no running culture. But the running culture had to be rebranded. S partish of the time. If you wanna inspire people to run, you need to connect with them through content, through products, through storytelling. And no one was doing that. Now, now speaking to the impact they've had, um, they've doubled their revenue year on year to about 12 million euros in their most recent fiscal year. And they are confident that they're gonna be able to multiply revenue tenfold within five years. They've just shown massive growth. And, um, I'll include a link to satisfies website as well as, uh, that Esquire piece in our show notes. And, um, if you follow running it all, I think you'll, you'll have seen how directly the bigger brands have, um, let's say borrowed from the design language established by Satisfy. Uh, but what they haven't managed to mimic is satisfies culture. And again, um, you know, we've kind of touched on this because expressing an authentic distinct, and. A distinctly human point of view is just antithetical to the nature of the global mega brands because they crave the scale that's enabled and you know, is necessarily odine, right? Because if you want to create the same experience across a thousand stores around the world, it's got, it's not gonna be distinct, right? Just as you've, you've said, right, you're gonna get this, um, monocultural sort of experience and satisfy is the antithesis of that. And you'll see that in their products. And runners have felt that, and, you know, they've really been drawn to it. Um, another example I'll say just briefly is Cascio's GShock brand. And I, I'm fairly certain we've discussed our mutual admiration for GShock, um, in the past. In fact, I actually recently purchased a model from their Frogman line. Uh, I dunno if you could see this here, Jo.

Joachim:

Ooh, I'm sorry. I got excited. It looks great.

Ernest:

Uh, I, I love it and I, I hope to own it for the rest of my days. Um, now GShock is part of Casio, which is a long established multinational brand, uh, company, and yet as, as many a Waner will happily tell you, GShock is the brainchild of an individual and engineer named, uh, Kiku eBay, who came up with the concept of this impossibly tough watch way back in 1981, and remains active in product planning for GShock and is still very much a kind of the face of the brand. And I think you could feel that, you know, it feels like it's something that comes from a person or set of crazy people, right? Um. And, and I looked up Cassie's annual report for their most recent fiscal year, and they highlighted GShock as a bright spot, even in the face of, you know, really powerful economic headwinds that they and everyone in the industry, um, is facing. And you know, actually it was really interesting'cause one model in particular that was side cited in their most recent, uh, annual report, um, as being a particularly strong performer, was their GA-V01 collection. All their model lines are completely, uh, in inscrutable, but it's better known within the watch community as alien eyes. And, uh, I, you can't describe it. So I'll include a link to the Alien Eyes product page, um, uh, at, yeah, at the G Shock website. Jo just held it up and you'll see that it's the absolute antithesis of a mainstream generic product. Uh, and then if you were to go to their Frogman page, you'd see that that collection, there's absolutely no resemblance to alien eyes. Because it, it remains, you know, it does remain true to that impossibly tough G-SHOCK ethos, both alien eyes and Frogman—everything G-SHOCK does, remains true to that. But all of their collections do that in ways that are true to the distinct cultures that, uh, G-SHOCK has managed to cultivate around these different collections. Um, so I thought that that was just a great example of delivering on this idea through product.

Joachim:

Hmm.

Ernest:

know, we've talked about different ways of delivering on it through experience, but I think SATISFY and, uh, G-SHOCK show that you can do it through product as well. And, uh, I think G-SHOCK in particular is, um, one of the, perhaps the best example I can think of, at least, of a brand that's kind of world building around their product lines in a really, really effective way, and has consistently managed to do that.

Joachim:

I think it's something also about, uh, the story of how the design of the G Shot came about. I mean, are pictures of the original prototype and it, I think it's, he just took a Cassio Quartz digital Watch movement with its screen and just duct tape stuff around it, and then start throwing out a window and then testing if it could survive the fall. And like, what would it take to do that? You know? And there's something about that that makes people feel that it's very relatable,

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

and it, and the, the technology and it is. It's not magic, so yeah, I think that's a great example to highlight. Yeah, it's so tangible

Ernest:

Uh, that's great. I, I, this has been a great conversation that I think we could probably go on for hours

Joachim:

as

Ernest:

about it. But, uh, now that you've heard our perspective, we wanna hear from you. Please share your thoughts, questions or corrections, uh, with us at Learn Make learn@gmail.com or on threads at Learn, make, learn show, all one word. Alright, now let's move on to our recommendations of the week. Do you have any recommendations you'd like to share?

Joachim:

Normally I just launch into the recommendation and then we have a conversation. And I, for the first time in a long time, I mentioned the recommendation before we started recording to Earnest, and then it is one of the few times we didn't agree on this TV show. I was like, we have such a good hit rate. We, we generally agree and your recommendations when I take it, when I watch something like this is so good. I'm so happy I took it. Anyway, we both watched this, but somehow came away with very different responses. But, um, uh, we've been enjoying Alien Earth. Um, and it's finished now. So if you wanna save money, this is the perfect time. Take out a Hulu subscription, immediately cancel it just binge it. It's only eight episodes. Um, yeah, we were, we were part of the, the weekly cadence watching crew. So I think that also creates the anticipation and is very different than I think watching it in one go.

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

um. Alien Earth is, well, it's a TV show that's built around the alien franchise, excluding the weird Alien versus Predator franchises. Uh, which is a crazy time, huh? People could do all that stuff, full on mashup. But, uh, this is like, inside the lineage, I would say, between a, the Alien movie and aliens are kind of still Canon in this Alien. Three is a little bit Mm, a little bit far away from where we are now, but, The concept is pretty straightforward. Uh, we are witness to a spaceship that's been traveling in deep space, crashing onto Earth. Earth has been divided up by a few corporations, five of them, I think, right? Is

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

and

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

so we know the Wayland d Tiny corporation already as the corporation that's always hovering around in the background with these aliens always out to try and use it for the weapons division and et cetera. Polarizer character being the perfect example of that in the Aliens movie, where he is willing to kill everyone to just get these aliens. So, now the whale and Euan ship crashes, um, in the prodigy part of the world, which is another company run by a genius child or gen, young genius man. Um. And so now they have access to all of these aliens. Um, one of the aliens is, uh, of course the xenomorph, famous Xenomorph, and then a host of other strange aliens that are, you know, this. So I, I enjoyed the show. It, it has, um, a lot of interesting elements. The first couple of episodes feel like traditional alien ish, you know, a little bit of the body shock and weirdness of the aliens and the creepiness and creepy dark spaceships and walking around, which is pretty smart to start off with that. And then the story shifts to a very different place where the aliens are actually all in a lab. I'm not giving anything away really.

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

like they're just in a lab. And I found what was very compelling is that the true horror is not really those creatures.

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

actually the human beings that are running all of these experiments and playing around with all kinds of things that they really shouldn't be playing around with. So, um, the beginning of the, um, show we learn about Child who's about 12, who is gonna be part of an experiment. She's terminally ill and they're going to transfer her consciousness into a synthetic body. So she is going to be human mind machine, robot body. Um, and so she becomes our pro protagonist, our guide through this world. um, the first of a kind and then five other children, sick of other children join her. So we have these little children minds locked in, robot bodies that look like adults, um, which I think was pretty clever because. One of the things that, uh, happens in a lot of dumb horror movies is adults make lots of very, very bad choices about where they should stick their heads and stick their fingers. And in this case, it's fine. They're children, they don't know what they're doing, they just happen to be an adult boy. So you can get away with a lot of stupidity. It's kind of a clever way of being, but then it opens up all kinds of other questions I thought were really interesting. And, um, there's a lot of things where you think the tv the show is gonna go one way and it just goes into a very different direction. Um, so I enjoyed it. My wife, who is a big fan of the Alien movie, which is one of the few

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

movies she's ever, I mean, is a horror movie.

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

that she's watched, um, was initially not interested in watching it. We actually started. I was already about four episodes in and I just said, I want to finish this fourth episode. Uh, and she just was reading and, you know, looking up and Wow, what's this all about? And then she got so engaged, she said, I have to go back to the beginning. I'm gonna watch all these episodes and I'm gonna catch up. And then she was fully immersed in the show. So, um, it was very good. And also, I have to say, great performance, um, from Sidney Chandler, who is Kyle Chandler's

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

Nepo baby. But she

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

really great job being this child on her way to adulthood and seeing the cruelty of the adult world, um, and the manipulations and games that people play to accomplish whatever they wanna do. And also Timothy Olefin as a synthetic. just great. I just loved, I think that's something, I think it's the acting that really did it for me. I really enjoyed those characters. And then some dumb moments, obviously,'cause it's kind of a dumb film, dumb TV show in some ways. But, and this really could have been a train wreck, this show I think as well. It's like I have, I'm a big fan of the, the, the world of Alien and I've watched all of the other ones and Prometheus and Covenant. My god, these are terrible. But I still, I still have a, a warm place for them. So I had low expectations. I mean, I watched The Alien versus Predator ones. I mean, come

Ernest:

Yeah, I know. I've seen, well, hey, Adrian. Brody's in it, right? It's

Joachim:

oh,

Ernest:

Oscar winning actor.

Joachim:

Oh my God. Is he in one of those? Oh no, he's in predators, isn't he? Isn't that the one

Ernest:

Uh,

Joachim:

he's.

Ernest:

I thought he was in one of the crossover ones.

Joachim:

He might have been as well, poor man if he is. But I don't know. I would watch, uh, the Alien versus Predator crossover with Adrian Brody over the brutalist, controversial opinion. I don't care. Um, but yeah, I would recommend, I recommend now it's easy'cause you can watch all

Ernest:

Right? Right.

Joachim:

I have to also say, I think what did it for me was, I think at the end of the second episode, there's always like, at the end of each episode is this either late nineties, early two thousands metal that usually plays as like the, the outro

Ernest:

Mm-hmm.

Joachim:

Uh, and I think in the second episode, uh, tool song plays, that

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

one of my favorite songs when I was growing up as a teenage. And it was the first time I've ever seen tool music featured in popular culture. I don't

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

they would give out their music for, I don't think they've done it ever in the past. Their stuff never is on soundtracks. So I was like, oh, that's interesting that they were willing to put their thing on there. And it was, you know, done very tastefully. So I was quite impressed.

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

yeah. But you had moments with it. You, you, you got quite far though, Ernest and then said, I'm done.

Ernest:

Yeah. Yeah, I liked it. Uh, I disliked it so much that I canceled my Hulu account, but, uh, I, although that said there was, um, a scene in that, it was either the third or fourth episode that really has stuck with me, um, where an adult is having a conversation with this group of kids in these adult synthetic bodies and makes this off-handed comment, uh, something to the effect of, oh, there used to be this thing called democracy. Where governments were, uh, ruled by pe, you know, the people, and they decided who would govern. And, but that didn't work. So now we have these mega corporations that rule the world. And it was just, it stuck with me because it's so terrifyingly plausible. I, I guess, you know, now more than ever. So I, yeah, I do think there were some interesting ideas in it.

Joachim:

Yeah, that. I think that's it. There are some interesting ideas. Maybe not every episode is like the, the tightest storytelling and the most, you know, well developed everything. But definitely has a, yeah, it has a place somewhere out

Ernest:

Hmm.

Joachim:

so if you, if you need something to fill some void, I wouldn't push it too hard, but it's, it was very enjoyable.

Ernest:

my recommendation actually is also media. Um, I was going to again, cheat a little bit enough for kind of one and a half. So first, have you heard of this film, one battle after another? This PT Anderson film?

Joachim:

heard of it. I have not seen it yet.

Ernest:

Yes, I would absolutely recommend it. It's, it's not my favorite film that I've seen this year. I think, uh, to paraphrase, uh, kind of a joke about acting, it's maybe not the best film, but it's the most film. Uh, I know a lot of people though, would argue and say that it is the best film of the year. I think it certainly brings up a lot of really, um, important, meaningful topics and in a way that's very entertaining. I think that's the thing that's caught a lot of people off guard, and that is sort of an, you know, quote unquote important movie, and yet manages to deliver these messages in a way that's incredibly entertaining. and actually I think skewers both sides, of this kind of cultural, debate that we're in, uh, in the US these days. You know, certainly skewers the right, but also has a lot of, uh, commentary about the left and then the ridiculousness of the left as well. So, I, yeah, I think it's absolutely worth seeing is in the kind of praise it's getting is well deserved. But the film I really wanted to recommend is what is so far my favorite film of the year, which is a movie called The Battle, I'm sorry, battle, the Ballad of Wallis Island. Um, it's, uh,

Joachim:

the naked gun, but that's okay.

Ernest:

I've been wanting to see that. I haven't seen it actually, but, um, so the Ballad of Wallis Island is this very small film, uh, debuted at, Sundance in January of this year. Had a very limited theatrical release in the, in the us um, in the spring. Most people hadn't even heard of it, let alone have seen it, but it was directed by James Griffiths. And, written by Tim Key and Tom Basden and they star in it, uh, alongside, Carey Mulligan, who I just am a huge fan of. It's kind of an interesting film in that, um, it was originally a short, that Tim Key and Tom Basden created way back in 2007. And you could see it on YouTube. I actually would not recommend watching it until after you've seen the, the movie. And if you watch it, you'll see that the bones of it are all there. But, um, I thought they, they did an amazing job expanding it and enriching it. I think it's just such a lovely film. It's the sort of film that at least personally I've, I just really needed in these times. it's a very human story and it doesn't necessarily go where at least I expected it to go. It's sort of like a romantic comedy ish, but it doesn't, fall on the kind of romantic comedy tropes. I ended up purchasing it, um, through the Apple, whatever it's called now. It used to be called the iTunes Store. Now it's Apple TV store or whatever.

Joachim:

yeah.

Ernest:

you can rent it as well, but, um, I, I purchased it in, I'm really glad I did'cause it's a movie that I definitely know I'm gonna come back to, um, in years to come. My wife really enjoyed it as well. So the Ballad of Wallis Island, is a film I'd strongly recommend if you want something that will kind of make you feel better about humanity. I think

Joachim:

Oh

Ernest:

it, yeah, I think it's a great one to watch.

Joachim:

yeah, I haven't heard of it at all. It's crazy. Yeah, and it's a pretty, I mean, Carey Mulligan's a pretty, a pretty big big star, so

Ernest:

yeah, she's, she's by far the biggest star in it. Um, but, uh, Tim Key, I guess what I'd say is probably the main character and he's just, oh God, I, he's a comedian and, um. His, style I think is just fantastic. And then Tom Basden is a singer and he does his, the singing in the, in the film. He's, he's meant to be a singer in the film, and I was really shocked. I thought he was phenomenal as a singer. and, uh, Carey Mulgan actually does, uh, singing some singing in the film as well.

Joachim:

uh, so Tim Key, I know Tim Key from, uh, this TV show called Screenwipe,

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

which was done by Charlie Brooker. The writer and creator of Black Mirror,

Ernest:

Right.

Joachim:

everyone knows Black Mirror now. Um, but he used to host this BBC show that was him consuming media and, uh, skewering it in, in many ways. Very clever, very funny. Um, it was the only comedy show that was on BBC four, which is like the highbrow part of the BBC channel selection. Um, but so he would always have these very strange intermissions., But Tim Key would read poetry as himself on this show, and it was, it was always so bizarre. It didn't, it was trying to talk about current events, he was also making fun of people being so, you know, pretentious and so serious and, know, trying to make a statement with poetry. He played it so straight and so well, it was for a while I thought, is is he actually a, an annoying poet and they just happened to put him on this show. He's very good though. So from that I always like if you, as soon as you said Tim Key I thought it can't be the same, Tim. It is, it is

Ernest:

Oh, that's great. Yeah.

Joachim:

yeah, he's quite baby faced, so

Ernest:

Yeah.

Joachim:

yeah.

Ernest:

Oh, if you like Tim Key, I think you'll really like this us

Joachim:

All right. Well, I have to check this out.

Ernest:

Well. All right. I think, um, that does it for us. Thank you so much for joining us here at Learn Make Learn. And as I mentioned earlier, we wanna hear from you. whether it's a request, a question, or an observation, please do share your thoughts with us at Learn Make learn@gmail.com or on threads at Learn, make, learn show, all one word. As for our next episode, uh, I don't want to reveal any details quite yet, but we're working to coordinate an interview that we're really excited about. so keep your fingers crossed for us. That will, the planets will align. And please do join us for the next Learn, make, learn.

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Ernest Kim

Co-host
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Joachim Groeger

Co-host