Richard Jacobs: Hello. This is Richard Jacobs with the future tech podcast. I have a David Sax, he’s the author of a really cool book called the revenge of analog. In the book when I read it, he talks about the reemergence and the resurgence of things like records from certain table’s board games and a few other devices or pleasures are things that are considered to be analog instead of digital in our digital world. And so we didn’t get into that and we came to write the book and why these things are now popular again. So David, thanks for coming.
David Sax: Yeah it’s good to be the past tech guy on the future tech podcast. That’s true. That was a good irony.
Richard Jacobs: So tell me a little bit your journey. How did you even come to the concept to write a book like this?
David Sax: On a personal level and on a broader level I was living in Toronto where I live now about a dozen years ago and my roommate and I had kind of uploaded all of our CD’s to iTunes and found a way to stream them through router and this was like the incredible peak of technology at the time, 2007 and very quickly our interest in music kind of disappeared. And then shortly after that, um, we actually got an old turntable and a bunch of records from his parents who were sort of downsizing their house and we, we really started getting into the records and the pleasure of listening to them and not just the sonic quality, which was questionable, but just the entire experience holding the album putting it on. Like all of a sudden we were more interested in that version of playing music than we were with when we had sort of put everything into extensible. The cloud rights are the precursors, the streaming we had today it made me think I got interested in it and then at the same time this was the year that the iPhone came out. So really our lives and a place with digital lives was really just about to sort of exploding, right? The computer renters, something in a room to something in everybody’s pocket and all the powers and services that were on that and place that occupied and yet I also started noticing that it wasn’t just me that was getting back into things like records, it was everywhere I was seeing record stores opening up or before they had been closing. I had friends who collected vinyl, but it was also things like bookstores, independent bookstores were opening up again. People all of a sudden had to walk around with a moleskin notebook or other sort of paper products. Even Polaroid Kim’s were having a comeback. And so there was this interesting kind of almost counter-intuitive phenomenon, but just right is we really started reaching this peak air of digital convenience at the time when we assumed and everybody predicted that the future would sort of doing away with all these old versions of analog technology. Suddenly those old versions of analog technology which had been disappearing started having to come back and growing again and so I really wanted to find out why that was and what that meant.
Richard Jacobs: Yeah. I feel bad, I experienced that too like for instance, if I get the package in the mail know, let’s say a book or if I go to the bookstore and I buy a book, it’s a very different experience than I’m, you know just downloading one or reading it on kindle. There’s a lot more permanence and I tend to engage with it more than know just something on my hard drive that it’s weird, you just don’t care about it and I guess he will for some reason just towards the physical. There’s literally a visceral appeal to having physical things you could hold and touch and experience. And I guess maybe that’s part of the reason why these objects and these technologies are still popular.
David Sax: I think so I mean, you talked to the beginning but the digital world, the reality is that the world is physical, right? It’s a planet and we are creatures on that planet and we relate to the world that we live in through physical means, right? We have touching’s now and hearing and all these things that touch the most of our senses at one time, that’s going to give us a much deeper sort of connection to it then something that it only touches one or two of them, right? I mean, we, I think we assume that just because we could simulate and condense so much stuff on a no four square inch piece of black class that all we would need. But you know it actually shouldn’t be surprising that we sort of gravitated and we have gravitated back towards things that are sort of three dimensional and then textural and even though they have costs and downside to them that there is something that we want in that there’s this tremendous advantage to that at the heart of the revenge of analog.
Richard Jacobs: Yeah! There were many stories you researched and went into depth on records most good notebooks, etc. Were there other stories that didn’t make it into the book that you have as a random or you can talk about?
David Sax: not really I mean I think in recent years, because it all came out two and a half years ago so what’s been interesting is that it wasn’t some overnight success. I don’t know if it’s been out long-time success, but the book has continued to sort of find audiences and what’s interesting is like those sort of noticeable like the return of record stores and bookstores and the sorts of things that were visible. Like, that’s continued, right? Those continued to grow. It hasn’t dropped off. A clamp is other people in predicted but what’s been interesting is kind of the underlying tension behind all this. The idea sort of questioning of the virtue of digital technology that really changed from the time the book came out until now. I think that there is been a growing or distrust or just curiosity around the place of digital technology in our lives and the effect of that I think has caused a lot of people to examine in a much deeper way the role that that technology has and the role of alternative technologies like analog technologies to play in sort of balancing that and I think that desire for balance is something that’s sort of surprised me in the years since the book came out.
Richard Jacobs: Have you done any experiments with your own life or you’ve tried to go without saying that holds you for a while? Like no phone for a week or you know taking a vacation where just to be environments with no technology around you?
David Sax: Yeah, I mean I’m generally pretty good with it on a fairly micro basis. So I typically on Saturdays or even throughout weekends, I’ll try to never turn my computer on. I certainly try to unless I need the phone for some reason you know going somewhere and I’ve got to stay in touch with my wife or making plans with people. I really try to turn it off and that’s just to be able to spend more time with my kids and actually, just enjoy myself without the distractions or that brings in the sort of stress of having that Rick there. And on vacations, I tend to be able to do the same. You know, sometimes it’s harder, right? If you’re going to a city and you have to navigate your way around and you need to find obscure addresses or things, you need that it’s helpful to have the map and the GPS there and so you try to use that but without using other sorts of services cause again it’s sort of that idea of getting sucked in so I’m generally good at it but it’s hard. I mean it is real, it’s really difficult. I’m reading another book now and you know I try to turn off my internet for hours in the day so I can actually get the work finished, get the writing done that uninterrupted concentrated time but it’s hard. It just clicks to turn it back on. And I have programs that disabled social media and other functions for periods of time but that temptation is always there to what a little hidden distraction or something so that is tricky and I think that shows the sort of power but also that the thing that a lot of people are trying to balance, with analog technology and that’s one of the good things. I think one of the advantages of analog technology is that it gives you something to replace digital technology within that moment. Right? You can replace it with a book and once the book has your attention, it’s not gonna sort of pull it away by showing advertisements or messages or other things right. It will capture completely will be that kind of out to the soul searching for that client.
Richard Jacobs: Have you spoken to or interviewed any scientists about the phenomena you’ve experienced with the craving? I caught a craving or I don’t know I feel better when I’m around. Natural things are analog things than digital. It’s strange, but it’s okay. I don’t even know what you call the phenomenon, but I wonder if you have the scientists to try to characterize it that way.
David Sax: You know what, none of that research was sort of available or nothing that I really looked into and I’ve been fucking doing research for the book had contact with people in recent years about it and I’ve talked to one guy who I’ve become friends with Adam Alter who’s a scientist at NYU and study sort of things like gambling and that sort of pattern of behavior. He wrote a great Book Right! I just personally know that I feel better when I’m away from my phone. I might have these twinges of certain needing it or wanting it, but once it’s genuinely way if I put it in a drawer somewhere just leave it at home and leave the house. I don’t worry about it. I don’t crave it. I don’t think it’s there. But when it’s next to me, it’s always this than calling me something. Could be new something could be different. Some email could arrive that could change your life or who knows? Maybe they think you haven’t found out yet there are so many things to do. What do you want to do? And, and yet, you know, when I’m actually engaged with it, I don’t get any of that. I get nothing but, you know, just nothing really for a lot of time. Like it can transfer information. I can get the emails, I can get the calls and so forth. But a lot of the time I’m just sitting there flicking away and looking for something to distract me over and over again. The time, just as it’s wasted time is the way I see it. I mean, it really genuinely isn’t wasted time. That’s for me personally, right? For everybody. That’s different. But I, you know, I don’t have any memories that I carry with me. Have a good time. I had on my phone or on my computer, I have no memories of something I said or did during a conversation I had on social media one time. All my memories and all the things that are associated with good and joy are out in that real world. In that analog world.
Richard Jacobs: Yeah. That’s interesting. I kind of feel the same way. It’s true. And the phone has a very strong pull. Yeah. It’s amazing when it’s sitting next to you. You’re right. I’ve had times where, you know, I had a book to read and then you get pulled onto the phone. You realize, damn, I wasted the 30 minutes I had to read now. Right. Doing nothing on the phone. So super powerful.
David Sax: Yeah. And it’s very hard for anyone to really sort of fight that. I mean, these things are built to addict us, like cigarettes.
Richard Jacobs: Have you been out and just kind of like anthropologically observed people? Some that I’ve seen, some that are just literally like, I don’t know, they’re just in their phones constantly and some people don’t seem to have that pull. It seems like, I mean, just the generalize, older people don’t have that pull as much as younger people, but have you noticed anything in your daily life about how people, how some may interact with technology and others successfully don’t?
David Sax: I’m gonna think it is down to that individual level and sort of questioning of that power. I think the default is being sorted of sucked into it. I don’t think there’s a lot of people who are just built and having, you know, have that limited interest in it. And I think age has nothing to do with that.
There are, with the exception of very elderly people, you know, my old neighbors who were in their eighties and then so on, you know, my parents who are, you know, in their early seventies, I mean they’re on the phone and iPad constantly, constantly, constantly. When they have my kids there, you know, and they’re with their grandchildren’s taking photos of the kids and then, oh, there’s an email. I mean I think this, this behavior, why it’s been so successful, so powerful and, and really like it’s, it’s something very, very difficult to sort of step back from. So I think the people who are good at stepping back from that are those who really done it in a conscious way and made that conscious choice to step back from it. And control that limited and set their boundaries in one way, or they’re going to sort of do that and that, that’s something that’s, you know, admirable. But it’s not something that you can really preach to people. I mean, I, you know, there are times when my brother is a very heavy user of social media and his phone or even my wife who as she started a business a year and a half ago, has really become much more engaged on it. You know, and I’ll say, hey, come on. Like, you know, I get immediate. It’s like, oh, okay, Mr. Analogue. All right. You know, like Okay, Mr. Bossy, you can’t, she can’t, it’s like telling people to be a Vegan. You can’t sort of do it. You have to just kind of make the choice by yourself and allow people to come to that decision on their own.
Richard Jacobs: Yeah. Has it changed your life to write the book and you relate to people differently? Do they, he’s you and calls you Mr. Analog? I mean, like how has it changed your daily living?
David Sax: I think it really did make me realize what my limitations were and where I wanted to stand with this and I think from a broader perspective beyond myself, you know, what I saw in researching the book, which didn’t just include sort of pleasurable consumer phenomenon, like, you know, people going out and taking, using Polaroids camera’s again or records or books. But I took a deeper look into things like, you know, the way that people work and the way that education happens in the place of digital technology and sort of future tech and these things and how often it’s been sort of sold as the solution without actually looking at the downsides of that and without evaluating it. And in many cases, like in the case of education for example, you know, you have schools rushing to buy, you know, billions of dollars tablets or e-learning systems or you know, online courses that end up being, you know, really detrimental and having no advantage or even sort of a negative effect on learning and students, but it’s too late. The money’s been spent, they canceled, you know, sports and music and drama and order to pay for it and you continue to sort of see that. And so I think what’s really stuck with me is this, you know, this needs to really evaluate technology on a user level, whether it’s an individual level or a larger systems level on what is the actual merits are, right? I think there’s this assumption that the new thing is better. It’s pitched to us as the solution to the problem, right?
It pitched to us as the cure for whatever our elite, and that is everything from an app that’s being sold at some sort of tech entrepreneur demo day to, you know, the Apple keynote speech telling the latest version of the iPhone or just software, right? This is going to solve this problem in your world, your life. And people go, oh great, okay, well that’s it. We need to sort of embrace this and out with the old in with the new. But the reality is, you know, it’s just a tool and sometimes that tool is going to be better and sometimes that isn’t and that’s going to change based on who’s using it and circumstances and using it. And so I think, you know, what I really sort of came away from a change is that, you know, when it comes to technology, especially new technology, you know, is it better? Is not something that you can take a look at, right? When it sort of comes out, something you actually have to take and do an experiment with and see where it works for you. And I think for most people there is a balance of what technologies work for them. And some of its old and analog and some of its new and digital and some of it’s the newest version, some of the middle version. And a lot of it is in combination. And I think that in my own life and sort of in a broader philosophical perspective is what I’ve really come away with.
Richard Jacobs: Yeah. I remember being in a restaurant that’s 10 years ago, and this is probably the first time I noticed it, but you know, a couple was eating and when they were done, they both went on their phones. I thought it was so odd. Know they weren’t talking, they were just both on their phones and it was just, it is really weird, you know? But now, unfortunately, you see that constantly.
David Sax: So right now, you know, you’re that cuddle.
Richard Jacobs: I try not to be, but I, you know, my kids, they’ll, you know, if I let them, they’ll all be on the phone during meals, you know, I’m just there with my wife, which sometimes is okay, but, okay. Yeah. Yeah, they’re really bad with it if you let them.
David Sax: Yeah. And so I think like, look, your podcast focuses on, you know, these groundbreaking future technologies. But the reality is that when the future arrives, it’s never this, you know, Star Trek, the next generation, you know, idealistic, kind of perfect version, right? It’s more this Messi blade runner version of it and when we look back at the promise of past technologies and what they were going to do and how they were going to completely change and revolutionize the world in some parts of it turned out as Rosalie predicted in other ways, it’s turn up much worse than usually, it’s this sort of mix. I think about social media. You know, my book came out on the day of Donald Trump’s election. The book came out at that period of time, the criticisms about social media and the Internet didn’t, and people were sort of like, whoa, that’s not really true. And then within three months, everybody had sort of turned against that as they had seen it, the way that these things had been weaponized by people like the Russian intelligence services and other sorts of actors and even the companies themselves. That really sort of change that perspective. Right? And so, you know, we think about future technology, we have to remember the future is never going to be as we, it never turns out in the way we predicted. And having skepticism around new technology is not being some sort of Luddite. It’s actually being, you know, an intelligent human being who is able to assess things that are coming with them and evaluate them based on experimentation. Right? It’s like the scientific method. It’s somehow we abandoned that in favor of the shiny new thing. Well, really we should be using our critical thinking to determine what works for us and what doesn’t, what’s best and what isn’t. What’s appropriate and what is not.
Richard Jacobs: You said you were working on a new book. What’s that going to be about or is that something totally different?
David Sax: Well it’s somewhat different. The book is called the Soul of an entrepreneur and it really looks at what it means to be an entrepreneur today. Away from and sort of beyond the startup myths that Silicon Valley has sold us on to the past, you know, 25, 30 years, which is really a very narrow slice of entrepreneurship, that sort of 1% or 0.5% of entrepreneurs really fit into the very narrow box of how those companies are made. And the majority of entrepreneurs that are out there, ranging from the person with the dry cleaner to the farmers, to family businesses, you know, those who want a lifestyle business entrepreneurship, that means something for very different reasons than, and we’ve lost sight of that. And so the book is sort of recalling the meaning of that. I’m looking at how we got there.
Richard Jacobs: Yeah, that’s interesting. You raise the Hollywood version of entrepreneurship is the startup and you know, working all-nighters and it’s always involved in tech and trying to get, you know, huge funding valuations, someone going off to a big conglomerate and you’re right, that’s a far cry from the average store that a family owns or, you know, maybe someone makes stuff to sell on eBay or is completely different.
David Sax: Yeah. And completely different even from the average software company. You know, we’re doing sort of enterprise software or something like that. It’s become glamorized and romanticized in this outsize way. But you know, it is such a narrow version of what entrepreneurship really looks like for most people and what its real meaning is what its essence is, right? It’s this idea of like you build something and you crush it and you get an exit and you know, then you’re the next Elon Musk and for the reality is most people don’t want that. It’s not why they become entrepreneurs and not why they are entrepreneurs. They do it for various different reasons. And those reasons are just as valid, if not more than then sort of look in the fellow judge version is. So, it’ll be out in about one year next day, April 20, 20. And uh, yeah, just working on editing it and chipping it down like that.
Richard Jacobs: What about the analog entrepreneurs there, room for a chapter in there to link it to your book? You’re creating analog experiences or not digital experiences as part of entrepreneurship.
David Sax: I think a lot of them are. Look, a lot of the people that I write about in this book, you know, there’s one woman who makes hair care products, shampoos, and styling gels and stuff in New Orleans. You know, there’s Syrian to have opened up food and restaurant here in Toronto. You know, woman owned coffee shops, someone in the wine business in Argentina. I mean most of the products, most of the businesses, most of the economy’s analog. That’s the reality of it, right? We obviously are captured by, you know, the valuations and the dollar signs around, you know, businesses that are created in Silicon Valley and in the tech world. But they are a part and integral part of the economy and obviously digital technologies involved in all sorts of businesses. Even the restaurant and even the food vendor needs their square app to charge on credit card or you know, using for inventory or promote on social media. But you know, the economy, the real world, it’s still derived. Most of the value is still derived from that. The entire world of food. There’s, you know, you can talk all about soy lent and, and uh, and, and sort of Silicon Valley burger. Veggie Burger is all you want, but you know, the fact is that food economy happens in the real world. Nothing is built without construction workers and materials. But the analog, the analog entrepreneur still dominates the economy.
Richard Jacobs: What do you think would have happened if, as the, you know, the movie ready player one, you know, how they were just a massive virtual reality world. You know, the movie, everyone ran into it and lived in it because the real world is awful. But what if that was available today?
David Sax: Well, it does, it’s called social media and it’s been taken over by Nazi. So, you know, I think like that, you know, the Instagram, Instagram is the real version of that. Let’s not let you know, aside from, you know, the world of Warcraft and you know, all the different online games. The reality is like, that’s what social media is, right? That’s what Instagram is. That’s what Twitter, that’s what all these things are. And, and its paltry substitute for real life. It’s like the sugar, you know, it’s the sugar water. It’s candy. It doesn’t give us any sort of nutrition for the soul and socialization and all these things. It’s just entertainment and you see something like second life, which was the sort of biggest example, but that was supposed to be, I mean, it just basically in an abandoned virtual world. It doesn’t mean that virtual reality games will come along in the future and you know, totally change, you know, entertainment and there’ll be all sorts of wonderful experiences you could have that are, you know, more engaging than say, you know, watching Netflix or you know, playing just a basic video game today. Of course, that’s going to happen, but you know, it’s still going to be more fun and more engaging to go out and go bowling with friends than it is to play some virtual reality video game called bullied with friends. That’s reality and reality still where the action is. Right?
Richard Jacobs: Well, thank goodness. Yes, that’s true.
David Sax: I bet you’re going to be like no wrong. Yeah and as long as we live in the real world, it’s the real world that gives us still the most pleasure. It’s been raining here in Toronto the past month and kind of a crappy spring and today it’s sunny, supposed to get rainy for the week. So I’m going to go out and walk the dog right now so I can feel the sun on my face and hear the birds and smell the trees. Starting to bloom and sort of see people, right. Design the virtual reality experience for that. It’s not going to feel as good. It’s going to be a simulate. You know, someone said this to me when I interviewed them for the book and I totally forget who it is. They’re really, really smart, so I’m just going to take it. They said that you know, the best digital can ever do is simulate reality as best it can. Like the best virtual reality experience, the best digital experience is doing the best it can. It’s simulating the analog world and the real experience, but touching it and feeling that, the look of it, the texture of it, trying to sort of mimic it and trick you into it. So it’ll never, it can never live up to that. It does its own thing when it does something that analog camp, but yeah. And do it all in reality still where it’s at.
Richard Jacobs: Yeah, true. I guess the best we can have is augmented reality, but the reality is still the cornerstone and the thing that we crave. So yeah, it makes total sense.
David Sax: Yeah. And even then, you know, now I think about it last spring, at this time it was one that Pokémon go thing came up and I remember going to the park, it’s my kids or whatever at the end of our street. And there was just like hundreds of people playing this game. Hundreds of people looking for a pick and choose or whatever the heck they were looking for, all over like a month. It just, they just disappeared.
They went away, you know, it was summer and it was nicer. They would rather throw Frisbee or whatever.
Richard Jacobs: Well, thank goodness that reality wins. Otherwise, the world might be a very strange and unhappy place. Yeah.
David Sax: Yeah. Amen.
Richard Jacobs: Interesting. So last question or two, do you feel like your perception of things has changed since you wrote the book or you’re a, it just kind of gave credence to what you already thought and have experienced? How has it changed you and any feedback from readers on how it’s changed their life? Anything that’s interesting to you?
David Sax: I mean, what’s some of the most interesting feedback I got and perspective that I got and I think the perspective that sort of informed my thinking on it, it was, has been from people who actually work in, you know, digital industries, digital fields, right? People who are programmers or designers, a computer scientist who are some of the people that have actually been the ones who appreciate this stuff most keenly, whether it’s in their spare time, you know, they designed websites by day. They work on databases by day, but at night they, you know, collect records or play board games or you know, design letterpress, to just understanding the value of that within the company they do. You know, I have a friend named Mike Murchison who here in Toronto is a startup entrepreneur. He’s got this fourth company now, it’s called Ada. I think they do machine learning, consumer support. So when you call into I think maybe 18 t or one of these companies for help, you know, or go on their chatting, as they run, they make the chatbox that goes in the other end and various other companies. So, you know, it’s very sort of forward-thinking, future level. And yet in his company, you know, he’s mandated certain parts of the process be done in an analog way, on whiteboard or paper or face to face because you know he appreciates the value of that process and making the product better, even if the product at the end of the day is, you know, artificial intelligence and so I think, you know, there is that, I kind of expected that community to be the one to be the most skeptical of, sort of, you know, on value. But in many ways, because they deal with digital technology day to day, they understand really how it works and they understand this limitation. You know, they appreciate the place that, you know, the non-digital actually plays in the world and are willing to use it for their own personal selves or for their work in sort of a deeper, more engaging way.
Richard Jacobs: Very good. What’s the best way for listeners who just want to know more about what you do, I guess to get revenge of the analog if they haven’t gotten it already? Amazon and Kindle and everywhere.
David Sax: The new book is called The Soul of an entrepreneur. It’ll be out in another year on April 20, 20. So, you know, hold your breath until then, preorder it I guess, or ask your bookstore to carry it and then you can follow me very sporadically since I barely post at SaxDavid@ Twitter, you know, I’m rarely there, especially these days. I’ve actually installed a plugin to limit my entire social media time to 10 minutes within a 24 hour period. And that has been a wonderfully liberating thing and it just locks you out when you’re done with that 10 minutes. And you know what, 10 minutes is plenty. It’s enough. It’s more than enough. Yeah, I do. You can read a few things. You can get caught up. You can make a few, you know, conversations or are sort of jokes and can then you’re out and it’s like, all right, save it till tomorrow, Buddy. It would do something to do very good.
Richard Jacobs: Well thanks for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate your insights.
David Sax: Yeah. Listen to that. Thanks for having me. It’s my absolute pleasure. I really appreciate it.
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