David Epstein

So he builds the calendar app

From the beginning of the universe, way into the future.

And as he said, if he had stuck from 1904 to 2096, it would have been four lines of code and he could have moved on.

And instead it dragged on for months.

And this is how everything worked there because they didn't put boundaries in place.

Everything grew and grew and grew until it just totally collapsed under its own weight.

Totally.

And in fact, in one way, I would say that General Magic was actually a success, which is it's so traumatized in a business sense.

Some of the people that were there, especially some of the younger employees,

that they learned all these lessons about the importance of constraints that they then took

in their next stops in their careers and did things like led Google Maps and built the Apple Watch, co-founded Android, LinkedIn, eBay, you know, all these other companies that you've heard of.

Or the guy who became an absolute zealot for constraints, a guy named Tony Fidel, who General Magic was his first job out of college and these were his heroes.

And so he was just devastated when the company collapsed.

I was actually connected with him by the famous venture capitalist, Bill Gurley, who's like famously invested in Uber and Zillow.

I told him I was interested in constraints and Bill said, oh, we have a saying in venture, more startups die of indigestion than starvation, like too much, not too little.

He said, you got to talk to my friend, Tony.

So he connects me to Tony Fidel.

The first time I talked to him, he's like yelling at me.

If you don't have constraints, make up constraints.

He's like a very intense guy.