The Critical Path

#23: Auteur Theory

January 26, 2012 at 10:00PM • 1 hour 6 minutes

Horace talks to Prof. Bill Torgerson from St. John's University about the writing process and how it survives and/or thrives as a commercial enterprise. We touch on writing for movies and compare the collaborative process of "content creation" vs. the "single voice" of an author. If you make software you really should pay attention to how art is made. And vice versa.

#22: Asymconf

January 18, 2012 at 1:00PM • 1 hour 2 minutes

Horace announces Asymconf and takes an archaeological expedition into the ancient history of personal computing so we can understand the distant future.

#21: Negative Costs

January 11, 2012 at 2:15PM • 57 minutes

Continuing our discussion of the creative side of Hollywood accounting, Dan and Horace take on the way income from movies is distributed and why no movies ever make money. The observations sharpen focus on the over-arching influence distribution has on the creative process.

#20: Below the (belt)line

January 4, 2012 at 3:30PM • 1 hour 7 minutes

Horace and Dan begin a journey through the financial carnival that is Hollywood and talk about the wonders they encounter.

#19: The hiring and firing of milkshakes and candy bars

December 29, 2011 at 8:00AM • 60 minutes

Horace talks with Bob Moesta, a pioneer of Job To be Done research. We go over the theory and process of understanding what products are really hired to do and ask why this understanding is so hard to come by. In a discussion rich with examples from multiple industries Bob illustrates how marketing, design and engineering are all dancing around the question of how product should be developed. Could the universally accepted compartmentalization of corporate functions be a root cause to product failure?

#18: Who's Paying for My Lunch?

December 21, 2011 at 12:00PM • 57 minutes

Dan and Horace ponder why some companies are more mysterious than others. We ask whether transparency and simplicity of business models is a sign of strength or weakness. We compare the measurement, creation and capture of value and why we should celebrate the mortality of businesses.

#17: Working with Clay

December 21, 2011 at 11:30AM • 1 hour 2 minutes

Horace interviews James Allworth, author, Fellow at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard Business School, and a former Apple employee. James describes what it's like working with Clayton Christensen and takes us on a journey through the latest academic and applied research being conducted on the theories of disruptive innovation.

#16: The Existence Proof

December 14, 2011 at 12:00PM • 58 minutes

Horace interviews Dan Benjamin on the motivation, basis of competition and trajectory of the 5by5 network. By studying where podcasting came from and where it's going we provide proof of existence of disruption in "big media".

#15: The Theater of Disruption

December 12, 2011 at 12:45PM • 1 hour 4 minutes

Horace talks to actor Hoon Lee about the challenges of disrupting the creative arts in general, and theater in particular. By observing the changes in the performing arts we look to how mainstream media will change in response to technological and economic pressures.

#14: The Super-platform ecosystem

November 24, 2011 at 6:30AM • 58 minutes

In the first of the Critical Path Interviews, Horace discusses the disruptive potential of cloud computing with Randy Bias. Is the new ecosystem the coupling of devices with backend cloud APIs? How do we calibrate new business models based on tightly coupled super-platforms.