477: Cloudflare Q4, Sam's Trillions, Michael Ovitz, Brad Jacobs, Apple Vision Pro, Google Gemini, Post-Quantum Encryption, and Blackberry

"I don’t even know how to illustrate that scale"

Perhaps the most counter-intuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get.

Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

-Kevin Kelly

🔊🎶🎞️🍿 I’ve been enjoying my Sonos speakers so much — I wrote about them in Edition #404 — that I ordered a Sonos subwoofer to add to the setup.

I came across an audio nerd who’s a big Sonos fan on YouTube, and his detailed reviews have persuaded me that the Sub Mini is a better pick for me than the bigger Sub Gen 3 (the non-ported design leads to tighter bass for music).

If you’ve been wondering about Sonos subwoofers, check this out, especially the frequency response section around 14 minutes in:

🪛👨🏻‍🔧🧰🔩 I feel a bit like a handyman.

This is a follow-up to Edition #238 where I wrote about repairing my dryer (back in Feb 2022). Well, it happened again.

A few days ago, my dad and I replaced the heating coil on my clothes dryer.

I got the $20 part from Amazon with free 1-day delivery. We swapped it with the old one, and the dryer now works like new. We've had this appliance for 14 years and have changed that part twice.

My 5-year-old boy loved watching the process and helped us by giving us light with his little flashlight.

I wonder how many dryers end up being replaced with new thousand-dollar ones because of this little part failing 🤔

I also wonder how many more appliances get fixed DIY directly because of YouTube how-to videos? 📺

This type of simple repair appeals to many aspects of my personality: Understanding how the machine works, efficiency, high ROI investing, frugality, the value of information, building useful skills, etc.

The thing is, it may be rational for some people to replace the whole dryer if they can't change the part themselves.

If they have to hire a repair technician, just having them come over may cost, I dunno, a hundred bucks maybe, and then they'll mark up the parts by a few X and then they'll charge you a hundred dollars per hour or more in labor.

At the end of the day, it'll cost you around 1/3 or 1/2 the price of a new dryer to fix the old one, with no guarantee that it won’t break again (as mine did).

But for $20 and an hour spent chatting with my dad about other things, it’s a no-brainer.

It does make me think that the heating coil is the weak link and that if I could pay $40 instead of $20 to make sure I got a more durable one, I would. But from what I can tell by looking at various listings on Amazon, they all seem to be pretty much the same.

✍️✒️🔄🖋️ I haven’t made much progress with my pen twirling hobby, but I know why: I just haven’t practiced much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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🏦 💰 Liberty Capital 💳 💴

🩻🔍👨🏻‍⚕️ Cloudflare Q4 X-Ray ⛅️🔥

I guess Mr. Market liked this one!

It made me curious to take a closer look at what was going on. First, let’s examine the numbers, and then let’s have a look at the actual business, its strategy, products, and tech: