How's it going? Yeah, pretty good. Yeah? Yeah, life is good.
We're busy in the lab. You've been likened to so many people here, but who do you think you look the most like?
Who do I think I look the most like? Not Luke.
I don't know where everyone keeps getting this from. I think it's a beard.
You guys have the same beard shape. I guess so. But our face shape is totally different.
I suppose on camera, it's a little harder to tell. But face to face in person, I don't think we look anything
like. I know I've gotten Linus a few times, like budget Linus.
And today, especially, I've got my WAN Show hoodie
and my green LPD store.com beanie. And yeah, I don't know.
I see myself and I don't immediately
think I look like anyone. I mean, my brothers, we all look the same.
And with a five-year spread, it's genetics.
All right, anyways, you mentioned the lab, right? How are you feeling about it so far?
Really good. The amount of progress that we've been making over here
has been awesome. Things are starting to move a lot faster now
that everyone is in the building. Obviously, with any kind of huge enterprise like this,
it's going to take time to build up. But now we've got our environmental chamber.
I'm a month and a half away from the RF chamber being built.
We've got our workstations done finally, which is awesome.
And now logistics is here. So we have all of the stuff we need to test.
So yeah, we're going to ramp up very, very quickly
in a very short amount of time. What's the most exciting thing that we've gone so far?
Oh, that's a tough one.
The most exciting thing for me so far has been all of my new fancy RF foam,
like the absorbing material. In general, though, the environmental chamber
is really cool. We actually had a 4090 laptop in there yesterday,
testing it for battery drain at zero degrees.
And you just see it go, boom. So yeah, it really, like, that's no pun intended.
It's a really cool piece of equipment. We're really excited to start working with it.
What do you do here? You're role is software architect, right?
But you do a little bit more than that? Yeah, so technically, I'm a software architect.
I can't use the term engineer in Canada.
But my background is on mobile and gaming performance
profiling and tool development. So in my last role, I ran an R&D and services team
where we were working with companies like Verizon and ATT
and Google and Samsung. And we were testing not only their equipment, their platforms,
and their networks, but we were helping
their marketing and engineering teams understand real world scenarios.
And that's kind of what I'm trying to bring here is making sure that we've got a consumer-focused angle
for how we're testing. For instance, battery life.
We've been talking about it internally for the past few days.
We want to make sure that when you're looking at a laptop
on the lab's website and you see a battery rating,
it's not the same as the manufacturer's, hey, you can get up to 12 hours.
It's like, no, no one uses their laptop with Wi-Fi off.
They're screen at 10% and only watches videos.
No one does that. So we're looking at it from a consumer standpoint
where we want to look at it as what is the least amount
of battery you could expect on this device? This is the bare minimum that you will get at max load.
So yeah, we're trying to bring in that consumer focus.
What do you think is missing right now with current offerings?
They're kind of doing what we're trying to do. I don't think that the current offerings have the depth,
the ability to go deep like we do. There are other outfits that are doing similar personal
electronics testing. I think we're going to take what they're
doing to that kind of next level.
With the LMG backing, we have the budget
in order to get the equipment that these other companies just
can't, and as well as hiring the right people
to run the testing. I mean, as you've seen in other videos,
and you are there locally, we're at 10 people now.
I think we're putting out three offer letters this week.
We're going to be hiring nine more people in the next six months.
We're growing fast. And I think in a year's time, we're
probably going to be 25 people.
And that's just people to run the tests, methodology experts,
subject matter experts that are going to be ensuring that what we are testing
is representative for the end user. What type of projects do you have going on right now?
Right now, I've got the keyboard testing robot
that I've been programming for Antoine. We have it working for standard keyboards.
And they've thrown me some curveballs with some of the Ergo keyboards.
And I'm working with LMI, the manufacturer of our laser scanner,
right now to develop some new tooling that will run in the profiler in order to properly segment
the keys from the keyboard.
Because with the ergonomic keyboards, and they've got the wave, you've got
to be able to hit the key properly. And also, standard segmentation for masking,
you can't just take the top 15% of the keyboard and call it a day because that changes across the keyboard.
So I'm working on that. I've got tooling for mobile device testing done.
I've got a bunch of battery manager wireless chargers
that I'm building right now so we can have up to 25 devices
under test at any given time. So effectively, the battery managers
are wireless charging pads with a relay board
and a microcontroller that talks to our server.
So the phones are placed into a shelf location.
And they talk to the server and say, hey, I'm the unit in shelf 1A.
And my battery is at 38%.
And the server will go, cool, you're below 40%.
We're going to turn on the charging. So that'll send a signal back to our battery manager, which
you'll flip the relay board, turn on the wireless charging, start charging the device.
And once the device gets over, say, 70%, it'll tell the server, hey, I'm over 70.
Now you can turn off the charging. And that way, we can just maintain that battery balance
over a long period of time while we're doing automated tests. That's really cool.
Yeah, we're going to have 25 of them. I've got a 5x5 IKEA Calax shelf.
They're great. They're awesome for projects like this.
So each bay is going to have a shelf location
ridden into the server. And we're going to manage things that way. How much of Linus's money have you spent personally?
How much of Linus's money have I spent personally? Yes.
I think I've probably spent the most. Really?
The RF chamber is a half million dollars. Now Raymond EMC is working with us on this.
But yeah, I'm the one that sourced the environmental
chamber.
I think I've probably spent just under three quarters
of a million dollars.
And I started May last year.
So it's gone quickly.
And I haven't even ordered my phones yet. Oh my goodness.
I mean, the phones aren't going to be too bad, right? If you average out mid-range phones, $600 now.
Yeah. Well, how many are I guess it's a whole lot now? There's a lot of phones.
Big shout out to our friends and OEMs that want to send us phones for free.
No. My goal is to have 25 devices under test at any given time
for the first, probably year, with a two week test
cycle on them at most.
So 25 devices every two weeks, we're
going to be cranking through a lot of phones. Oh my gosh.
Are we just going to keep them? I have a system. I've been talking to Logistics about it.
And we're going to basically keep
flagships for a certain amount of time, keep mid-range for slightly less time,
keep low end phones for an even shorter period.
As far as what happens to them, check eBay, I guess.
I have no idea what we're doing to get rid of them, but lttstore.com.
Let's zoom out a bit. So you mentioned you've been here since May last year.
Yeah, I started May 3rd. How's it been so far here at LMG?
It's been awesome. Honestly, I really enjoy coming to work.
I'm a problem solver by nature. So for me to come in and have a new problem every day
and be able to just work with an awesome team and figure it out
is really great. Oh yeah, no shortage of problems here. No, no, of course not.
Why did you decide to join LMG? That's an interesting one.
So I was the first hire at my previous company.
And I was running the R&D team, the service team.
I was basically one of the founders. And I enjoyed my job.
And I sent Linus an email after the first lab video came out
because he mentioned a couple of things that he wanted to do on mobile testing
and how his vision of how that was going to work looked.
And I disagreed with it. And I sent him an email, a very polite email, to be fair,
saying, hey, this is kind of my specialty. And if you wanted to do X, Y, and Z,
this is probably the best way to do that. It'll be a lot easier for you in the long run.
And I didn't hear back for a few weeks. And then all of a sudden, I got an email like 10 o'clock
at night. And we went back and forth for a little bit.
And last I heard was that they were going to keep me in mind as an industry contact for any help
that they needed. And about a month later, I got an email from James asking
if I could jump on a call. And we ended up going back and forth a little bit.
And yeah, we negotiated. And here I am.
So it's, for me, I've watched the channel on and off
since NCIX days. Hell, I bought stuff at NCIX.
And I'm pretty sure Linus sold it to me before the video started way back in the day.
So I've been a fan for three years. And it was a great opportunity for me.
It was something new. I'd be able to work with a team side by side.
Whereas in my last role, I was managing the R&D team.
And I was finding myself getting further and further away
from getting my hands dirty. So I wanted to get back into that.
I love development. I love problem solving. So yeah.
How long were you at your previous role for?
So I started September 2013.
September 21, 2013. And I left April 30 of 2021.
So 9 and 1 half years. Yeah, long time, nearly a decade.
How's that transition been? First, you were one of the founding members. But over time, you built that up and going back
to basically starting again here at LTP Labs.
Well, I'm not working 24-hour days anymore. You're working 24-hour days?
In my last two weeks at my last role,
I did a 24-hour day because someone made a mistake
with a very reputable client that was very important to me.
And I had to fix it. So yeah, I worked a 24-hour day during my notice period
to make sure that when I left, things were still running OK.
That's life. I've done longer days, but not at LTP.
Longer than 24-hour days? I've done a 36-hour day before.
That was even possible. I was a PI for four years.
And there was one particular day where
I was very far away from any form of cover,
and I had to continue following a subject. OK, hold on.
You were a PI. I was a private investigator for four years,
based in Langley, actually not far from here. I'm still in touch with the team there.
And yeah, I followed a guy, and it
turned into a 36-hour day. Can't say anything more about it.
I can't. No, that's it. You get that drip feed of interest,
and now I've got to take it away. All right. Why are you not a PI anymore?
Did you not like the job? Oh, the money is way better. No, I'm kidding.
No, I stopped being a PI when I moved to the UK,
and I moved over there in 2013 on a whim.
Found the company that I then worked for for a decade.
And yeah, I was developing full-time. I had a background in web development,
and database architecture, enterprise IT,
and then fell very hard into development in mobile,
and then expanded from there into cloud streaming,
PC profiling, iOS, and the works.
I lived in Bristol, Glasgow, LA for six months,
and then London. Yeah. But that's not everywhere you've lived.
You've mentioned, to me, you've lived in Japan before. Yeah, so I spent a year in Tokyo.
I was on an exchange program when I was 15.
My parents had no idea I applied to go on exchange
until I was accepted. It was through a charitable organization,
so it was $500 Canadian. And that was my plane ticket, my year
accommodation, my flight back, everything. $500.
$500 Canadian because it was through charity.
And I remember getting the email and just screaming, I'm going to Tokyo.
And my mom came running down the hall and was like, no, you're not.
What are you talking about? And I was like, yes, I am.
It's only $500. I leave in three months.
And yeah, so I was a year there.
I went back five times over the years,
still very close to my host family. I still speak the language, although Kanji,
the Chinese character set is, I hate it, but I can't stand it.
Aren't there like literally thousands of characters? You need to know just over 1,400 characters
to be considered literate in Japan. And at peak, I think I knew 250.
And now I'm down to like 40. But here I've got a kind of kind of the base alphabets.
Totally fine. And speaking, that's really my forte.
I can speak and understand. And really, that's enough.
What's your favorite place you've lived in?
Not LA. I hate to say it, and I've got a lot of love
for our fans in Cali.
LA, for me, is great to visit. Not where I would want to live again.
Glasgow was amazing. The nightlife in Glasgow was fantastic.
If I wasn't in my 30s married with a kid, I would love to live in Glasgow again.
But yeah, shout out Garage and Cahouse on Sakiho Street.
But I don't know. I really enjoyed Bristol.
Bristol is an amazing town. It's a university city.
You know, I think it's like 350,000 people.
But it, yeah, it attracts just such a wide variety of people.
It's never boring. The nightlife again is amazing.
The food is fantastic.
Yeah, it's just a fantastic place to be.
Bristol has the best food out of every bar you've been? No, oh, not by far, but it's definitely one of the better,
like, kind of all-rounders. I see. LA, Tacos de Madre, over near Westwood,
they've got the best Korean barbecue pulled pork burrito.
It's like a cream Mexican fusion. That sounds delicious.
It is, oh, it's so good. And I lived across the street from them.
And that was dangerous.
But London has amazing food, of course.
It's a mega city. It's an international hub.
Some of the best ramen I've had outside of Japan. I got it in London.
Bone Daddy's is a really amazing place.
I even Glasgow had good food, but in Glasgow and like in Scotland,
it was more of, you know, a roll and slice,
which is like, it's a crispy bun with square sausage.
And you get like brown sauce or HP for the North Americans.
You know, some fried onions and egg and stuff. And like, that's what you get on a Sunday morning.
Just fantastic kind of fry ups and hearty food, but yeah.
You've done so much, you're only in your 30s. Going to Japan when I was 15 forced me to grow up really fast.
And I think, like, I've always loved traveling. I grew up in a small-ish town off the coast,
you know, Vancouver Island here. And as soon as I left it, I realized how small it was.
And I hadn't realized that before I left. So I got back from Japan.
I moved over to Vancouver as soon as I could.
And since then, I've had the opportunity to travel all over the world with work.
Spent time in Singapore, San Francisco,
you know, Sweden, Germany, Portugal.
And yeah, to paraphrase Mark Twain,
travels the antithesis of ignorance.
I love learning. I love accumulating knowledge. So for me to be able to go and travel and meet new people
and experience new cultures is like, it's a highlight for sure.
What advice do you have for somebody who's looking to do what you do?
All this cool tech stuff and travel all over the world.
I mean, for me, when I left Canada for the second time,
it was on a whim. Working holiday visas, like looking to them,
it was good for two years. I had to show like, at the time,
I think it was like $1,800 Canadian in my bank account.
And when I left, I had substantially less than that
because I actually lost my passport on the way to the airport, missed my flights,
had to get a new visa, everything was a whole big rigmarole.
And it costs a lot of money. So honestly, just take the leap, go for it.
I'm self-taught. I didn't go to school for engineering or software development.
I started, I built my first computer at 10 out of scraps from friends' families.
And I know a lot of people in our community have done similar
where maybe you didn't have the money to buy a computer
or your family didn't have enough money to buy a computer. So friends' families had to upgrade
and maybe they've got an old hard drive you can grab or like, hey, old power supply because they bought a new PC.
And at the end of the day, I started teaching myself.
Just take the jump. There's so many amazing learning platforms now
between Coursera and Brilliant. And I'm sure I'm probably just naming off our sponsors
at this point because it's so ingrained in me. But we, honestly, there's so many opportunities
to teach yourself how to do things.
Going to GitHub, start looking at bugs that people are filing and just start looking
at how to fix them. Even if you don't solve it, look at how it ends up
being solved and see where you went wrong. It's a great whittler.
Well, this is a great chat, Jake. Really appreciate you hopping on.
Thanks, buddy. I'm looking forward to you and the rest of the social team finally being over here
so you don't have to go back and forth between buildings. Oh my gosh.
For reference, Arthur forgot a microphone and then an SD card and a tripod.
So it's been a little back and forth this morning. We got it done, though.
We got it done. Anything you want to say to the Floatplane peeps? Luke and the team work really hard
and they really appreciate you guys.
Have a good one.