Quote

The most I ever spent on technology is building a studio - I built one at home in Los Angeles. I can't tell you how much exactly, but the whole process is very expensive.

If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it's always expensive.

Building is just skilled labor, I suppose. It's a lot of work. I don't mind other people building them, but the way things go together and are made is interesting to me; I like that a lot.

It costs a lot to build bad products.

Costs of manufactured articles importantly depend on the cost of raw materials as well as labour.

I don't go crazy buying expensive technology. I'd probably say my laptops and TVs are the most expensive things I've bought.

Received wisdom is that if you spend time up front getting the design right, you avoid costs later. But the longer you spend getting the design right, the more your upfront costs are, and the longer it takes for the software to start earning.

Sometimes, and I hate to say it, you do feel things are asked for in the most ludicrously unrealistic fashion. The time you are expected to make things in, and the money you are expected to make them for - that is the death of creativity. Just because some things can be made very cheaply does not mean everything can be.

When it costs you the same amount of manufacturing effort to make advanced robotic parts as it does to manufacture a paperweight, that really changes things in a profound way.