John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

Hypercritical is an awesome podcast. I love that Dan mostly sits back and lets John go on his long rants.

Hi there, I'm Dan, CEO of Black Pixel. I'd like to clear the air on this issue.

The application and the source code in question belongs to Black Pixel. We designed and developed the application in-house, at our own expense, and were going to license the binary for free, non-exclusive use on the 5by5 network, but that deal didn't work out.

Quite some time later, we got to know the folks at Mule Radio, and felt like there might be a good opportunity for our work to see the light of day. So we discussed things with them and licensed the binaries to them for use on their show.

So, to be clear, this app belongs to Black Pixel. We've never received a dime of money for it from anyone, because we wanted to have complete creative control over the product. We're happy that our app has found a home and are donating our time to support and add new features to the application as time goes on.

We hope you enjoy it.

-Daniel Pasco, CEO Black Pixel

Shame on you John Gruber.

Seriously though, it's John's show and he's free to take it to another network. I just _really_ hope that this transition was done in a respectful manner and that there isn't bad blood between 5by5 and Mule.

A little background: Let's Make Mistakes, Mule Radio's main show, got started with 5by5's help. Let's Make Mistakes was a 5by5 network show for it's first year of existence. It garnered all of the listenership and cross promotion that comes with being part of 5by5. After a year of getting traction, Mule split the show off into its own podcasting network, essentially becoming a competitor to 5by5. If Mule now aggressively poached The Talk Show from 5by5 then it was certainly a dick move.

Of course, we don't have all the details and this is just speculation. So again, I hope this was done in a way that respected Dan and 5by5.

I've seen Gruber say that Mike Montero was a really good friend of his a few times. He was even on their show. The move could be because he wanted to be with friends and support their efforts.

Trying hard to see the rationale behind this split. Gruber's emphasis has always been on "quality," "being the best," and "being right" in everything he does. Thus the only light through which I can see this decision is his belief that the show is better without Dan. Their relationship throughout The Talk Show has had its tumultuous moments: in early episodes, Benjamin's using an Android phone drew Gruber's ire, and then later there was animosity when Benjamin would show up for the Bond episodes unprepared. Gruber would accuse Dan of "yeah yeahing" his co-hosts and contributing little in the way of earnest dissent.

On the other hand, I always had the sense that Benjamin regarded Gruber as a kneejerk Apple apologist, and this too could not have helped their relationship.

But their differences led to the show's magic. Their contrasting styles would turn the show into a focused, intimate meditation on Gruber's thoughts on industry (plus side interests of baseball, Kubrick, etc.), often serving as a preview of what written work would be to come on Daring Fireball. While it can come across as aloofness, Dan has the passive ability to subtly guide the conversation and give it some sense of structure, and he's great at knowing when to let the other person speak. There were also incredibly funny moments of East Coast camaraderie that would keep the side topics interesting and lively.

It seems that Gruber has taken all of this for granted in deciding his show is better without Benjamin. Quite sad.