00:06:46 · Scott Kirby
[00:06:46] S0: Is that So, we, like, I've always been a big believer in technology. Have a computer science degree. You're one of us. Yeah, yeah. But eight months ago when I talked to you, I not yet had my AI epiphany, but I've always wanted to get on modern platforms. And so during COVID, nothing we did, like in the middle of COVID, said, When everyone else is cutting back at airlines, cutting everything, we're gonna double down on technology investment. We started a several $100,000,000 project to get, not just on the cloud, but get everything off of mainframes to build databases, you know, that are modern that we can, you know, access the data. Just to really modernize our tech stack. And there was no ROI, there was no payback, which is why companies don't do it. Like it's really hard to do the ROI on something like that. But what it does is it enables you to move fast and do things. Like we're doing stuff that other airlines frankly can't do because they don't have the right tech stack. And we can do them easy and do them fast. So we started that, you know, in 2020 in an anticipatory and it's really paying off today. So my AI epiphany that I think has happened within the last eight months is I don't think AI, like summarizing documents and all that kind of crap, think is like ridiculous. Like my calendar, summarize my day. Like I can read my calendar. Like I don't need to summarize my day. But the power of programming. So, I hired a tutor and took three one hour sessions. And if you want me to, I can tell you the stuff I did.
00:08:13 · Ben Thompson, Scott Kirby
[00:08:13] S2: No, we want to see the vibe coded out. [00:08:15] S0: Final So, out right I went and, so I'll just tell you what the first thing I did was. I've always been into gambling for better or worse. It helps you make big bets on aircraft, for example. But after three one hour sessions completely by myself, got up on a Saturday morning, went down to the home gym, worked out, took my laptop down there. It took about two and a half hours of run time, but I did a full workout. You know, takes time to run. [00:08:42] S2: I did exactly what settled in my gym. I actually have like an iPad with the keyboard there. Yeah. And in between sets I'm just typing pops and it's like running. [00:08:51] S0: Yeah, It's perfect. So that's what I did. I, on my own, in two and a half hours, created a webpage that had dropdown menus for what sport do you want, what dates do you want, what kind of bets do you want. So, four or five dropdowns. And then it would go off. Four sportsbooks, Kolschi being one of them, not actually a sportsbook, but four sportsbook. It would pull up all the odds and you could just decide what you wanted to bet and put the dollar amount in. And then it would go to whichever sports book had the best odds and make the bet on my behalf. You're aggregating the sports fest. That's on everyone. I'm walking very soon, yeah. Man, I could do that with three hours of tutoring on my own could write a program to do that was an epiphany for me. And like I got, I think I called him on that Saturday, you know, our team, and like, We're all in on this.
00:08:51 · Scott Kirby, Ben Thompson
[00:08:51] S0: Yeah, It's perfect. So that's what I did. I, on my own, in two and a half hours, created a webpage that had dropdown menus for what sport do you want, what dates do you want, what kind of bets do you want. So, four or five dropdowns. And then it would go off. Four sportsbooks, Kolschi being one of them, not actually a sportsbook, but four sportsbook. It would pull up all the odds and you could just decide what you wanted to bet and put the dollar amount in. And then it would go to whichever sports book had the best odds and make the bet on my behalf. You're aggregating the sports fest. That's on everyone. I'm walking very soon, yeah. Man, I could do that with three hours of tutoring on my own could write a program to do that was an epiphany for me. And like I got, I think I called him on that Saturday, you know, our team, and like, We're all in on this. [00:09:40] S2: At that point though, he did tell me when I asked him about it that I had huge switchover coming the following week, and it went off without a hitch. [00:09:46] S0: And I remember that. [00:09:47] S2: I was actually flying the next day.
00:09:47 · Ben Thompson, Scott Kirby, John Collison
[00:09:47] S2: I was actually flying the next day. [00:09:48] S0: He went on that. And actually, that one, you know, what we do for those is, I think I told you, just in case, like we canceled several 100 flights Yep, two sixty On that day. Well, just in case something goes wrong, we're not putting customers in. That was a switch from one of the biggest, you know, one of our biggest, most critical mainframe systems that's tied into everything. We felt really good about it and we thought, you know, like those things are so big and complicated. Turning off a legacy mainframe system and turning on the new system. It did go off without a hitch, we canceled several 100, we just don't schedule flights during that window so that in case something goes wrong, we're not putting customers in harm's way. [00:10:28] S1: How much of the airline issues have been a story of outsourcing? Like, look at sometimes what's needed is some good de vendorization and bring the tech If in look at why Tesla was so successful, they realized that software is important to cars. And the wing mirror and the wing mirror adjuster is made by the sub vendor that does that, and so you can't centrally control it, and you just need to own the tech stack. Have you guys been bringing more in house? [00:10:49] S0: We are. [00:10:50] S1: Which subsystems subsystems in particular? [00:10:51] S0: We're bringing much more in house. We have more in house, I think, than any airline in world. We're the only airline in the world that owns our own reservation system. Everyone else is outsourced to Sabre and Apollo.
00:10:51 · Scott Kirby, John Collison, Ben Thompson
[00:10:51] S0: We're bringing much more in house. We have more in house, I think, than any airline in world. We're the only airline in the world that owns our own reservation system. Everyone else is outsourced to Sabre and Apollo. [00:11:00] S1: You worked at Sabre, right? [00:11:02] S0: I did. It wasn't Sabre then. It was called American Airlines Decision Technologies. But you know, that's a mainframe system. [00:11:08] S1: Sure. [00:11:08] S0: And because we own our, it's a legacy, like we locked into it, like legacy decisions that we own our own mainframe. Because we owned it and we're, because us, Copa uses it too, Copa Airlines in Panama uses it because they're partner with us. We're the only two airlines in the world that use it. So like eventually it was EDS owned it and then someone else, like they didn't want to keep supporting it. So we had to, like we lucked into it, like we had to support it on our own. But it's been huge. And now we're taking over all kinds of other parts of the tech stack, partly because we do things, you know, it's so much more complicated at United than it is at most airlines around the world. Is that just because [00:11:46] S2: of size or what?
00:11:46 · Ben Thompson, Scott Kirby, John Collison
[00:11:46] S2: of size or what? [00:11:47] S0: The size and complexity is just much higher. But I'll give you another example of one that we're taking over that I got so frustrated about. The seat back entertainment screens. I didn't actually realize it until I started complaining about the maps. The maps are terrible. Like the map, like I just want a map to show up, like go, I'm into maps. Go where I'm going. If I can zoom in, zoom out if I want. And the stupid map switches to the globe. Like I know, like, approximately where I am on the globe. Don't need [00:12:14] S1: to see the damn globe. By the time you find the information you're looking for, it switches screens. [00:12:18] S0: Yeah. Because what [00:12:19] S2: I want though is... Because you already know who I am. You log in. My name's Eric, put in my birthday or whatever. I do nothing but have the map on the whole time. I wanna have my map preferences and everything.