So even though TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF event (happening next week!!) is ostensibly a tech conference, we’ll have plenty of big names from the worlds of media and entertainment onstage to discuss the changing landscape.
On day one, those names include Joseph Gordon Levitt, who you may know as an actor in films like “Inception” and “500 Days of Summer,” but who also founded the creative collaboration platform HitRecord, which raised a $6.4 million Series A earlier this year.
And while 5G will probably the main focus of our interview with Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg and Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan, we here at TechCrunch (which is owned by Verizon Media) are certainly interested in hearing about the company’s digital media plans.
Meanwhile, if you’re more interested in the nitty gritty of developing a media strategy, we’ll have a panel on that very subject on our Extra Crunch stage, with speakers including MakeLoveNotPorn’s Cindy Gallop and Brooke Hammerling of Brew PR.
Then on day two, we’ll turn our attention to one of the fastest-growing media categories, esports. 100 Thieves is a big player in this space — combining streaming content, competitive esports and apparel — and we’ll talk to the company’s founder Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag (a pro gamer himself), along with co-owner Scooter Braun (who also manages Justin Bieber and Arianna Grande).
Our Extra Crunch programming on that day will also include a session that’s all about future of digital media, which will be sponsored by publisher engagement company Spot.im.
Finally, on day three, we’ll be joined by YouTube star and “Queen of Shitty Robots” Simone Giertz. While the conversation will likely focus on her latest robotic and hardware creations (including her crowdfunded Every Day Calendar), Giertz is a remarkable case study in how someone can build an enormous following and business on digital media platforms.
We’ll also have an Extra Crunch session about brand-building — Brooke Hammerling will be sharing more of her knowledge, and she’ll be joined by Bumble VP of Marketing Chelsea Cain Maclin and Character co-founder/creative director Ben Pham.
Disrupt SF will take place from October 2 to 4 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Browse the full agenda and buy your tickets.
TechCrunch Disrupt SF is this week: join us on the Extra Crunch stage
TechCrunch’s biggest event of the year is happening this coming week at the brand-new Moscone North convention center in SF. We have wall-to-wall programming on our inaugural Extra Crunch stage, where audience members can ask questions to our panelists on topics as diverse as growth marketing, recruiting, fundraising, legal quandaries, and more.
If you want to join but haven’t bought your ticket, remember that all Extra Crunch annual subscribers get 20% off our tickets by emailing extracrunch@techcrunch.com. And if you can’t join, we will have synopses of some of the EC panels coming out in the following weeks.
Transfer your Extra Crunch Brex Reward points to JetBlue
A while back, we added an Extra Crunch member benefit where all EC members can receive 100,000 Brex Rewards points if they sign up for a new Brex account. Now, those points can also be transferred to JetBlue, perhaps for those fancy Mint seats between New York and SF. We are going to continue to add new member benefits, so do let us know if you have any interesting ideas or want to partner with us.
Follow our new @extracrunch Twitter handle
Finally, we now have a new Twitter handle for Extra Crunch: @extracrunch. We will be retweeting all EC articles on the handle, and later on, will be exploring other ways to engage with members through Twitter. Follow us!
If you are interviewing for operating roles in companies in parallel to interviewing with VC firms, you will get multiple offers (probably quite good ones) in the former category before you’ve made it far in the latter. It is exceedingly common in the VC Partner searches I run to find out that an excellent candidate has multiple strong offers in Product roles from big tech companies and hot startups, for example, before they’ve made it halfway through a VC interview process.
This Week in Apps: AltStore, acquisitions and Google Play Pass
TechCrunch’s apps maven Sarah Perez is starting a new, occasional series on the most important developments in the app world along with her analysis of what’s taking place. This week, she explores AltStore, a new type of app store, iOS 13 adoption trends, an App Annie acquisition, and five or so other stories:
SpaceX is all set to deliver an update on the status of its Starship program, courtesy of CEO Elon Musk. Musk will provide new info about “the design and development of Starship” at 7 PM CDT (8 PM EDT/5 PM PDT) tonight, live from the company’s Boca Chica rocket assembly facility in South Texas.
The likely backdrop for the update will be the Starship Mk1 orbital prototype, the second flight-testing vehicle SpaceX has produced in its development of Starship. The first, Starhopper, accomplished its mission of testing two low-altitude, limited duration flights – a key step that sets the stage for longer, high-altitude sub-orbital testing by this Mk1 prototype. The Mk1 will use three Raptor engines initially (and up to six eventually) while the snub-nosed Starhopper used only one.
So far, we know based on past SpaceX presentations that the company is aiming to use Starship and its forthcoming Super Heavy launcher to deliver fully reusable space transportation, capable of bringing cargo and crew to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starting at 7 PM CDT, we’ll find out what’s next for the company on the path toward that long-term goal.
SpaceX is set to show off its Starship Mk1, an orbital-scale prototype of the spacecraft it eventually plans to use to attain its goal of fully reusable commercial spaceflight. Starship is the key ingredient not only to fully reusable launch and cargo vehicles for serving commercial clients; it’s also the next most important step in SpaceX and Elon Musk’s audacious plan to get humans to Mars and sow the seeds that will help us become an interplanetary species.
Starship Mk1 is the evolution of the first flight vehicle that SpaceX used to test technologies for Starship – the Starhopper, a stub-top cylinder that basically just provided a way to test one of the Raptor engines in two, low-altitude ‘hop’ flights. The Starhopper’s mission may be over, but it’s still in Boca Chica, Texas, sitting out just behind the Starship Mk1 and just a mile or less from the end of the road and the Gulf.
[gallery ids="1888354,1888353,1888352,1888355"]
Starship Mk1 is a towering structure in person, and its gleaming, high-polish shell can be blinding in the South Texas sun when there’s no cloud cover. The final effect is like a 1950s science-fiction pulp novel cover made real, with a scale that’s hard to understand even standing directly in front of the thing and seeing workers busy putting the final touches on the rocket’s exterior ahead of SpaceX’s update event tonight.
When I arrived on the ground in Brownsville, I made the short drive out to SpaceX’s assembly site for the Mk1 in the small community of Boca Chica. It was well after sunset, but the roughly 180-foot tall structure was lit up by a number of floodlights, as crews continued to work on interior welds and other parts of the final assembly. Notably, about half the structure had its shiny, glossy outer finish, while the rest remained rougher looking – something which would change by morning.
Tall construction cranes lifted workers to the parts of the spacecraft they were working on, including a few ports dotting the surface which are large enough for a person to crawl through, even though they appear small relative to the rocket’s overall size. The top nose cone of the Starship Mk1 was still attached to a crane at this point, too, before that supporting structure was removed sometime before morning.
Returning the next day, the Starship was more easily visible from afar – I spotted it about 10 miles out. The shining stainless steel structure was much shinier than the night before, looking more like a complete and finished spacecraft. The bottom wings near the base were connected to the body with cladding that increases aerodynamics – while the top fins were attached at only a couple of points. Both sets of fins will move rapidly during entry and landing in order to control stability of the spacecraft, which is a key ingredient in its ability to reflow multiple times.
Workers were still busy in the morning putting the final touches on the rocket, including working on placing the top cap on to the very tip of the nose cone. The domed tip was actually rounded, not pointy, which is probably better for helping bleed off drag when the rocket is making its way back to Earth.
The final structure is indeed incredibly impressive. The scale, as mentioned, is hard to grasp, which is why I tried to capture as many shots as possible with people in frame to give a sense of Starship’s overall size. Remember, too, that this is just the top portion of what will eventually be SpaceX’s Starship launch system, which will include the Super Heavy booster to deliver extra thrust for carrying large cargo to orbit. The base of the Starship Mk1 alone is roughly 30 feet in diameter, which is about half the size of the largest semi-trailer transport trucks on the road.
SpaceX’s event today isn’t just about revealing this rocket – Starship Mk1 is actually really easy to access via public road, and you can get surprisingly close. But it’ll probably get another round of spit and polish prior to tonight’s update from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk . And we’ll hear lots more about next steps for the Starship program, including timelines for its first suborbital tests (which will involve flying to above airline cruising speed) and which could start quite soon. Plus, we might hear more about Musk’s more ambitious goals for Starship, including super-fast upper atmosphere passenger flights, and its first forays to planets beyond our own.
We’ll have updates live as they happen here on TechCrunch, and the event should start at around 7 PM CDT (8 PM EDT/5 PM PDT).
“Between Two Ferns: The Movie” is based on the comically confrontational web interview series starring Zach Galifianakis. In fact, some of us assumed that the film might be nothing more than one interview after another.
The movie does indeed have plenty of celebrity interviews, but they’re connected by a loose narrative thread in which Galifianakis and his crew have been dispatched by their corporate overlord Will Ferrell to crisscross the country, trying to film 10 interviews in two weeks.
If that sounds like a pretty thin story for a feature-length film, you’re not wrong — as we discuss in the latest episode of the Original Content podcast. Galifianakis and the actors playing his crew make some inspired jokes, but they can’t entirely dodge the sense that they’re filling time between interviews.
As for the interviews themselves, it’s still a delight to see Galifianakis toss off one belittling question after another. However, it can get a little one-note when the interviewees are rarely asked to do anything more than sputter angrily — which may be why some of the interviews have been cut down to just one or two questions.
To be clear, we all enjoyed watching “Between Two Ferns: The Movie,” but the real highlight turned out to be the interview outtakes that play over the end credits, and the extendedinterviews that have been posted on YouTube.
You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
If you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:31 “Terrace House” listener response
2:42 Emmy Awards discussion
16:55 “Between Two Ferns: The Movie” review (extremely mild spoilers)
The app industry shows no signs of slowing down, with 194 billion downloads in 2018 and over $100 billion in consumer spending. People spend 90% of their mobile time in apps and more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. In other words, apps aren’t just a way to spend idle hours — they’re a big business. And one that often seems to change overnight. In this new Extra Crunch series, we’ll help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps — including everything from the OS’s to the apps that run upon them, as well as the money that flows through it all.
This week, alternatives to the traditional app store is a big theme. Not only has a new, jailbreak-free iOS marketplace called AltStore just popped up, we’ve also got both Apple and Google ramping up their own subscription-based collections of premium apps and games.
Meanwhile, the way brands and publishers want to track their apps’ success is changing, too. And App Annie — the company that was the first to start selling pickaxes for the App Store gold rush — is responding with an acquisition that will help app publishers better understand the return on investment for their app businesses.
Headlines
AltStore is an alternative App Store that doesn’t need a jailbreak
An interesting alternative app marketplace has appeared on the scene, allowing a way for developers to distribute iOS apps outside the official App Store, reports Engadget — without jailbreaking, which can be difficult and has various security implications. Instead, the new store works by tricking your device into thinking you’re a developer sideloading apps. And it uses a companion app on your Mac or PC to re-sign the apps every 7 days via iTunes WiFi syncing protocol. Already, it’s offering a Nintendo emulator and other games, says The Verge. And Apple is probably already working on a way to shut this down. For now, it’s live at Altstore.io.
Very excited to officially announce AltStore: an alternative app store for iOS — no jailbreak required. Launching this Saturday, September 28, but you can download the preview TODAY https://t.co/M7nULBV28p
For the third time in a month, Google mass-deleted Android apps from a big Chinese developer.
Does Google Play have a malicious app problem? That appears to be the case as Google has booted some 46 apps from major Chinese mobile developer iHandy out of its app store, BuzzFeed reported. And it isn’t saying why. The move follows Google’s ban of two other major Chinese app developers, DO Global and CooTek, who had 1 billion total downloads.
Cars might still reign supreme, but things they are a changin’. And companies are lining up to provide new ways — and some recycled ones — for people to get from Point A to Point B.
The past several years have seen an explosion in startups, automakers and tech companies launching and testing products from scooters and electric bike share to ride-hailing, electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and even flying taxis. Or heck, even space travel.
Even as more mobility startups pop up, the shine of these new new things is starting to fade and companies are facing big technical challenges, regulatory hurdles, hiring and economic headwinds.
TechCrunch is at the center of this mobility storm and we’re bringing some of the industry’s leaders on stage at Disrupt SF, including Bird founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden, Kitty Hawk CEO Sebastian Thrun and Zoox CEO Aicha Evans, to hear firsthand how these companies are trying to change how people and packages move in the world and the challenges that lie ahead.
There are talks related to mobility on every stage, including the main stage and EC stage.
Disrupt kicks off October 2 with a 10:05 a.m. talk with Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith, who intends to return the U.S. to crewed spaceflight. Expect TechCrunch to ask Smith for details on what a ticket for a trip might cost, once it begins taking on paying customers.
Once this wraps up, head over to the ExtraCrunch stage for a 10:45 a.m. sponsored talk by mapping company TomTom to hear about its new partnerships with technology companies.
Back at the main stage, check out a space, autonomy, investment and defense-related talk with Lockheed Martin’s Marilyn Hewson at the main stage.
And for those interested in subscription-based businesses, which if you haven’t noticed are becoming more prevalent in the mobility world, be sure to check out the 3:45 p.m. talk on the ExtracCrunch stage with Alex Friedman from Lola, Eurie Kim with Forerunner Ventures, and Sandra Oh Lin of KiwiCo.
October 2 is filled with mobility-related talks, including a morning chat with David Krane, CEO and managing partner at Gain Insights, a firm known for its bold bets on companies like Lime, Impossible Foods, Uber and Slack.
Don’t miss the mid-morning interview with Sebastian Thrun, an educator, inventor and serial entrepreneur, about the future of flight and Kitty Hawk Corporation, the urban air mobility company he leads. If you’ve ever seen Thrun before, you know not to miss this.
As Thrun walks off stage, VanderZanden of Bird walks on to talk about how the company is faring in scooter wars and it’s is doing to improve its unit economics.
Day 2 ends with an interview on the main stage with Zoox CEO Aicha Evans, who will talk about the self-driving car company and how it plans to work with cities to change how people live and work in these urban areas.
Don’t miss Day 3, because well Simone Giertz is going to be on the main stage. For the unfamiliar, Giertz has amassed a major YouTube following courtesy of her “sh*** robots” and other highly entertaining projects. One of her most recent projects was turning a Tesla sedan into a pickup.
And finally, in the mobility world packages matter too. Finish the day off with an interview on the main stage with Postmates co-founder and CEO Bastian Lehmann, who will talk about the on-demand delivery company’s uncertain future and how robotics will change the landscape of the on-demand world.
Get passes to Disrupt to put the pedal to the metal on everything happening in mobility.
Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy news pertaining to startups and venture capital. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. I’ve been on a bit of startup profile kick as of late. Last week, I wrote a little bit about Landline, a bus network backed by Upfront Ventures. Before that, I profiled an e-commerce startup called Part & Parcel.
Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don’t subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, you can do that here.
I’ve made a habit of highlighting one startup per week in this newsletter, so why stop now? This week, I want to talk about Alpha Medical, an early-stage healthtech startup on a “mission to rebuild women’s healthcare,” founder and CEO Gloria Lau tells TechCrunch.
The early-stage telemedicine business, which focuses on providing reproductive and dermatological care online, launched its membership program this week and expanded into three new states: Georgia, Washington and Virginia.
Alpha Medical co-founders Dr. J (left) and Gloria Lau.
The company, now active in nine states, has raised $11 million to date from DCVC and AV8, among others, including a recent $10 million Series A. It’s certainly not as well-financed as some of the top telemedicine businesses, like Hims, Ro and Nurx. But Alpha has had something special from the get-go: medical expertise. The company is led by a techie in Lau but its secret weapon is Dr. J. Co-founder and chief medical officer Mary Jacobson, or Dr. J, is an obstetrician, gynecologist and minimally invasive surgeon with extensive experience in clinical care, medical education, hospital operations and research.
There have been and will continue to be many “health tech” companies backed with millions by venture capitalists. But many of these are really just consumer brands with health buzzwords stamped on top. The real winners, I think, will be startups with true medical expertise coupled with tech know-how.
“We are female founders — women building this for women,” says Lau. “We understand the pain point so well.”
WeWork’s eccentric CEO/founder Adam Neumann stepped down this week amid pressure from board members (SoftBank) to exit the C-suite. Wall Street doesn’t think Neumann is fit to be CEO of a public company and if you don’t know why, read this WSJ piece. For more details, listen to this episode of Equity we recorded earlier this week.
What’s next for Peloton? International growth? Doubling down on original content? New hardware? Tell me what to write.
Peloton, the fitness tech company that sells really expensive stationary bikes and treadmills, debuted on the NASDAQ on Thursday. They raised more than a billion dollars in the process, so that’s good, but their stock is already struggling. For one, it opened at below its initial price of $29 and closed at about $25, or 11% down. That makes us a bit nervous for the company moving forward. Still, they are well-financed and have plenty of money to put to work.
This was the biggest news week in history. Fortunately, I only need to tell you about startup news… Still, there was a lot of that too. Here are just a few other things I’ll highlight that might have slipped through the cracks.
DoorDash confirmed a massive data breach. Here’s what you need to know: It impacted 4.9 million customers, workers and merchants who were using the platform prior to April 5, 2018. The company is blaming the breach on a “third-party service provider,” but the third-party was not named…
All the scooters are coming back to San Francisco. Here’s what you need to know: JUMP, Lime, Scoot and Spin were all granted permits to operate their respective services in SF beginning Oct. 15 as part of the city’s longer-term permitting program for electric scooters. If you remember, Lime was previously denied a permit, while Skip was given the green light. This time around, Skip got the boot and Lime was given the go ahead. Oh how times have changed!
Uber launched an incubator. Here’s what you need to know: Uber wants to make sure some of its best, most entrepreneurial employees are happy and their tech is at its best. To do this, it’s created an incubator open to employees and those outside the organization to develop products and services on top of Uber’s platform.
TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, our flagship event, is right around the corner. Next week, October 2 through 4th, the entire TechCrunch staff will gather from all corners of the world to interview leaders in technology and venture capital. From Snap CEO Evan Spiegel to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, actor and founder of HitRecord, to a16z’s crypto expert Chris Dixon, we’ll have something for everyone.
Newsletter readers can get 20% off tickets by using this link. Hope to see you all there.
Finally, listen to Equity
We recorded not one but two Equity episodes this week because, well, the news just wouldn’t stop. The first was a guide on the WeMess. You can listen to that one here. In the second episode, we tried to hit on everything else that happened this week, from Peloton’s listing, to Vox & NYMag’s merger, to Bodega’s quiet funding and Kapwing’s $11 million Series A. Listen to that one here.
When Dieter Döpfer, the founder of music instrument manufacturer Doepfer, decided to launch a brand new modular synthesiser system in 1995, no one could have predicted what would follow. Today, his “Eurorack” format supports an ecosystem of hundreds of manufacturers that have collectively produced thousands of compatible modules used by famous musicians, such as Radiohead, Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin, and hobbyists alike.
Fuelled by passion not venture capital, most companies in the Eurorack space are neither startups nor established OEMs. Instead – and quite remarkably – the industry remains a long tail of boutique manufacturers, with some of the best-sellers still operating as one-person shops. Inspired by technology that is almost half a century old, and intentionally designed not to scale, these businesses might well be considered the anti-Crunch.
“My happiness is based on developing, not on the amount of sales,” one Eurorack maker told me, after I promised not to name his company for fear of generating too many new orders. “Of course I really appreciate if someone decides to purchase some modules, then I know my work makes sense, but the current sales amount ensures I have enough time for developing”.
He said that increased sales would lead to less time spent working on new designs and more time assembling modules and answering emails explaining why a particular item is currently out of stock. One solution would be to take on an employee or two but the associated bureaucracy would also be an unwelcome distraction.
“That’s not what I like [doing],” he said, comparing it to a friend who owned a single coffee shop and was happy making great coffee and fine desserts, but had subsequently expanded to three coffee shops and is now unhappy. “He’s thinking about selling two of his coffee shops to get his happiness back. More money does not ensure more happiness,” said the Eurorack maker.
It’s the kind of an existential crisis many founders find themselves facing after a company grows to a certain size, but for the makers of modular the reason for existing is often clear from the start. This is certainly true of Döpfer’s own story.
In contrast to the preceding two decades, the mid-80s ushered in the era of digital synthesisers, popularised by Yamaha’s DX7, meaning that instruments based on analog electronics – let alone a modular synthesiser system that had to be patched manually before it would produce any sound – were no longer in vogue. Modular systems from the 60s and 70s, such as those produced by Moog, Buchla, Arp and Roland, had mainly become the domain of vintage instrument collectors, while the modular synthesisers that remained in production were seen as arcane high end products priced well beyond the reach of most musicians.
In those intertwining years, Döpfer had pivoted his company away from analog electronics to produce one of the first digital sampler cards, followed by a more successful line of MIDI keyboards and controllers. However, by 1994 the designer was left feeling unchallenged, and perhaps noticing that second hand prices for Roland’s TB-303 and other discontinued analog synthesisers had begun creeping upwards, Doepfer introduced its first new analog synth in ten years. Called the MS-404, it was mainly designed for Döpfer’s “own enjoyment,” but sold better than expected, creating an even bigger itch in need of scratching.
By the following year Döpfer had developed an entire modular synthesiser system he called the A-100. Using repurposed circuits from the MS-404, the system consisted of ten individual Doepfer modules, each fulfilling a specific function, such as an oscillator, envelope or voltage-controlled filter. Just like the modular synthesisers of the past, the A-100 would require the user to create their own instrument by “patching” the modules together. Using cables with a 3.5mm jack on each end that are capable of carrying audio signals and control voltages, the synthesiser’s sound could be shaped or modulated in a vast number of ways and configurations, limited only by the user’s creativity and knowledge of synthesis techniques (or their appetite for experimentation), together with the number of different modules in their system and size of their bank balance.
“The idea was to make it affordable,” Döpfer told me during a call from the company’s office in Munich, Germany. “All modular systems that were available in the past were far too expensive for normal people from my point of view. And so I said, ‘there should be a modular synthesiser available, which is affordable also for normal people, not only for rich ones’. This was the idea behind the A-100”.
Doepfer’s A-100 suitcase
Despite its relatively low cost, Döpfer says the new synthesiser was initially met with bemusement by dealers. He was repeatedly told that nobody was interested in a modular system and that he should spend his time designing something different. “I said, no, I think it’s a good idea, I’d like to have something like that, and that’s why I continued it,” he recalls.
Once again, Döpfer’s instincts were good. When the A-100 made its first public appearance at an industry expo the following year, it was the company’s new modular synthesiser at the back of the Doepfer stand that grabbed most of the attention, relegating its bread and butter MIDI keyboard and controllers to a rather lonely looking affair.
Meanwhile, Doepfer wasn’t the only company developing a new low cost system in a bid to re-introduce modular synthesisers to today’s musicians. Unknown to Döpfer, the British company Analogue Systems had been working on a similar idea.
Purely by chance the A-100 and Analogue Systems’ RS Integrator System 1 were both “3U” in height (based on the 19″ rack standard), shunning the larger and more expensive “5U” design of most existing modular systems. The two systems also took inspiration from the Eurocard standard for printed circuit boards (PCBs) and faceplate dimensions, where width is measured in a unit referred to as horizontal pitch or “HP” for short.
Unfortunately, the exact position of the mounting holes on the modules’ front panels differed between systems, leading to gaps if the two brands were placed adjacent to one another. The power cable configuration was also different, although that was later solved when Analogue Systems redesigned its power supplies to provide Doepfer-style outputs so that systems could be mixed.
Quite brilliantly, however, Döpfer decided early on to publish the specifications of the A-100 module format on the Doepfer website, and in doing so had laid the groundwork for a Eurorack modular synth standard to emerge.
“I thought if the people and the musicians are interested in a modular system, it should be an open system because it was clear to me that we were not able to offer all the kinds of modules the people want to have,” Döpfer told me.
“And so I said I’ll publish everything like the mechanical dimensions and electrical specifications and so on and after, I don’t know, two or three years, the first other guys asked me if it would be okay to offer modules in the same format and with the same design.
“I said, okay, it would be best if more modules are available from other companies, because then the people are more confident in the system, compared to a situation where we would be the only supplier of such modules”.
As modules from third-party makers started to emerge, Döpfer admits he was initially concerned about the effect competition could have on his company. However, as more companies entered the market, Doepfer sales went up, especially since the first generation of Eurorack companies focused on more specialist modules or plugging gaps in the now expanding Doepfer system. “That was really surprising for me,” he says.
“The one thing that Döpfer has done is he’s created an industry out of Eurorack,” says Allan “J” Hall, the founder and designer at British Eurorack maker AJH Synth. “If it wasn’t for Döpfer, there wouldn’t be any Eurorack. And he’s very generous in his approach to it as well. He doesn’t go around saying, ‘well, you know, it was me that started this, I should have all the glory’. There isn’t any of that at all”.
“I was hoping that we could sell the system, I don’t know, maybe for 5 or 10 years or something like that, but now we are close to 25 years,” reflects Döpfer. “And I never thought that it would last for such a long time, and that so many companies and so many modules will be available”.
***
My own journey into Eurorack is less than 12 months old, even though I’ve always loved the sound of analog synthesisers, particularly those used by funk and rock musicians from the 70s. Until recently, the only hardware synth I owned was a relatively basic single voice synth that has remained slightly underused in my home studio. Being “semi-modular” in its design, however, what it did offer was a number of patch points, either for internal pathing or – you guessed it – to external synth modules. One day late last year I decided to build a tiny Eurorack modular case to expand the sound possibilities of the synth.
My tiny 32HP Eurorack case
After purchasing a few modules, mostly second hand via a vibrant used market, it wasn’t long before I’d outgrown my humble 32HP case and a pattern developed familiar to anyone who has caught the Eurorack bug. I upgraded to a bigger case and obsessed over what modules I should buy and sell in pursuit of my perfect system (financial and space constraints permitting). Putting together a modular synth is the epitome of personalisation as no system is likely to be exactly the same. It’s a constant journey of discovery, too, spurred on by the wonderful “what if?” moments that often occur during patching.
It is also a journey that you don’t have to go on alone. The Eurorack ecosystem is well-established. Along with the makers themselves, there are online forums, such as the trailblazing (and oddly titled) “Muffwiggler,” various Facebook groups, Subreddits, YouTube channels, independent stores, and marketplaces like eBay, Reverb and Etsy. The community is generally welcoming to beginners and more experienced users alike, and people who inhabit the scene are often willing to share their experience.
As I immersed myself in Eurorack, I was also surprised to learn how small most Eurorack companies are: from one-person shops to boutique manufacturers of no more than a dozen people. Sure, some makers outsource manufacture and assembly, but it is common for a lot of the work to be done in-house, bar printing circuit boards and milling faceplates. In some ways it is a throw-back to how many hardware industries got started and is a little reminiscent of the very earliest days of the personal computer and the Homebrew Computer Club, except Eurorack is approaching a quarter of a century old.
Despite outward appearances, Döpfer itself only employs four staff (when I emailed the company for customer support, it was Mr Döpfer who replied!). Other examples include the U.K.’s AJH Synth, which has three full time and one part time member of staff, or XAOC Devices in Poland, which employs eight people. Meanwhile, Mutable Instruments, probably the most notorious company in Eurorack after Döpfer, is just founder Émilie Gillet.
“It is very much [a] cottage industry, and I think, purposefully so,” says Ben “DivKid” Wilson, who produces the popular Eurorack YouTube channel DivKid. “I don’t encounter many people that are so driven they want to run it like a corporation, or they want lots of staff. It’s that thing of, you know, if you’re an engineer for a car company, and you climb up the ladder, you’re probably going to end up doing less engineering, and more management. I don’t think anyone wants to let that go. They want to hold on to that reason that they got into this”.
Jason Brunton, who runs Signal Sounds, a Eurorack retailer based in Glasgow, Scotland, likens the makers of modular to the independent record labels he used to work with in a previous job. “The people that run modular companies have a very similar attitude,” he says. “A lot of the companies, it’s just one person’s vision… you can generally speak to the person that made the design, that manufactured it, designed the logo, you know, in some cases, it’s all the same person”.
This is very different to giant music manufacturers like Roland, Korg or Yamaha, says Brunton, where you never have a chance to find out what’s “going on in the heads of the people that make the gear” and only ever hear from sales reps. “You don’t get any insight into why the designers came up with particular ideas”.
***
You don’t have to look very hard to get into the head of Allan “J” Hall, the founder and designer at AJH Synth. Hall has been involved with synths, electronics and music for “more years than he cares to remember,” according to the company’s website, and like many Eurorack makers his entrance into electronics started with building guitar pedals. An interest in synthesisers and electronic music soon followed and for the last 20 years, Hall has been part of the DIY synth scene, including building and modding synth systems both for himself and other electronic musicians. He also spent five years as a service technician repairing and modifying Moog, Arp, Korg, Roland and other analogue synthesisers, along with some Pro Audio design work, including two years designing and building “boutique” valve guitar amplifiers.
“The reason that I went into modular was that at the time no one else was trying to make Eurorack modules that sounded and performed like vintage gear,” Hall tells me. “I was looking for the sound without the reliability issues, and the open architecture of Eurorack allows them to be interconnected in ways that weren’t previously possible”.
AJH Synth’s Allan Hall holding an extended Minimod system
Eighteen months in the making, AJH’s first set of modules was the Minimod released in 2016. The system is a painstaking recreation of Moog’s Minimoog Model D, arguably the most famous synthesiser ever made, and has been used on countless hit records spanning rock, disco, soul, EDM and hip hop.
“The Minimoog Model D… to me was the Stradivarius of mono synths. Then a few people said, ‘will you build me one? will you build me one?’ and I landed up as a Eurorack manufacturer. I wanted this thing to sound as nice as a Minimoog but I didn’t want it to have the limitations that the Minimoog has. If I wanted to try to use it with a SEM filter, I can just patch it in and see what happens. Or if I want to try it with six VCOs, I can patch it in”.
Hall says that designing a module that accurately reproduces the sound and response of vintage circuits that we know and love involves chasing the last few percent. To get to 90 or 95% of the way there is fairly easy and requires taking the schematics from the service manual and replicating it. But it’s the tiny nuances that require real work.
“With designs, it’s not unusual for me still to be working at 1AM,” he says, laughing. “If I’m laying out a complex circuit board then quite often I’ll put in 14-15 hour days. I only stop for meals and to go to the loo and just be full on at it. You find that a lot in electronics, computers and everything else… it’s almost the norm, it’s that human curiosity. The only thing I can’t understand is that some people don’t have it”.
When considering what to design next, Hall says he’s not really “commercially minded” and, as he continues to expand the AJH lineup, he is still building what he considers to be his perfect modular system.
“With something like the ‘Next Phase’, I just thought, ‘I need a phaser’. I don’t really stop and think, ‘is there a market for a phaser?’, I just go ahead and build it anyway… The initial idea really is: there’s something missing in my system, this is what it is, so that’s what I’m gonna do. So it certainly isn’t market-driven”.
To go from design to prototype, Hall says he uses the simulation program LTspice, which models various components so that he can get an idea of how a circuit will perform. He then has a prototype circuit made up and says it typically takes three different prototypes before everything either works as expected or he decides there is a better way of doing it.
Once a module is given the production green light, the front panels are designed, and then manufactured by a company in Germany, with PCB manufacturing outsourced to China. However, all assembly is done by AJH’s small team in the U.K., including SMD soldering and the required calibration of each module.
Allan Hall in his workshop
“We don’t have anything assembled in China,” Hall says. “That’s something I learned not to do fairly early on. If you’re a large company, and you have control, you have someone out there, then yes, by all means go that route. And Behringer have proved that you can go very big and very cheap by doing that. But for small companies like ourselves, you’re very much at the hands of the assembler and they tend to get quite ‘creative’ with the bill of materials”.
He adds that a small change in a component can seem innocuous to a third-party assembler but is often fundamental to a module’s design and the way it will sound and operate.
Distribution and retail, meanwhile, is something the AJH Synth founder is happy to outsource, and, unlike a lot of boutique makers, the company doesn’t sell direct to consumers. “We try to stick to doing what we’re good at. Packing up modules and taking them to the post office or getting couriers to collect them, we can’t do that as well as Amazon or the big box shifters… We just thought, well, if we can get rid of that, then we can concentrate on what we’re good at, which is designing and manufacturing.”
***
“This wasn’t the product of decision-making, it’s really a ‘one thing led to another’ story,” says Jason Coates, founder and sole proprietor of Manhattan Analog in Kansas, U.S.
In 2008 he was working in graphic design and layout, while building a modest studio on the side, and this led him “down the DIY path” by making a few custom panels for available circuits, just for his own use. After he posted his design to a few forums, he quickly discovered there was a need for panel designers within the Eurorack community.
“I started sharing my designs and taking on custom work,” recalls Coates. “At one point I got a request for a simple three channel mixer in 4HP, so I designed what would become the Mix. After sharing that one I had a slew of requests for more, so I did a run of 10. That sold out in hours, so I took the funds and invested in a run of 100”.
By the end of 2011, he says he was making twice as much at his “hobby” than he was doing layout design. “So I quit my day job to focus on Manhattan Analog full time, and I’m still doing it today”.
For production, Coates says these days he generally does runs of 6-12 for an individual module (and always in multiples of three). He concedes that it would be quicker to manufacture in larger batches, at least up to a point, but says he is limited by physical space in his workshop.
“This all still happens in a spare bedroom that’s also shared with my studio,” he explains. “I have started outsourcing a bit more as the line has grown, but frankly I still enjoy doing the work. I feel like it gives me an advantage regarding build quality and it also allows me to be choosy about certain components that may not be available in the SMT, machine-assembled realm”.
For distribution, Coates was able to partner with a number of retailers very early on, but also sells direct through the company’s website, including offering DIY kits for people that enjoy assembling their own modules.
“From a maker’s standpoint, it’s fun to work in Eurorack because there really is that freedom to do whatever you can imagine,” he says. “You can offer small-run or niche products with very little risk, and there’s not a lot of overhead involved since the ‘bones’ of the systems, such as cases and power supplies, are already widespread in the market”.
In other words, it’s partly the modular aspect of modular that makes Eurorack an industry that attracts long tail businesses. “Even as a student you are able to design one single module,” says Döpfer. “You can design a very limited project as there is already a pool of thousands of modules which can be used in combination with your special module. That’s very different to other markets”.
“The other aspect that makes it fun on the supply side is the tight-knit community that goes along with it,” adds Coates. “That direct connection with the customer base is probably as important to the makers as it is to the musicians”.
***
“Oh, I gotta want it, first and foremost,” says Garren “G-Man” Morse, founder of G-Storm Electro in Oklahoma City, U.S. “There’s something about analog circuits I really go for. And luckily, others have wanted the same things. So that’s all working out nicely”.
A trained engineer and architect, Morse found himself out of work after the financial crisis hit in 2008. While he was looking for a job he studied up on electronics, which began with “circuit-bending” an old Casio keyboard.
“I was buying up used textbooks, Forrest Mims guides from Radio Shack, and studying old synthesiser service manuals and schematics,” he tells me. “I built a few kit things. When I felt confident enough, I got hands-on with synthesiser restoration and flipping synths. And eventually bought a small Eurorack system. Little did I know where it would lead me”.
G-Storm Electro’s growing lineup of Eurorack modules
He wouldn’t go on to launch his own Eurorack hardware business until 2017 and in the interim period, amongst other jobs, tried his hand at writing and selling software instrument plugins based on his love of vintage string synthesisers, such as the Roland VP-330 and Logan String Melody. He says he soon realised that “the plugin game is all about how many platforms can you satisfy,” and decided it wasn’t for him. “I just wanted to make these plugins once, not 12 times over”.
“Hardware has a very satisfying, tactile interaction you can’t get with software,” adds Morse. “Hardware has this physical presence that commands your attention and rewards the senses in a very engaging way”.
He concedes, however, that he still spends an estimated 60% of his time at a computer with module design, cost analysis, ordering, social networking, client interaction, and promotion. “But it feels more rewarding to me,” he says.
The soft aspects of running a Eurorack business, including social media promotion, applies to every company, no matter their size. However, for businesses like G-Storm Electro, which don’t have a distributor or retail partnerships, it is even more important. Currently, the only place you can buy G-Storm Electro modules is from the company’s store on Reverb.
“My appreciation for the internet and forums are greatly magnified when I think about musical instrument reps that promoted their product by jetting around the world to various dealers, or the DIY synthesizer instructions that were published in magazines,” says Morse. “The access to products, information, and specialised electronics components were relatively limited compared to now. On a frugal budget I don’t have such luxuries to jet around the world for promotions. So I wing it on social media, YouTube videos, and good old fashioned word of mouth. I love Reverb, their no-nonsense business acumen is so close to mine. Their fees are very fair, and I really do feel I have my own store within a larger store. It’s been indispensable”.
As not every module sells equally, Morse’s strategy over the last six months has been to diversify by launching new modules rather than simply replenishing stock of his previous designs. He’ll typically make batches of about 5 or 10 modules at a time, which he says are hand-crafted in a “work-at-home scenario”. His latest creation is a faithful Eurorack adaptation of the main features of Roland’s revered SH-101 synthesiser. Earlier in the year, Morse also adapted the filter circuit found in the Arp Odyssey Mk1 synth (dubbed “G-Storm Electro 4023,” I purchased number 3 of the first 5 modules produced).
“My operation is small and nimble,” he says. “My space and budget for parts, assembly, and inventory on hand are meagre. So I’m always working within those confinements. I can envision opening shop someday, or possibly selling in stores, when I’m able to move more units. As long as I can keep up with demand, there is no need to outsource as of yet. I’m having fun with it. If it stops being fun, then I’ll be calling for help from someone or move on to the next thing”.
***
“My name is Émilie and I am Mutable Instruments’ product designer, hardware/software engineer, sales person, and customer support representative,” reads the Mutable Instruments website. “Mutable Instruments has, by design, no employees! Just me!”
Another one-person shop, Mutable Instruments punches above its weight like no other Eurorack maker. Over the years, the company has designed a series of innovative and best selling modules, proving that digital has a well-earned place in Eurorack and, as one Reddit user put it, “is just as elegant and organic as analog”.
Based in Paris, founder Émilie Gillet has a background in software engineering, having previously worked for tech companies such as Google, Last.fm and MXP4. She first gained a reputation within the music-making community after developing “obscure” music software including a granular synthesis tool for BeOS, and Bhajis Loops, a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for PalmOS. However, the precursor to Eurorack came in the summer of 2009 when Gillet started building and eventually selling DIY kits.
The first of these was the Shruti-1, a hybrid digital/analog desktop synth, which initially sold at a loss before being sold for profit in September 2010. A year later, Mutable Instruments the company was born.
“I quit my main job in February 2012 because the company I was working for was going nowhere, while Mutable Instruments’ first quarter showed that I could live decently off the DIY kits even if we weren’t quite there yet,” Gillet tells me.
The first four Mutable Instruments modules were designed simultaneously, with Braids, a “macro-oscillator” that digitally modelled a vast range of synth voices and timbres, proving to be the most popular.
“I made an informal demo of Braids at a local shop and everybody agreed that it had a lot of potential,” she recalls. “The other modules were considered less original, or seemed to fill smaller niches. But Braids’ appeal seemed to be universal”.
Because of Gillet’s reputation designing DIY kits and music software, unlike other modular companies, Mutable Instruments didn’t have to overcome a “cold start”. This meant that retail partnerships were forged early on and the company only needed to sell direct for a short time. Today Mutable Instruments modules can be found in most independent stores and big box-shifters in the U.S. and Europe.
A selection of Mutable Instruments’ modules
Gillet typically prototypes new digital modules by writing C++ code and a command-line tool to process or generate audio files, or she’ll write a patch for the visual programming language Pure Data. To get more of a feel for how the software will interact with hardware, she may write an alternative firmware for an existing module so it’s directly testable with CV inputs and physical knobs.
Analog modules are prototyped on a breadboard, sometimes with interconnected through-hole PCBs. “I actually made a very large through-hole PCB for my latest analog design,” Gillet explains. “It’s easier for me to replace components, build little networks of extra diodes, capacitors and resistors in 3D above the board when it’s made of large parts. I maintain in parallel LTSpice simulations and python notebooks with all the calculations for part values, cutoff frequencies, gains, etc”.
Next the schematics are inputted into the PCB design software Eagle and discussions are initiated with UI designer Hannes Pasqualini, with whom Mutable Instruments has a long-standing partnership. “This is a dialog, features may be added or removed to make the panel more symmetric or elegant,” says Gillet.
Finally, the design is sent to a company in Germany that specialises in manufacturing and assembling prototypes, and front panels are ordered from Mutable Instruments’ production partner.
“At this point the prototype looks good and works well enough to fool people into thinking it’s a finished product. Then there’s a rather long playtesting phase. Just messing around with the module to get a feel for how long the excitement lasts, sending the module to the only tester who actually finds bugs, and for digital modules there’s a lot of balancing and curation.
“I [then] let the project rest for some time, and if I still feel excited about it, I move forward”.
Moving forward involves FCC/CE compliance tests, writing a user manual, and taking photos for the Mutable Instruments website and retailers. This is followed by a pre-production run of 20 modules to check that everything runs smoothly.
“I tend to be present at the factory the day they are made,” explains Gillet. “They are [then] thoroughly tested and sent to people for some additional field-testing. At this stage it’s no longer about getting feedback about the design, just making sure unexpected things won’t happen in very diverse and wild configurations”.
If there are no reports of problems for 3 months, a much larger order is placed with the manufacturer, typically between 480 and 980 units, while a single module on average sells 3,000-5,000 units over its lifetime. Plaits, the successor to Braid, has so far required eight or nine batches of 1,000 units.
“Obviously I don’t build anything with my own hands,” says Gillet. “I receive the modules in their box, ready to ship to dealers. My contract manufacturers take care of everything i.e. board assembly, panel assembly, testing, and packaging. Thank god for that”.
***
If you go back and read or watch various interviews with Döpfer, something resembling an old joke emerges. For years the father of Eurorack has been saying that he thinks the bubble may have finally reached its peak, only to concede that the industry has grown even bigger the following year. However, throughout many of the interviews for this piece, there was a general feeling that growth in the last year or two may have begun to slow even if the market is more saturated than ever.
“I don’t think it’s at its peak, but maybe a slight plateau in its growth,” says Wilson, who recently designed and launched his own “DivKid” branded module in partnership with Befaco, a Eurorack maker based in Barcelona, Spain. “There’s definitely larger growth in people making modular devices than there is the market… Sales haven’t increased as much as the outside world looking at modular may think it has”.
“If I had to put my finger up in the air and sort of take a guess, I would say things are about static at the moment, definitely not the growth that was there about five or six years ago,” says Signal Sounds’ Brunton. “The [other] thing is that the mainstream retailers have moved into modular quite a lot, so it’s actually quite difficult to tell if modules are consistently selling. It may well be that it’s selling consistently it’s just selling less per individual retailer.
“People always want the new thing. And the other issue is, there’s always a new thing”.
For anyone interested in creating the next new thing and starting their own Eurorack business, what advice might existing makers and retailers have to offer.
“You have to know the scene,” says Matt “Matttech” Preston, founder of Matttech Modular, an online retailer in Manchester, U.K. “Immerse yourself in the scene, know what’s popular and then think whether you could either add something, make it smaller or make it cheaper… Come up with something that you can see there’s nothing like it out there”.
Mutable Instruments product shot
Another aspect to watch out for is the visual representation of your module, which, Preston says, too many makers initially overlook. “You need front on photos, you need demos — video demos, ideally, but at the very least audio demos — and you need all the text and information to be there”.
“You should focus on your idea,” advises Döpfer. “If you have an idea which you think is great, you should follow your idea and stay on track. Don’t look to the left. Don’t look to the right. If you are sure that you have a good product, you really should release it”.
AJH’s Hall says it is still possible to have a successful Eurorack product but you need to have something that’s different and that people want. “If you’re lacking in either of those, then all you’re gonna do is waste a lot of time and certainly a small amount of money, and possibly a large amount, depending on how you do it,” he says.
The first AJH Synth Minimod prototype PCBs
“Decide straight away what route you want to go down,” advises Brunton. “Do you just want to make 10 of them, or 20 of them and sell them direct? Or do you want to turn it into a business? Make the decision at the beginning and stick to it. And if you’re going to turn it into at least a part time business, get your pricing right at the beginning. Factor in not just your time and cost on components, but factor in a retailer’s margin and, if you can, a small distributors margin”.
Mutable Instruments’ Gillet argues that quitting the day job too soon is a rookie mistake, and instead you should aim for organic growth and “don’t expect things to work out right away”. She also warns that you could be “too late to the party”. Rather than releasing one more module, consider other clever ways of contributing to the Eurorack ecosystem, such as cases and power distribution, patch management, and interfacing with other tools.
“At this point in time I would advise caution,” echoes Manhattan Analog’s Coates. “If you’re going to get started now, you have a lot more to worry about than we did a decade ago when a hobbyist with some skills like me really could add meaningfully to the landscape… With fewer gaps in the market that need filling, you’ll need to be an order of magnitude more innovative and creative”.
“At no point in creativity can you can you say it’s all been done,” counters Brunton. ‘Everything’s been done, we won’t paint any more pictures or write any more books, because what’s the point?’ Within modular, there’s room to either reinvent the wheel, which is taking old ideas and doing them slightly differently or there’s infinite different combinations you can have just by taking an idea and plugging it into another idea. So sometimes it’s just combining certain things in one module, and then at other times it’s making interesting ideas more accessible”.
Which, perhaps brings us full circle, back to the very beginning when Dieter Döpfer took an old idea and made it infinitely more accessible.
“I’m still excited to go to work every day and I’m very happy,” he tells me. “So as long as this lasts, I think everything’s okay for me and for our company. We had ups and downs during the last years, but we are such a small company we are not that much depending on if sales increase by 20% or go down by 10%. For us, it’s important that it’s fun every day.
“We also have a lot of friends here in our neighbourhood, which use the modules in their system and also play live on stage. It’s a lot of fun for us if we can go to a concert where we see that 50% of the equipment on stage has been manufactured by our company. That’s something that’s incredible. And that’s why we still love this job”.
“Modular is a spectacle. It is producing crazy sounds, patch cables going everywhere, flashing lights, and this beckoning conglomerate of knobs and faders. Musical instruments, guitars, and drums are already very personal in nature – it becomes a part of you, an extension of your spirit. Then add to that what modular brings, a highly customisable instrument, tailored by you – for you. I think modular enthusiasts are mostly hungry to discover things, new and old, in the realm of electronic sound. The more you discover, the more it feeds into the imagination, thus sparking curiosity to discover more – it is a virtuous cycle”.
— Garren “G-Man” Morse, founder of G-Storm Electro
“One of the great things about Eurorack is there is a choice… It’s different things to different people. That’s why there are over 200 manufacturers and each of them have their own approach”.
— Alan “J” Hall, founder of AJH Synth
“There’s some separation for me between sound and music. I think you can explore sound for sonic qualities, and learn and engage in that, almost separately to music. Of course, there is a huge crossover and a big grey area between the two. But I just really enjoy all aspects of it, just exploring sound, learning on a technical level, making music, it just felt right, for some reason”.
— Ben “DivKid” Wilson, producer of the DivKid YouTube channel
“It attracts and appeals to non-musicians, by which I mean non-standard musicians. So there’s a significant portion of people who get into modular and Eurorack who are coming from completely outside the industry, which means they haven’t really played a keyboard or guitar or any other instrument before”.
— Jason Brunton, founder of Signal Sounds
“To be your own mad scientist; the tangibility of tweaking knobs with obscure descriptions, making indicator lights flash to patterns clear to yourself but mysterious to the onlooker, to building the musical instrument of your own design without any limits (besides the size of your wallet)”.
“From a musician’s perspective, I think the allure of modular synthesis is the absolute lack of limits, the near-infinite customisability. There are modules out there that can help you make nearly any sound you can imagine (and many more besides) and that’s very attractive. On top of that, modular synthesis is just plain fun. There are always moments of serendipity where the instrument will surprise you, and in my case at least, that’s irresistible. It’s also very satisfying to work with such a tactile instrument. Software is fine, I’ve used (and still use) my share like anyone else, but it really is missing something compared to working with real knobs, patch cables, touch interfaces, etc”.
— Jason Coates, founder of Manhattan Analog
“It felt for me like a very natural thing to do because with my electronics background, we are used to having components and wiring them together to create something bigger. Modular was a perfect fit for me… I feel flexibility when you can connect things in the way you want”.
“I think the main difference to another instrument is that you don’t have an already built instrument. If you go to the guitar shop, you buy a guitar and then you have the final instrument. For a modular, it’s totally different: you have to build your instrument first. It means you have to collect the modules and install them into the case and so on before you can start using the instrument. So that’s totally different compared to other instruments. That first creative process is to design the instrument. So that’s a lot of fun from my point of view.
The second is that, in most cases, you have a very special instrument, which is probably the only one in the world unless you buy a standard system. But I think 90% of all the modular systems are totally mixed with multiple modules from different manufacturers. Each system is very unique”.
Tesla broke national labor laws when it unfairly prevented workers from unionizing, an administrative law judge in California ruled Friday.
The ruling, which will likely be appealed, was first reported by Bloomberg. Tesla has not responded to a request for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if Tesla responds.
The automaker and CEO Elon Musk were ordered by Judge Amita Baman Tracy to take several actions to remedy the violations, including reinstating and giving backpay to a fired pro-union employee. The judge also ordered Musk to hold a public meeting and read aloud the findings to employees at the factory informing them the NLRB concluded the company had broken the law.
From the ruling:
I recommend that Respondent be ordered to convene its employees and have Elon Musk (or, if he is no longer the chief executive officer, a high-ranking management official), in the presence security guards, managers and supervisors, a Board agent and an agent 15 of the Union, if the Region and/or the Union so desire, read the notice aloud to employees, or, at Respondent’s option, permit a Board agent, in the presence Musk, to read the notice to the employees at the Fremont facility only.
The NLRB, while able to determine Tesla violated the law, has a limited reach, Bloomberg noted. The NLRB, for instance, can’t hold executive personally liable, nor can it assess punitive damages.
The ruling, which was published Friday, found that Musk and Tesla had violated the National Labor Relations Act by repressing attempts to organize a union at the company’s Fremont. Calif., factory. The judge determined that Tesla violated labor laws when it created rules that prevented off-duty employees from distributing union organizing leaflets in the Fremont parking lot, fired two workers unfairly and interrogated employees about their union activities. The judge also determined that Musk’s own tweets violated the law when he implied that workers who unionized would have to give up give up company-paid stock options.
Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.
(@rileytestut) 
