Speaker 1: Guess what, mangos, that will all right. So this is
Speaker 1: just a tip in case you ever find yourself in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, do not try to play Hide and Seek
Speaker 1: an Ikea stores there. It's totally banned. What but Ikea
Speaker 1: seems like the best place in the world to play
Speaker 1: hidn't see a click with all those beds and closets
Speaker 1: and house plants, I know. And I've got to say
Speaker 1: ike has been cool with so many things over the years.
Speaker 1: I mean, they've accommodated giants sleepovers. One time they allowed
Speaker 1: a hundred cats to be released in the store just
Speaker 1: for the fun of it. And in Shanghai, when seven
Speaker 1: year old widows and widowers started using the free coffee
Speaker 1: as an excuse to pick up singles, Ikia actually blocked
Speaker 1: off corners of the store for them, you know, just
Speaker 1: so they could flirt a little bit. Kind of cute
Speaker 1: to think about. But when over thirty thousand Hide and
Speaker 1: Seek fans signed up on Facebook to play a massive game,
Speaker 1: that's where the company drew the line. In fact, here's
Speaker 1: the official statement let me find it here. Martinez Smedberg
Speaker 1: gave this to Bloomberg. It says we need to make
Speaker 1: sure people are safe in our stores, and that's hard
Speaker 1: to do if we don't know where they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's on it sounds like she's anti hide and seek,
Speaker 1: but she's really just, you know, against these thirty thousand
Speaker 1: fully grown humans hiding in her But reading about that
Speaker 1: policy made me curious about all the non human things
Speaker 1: hiding out in Ikea, and that's what today's show is
Speaker 1: all about. Yeah, Heather podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: good friend Man Gueshot Ticketer, and today we're talking about Ikea,
Speaker 1: how the company got its start, the secrets hiding in
Speaker 1: those flat pack boxes, and a whole lot more. But
Speaker 1: before we begin, we just wanted to say a big
Speaker 1: thank you to all the people who have taken the
Speaker 1: time to write such nice reviews about our show, and
Speaker 1: all the people who have taken the time to email us. Seriously,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. I know it's funny, like,
Speaker 1: especially in contrast to what we talked about last week,
Speaker 1: all those one star reviews of the Vatican right, it's
Speaker 1: so heartwarming to see all these like notes pouring and
Speaker 1: it's a little tricky because we can't just respond to
Speaker 1: the reviewers and right right, so, um, I know you
Speaker 1: were talking about this, and I was talking about this,
Speaker 1: and we were thinking maybe we should get people to
Speaker 1: write into the email account part time genius at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and send in their favorite furniture
Speaker 1: or meatball related facts because of Ikea, right of course,
Speaker 1: and uh, and send their address and their T shirt
Speaker 1: size and we will pick the best twenty um facts
Speaker 1: and send you a T shirt. Alright, alright, so the
Speaker 1: best twenty that come in that can be about furniture
Speaker 1: or meatballs, or maybe bonus points because somebody who comes
Speaker 1: up with a fact that incorporates furniture and meatballs. Now, also,
Speaker 1: remember we talked about in the last episode, we have
Speaker 1: a new fact hot line because we're here for you.
Speaker 1: We know how many interesting things you guys have to share.
Speaker 1: That's one eight four four pt genius, all right, so
Speaker 1: we look forward to hearing from you. And again it's
Speaker 1: part time genius at how stuff works dot com, So
Speaker 1: looking forward to hearing those facts. All right, enough with
Speaker 1: this happiness, mango, I think we should tell people the
Speaker 1: most surprising fact we found out about Ikea to determine
Speaker 1: who gets to kick off the show. So that's how
Speaker 1: we're going to start this home. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I'm game off, But why don't you start? All right?
Speaker 1: The thing I'm always going to think about every time
Speaker 1: I go into an Ikea store from now on is
Speaker 1: that Hailey Joel Osmond was discovered in an Ikea. What. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Apparently the Burbank Ikea is a celebrity destination and casting directors.
Speaker 1: They used to use this to set up tables in
Speaker 1: the front. They take polaroids of every kid who came
Speaker 1: into the store. I don't know if they ask permission
Speaker 1: or not, but that's where Haley Joel was discovered. That's
Speaker 1: pretty wild. I mean I just figured his parents for
Speaker 1: you know, typical stage parents and forcing him to go
Speaker 1: to auditions. But I really love that there's a Hollywood Ikea.
Speaker 1: It actually reminds me of this time my friend went
Speaker 1: to a home depot and this guy cut him off
Speaker 1: in the parking lot and uh and then the driver
Speaker 1: waved this sort of nice apology and smiled, and it
Speaker 1: turned out to be Justice Scalia. Be Justice like Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices shop at home depot. They're just like us.
Speaker 1: Not not not like Justice Gary Scalio the State Court there. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Okay, I know I'm getting off track here,
Speaker 1: but my favorite Supreme Court justice fact is that third
Speaker 1: Good Marshall loved so proper I remember this, or at
Speaker 1: least he loved days of our lives and he watched
Speaker 1: it every single day. That that fact honestly makes me
Speaker 1: so happy. I think we got a little track here,
Speaker 1: back back here. So I read this U super weird
Speaker 1: press release that I can put out that they are
Speaker 1: now the biggest provider of certified seafood in the world,
Speaker 1: the biggest. I mean, that's just unfathomable to me. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's okay. I think you beat me with your facts.
Speaker 1: And I know we don't want to keep talking about
Speaker 1: food forever, but we should talk about it here for
Speaker 1: a bit because I found some crazy facts on this topic.
Speaker 1: Two and I know that's where you wanted to start
Speaker 1: the discussion anyway. So before that, that sounds good. So actually,
Speaker 1: before I get to that, I just wanted to tell
Speaker 1: this quick story from when an Ikea moved into my
Speaker 1: old neighborhood a few years ago, and it kind of
Speaker 1: illustrates how savvy the company is so a lot of
Speaker 1: people didn't want this big box store to come in,
Speaker 1: and there was all this uproar about it. Right, But
Speaker 1: then I Kea did a number of really smart things,
Speaker 1: and one of them was that the bus service to
Speaker 1: the neighborhood had always been really spotty, and I have
Speaker 1: paid for a more frequent bus line with new buses,
Speaker 1: and that led people to the store, but also better
Speaker 1: serve the neighborhood. And then they did a whole thing
Speaker 1: of hiring within the local community, which again made people
Speaker 1: so much more accepting of it. They built the cafe
Speaker 1: with this beautiful view of the harbor, and once the
Speaker 1: store was actually in, people had few complaints and in fact,
Speaker 1: it kind of became this popular cheap date night day,
Speaker 1: like for married people. Know, it was like this ironic
Speaker 1: first date, like you take someone on the bus and uh,
Speaker 1: eat the super cheap meal at the cafe which had
Speaker 1: this incredible view of the Statue of Liberty, and then
Speaker 1: I guess a joke about your potential life together. But
Speaker 1: the thing that really made the whole thing work and
Speaker 1: appealing was how cheap the food was. It's definitely a deal.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember saying that you can get too
Speaker 1: hot dogs ana soda for two bucks, or you know
Speaker 1: this really filling plate of pasta and meatballs for not
Speaker 1: much more than that. Yeah, so I actually looked up
Speaker 1: the menu for this episode to refresh myself, and the
Speaker 1: prices are outrageous. So that play of pasta and meatballs
Speaker 1: it's three dollars, And for a stuffed chicken with artichoke
Speaker 1: and parmesan and two sides of vegetables, it's just a
Speaker 1: dollar more. And going back to the seafood thing, you
Speaker 1: can get a nice kind of salmon for around six
Speaker 1: or seven dollars, like they want you to be able
Speaker 1: to feed your entire family for under twenty dollars. Are
Speaker 1: we getting paid for this because this is a commercial
Speaker 1: for Ikea? But but I'm guessing there's more to it
Speaker 1: than this. I'm guessing Ikea is treating the food like
Speaker 1: a lost leader, you know, kind of the way the
Speaker 1: grocery stores treat milk. You get, you know, you keep
Speaker 1: the costs low, You're willing to lose a little bit
Speaker 1: of money on it to bring the customers in the door,
Speaker 1: and then you make your profits elsewhere. Sure, and that's
Speaker 1: what I thought, too, right, But the reason I was
Speaker 1: giving you those prices is that it's so much more
Speaker 1: clever than that. Right, So everything in Ikea has a
Speaker 1: story that ties back to its folksy origin. Part of
Speaker 1: it is that the founder var Compra had this philosophy
Speaker 1: back from when he started selling goods to farmers and
Speaker 1: he realized that no one wanted to do business hungry.
Speaker 1: So the foods sort of this down home way of
Speaker 1: making you feel welcome. Also their I hear workers who
Speaker 1: swear that the cafeteria is just a great place for
Speaker 1: indecisive couples to like figure out what they really want.
Speaker 1: They've seen these families come in and you and I
Speaker 1: have seen this too, right where you just see them
Speaker 1: like testing a couch and sitting and testing and discussing
Speaker 1: and and then the couple goes to get a bite,
Speaker 1: and during that conversation away from the showroom, that's where
Speaker 1: they can really focus on their decision and decide whether
Speaker 1: or not to make a purchase. Right, right, And it
Speaker 1: makes sense. And having a cafeteria in the building keeps
Speaker 1: you in the store, right, So having the food there,
Speaker 1: it gives you one less reason to leave. And remember
Speaker 1: I keas are often in remote destinations, so families have
Speaker 1: to travel to get there. But here's the real kicker
Speaker 1: and why the low priced food is so genius. And
Speaker 1: I never would have figured this out on my own,
Speaker 1: but I read this interview in the New York Post
Speaker 1: with a former Ikea chef and he said, the food,
Speaker 1: it is basically a framing device. The point is, you
Speaker 1: don't actually know five dollars is a good value for
Speaker 1: an Ikea couch. It could be a hundred dollars over
Speaker 1: the worth or a hundred dollars under, and most shoppers
Speaker 1: wouldn't have a clue. But you do know hot dogs
Speaker 1: right and exactly, and you know the fifty cents for
Speaker 1: a tasty hot dog is a great deal. Or three
Speaker 1: dollars for a plate of pasta. I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of the best deal you're gonna get outside of cooking
Speaker 1: the food yourself. So shoppers think, if Ikea is giving
Speaker 1: me this hot dog at cost, they've got to be
Speaker 1: doing the same for the furniture. That is really smart.
Speaker 1: I mean. But although I have to say it's kind
Speaker 1: of funny to think about food being at cost because
Speaker 1: the whole store, I mean, it's built on customers constructing
Speaker 1: the furniture for themselves. Yeah, I had thought about that. Actually.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many meanings online about the assembly
Speaker 1: required furniture, Like there was one that made me laugh.
Speaker 1: It was just a picture. It said happy birthday, Ikea,
Speaker 1: we made you a cake, and then underneath there was
Speaker 1: a bag of sugar, some flour, butter if you candles,
Speaker 1: and under it said some assembly required, which isn't exactly fair,
Speaker 1: but the way they use the cafe prices as a
Speaker 1: framing device, it totally works. Yeah. Yeah, and it's actually brilliant.
Speaker 1: I mean, we should probably tell the listeners not to
Speaker 1: worry because we'll move off food in a minute. But
Speaker 1: before we do, there's one thing we have to talk about, meatballs,
Speaker 1: So I was hoping you'd bring those up. I mean,
Speaker 1: meatballs are definitely a Kia's best selling product. It's insane
Speaker 1: how much money the cafe actually brings in. I found
Speaker 1: this figure from two thousand thirteen. The Ikea cafeteria was
Speaker 1: already doing one point five billion dollars of business back then.
Speaker 1: But the meatballs are the lynchpin to the menu, and
Speaker 1: internally they're actually referred to as the best sofa seller.
Speaker 1: That's true. I mean what's amazing to me is that
Speaker 1: the meatball actually kind of encapsulates the Ikea philosophy. And
Speaker 1: why's that Well, Oliver Rohtor did this great article for
Speaker 1: five thirty eight and he showed the economics of Ikea
Speaker 1: and that Ikea products follow this strange kind of survival
Speaker 1: of the fittest model. So basically, any furn sure that's
Speaker 1: lasted for a while. I mean, you think about the
Speaker 1: Billy bookcase or the lack table, or you know, any
Speaker 1: of the all stars from their catalog, and they've lasted
Speaker 1: because i Kea has consistently been able to tweak the
Speaker 1: product to shave cost. You know, year after year they
Speaker 1: do this, and so what this means is that they
Speaker 1: can keep offering it a lower and lower price to
Speaker 1: the customer. So when Ikia can't do that, you know,
Speaker 1: for a product can't evolve to be made cheaper, that's
Speaker 1: when they just kill it off. And the meatballs well,
Speaker 1: actually they're the epitome of that. So not only has
Speaker 1: the company figured out how to make more profitable meatballs
Speaker 1: year after year, but you you've heard of Space tell right, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's h he has secret innovation lab. They're pretty amazing Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Space Tent is constantly eyeing the future, and one
Speaker 1: of their projects is meatball focus that it's actually called
Speaker 1: Tomorrow's Meatball. I'm not making I really want to. I
Speaker 1: want to be on that team, that Tomorrow's meatball team.
Speaker 1: But they have all these prototypes, from a meatball made
Speaker 1: from artificial meat grown in a lab, to a three
Speaker 1: D printed ball to a crispy bug ball, and while
Speaker 1: none of those are hitting the menu anytime soon, it
Speaker 1: does show how the company is looking at the simplest
Speaker 1: things they can do in the simplest ways they can
Speaker 1: produce these things, and even with that, they're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to tweak the design and serve, you know,
Speaker 1: a changing world while they're increasing their profits of course,
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah. But but let's shift gears for a second,
Speaker 1: because I want to talk about Jonathan Colton and his
Speaker 1: song Ikea. Do you know the song? Why? I know
Speaker 1: Jonathan Colton, I don't know the song. Yeah, he's hilarious,
Speaker 1: but his song Ikea has this one lyric I love
Speaker 1: it goes Ikea just some oak and some pine and
Speaker 1: a handful of norsemen. Ikea selling furniture to college kids
Speaker 1: and divorcement nice sounds about right. So as I was researching,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking about that line, which is obviously funny,
Speaker 1: but it occurred to me. I've always thought of Ikea
Speaker 1: is kind of a starter brand, like it's the thing
Speaker 1: people are drawn to in their first apartments or as
Speaker 1: they're embarking on new stages, because it's reliable and stylish
Speaker 1: without bringing the bank. It's almost like the signifier that
Speaker 1: you're on the road to responsibility. But what's funny is
Speaker 1: that I read this, uh the story in the New Yorker,
Speaker 1: the one by Lauren Collins. Yeah, and and it's really good.
Speaker 1: But one of the many lines that struck me in
Speaker 1: it was that she referred to Ikea as the chief
Speaker 1: anthropologist of homes, and she mentions how much research the
Speaker 1: brand actually compiles to understand and then hook customers at
Speaker 1: different stages of life, like they know the ideal size
Speaker 1: of modern bathroom storage and what the split should be
Speaker 1: between spouses because more and more men have been buying
Speaker 1: more and more grooming products reasonally, or how the Ikea
Speaker 1: tupperware and they referenced this in the catalogs, how it's
Speaker 1: meant to accommodate the half can of tomatoes and an
Speaker 1: ounce of Coast Coast recipe you just found, Like it's
Speaker 1: really specific. It's say, that's pretty precise. How do they
Speaker 1: know I like Coast Coast and they're actually designing for
Speaker 1: like every momentous change in your life. Yeah, the amount
Speaker 1: of information they've collected is really amazing. I actually have
Speaker 1: the eight stages of life they target. I printed it
Speaker 1: out here and here the categories. It's babies, toddlers, starting school,
Speaker 1: tweens and teens, single slash, starting out, single slash established,
Speaker 1: living together slash starting out and living together slash established.
Speaker 1: It's crazy just to read these things, you know. So
Speaker 1: they're looking at your life stages, and you know the
Speaker 1: crib you suddenly have to buy as you plan to
Speaker 1: have a baby, or the couch you'll want when you
Speaker 1: have your first job, and then all the easy upgrades
Speaker 1: from there, so the crib turns into a toddler bed,
Speaker 1: the bookshelf you can stack next to the bookshelf when
Speaker 1: your partner moves in. But the targeting definitely starts early.
Speaker 1: There was this internal memo I saw that said, infant
Speaker 1: cots are our ticket to building a lifelong relationship with
Speaker 1: our core customers. You know. Um. One of the things
Speaker 1: I found fascinating was that all the design actually starts
Speaker 1: with the price. What do you mean by that, Well,
Speaker 1: if you look at the design briefs, the I sends
Speaker 1: around to their team and will be like, we need
Speaker 1: a better looking spatula for a buck fifty in gray
Speaker 1: and white. But the price I Kea wants for it
Speaker 1: is actually in the specifications from the start. And that's
Speaker 1: because cost and design their linked from conception. If one
Speaker 1: of them isn't there, the product never gets off the ground.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's pretty fascinating. What's also interesting to
Speaker 1: me is that they're studying and designing for the whole globe,
Speaker 1: so not just for one location. Like they figured out
Speaker 1: the elements that cut across cultures and how to sell
Speaker 1: a bed or a bookshelf that's plain enough but also
Speaker 1: stylish enough to appeal the deal seekers in every market.
Speaker 1: So you see this even in their catalog. So the
Speaker 1: catalog and US might have a Golden retriever on the
Speaker 1: couch and they'll photoshop that out if if you know,
Speaker 1: if it's for like the Saudi catalog, Well they also
Speaker 1: photo shop the women out of the Saudi catalog cut
Speaker 1: them a little flak, but put your points absolutely right.
Speaker 1: They found a couch that they can hawk across multiple markets,
Speaker 1: right right, and that's what keeps, you know, the cost
Speaker 1: going lower and lower those economies of scale. Speaking of
Speaker 1: across the globe, Bloomberg used to run a Billy bookcase index,
Speaker 1: where economists listed the price to the bookcase in various cultures.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty fascinating, or was fascinating to look at.
Speaker 1: It would help him understand the value of currency in
Speaker 1: different markets. But it's so bizarre to me that the
Speaker 1: cost was so wildly different between the markets. Like in
Speaker 1: the UAE, for example, the billy used to cost about
Speaker 1: forty six dollars, and then in Israel it was more
Speaker 1: than twice that much. It was at a hundred and
Speaker 1: three dollars, which is just crazy. That's crazy. By the way.
Speaker 1: One thing I found really funny when I was looking
Speaker 1: at this like cross culture stuff, was that people in
Speaker 1: England really seemed to hate building the furniture themselves. And
Speaker 1: maybe this happens in other countries too, but I found
Speaker 1: a number of mom and pop shops that were specifically
Speaker 1: dedicated to like building your ikea furniture free. I could
Speaker 1: use that. I could use that. All right, We're definitely
Speaker 1: gonna talk flat packs and the cult of ike as
Speaker 1: billionaire founder. But before we do that, how about we
Speaker 1: break for a little quiz? Sounds good. Our guest today
Speaker 1: is Grady Hendricks, author of My Best Friends Exorcism, and
Speaker 1: also the reason we have him on today's show is
Speaker 1: because he's the author of the wonderful book Horror Store,
Speaker 1: which looks like a beautifully designed Ikea catalog but takes
Speaker 1: place in a totally different setting, the Orsk Superstore in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Grady, Thanks for having me here.
Speaker 1: So Grady, I've read that you do an insane amount
Speaker 1: of research for your books. Like I heard that you
Speaker 1: mapped out all the weather for each day for where
Speaker 1: My Best Friends Exorcism, so so it was accurate and um.
Speaker 1: And then I read that you interviewed a ton of
Speaker 1: people at Ikea to learn more about the stories, and
Speaker 1: I was curious, how did that inform your writing? You know,
Speaker 1: it's actually the reason I wound up calling it worse.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just because my publisher was scared we get
Speaker 1: sued by idea, but also because everyone I talked to
Speaker 1: from my key and probably I talked about it about
Speaker 1: a dozen folks who worked there unprompted. They all said
Speaker 1: really nice things about Ikea, and that's really rare for
Speaker 1: people who work in retail. But you know, as far
Speaker 1: as it goes, it's a pretty decent employer. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: no one has murdered uh to like protein bars for
Speaker 1: the other other employees. No one turned into meat ball
Speaker 1: for the cafeteria. They all go home with all their
Speaker 1: body parts at the end of the day. And I
Speaker 1: think as far as big box retail goes in the US,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty good. Yeah. I do have to ask, though,
Speaker 1: having having done this book, are are you banned from
Speaker 1: my keas? No? But I sort of self banned myself.
Speaker 1: I spent so much time in them while I was
Speaker 1: writing it, and then I didn't go in one for
Speaker 1: about a year and a half. And I went in
Speaker 1: and one in New York to do an interview with
Speaker 1: someone right when the book was coming out, and they're
Speaker 1: all made out the same, and I suddenly started doing
Speaker 1: this real panic reaction, like, oh my god, where am
Speaker 1: I Am I in my book? Am I in somewhere room?
Speaker 1: I I mean in Florida, I really was disorienting. So um,
Speaker 1: I only order i Kea online. Now that's very great.
Speaker 1: And what about the idea to design this as a catalog.
Speaker 1: It's it's so inventive. Did you did you come up
Speaker 1: with that from the starter or was that something you
Speaker 1: imposed on it later? No, that was actually Jason, my
Speaker 1: editor's idea, and he that was that was his baby
Speaker 1: from the beginning in terms of this will look like
Speaker 1: an IKEA catalog. And then the nice thing about work
Speaker 1: is because it's so small, they actually listen to the
Speaker 1: author when you talk about design, and they let you
Speaker 1: be involved with that conversation. And so Jason and Andy
Speaker 1: read the designer and myself we just started to feed
Speaker 1: off of each other. You know, well what if we
Speaker 1: had a furniture description beginning to each chapter? Well what
Speaker 1: if they change, you know? And then I have written
Speaker 1: catalog copy and stuff in the past, so you know
Speaker 1: everything in there, right down to the small print on
Speaker 1: the order form. I insisted on sort of doing myself,
Speaker 1: which was a really poor idea. I'm gonna say I
Speaker 1: love Quirk like, I really think that they play so
Speaker 1: well with authors and and and so so much attention
Speaker 1: goes to all the details. I really love that. So
Speaker 1: so it is will will your next project be with
Speaker 1: Quirk And if so, what are you working on next? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The next book I have coming out from them is UM.
Speaker 1: It's called Paperbacks from Hell, and it's actually a nonfiction
Speaker 1: book coming out this September. It's about UM, the history
Speaker 1: of horror paid for backs in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: I think everyone who was a live around them remembers
Speaker 1: those really lurid covers of the foil and the embossing
Speaker 1: and the die cuts that showed, you know, the girl's
Speaker 1: face and then you open it up and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: the beings on the end of the bear and board
Speaker 1: like you know it's UM and and those sort of
Speaker 1: disappeared in the early nineties and I read those and
Speaker 1: write about them a little online just for kicks, and
Speaker 1: Jason was like, do you want to do a book
Speaker 1: of these? So the result is Paperbacks from Hell. It's
Speaker 1: got a ton of art in it, and it really
Speaker 1: goes a lot about the artists and who did the covers,
Speaker 1: and how this sort of lived and died and why
Speaker 1: you should be scared of Nazi leprecons and why not
Speaker 1: LEPrecon the Nazis in the first place. I can't wait?
Speaker 1: All right, So, so what game are we playing the
Speaker 1: day with Grady Mango. We're gonna play a little game
Speaker 1: called kitchen good from Ikea or word. The Swedish chef says, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if we speak whatever language the Swedish chef does, this
Speaker 1: should be easy and we'll give you a word and
Speaker 1: you just tell us whether it's an Ikea kitchen good
Speaker 1: or something. The Swedish chef says, so are you ready, Grady?
Speaker 1: You should know my palms are already sweaty. Okay, I
Speaker 1: think you'll do better than you expect. All right, here
Speaker 1: we go. Number one elver damn Ikea product or something.
Speaker 1: The Swedish chef says, I'm gonna go with Ikea products. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one for one beautiful faucet. Al right, okay, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: maybe we'll help him out with some some pronunciation as well.
Speaker 1: And the next one is Guerndee. You know I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go with the Swedish chef. You're absolutely right. I think
Speaker 1: I remember this from the Senates Gersh Gerndi, Morndy Burn
Speaker 1: burn d if I'm not mistaken right, Okay, two for two.
Speaker 1: Number three Baganas. I believe that's an Ikea product for three?
Speaker 1: What what? What? What are baganas? They're a fancy nob
Speaker 1: for your drawer. Okay, I fancy not free doors two more.
Speaker 1: Here we go. Number four, Farney, You know I'm gonna guess,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to use the tried tradition of one
Speaker 1: for wheel one one way, one the other, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say sweetish chef. You might recognize it from the
Speaker 1: sentence sure to chicken into Farney hug So quotes from
Speaker 1: a Muppets movie. Yes, they are all right for the
Speaker 1: perfect score, let's go for number five. Bean C, bean C. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stick with my with my guesting pattern and
Speaker 1: go with Ikea. Oh it's the only one you missed.
Speaker 1: But that that this was the so de beancy bouncy Burger.
Speaker 1: So I'm so good at this. All right? Well, how
Speaker 1: has Grady done today? Grady did an amazing four for five,
Speaker 1: which is enough to earn him our Grand Prize. Total admiration.
Speaker 1: Well done, Grady. Thank you so much for Johnny. We
Speaker 1: can't wait to see your next project, Paperbacks from Hell.
Speaker 1: But thank you again for writing Horror Store and for
Speaker 1: being on Part Time Genius. Thank you for not letting
Speaker 1: me embarrass myself too badly. Welcome back to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: And we were about to talk flat packs, all right,
Speaker 1: So do you like putting together? I kea furniture Mango,
Speaker 1: so I know there are all these things about the furniture,
Speaker 1: like there are some couples therapists who make couples build
Speaker 1: a piece of furniture together to work through their communications.
Speaker 1: Sounds terrible. I don't think I could do that with anybody,
Speaker 1: But I mean, how many lopsided tables and chairs do
Speaker 1: you have to make before you realize you're either right
Speaker 1: or wrong for somebody. I also like that the furniture
Speaker 1: is used in robotics, though, like having a robot watch
Speaker 1: humans as symbol and ikea piece in different ways and
Speaker 1: then they determine the most efficient way, and that that's
Speaker 1: kind of become this common exercise in robotics. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: awesome and uh, and to tell you the truth, I
Speaker 1: actually love putting together. I kea furniture because I'm not
Speaker 1: super handy, but it reminds me of those snap tight
Speaker 1: model kits from when I was a kid, like, you
Speaker 1: just snap all these parts in place and voila. It's
Speaker 1: just so satisfying. Speak for yourself. I'm not a fan,
Speaker 1: but it is funny that you mentioned that, because there's
Speaker 1: actually a name for that, and it's called the Ikea effect.
Speaker 1: So Harvard Business School has actually done studies on this.
Speaker 1: And the weirder part is that you end up with
Speaker 1: a bias and I'm quoting here. It says you place
Speaker 1: a disproportionately higher value on the Ikea furniture that you
Speaker 1: make because your handiwork has gone into it. That's kind
Speaker 1: of like those cake mixes from the fifties. You know
Speaker 1: about these, right, don't Well, when they used to make
Speaker 1: cake mixes, Initially the eggs weren't actually necessary for the
Speaker 1: instant cake mixes, but they couldn't get housewives to buy
Speaker 1: them because it didn't really feel like cooking. It was
Speaker 1: almost like cheating. But when a brand started adding cracking
Speaker 1: a few eggs to make the batter, suddenly the product
Speaker 1: took off. It kind of like tricked people into feeling
Speaker 1: like they were making more of a cake somehow, right, right,
Speaker 1: And and that might be part of why we're a
Speaker 1: little more reluctant to get rid of their I Kea furniture,
Speaker 1: and then you know, it sticks around a little bit
Speaker 1: longer than it should because of that that pride of
Speaker 1: what they've built. But you know that's not why I
Speaker 1: Kia flat packs their furniture. It actually has a great
Speaker 1: origin story. Oh I actually know this, but you should
Speaker 1: definitely tell it to the listeners. Okay, Well, our our
Speaker 1: story goes back to this guy, Gillis Loundgren, and by
Speaker 1: the time he joined i Kea, it was already this
Speaker 1: bustling regional furniture business. But the furniture was bulky, and
Speaker 1: it came pre assembled and it was pretty expensive to ship.
Speaker 1: So London goes on to manage the catalog and design
Speaker 1: a bunch of furniture later. But in the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: he was just trying to transport a leaf shaped table
Speaker 1: to a photo shoot. It was clunky and couldn't fit
Speaker 1: in his car, and so he took the legs off
Speaker 1: to make it fit, and that's when inspiration struck. But
Speaker 1: flat pack furniture has existed for way longer than that.
Speaker 1: Rye actually, another Swedish designer, would come up with a
Speaker 1: flat pack chair a few years before, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: all that well known, and this is all part of
Speaker 1: the I kea lore now. But according to some versions,
Speaker 1: and these are the ones that that I believe, Londgren
Speaker 1: had to really lobby the company's founder, Ingvar compre to
Speaker 1: change the flat pack and and there are other less
Speaker 1: likely tellings where Ingvar was put sishing the table into
Speaker 1: a car with Lundgren and they came up with this
Speaker 1: idea together. So who knows the exact story, but it
Speaker 1: was something along these lines. Yeah, so there's a phrasing company.
Speaker 1: The language my family speaks that a story has been
Speaker 1: told with meeting Massala, and it means like a story
Speaker 1: has been seasoned with salt and spice to make it
Speaker 1: more juicy or appealing. We didn't have that phrase in
Speaker 1: Alabama for some reason. But I do love meeting Massala.
Speaker 1: But we'll talk about Ingvar and his legend in a bit,
Speaker 1: because he's definitely a genius but obviously comes with some
Speaker 1: issues too. But what's definitely true is that flat pack
Speaker 1: change the business prospects completely. So over the years the
Speaker 1: company started referring to air as their enemy. And when
Speaker 1: you pack things that flat not only are you transferring
Speaker 1: the cost of assembly to your buyer, so you know,
Speaker 1: so you can lower the price and underbid the competition.
Speaker 1: But it basically has all these other advantages and uh,
Speaker 1: what what are this? Well, actually, there's this this great
Speaker 1: Fast Company piece by John Browley on this and here's
Speaker 1: what he points out. All right, So he says, first,
Speaker 1: you can keep way more furniture in stock because you
Speaker 1: only need you know, a few models, and then you
Speaker 1: can keep the rest and volume and back and and
Speaker 1: it's also way easier to transport. So i Kea was
Speaker 1: shipping ten times as many bookcases or desks or whatever
Speaker 1: it was as the competition for basically the same amount
Speaker 1: of spend on gas. And this is the point I
Speaker 1: would never have figured out. But Brawley said that the
Speaker 1: boxy aesthetic that's taken over the globe that's also coming
Speaker 1: from the flat pack design, and that's kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: And clearly i Kea as genius, as you point out earlier,
Speaker 1: is by making these products in bulk and then iterating
Speaker 1: on them so they just get cheaper and cheaper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know the Ikea mugs which are so popular, I mean,
Speaker 1: the reason they've lasted is that they have this really
Speaker 1: tiny handle and it's just this little circle on the
Speaker 1: top of a conical mug. But that ends up being,
Speaker 1: you know, what allows them to stack a ton more
Speaker 1: of these mugs on top of one another. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're just geniuses in reducing the amount of air in
Speaker 1: between each of their products. So the thing about Ikea
Speaker 1: is there's really so much to cover. But let's talk
Speaker 1: just for a little bit about ing Vibe because he's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was basically an entrepreneur from the time
Speaker 1: he was a kid, and by eighteen he'd been given
Speaker 1: a little money from his dad, uh mostly for doing
Speaker 1: well in school despite his dyslexia, and he turned that
Speaker 1: money into a little catalog business that kept growing and growing. Also,
Speaker 1: I love that he grew up in Small End, Like
Speaker 1: I always thought Small End the kid's babysitting part of
Speaker 1: Ikea was just a cute name, but it's a reference
Speaker 1: to his hometown. That's true. I saw that as well.
Speaker 1: You know, he's kind of a mythic figure at Ikea,
Speaker 1: and his farm boy common sense or thrift is a
Speaker 1: big part of the company ethos. Like there's this one
Speaker 1: story about ingvar looking at a case of geese and
Speaker 1: a refrigerator in China and asking, so what happens to
Speaker 1: those feathers? Like he spotted that deal and everyone in
Speaker 1: the company knows about it, and he lives that way too.
Speaker 1: I mean, his homes are all furnished exclusively in Ikea.
Speaker 1: He drives this old Volvo and for his ninetieth birthday
Speaker 1: he was interviewed and he was supposedly wearing clothes that
Speaker 1: he found at a thrift store, which you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's of the richest billionaires in the world. But
Speaker 1: as we mentioned in the tax episode way back when,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of secrecy at the company, and it's
Speaker 1: not without its dark past. But before we get into that,
Speaker 1: why don't we pause for quiz? All right, mango, So
Speaker 1: our second quiz today, we decided to find a couple
Speaker 1: of people who have actually assembled Ikea furniture before. We
Speaker 1: didn't have to go very far for this, did we
Speaker 1: We place the song wide call out and we walked
Speaker 1: a few stuffs from our desk to get to right.
Speaker 1: That's right. So we have a few friends from here
Speaker 1: at the How Stuff Works Family, Noel Brown and Ben Boland.
Speaker 1: They're the host of one of my favorite shows here
Speaker 1: at How Stuff Works called Stuff they Don't Want You
Speaker 1: to Know. Welcome, guys, Thank you, thanks for having us right.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you actually, just this morning I
Speaker 1: was listening to your most recent episode on this continuation
Speaker 1: of Government plan and on bunkers and like what happens
Speaker 1: with the government after either a nuclear attack or something
Speaker 1: that may happen that causes mass chaos, And it was awesome, guys,
Speaker 1: such a great interview. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: that one. Oh sure, yeah, so we interviewed Garrett Graff,
Speaker 1: who is a pretty prolific author and a favorite of
Speaker 1: ours when it comes to credible investigations into stuff They'll
Speaker 1: want you to know. It turns out, then the United States,
Speaker 1: for decades, the US government has spent quite a bit
Speaker 1: of financial effort, quite a bit of blood, sweat and tears,
Speaker 1: in creating top secret bunkers that will allow not everyone
Speaker 1: but the people they deem important to the continuation of
Speaker 1: the U. S Government to survive anything from a widespread
Speaker 1: plague to an act of God to a nuclear disaster.
Speaker 1: I was sadly absent for this episode, so I look
Speaker 1: forward to consuming it just like you, guys. Did and
Speaker 1: it sounds awesome. Yeah. It spoiler. The bunkers are filled
Speaker 1: with ire, right, Yeah, there is a several of the
Speaker 1: bunkers are produced by Ikeas so they can be easily
Speaker 1: disassembled and reassembled like those little kind of pre made
Speaker 1: rooms that you see in the showroom, you know, like
Speaker 1: the double decker bunk beds with the desk underneath. There
Speaker 1: was another episode that I love from you guys recently
Speaker 1: where you interviewed actually the founder of of How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: Marshall Brain, and it was about life on Mars. You know,
Speaker 1: something we don't really think about it. After the efforts
Speaker 1: to get to Mars. There's so much talk about like
Speaker 1: how do we get to Mars, and then there's not
Speaker 1: as much thought from a lot of people about like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're here, now, how the heck do we actually live here?
Speaker 1: You know. We tried to caveat that one as much
Speaker 1: as possible as being a thought experiment, you know. So
Speaker 1: we got a lot of a little bit of flak,
Speaker 1: people saying we were kind of like promoting communism because
Speaker 1: a lot of the ideas of you know, how do
Speaker 1: we start a society from scratch? You end up with
Speaker 1: some little nuggets of kind of communism kind of thought
Speaker 1: in there, but we we tried to look at both sides,
Speaker 1: and Marshall was a very gracious guest and a very
Speaker 1: interesting intelligent guy. Was a lot of fun to talk
Speaker 1: to him about this crazy stuff, and so yeah, he is.
Speaker 1: He's also wants us to make sure every time we
Speaker 1: mentioned that episode to let people know that you can
Speaker 1: go to Marshall brain dot com and you can write
Speaker 1: to him directly with any prayers or feedback. All right, well,
Speaker 1: something almost as heavy as the continuation of government plan
Speaker 1: and bunkers. We're going to play a quiz here, Mango,
Speaker 1: What what quiz are we putting these guys up to?
Speaker 1: We're playing a little game called Boys of Ikea. All
Speaker 1: As it turns out, I'm a proud owner of both
Speaker 1: a mom, a schmool and some yarn. So, Mango, this
Speaker 1: is the second Ikea product squiz we're doing today. I know,
Speaker 1: but they're so fun, that's true. Well, as you might know,
Speaker 1: Ikea has different naming schemes for their furniture, so carpets
Speaker 1: are often Danish place names, or the lighting might be
Speaker 1: chemistry terms. But today we're quizzing you on furniture that's
Speaker 1: named after common boys names. Okay, so this is what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We're gonna show you a picture of
Speaker 1: a piece of furniture and then we'll give you a clue,
Speaker 1: and you just have to tell us the boy's name. Okay,
Speaker 1: you got this. This is what we're gonna do. Mango
Speaker 1: has these very helpful pictures here. I know, just looking
Speaker 1: at that chair you immediately away. But we have to
Speaker 1: give clues for the listeners. That's right, could that possibly
Speaker 1: be a giveaway? And uh? And because you're competing against
Speaker 1: each other, and because we don't have busters, we're gonna
Speaker 1: ask you to either move or kaka when you know
Speaker 1: the answer. So, uh, can we do either one? Okay? Okay,
Speaker 1: So would you like to move? Uh? Sure, I'll take
Speaker 1: them more. Would I can see you? Eba? No, no
Speaker 1: move Benelka. Okay, here we go. All right, you guys
Speaker 1: ready to play. Okay, let's show them picture number one,
Speaker 1: number one. Okay, here we go. This folding bar stool
Speaker 1: with back rest doubles as the name of the first
Speaker 1: African American character from the Peanuts name that I kea
Speaker 1: boy panic? I don't know? Okay, chairs name with the Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: Oh Franklin. Yes, one to nothing. Here we go. Question
Speaker 1: question number two. Yeah, let's let's let's work on the
Speaker 1: okay here all right. Although this dining chair was retired,
Speaker 1: the tennis player who shares its name just won his
Speaker 1: eighth Wimbledon and shows no signs of slowing down. Can
Speaker 1: you name that? I kea boy? His last name is Federer?
Speaker 1: Al right, Ben Kevin. I was thinking, I think no
Speaker 1: one gets that point by default. Roger. There we go. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: funny that we were on the same wave like that.
Speaker 1: Here we go, all right. Question number three. These stackable
Speaker 1: chairs were easy to move thanks to the hole in
Speaker 1: the back rest. The furniture also shares its name with
Speaker 1: the patriarch of the Munster family on television. All right,
Speaker 1: who is it? Yes, Arman Munster? Well done, I think
Speaker 1: we're okay, it's two to one, nol Is that right? Okay?
Speaker 1: Number four. This leather and steel bar stool shares its
Speaker 1: name with a Caesar, the one who was kidnapped by
Speaker 1: pirates and then demanded that they up there ransom because
Speaker 1: he was worth much more than what they were asking. Alright,
Speaker 1: I'll take the big Okay, let's hear it. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be wrong though, Julius. Yeah, correct yourself, all right, the
Speaker 1: big tidebreaker. Here a number five feeling it. Here's the
Speaker 1: here's the photo. Okay, so that's that's that's it looks
Speaker 1: the same as number one and three. This is such
Speaker 1: a great, such great audio pictures. All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: This modern folding chair shares its first name with an
Speaker 1: American writer. After he wrote, the raven children would run
Speaker 1: up to him on the street, let me finish the question,
Speaker 1: and then did they? Let's see, after he wrote, the
Speaker 1: raven children would run up to him in the street,
Speaker 1: flapping their wings and calling nevermore. Let's let you guys
Speaker 1: on the count of three say it together, one to three, Edgar,
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? We we'll give him a
Speaker 1: time because we don't want to start an office fight.
Speaker 1: We're gonna give them each of five dollar gift card
Speaker 1: to Ikea, the cheapest gift card you can get to Ikea.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, no, no, we're going to the cafeteria.
Speaker 1: Is enough for their Swedish meat at meat balls and
Speaker 1: that's a lot of meatballs. Well, I hope everyone well listening.
Speaker 1: We'll check out stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining. Thank you. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to get too deep into this, but we were
Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about ing bars darker history. Right. So,
Speaker 1: the company definitely makes use of tax shelters, and Ikea
Speaker 1: itself is registered as a nonprofit, where for a company
Speaker 1: that does thirty billion dollars or more in sales, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of nonprofit work to show. But I
Speaker 1: think the thing that really shocked me is that ng
Speaker 1: Bar had been part of a far right Swedish party
Speaker 1: when he was younger. He was a fan of this
Speaker 1: fascist per eng Doll and at first it sounded to
Speaker 1: the press pretty superficial, and then it became clear he'd
Speaker 1: done some heavy recruiting for the party and had a
Speaker 1: police file. Anyway, he's apologized for it, and he's called
Speaker 1: it the silly phase in his life and it's something
Speaker 1: he regrets. But he only does interviews with journalists he
Speaker 1: vets now and he keeps a really tight control over
Speaker 1: the narrative. But all that's complicated by the fact that
Speaker 1: there's also been some concern that the company is really
Speaker 1: insular and that upper management is almost all from small land. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: you can't make it up in the company if you
Speaker 1: don't come from that region. Well, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: once those comments came out, the company did make a
Speaker 1: big effort to diversify. Yeah, and by all accounts they
Speaker 1: have and the workers have really high satisfaction ratings, like
Speaker 1: they get great gifts at the holidays, and um I
Speaker 1: KEA used to use this m I T living wage
Speaker 1: calculator and they did that so that they could make
Speaker 1: sure employees and different regions all got paid well or
Speaker 1: well enough to live. And now they're really trying to
Speaker 1: be a force for environmental good too. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot packed in there. And there this
Speaker 1: book from a former employee that I guess got a
Speaker 1: lot of press, and it talks about ing var with pride,
Speaker 1: but also describes the end fighting that goes on to
Speaker 1: please him, which you know, supposedly he stirs that up.
Speaker 1: But whatever else, he's still this pretty beloved figure in Sweden.
Speaker 1: But before we go, let's break from this topic and
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about one of the things I
Speaker 1: think is just genius, and that's how the store flows.
Speaker 1: I mean, it kind of reminds me of the you know,
Speaker 1: the gentle way of grocery store guides you along. And
Speaker 1: how's that? Well, you know how grocery stores try to
Speaker 1: lead you counterclockwise, and and that's because most people are
Speaker 1: right handed, which I know that sounds like fake marketing advice,
Speaker 1: but because those people are closer to the shelves with
Speaker 1: their right hand, there's actually a seven or eight percent
Speaker 1: increase in sales when stores switched to that direction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember reading that if you walk the store in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction, you'll actually spend less. And even though
Speaker 1: I know that, like I can't fight the current, I
Speaker 1: always have to go with the flood. I get it,
Speaker 1: I get it, and I key has even more like that.
Speaker 1: The whole store is intended to be this lazy river
Speaker 1: that pulls you along. And every fifty feet or so,
Speaker 1: there's a curve in the path because there's always supposed
Speaker 1: to be something enticing hiding right around the corner, you know.
Speaker 1: In fact, according to Lauren Collins piece, she says, any
Speaker 1: long stretch that doesn't make a turn is referred to
Speaker 1: as an audubon, which is code for, as she says,
Speaker 1: a big boring mistake. I love that so Um, I
Speaker 1: actually know what you mean. Like, when I've been in
Speaker 1: the stores, it really does feel like a giant maze
Speaker 1: moving in one direction, and it's kind of all pulling
Speaker 1: you towards the register. I'm not sure if you remember this,
Speaker 1: but Jess Hollinger did this piece for a Metal Last
Speaker 1: some years ago. I do remember that, Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: and she talked to a bunch of Akia employees and
Speaker 1: one of the things she discovered was that there are
Speaker 1: actually all these hidden shortcuts in every idea, Like there
Speaker 1: are unmarked doors that will take you upstairs or downstairs,
Speaker 1: or little entrances between a bedroom department that will take
Speaker 1: you to the carpet section and you can skip through
Speaker 1: four or five sections. It's it actually feels to me
Speaker 1: like one of those pipes and Super Mario Brothers that
Speaker 1: lets you skip to the end of a level or something.
Speaker 1: But I've got to tell you, the last time I
Speaker 1: got stuck in Ikea for way too long, I started
Speaker 1: scouting for the secret passageways and using them, and it
Speaker 1: made my trip so much more fun. Way you can
Speaker 1: do this that nobody tried to stop you from doing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the best part. I mean, those passageways are mostly
Speaker 1: there to be helpful for workers, but they're also there
Speaker 1: in case of emergencies. And as long as the door
Speaker 1: doesn't say employees only, Ikia won't really hassle you about
Speaker 1: poking around. I mean, this is the same store that
Speaker 1: lets customers in China sleep on their beds for hours. Actually,
Speaker 1: speaking of those, I love those photos of people test driving,
Speaker 1: you know, the merchandise there. The other thing, an employee
Speaker 1: to the Metal Floss was that the stores will actually
Speaker 1: change the pathways every once in a while, So maybe
Speaker 1: that the hide and Sea enthusiasts you've talked about in
Speaker 1: the beginning don't get too familiar with. It's also interesting
Speaker 1: how much business Ikea doesn't impulse buys, Like once you're
Speaker 1: past the furniture and all the things you came to buy,
Speaker 1: the last part of the i Kea store is actually
Speaker 1: called the open the Wallets section, and that's where all
Speaker 1: the things you need but would never come to an
Speaker 1: i Kea specifically for they're waiting for you right there.
Speaker 1: It could be anything from a plastic picnic plate to
Speaker 1: a two dollar vase, but it's at such steep discounts
Speaker 1: that you just can't resist. Well, that's the magic of
Speaker 1: the bullah bullah, that's right. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: said this. For like, every single article I read about
Speaker 1: I can't mentioned how they have this special way of
Speaker 1: stacking a hundred different items into a bin just to
Speaker 1: accentuate how affordable all this stuff is. That and the
Speaker 1: fact that they always keep like shopping bags every fifty
Speaker 1: feet so you never have an excuse not to pick
Speaker 1: up more stuff, Well then it clearly works. I mean,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, I TA feels so folksy, and
Speaker 1: yet the brand is so big it's just izzy. I mean,
Speaker 1: like people always mentioned how one out of every ten
Speaker 1: Europeans was conceived on an Ikea bed. Yeah, that's such
Speaker 1: a crazy stat and I actually read a funny line
Speaker 1: in The Atlantic about it. They called Ikea beds the
Speaker 1: literal cradle of humanity. But you also hear that sad
Speaker 1: a lot about how i Kea uses one percent of
Speaker 1: the world's would to make its furniture. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's right. But the thing that really brought it
Speaker 1: home for me was this line from the New Yorker
Speaker 1: piece let me let me just read it here. It says, uh,
Speaker 1: when Ikia stopped selling incandescent lightbulbs. Last year, six hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty six million people became environmentalists. I mean it's
Speaker 1: just stunning. Yeah, it's crazy how big they are. But um,
Speaker 1: speaking of stunning, why don't we do a little fact
Speaker 1: off while we're while we're on the subject, all right,
Speaker 1: m okay, here's one to kick it off. So in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, Ikea had to stop offering a one euro
Speaker 1: breakfast on weekends because the country's road couldn't accommodate the traffic.
Speaker 1: That's insane. So here's something I didn't realize about the
Speaker 1: IKEA catalog is c G I now, no way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not only is the computer generated catalog cheaper for the company,
Speaker 1: but it makes it easier to tweak the catalog for
Speaker 1: different markets. That's impressive. All right, here's the crazy thing
Speaker 1: I learned. So we pronounced Ikea wrong. In America, we
Speaker 1: call it i Kea, but it's actually e ka. So
Speaker 1: we talked a little about the naming system in the
Speaker 1: quiz earlier. But the reason all the bookcases are boys
Speaker 1: names or professions or the betting is all named for
Speaker 1: flowers and plants. It's because ing bar is dyslexic. It
Speaker 1: was an easier taxonomy than numbers for him to keep
Speaker 1: track of everything. All I kind of love that. Al Right,
Speaker 1: here's something that's totally bonkers. So in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: the company was growing so fast it accidentally opened an
Speaker 1: Ikea and the wrong Town in Germany. Apparently it was
Speaker 1: supposed to go up in constands, but it went up
Speaker 1: in Kobe Lens instead. I mean, anybody can make that
Speaker 1: a thing, though. Yeah, even though that fact makes no
Speaker 1: sense to me, I I love it. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you walk away with the belt this week. And
Speaker 1: for those of you listening at home, don't forget to
Speaker 1: write us at part Time Genius at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com and please send in your favorite meatball and
Speaker 1: furniture facts. A lot of you are gonna walk away
Speaker 1: with t shirts. Thank you so much for listening. Okay,
Speaker 1: thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
Speaker 1: of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
Speaker 1: brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even
Speaker 1: begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Speaker 1: Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy
Speaker 1: sound thing. Garry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay
Speaker 1: Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Speaker 1: Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves.
Speaker 1: Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
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Speaker 1: We forget Jason? Jason who