The Exchanges

Q Um, so I, I make around 80 cents from them as they charge me for a dollar. Um, so I feel like in my question, like a follow up is if I raise the prices, do you think there's, they would say we don't want to, for you to put your products anymore or. Is that a possibility?

A Well, it's definitely a possibility, but it's one you got to figure out. So, two ways to figure this out. You can go to your existing customers. Assume you have a good relationship with them. Assume they're happy. Um, and you could tell them. You could be like, hey, um, how is this going for you? They're like, oh, it's great. Like, awesome. I really love working with you. You know, I'm 14 years old. I'm figuring this out as I go, and one thing I'm learning is that I'm providing you guys 500,000 cookies. Right now, I cook all of these by myself. I need to bring somebody in. If I do that, I'm like, I'm not gonna make any profit. And so, I was wondering, would it be possible, like, for us to raise the price here and go to a dollar a cookie, or 95 cents a cookie, whatever it is, that way I'm not losing money providing you business. And see what they say. They might look at you and your puppy dog eyes, and they'll just say yes. They might say no, and you'll find out, right? And then, when you go to that next bakery, you, you're gonna go cold test them, and they're never even gonna know about the 80 cents. You just go to them straight away, and you say, it's a dollar 10 a cookie, and then you say, these cookies are amazing. This is an Have you ever been to the bakery in New York? This is a New York City cookie that I'm bringing to you, right? So you're, you have to up the perceived v…

AI assessment note: “Well, it's definitely a possibility, but it's one you got to figure out.”

Q marathon on a treadmill with max incline. And low agency people do the opposite. So this is the kind of idea of treadmill friends. Afterwards, you've got so much energy. You need to go on a treadmill. You can't sleep. Then you have like sofa friends who you need to lie down after hanging out with them. Who's like the treadmill friends in your guy's life that comes to mind?

A Sam's like that for me. My buddy Suli is like that. Like I can't, I can't hang out with Suli and literally our hangout tends to be, we walk for like four hours talking, uh, because we almost have to burn off the energy. That's like the, the excitement of the ideas and the stories that we're sharing while we're doing it. Um, that's how this podcast got created. It was on a four hour walk with him, and I was like, you know what I really want? It was like hour three. I was like, you know what I really want to do? It's not a company. I want to create a podcast. I want to be Tim Ferriss. I want to wake up and have a, be in a million people's ear balls. And that was like a thing that came to me when I worked myself into that state. Uh, Ben is kind of like that. My business partner, Ben, where he's like, I could just, I probably do call Ben, I think eight times a day on average. You know, so we just talk eight times in a day, which now that I say it sounds very weird, but it feels very normal. If I didn't have kids, it'd probably be 20 times a day.

AI assessment note: “Sam's like that for me. My buddy Suli is like that.”

Q Wait, so hold on here. Snap the podcast. So like, what, so what should I do next time I sit down to write? How does this actually work? Where am I going to dance? Do some jumping jacks? What do I actually do?

A Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. So state change is three things. Number one, radical change in your physiology. So you can sprint, you can do pushups, you can dance, you can, um, do 20 air squats, you can dump your face into cold water, whatever it is, you will, it's the fastest way to change how you feel is a radical change in your physiology. So first I Um, so do that. That's the, that's the very first thing. Um, I have a friend who's a professional poker player. He does the same thing. He goes during poker players are like notoriously degenerates. Like you're literally sitting there in a casino, which is like the worst air pumped in environment. There's no windows and you're around other degenerates all day. People are smoking. It's bad. Um, he's like a monk and he, during a tournament in the breaks, he goes in the parking lot and he does wind sprints. He's not doing it to be a He's not doing it to increase his VO two max. He's doing it because he wants to make a better decision when he gets back to the table. He knows he makes better decisions when he changes the state. And, um, that's part of his edge is why he's been a European, like, you know, poker champion, uh, uh, a tour champion, uh, you know, several years. So first thing is a change in your, your, um, your state. The second thing is a change in your focus. So what are you even focused on?

AI assessment note: “Number one, radical change in your physiology. So you can sprint, you can do pushups”

Q some art here that you got going on, Sean. I love it. Um, okay, cool. Let's rapid fire through one more each. Um, let's see. So Sean, we have your clubhouse one, but I feel like it's pretty close to the metaverse one as to why that work. Um, do you want to talk about, uh, this Elon one, or do you want to talk about, uh, this learning one?

A Uh, yeah, I'll do both real quick. The Elon one is actually like Sagar was saying. I, uh, I, I, one of the threads that went viral was not, no original insight. Uh, Elon was on clubhouse. Elon like popped onto clubhouse when clubhouse was hot. And, you know, just a guest appearance by Elon Musk is not something you get very often. And also clubhouse was like overload. It was like invite only and it was overloaded. So I just go for those who are locked out of the Elon thing. Um, here's what he's saying. And I just live typed and transcribed everything interesting he was saying in a thread In real time. And I was the only guy doing it. And like, you know, on one hand, I felt a little silly. I was like, oh man, I've become like a professional note taker on a fucking beta app of clubhouse. Like, geez, what does my career come to? And then also I was like, oh wow, that's just like 7000 likes already. Okay. Nevermind. Let's shut up. Like go. And so, uh, you know, I just like just did it, but it was like, it talks about that same thing, which is like, some people think they need to have this like Really great insight or amazing, you know, perspective or whatever. And sometimes you're just providing a service better than others. You're just clipping good content and you're posting it and you're doing that consistently and people will follow you for that. You can build a huge audience a…

AI assessment note: “Uh, yeah, I'll do both real quick. The Elon one is actually”

Q Like, is this like a private channel? Is this for yourself?

A It's me and my co-founder. So we do this and I do this in across every business I have. And so whether it's a high, I, and then I go back and I get humbled immediately by a low. I'm like, okay, don't, don't get too high on your own supply here. Or it's a low currently. And I'm like, well, I've already gone through. If you just scroll up, I've already conquered a bunch of mountains like this before I've dealt with this. I'll be fine. And it's like an immediate, like kind of perspective machine. And it's not even like somebody else perspective. It's like, I also was in the same channel three months ago saying the same thing, crying wolf, basically about this high or this low. And, um, neither, neither are as good or as bad as they seem in the moment.

AI assessment note: “It's me and my co-founder.”

Q I think it's the most under-discussed personality trait, and it's the most probably important personality trait. And this most similar concept that I've seen online is, have you seen Paul Graham's relentlessly resourceful?

A Yeah, well, he just says, like, I created YC, I've now seen thousands of founders, and if I think about the trait that is most valuable in founders, it's not intelligence, it's not charisma, it's not, uh, you know, engineering prowess, it's the, you know, the best founders are relentlessly resourceful, and that, that phrase, and he also says, like, can you describe, you know, a test is, would you describe this person as an animal? Would you say, yeah, he's, he's an animal. And if you can say, man, that guy's an absolute animal, or she's an animal when it comes to this, That's the sign of a winner. And I think that's the, the output of a high agency person. How do you describe them? They're basically, they're an animal.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, well, he just says, like, I created YC”

Q intelligence contest. I'm going to try to Do exactly what Aaron Sorkin said. There's intention and there's obstacle. I'm going to frame what I'm saying in terms of story. I'm going to focus on the frame and say that my writing still, it's just like, yo, this is lame. What do you think is going on there that makes it feel dry or like it lacks a sense of momentum?

A Well, in the same way that comedy is great, but not every line should be a joke. Uh, storytelling is great and not every piece of content needs a story. Um, so I think one challenge is, like, I wrote that one as a story. It did great. That doesn't mean everything I write online is, like, screenplay, story type of thing. That worked in that situation. It's not gonna work in every situation. So you gotta know, like, the tools and when to use them. Hammer's not good if you're just trying to open a door. Sometimes a key is what you need. And so, that's the first thing. Don't just force it in. The second thing is, like, you probably need reps. Like, I don't know, I've done this a lot of times. That wasn't the first story I've ever written. So if you're, like, cool, I'm gonna get better at storytelling, Be prepared. Like, tell a hundred stories, starting with maximum cringe, and get to not cringe, right? Like, but it's gonna take a hundred. Expect that it's gonna take a hundred stabs at this, and specifically, a hundred intelligent reps. So it's like, do it, and then the next one, you have to be like, what could I do better? Oh, my hook was a little weak there. Or, oh, you know, it droned on too long. Or, I don't really have a point. Maybe this shouldn't have been a story. Maybe it should have been something else. And so, hundred reps for each one, you try to say, what's one thing I …

AI assessment note: “not every piece of content needs a story. Um, so I think one challenge is”

Q Have you learned anything about the pacing of a story? Like, the, how you drag it out, or compress it? Like, does that change for different platforms? How do you think about that?

A Definitely. Um, you know, I think another misconception is Shorter the better. You know, too long is too boring, and actually, um, you know, anything could be any length. It just says, you can only be as long as it is interesting. That's a general rule. It can only be as long as it is interesting. If you can go this long, you know, a long, you know, blog post, but it's interesting the whole way, fantastic. That's the right length. However, you should always try to understand, like, what is your level of credibility or buy-in with the audience? So here in a podcast, you can kind of riff in a podcast. You can be like, dude, what we could talk about something we said in the lobby or be like, oh, you just had Sam Altman on. Does he have a bodyguard? Like we could just not talk about writing for five minutes. Totally fine. However, if it's cold traffic on the internet, you better have like an amazing headline and a first line that's going to hook people and be right about the match that the headline was because you don't, you don't have that reputation with them. So if you know your audience's level of buy-in with you, you can kind of, um, Dance around subjects versus be very direct and immediate and try to provide value right away, um, to hook people right away. So, you know, TikTok is a platform where you're swiping, like, and if it's not interesting in the first, like, .9 seconds…

AI assessment note: “So on TikTok, you see people right away trying to say a thing. On podcasts”

Q Hi, Massey. Um, so I wanted to ask, how do you feel about community building? Obviously, it's become really big for creators. How do you see it in the podcast genre, sort of that async communication with your fandom and building those super fans?

A Yeah, I think for a podcast, you don't really want to build a community as such. You want to build a cult. So, so basically you're like, what is it that we believe that not everybody believes, and let's put that on blast, and then a bunch of other people who believe that too are going to be like, finally, someone said it, or like, finally, they, they do things the way I do things. Like, for most of you here, I, I would bet, like, hands up if you consider yourself like, I'm a real fan. Like, I truly love the pod. I feel like When you guys are doing the pod, I could be sitting there right with you guys kind of bullshitting. I bet, like, leave your hands up for a second. Um, put your, uh, leave your hand up if the following statement is true. It's not that you learned that much from us, but it's kind of like, you feel like you're hanging out with us, that we are like you, and that if we just happened to have met, we would have been friends. So, like, most people leave their hand up, right? I kind of confuse them. But it's, that's kind of what you go for. I think most people, when they do content, they're trying to be heavily informational, and they think they're talking down to people, they think they're educating them and whatnot. What we do is we just talk about stuff we're interested in that we think, and then it just happens to attract a bunch of other people who think the way…

AI assessment note: “you don't really want to build a community as such. You want to build a cult.”

Q were stuffing fish with like lead balls. And so I think a bunch of people have just, you know, Become fascinated with this idea that, oh my gosh, people are cheating, even though they have been for a long time. But, um, I have a couple ideas around the idea of cheating, but I first want to hear your take. Like, what, what do you think about these cheating scandals?

A Well, there's something very seductive about them. I don't know about you, but like, I don't follow chess normally, but when it came to this, I was like, God damn it. If I don't have to get to the bottom of this, like, you know, here goes four hours of like YouTube rabbit holing to figure out. And I don't, it's not even like, it's a better entry point for me than just this person is great. Or this was a great match. It's like, here's the controversy. Oh, what is it? Right. And it goes back to this thing that, uh, I remember Dana White said once Dana White's the president of the UFC. And he goes, they were like, you know, UFC is kind of this fringe small thing, but you're saying it's going to be huge. Why do you believe that? He goes, I believe that because if you go to a park or a playground right now and you've got a basketball court, people are playing basketball. You got a football field, people playing football, you soccer over here, baseball over there. And then somebody screams fight and there's a fight going on. Guess where everybody's heads turning to the fight. And that was his whole thesis of like, why I think the UFC is going to be big because fighting is this universal, universal thing that just gets you to turn your neck, whether you wanted to or not. And it's actually kind of played out. The UFC has become this global sport, you know, a five billion dollar plus co…

AI assessment note: “Well, there's something very seductive about them.”

Q lessons you draw from chess.com, right? Which is a relatively straightforward is you have like a rating system, right? You have leaderboards and scores, you have challenges, you have social connections where you make your friends on chess.com. So you can invite, like it's all the things, right? That there's, these are, uh, very easily translatable into other games like wordplay, right? Um, so anyway, so we'll pick and choose.

A Can I give you one little feature I think would be cool because, uh, leaderboards are always this problem in general where, uh, Like, leaderboards cool for the top 10 people, and then for everybody else on earth, it's like, oh great, I'm player number three, 39,000. Fantastic, right? And so there's all these, like, if you, I kind of studied this once, I was like, who solved this problem? And there's really three models that work. One is more like chess, and games do this, they create a rank system, so it's not your number 80,000 in the world, because that doesn't mean anything, but you go from bronze, to silver, to gold, to platinum, to master, to grandmaster, And like you, you just compete to get your own level up within that to get to your next batch. And that's a karate belt, the karate belt method. Let's call it. Then there's the next one, which is your social rank matters when it's with people, you know, that are either your friends, your school, your city, something like that. So you can kind of hack a proximity based thing. And then the third one, which I think is somewhat interesting, which is it doesn't even matter what my rank is, but there's something cool. Like if I go to wordplay right now, I feel like I'm alone in this experience. I don't know that there's 3000 other people solving this right now. And also, I don't know, I bet you there's like some celebrity that …

AI assessment note: “leaderboards cool for the top 10 people... there's really three models that work”

Q What's the, what's the story? So he listened and then messaged you, or how did you guys connect?

A It was like a crazy connect-the-dot story, actually. So there's a, another guy who's a comedy writer for a TV show. His name's Azar, and he, uh, he writes the show Remy on Hulu. Um, And so he listens to the show. I don't know how he discovered it. He listens and he was like, dude, this is great. Now his network is people in kind of like Hollywood and like specifically maybe like Brown Hollywood. And so he tipped a few people off to it. And I took like a random meeting with him. You know, I have this one block every week just for random spontaneous meetings with cool people that are like in my orbit. And so I took the meeting with him. We had great vibes. We connected great. And I think he then told us, dude, you got to listen to this show. And so then he started listening from there. And then he reached out, he DM'd and was like, are my, a couple of my Twitter threads went viral, like the clubhouse one. And then this other one, the metaverse one. And after each one, he would reach out and be like, dude, that was like, that was so good. And one time he just called me. And at the end of that, I was like, dude, he's like, we, he's like, we gotta meet. He's like, I'm doing a show in San Francisco. Let's come. And I go, great. Can you stay an extra day and let's record the pod? Oh, really? So that's what he, that's what he did. And he's like, yeah, he's like, as long as it's in pers…

AI assessment note: “It was like a crazy connect-the-dot story, actually.”

Q I mean, I really hear that you relate to Twitter as a game. Like, it's not like a thing where you have to tell, like, what you believe exactly the way you believe it. Um, you're, you're, there's, there's a bit of a game that you're playing. Is that how you would relate to it?

A Yeah. Don't take it too seriously. Like, um, I don't take anything too seriously, but definitely not going to be Twitter. I barely take parenting and like, you know, things like that seriously. I try to be playful and silly and lighthearted with those two. So I'm definitely not going to take Twitter too seriously. And the other thing is I, uh, I'm lucky that Twitter is not where I, I'm not, uh, Twitter's not my, my, my real job. You know, like I, I basically been successful outside of Content creation. So I had the security that I can just kind of F around with content creation and do what I think is interesting because I'm not doing this in order to become successful. So I don't have to, so I didn't have this mental block of like, I need to play things a certain way. So I was talking about this too. Like once you get to a certain size, whether you did it outside of content or even through content, you can start playing much looser because at the end of the day, your life's short, just do whatever you want to do, say what you want to say. It's a lot more rewarding and fun and interesting that way. And so, uh, you could do that, uh, you know, you could buy yourself that right. Um, but most people sort of have this mental block where they're like afraid, uh, and they take everything so seriously, and then it becomes an unpleasant experience for them. I think, well, I think a lot …

AI assessment note: “Yeah. Don't take it too seriously. Like, um, I don't take anything too seriously”

Q I want to end here. If, you know, you built a newsletter called Milk Road, and you had to train another writer to write in your voice, and you believe that learning to write is actually teachable. So when you're teaching other people to write, what were some of the things that you focused on?

A Uh, yeah, so we taught, the teaching was important, because I didn't want that, we had to send the email out every morning at like, six a.m., I was like, I'm not doing that, like, good, I'm not good with consistency, anyways, I don't wake up that early, uh, I know that no matter how fun this is, that I will hate doing by like, day 30, so from day one, I was like, I'm not gonna write this, but it's gonna be in my voice and style, how do you do that? Hired a guy who's never written before, and I sat him down, and I was like, Um, first, my business partner, I was like, you write this, and I was the editor. I was, I was his editor for 30 days, and I said, cool, now you're the editor, now you gotta hire a writer. We hired a guy who'd never written before, um, in any professional capacity, or even blogged. I don't, I don't think he had a blog either. Uh, but I told him, and basically what we did was we took off, one thing that helped is the newsletter was like a consistent format, so it wasn't like 10 different formats, it was one format, and I broke down Why we write it, the way we write it, line by line. Our opening line at Milk Road was always like, good morning, this is the Milk Road, the, you know, and we would say what we do, and then we would say in a funny, and then we would add a, we would tag it with a joke. So we would say, we are the number one source for figuring out wha…

AI assessment note: “I broke down Why we write it, the way we write it, line by line.”

Q Well, well, I think it's pretty wild implication that we may have mass disruption in terms of jobs and mass disruption in terms of every business that we know that we think of as a good business. May not be a good business in, and it's not a long term, right? This is not 10 years. We're talking about a two year time horizon.

A So let's take the business side of it, right? Um, the business side of your argument was basically, Software for the last 30 years has been an incredible business to be a creator of or an owner of whether you're buying or building software businesses. And you're saying, I think that's going to change because, um, if it becomes so easy for anybody to build software that they need, then they're not going to be buying 5000 dollars a year or 50,000 dollar a year software anymore. And so maybe this one thing, vertical software, VMS, right? Um, or Other, other categories like that, where it's like more of a simple CRUD database with a user interface on top of it, um, that those are going to become less valuable. I totally agree with you that that's That those are less, less appealing than they were before. I don't think it goes to zero because in reality, um, it's sort of like anytime you've actually built software, it's the last 10% that takes, you know, you can get 90% of the way there. You feel like you're almost there, but then the last 10% will take you as much time as the first 90. This is like a rule you see over and over and over again. And it's the same thing with products, which is that to actually make something work and solve all your problems that you need, that you're used to your current software solving, it will take Time, effort, love, care, and whether it's just mig…

AI assessment note: “I think it's less likely that that becomes like a major disruption to all of software”

Q thought that Logan would cross over And he has, obviously, with WWE in a lot of ways, and I think that will continue. Like, if you told me Logan is like an action star, and is like, at the, like, the way John Cena was at the Academy Awards last night, like, is Logan doing that in 15 years? I'm like, that makes sense to me. That's how he's wired.

A Sam, you know, he's only 28. He's, he's only 28 years old. The dude basically like, you know, when he was 14 or whatever, like one, he won in the social media game. Now he, and then think about the pivots, right? Both him and Jake, but the thing about the pivots, now he's got impulsive. He's got the podcast where he's super chill. It's the opposite of crazy vine prankster guy. He pivoted to like, he's the guy asking questions. He's inquisitive. He's curious. He's got like, you know, the popular podcast goes WWE. Becomes a champion in WWE, creates Prime, which is gonna make him a billionaire by the time he's 28, 29 years old now, because Prime is probably gonna be worth tens of billions if, you know, they did, I think, two billion in sales last year.

AI assessment note: “He pivoted to like, he's the guy asking questions... goes WWE. Becomes a champion”

Q if you want to build, uh, the next great social network, like, yeah, K factor matters in the beginning, but actually what matters more is like, what is the 30, 60, 90 day retention? If you want to just like go viral and be on every single, you know, 14 year old's phone in America, then the only thing that matters is K factor. Right? And what do you think?

A Both of his apps within, I don't know, a hundred days of getting acquired or 200 days of getting acquired, you know, shut down and run off to zero, right? Because they didn't have retention. But the one thing I would give him a ton of credit for, which I think was really impressive, was, A, he went back to the well. What most people don't do is they do a space, they become super knowledgeable about it, and they get so jaded and have so much scar tissue that even though they are the best equipped person in the world to go back and build in that space again, they are so turned off they go become a beginner at something else. Which I think is a fine life choice to make from, like, a variety of life, but, like, not optimal from a, from, like, playing the game of entrepreneurship. The second thing is, He was in the world of, I'm gonna build a hit, hit social app, and the way that a hit social app works is, like, get a hundred million plus users, and then start to make money on ads, and, like, raise venture capital, do all this. When he went back the second time, he, like, broke down the fourth wall of Silicon Valley and was like, what if I don't fund this, and what if I just, like, charge a little bit of money, and, like, what if I just make a few million dollars of profit, like, every, every month, and, like, I don't know how long it'll last, but I think I can make, like, Whatever,…

AI assessment note: “shut down and run off to zero, right? Because they didn't have retention.”

Q absolutely. They did. But new jobs emerged based on that new paradigm, which actually created more net value for the world overall as a result of computers existing. AI to me is another much fancier tool. That's what it is. Um, and you know, can it do increasingly complex, sophisticated things? Yes. Um, is there a danger someday that they're going to take over the world? I don't think so.

A I mean, um, not, why do you think that smart people Think that. So, Elon clearly thinks that. He thinks that AI is the most, I think he said, it's the most dangerous technology ever, ever invented. Sam Waltman talks about it, um, in the same way. He's like, we need, like, you know, the priority, the reason that OpenAI existed was to develop AGI in a safe way, specifically, because in the hands of the wrong person, this, uh, this type of, in the hands of the wrong people, or If this thing decides to take its own directive into its own hands, like, you know, this could be devastating. And so it's like, is it like calling the atomic bomb a tool or, you know, like, oh yeah, it's just another weapon. It's like, well, yeah, but this one is, this one wipes everybody out. Right. So, um, forget the jobs component. Cause I think. Okay, sure. We, I think we, I think most smart people will agree. Yeah, it's going to change some jobs. It's going to eliminate some jobs and create new jobs and net net. We'll all move ahead and the world gets better for it. I think the dangerous thing is like, you can ask this thing to, um, you know, you know, build you a bomb or I think the, the, the test scenario was like, uh, one of the red team testers, they have this thing called the red team that tests the AI before they release it. And their first question they ask is how do I kill the most amount of pe…

AI assessment note: “why do you think that smart people Think that. So, Elon clearly thinks that.”

Q their door. That is efficiency that eliminates fraud. There is just so much to love in that equation. And that'll be applied to the watch industry, to the luxury world, to all these different verticals. And it just makes sense. Like, what about that? I'm just curious if, as you hear me explain, it doesn't sound like a better world, like in, in terms of fixing a bunch of problems.

A I think, uh, if I was gonna, if I was gonna argue against that, like, just to steel man the argument against it, I think it would be cool, uh, like, maybe it's gonna, maybe these are certificates for collectibles, most, you know, it's not gonna, that doesn't impact most people's lives, because most people are not collecting high-end bags or wines or this, where there's huge problems of forgery like that, uh, that may be one thing, which is, it's not going to impact that many people, um, In, in that sense. Oh, you're telling me NFTs are this game changing world, changing technology, but that's a really niche specific, you know, one percenter type problem. And then the other is like, you know, um, sounds like an NFT is like a digital certificate. Um, you know, you could have done that with, with another type of certificate, but, um, or another type of database, maybe, but maybe this is better. Uh, like I do agree it's better, but like it was possible before it didn't take the impossible and make it possible. It made the, uh, The possible made it, maybe made it more efficient or a little bit more convenient for the consumer. And so I think that would be maybe one argument against it, but I don't want to go too far in the weeds. Yeah.

AI assessment note: “if I was gonna argue against that, like, just to steel man the argument”

Q they quote tweet you and they're dunking on you. And that's a part of now the social currency. This is all this social currency that you're a part of. Oh, the more subscribers I get, then I can do me on these commercials and we can sell the pod and you're a business guy, right? How do you deal with those, uh, negative critiques? Does it bother you? Does it,

A What's, um, so the honest answer is, yeah, every negative comment is like 10 times 10 for every positive comment, you know, and so that is the initial reaction, but there's also a difference between response and reaction, so the initial, if I'm not in the right state of mind, that initial reaction, I'm gonna clap back, or they're so dumb because of this, this, and this, I'll go look at their profile, you only got 11 followers, and you're saying this shit, maybe Maybe this is why you have 11 followers, because you think this way. You know, I'm right, you're wrong, blah, blah, blah. And I realized pretty quickly that doesn't get me anywhere. In fact, it would waste, like, almost like half a day or a whole day of mine just checking the mentions, for good and bad. Like, this happened, if I go viral, good. You know, I go check all the, I'm just addicted to refreshing the thing. You did an amazing bit about this. That was the most, for me, the most relatable thing. You just, you played it up. It was amazing. People aren't gonna know this. Go see the show. You'll see this part about

AI assessment note: “the honest answer is, yeah, every negative comment is like 10 times 10”

Q you should think of it as a company that, like I, I bought a million acres of land in Texas, or I bought, um, a million gallons of, of fill in the blank, a million bushels of soybean. You can buy any kind of property. Right? And, and you're holding it on your balance sheet as a company, right? That's what we, that's what we are. Now, what's your question?

A You are talking about, like, let's say the, the cost of capital, uh, being 25%, right? Because since March, that's what the S&P is on. But the, the stock market goes, you know, it does go up and down in years where, you know, the market dips and, and goes up, you know, the average of, you know, over time, the geometric mean is whatever, seven or eight percent, something like that. Some would argue, okay, yes, this year assets inflated by that much. That doesn't mean next year it's going to remain at 25% a year. Um, and so you have to make some prediction, right? And so are you, are you basically forecasting it at 25%, 15%, 10%, eight percent, and does the decision change at a certain number there?

AI assessment note: “are you basically forecasting it at 25%, 15%, 10%, eight percent”

Q Yeah, that's so clever. Yeah, so I'm interested to see how this progresses, because I do wonder, it's like, who, who wins? Do the cheaters win? Do the anti-cheating measures win? Historically, I mean, in gaming, what was the case? Like, could the anti-cheating measures keep up with the cheaters?

A No, like the, the best cheater is always one step ahead because, you know, there's always a, the bigger, the more money involved, the bigger the incentive to cheat. And so you're, anytime you have a big pot of money, you're going to find people are going to cheat. And this is why, you know, PayPal and Facebook and others, they, they have so much, so much staff every day dedicated just to catching cheaters. And, um, because there's a huge amount of money involved in it. This is why people love Bitcoin. They're like, wow, if somebody could have hacked this or spoofed this or done a double spend, There is a literally like half a trillion dollar prize for the taking. And because it hasn't, that just shows you how secure this is. So it's like the absence of a hack shows the security. And so with, with anywhere, there's a lot of money, there's going to be an incentive to cheat. And there's always the hardest part is that it's usually not sophisticated. So for example, in the, have you followed the poker one that's been going on? It's like this, this, uh, like high stakes game in LA. That they stream the game. And so they have like a Twitch channel or whatever where they're streaming the game. So it's like kind of like the world's poker, but it's going on all the time. People are playing for like each person has like a hundred or 300,000 dollars on the table. So you get these pots and…

AI assessment note: “No, like the, the best cheater is always one step ahead”

Q bought more since then, but he, he has a certain amount and like, that's all he's willing to invest. If it goes to zero, he's happy with it. Um, but he's also probably sold a lot too early because he has a concentrated amount. So he's like, oh, I gotta sell this to buy another thing. Uh, Sean, did you get into proof? I feel like that was a big.

A No, I didn't. I didn't do proof. That's a, that's a great example of one where I'm like, oh, interesting. Kevin Rose is I was doing this NFT thing. I should, uh, I should, you know, I should just take a punt, right? Like it's, I'm seeing this before most people, um, I should go in and like, again, like with these things, it's not going to, it's not like going to go to zero quote unquote. It's like, you know, so I can trade out of the thing if I want to, and you know, three months from now, but like to weigh each, I don't want every decision to be heavy. And, um, and I, you guys seen this meme That's like the, um, it's like the curve. I think it's called like the midwit meme. It's basically like, there's an idiot on one side. There's a genius, like a, so on one side is the idiot. He looks like a troll. It looks like, you know, like whatever Shrek. And on the other side, there's like a Jedi master. And then the middle, which is like the top of the curve is like the average person. And it's like, uh, you know, like for example, like, oh, like the idiot would be like, oh, that monkey looks like, that's a cool looking monkey. I'll buy. All right. The, the genius is like, oh, this, you know, this has a chance to be an iconic, you know, like, like whatever, iconic NFT.

AI assessment note: “No, I didn't. I didn't do proof.”

Q Uh, is it like the dubbing the video?

A So first he exploded his growth by just being one of the few American YouTubers to like create his Brazil page, create his Philippines, create his Indonesia page. He created separate accounts for all those, localized them, hired somebody who speaks the language and like, yo, like when we were over hanging out with a, some lady watching speak in Portuguese and I was like, Like, yeah, what the hell's going on? And he's like, oh yeah, she manages like my whole page for, for Brazil. Uh, you know, like you have to have somebody who speaks the language and knows it. And then what they did was I was like, so do you dub it? He's like, yeah, we dub it, but we hire like voice actors. I'm like, why don't you, you can use AI. I'm like excited to be like, yeah,

AI assessment note: “He's like, yeah, we dub it, but we hire like voice actors.”

Q thing, but isn't right. Like where are these thoughts coming from? So it's equal parts, like really compelling, really cool as like a treat to be able to hear. Well, I think it's like a pretty accurate representation of how Steve Jobs would approach some of these things that are happening today, but then also just like scary to realize, but it's not really him. And what is it really?

A Well, it's like, it's like a video, right? Today you could watch a home video and it's like, you see their face, you hear their voice, but you, it's captured a moment in time. To me, this is an extension of that, which is like, now it's going to be somewhat interactive that you can kind of interact with these people or hear them talk about new things. Uh, and you know that it's not like the real thing, but it's, you know, there's a black mirror episode. That's a lot like this, where the woman like uploads her boyfriend's consciousness to like, you know, this robot, she's kind of still dating him, even though, uh, you know, he's gone, but like, there's like the shadow of him that like, you know, can, can simulate him. Um, and I think, I think there's more good than bad. Um, Sam, what'd you want to say?

AI assessment note: “it's like a video, right? Today you could watch a home video”

Q Because he saw what it could do, but like, and how do you get that opportunity to prototype? Cheap.

A Right. So hardware being hard, but it's like maybe hardware is not as hard as it used to be that, uh, like Sam calls these inflections where, you know, um, something changes. Like there's famously an inflection where, uh, when Obamacare came out, then Oscar health built a thing that was just to do Obamacare and like, you know, had, you know, became like a billion dollar company. It's like, so what are the inflection? So, oh, phones now have GPS, um, in them. Now you can build Uber. You couldn't build Uber before because the driver and the rider needed to find each other. How were they going to do that if you didn't have phones with GPS on them? Uh, phones have cameras. Now you can have Instagram, right? So it's like the technology inflection can happen. It's one type of inflection. And you're basically saying because of Raspberry Pi plus AI plus three D printing.

AI assessment note: “because of Raspberry Pi plus AI plus three D printing.”

Q like Miss Excel. What does they want to, the emotion I want to have, I would guess, then you sit down, you write it, then you go away for a few hours, you know, maybe go on a walk, come back, look at it, ship it off, right? So, for you, let's bring together emotion, editing. How do you edit for the sort of emotion that you're talking about there?

A Um, ok, first thing I learned was from Sam Parr, he, as a principal, I think he came on your show too, uh, which is the walk away. Uh, so you first, you, you do the shitty draft, you dump it, and I kinda knew editing was important, and the mistake I used to make is I'd edit right away. That's a terrible idea, don't do that. So, you first do your research and your thinking, you dump your, you do a quick brain dump, and then you gotta walk away. So you, you read it, well, the last thing I do, I read what I wrote, And then I'm gonna, like, forget about it. So I then will go do stuff. So I will go work out, I'll go play with my kids, I'll go for a walk, and I'm not trying to think about it at all. I know, I'll come back to that later, and I know it sucks today, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna edit it later and make it great, I'm certain of that, but I don't consciously think about it. And then I come back to it, usually, let's say, four hours, six hours, eight hours, 24 hours later, and I'll read the thing, and immediately I'll be like, oh, this is bad, bad, change this, oh, why don't I talk about this instead? Or, I wanted it to have this takeaway. I don't think it has that right now. Alright, where would I punch that up? Like, I wouldn't have wrote this if I didn't think it had the potential to give you that, because I was very intentional up front thinking this will do it. It's not comi…

AI assessment note: “I wanted it to have this takeaway. I don't think it has that right now.”

Q And, like, what would that data be worth? And then also you could sell the data to every medical provider imaginable, uh, And have add-ons and affiliate deals for X supplement, X thing you gotta drink, or whatever.

A Yeah, I, I agree with you. It's extremely valuable sort of stage. That's a, that's a time down stage where you're, you're going to become pretty price insensitive, uh, as you've, as you've noticed. So yeah, flow, um, over, over three, three hundred million people have downloaded the app revenues over a hundred million for this app. It's a billion dollar app, uh, that started off as a period tracking tracker app. It started off as like such a simple little mobile app at the time. So, so yeah, props to these guys. I think they're in Europe, uh, that built this thing. So, uh, I think the mobile app space is, it was obviously, you know, kind of, like, one winner in this. Other ideas that I think are interesting, so somebody said this to me the other day, and I know nothing about this, I had put it on my list of, like, two research, but I haven't gotten around to it, so I'll just say the, the one percent of the idea that I have ready, which is, she goes, somebody was talking to me, she goes, do you know how hard it is for a gay couple to adopt a baby? And I said, sure don't. I have no idea. How hard is it? Is it very hard? She's like, nearly impossible. And she goes, if you, if anybody created a company that just helped gay, male gay couples, um, adopt babies, uh, you know, because they're, usually that's like a very rich segment is like, uh, gay male couples. It's like one of the h…

AI assessment note: “It's extremely valuable sort of stage... over three hundred million people have downloaded the app”

Q way to, to that. Otherwise, what happens is. You know, they're just going to get upset and defensive or like, you know, they're not going to hear it because it's too soft and it's like, well, yeah, like Ben kind of doesn't like that, but he doesn't really care. Um, so, you know, how do you get into that like meaningful place where people can hear what you're talking about?

A And you've invested in and known for a long time, a lot of the tech, the biggest tech CEOs, and I would say the stereotype of the Most successful tech founders is this sort of like slightly autistic, very high IQ, lower EQ sort of persona, but that's not really what would be good at the thing you're talking about. And so what is it that that stereotype is just wrong? And that's not what you've seen when you've kind of been, you guys, I think invested in Facebook early on, stuff like that. Like, is it that the stereotype is wrong? Is it that they learned these things? Is there like some, are they taking touchy feely at Stanford? Like what, what's helping them be able to do this?

AI assessment note: “what is it that that stereotype is just wrong?”