Flagrant - Andrew Schulz & Akaash Singh - Elon Musk Didn’t Invent Sh!t with Ben Uyeda
Aired: 2021-05-06
Duration: 02:37:08


=== Amazon's Secret Money Maker (02:47) ===

[00:00:00]  And eventually there'll be AI comedy.
[00:00:01]  You're not, I mean, what is the work?
[00:00:03]  She's the Jake Paul with a good car.
[00:00:05]  I think it's better that we have celebrity CEOs than celebrity celebrities.
[00:00:09]  The iPhone is the most successful product ever created in the history of mankind.
[00:00:12]  More successful than the condom.
[00:00:14]  How many of those do you use?
[00:00:16]  It's been a decade, man.
[00:00:22]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:22]  Welcome to Flagrant You.
[00:00:24]  Today we are sitting down with one of my favorite people in the entire world.
[00:00:28]  Okay, Ben Uyeda, close friend of mine, and a person whose advice I cherish.
[00:00:35]  I always go to him no matter what the fuck it is because I think he has absolutely brilliant takes on just about everything.
[00:00:42]  He was an advisor on the Netflix special.
[00:00:45]  He actually built our studio in New York.
[00:00:48]  He has dominated YouTube and the DIY space.
[00:00:51]  And now he's building hotels all around the world.
[00:00:54]  This is all off of his own just gusto, hard work, and sheer brilliance.
[00:01:00]  So it is with great, great pleasure that I get to share him with you guys.
[00:01:06]  Well, I don't think like people love Blue Cross and Blue Shield as much as they like the service that they get from Amazon.
[00:01:12]  Right.
[00:01:13]  And if like signing up for a new primary healthcare provider is a pain in the ass, like and ordering something on Amazon is a joy and it just shows up, I would probably like lean towards them as a dominate healthcare.
[00:01:27]  They're going to dominate everything, I think, right?
[00:01:29]  Like they already kind of do.
[00:01:31]  Like even if you split off like their web services, that would still be like one of the biggest companies.
[00:01:36]  Explain the web services thing because I think a lot of people don't realize that this is where Amazon actually made their money.
[00:01:40]  Well, they made their money in a lot of things, but they were spending a lot of money, I think, on web hosting.
[00:01:44]  Yeah.
[00:01:45]  And because they were doing e-commerce and they're like, why don't we just do that?
[00:01:48]  And that's consistently what they've done is be like, oh, we're spending money on this.
[00:01:52]  Why don't we just make this?
[00:01:53]  Yeah.
[00:01:53]  And now they did it with the e-commerce stuff.
[00:01:56]  They're like, they can do it with their own products.
[00:01:57]  Right.
[00:01:58]  Which seems a little bit unfair.
[00:01:59]  Like, you see what sells the most, right?
[00:02:01]  Does that not seem fair?
[00:02:02]  Like, you see, you literally have the platform.
[00:02:05]  You decide what's, you don't decide, but you see what sells the most.
[00:02:08]  Let's say it's a bag, right?
[00:02:09]  We had this travel bag for all of our equipment that Alex put our cameras and stuff in.
[00:02:13]  And I think Al bought one from this company.
[00:02:17]  And then next time around, Amazon just, right?
[00:02:19]  They just recommended this same fucking bag.
[00:02:22]  It just said Amazon on it.
[00:02:23]  And it was what?
[00:02:24]  It was a little bit cheaper and actually a little bit better quality.
[00:02:28]  And then we just bought that bag and that's the one we did.
[00:02:30]  They do it with like tripods.
[00:02:31]  They did it with batteries.
[00:02:32]  And what's crazy is that they figure out exactly what's selling the best.
[00:02:36]  Other people are investing to create that product, prototype.
[00:02:39]  They know exactly what colors are selling the most.
[00:02:42]  They know people in which demographics and in which regions of the country are most likely going to buy this.

=== The Middle Class Drug Dealer (02:25) ===

[00:02:47]  They have all the inside information.
[00:02:49]  Like, you know what?
[00:02:49]  Let's just make these ourselves.
[00:02:51]  So if you're somebody that's like selling products on Amazon, obviously you have to do it because you want to be part of that marketplace where all the people are.
[00:02:57]  But aren't you terrified?
[00:02:58]  Isn't a little bit of you going like, I'm just giving them all the information they need to replace me.
[00:03:04]  Yeah, but it depends.
[00:03:05]  If you're a massive, if you're a company like Target, that's a bigger problem.
[00:03:09]  If you're like a small entrepreneur and there's a lot of people that make a lot of money on Amazon the same way a lot of people make money off of YouTube.
[00:03:16]  So it is a platform that can really enable and empower like small entrepreneurs and people that kind of want to launch a product.
[00:03:24]  It's just whether or not you can sell enough to like make a good amount of money without drawing too much attention that they dominate your space.
[00:03:32]  You're like a drug dealer.
[00:03:33]  Right.
[00:03:33]  Like if you're on a corner making good money, you got a nice house somewhere, you're okay.
[00:03:36]  The second you start making big money, the CIA finds out and they're like, well, we're the only ones that sell drugs.
[00:03:41]  There's been so many stories about drug dealers that like got huge and doing like millions of dollars.
[00:03:46]  I want to hear like the story of like the middle class drug dealer that just likes that, you know what?
[00:03:51]  I'm making like 400 grand a year.
[00:03:53]  I'm never going to make more than that.
[00:03:54]  I know how to not push the limits.
[00:03:56]  I'm never going to get caught.
[00:03:57]  I'm not going to make a process.
[00:03:58]  You won't.
[00:03:58]  And that's why they're still doing it.
[00:04:00]  Right.
[00:04:01]  But I would love to hear.
[00:04:02]  Fucking mouth shut.
[00:04:03]  I would love to hear like the doctors.
[00:04:04]  Some of them are listening right now of like the 65-year-old drug dealer just had like a real like upper middle class career.
[00:04:11]  Like not sensational.
[00:04:12]  Making money like a principal.
[00:04:13]  Oh, no, I just stayed in my lane.
[00:04:14]  Yeah.
[00:04:14]  It never caused, never brought any heat.
[00:04:16]  Yeah.
[00:04:16]  It wasn't this like massive ride and this roller coaster.
[00:04:19]  But you know what's tricky with that is like when you're taking when you're taking those risks, you want the reward.
[00:04:25]  Like not a lot of people are going to risk 25 years in jail to make 100 grand.
[00:04:30]  25 years in jail to make 100 million?
[00:04:32]  You're like, okay.
[00:04:34]  True.
[00:04:34]  Well, it's funny.
[00:04:35]  Like I did have some drug dealers in my family, and the most brilliant one was in Southern California.
[00:04:42]  And he's not a violent guy.
[00:04:44]  He's not a gangster.
[00:04:44]  He's more on the hippie side of drug dealing.
[00:04:47]  And he had the most genius way of not getting caught is that he only used really attractive college.
[00:04:53]  No, he wasn't what.
[00:04:54]  But his couriers, he basically looked at it, like, where do drug dealers get caught?
[00:04:59]  And he was like, it's all from traffic stops.
[00:05:02]  So it's like, you know, your registration's out of date.
[00:05:04]  You get pulled over.
[00:05:05]  The person's nervous and they sweat him.
[00:05:07]  So all of his couriers and delivery people was all like blonde girls that went to your alma mater.

=== Spotify Data and Privacy (15:47) ===

[00:05:13]  Yeah, right?
[00:05:15]  University of Southern California, Santa Barbara.
[00:05:18]  So, and he would only use them if their car was like pristine, but not like a fancy car.
[00:05:23]  It's always had to be like a Honda Civic, Toyota, Corolla, license and registrations.
[00:05:29]  And when he changed his whole courying system to that demographic, blonde surfer chicks from Southern California, never, never.
[00:05:37]  Because they're also like, even if they do get pulled over for speeding or something like that, the chances are for like the.
[00:05:44]  You're checking the vehicle?
[00:05:45]  Yeah.
[00:05:45]  Never.
[00:05:46]  Maybe you get a ticket.
[00:05:47]  Usually you get out of it.
[00:05:49]  Right.
[00:05:49]  And then there's always like the tears that you can fall back on.
[00:05:51]  And it was like, it was kind of, it was like that one move that he made as a decision.
[00:05:56]  It was a little bit inconvenient because it was a little more work to find those kind of couriers.
[00:06:00]  But it was that one move that kind of made him pretty bulletproof.
[00:06:02]  And never been caught.
[00:06:04]  No.
[00:06:04]  Absolutely.
[00:06:05]  Scared.
[00:06:06]  Absolutely amazing.
[00:06:07]  Okay.
[00:06:07]  So Amazon does healthcare.
[00:06:08]  Yeah.
[00:06:09]  The fascination with going to space.
[00:06:13]  Is this a big dick contest with Elon?
[00:06:16]  Is he really curious?
[00:06:17]  What advantage does that give them?
[00:06:20]  I think engineers want bigger problems.
[00:06:22]  And I think it's like, like, I think of them looking into space is why, for the same reasons why I became interested in sustainability.
[00:06:32]  Okay.
[00:06:32]  At some point, if it looks like you can kind of do things, then you start questioning and you start feeling, because when you start off in your career and you're young, you're kind of like, am I capable?
[00:06:42]  Can I even hang in the arena that I'm pursuing?
[00:06:45]  Once you sort of get validation and you feel that you can do that, you're like, well, what is the legacy?
[00:06:49]  What am I actually here to achieve?
[00:06:51]  Other than just being another asshole that's doing the same thing as all these other assholes, making a good living.
[00:06:57]  But I look at them and I'm at that level, but like, is it really that meaningful or important?
[00:07:02]  Yeah.
[00:07:03]  So I do think that genuine, that's that sort of legacy pursuit of being a multi-planetary species is like, I don't think that's bullshit.
[00:07:12]  I think they're sincere about that.
[00:07:14]  Okay.
[00:07:15]  But I think the motivation to pursue it aggressively and lose a lot of money at it is the ego-driven part.
[00:07:21]  So I think things can be ego-driven and sincere at the same time.
[00:07:25]  But is this the first thing that we've seen like Bezos do that isn't increasing his current businesses?
[00:07:35]  Like everything that he's done that you said before the space exploration, each one of those feels improves his ability to sell goods.
[00:07:44]  Right.
[00:07:44]  Right.
[00:07:45]  Or he's going to get into the good itself, right?
[00:07:48]  Which is the healthcare.
[00:07:49]  But space, how the fuck does that help him sell books, sneakers, cabinets, et cetera?
[00:07:54]  Clothes, it makes sense.
[00:07:56]  If you have, for example, like they do the Amazon Prime, they do the video, right?
[00:08:00]  Or what is it?
[00:08:01]  They do movies, TV, it doesn't matter.
[00:08:03]  I'm sure at a certain point, you're going to be able to pause the program, see the person's shirt, and you will be able to link to where you can buy that shirt on Amazon if it exists on Amazon.
[00:08:15]  If that doesn't already exist right now.
[00:08:16]  So it's a perfect advertisement for selling the goods.
[00:08:19]  How the fuck does space help that?
[00:08:21]  I'm not sure it does.
[00:08:23]  I think it's highly possible that they're post-rationalizing it.
[00:08:27]  So it might be that you decide, I want to go to space.
[00:08:31]  Why is it good?
[00:08:31]  And then you're like, how can I make money to fund it along the way?
[00:08:35]  And it might be with some sort of telecommunications, satellite system, stuff like that.
[00:08:40]  The other thing that I think is interesting is there's a considerable amount of money in government contracts and Amazon.
[00:08:49]  And it's kind of funny, right?
[00:08:51]  Like I'm interested in the gossip of these things because one, we use these platforms on a daily basis for our work.
[00:08:58]  We both put videos up on YouTube.
[00:09:00]  So what happens with Google matters to us.
[00:09:03]  We use Instagram and Facebook for monetization.
[00:09:05]  I care what Facebook is doing.
[00:09:07]  And I use Amazon affiliates for moving product and stuff like that in my videos.
[00:09:12]  So I use these things.
[00:09:14]  And the people that are running them are kind of interesting, but still very flawed.
[00:09:18]  So you can feel both like envious of their success and occasionally superior.
[00:09:22]  Like, what the fuck is this idiot doing?
[00:09:23]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:24]  And I think that's the most intriguing thing is when somebody is better at something or in a situation, they're kind of like, they get your attention because you're like, I'm not quite there yet.
[00:09:33]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:34]  They have more money than me.
[00:09:36]  But at the same time, but they made mistakes.
[00:09:42]  We love seeing people more successful than us in situations that justify us to temporarily call them an idiot.
[00:09:48]  Yes.
[00:09:49]  So I think the space thing is partially ego-driven, but it doesn't mean that it's bad and it's still probably good.
[00:09:56]  And they might have a million possibilities for how they can monetize it.
[00:10:01]  And I don't think their vision has to be perfect.
[00:10:03]  I think with any of these tech companies, they tried a lot of things exactly because they weren't sure what was going to make the most money.
[00:10:10]  And then they slowly cut away the things that don't work.
[00:10:13]  I mean, remember Google Glass?
[00:10:15]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:16]  And now Google's not pushing it.
[00:10:17]  And that's a good thing.
[00:10:19]  People just can't make products.
[00:10:20]  They're great at software, but hardware, forget it.
[00:10:22]  Oh, they make phones for poor people.
[00:10:26]  But it's like, it's good that they try, right?
[00:10:29]  Like, you've got to try things that are different.
[00:10:32]  And then you also have to give up on them when it's not clear or when it's clearly not working.
[00:10:37]  But don't you think that, like, just back to the Google thing, don't you think that's an investment in like a cool, and I'm going to put that under quotes.
[00:10:43]  Like, Apple seems to care about cool, and they seem to care about dictating culture.
[00:10:46]  Whereas Google's like, we just want the information, we want the data, and then we'll put things out based on information and data.
[00:10:51]  I'm sure some nerds crunch some shit and they're like, people want glasses that do things, and then they did it out.
[00:10:56]  Whereas Apple's rollout would have been completely different for that.
[00:10:59]  I think Apple's.
[00:11:00]  The first thing would have been aesthetic.
[00:11:01]  Apple is a luxury company, right?
[00:11:04]  Like, it's a luxury brand with a limited amount of offerings.
[00:11:08]  This is interesting about it.
[00:11:09]  So if you look at like the, if you were to map the data of where people are using iOS versus Android and map it over New York, and it directly correlates to real estate value.
[00:11:22]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:11:22]  Like Queens, yeah, look, there's a lot of.
[00:11:24]  A lot of green text.
[00:11:27]  And then like Manhattan, it's all iOS.
[00:11:32]  But they're also really fanatically great about how well the hardware works.
[00:11:36]  Yeah.
[00:11:37]  And I always love it when people are like, Apple, those idiots, they got rid of my headphone jack.
[00:11:42]  And then I just saw that the sales on AirPods, just AirPods, the revenue from AirPods was greater than the revenue from Spotify, Snapchat, and Twitter combined.
[00:11:56]  Just that one product.
[00:11:57]  And so it's like, it's always funny to me when people, oh, what's Apple doing?
[00:12:03]  They totally screwed up.
[00:12:05]  It's never going to be as good.
[00:12:06]  Why do they keep making things worse?
[00:12:08]  This keyboard sucks.
[00:12:09]  And it's like, bro, relax.
[00:12:11]  They just know what they're doing.
[00:12:13]  They were setting it up.
[00:12:14]  They knew they were moving towards the wireless AirPods.
[00:12:18]  They knew that they were going to slowly get rid of that.
[00:12:20]  And they're just setting you up one step at a time down the road.
[00:12:24]  So it's really, I think the big difference, though, Google does more research.
[00:12:30]  Like they have so many initiatives.
[00:12:32]  And you can go on their websites and see what their employees are doing.
[00:12:36]  They're trying so much random stuff.
[00:12:38]  Like the other day, someone from, I did a talk at Google right before the pandemic.
[00:12:43]  I met a bunch of employees and they're working on like artificial intelligence and art graphics.
[00:12:49]  Grab your mic, yeah, make sure you're good.
[00:12:51]  And I'm like, what does that have to do with like search engines and stuff like that?
[00:12:56]  But they're almost run like a university where they just have all these things.
[00:13:00]  They just try to keep the smart kids happy, give them a playground so they can mess around, give them free cafeteria food, and just keep collecting that intelligence, but they're not always sure where they're going with it.
[00:13:11]  Where I think Apple is like very like, we make the best products in the world that have incredibly high margins.
[00:13:18]  But they're not even the best.
[00:13:19]  What's better?
[00:13:20]  I thought that the Android phones were better.
[00:13:22]  I thought they were like in terms of physical characteristics and the quality of the phone.
[00:13:27]  You're like one of the megapixels guys.
[00:13:29]  I mean, that's what they tell me, right?
[00:13:30]  Like anybody that has one of those phones is always like, oh, there's so many more megapixels and the video quality is so much better.
[00:13:35]  And this has six cameras instead of four cameras.
[00:13:38]  I'm not going to use it because it's not seamless with my lifestyle.
[00:13:41]  And Apple's got me hooked.
[00:13:42]  But in terms of actually breaking it down, like if you want to look at statistics, right?
[00:13:46]  Like we can see one basketball player is better than another.
[00:13:49]  There are certain basketball players that are better than Alan Iverson.
[00:13:51]  I want to hoop like Iverson.
[00:13:52]  True.
[00:13:53]  Right.
[00:13:54]  One, I think best is tricky, right?
[00:13:56]  Because it's different for different people.
[00:13:57]  But I would say that the way they advertise and talk about their products is telling.
[00:14:01]  So if you see like a Google or Android, like for the pixel, it'll be like this many megapixels.
[00:14:07]  They give you stats.
[00:14:08]  If you see the billboard for the iPhone, they go, they just show you the photo and go.
[00:14:12]  We took this with an iPhone.
[00:14:13]  Right.
[00:14:13]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:14]  And it's just, it's a great photo.
[00:14:15]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:16]  And it's so, it's so, it's so scoreboard related.
[00:14:19]  It's like, oh, you average that many points.
[00:14:21]  That's cute.
[00:14:22]  How many rings?
[00:14:23]  Yeah.
[00:14:25]  And there's no right answer to that.
[00:14:26]  Yeah.
[00:14:27]  And it doesn't mean that megapixels aren't valuable, but it's just a different approach.
[00:14:30]  And clearly it's resonating better with a higher end audience.
[00:14:33]  But you don't think that they're attacking, not attacking, but like attaching themselves to culture and that's why they end up winning?
[00:14:39]  Yeah.
[00:14:39]  Like that's the move, right?
[00:14:41]  Also.
[00:14:41]  And Android just doesn't understand culture.
[00:14:43]  They don't have an ambassador either.
[00:14:45]  Like who the fuck?
[00:14:46]  This is the weirdest thing about Google that I don't understand.
[00:14:50]  You know who runs Google.
[00:14:52]  I don't.
[00:14:53]  Most people don't.
[00:14:55]  We know who runs Tesla.
[00:14:58]  We know who runs Amazon.
[00:15:00]  We know who runs Facebook.
[00:15:01]  We know who runs Apple.
[00:15:04]  We don't know anything about fucking Google.
[00:15:06]  Well, it's also more complicated too because like Larry and Sergey, the sort of founders are still kind of in the scene and on the board, but they have a CEO, Sunder, who's technically the CEO, but it's a more complicated structure.
[00:15:22]  But they're not a celebrity-run company, and they don't care about using the celebrity equity to bolster their company because they've won.
[00:15:29]  Like Apple's still competing.
[00:15:31]  Apple doesn't own the greatest market share in terms of like iPhones around the world.
[00:15:35]  I imagine Google owns search.
[00:15:38]  I would say that Apple's won.
[00:15:40]  Let's look at this way, right?
[00:15:41]  Take a company like Spotify.
[00:15:43]  Have they won in terms of they sell the most phones?
[00:15:45]  Have they won in the way that Google has won?
[00:15:47]  I think they've won in the fact that the iPhone is the most successful product ever created in the history of mankind.
[00:15:54]  Wait a minute.
[00:15:55]  Yeah.
[00:15:55]  More successful than the condom.
[00:15:59]  How many of those do you use?
[00:16:02]  It's been a decade, man.
[00:16:04]  It's been a long time.
[00:16:05]  Oh, but I want those products.
[00:16:08]  I had a good run with those condoms back up there.
[00:16:11]  Not very user-friendly, but I did use them quite a bit.
[00:16:14]  Yeah.
[00:16:14]  Look, I think the margins on the iPhone, from what I understand, make it the most successful product ever created.
[00:16:22]  Okay.
[00:16:22]  Do your own research and check up on it.
[00:16:24]  Yeah.
[00:16:24]  But I would think of it this way: the demographic of who uses the iPhone also plays into it.
[00:16:32]  This is great.
[00:16:32]  Yeah.
[00:16:32]  So when Spotify got into podcasting and it's like, wait, what's Apple going to do?
[00:16:38]  And now Apple's actually making moves with their own podcasting sort of thing, which I think we'll see those sort of top 10 shake up a lot with like, oh, suddenly weird, you're all the Apple podcasts.
[00:16:49]  Yeah.
[00:16:49]  Just like Netflix, remember what they would do their recommended, and now everyone got a little N on the top.
[00:16:54]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:54]  That's Netflix.
[00:16:55]  Right?
[00:16:55]  Man, Netflix doesn't miss on Netflix.
[00:17:00]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:02]  But it's so just to set it up, what happened was Spotify comes into the game.
[00:17:07]  They start taking over definitely music, right?
[00:17:10]  Everybody goes, oh, you got to go to Spotify.
[00:17:12]  And they have these great curated playlists.
[00:17:13]  And the money spent tons of money on Rogan to get into the podcasting space.
[00:17:17]  Now a lot of people are listening to podcasting.
[00:17:19]  Apple's going to catch up with podcasting, but a lot of people are like, yo, it's over for Apple.
[00:17:24]  Apple's done.
[00:17:24]  Spotify is basically taking over listening.
[00:17:27]  If you're going to listen to something, you're doing on Spotify.
[00:17:29]  And what a lot of people didn't know is.
[00:17:31]  Spotify is just a store in the mall that Apple owns.
[00:17:35]  So Apple wants to own the mall.
[00:17:38]  Right.
[00:17:38]  They own the Rails.
[00:17:39]  They own the infrastructure.
[00:17:40]  Yeah.
[00:17:41]  Yeah.
[00:17:41]  So it's the same thing with Amazon.
[00:17:44]  If I can't remember if it was Amazon or a different thing.
[00:17:47]  But real quick, just so that.
[00:17:48]  So it's like, for example, when you pay for Spotify every month, Apple's getting a percentage.
[00:17:52]  Yeah.
[00:17:53]  Apple's the mafia, bro.
[00:17:54]  You have your store, and then they come and collect their little protection fee.
[00:17:58]  And it could be, it's like, what, like 20%?
[00:18:00]  Right.
[00:18:00]  So 20% of every time you pay Spotify, that money goes right to Tim Cook.
[00:18:05]  Yeah.
[00:18:05]  Well, that's the boss-up move.
[00:18:07]  Yeah.
[00:18:07]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:18:08]  But that is the boss-up move right there.
[00:18:09]  It's brilliant because now Apple is tied to Spotify's success.
[00:18:13]  Right.
[00:18:14]  The bigger Spotify gets, the bigger Apple gets.
[00:18:17]  It's so funny.
[00:18:19]  I mean, I think it's why Facebook actually made the mistake of not having a device, right?
[00:18:24]  So now there's this kind of like battle between Facebook and Apple.
[00:18:29]  And it's kind of like a little bit cultural.
[00:18:32]  I think there's a little bit where if you look at like Tim Cook, he's really polished, very well spoken.
[00:18:37]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:37]  He doesn't cover his face in sunscreen and take awkward surfing photos.
[00:18:43]  He's like older, and he worked his way up the sort of ranks.
[00:18:47]  Whereas Zuckerberg's a college dropout, kind of dictatorial and autocratic and, you know, done some made some questionable.
[00:18:57]  Ethical decisions.
[00:18:59]  And Facebook, I mean, Apple more and more is sort of pitching, they're sort of connecting the idea of them as a luxury brand with more privacy.
[00:19:08]  And so they're making it so that it's easier and easier to sort of opt out of Facebook tracking you, not on Facebook, but tracking you on other apps on an iPhone.
[00:19:17]  So for the average person that's listening, I knew nothing about this either until I started looking into the TikTok stuff.
[00:19:22]  When an app is downloaded on your phone, it also has some of these apps have access to the other apps on your phone.
[00:19:27]  Right.
[00:19:28]  They can look at how you hold your phone, which direction you're holding it.
[00:19:31]  I think the MasterCard Pay app, one of the things they're working on, is to fight fraud.
[00:19:37]  How you use it, touchless pay?
[00:19:40]  Oh, it's almost like a signature imposture.
[00:19:42]  Literally that, a signature imposture.
[00:19:44]  So if you touchless pay with the bottom of your phone, they might go, fraud.
[00:19:47]  You've never paid like this before.
[00:19:48]  Someone else is using your phone to pay.
[00:19:50]  So they're using the weight, the balance, all these different things, but they're attaching yourself to all these other apps.
[00:19:54]  I think that was a big thing with TikTok.
[00:19:56]  It was absorbing so much data from all the other apps on your phone and using it for their algorithm, which is pretty great.
[00:20:01]  Music keeps you locked in.
[00:20:03]  Right.
[00:20:03]  So Facebook is doing that.
[00:20:04]  Right.
[00:20:04]  So they were tapping into like Spotify's data.
[00:20:07]  So Facebook could see what music you were listening to or what podcasts you were listening on Spotify.
[00:20:14]  And so Apple's just making it easier and easier to opt out of that.
[00:20:17]  And why that's interesting to me is that we're in ad-supported media.
[00:20:22]  I put videos on YouTube, I do sponsored integrations, and I make the AdSense money from the ads that YouTube populates on top of my videos.
[00:20:29]  So I'm interested in that kind of ad marketplace.
[00:20:34]  And so if iPhone, which we already talked about, tends to have more affluent users and they start cutting the data that Facebook can collect from mobile, from Instagram and Facebook on iPhones, they've suddenly cut Facebook's ability to collect data and not of like all the people, but of the richest people.
[00:20:54]  Which is the, yeah, which is what you want.
[00:20:56]  Right.
[00:20:57]  Now, it's questionable how many people will actually opt out.

=== Introvert Memes and Live Channels (15:18) ===

[00:21:01]  Did they allow you to just opt out of Facebook?
[00:21:03]  Because that seems petty.
[00:21:04]  Like, is there a button that goes?
[00:21:05]  I think it's a good idea.
[00:21:07]  I'd have to double-check, but I think they're generally moving that for all sort of apps where they're just trying to encourage it and make it a little bit easier to turn it off.
[00:21:13]  Or I'm not sure if they switch the default to automatically no, but they're just surfacing it up.
[00:21:19]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:20]  And what's interesting, like, do you clear your cookies or do you take much care?
[00:21:24]  Yeah, I'm not really too worried.
[00:21:26]  I'm not doing anything bad.
[00:21:28]  Yeah.
[00:21:29]  So it's like, what's the big deal?
[00:21:31]  But I guess privacy, I'm always actually kind of curious on how people actually feel about privacy because it's one of those things that's thrown around.
[00:21:38]  But it's not like when I talk to my friends, they're like, they're worried about it abstractly, but not directly.
[00:21:44]  Yeah, I'm not actually worried about it at all.
[00:21:47]  And if anything, I kind of enjoy the lack of privacy because the advertisements that I'm getting served up on Instagram are unbelievable.
[00:21:56]  I mean, like, I'm searching for outdoor furniture, and all it's doing is giving me outdoor furniture.
[00:22:01]  And it's pretty good.
[00:22:01]  And it's beautiful.
[00:22:02]  Yeah.
[00:22:02]  I want to buy every single thing I see.
[00:22:04]  Yeah.
[00:22:04]  And it wasn't this good before.
[00:22:05]  No.
[00:22:06]  I remember years ago, like, it would serve up like cool pseudo-tech things.
[00:22:12]  What was that store back in the day?
[00:22:13]  I was just asking you about it.
[00:22:15]  Brookstone?
[00:22:15]  Brookstone or Sharper Image, right?
[00:22:17]  Like every Instagram ad for a dude was like something from Brookstone or Sharper Image, right?
[00:22:21]  Because you're like, oh, dude's like cool things.
[00:22:22]  This looks like it goes faster.
[00:22:24]  It's sleek.
[00:22:24]  And I was like, sometimes you need a one-wheeled scooter.
[00:22:27]  That'd be fun.
[00:22:28]  Now this shit is pinpointed.
[00:22:30]  Yes.
[00:22:31]  I am moving furniture.
[00:22:33]  Yes.
[00:22:34]  That's all that I see.
[00:22:35]  Yeah.
[00:22:36]  I'm in Miami, surf lessons or something like that.
[00:22:40]  Go to the beach, blah, blah, blah.
[00:22:42]  Hotel stays, et cetera.
[00:22:43]  It is really, I mean, it's functional.
[00:22:47]  How can I say I don't like it?
[00:22:48]  It's functional.
[00:22:49]  It's great.
[00:22:50]  It's great.
[00:22:51]  Yeah.
[00:22:52]  Until they do something horrible with it, it's great.
[00:22:54]  Right.
[00:22:55]  Yes.
[00:22:57]  Yeah.
[00:22:57]  I'm not, it doesn't really concern me too much.
[00:23:00]  If I, like, ads are something that we all have to endure.
[00:23:03]  So if I'm going to get better ones that are more related to what I'm thinking and talking about and consuming in terms of content, that's a better thing.
[00:23:11]  I don't think it's a worse thing.
[00:23:13]  Yeah.
[00:23:14]  I mean, if someone's like, would you rather see these ads or pay a dollar a month for Instagram?
[00:23:18]  I'd probably see the ads.
[00:23:19]  Yeah.
[00:23:19]  Yeah.
[00:23:20]  Even though a dollar is nothing to you.
[00:23:24]  To us.
[00:23:25]  What are you in hand, my user?
[00:23:27]  Come on, bro.
[00:23:28]  What are these green text clips you got going on over here?
[00:23:32]  Okay.
[00:23:32]  So you see a little bit of an ego play between Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg.
[00:23:37]  Yeah, I think it'll be fun.
[00:23:39]  There again, I think there's its ego on top of like solid fundamentals.
[00:23:44]  Like, I think the idea of privacy is a real thing, but I also think it's like he doesn't like him either.
[00:23:49]  Okay, fair enough.
[00:23:50]  Let me ask you something.
[00:23:52]  Facebook, how is this an effective tool when nobody we know uses it?
[00:23:59]  I mean, my parents use a lot of Facebook.
[00:24:02]  Well, it's funny.
[00:24:03]  Facebook.
[00:24:03]  Do you understand what I'm saying?
[00:24:04]  It seems to have like passed this generation by.
[00:24:07]  Like, our generation and below are on Instagram.
[00:24:10]  Now it seems like the younger generations are definitely a lot more on TikTok.
[00:24:13]  Yet, Facebook has this incredibly robust advertising system that's about to be archaic, antiquated, because nobody's on the platform to advertise to.
[00:24:23]  Yeah.
[00:24:24]  So I don't like Facebook as a platform.
[00:24:26]  I don't really go on it and consume content there.
[00:24:30]  I just find it kind of noisy and messy.
[00:24:32]  Also, I think it's because it's populated with my high school friends because that's when I was using it the most, like in college and before then.
[00:24:41]  So I don't really enjoy it as a consumer, but as a producer, I'm doing numbers on Facebook that I'm not touching on YouTube.
[00:24:49]  So I've just started taking my old YouTube videos and putting them on Facebook, and we're doing like 15 million views a month.
[00:24:56]  Yeah.
[00:24:56]  And now that they have like an AdSense type automatic ad placement.
[00:25:00]  Yeah.
[00:25:01]  So, but the thing that Facebook's really good for is running advertising campaigns, the targeting.
[00:25:07]  Yeah.
[00:25:07]  Right.
[00:25:08]  So what's interesting is that like it's way less precious on Facebook, by the way.
[00:25:12]  Yeah.
[00:25:12]  Yeah.
[00:25:12]  YouTube.
[00:25:13]  I'm like, no, it's got to be a masterpiece.
[00:25:14]  Right.
[00:25:14]  A Facebook ad?
[00:25:15]  Let's try it out.
[00:25:16]  Yeah.
[00:25:16]  Throw it up there.
[00:25:16]  It's sloppy.
[00:25:18]  If it's bad, the algorithm will say it's bad.
[00:25:19]  Remove it.
[00:25:20]  And you get more views.
[00:25:22]  The views are way shittier.
[00:25:24]  Like the average, they count like views that like watched it for three seconds.
[00:25:28]  Score it.
[00:25:32]  It's a lot of gimmies.
[00:25:34]  But the targeting is kind of impressive.
[00:25:37]  And that's why Facebook is like one of the most valuable media advertising companies in the world is that you can basically create Venn diagrams in a really creative way.
[00:25:46]  Find the perfect customer and spend the least amount of money to reach people that are going to be the most likely to purchase your product.
[00:25:54]  So if we want to sell, let's say, cigars and fake money and briefcases to flex on your podcast, you could sort of say, well, these people probably like monster energy drink.
[00:26:06]  They probably like the UFC.
[00:26:08]  They probably like this wrapper that flexes this way.
[00:26:11]  And you can just by you can actually design the person you're trying to reach by a series of consumer choices.
[00:26:20]  And that's a really creative interface that's like a different way of thinking of demographics.
[00:26:25]  You're not being like, oh, it's 18 to 35.
[00:26:28]  It's like, oh, like if you're going to advertise for like a vegan restaurant and everyone's competing for vegan search terms on Google, on Facebook, you might go, oh, it's people that like Morrissey.
[00:26:44]  Right.
[00:26:44]  And that have also like watched National Geographic.
[00:26:47]  Right.
[00:26:47]  And that way we can, that might, that combination of interests might be a cheaper way to reach vegans than actually marketing directly to vegans.
[00:26:56]  I might age us here a little bit, but you know what's really funny?
[00:26:58]  It's like when we were younger and then you met somebody that you felt was similar to you, it was a special moment.
[00:27:05]  Yeah.
[00:27:05]  Right?
[00:27:06]  Like you could maybe be on vacation or something like that, but you meet someone who has like, you know, similar interests.
[00:27:10]  I'm not even talking about a girl.
[00:27:11]  Like you're like playing basketball or something.
[00:27:12]  You're surfing and you just get along.
[00:27:14]  You're like, oh, this guy's awesome.
[00:27:15]  Hey, next time you're in California, you're like, let's hang out.
[00:27:18]  Right.
[00:27:18]  Because you couldn't believe there's another human being on the planet that had similar interests as you from a completely different place.
[00:27:24]  Right.
[00:27:25]  Is one letdown of the internet that it shows us how unique we are not?
[00:27:30]  Yes.
[00:27:32]  There's a multitude of all of us.
[00:27:35]  No one is special.
[00:27:38]  No one is special.
[00:27:39]  Like we were lied to for generations about how we're all snowflakes.
[00:27:42]  We're all so unique.
[00:27:43]  We're all so different.
[00:27:44]  And every one of us has our own little intricacies.
[00:27:46]  And then Facebook was like, eh, eh.
[00:27:49]  Yeah, it's like.
[00:27:50]  It took a fucking robot to figure it out.
[00:27:52]  Well, there was, I always wonder about, like, you ever drive through like a small town and see like an Elks Lodge?
[00:27:58]  Okay.
[00:27:58]  And I'm always like, Elk's like a VFW type thing.
[00:28:02]  It's just like a place for guys of a certain broad demographic to all go and hang out and spend time.
[00:28:07]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:08]  And I feel like now with the internet, there's a million sort of like Facebook groups, Reddit pages, podcasts that deal with like a niche thing.
[00:28:18]  It's completely made accessible any niche that's above five people.
[00:28:24]  And like I'm in, I'm in one of those niches in the kind of like DIY maker woodworking kind of design things.
[00:28:32]  And to us, it feels like the biggest thing ever, but it's like, you know, our overall contribution to media is like about the size of what like HGTV is to all the other cable channels.
[00:28:43]  Like it's, you know, a 5% to 3% of the total media landscape.
[00:28:48]  But to us, it's everything.
[00:28:50]  And that's what's kind of, I guess that's the good part of the internet is that everyone can like find their little tribe, which is kind of a gross word.
[00:28:57]  No, no, I see it just like college.
[00:28:59]  I mean, I remember like high school, you know, if there were kids who were maybe a little awkward, didn't have a lot of friends, and all of a sudden they go to university and then there's a whole like major or minor that's based in their interests and they have all these other people they get to connect with and they have these robust friend groups that they never had in high school and it was like freedom for them.
[00:29:14]  And I see that as the internet, you know, like if you're like a loner, you don't have even to have any friends, like even on the internet.
[00:29:20]  Right now it's you bro.
[00:29:23]  Yeah, if you don't have friends, even on the internet, like if you're even on the internet, people don't like you.
[00:29:30]  That's rough dude, because there's a, there's a Reddit form for people who are not liked and you guys can at least connect on that right, and it's like.
[00:29:39]  It's even like those like introvert memes.
[00:29:42]  What is it?
[00:29:42]  What is it?
[00:29:43]  Well, where it's like.
[00:29:44]  I mean, I think it's kind of I hear so many people sort of saying, oh, i'm an introvert and oh, you wouldn't understand, because i'm just kind of sort of pseudo-scientific kind of category of person.
[00:29:56]  I actually don't know what it means, but it just feels like it can be uh, a way to sort of justify my otherwise lack of sort of social interaction.
[00:30:03]  Yeah um, and again, no shame on sort of introvertedness.
[00:30:07]  I'll probably fall a little bit more on that spectrum, but it's just funny when people are so overtly about this kind of thing that they sort of identify with and that it kind of used to kind of qualify any sort of their lack of social interactions.
[00:30:19]  But I guess that's uh, it's kind of a nice thing, is that you'll see?
[00:30:22]  So you didn't with clubhouse, right?
[00:30:24]  No, I thought it was the stupidest thing i've ever seen in my life, that I knew it was stupid from the jump.
[00:30:29]  Yeah, it was.
[00:30:30]  If Android made an app, you were right uh, and you gave me pushback.
[00:30:35]  Everybody gave me pushback.
[00:30:36]  Everybody said I was an idiot.
[00:30:37]  They're like, yo, this is the new thing.
[00:30:39]  And i'll tell you what made me realize it wasn't.
[00:30:41]  I don't think you can have a social media app if you don't have uh, hot chicks or cool people, and the app was that the the Clearly, you've never heard of Reddit.
[00:30:52]  Wait for it.
[00:30:54]  Wait for it.
[00:30:54]  Let me think.
[00:30:55]  Let me think because you're on to something here.
[00:30:57]  You're on to something.
[00:30:58]  Reddit gets away with it because they're at least talking about hot chicks and there's pictures.
[00:31:03]  And there's a compilation of intelligence.
[00:31:06]  Yes.
[00:31:06]  I actually, I like Reddit.
[00:31:08]  I want to get into a discussion about Reddit in a second, but like specifically with Clubhouse, I knew it was going to bomb because what is the purpose for the average person, the casual, to go on there?
[00:31:16]  Like the coolest person on your platform can't be Eric Weinstein.
[00:31:22]  It just can't be.
[00:31:22]  You can't, that's not your, he can be on it.
[00:31:25]  He can be a part of it, but he can't be the guy that you go to and you're like, that's who I need to hear every single day.
[00:31:31]  Yeah, I think it's much more of like a, I don't think it makes sense for someone in your position that's already monetizing content.
[00:31:39]  I think what's where it makes, it's much more like Eventbrite than it is like a podcasting, a Spotify, a YouTube type platform.
[00:31:48]  Yeah.
[00:31:49]  It's like in my line of work as sort of a architect and designer, I used to go to a lot of design conferences and you basically go to hear some thoughts of like industry leaders.
[00:32:01]  It's not a big enough industry to be televised.
[00:32:05]  And sort of pre-internet, it's like, where else do you get these kind of like thought leaders in this thing that's really important to me, but not broadly appealing to a mainstream audience?
[00:32:14]  And you have conferences and there's conferences for engineering, medicine, all this kind of stuff.
[00:32:19]  Let me take back what I was saying.
[00:32:21]  What they did is they, what is it called when a company creates an evaluation?
[00:32:26]  They created an evaluation for the company that was far too high.
[00:32:29]  Yeah.
[00:32:30]  Like WeWork.
[00:32:31]  Like WeWork, right?
[00:32:32]  So they WeWork themselves.
[00:32:34]  If Clubhouse was just like this young, cool thing and let itself evolve into basically a conference app.
[00:32:41]  Hey, here's going to be a conference about architecture.
[00:32:44]  Here's a conference about design.
[00:32:45]  Here's a conference about UFOs.
[00:32:46]  Here's a conference about math, et cetera.
[00:32:48]  You know, I liked what Tim Dylan was doing on there.
[00:32:50]  Yeah.
[00:32:51]  Right?
[00:32:51]  He would have like sarcastic conversations.
[00:32:53]  Can women own Bitcoin?
[00:32:54]  Like, that'd be great.
[00:32:55]  Awesome.
[00:32:55]  Funny.
[00:32:56]  You're satirizing what everybody else is really talking about.
[00:32:59]  It great idea.
[00:33:00]  If they did that, they literally came out and said, this is replacing Instagram.
[00:33:04]  This is replacing Twitter.
[00:33:06]  This is replacing Facebook.
[00:33:07]  This is the new thing.
[00:33:08]  Everything else will get shut down.
[00:33:09]  This is the only way you make money.
[00:33:11]  And when you do that, you set yourself up for failure because you don't even know the identity of the app yet.
[00:33:16]  Like, I looked at it for a second.
[00:33:18]  I was like, hot chicks can't be on here and they can't show off and they're not going to talk.
[00:33:23]  It's not going to work.
[00:33:24]  The technology is kind of impressive, although it's not their technology.
[00:33:28]  They use sort of a standard off-the-shelf piece of tech from what I understand that kind of mixes the voices and stuff.
[00:33:33]  It works really well.
[00:33:35]  I think the thing that they hit on is the same thing that you've realized for a long time with podcasts: there's a lot more available inventory of partial attention than there is full attention.
[00:33:46]  Like, how much break that down.
[00:33:50]  Okay.
[00:33:50]  I don't watch that many shows, but I listen to a lot of audio content because I have a lot of time where I'm working out or driving or building something.
[00:34:04]  So you have a lot more passive time than you do like active attention time.
[00:34:08]  When I was doing MTV shows, I called them laundry day shows.
[00:34:13]  Right.
[00:34:13]  MTV didn't like that.
[00:34:15]  But I knew what the people were doing when they were watching Guy Code.
[00:34:19]  They wanted a show that they could pop in at any time in the episode.
[00:34:22]  It could be 12 minutes in.
[00:34:23]  It could be six minutes in.
[00:34:24]  It could be 23 minutes in.
[00:34:26]  And they would be fine, right?
[00:34:27]  Because there was no beginning.
[00:34:28]  There was no middle.
[00:34:29]  There was no end.
[00:34:29]  And they could fold their laundry, pop in for a joke, come back out, continue folding their laundry.
[00:34:34]  Everything was fine.
[00:34:34]  Game of Thrones, we are locked in.
[00:34:36]  Right.
[00:34:36]  You and I can't handle one of those or two of those.
[00:34:39]  Right.
[00:34:40]  You can't watch four hours of that in a day.
[00:34:41]  I mean, you do, but then that's it.
[00:34:44]  Right.
[00:34:44]  You can't do four of those shows a week where you're just locked in.
[00:34:47]  Impossible.
[00:34:49]  So, there's a lot more of this kind of snacking partial attention time than that.
[00:34:54]  So, I think that's what's really interesting.
[00:34:56]  And then the ability to sort of connect it with live.
[00:34:59]  Like, I think the future of Clubhouse, one, everyone else is creating a competitor for it.
[00:35:03]  So, the question is whether it can be its own platform or just a feature in every platform, just kind of shared audio experience.
[00:35:10]  But I think it's a really great idea for like kind of like UFC fight companion, kind of Super Bowl parties and stuff like that, where you can create a custom one with your friends across the country and like all be on like one sort of audio channel.
[00:35:22]  Like, and it's pretty seamlessly and pretty easy to use.
[00:35:25]  That's what I thought it could be used as.
[00:35:27]  Like, you know how like Twitch, there are people who will stream something and then react to it while it's being framed.
[00:35:33]  And I was like, okay, if they're if they can do this for a UFC fight and then like what Joe did with the fight companion, right?
[00:35:39]  Now you have a platform where you can at least listen to your favorite commentators or even your favorite fighters talk about the fight as it's going on while you're watching it at home.
[00:35:48]  Right.
[00:35:48]  I thought that was great if they could integrate that in any way.
[00:35:51]  Even if they don't integrate it, even they get the timing synced where it's happening live.
[00:35:54]  I'd be like, you're good.
[00:35:55]  That'll be great with sports.
[00:35:57]  And then eventually these sports channels will offer deals to those people that have really popular Clubhouse channels and yada yada yada.
[00:36:02]  It doesn't matter.
[00:36:02]  That could be what it is.
[00:36:04]  But in its current form, I was like, no, this can't be it, dude.
[00:36:07]  Yeah.
[00:36:07]  And the evangelizing you saw for it was I saw a lot of people that hadn't really built up big audiences on other channels and they go over to Clubhouse and they're early adopters and they suddenly get 100,000 followers in one week.

=== Elon Musk vs Methodical CEOs (11:59) ===

[00:36:19]  And then, of course, they're incentivized to say, This is the truth.
[00:36:22]  This is the best thing ever because I kind of got a little bit of a lead on it.
[00:36:25]  And it must be a good app because they're recognizing how great I am.
[00:36:28]  Yeah.
[00:36:28]  Well, I mean, the other apps, they have great taste.
[00:36:31]  Exactly.
[00:36:32]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:32]  It's like I'm appreciated here.
[00:36:34]  This is awesome.
[00:36:34]  Yeah, like comedians start posting on TikTok and then they get these huge followings on TikTok and the videos do crazy numbers.
[00:36:42]  And then they're like, this is the app, this is the truth, et cetera.
[00:36:45]  It's like, well, is TikTok getting people to the show?
[00:36:47]  Yeah.
[00:36:47]  Are those numbers real?
[00:36:49]  Yeah.
[00:36:49]  Well, I went on TikTok.
[00:36:51]  I did like one video and it did big numbers.
[00:36:54]  I'm like, oh, TikTok's pretty cool.
[00:36:56]  Then I did five more videos and they got shit.
[00:36:58]  I was like, stupid fucking platform.
[00:37:00]  And you know what?
[00:37:02]  You get the initial bump.
[00:37:03]  They know what they're doing.
[00:37:04]  They see it's your first time.
[00:37:05]  They want to be able to do it.
[00:37:05]  Well, they've learned from everyone else.
[00:37:06]  Yes.
[00:37:07]  And so they kind of know that, oh, if we distribute, if we distribute virality kind of randomly and maybe kind of pump up the numbers, we'll encourage people and they'll keep chasing.
[00:37:18]  It feels good when you do something that wasn't hard and it gets seen by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
[00:37:25]  The was it hard part is so important.
[00:37:28]  And then it's like, if that happens once early in the first month of using it, you're going to kind of like come back and go, oh, maybe I'll try that.
[00:37:36]  Yeah.
[00:37:37]  That's the weird thing about like our business, though, is that we need the numbers to equate to something else.
[00:37:42]  Yeah.
[00:37:42]  You know, like we need, for example, if there's advertising being sold on those numbers on TikTok and then you're seeing a paycheck based on that, you're like, I don't care if you fake it or not.
[00:37:50]  You're going to have to pay me.
[00:37:51]  Yeah.
[00:37:52]  You know, and like for me, it's like, if people are coming out of the shows because it's a TikTok, I'm like, great, whatever those numbers are, awesome.
[00:37:58]  But if you give me a million and then we don't sell any tickets off it, that's a zero for me.
[00:38:02]  And by the way, thank God we protected our national security and got rid of TikTok.
[00:38:06]  Yeah.
[00:38:08]  I'm down to get rid of it still.
[00:38:10]  I know, because we don't use it.
[00:38:11]  Exactly.
[00:38:13]  You try to get rid of Instagram.
[00:38:17]  Turn your phone.
[00:38:18]  If you get rid of YouTube or Instagram, we got a fucking problem.
[00:38:22]  Yes.
[00:38:22]  We're also very self-serving in that way.
[00:38:24]  100%.
[00:38:25]  That's like, yeah, I don't really use that one.
[00:38:27]  It seems like a younger people are doing it.
[00:38:29]  It could be an eventual existential threat to my media career.
[00:38:32]  Oh, that's what you said.
[00:38:33]  Oh, yeah.
[00:38:33]  Let's ban it.
[00:38:34]  That's what you said.
[00:38:34]  I was just like, this is for pedophiles.
[00:38:37]  Why would you let a pedophile out?
[00:38:38]  Same thing.
[00:38:42]  Okay.
[00:38:44]  Go to Mars.
[00:38:48]  What do you see this as?
[00:38:49]  Like, what do you what first of all?
[00:38:51]  What are your personal opinions on like the celebrity CEO, specifically Musk?
[00:38:57]  I think it's better that we have celebrity CEOs than celebrity celebrities.
[00:39:02]  Ooh.
[00:39:03]  It's like saying, What do you think about these green smoothies?
[00:39:07]  Well, were we going to just have like milkshakes instead?
[00:39:10]  Then it's probably a health improvement, even if eating nothing but green smoothies probably isn't good for you.
[00:39:15]  You're saying, like, you'd rather somebody be famous for doing something great than just be famous for the sake of being famous.
[00:39:22]  So, Musk over Kardashian.
[00:39:24]  Well, I mean, is there any debate?
[00:39:26]  Like, well, it depends what you need.
[00:39:28]  Do you need an electric car?
[00:39:29]  Do you need to evacuate your testicles?
[00:39:34]  Well, I think that's why people buy those electric cars.
[00:39:36]  I'll send something to Mars.
[00:39:38]  No, it's like, look, if we're going to mic back over to one, the celebrity CEO is not new.
[00:39:46]  We've had a lot of them.
[00:39:46]  I mean, Rockefeller, JP Morgan.
[00:39:49]  I mean, those guys, the Robert Barons were probably all celebrities at the time.
[00:39:52]  Well, look at some of the antics that like Tesla and what's his name?
[00:39:59]  Edison, sort of some of their sort of.
[00:40:01]  Oh, Nicola.
[00:40:02]  Yeah.
[00:40:02]  Oh, okay.
[00:40:02]  The original Tesla.
[00:40:04]  If you look at some of their sort of battles, it's kind of interesting.
[00:40:07]  I think Edison electrocuted an elephant as like a public display to prove that Tesla was a cuck.
[00:40:16]  I think that's how it went.
[00:40:17]  It was something like that.
[00:40:18]  So, one, none of this stuff is new.
[00:40:21]  The idea of sort of a prominent CEO.
[00:40:25]  I mean, Howard Hughes, I guess, was kind of Elon Musk before Elon Musk, and it worked out well.
[00:40:31]  Well, did it?
[00:40:32]  No, he ended up being in cards.
[00:40:36]  So look, it's like if we have.
[00:40:39]  How long am I saying?
[00:40:40]  Hold on a second.
[00:40:41]  I don't want to make this so you can.
[00:40:43]  Oh, there we go.
[00:40:47]  Okay.
[00:40:48]  So go, and we're back.
[00:40:50]  So in a nutshell, famous smart people, probably better than famous dumb people.
[00:40:54]  I'm cool with that.
[00:40:55]  As a general thing.
[00:40:57]  I wasn't asking more of like from an ethical standard.
[00:41:00]  I meant as a tool for the business.
[00:41:03]  Is it a useful tool or are you putting too much liability on the company on your actions as a person?
[00:41:10]  It's both, right?
[00:41:11]  Like if you look at, I was having a debate with one of my business partners that we also share some investment initiatives with.
[00:41:18]  Yeah, Adam.
[00:41:19]  And we were talking about sort of investing in Tesla versus Amazon at the beginning of the pandemic.
[00:41:24]  And he was sort of following a lot of the kind of Kathy Woods sort of mentality and was really bullish on Tesla.
[00:41:31]  And I'm like, I really respect what they've done.
[00:41:34]  I think what they've done is incredible, but I find that I feel safer with my money with someone like Bezos that seems more methodical, a little bit more measured.
[00:41:43]  I think Elon Musk is a singular, brilliant genius.
[00:41:47]  But with any genius, there's no such thing as a bulletproof genius that hits to all fields.
[00:41:52]  He's not like a five-tool player.
[00:41:53]  He's asymmetrically talented in this sort of area, but he's still going to be a flawed individual as anyone else.
[00:42:01]  And when so much of the corporate identity is tied up to him and so much of the stock price is tied to retail investors that are sort of evangelizing for a truly great person, but perhaps not really seeing that there is no such thing as an individual entity in business.
[00:42:18]  It's all teamwork.
[00:42:19]  It's all collaboration.
[00:42:20]  There's thousands of employees.
[00:42:21]  There's thousands of engineers all working together.
[00:42:24]  And he's a fantastic leader.
[00:42:26]  But it's something that would show up, I think, in the stock price that if like if he dies, if something happens to him, and that's game over.
[00:42:35]  That is so interesting.
[00:42:36]  And yeah, that's what I'm saying.
[00:42:37]  It's not well diversified in terms of its leadership.
[00:42:39]  Yeah.
[00:42:39]  That's what I was trying to get at with the question, right?
[00:42:41]  Is when you evangelize a CEO, you can probably take the company higher than if you really promote or exalt the company itself, right?
[00:42:53]  Because we can look at one person as almost, for lack of a better word, a god, right?
[00:42:57]  But we don't really look at companies like that.
[00:42:59]  We think they're really cool, but we're not going, oh my God, you have superhuman powers.
[00:43:04]  And superhuman powers can take you up there, but they can also take you way down.
[00:43:08]  The second Kanye leaves Yeezy, I don't know if it has any value.
[00:43:12]  Right.
[00:43:12]  Right?
[00:43:12]  Because we're really investing in conversation.
[00:43:14]  What about Steve Jobs?
[00:43:15]  So, here's a perfect example: Jobs, right?
[00:43:18]  Like, Jobs was this person that kind of became a superhero late in his career.
[00:43:24]  Earlier in his career, they bounced his ass out of the company, right?
[00:43:28]  Like, I feel like we almost have a revisionist history with Jobs because he wasn't initially when we, I mean, I had one of those first, I think it was a Macintosh.
[00:43:38]  I had one of them as a kid, right?
[00:43:39]  And like, I never was like, oh, Steve Jobs is the man.
[00:43:42]  Right.
[00:43:42]  I just thought that the company was really cool.
[00:43:44]  Macintosh, the Apple, the thing was a little bitten out of.
[00:43:47]  It was cool.
[00:43:48]  The branding was great.
[00:43:49]  So I guess what I'm wondering, you could even see it with Dave Portnoy, right?
[00:43:55]  The company spend, Portnoy's porn comes out, spend dips 5% on the stock market.
[00:44:01]  I think it was 5% or 10% or something like that, right?
[00:44:03]  Dove, or something like that.
[00:44:04]  So when you are tied to the stock price, when the personality and the actions of that person are tied to the stock price, there's immense pressure to live life a certain way and make all those decisions because you know your personal decisions can affect the company.
[00:44:18]  As brilliant as Jeff Bezos is, I don't know if the average person is going, Jeff Bezos is smarter than Elon.
[00:44:25]  I think we have a.
[00:44:26]  Do you think the average person thinks that Bezos is smarter than Elon, or is he like, no, he just figured out how to put things in boxes good?
[00:44:31]  I think the average person confuses company leadership with the idea of invention.
[00:44:38]  People think that Elon invented things when really he's leading a complex team through a scientific and engineering process to make innovation at scale in these new markets.
[00:44:49]  And that's leadership, vision, and coordination, not like, I figured out the special formula of mixing this with this.
[00:44:58]  To be fair to Elon, he is also capable as an engineer.
[00:45:02]  Right.
[00:45:03]  Right.
[00:45:03]  Whereas Bezos is not an engineer, so he's not going to be working on the rockets for Blue Horizon.
[00:45:10]  Right.
[00:45:10]  Right.
[00:45:11]  He'll be an amazing leader and get the people who will build those rockets and know how to manage them and get the most out of them.
[00:45:17]  But when push comes to shove, from what I've read, is sometimes Elon will get in there, get down with the nitty-gritty because that is his background.
[00:45:25]  Right.
[00:45:26]  But they're also, I think what they're really getting rewarded for is their ability to play this complex chess game of deploying capital and resources towards non-linear processes that are unpredictable.
[00:45:38]  Right.
[00:45:39]  And that's what sort of recently.
[00:45:40]  Give me an example of a non-linear process that's unpredictable.
[00:45:44]  The development of like figuring out the best way to make an electric car.
[00:45:47]  If there aren't a lot of electric cars already and the previous ones were very unsatisfactory from a customer standpoint, they have a bunch of hypotheses that they're going to test, but no one's manufactured those at scale before.
[00:45:58]  So a linear process is.
[00:46:00]  It's like a recipe.
[00:46:01]  Here's how to make chocolate chip cookies.
[00:46:03]  Give me chocolate chips.
[00:46:04]  Give me flour, sugar, both.
[00:46:07]  Right.
[00:46:07]  You know all the variables.
[00:46:09]  It's just like you doing it and you're going to get better at it over time.
[00:46:12]  So non-linear is, we know how they did it before.
[00:46:15]  That might not be the best way.
[00:46:16]  Let's find a new way to create the recipe for this.
[00:46:20]  And I know how much capital that we need to deploy in order to do that.
[00:46:23]  Right.
[00:46:23]  I know the people that we need to hire, et cetera.
[00:46:26]  Right.
[00:46:26]  And when you have too many unknown variables, you have to kind of like make working hypothesis.
[00:46:31]  You can't predict it all.
[00:46:32]  You have to kind of guess on this and then watch the results, track that, learn from that mistake, apply it to a different thing, try something else, and it's sort of experiment and advance.
[00:46:43]  So I think that's what's really good about them is like, I don't think they have like this perfect roadmap from when they started Amazon or Tesla, and this is where we're going.
[00:46:51]  What they had to sort of see was to learn on the fly, keep deploying capital, keep impressing investors to keep more capital coming in, and then keep sort of managing that relative to the increasing amount of competition they have on all fronts.
[00:47:04]  Both of these companies have taken on all comers.
[00:47:07]  I mean, remember that company like Jet or something like that?
[00:47:10]  They was like, we're going to compete with Amazon and then nothing.
[00:47:13]  Or it's like now there's like every car company says we're going to make electric cars and stuff like that.
[00:47:18]  So I think it's not the genius of sort of like, I figured out this product.
[00:47:23]  I'm an inventor and then I translate into an entrepreneur.
[00:47:27]  I think it's really this game of strategically seeing the whole field and industry and then deploying resources appropriately.
[00:47:33]  But the stock price goes up when we think he's a great inventor.
[00:47:36]  Yeah.
[00:47:37]  Like literally, we're at least three of the four of us in this room, meaning everyone except you, has invested in Tesla because we think Elon's the best inventor.
[00:47:48]  Not because he's good at, what is it, non-linear capital deployment?
[00:47:53]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:47:54]  I've invested in Elite.
[00:47:55]  I'm being honest, I'm like, that motherfucker just made an electric car really good.
[00:47:58]  He's probably going to make a spaceship even better.
[00:48:00]  He's going to go to Mars.
[00:48:01]  Okay, take a few thousand dollars, Elon.
[00:48:03]  That's literally my thinking with Tesla.
[00:48:05]  I invested in Tesla even though I thought I was overpriced simply because I had FOMO and so many of my close friends were heavily invested in Tesla.
[00:48:13]  And I wouldn't feel comfortable with them being significantly wealthier than me.
[00:48:17]  Yeah.

=== Crypto Inflation and Dogecoin (08:52) ===

[00:48:18]  I feel you.
[00:48:18]  That's the only reason why I have crypto.
[00:48:19]  Yeah.
[00:48:20]  It's like this.
[00:48:20]  It's fucking Akash.
[00:48:21]  It's going to make so much money when it all goes to the bottom.
[00:48:24]  The FOMO investment strategy.
[00:48:26]  Yeah.
[00:48:26]  Yeah.
[00:48:27]  One of my close friends that's invested in some of my real estate projects, he invests in all of our friends from colleges, startups, strictly because he just couldn't live with himself if one of his friends blew right past him.
[00:48:40]  I'd rather lose $100,000 than be poor than my best friend.
[00:48:43]  Absolutely.
[00:48:45]  Because it makes it awkward.
[00:48:48]  It really does.
[00:48:50]  It makes it awkward.
[00:48:51]  You know what's not awkward?
[00:48:51]  When they're poor than me.
[00:48:52]  Not awkward at all.
[00:48:54]  Or for all four together, that's great.
[00:48:55]  That's how we started.
[00:48:58]  Best time of our life.
[00:48:59]  It's like the three Musketeers.
[00:49:01]  All for one, one for all.
[00:49:02]  Yeah, all at the bottom.
[00:49:06]  Okay, fair enough.
[00:49:07]  So it does make it, so it is a little trickier.
[00:49:09]  And maybe Elon is misunderstood, but he understands that him being misunderstood is advantageous.
[00:49:15]  Yeah.
[00:49:15]  I think the thing that's really interesting is what he kind of is doing jokingly with like Dogecoin and tweeting about it and just like driving these messages.
[00:49:23]  What's his thing with Dogecoin?
[00:49:24]  First of all, are you familiar with Dogecoin and what it is?
[00:49:29]  I took an Edible one night.
[00:49:31]  I saw some really cute doggy memes.
[00:49:33]  I'm kind of partial to animal videos and memes in general.
[00:49:37]  And so I went on Robinhood and I think I bought like maybe like two to three grand.
[00:49:41]  No, like just kind of like dabbled.
[00:49:44]  Yeah.
[00:49:44]  I bought it like just under one cent a coin.
[00:49:47]  Okay.
[00:49:47]  And then I immediately texted my buddy Norbert.
[00:49:50]  Shout out to Norbert.
[00:49:52]  And it's like, hey, I bought some Dogecoin.
[00:49:54]  You want in?
[00:49:54]  He's like, fuck.
[00:49:55]  And so, of course, he has to buy some because, again, doesn't want anyone to get ahead of him.
[00:50:00]  And it sort of went up to like four cents.
[00:50:02]  We hedged our bet, sold off like our initial sort of stake and then sort of watching.
[00:50:06]  Now it's like at 40 cents and stuff like that.
[00:50:09]  But my thought was just like I was looking at it was trending on Twitter for like days and days in a row.
[00:50:16]  And when I look at like, if you were to spend money, you know how you'll see like, oh, this new movie Without Ramora staring, Michael B. Dorton is like, you know, the promoted trending thing on Twitter.
[00:50:25]  Yeah.
[00:50:25]  I'm like, that's probably really expensive.
[00:50:27]  I don't know exactly how much it costs to put yourself on the trending page for a media campaign.
[00:50:31]  Yeah.
[00:50:32]  But it's it's got to be probably low six figures, high five figures at the very least.
[00:50:36]  Let's assume it is, sure.
[00:50:38]  So, if Dogecoin was getting that kind of media value organically every day, regardless of what you think of the asset, I know something about sort of media pricing and exposure.
[00:50:49]  And I'm like, they're organically generating a lot of views.
[00:50:53]  So, if I'm buying that at one cent and they're consistently getting this much view, I'm only investing in that sort of phenomena, not in any fundamental.
[00:51:00]  So, let's digest it, right?
[00:51:02]  So, basically, you're saying if it wasn't Dogecoin, if it was an advertising for underwear or something like that, and they were going to yield like 1% return on the trending, not trending, or on their advertisements, right?
[00:51:15]  Or let's say that 5% of the people that saw their advertisement up on Twitter were going to go buy the underwear.
[00:51:21]  You can apply the same thing to Dogecoin trending organically.
[00:51:25]  Right.
[00:51:25]  You can be a viable business with just one advantage.
[00:51:29]  And if you have like three or four that stack and play well with each other, you can be a juggernaut.
[00:51:34]  Yeah.
[00:51:34]  So, if somebody, and this is why sort of like influencer-created products are kind of interesting, that if they speak to the audience demographic of that influencer and they're cost neutral, and that person has unlimited inventory to publicize it to a pretty good-sized audience, they're going to have a competitive advantage.
[00:51:52]  Now, they might not be able to scale, and you know, they might be limited at like a $300,000 a year in sales kind of company, but they have an advantage from zero to something.
[00:52:01]  Yeah, okay, okay.
[00:52:02]  So, back to Doge.
[00:52:04]  What is do you understand the technology behind it?
[00:52:08]  My understanding is like this old blockchain, like beta.
[00:52:12]  Yeah, and it doesn't seem like from I am by no means a blockchain.
[00:52:16]  Not blockchain, sorry, Bitcoin beta version.
[00:52:18]  Yeah, I am not a sort of blockchain expert by any sort of means.
[00:52:22]  From what I understand, that what's really nice about Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency is that there is actual real scarcity with Dogecoin.
[00:52:30]  It just seems like it's actually uncapped, meaning that you could always produce more.
[00:52:35]  Yeah, so what we're seeing is surges based on popularity and novelty.
[00:52:39]  And it kind of makes sense that if you're going to have something like a cryptocurrency, you might as well make it cute and fun and memeable.
[00:52:49]  Yeah, and like, I don't think it'll ever become this like dominant thing, obviously, but like cuteness gets a long ways, yeah, it does.
[00:52:57]  Okay, what do you think Musk's curiosity with it is?
[00:53:01]  I think he thinks it's funny.
[00:53:02]  I think it's it you don't think he's fucking with anybody, you don't think this is like a fuck you to the SEC?
[00:53:07]  I think it's all tied into that general sort of sense of humor.
[00:53:11]  Uh, I mean, he's he's like a nerd with clout, so it's like what would you do?
[00:53:17]  This is the kind of jokes that they would make, right?
[00:53:21]  Like, it would be like making Linux jokes or something.
[00:53:24]  Like, yeah, I think it makes sense.
[00:53:26]  I think it checks out with like the general sort of like persona.
[00:53:30]  I just wonder if there was like a greater cause here that he was trying to do.
[00:53:34]  I feel like he's flexing, it could be a flex, right?
[00:53:37]  It's like, yo, if I just tweet about something, anything, I can create millionaires.
[00:53:42]  It's you know what?
[00:53:43]  You want to talk about like the greatest creation of wealth in history?
[00:53:46]  That's what's happening right now with crypto, isn't it?
[00:53:50]  I don't know in history.
[00:53:51]  I mean, I bet you like oil and those things made a lot of wealth in this short amount of time to this many people.
[00:54:00]  I mean, oil is a good idea.
[00:54:01]  Well, I guess it could be.
[00:54:02]  Yeah, we were talking about a handful of people who are able to like collect money on oil.
[00:54:05]  Yeah, we're talking about the average person.
[00:54:09]  I have like comics, like road dog comics that I'll see tweeting, and they're like, Yeah, I bought Dogecoin when it was at like 0.4 of a cent.
[00:54:16]  Now it's up to 40.
[00:54:17]  I make more money than I have in the last 10 years.
[00:54:20]  Well, that might be more saying about how much money you're making under day jobs.
[00:54:24]  Comedy is not that lucrative business for money.
[00:54:26]  Yeah.
[00:54:28]  I think it is a vehicle for upward mobility.
[00:54:30]  I think the question is, though, is how big the bet was.
[00:54:34]  Like, it's not hard to predict these things.
[00:54:35]  It's hard to commit to them.
[00:54:37]  Like, it wasn't hard for me to buy Dogecoin at sub one cents, but it was hard for me to spend more than $2,000 or $3,000 on it, which I clearly should have, right?
[00:54:45]  So, and then I still hedged it.
[00:54:47]  Yeah.
[00:54:47]  So I'm not very impressed by, I'm never impressed by people that have the foresight to see these things coming.
[00:54:54]  I think a lot of people sort of see them and they're not that hidden.
[00:54:57]  The question is, do you actually have the foresight and the balls and the discipline to go big on the things that you should?
[00:55:04]  Yeah, but having an understanding of what those things are is always difficult, especially in like this crypto space.
[00:55:11]  What is your feeling on crypto?
[00:55:13]  First of all, how invested are you?
[00:55:17]  What percentage would you say?
[00:55:19]  In the pandemic, I moved about probably like 15 to 20% of my net worth into crypto.
[00:55:24]  Really?
[00:55:25]  And that's not so much me being bullish on crypto.
[00:55:28]  It's me sort of anticipating inflation relative to the increase in money supply.
[00:55:32]  So it's a slight hedge in that.
[00:55:33]  It's not a perfect hedge against that.
[00:55:35]  You should do a whole bunch of things.
[00:55:37]  So I saw it in my industry.
[00:55:39]  I'm doing a lot of real estate and residential.
[00:55:41]  I'm going to show you down, by the way, how you're hedging against the inflation.
[00:55:44]  Okay, so I'll tell you what I saw first.
[00:55:46]  So I'm building houses.
[00:55:48]  I'm building hotels.
[00:55:49]  I'm buying building materials.
[00:55:51]  I saw during the pandemic, lumber went up 230%.
[00:55:56]  And then because lumber becomes more scarce, people start buying more steel.
[00:55:59]  Steel becomes more expensive.
[00:56:02]  And so I'm seeing prices go up.
[00:56:06]  And then I'm wondering, is this a temporary price surge due to reduced production because of the pandemic?
[00:56:13]  And how much of that price will come back down as we're producing more money and these companies start to anticipate inflation?
[00:56:21]  And so if my cost of goods is going up 200%, I want something to keep my sort of cash that could be going up as well.
[00:56:31]  Safe.
[00:56:31]  And if houses suddenly become more expensive, that's a major point of consumption for most Americans.
[00:56:38]  So that could be an early indicator of inflation.
[00:56:40]  So for me, it's much more of a hedge against inflation.
[00:56:43]  So I'm about 30% real estate, about 30% stocks, about 20% crypto.
[00:56:52]  And then the rest is sort of real long shots in startups.
[00:56:56]  So what do you keep in cash?
[00:57:00]  Just enough for like, you know, six to 12 months of expenditures if everything's shut down and I still didn't pay employees.
[00:57:07]  Yeah, I'm such a bad boom when it comes to money.

=== Hedging Against Real Estate Costs (05:59) ===

[00:57:10]  I know.
[00:57:11]  It's just like sitting in a PayPal account from your YouTube.
[00:57:13]  If there was a pool that I could empty and just put the money in, it'd be more like a jacuzzi.
[00:57:19]  But if there was a jacuzzi I could put my money in, I'd probably do that.
[00:57:22]  And I understand it's bad.
[00:57:24]  I'm trying to like break this psyche, but the idea of putting a super significant amount of my money in like crypto or something.
[00:57:33]  Like I could put a significant amount of my money in Amazon, in Apple, in Microsoft.
[00:57:38]  Why don't you do that?
[00:57:39]  I've put a little bit.
[00:57:40]  I'm starting to dabble.
[00:57:41]  You know, I'm starting to get there a little bit more.
[00:57:43]  But always in the back of my mind, I'm like, all right, but what if we need to build a new studio?
[00:57:47]  Or what if we want to buy a house?
[00:57:48]  There's a good deal for a house.
[00:57:49]  In my mind, I feel like for some reason, I just can't get that money out.
[00:57:52]  Even though I can sell the stock.
[00:57:53]  It's not like Bezos is going to say I can't.
[00:57:55]  It's so funny how much swagger and confidence you have in some venues.
[00:57:59]  And then absolutely devoid of it in others.
[00:58:02]  100%.
[00:58:02]  Yeah.
[00:58:03]  And I think that's actually kind of consistent with just about everybody.
[00:58:07]  It's like there's no smart people and there's no idiots.
[00:58:11]  It's like, well, I mean, dumbness is a real thing.
[00:58:14]  But every smart person you know, you know one way that they're actually kind of a moron.
[00:58:19]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:58:19]  Right.
[00:58:19]  Like, oh, no, yeah.
[00:58:20]  And every dumb person.
[00:58:21]  Every genius I know is also just like incomplete, completely incompetent in something else, which is why I laugh when any of my friends say, well, you know, I try to do things with logic and reason.
[00:58:30]  Like, not everything.
[00:58:31]  Yeah.
[00:58:32]  I guarantee it's not everything.
[00:58:33]  It's some things.
[00:58:35]  Yeah.
[00:58:35]  But no, we're all very asymmetrical in that sense.
[00:58:38]  Yeah.
[00:58:38]  I got to get better.
[00:58:40]  Yeah.
[00:58:40]  I got to get better at that.
[00:58:41]  It makes more sense.
[00:58:42]  A pee.
[00:58:43]  Yeah.
[00:58:43]  Yeah.
[00:58:43]  Go pee.
[00:58:44]  We'll take a break.
[00:58:44]  I'll come back.
[00:58:45]  And we're back.
[00:58:45]  Okay.
[00:58:46]  Melinda Gates is single.
[00:58:49]  Open her up or what?
[00:58:51]  I mean, sure, why not?
[00:58:53]  She seems like a nice lady.
[00:58:55]  I actually applied for one of their scholarships for like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
[00:58:59]  I think college was a pretty long time ago, but I think I got some money.
[00:59:02]  So, you know, really?
[00:59:04]  I'm a shill.
[00:59:05]  There you go.
[00:59:06]  Just they were helping, you know, bright young minorities get ahead in life.
[00:59:13]  What do you think happened there?
[00:59:15]  Do you think something bad is going to come out and she's distancing herself?
[00:59:18]  Or do you think it's just 27 years or whatever the fuck they've been together for and it was just time?
[00:59:24]  They have a good, they had a good run.
[00:59:27]  They've done a lot of good in the world.
[00:59:29]  I know you guys like to make fun of Bill Gates.
[00:59:32]  But it's like, look, they like saved a lot of lives with malaria.
[00:59:37]  They made fun of Bill Gates too.
[00:59:39]  Yeah.
[00:59:39]  You didn't make fun of him.
[00:59:40]  You had an interesting take.
[00:59:41]  You were like, he's trying to saint himself.
[00:59:44]  I think if you spent your whole life making billions of dollars through being sort of data-driven and crunching the numbers on which sort of probabilities are going to yield the greatest return, and then you turn towards philanthropy and you approach it with the same ruthless pragmatism and rational way of thinking, you're going to get this very cold, robotic types of philanthropy that doesn't,
[01:00:10]  that has done a lot of good, but isn't warmly received by a lot of people.
[01:00:14]  Okay, so let's just back that up.
[01:00:15]  Like, so usually philanthropy is, let's build a museum.
[01:00:19]  Right.
[01:00:19]  Let's, let's build a school for girls.
[01:00:22]  It's, these are all very heartwarming things.
[01:00:24]  It's often led with imagery of like the little child with the cleft palate.
[01:00:28]  I mean, one of the charities I've always donated the most is like the Operation Smile because it's like if they fix someone's face, it's like it's not really saving their life, but you just, it's so tangible how one operation is going to make one person's life a lot better.
[01:00:42]  And it just feels like a very real thing.
[01:00:44]  Yes, yes, yes.
[01:00:45]  You can connect with it on every sort of empathetic level.
[01:00:48]  Yes.
[01:00:48]  It just makes sense logically.
[01:00:50]  Yeah.
[01:00:50]  Philanthropy is emotional.
[01:00:52]  Right.
[01:00:53]  And you take a person like Bill Gates, who I don't know him personally, but I think it's fair to say he might be on the spectrum a little bit, might not have tons of emotions, at least when it comes to business.
[01:01:03]  So you take that.
[01:01:04]  I think it started with the question of where can we save the most lives per dollar?
[01:01:09]  Yeah.
[01:01:09]  Okay.
[01:01:09]  So let's look at it in the best possible way, right?
[01:01:12]  How do we save the most lives per dollar?
[01:01:15]  I remember us having a conversation where initially he was like, we're going to fix AIDS.
[01:01:18]  Right.
[01:01:19]  And then he was like, too much money.
[01:01:21]  Right.
[01:01:21]  Not enough lives.
[01:01:22]  Right.
[01:01:23]  So malaria was like the, that was the right bet because it kills a lot of people.
[01:01:26]  Yeah.
[01:01:26]  And mosquito nets are not super expensive.
[01:01:28]  Like there was lots of ways they could kind of do it.
[01:01:30]  They could reduce mosquito habitat.
[01:01:32]  Yeah.
[01:01:32]  They could provide netting.
[01:01:34]  Clean water is another way.
[01:01:36]  So many people suffer from a lack of clean water.
[01:01:38]  That's water filtration.
[01:01:39]  Did you see that meme?
[01:01:39]  Infrastructure.
[01:01:40]  Right.
[01:01:40]  Did you see the meme with him?
[01:01:42]  Oh, with him drinking the poop water.
[01:01:44]  We took shit into water.
[01:01:45]  And then the next page is his wife leaving.
[01:01:48]  So those things are really good things.
[01:01:50]  The world is better because he's doing those things.
[01:01:53]  But I think he was sort of surprised that he wasn't more embraced as like this hero.
[01:01:59]  Savior.
[01:02:00]  People don't want the saber metrics of do-goodism.
[01:02:04]  Yeah.
[01:02:04]  Yeah.
[01:02:05]  They want the heroic thing.
[01:02:07]  They don't actually want a reduction in crime.
[01:02:08]  They want Batman.
[01:02:10]  Yeah.
[01:02:10]  He's the James Hardin of philanthropists.
[01:02:14]  He's the Tim Duncan.
[01:02:16]  No, because Tim Duncan was like beloved and appreciated for what he did.
[01:02:20]  James Harden is, without a doubt, the best offensive basketball player we've seen, maybe in history.
[01:02:26]  He puts up the triple doubles.
[01:02:27]  He has the amazing numbers, et cetera.
[01:02:29]  People are like, he doesn't play defense.
[01:02:31]  He's not doing a team.
[01:02:32]  He doesn't win championship.
[01:02:33]  He doesn't care.
[01:02:34]  And James Harden's looking at him like, do you see what I do every single fucking day?
[01:02:37]  I changed the game.
[01:02:38]  Yeah.
[01:02:38]  Like, I got rid of malaria.
[01:02:40]  Bill Gates is like, I got rid of malaria.
[01:02:42]  And worried, you're worried about like vaccines and me putting microchips in Indian kids.
[01:02:46]  Yeah, I didn't get the microchip things.
[01:02:48]  Like, why?
[01:02:50]  Why would he do that?
[01:02:51]  Like, these, look, I think QAnon is the DaVinci code for people that can't read.
[01:02:58]  Yeah.
[01:02:59]  So I think the DaVinci Code was a fine book.
[01:03:01]  It was very entertaining.
[01:03:02]  I loved it.
[01:03:03]  But I think it was one of the most important books in the last 20 years, not because of what the book is, because of what it sort of showed was coming.

=== QAnon as the DaVinci Code (08:30) ===

[01:03:10]  And you had Alex Jones on.
[01:03:12]  Yes.
[01:03:13]  Congrats.
[01:03:14]  Your favorite.
[01:03:15]  Yeah.
[01:03:16]  And when I hear people say, well, 95% of what he says is true.
[01:03:20]  80.
[01:03:21]  Yeah.
[01:03:22]  Debatable.
[01:03:23]  Yeah.
[01:03:24]  But you'll hear that sort of sentiment.
[01:03:25]  Yeah.
[01:03:26]  The same thing's true with the DaVinci Code.
[01:03:27]  Yeah.
[01:03:28]  You can have a bunch of, you can reference true things in a completely false narrative.
[01:03:35]  Yeah.
[01:03:35]  And only, only the dumbest, least insightful, most clueless people goes like, whoa, that's a real person.
[01:03:43]  That's a real person.
[01:03:44]  Checks out.
[01:03:45]  This story is legit.
[01:03:46]  It's kind of like if I offered you a dessert and I said it's 95% ice cream.
[01:03:52]  You're like, I like ice cream.
[01:03:53]  What's the other 5%?
[01:03:54]  That 5% matters a lot.
[01:03:56]  If it's cat piss, it's kind of a no.
[01:03:58]  If it's just, you know, it's a few additives to kind of keep the ice cream mixer from sticking, a little soybean oil, stuff like that, no big deal.
[01:04:04]  That other 5% really matters.
[01:04:06]  So yeah.
[01:04:08]  The Bill Gates conspiracies, I didn't get them.
[01:04:11]  It's like, oh, he's going to conspire to like ruin his entire legacy and all this stuff and lose all his money and go to jail or what?
[01:04:20]  More money?
[01:04:22]  Yeah.
[01:04:22]  After he's already giving it all away?
[01:04:24]  Yeah.
[01:04:25]  Okay.
[01:04:25]  Yeah.
[01:04:26]  That sounds like a motivational path that checks out.
[01:04:29]  Yeah.
[01:04:29]  I think the question for a lot of people was like, why does he get to play God?
[01:04:33]  You know, and because he's richer than them.
[01:04:37]  Yeah.
[01:04:37]  Yeah.
[01:04:37]  I guess that's the answer.
[01:04:38]  Oh, those people don't like capitalism now?
[01:04:42]  Oh, those are the socialist complaints.
[01:04:45]  Oh, the QAnon people don't like capitalism?
[01:04:49]  Liberal cucks.
[01:04:53]  So pick a fucking lane.
[01:04:55]  Yeah.
[01:04:56]  Maybe the lane is to complain.
[01:04:58]  Yeah.
[01:04:58]  Oh, yeah.
[01:04:59]  Shocking internet behavior.
[01:05:00]  Yeah.
[01:05:00]  Maybe the lane is to complain.
[01:05:02]  Welcome to Reddit.
[01:05:05]  Reddit's actually Reddit's a pretty smart part of the internet.
[01:05:09]  I love Reddit.
[01:05:10]  And we had this conversation yesterday.
[01:05:12]  I think we really understood what Reddit is.
[01:05:14]  Reddit is a lot of very smart people who are clever and wish that they did creative endeavors, but for whatever reason, maybe life presented itself in a weird way where they could not.
[01:05:27]  And they really resonate with the underdog.
[01:05:31]  And they literally built my career.
[01:05:33]  I remember my first clip that went viral was because of fucking Reddit.
[01:05:36]  You know, I'm here because of Reddit.
[01:05:38]  Right.
[01:05:39]  And, but once you no longer become the underdog, like once you become the hero or something like that, the love is definitely different.
[01:05:48]  There's a lot more criticism.
[01:05:49]  And I think a lot of times that is a reflection of them going, oh, I didn't get to do that.
[01:05:55]  I was with him on the underdog journey because I was also an underdog.
[01:05:58]  Right.
[01:05:59]  And yeah.
[01:06:00]  So it is really cool.
[01:06:02]  It is like the place that I go for information if I need to find something.
[01:06:06]  Like I need to find a color of a car that I'm going to get.
[01:06:10]  Yeah.
[01:06:10]  I went to Reddit and was able to find the guy who owned the car from the picture and DM him.
[01:06:16]  That doesn't exist on anything else.
[01:06:18]  What's this car?
[01:06:19]  Are we really not yet?
[01:06:21]  Okay, come on.
[01:06:23]  We're going to go get it.
[01:06:24]  We're going to go get it soon.
[01:06:25]  You'll debut it on TikTok.
[01:06:28]  But you understand what I'm saying.
[01:06:29]  It's amazing the ability to do the research.
[01:06:32]  It's amazing their ability to like, I don't even care about the meme culture as much, but like to curate ideas and stuff too.
[01:06:39]  Like there's interesting conversations going on on Reddit.
[01:06:41]  There's a lot of really smart people and then they self-organize into disciplined communities that regulate themselves.
[01:06:47]  Yes.
[01:06:48]  The Wall Street Brett things was so fascinating because it was like people are like, wait.
[01:06:52]  It was so interesting to see sort of the mainstream financial media try to understand it.
[01:06:58]  And they're trying to separate both what's demonstrably like kind of idiot behavior in terms of some of the language and stuff like that.
[01:07:06]  Like, what was it?
[01:07:07]  We can be, yeah, it was, they couldn't separate the silliness of the meme culture with the intelligence of the operational strategy that they were doing as a collective.
[01:07:18]  Billions of dollars to learn.
[01:07:20]  And I kind of feel like people had that approach to Barstool.
[01:07:23]  It's like, how can these apes actually be like just dominating in that?
[01:07:30]  I remember when seeing that like when Pardon My Take sort of surpassed Pardon the Interruption on the podcast charts, I was like, oh, this is so internet.
[01:07:40]  This is so meta.
[01:07:41]  Like the parody is more popular than the thing that is parodying.
[01:07:46]  The actual thing, yeah.
[01:07:47]  And I think that's what I think is really fascinating about Reddit is that a lot of people chipping in, like they're one in two sort of clever insights.
[01:07:56]  Yeah.
[01:07:56]  And also a lot of hours of research that then get augmented by other people with similar interests as hours of research.
[01:08:03]  Well, what does entertainment do?
[01:08:05]  It just magnifies.
[01:08:06]  Right.
[01:08:06]  Right.
[01:08:07]  That's why memes are so exciting and so brilliant in a lot of ways is they can take a piece of information that's valuable and they can magnify it.
[01:08:13]  They can highlight it to everybody, share it around the world because it's entertaining.
[01:08:16]  If I give you some dumb data point, that's not going viral.
[01:08:19]  But if there's a dog there going to the moon, but it also shows a chart of exponential growth for Dogecoin, then all of a sudden you're like, oh shit, maybe I need to get into Doge.
[01:08:27]  You said earlier, the memes got you in.
[01:08:29]  That was also really high.
[01:08:31]  Also, the mushrooms.
[01:08:32]  Memes and mushrooms.
[01:08:32]  Deadly combination, but has a hundred times return on your investment.
[01:08:36]  So yeah, so it's really brilliant.
[01:08:38]  Like you have the insightful commentary on Reddit.
[01:08:40]  So you're the people who are coming up with smart ideas.
[01:08:42]  And then you have the entertaining folks on there as well who are amplifying those ideas.
[01:08:47]  Right.
[01:08:47]  Plus an inability to self-promote so you know the reaction is genuine.
[01:08:53]  Yeah.
[01:08:53]  I always think of like the good Reddit communities as being like a bunch of people doing manual labor, but they're kind of singing a fun song while they're doing it.
[01:09:00]  It kind of sounds like you're talking about slave hymns or whatever like that.
[01:09:04]  No, no, no.
[01:09:05]  You have to be very careful right now.
[01:09:07]  Talk about more like construction side stuff, more my background stuff.
[01:09:10]  It's like you kind of figure out these little ways to make the slog of it all kind of entertaining.
[01:09:16]  Yes.
[01:09:17]  Yes.
[01:09:17]  Now, you had an interesting take that I've definitely quoted you on Flagrant, which was like, what we're witnessing right now is the domino effects of the internet being a disruptor.
[01:09:31]  Right.
[01:09:32]  And you're just seeing one industry fall after another, right?
[01:09:35]  I'm sure this happened with you in your industry.
[01:09:37]  It definitely happened with me in my industry.
[01:09:40]  And can you elaborate on that a little bit?
[01:09:42]  Well, one that's not new.
[01:09:44]  Every time we've had a new communication technology, the printing press, what happens after the printing press?
[01:09:49]  A little trouble with uprising with the Catholic Church and Martin Luther.
[01:09:54]  Your boy Martin Luther.
[01:09:55]  When radio first happened, you know what like the CBD of that time was?
[01:10:00]  Goat testicles.
[01:10:01]  You ever hear about this guy?
[01:10:02]  I think it's like John Brinkley or David Brinkley, I think John Brinkley.
[01:10:06]  And he was like one of the first big radio moguls.
[01:10:09]  And he had a doctor from a degree that he bought, not real.
[01:10:12]  And he started creating his version of Blue Chew, which was he would actually take goat testicles and surgically insert them into human beings to cure impotence.
[01:10:24]  All right, guys, we're going to take a break for a second because we need to stimulate your genitals, not only your mind, okay?
[01:10:30]  And the way that you're going to do that is very simple.
[01:10:32]  Okay, it's Blue Chew.
[01:10:33]  Same active ingredient inside Viagra, see Alice, but this is the Jew.
[01:10:37]  This is the one we do.
[01:10:38]  When it's time to party, we bust it out and get busy.
[01:10:42]  All right.
[01:10:43]  I'm telling you, ladies, if you're listening right now, you deserve it.
[01:10:46]  You deserve the best dick the man has to offer.
[01:10:48]  And fellas, if you're listening right now, your lady deserves the best dick.
[01:10:51]  Okay.
[01:10:52]  The girl that you want to impress, she deserves the best dick.
[01:10:54]  Your side chick, she also deserves the best dick.
[01:10:57]  The best dick that you can deliver, you should deliver.
[01:11:00]  And you're going to do that with Blue Chew, okay?
[01:11:02]  BlueChew.com.
[01:11:04]  That's what you're going to have to do.
[01:11:05]  You use our promo code flagrant at checkout, and you're going to pay just $5 shipping.
[01:11:10]  It's going to be free.
[01:11:10]  Bluechew.com.
[01:11:12]  You make sure that you use our promo code flagrant at checkout, and it's going to be free.
[01:11:16]  You just got to pay $5 shipping.
[01:11:17]  Free, amazing dick that you get to deliver.
[01:11:21]  I don't know what is better.
[01:11:22]  Go do it right now.
[01:11:23]  Let's get back to the show.
[01:11:25]  There's always been a big demand.
[01:11:26]  And the minute we had radio, it immediately was used for that version of dick pills.
[01:11:31]  Love it.
[01:11:32]  Instantly.
[01:11:33]  And so he became super powerful, and so much regulation had to be created to stop charlatans like him.
[01:11:39]  Right, right.

=== Radio Snake Oil History (10:03) ===

[01:11:40]  So, what we see with the internet is not new.
[01:11:42]  When radio was new, people immediately used it for snake oil.
[01:11:46]  When the internet's new, people use it for selling internet stuff.
[01:11:49]  And there's this quick emergence where the early adopters benefit from them.
[01:11:53]  The mainstream looks at them and be like, well, this is irresponsible.
[01:11:56]  And then they kind of put some gears on it.
[01:11:58]  And then slowly all those things merge into normal.
[01:12:01]  So I think we're at like the tail end of the disruptive part of what the internet's done towards pretty much every business.
[01:12:07]  Can you go through how it's disrupted a few industries, just to give an example?
[01:12:12]  Like Wall Street Bets was a perfect example.
[01:12:14]  Right.
[01:12:15]  But I mean, the internet, what is it?
[01:12:16]  It allows common people to come together and make decisions as one.
[01:12:22]  It's like a check for the balance of power.
[01:12:24]  Right.
[01:12:25]  Well, I think it combined media that you watch.
[01:12:30]  I think at its most basic, it combined the idle trying to think how to say this.
[01:12:39]  I guess at its most simple, it turned television into something that's also searchable and interactive.
[01:12:45]  So it took like this sort of tendency for us to sit back and watch stuff with our free time, sports, stuff like that.
[01:12:52]  And then it turned into this interactive thing that can also drive purchasing and e-commerce and stuff like this.
[01:12:58]  The sort of secondary effects is now, I mean, have you have you, what is your sort of like average phone use per day?
[01:13:06]  Like per hours?
[01:13:07]  Do you get that kind of metric?
[01:13:08]  Yeah, it's embarrassing.
[01:13:09]  It's a lot, right?
[01:13:10]  Yeah.
[01:13:10]  I would say between six to eight hours a day.
[01:13:14]  Yeah.
[01:13:15]  Right.
[01:13:16]  So think about that.
[01:13:17]  Six to eight hours.
[01:13:18]  And how often are you awake?
[01:13:19]  Like 16 hours a day?
[01:13:21]  I usually sleep around like six hours a night.
[01:13:23]  Yeah.
[01:13:23]  So it gets the majority of your waking attention.
[01:13:27]  Yeah.
[01:13:27]  And you know, you remove a few sort of perfunctory things like shitting, eating, all that kind of stuff.
[01:13:32]  Yeah.
[01:13:32]  It's getting most of your time.
[01:13:34]  So I think that's that's where you know there's never been anything that's been that disruptive in terms of it's consuming a pretty and you're not a person without options.
[01:13:45]  You're a person with options about what they consume.
[01:13:47]  You make enough money to be comfortable so you can choose what you want to do with your time.
[01:13:52]  And you spend six to eight hours a day looking at this screen.
[01:13:56]  So I think that's the really.
[01:13:58]  I think it's important to acknowledge, though, that this screen encompasses many things that would divide up our time in the past.
[01:14:05]  So like this screen is my newspaper.
[01:14:07]  This screen.
[01:14:07]  It's a window, not a cul-de-sac.
[01:14:09]  Exactly.
[01:14:09]  It's my newspaper.
[01:14:10]  It's my telephone.
[01:14:12]  It's my letter writing.
[01:14:15]  I guess people used to do that.
[01:14:16]  Like it is my TV.
[01:14:20]  It is my email, like all these things are now done in one place.
[01:14:25]  So, of course, our time is going to increase.
[01:14:27]  So, if you look at my workday, if the average person was going to work for eight hours and they were like staring at their TV at their computer screen for like, let's say, five of those eight, maybe I average about three more or like one to three more hours like looking at my screen than the average person going to work.
[01:14:42]  So, I look at this like it's not too crazy.
[01:14:44]  Now, I know that I'm bullshitting and a lot of it is on fucking Instagram and Twitter, et cetera.
[01:14:48]  Sort of work.
[01:14:49]  Say what?
[01:14:50]  Sort of work.
[01:14:51]  It is, but it's like, it's also just, all right, how's this?
[01:14:54]  How's this doing?
[01:14:55]  Right.
[01:14:55]  How's this video doing?
[01:14:56]  I guess what I'm trying to say is like, we look at our phone time and we go, oh my God, I'm just so distracted.
[01:15:01]  I'm not doing anything productive at all.
[01:15:02]  When it's like, yeah, you are, just now everything is done through that one device.
[01:15:06]  Right.
[01:15:06]  So that's the power of Apple right there: everything you're doing, your office, your work, your correspondence, your entertainment, it's all on infrastructure Apple owns.
[01:15:16]  Is that why they're, and I want to get back to this disruption point you made?
[01:15:19]  Because I don't think that we clarified that yet.
[01:15:20]  But is that why Apple's getting into the car?
[01:15:24]  I think they just saw what I think Tesla sort of proved that if that you because car companies before Tesla were not great businesses.
[01:15:33]  It's not like people were rushing to put more money into car companies because basically it was a low margin thing and it's very expensive to fold and bend steel.
[01:15:40]  The majority of a car is steel that's folded, bent, and welded together.
[01:15:47]  That's a low margin, expensive business that takes a lot of capital to get it to the point where it's efficient.
[01:15:53]  I think what sort of Tesla showed is that, one, people are willing to spend more for something that's better and there was a lot of design disruption.
[01:16:01]  There was a lot of low-hanging design fruit that car companies had just neglected off of just tradition and doing things their own ways.
[01:16:09]  I remember I was on like a panel with, I think it was like the head of design from Ford, and this was a while back when Tesla was just getting started.
[01:16:16]  And people were asking him about electric.
[01:16:19]  He's like, I just don't think electric cars are real cars.
[01:16:22]  And he was so blinded by his own expertise.
[01:16:27]  And he wasn't wrong.
[01:16:28]  He's a very knowledgeable person about car design, but he wasn't really watching where the future was going.
[01:16:33]  And that's why Tesla very quickly had a stock price that was worth like the next 10 auto companies combined.
[01:16:41]  And I think that's what Apple saw is that sort of stock price and that ability to create you don't think that they see valuable screen time within your car now.
[01:16:52]  That's another point to collect sort of data and affinity with the other platforms.
[01:16:57]  But also think about it.
[01:16:58]  As we move towards self-driving, all of a sudden you will have unbothered screen time in your car.
[01:17:07]  Right.
[01:17:08]  Do you want that to be on a Tesla screen or do you want that to be on an Apple screen?
[01:17:13]  That's the really interesting thing, right?
[01:17:14]  So it's that's what I thought it was combined with one other thing, and I'm curious about your take on this.
[01:17:20]  Apple are, let's say they're the masters of battery life.
[01:17:25]  The biggest inhibitor to electric car use from the average consumer outside of price is battery life.
[01:17:33]  Well, I can't go visit my grandparents.
[01:17:35]  They're five hours away.
[01:17:36]  I got to stop two times on the way.
[01:17:38]  If they're the best at battery life and they can solve that problem, plus they get to be part of this extra screen as we go into the era of driverless cars or self-driving cars.
[01:17:51]  Don't they want to be?
[01:17:52]  Yeah.
[01:17:53]  And it's also the thing like where if you own an Apple laptop, you're more likely to get an iPhone because same type of interface, compatibility.
[01:18:03]  And so if you have an Apple laptop, that is the majority of your work, the rest of your work is done through your iPhone.
[01:18:08]  And then getting an Apple car that extends that sort of office to your commute kind of makes sense, right?
[01:18:14]  It's like all the same messaging.
[01:18:15]  You're going with seamlessly with your conversation through them all.
[01:18:19]  It kind of makes sense.
[01:18:20]  I mean, I would probably get an Apple car if they made one.
[01:18:23]  I'm not like a huge car guy.
[01:18:25]  I kind of look at them as like, what's functional transportation?
[01:18:28]  So if it was more seamless with the things I use a lot of, I would get it.
[01:18:32]  But you don't drive to work every day for a half an hour.
[01:18:35]  No.
[01:18:36]  I don't drive to work every day for a half an hour, but I'll either Uber or I would take the subway back home.
[01:18:41]  Yeah.
[01:18:42]  That's phone time for me.
[01:18:43]  Yeah.
[01:18:44]  Apple has my screen time.
[01:18:45]  Yeah.
[01:18:46]  Now that the commute is going to be phone time, they have to.
[01:18:50]  Yeah.
[01:18:51]  For the good of their business.
[01:18:53]  I mean, I look at this no different than like the Fuji Nokia thing.
[01:18:56]  Have you heard about that story?
[01:18:58]  When Fuji bought the 92 Olympics or something, they bought the rights for like the 92 Olympics, and that was what shrunk the moat enough for like Fuji to become equal, of equal standing to Nokia.
[01:19:10]  This is back when they film cameras when I'm speaking to the millennials right now.
[01:19:13]  They have no fucking clue what I'm talking about.
[01:19:15]  But in other words, there are like certain moments in history where you let someone approach your market share without even seeing it.
[01:19:21]  You don't recognize that now that's your biggest competitor.
[01:19:24]  And I think that Apple's super smart to get in there because if we're going to spend significant time in our cars and then we get super comfortable with this Tesla screen, if Tesla comes out with a phone, we're like, well, shit, I want my phone to be like my car screen.
[01:19:37]  I'm in my car for an hour a day.
[01:19:38]  Some people drive in an hour a day.
[01:19:40]  Matter of fact, how many more people would be willing to drive if, one, they don't even have to find parking.
[01:19:46]  They could send the car home.
[01:19:47]  Eventually, you'll just be able to send the car home, right?
[01:19:49]  There won't be any parking.
[01:19:50]  Drive me to work, send it home.
[01:19:52]  Come pick me up when I'm ready.
[01:19:53]  Yeah.
[01:19:53]  I tend to think that that's farther away.
[01:19:55]  So this is how I look at like the self-driving car thing is walk down a street of sort of like a mixed income neighborhood and look at all the cars and find the car that's the oldest and like what is the average age of those cars.
[01:20:08]  Okay.
[01:20:08]  So even once we get to the point where there are new, fully capable self-driving cars, it'll be a ways beyond that point where we see full adoption of them.
[01:20:18]  Meaning that if we walk down the street of like the Airbnb you're staying out in Florida, we'll see cars that might be 15 years old, right?
[01:20:25]  We'll see some early 2000s models like pickup trucks and stuff like that mixed in with some brand new cars.
[01:20:32]  So it's going to be a ways before there's actually fully saturated amount of these brand new self-driving cars.
[01:20:38]  So if you look at this example of your street, even once we have the car available, we'll still be seeing for the next 15 years cars that don't have that availability.
[01:20:48]  I'm going to give you a little bit of pushback.
[01:20:51]  Every time you see a huge technological jump, I feel like it expedites that transition.
[01:20:56]  So for example, the flip phone to the smartphone.
[01:21:00]  Right.
[01:21:01]  You could not be seen with a fucking flip phone when everybody had a smartphone.
[01:21:05]  It didn't have to be an Apple phone.
[01:21:07]  Maybe it was an Android.
[01:21:08]  Maybe it was a Blackberry or something like that.
[01:21:10]  But you need to have a fucking smartphone.
[01:21:12]  And I feel like if we go self-driving or if we go electric, whatever that transition is, once it becomes ubiquitous, if you had a 15-year-old car, you're going to find the cheapest fucking electric car and get on board.
[01:21:22]  It's the longest you've owned a phone, though, for.
[01:21:25]  Great point.
[01:21:26]  Yeah.
[01:21:26]  Great point.
[01:21:26]  I think that the obsolescence of a phone is a much higher thing.
[01:21:30]  I think the concept is true, but I think the turnover rate of cars is slower than phones.
[01:21:36]  Yeah, absolutely.
[01:21:37]  I'm probably on a new phone like every eight months because I drop them and break them.
[01:21:41]  Yep.
[01:21:41]  Yep.
[01:21:41]  No, no, that's a great point.
[01:21:42]  The turnover on a phone.

=== Smartphone Transition Trends (10:03) ===

[01:21:44]  Yeah, I'm just, I'm super curious.
[01:21:46]  I'm super curious about it, man.
[01:21:48]  It's interesting when you look back in time and looked at how we predicted so incorrectly where we'd be technologically wise.
[01:21:55]  One of my favorite things to do is to look at old articles on the future of fashion.
[01:21:58]  And they're asking people that are experts in fashion and these kind of trends and textiles and all this stuff.
[01:22:04]  And whenever they, like, you know, you look at like the 1960s, what will people be wearing in like the 2000s?
[01:22:10]  And it was all like Spandex, our track.
[01:22:12]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:22:13]  Meanwhile, we're still wearing denim.
[01:22:14]  Like we still wear jeans.
[01:22:16]  And that's what I'm really curious about.
[01:22:17]  Well, we do wear spandex.
[01:22:18]  Well, we wear all of it.
[01:22:20]  Well, here's what happens, right?
[01:22:22]  Jeans, denim makes no sense as a fabric in today's thing.
[01:22:26]  We can make such high-tech, space-age fabrics that like wick away moisture, that cool, that have plenty of like ball.
[01:22:33]  Like we can do all this sort of innovative stuff with fabrics, but still, jeans are the most dominant pant.
[01:22:38]  Yeah.
[01:22:39]  But what's happened is it's not that we've replaced denim, this antiquated material.
[01:22:43]  We just slowly infect it with 10% spandex, 5% lycro, make it a little stretchier.
[01:22:48]  We got stacky jeans, you know, a little more, a little more room.
[01:22:51]  And then that's the way I think technology really happens.
[01:22:54]  It's not quite as completely tabula rasa, clear the decks, total revolution.
[01:23:02]  It's this little infection, and then that changes this other ripple.
[01:23:06]  Yeah.
[01:23:06]  So I look at it in like furniture, woodworking, and design.
[01:23:09]  So for so long, it used to be that the signature of a talented woodworker was if you could make a board flat.
[01:23:17]  If you could make a board flat with like an axe and like something that looks like a shovel but sharper, like you were really fucking good at what you do.
[01:23:25]  All of a sudden we create machines that can do that effortlessly and the woodworker is just like, fuck.
[01:23:31]  And then what happens?
[01:23:33]  You know what happens?
[01:23:34]  Flatboards become everywhere.
[01:23:36]  And then you know what, like sort of interior designers go?
[01:23:38]  We don't want flatboards.
[01:23:39]  We want those old-fashioned hands.
[01:23:42]  And then we have to invent fucking machines to make them look like they're fucking beaver chewed up wood.
[01:23:48]  You're describing jeans.
[01:23:49]  Right.
[01:23:51]  And so even as we technologically progress, we go, well, I don't know if I like this new technology.
[01:23:56]  I mean, like, joggers are more comfortable.
[01:23:58]  Like, it makes sense to always wear like stylish-looking sweatpants.
[01:24:01]  Yeah.
[01:24:01]  Thank God that we've created a more forgiving aesthetic that allows us to wear these in public.
[01:24:06]  But at the same time, you're kind of like, ah, this looks a little too space-age.
[01:24:10]  I got to pull it back and look a little more classic.
[01:24:12]  Culture is undefeated, man.
[01:24:13]  It's like we've been wearing the same suits.
[01:24:16]  We've changed the material a little bit.
[01:24:18]  We've been wearing the same suit for the last 200, 300 years, probably.
[01:24:21]  When did the suit get invented?
[01:24:24]  200 years ago.
[01:24:25]  After powdered wigs died down.
[01:24:28]  You can only have really one stiff, uncomfortable thing at a time.
[01:24:32]  Yeah.
[01:24:33]  So it's like the fact that, like, I mean, I bet you look into Japanese culture where they're still wearing some of the same outfits today, but they've shifted the fabrics.
[01:24:42]  Yeah.
[01:24:42]  You know, the wooden clogs, they're similar, but maybe it's a little bit more lightweight wood.
[01:24:48]  Yeah.
[01:24:48]  But maybe they're a little bit more comfortable.
[01:24:50]  There's certain things they're going to do to make shit a little bit better, a little bit more easy for us to get along with today.
[01:24:55]  It's really interesting what sort of design trends stick around.
[01:24:58]  That's American fucking pants.
[01:25:01]  Here's my sort of question.
[01:25:02]  And I don't know the answer to this, but it's like, do you think if you ask somebody, will we be wearing jeans a thousand years from now?
[01:25:10]  Most people are kind of like, I don't think so.
[01:25:11]  We'll probably come up with something new.
[01:25:13]  But if you break it down, being like, will we wear jeans a hundred years from now?
[01:25:17]  Not all of us, but like, will they still be at least 30% of pants?
[01:25:21]  Yes.
[01:25:21]  Yeah.
[01:25:22]  100%.
[01:25:22]  And then if they make it that long, which will clearly have way more advanced fiber technology.
[01:25:26]  I mean, look at how fast our sort of textiles have gone in the last year.
[01:25:29]  Why wouldn't they make it a thousand years?
[01:25:29]  Why wouldn't they make it another hundred?
[01:25:31]  And then it's like, well, fuck.
[01:25:33]  We can't break up with jeans.
[01:25:35]  Invest in fucking jeans.
[01:25:37]  So it's, that's, that's how I tend to think about like self-driving cars and all this kind of stuff is we'll see it in like it'll definitely be a part of society.
[01:25:48]  But a lot of times we were wrong about how completely and dominantly it takes over.
[01:25:53]  And even with like the internet and back to that sort of point about how the internet has disrupted things.
[01:25:59]  We've been seeing that with like with like television as we know it, cable television is declining.
[01:26:05]  But what's happened in the pandemic is like, it's not like it goes away and it dies.
[01:26:10]  It just sort of merges and becomes this mesh of like stuff.
[01:26:15]  Right.
[01:26:15]  So like what is HBO Max now?
[01:26:18]  Yeah.
[01:26:18]  Like it's a TV channel that's still on some cable packages.
[01:26:22]  Yeah.
[01:26:22]  It's also this like Netflix alternative with really good content.
[01:26:26]  It's also a publishing house of like really well-made shows.
[01:26:30]  It's a bunch of things.
[01:26:31]  And it's in this awkward point of like coming together.
[01:26:34]  This is what it is.
[01:26:35]  It's Chinese immigrants come to America, they open up a Chinese restaurant.
[01:26:39]  Americans try the food, they're like, this is too Chinese.
[01:26:44]  What the fuck is going on here?
[01:26:45]  So then you have HBO Max, where it's like, okay, some of this is still on regular paid cable.
[01:26:52]  This is also streaming.
[01:26:54]  So now you have like the Chinese food that's somewhat reflective of the Chinese culture, but also somewhat reflected of the American one.
[01:27:00]  And YouTube or Instagram or whatever these things are is basically the Chinese American food.
[01:27:06]  Where if a Chinese person tried it, they'd be like, I don't know what the fuck this is.
[01:27:09]  Or pizza.
[01:27:10]  Yeah.
[01:27:11]  Pizza's not Italian anymore.
[01:27:13]  It's American.
[01:27:14]  It is.
[01:27:14]  Yeah, you're watching it.
[01:27:15]  It's absolutely American.
[01:27:16]  So we're watching the evolution.
[01:27:17]  Sometimes it happens a little bit faster.
[01:27:19]  Sometimes it happens a little slower.
[01:27:20]  Maybe Elon is an amazing marketer, and that's why we all think that electric cars are going to be a thing.
[01:27:25]  I wonder what happens when, like, I wonder what happens when these other car companies get involved.
[01:27:31]  I don't know if it was you was talking to, but it was somebody that said the competitive advantage that Tesla has is not necessarily the tech because he's made the tech open source so everybody can use the tech, but the data in order to, was it you I was talking about this?
[01:27:48]  A little bit, yeah.
[01:27:49]  So I think there's a few advantages that Tesla has.
[01:27:52]  I think the most important one now is access to cheaper capital.
[01:27:56]  So let's say real quick, before we get into the money thing, this is an AI thing.
[01:28:02]  I don't know if it was you talking, it was somebody that they basically said like Tesla, every person that drives a Tesla is feeding information back into that AI.
[01:28:10]  And that AI is that computer learning is happening and is better navigating the streets.
[01:28:15]  So all these new electric cars that pop up aren't going to have as good self-driving because they don't have 20 years or 10 years.
[01:28:22]  How long has Tesla been around now?
[01:28:23]  Yeah, about 10 years.
[01:28:25]  They don't have 10 years of people driving.
[01:28:27]  So Volkswagen's going to have its first self-driving car.
[01:28:29]  You have one year of data.
[01:28:30]  Good luck.
[01:28:31]  You might bump into some shit.
[01:28:33]  So what Tesla is well situated is to have an advantage along with companies like Google too, because Google's been doing a lot of stuff in this space.
[01:28:40]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:28:42]  So I think one of the, I've recently become more involved with AI startups.
[01:28:46]  So I'm now on the advisory board for two different AI companies.
[01:28:50]  And what I've learned, and I am by no means an expert in this technology, I'm just trying to get my head around it and be part of sort of the public face of helping them with some initiatives.
[01:28:59]  But what's interesting is it's not that like you create this brain and that's the genius.
[01:29:04]  It's not like the man scientist, I created this Frankenstein computer brain that's really smart.
[01:29:08]  It's trial and error.
[01:29:09]  What you're figuring out is the most efficient way to create software that can learn through machine learning.
[01:29:16]  So it's creating the simplest thing that benefits over time with more data being added to it.
[01:29:21]  It's how do we grow intelligence more than how do we create intelligence?
[01:29:27]  It's really finding what's the efficient path with the least amount of undesirable outcomes to slowly grow as we add more data input into this device or piece of software.
[01:29:37]  So in order for Volkswagen or Porsche or one of these companies to have an efficient AI self-driving system, they need that data.
[01:29:45]  And if they haven't been put through all these different situations that Tesla cars have over the last 10 years, they're not going to be as efficient in making the decision that needs to be made to save your life just yet, right?
[01:29:56]  So maybe that's the huge advantage.
[01:29:57]  And maybe that's why when all these other cars pop up onto the market, you're going to notice an even bigger bump for Tesla because once you try the VW, you're like, dude, I don't even trust it.
[01:30:07]  All right.
[01:30:07]  But think about it this way.
[01:30:08]  No, I won't.
[01:30:09]  It's an advantage.
[01:30:10]  But you know what else is an advantage?
[01:30:12]  Owning Waze.
[01:30:13]  Who owns Waze?
[01:30:14]  Google.
[01:30:14]  Who owns all the mapping things?
[01:30:15]  And that's why Apple and Google are always arguing about whose map is default on your phone.
[01:30:22]  So Apple has their own mapping thing, which is getting information about people's driving paths.
[01:30:27]  So it's like if you have your iPhone and you're using your Apple Map app to give yourself directions as you drive your very nice G-Wagon, congrats, rentals, but whatever.
[01:30:36]  Thank you very much.
[01:30:37]  Shout out to 60.
[01:30:39]  Appreciate you, G-Wagon, G-Wagon.
[01:30:41]  Not the AMG, but it's all the.
[01:30:43]  They're getting data about where you're finding traffic in Miami.
[01:30:48]  They're getting data on your routes to and from your sort of very short commute.
[01:30:53]  So they're getting information too.
[01:30:55]  It's not as pure.
[01:30:56]  Tesla's probably getting more per user, but there's way more users.
[01:30:59]  There's way more iPhones in existence that are getting used for traffic navigation than there are Tesla cars.
[01:31:05]  And then when you look at what Google has with Google Maps and Waze, they're getting a bunch of stuff as well.
[01:31:10]  So that's kind of like this sort of informational war.
[01:31:13]  And no one has a clean, singular advantage, but they're all kind of do it in kind of different ways.
[01:31:19]  And that's what's sort of fun to watch: what's going to be more valuable in the end?
[01:31:22]  I have no idea.
[01:31:23]  Is it going to be having the complete data set from actually owning the data coming out of the car itself?
[01:31:28]  Or is the mix of seeing how you behave in New York versus Miami when you're using public transportation mixed in with vehicular transportation that might end up proving more advantageous?
[01:31:39]  Yeah.
[01:31:40]  And that's what that's the beauty of AI is you have a system that can crunch all this data.
[01:31:44]  And keep surfacing discoveries, right?

=== AI Generating Formulaic Humor (10:16) ===

[01:31:47]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:31:47]  So we're working on AI to do kitchen renovations.
[01:31:51]  So that's one of the things we're doing with this startup called Skip.
[01:31:54]  And what's interesting is that this used to be the case where you had to hire an architect and then your architect has to produce all these drawings and then you have to go back and forth and they can't really show you what it's going to look like.
[01:32:04]  It takes a lot of time to do these drawings.
[01:32:06]  So what we're doing now is if you want to renovate your house, we bring in this laser scanner and we put it on a tripod and it just takes a perfect 360 degree laser scan, photorealistic.
[01:32:17]  You can put it into a VR environment and you could actually see your house exactly as it is, scanned to a fraction of a millimeter.
[01:32:24]  Then most kitchen stuff, cabinets, appliances, it's all off the shelf and there's 3D models of all those things.
[01:32:30]  So we can use the AI not to just show you one kitchen design.
[01:32:33]  We can show you every possible configuration for the sinks in different places, the stoves and that.
[01:32:38]  And then we can show you photorealistically what it looks like.
[01:32:41]  And because it's all tied in from real data, we can do that.
[01:32:44]  Then over time, we'll learn where sort of trends are and we'll automatically start curating the things that people like the most relative to their demographics.
[01:32:52]  And we can take something that used to be labor-intensive and make it better and better with each additional use.
[01:32:59]  And what's exciting about these businesses is that if you can make them work in the short term, you're only going to increase your advantage over the long term as the system becomes smarter and smarter.
[01:33:11]  And eventually there'll be AI comedy.
[01:33:13]  You're not immune from it.
[01:33:14]  No.
[01:33:14]  Okay.
[01:33:15]  I love when you say stuff like this.
[01:33:17]  No way.
[01:33:17]  Okay.
[01:33:18]  No way.
[01:33:18]  They've made so far.
[01:33:21]  This has already happened.
[01:33:23]  Yeah.
[01:33:23]  They've made sort of software that can write papers.
[01:33:27]  You might replace the Mexicans that are making the kitchens.
[01:33:30]  But you're not going to replace the comedians.
[01:33:33]  Not going to happen.
[01:33:34]  So you think that machine learning will never be capable of understanding humor?
[01:33:38]  Yes, correct.
[01:33:40]  I think not only will it be a case.
[01:33:41]  Because it doesn't understand anything.
[01:33:44]  It doesn't understand.
[01:33:45]  Machine learning doesn't understand.
[01:33:48]  They've done that experiment.
[01:33:49]  What is it called?
[01:33:50]  The Turing test?
[01:33:51]  Yeah, it's equivalent to the Turing test, but it's called the something in the box.
[01:33:55]  What is it called?
[01:33:56]  Well, I don't think the question is whether it understands.
[01:33:58]  The question is whether it's.
[01:33:59]  Do you know what I'm thinking?
[01:34:00]  The study that they made where does that person speak English?
[01:34:04]  You're asking them questions.
[01:34:05]  They have Chinese, they use Chinese characters, and the person in the room had responses to those Chinese characters, but they don't really understand Chinese in the room.
[01:34:13]  They just know how to respond.
[01:34:15]  I don't think, to answer your question, I don't think a computer will ever understand humor.
[01:34:18]  I just think it will know what is the right thing to say in that moment.
[01:34:22]  Yes.
[01:34:23]  And then the question is: is understanding important?
[01:34:27]  I don't think so.
[01:34:30]  If you make me laugh, it doesn't matter whether you understand it's funny or not.
[01:34:34]  It's going to make me laugh.
[01:34:35]  Right.
[01:34:36]  So, understand, I disagree.
[01:34:38]  The ability to make people laugh, maybe.
[01:34:41]  I mean, there's certain things that are just not formulaically funny.
[01:34:44]  Like, there's certain things you just cannot reproduce.
[01:34:47]  Like, you can't make Chris Farley.
[01:34:48]  Like, there's no AI that can be Chris Farley.
[01:34:51]  There's no AI that can just say things funny, can just be funny, exude funny.
[01:34:55]  There's, there are, I bet you AI could write like one-liner jokes, right?
[01:35:00]  Like, oh, you didn't see that coming.
[01:35:01]  Here's like a bait and switch.
[01:35:02]  But I don't think that they can be funny.
[01:35:05]  See, I think the thing that you're thinking that it can't predict new things.
[01:35:12]  Like, Chris Farley was a new thing.
[01:35:14]  Sure, he had references and stuff like that.
[01:35:15]  There's a little bit of like Belushi in him.
[01:35:18]  There's a few other things, but it was his own version that was perfect for that particular moment in time.
[01:35:23]  So what AI can't do is sort of predict what people will like because it's pulling from previous information.
[01:35:30]  But what it can do is it can iterate infinitely, whereas an individual can only iterate within a few concepts of time.
[01:35:38]  What I would say is, yes, 100% right.
[01:35:41]  But what Farley did, let's say it was unique or not unique, it was personality-driven.
[01:35:46]  And I don't think AI will have enough personality to be funny off of personality.
[01:35:49]  We've all had friends like our boy Mike.
[01:35:52]  Right.
[01:35:52]  Mike is funny.
[01:35:53]  Mike from Modern Builds.
[01:35:55]  Mike from Modern Builds.
[01:35:55]  Shout out to Mike from Modern Builds.
[01:35:57]  We love Mike.
[01:35:57]  Tippy Toe Mike.
[01:35:58]  And Mike is so funny, but Mike might not say a joke that's funny.
[01:36:03]  He will just exist as funny.
[01:36:04]  He will just be funny.
[01:36:06]  How do you replicate that with AI?
[01:36:07]  You cannot.
[01:36:08]  So you can create that with AI.
[01:36:09]  You can do it through brute force.
[01:36:11]  Now, the question would be whether or not AI could ever make a popular comedian.
[01:36:15]  AI could simulate comedy, but they might have to simulate so many versions to get it right that that creates an unwieldy burden that someone would have to curate to figure out what's actually going to pop.
[01:36:26]  So I think it's possible in the creation.
[01:36:28]  I'm not sure that that creation aspect, because an AI can create things simultaneously at the same time.
[01:36:34]  So with like the kitchen design, as an architect and designer, I can only do one design at a time.
[01:36:39]  The software can do every design at the same time.
[01:36:42]  Now, the question is, too many designs is actually not useful to the consumer.
[01:36:47]  So it could write every single possible joke, but what it might not be able to do is then surface the most probable ones.
[01:36:53]  So it's not the generative things that are impossible.
[01:36:56]  It's maybe it's like it generates so much that it creates this infinite mess that can't be navigated to actually surface the things that are going to work to an audience.
[01:37:03]  Sure.
[01:37:04]  So it could generate like a thousand different possibilities and you have to work through a thousand different ones to find the one and it wouldn't know which, which one it is because it doesn't feel.
[01:37:12]  And then there's an understand what we feel.
[01:37:14]  Like so, yeah, so much of comedy is like this feeling that we have that we know is wrong, but is relatable.
[01:37:21]  So how does an AI develop a feeling that they know is right or they don't understand right or wrong and they don't understand relatability?
[01:37:28]  They just develop the different kitchens.
[01:37:29]  It would be if they could make an audience AI that then interfaces with the comedian AI.
[01:37:35]  And if they studied enough audience members and been like, oh, these people laugh at this, if they could create enough thing where then that audience could do an infinite number of sets, then you have accelerated evolution and that's where you're really in trouble.
[01:37:47]  I think that that could create a woke comedian.
[01:37:51]  Like that could create like a Williamsburg comic bookstore comedian.
[01:37:56]  Like I'm going to tell, that's really what that type of comedy is.
[01:38:00]  I think that's why I hate it so much.
[01:38:02]  Is that I'm just gonna tell people the thing that they want to hear and I'm gonna be clever about it instead of telling people the thing that they feel that they might not even wanna feel, but we all feel and we relate to and then making that fun.
[01:38:16]  Why does that bother you so much though?
[01:38:18]  Like, I've heard you sort of talk, it just annoys you, but you're not like an unprogressive person.
[01:38:23]  You're like a kind and thoughtful person to the people that are sort of in your life, but you're so offended in a visceral way.
[01:38:29]  I'm not progressive in my comedy.
[01:38:31]  Yeah, I don't believe in progress.
[01:38:32]  Is it the performative part that just kind of irks you?
[01:38:34]  Yeah.
[01:38:36]  It's mixing that in with something that's supposed to be for this other thing.
[01:38:40]  Yeah, it's just you're taking advantage of it.
[01:38:42]  It's kind of like food is art, like kind of a thing.
[01:38:45]  Like, oh, here's this delicious sea foam.
[01:38:48]  Yeah.
[01:38:50]  Though, because I'm so devoid from like making food, I'm like so removed from it that I can appreciate that.
[01:38:56]  Like, I can watch, what is that restaurant in Chicago that they are?
[01:39:00]  Yeah.
[01:39:01]  Like, most I imagine foodies will look at that and be like, why are you making bubbles out of food?
[01:39:05]  Like, get over it.
[01:39:06]  But I'm such a chimp.
[01:39:07]  I'm just like, bubble food?
[01:39:09]  It floats?
[01:39:10]  Cool.
[01:39:11]  Let's go, babe.
[01:39:12]  So, yeah, yeah.
[01:39:13]  If I just love comedy and I love the authenticity in comedy, and obviously, all the people that I care about within Kami are super authentic.
[01:39:19]  And I try to be authentic.
[01:39:20]  And so when I see it done in a fraudulent way, I just don't relate to it as much.
[01:39:26]  Yeah, but you're.
[01:39:28]  It's hack architecture.
[01:39:29]  Yeah.
[01:39:30]  That's that's what it's like somebody making this architecture that you know is like super hack and you probably look at it you'd be like this is easy.
[01:39:37]  This is hack.
[01:39:38]  I know what you're fucking doing here.
[01:39:40]  Yeah.
[01:39:40]  And imagine they presented it as if it was the most exquisite, beautiful art you've ever seen in your life.
[01:39:46]  So for me, the thing that like I'm, I think sustainability is really important, but the thing that would always irk me is when people be like, I put solar panels on this house and it's now sustainable.
[01:39:56]  And it's like, look, that's a good thing.
[01:39:57]  Yeah.
[01:39:57]  It's a great thing.
[01:39:58]  Solar panels are awesome technology.
[01:39:59]  It's really cool to own your energy source as a way to like take money that was going to a utility bill and increase the value of your home and you actually own your own means of production.
[01:40:08]  That's awesome.
[01:40:09]  But it's like, it's so additive.
[01:40:12]  It's not like artistic.
[01:40:13]  It's not necessarily integrated.
[01:40:15]  It's not thoughtful.
[01:40:16]  It's just like it's additive brownie points in the sort of sustainability arena and it's not necessarily good integrated design.
[01:40:25]  So as a design, as a designer, you're like, I don't like the aesthetic.
[01:40:30]  Yeah.
[01:40:31]  But as someone who cares about the environment, you're like, all right, that's cool.
[01:40:33]  You're trying to do something.
[01:40:34]  Yeah, it's easy to add something that's like a badge of goodness, right?
[01:40:40]  It's virtue signaling.
[01:40:41]  Is that your issue?
[01:40:42]  It's the same thing with like, yeah, it's the same thing with like, and I think virtue is actually a good thing.
[01:40:48]  Yeah.
[01:40:49]  But the signal part, the signal part could actually be signaling real virtue.
[01:40:52]  Yeah.
[01:40:53]  I don't have a problem with virtue signaling.
[01:40:55]  I have a problem with disproportionate signaling and a small amount of virtue.
[01:41:00]  If the virtue is huge and the signal is small, good job.
[01:41:05]  If the signal is fucking huge and the virtue is like just slightly above the bare minimum, you're not doing much.
[01:41:12]  You're taking the easy way out for the highest reward.
[01:41:16]  Right.
[01:41:16]  And that is my issue with that type of comedy.
[01:41:19]  We both know it's funny.
[01:41:21]  Not you and I. I'm saying like comedians, we all know it's funny.
[01:41:25]  If you're a funny person, you know it's funny.
[01:41:27]  If you're not a funny person, you probably know it's funny.
[01:41:30]  We all know the easiest way out.
[01:41:32]  We all know what will succeed.
[01:41:34]  You know, if I'm opening up a restaurant, I know the thing that's going to sell.
[01:41:37]  But if I'm going to try to push it, if I'm going to try to get you to eat a parsnip and I'm going to put extra love and care into that fucking parsnip and make it so good, you actually order a parsnip, I go to that chef.
[01:41:46]  I'm like, bro, I can't believe you made me order a vegetable like it was a steak.
[01:41:49]  You are nice with it.
[01:41:51]  But the guy who's just like, here's fuck it, what is it?
[01:41:55]  What is the most common thing right now?
[01:41:56]  Here's duck fat french fries or something like that.
[01:42:00]  You're not being unique with your duck fat French fish.

=== Documentaries and Straw Fallacies (10:52) ===

[01:42:04]  You're playing the hits.
[01:42:04]  You're playing the hits.
[01:42:05]  Yeah, you're karaoke.
[01:42:06]  Exactly.
[01:42:07]  There you go.
[01:42:10]  You had a hot take about C-Spiracy that I refused to let you tell me.
[01:42:16]  You said that there were some flaws in C-Spiracy.
[01:42:18]  We're obviously talking about the Netflix documentary about how we got to stop eating fish.
[01:42:24]  Ben is half Japanese, so he's mostly man out of fish.
[01:42:29]  And you thought that the documentary had a lot of good things because you're someone who cares about sustainability.
[01:42:34]  But you thought there were some holes.
[01:42:38]  So it's so funny that documentaries have, I think they've taken on almost too much importance for sort of information gathering because what I really like about documentaries is that you get a very distinct point of view, but they're presented as if it is the way it is.
[01:42:56]  Right.
[01:42:56]  And I think that's the thing.
[01:42:58]  It's not to like look with trepidation at documentaries.
[01:43:03]  It's just to consider the way they were made.
[01:43:05]  And what I love about documentaries is the handcrafted approach.
[01:43:08]  Clearly, that was the work of years and years about a very passionate, diligent, hardworking person.
[01:43:13]  And he should be celebrated for that.
[01:43:15]  And I think it's a fantastic piece of content that does way more good than it does harm.
[01:43:20]  But there's limitations because it's when you're produced from a singular vision, you don't have the diversity of sort of fact-checking that you do with more sort of traditional and mainstream personalities.
[01:43:30]  What did he get wrong?
[01:43:31]  I'd also like to say that we went out to a delicious sushi restaurant last night.
[01:43:34]  Uchi out here in Miami is amazing.
[01:43:36]  What did he get wrong?
[01:43:37]  He said that like sustainable fishing is impossible.
[01:43:40]  And I would totally be fine if he switched that to like, it's going to be really, really hard.
[01:43:46]  And we should be really skeptical about anyone making claims about the sustainability of a particular fishing initiative.
[01:43:52]  But I think it's often overstatement is a part of deception that I think is particularly damaging.
[01:43:59]  Saying that something is impossible is such an arrogant claim.
[01:44:05]  How do you know?
[01:44:06]  Yeah, who the fuck are you?
[01:44:07]  There's so many things that we thought were impossible that later were proved not to be.
[01:44:11]  Just because you can't figure out how to do it doesn't mean it's impossible.
[01:44:14]  It's like saying that consumers will never really want electric cars.
[01:44:18]  And it looked that way.
[01:44:19]  It did look highly probable.
[01:44:21]  And people doing like deep research into consumer trends 20 years ago, it would be fair for them to come to that very reasonable conclusion that it's unlikely that electric cars will ever be as desirable, if not more desirable, than gas cars, except for like the most hardcore environmental nuts.
[01:44:39]  That improbability has happened.
[01:44:42]  And when you say, if you said that was impossible, you're 100% wrong.
[01:44:46]  If you said it was improbable, you're mostly right.
[01:44:49]  So I have a big problem with those kind of overstatements.
[01:44:51]  If you want to see a really good fact-checking, shout out to my buddy Jack and Finn Harry's.
[01:44:56]  They're these twins.
[01:44:57]  They do really, they're actually what Greta Thunberg should be.
[01:45:00]  They're environmental activists.
[01:45:03]  They're kind of the good ones.
[01:45:04]  They actually do the work.
[01:45:06]  She's the Jake Paul with a good cause.
[01:45:08]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:45:08]  She's the Jake Paul of environmentalism.
[01:45:12]  Yeah.
[01:45:12]  And it's like, I think she's a net positive overall.
[01:45:16]  Yeah, let me explain why this is so good.
[01:45:18]  Because, like, is she, is Jake the best boxer?
[01:45:22]  No.
[01:45:23]  Is he eating up all the oxygen in boxing, taking it away from people that are actually put way more years into the craft?
[01:45:30]  Is that his fault?
[01:45:31]  No.
[01:45:31]  Not at all.
[01:45:32]  Matter of fact, he's bringing way more awareness to the sport of boxing.
[01:45:35]  And there's a bunch of boxers that are going to make a lot of money just because new eyeballs are on boxing.
[01:45:41]  Right.
[01:45:41]  Now, Greta doesn't know shit about the environment compared to these people who have dedicated their lives to it.
[01:45:47]  She's no fucking scientist, right?
[01:45:48]  She's a 14-year-old Swedish girl who might have a little bit of tism.
[01:45:53]  It's not for me to say, but.
[01:45:55]  It will be for me to say.
[01:45:56]  I will say it.
[01:45:57]  Yeah.
[01:45:58]  She's got a little bit of tism.
[01:46:00]  She got all it is.
[01:46:00]  Yeah.
[01:46:01]  She tis.
[01:46:02]  I think she's a net positive.
[01:46:03]  I think she's done great things.
[01:46:04]  I think it's important to mobilize that generation.
[01:46:06]  And I think the fundamental idea that old people are mortgaging her future is not invalid.
[01:46:12]  But what bothers me is that you see people that have spent 30 years sort of working.
[01:46:17]  This the same way you've seen boxers that are actually really good at their craft.
[01:46:20]  Yeah.
[01:46:21]  And, you know, maybe it's their own fault for not being better at self-promotion.
[01:46:26]  Yes, that's part of it.
[01:46:26]  But it's not unalarming to see someone that's kind of new to a space sort of rise to some sort of prominence.
[01:46:32]  And it's not a complete zero-sum game.
[01:46:34]  Like it's not as simple as like this person gets attention so that this person can't get attention.
[01:46:38]  That's a little bit of a fallacy.
[01:46:40]  But I think there is some resentment by some researchers I know in that community.
[01:46:45]  It's like, man, I've been really trying to get my stuff published.
[01:46:49]  I've been working on this for a really long time.
[01:46:50]  There's a lot of people that have really sailing around this Swedish chick with the Bill McKibbens, the Michael McDonough, and like all these people that have actually done a lifetime of book writing and research and gone to conferences where there's like 30 people and still gave like a good performance.
[01:47:12]  And I think it can be a little bit disheartening for them to see a child rise ahead, but at the same time, like she created it.
[01:47:21]  It wasn't handed to her.
[01:47:23]  And everything's sort of a combination to a certain degree of kind of luck, opportunism, strategy, skill, all those things.
[01:47:29]  Yeah.
[01:47:29]  And also just check your ego.
[01:47:30]  Like if you guys have joint interests, just because you're not the one shouting it out to the world and getting the credit for it doesn't mean it's not getting done.
[01:47:37]  This is where people got to see what they really want.
[01:47:39]  Do they want change in the world?
[01:47:40]  Do they want people to care about the environment?
[01:47:42]  Or do they want to be famous because they love the environment?
[01:47:44]  Yeah.
[01:47:44]  Do you want to be a celebrity or do you want to make change?
[01:47:46]  Right.
[01:47:47]  But back to C spirit.
[01:47:48]  So check out Jack and Finn Harry's.
[01:47:50]  They've done some sort of things where they sort of like sort of went through and sort of fact-checked it.
[01:47:55]  They have an organization called Earthrise, which is trying really hard.
[01:47:59]  It's sort of a young sort of contemporary media company that's trying to sort of make these issues sort of known.
[01:48:04]  And I think that's what's really good about our current media landscape is that somebody throws something out there.
[01:48:09]  And it's not about saying it's debunking it or attacking it.
[01:48:14]  It's all augmenting it if you sort of even point out, hey, I think you were a little wrong on this.
[01:48:18]  I think this part was really good.
[01:48:19]  And it doesn't have to be this sort of flame war of tearing down or standing for something uncritically.
[01:48:28]  It can just be like, yeah, kind of a little wrong on the fishing thing.
[01:48:30]  So the C-Spiracy thing is interesting because one of the claims was we've got to stop eating fish.
[01:48:34]  And if we don't stop eating fish, there's going to be no fish left.
[01:48:37]  And if there's no fish left, we're going to ruin our oceans.
[01:48:39]  If we ruin our oceans, there's no more oxygen.
[01:48:40]  We all die.
[01:48:41]  This is the environmentalist approach towards everything.
[01:48:44]  Is 50 years, we're all dead no matter what we do.
[01:48:47]  But one thing I really liked about it and the way they got us into it, which I think was brilliant, is they gave us our plastic straws back, right?
[01:48:54]  And I really think that that was a strategic move, right?
[01:48:57]  They basically said in the documentary, the guy says that plastic straws make up 0.003% of ocean pollution.
[01:49:04]  All the ocean pollution is really from these fishing vessels, these commercial fishing vessels that have these huge nets.
[01:49:09]  They just leave the nets in the water.
[01:49:10]  There's all this, what is called byproduct or something like that, by waste or whatever it is.
[01:49:15]  They're just leaving this stuff all over the ocean.
[01:49:17]  It's really fucking up coral reefs.
[01:49:20]  And when I saw that, I was like, yeah, it's on the fisherman.
[01:49:23]  It's not on me.
[01:49:24]  I get my straws back.
[01:49:25]  My life is now fixed.
[01:49:27]  Right.
[01:49:28]  Okay.
[01:49:28]  Holes.
[01:49:30]  No, I think that's actually what it pointed out was we look for things that hit us emotionally and that tie into an intellectual understanding of a problem, but not necessarily the problem at the appropriate scale.
[01:49:45]  So we saw that one video of like a straw stuck in a turtle's nose.
[01:49:49]  And I felt really bad for that turtle.
[01:49:51]  And it did make me feel a very empathetic way and be like, well, if I would have seen that turtle right there, I definitely wouldn't have used the straw.
[01:49:59]  I would have used the shitty paper one.
[01:50:00]  Yeah.
[01:50:01]  But the problem is, that's not really actually any that turtle, as noble as it is, and as much as we would like to save it, isn't necessarily an indication of environmental problems at scale.
[01:50:12]  It's still an indicator.
[01:50:13]  It's not fake.
[01:50:14]  It's just not necessarily, it's not showing the whole story of where we're actually polluting.
[01:50:20]  Yes.
[01:50:20]  So plastics in general are a really big problem.
[01:50:23]  It's this thing that we produce a lot of.
[01:50:26]  Straws are a very small part of the plastics we do.
[01:50:29]  The styrofoam from all these Amazon packaging is way more problematic than that.
[01:50:34]  Plastic bags, all these things.
[01:50:36]  So it's funny.
[01:50:37]  I've been doing a lot of sort of experimental recycling projects.
[01:50:42]  And it sort of sounds nice.
[01:50:43]  Like, ah, recycling stuff is good for an environment.
[01:50:46]  It's actually like it's not accomplishing that much, but it also doesn't make it unimportant not to do.
[01:50:53]  Like, it's not that trying to save straws is a bad thing.
[01:50:57]  We shouldn't use straws, but it's not the thing that we should be focused on the most.
[01:51:02]  So if somebody like volunteers, like, hey, I don't want to use straws, great.
[01:51:06]  But if you're getting to the point where you're then indicting someone else for using something that's actually a pretty small part of the problem, meanwhile, you have like, you know, eight cubic yards of styrofoam sitting at your house from Amazon packages that you ordered, you're not really doing any good.
[01:51:20]  Yeah.
[01:51:21]  So it's really just like putting when a problem's at scale, you should attack the biggest scale of the problem first, not focusing on the detail that has the heart-wrenching turtle video attached to it.
[01:51:33]  Well, I thought that's what the documenter exposed.
[01:51:35]  Right.
[01:51:35]  Right?
[01:51:36]  It's like we can't attack the problem because there are forces that be that don't want us to attack.
[01:51:41]  If the problem is commercial fishing and there's a lot of money behind commercial fishing, that money is going to point us in the direction of straws because straws don't affect commercial fishing's bottom line at all.
[01:51:51]  So I'm in a weird position in the sort of sustainable community.
[01:51:55]  Like I care a lot about it.
[01:51:56]  I think it's one of the most important things we can do, but I'm also not too worried about it because I think collectively humanity is kind of like how most of us were in college, that we kind of procrastinate and procrastinate, but we mostly get it done at the last minute.
[01:52:10]  And so I don't want to fall into that kind of thing like fishing will be fine.
[01:52:14]  We'll figure it out because we might not.
[01:52:16]  And we'll probably lose some species that we really like eating right now.
[01:52:19]  And eventually we'll lose something.
[01:52:21]  We probably won't lose everything.
[01:52:23]  And what happens is, is fishing will continue to, or fish supplies will continue to be diminished.
[01:52:32]  It'll become more and more expensive at sushi restaurants like we went to last night.
[01:52:37]  And then more, it'll be more economically viable for people to invest in figuring out the next generation of fish farming.
[01:52:43]  So it's like right now we farm salmon.
[01:52:46]  It's not great salmon.
[01:52:47]  But if there was more capital going into it, because the price of salmon is better, that would be better.
[01:52:52]  That being said, there's going to be other downsides to that.

=== Magic Spoon Cereal No-Brainer (02:22) ===

[01:52:56]  You know what it is?
[01:52:57]  Sustainability and environmentalism, it's not this thing that can ever be solved.
[01:53:00]  It's like the Marvel cinematic universe.
[01:53:02]  You'll beat Thanos, there'll be a new bad guy because there has to be more content and we have to keep watching and we have to keep doing it.
[01:53:08]  And it's exactly why I really like this cause as something that sort of tie-it's not like my main focus of my career, but it's something I always keep touching back into and seeing if I can do a little bit of progress in this arena because we'll never solve it.
[01:53:20]  And that shouldn't be the frustrating thing.
[01:53:22]  That should be the exciting thing.
[01:53:24]  It's a job for life.
[01:53:25]  Because imagine if you like dedicated your life to like a career and just as you were starting to get good, somebody else solved it.
[01:53:34]  And you're just like, well, fuck.
[01:53:36]  I always say this about, I always say this to Whitney.
[01:53:39]  I'm like, the reason that you want to save animals is because you'll never finish doing it.
[01:53:43]  Yeah.
[01:53:43]  For the rest of your life, you'll have something to do.
[01:53:45]  You'll just make more animals from all those animals that you saved.
[01:53:49]  Exactly.
[01:53:49]  Yeah.
[01:53:50]  And there's going to be another animal that's about to go extinct, and you want to go save that.
[01:53:52]  There'll always be another hair color, too.
[01:53:54]  That's true.
[01:53:55]  And we're ready for it.
[01:53:56]  Whitney.
[01:53:56]  Yeah, bring it.
[01:53:57]  Red.
[01:53:58]  I think she's got to go full red.
[01:53:59]  I want to see full red.
[01:54:01]  Okay.
[01:54:01]  All right, guys, we're going to take a break because you got to eat better breakfast.
[01:54:05]  Okay.
[01:54:05]  And the way you're going to do that is with a little bit of magic.
[01:54:08]  And by magic, I mean Magic Spoon.
[01:54:10]  I'm telling you right now, when we were kids, we were gobbling up this garbage.
[01:54:14]  Okay.
[01:54:15]  Sugar non-stop.
[01:54:16]  We're going to school, can't even fucking pay attention because we are eating a thousand grams of sugar before it was 8 a.m.
[01:54:23]  That stops right now.
[01:54:24]  For you, for your kids, for your cousins, for anyone you love, you're going to do it with Magic Spoon.
[01:54:30]  Okay.
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[01:54:33]  Zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, and only four net grams of carbs in each serving.
[01:54:40]  Only 140 calories a serving.
[01:54:42]  Keto-friendly, gluten-friendly, grain-free, soy-free, low-carb, and GMO-free.
[01:54:47]  The variety pack, they have the cocoa, the fruity, the frost, the peanut butter, all your favorite cereal flavors, but this time, healthy.
[01:54:54]  They're not going to make you feel like an absolute lunatic like cereal did in the past.
[01:54:58]  This is a no-brainer.
[01:55:01]  You go to magicspoon.com/slash flagrant to grab a variety pack and try it today.
[01:55:06]  And be sure to use our promo code flagrant at checkout to save $5 off your first order, okay?
[01:55:13]  And Magic Spoon is so confident that you're going to like their product.
[01:55:16]  It's backed with 100% happiness guarantee.

=== Returnable Straw Incentives (02:41) ===

[01:55:18]  So if you don't like it for any reason, they're going to give you your money back.
[01:55:22]  No question to ask.
[01:55:23]  That's how much they know you're going to love their fucking cereal.
[01:55:26]  Okay.
[01:55:27]  You have no risk to try it.
[01:55:28]  You don't like it.
[01:55:28]  You get your money back.
[01:55:30]  If you do like it, congrats.
[01:55:31]  You got a new healthy breakfast option for you and your loved ones.
[01:55:36]  So remember, you go to magicspoon.com/slash flagrant, use the promo code flagrant, save that five bucks.
[01:55:42]  Now, let's get back to the episode.
[01:55:44]  Oh, very important.
[01:55:46]  Magic Spoon now ships to Canada.
[01:55:47]  So all you Canadians that are locked down your house because your government's incredibly oppressive, get yourself some Magic Spoon.
[01:55:53]  That's something that will ease your time while you're locked at home and missing out on your summer because your prime minister is a douchebag.
[01:56:02]  Let's get back to the show.
[01:56:03]  I thought that like the documentary inadvertently brought up an interesting conversation, which was like, if you apply the capitalistic mindset towards a problem, usually it will get solved if there's enough profit to go with it.
[01:56:16]  And I think that's what happened with straws: is like the second we saw the straw coming out the turtle's nose, we were like, oh, we need a different type of straw.
[01:56:22]  And within months, there were 30 different straws that were like plastic.
[01:56:28]  Some of them were paper, but some of them kind of felt plastic enough where you could drink out of them and they wouldn't like fold and bend and break.
[01:56:36]  And there's a million different solutions to this problem.
[01:56:38]  So when I'm watching this documentary, I'm like, yo, why the fuck don't we just be honest about what the biggest issue is so we can find a convenient way to solve it?
[01:56:45]  So I actually think that the challenge with recycling in particular is the point of collection.
[01:56:51]  So you know how like some states there'll be like a five cent deposit when you buy aluminum cans and then if you return it to the store, you get that five cents back.
[01:56:58]  All we have to do is just raise that and we'll return the straws.
[01:57:02]  We won't throw them away.
[01:57:04]  There's some point where there's some point.
[01:57:07]  If we said like, so let's say you go, and I think they should do this at bars because like people are, if you're paying $12 for a drink, right?
[01:57:14]  Like you're already paying way more than what the alcohol is worth.
[01:57:16]  You're paying for that lifestyle experience and that ambiance in that scene and setting.
[01:57:20]  So it's a, if they just said like, hey, the straw is a dollar and you get the dollar back if you return the straw and we put it through the dishwasher.
[01:57:29]  Done.
[01:57:30]  That's interesting.
[01:57:31]  Either people won't care and then the homeless people will go and pick up the straws and return them or you know somebody else will do it because it's economically incentivized to do it.
[01:57:39]  So we've done things like that before with like aluminum cans.
[01:57:42]  If you're in like, remember growing up in California, they didn't have that and you would see more cans and trash cans.
[01:57:47]  And then you go up to Oregon and it's five cents a can, you would see less cans and trash cans.
[01:57:51]  I remember the first time I went to Europe, I was, we stopped off in Germany in the airport.
[01:57:56]  Right.
[01:57:56]  We can use capitalism.

=== Limited Research Funding Models (03:06) ===

[01:57:59]  Yeah.
[01:58:00]  That had like five different portals.
[01:58:03]  There was one for cans, one for paper, one for, I'd never seen this in my life.
[01:58:08]  And this was their, I guess, I guess, you know, first attempt into getting into recycling, et cetera.
[01:58:13]  I was like, okay, yeah, this kind of makes sense.
[01:58:15]  But that thing with the straw makes sense.
[01:58:17]  But for me, more, it's like, what do we do with commercial fishing?
[01:58:20]  Like, why don't we find a more convenient, not sorry, less convenient, but a more environmentally friendly way to do that that doesn't tear up the coral reefs, that doesn't like get all the turtles stuck in the nets, that doesn't where you don't have to go out there and like, I guess, call the dolphins in order to catch these fish because they're eating them as well.
[01:58:38]  Like, why isn't that the problem we're solving, not the fucking straws?
[01:58:42]  Because that's a hard problem to solve.
[01:58:44]  Well, let's go fucking solve it.
[01:58:45]  Figure it out.
[01:58:46]  We can get to the moon.
[01:58:48]  I guarantee you there's people working.
[01:58:49]  Like at every university, there's people studying all sorts of things.
[01:58:53]  And they might be studying it from different angles.
[01:58:55]  There might be people in like sort of an ocean agricultural program that are studying the future of seasteading and agricultural production at sea.
[01:59:04]  And they're looking at the sort of papers that have been done on early studies and they're testing out or going and visiting sort of early fish farming experiments and they're learning from that and they're getting better.
[01:59:12]  But there's, I think, the thing that surprised me is: so I used to be part of the faculty at some different universities.
[01:59:20]  Yeah.
[01:59:21]  And when you're there, you sort of think like, oh, there's so many people doing research.
[01:59:24]  Yeah.
[01:59:25]  But it's not the most focused research.
[01:59:26]  It's research to sort of elevate yourself within this sort of academic environment.
[01:59:30]  And then you'll interface with like people with like major, you know, pretty good-sized companies, companies that are doing close to a billion dollars a year in sales.
[01:59:37]  And you look at how big their research team is, and you sort of have this vision that it's like a whole floor of like people with lab coats like looking through microscopes and like doing science experiments.
[01:59:49]  It's not.
[01:59:50]  There's like billion dollar companies that maybe have like three people doing research.
[01:59:53]  Hilarious.
[01:59:54]  And even like companies like Nike, it's not like they have thousands of engineers doing research.
[01:59:59]  Right, right.
[01:59:59]  Because each one of those people is a few hundred thousand dollars a year.
[02:00:02]  It's a few things.
[02:00:03]  And it's hard to predict when they're going to innovate with research.
[02:00:07]  So it's like there's actually not that much money in these kind of things.
[02:00:13]  So there's not like thousands and thousands of people studying these things.
[02:00:17]  There's a bunch of people trying to make a living that are progressing the ball a little bit forward with a very limited and compromised agenda towards where they're getting paid.
[02:00:26]  Everyone has the biases of their industry.
[02:00:29]  If you're in academia, you're biased towards making sort of clean data that's presentable within the arbitrary limits of your vertical or your field.
[02:00:38]  And if you're working for a fishing company, it's really about sort of production.
[02:00:42]  And if you have some nice sort of environmental or sustainable byproduct from that, that'll be a great marketing push that we feel better about.
[02:00:49]  So it's like, you know, you weirdly need legislation to create financial incentive in research.
[02:00:59]  Like if the legislation comes out and says straws are illegal, oh, there's going to be some financial incentive to make a new fucking straw.

=== Legislation Driving Innovation (02:56) ===

[02:01:06]  Right.
[02:01:06]  Because we're going to want to drink out of something.
[02:01:08]  And a company is going to step up and fill that void.
[02:01:10]  But if you don't get uniform legislation, you're basically just hurting the American fisherman or the European fishermen and then helping out the fishermen anywhere else in the world that refuse to have any legislation.
[02:01:24]  Here's the challenge with the legislation thing.
[02:01:26]  And I don't like being like anti-legislation or pro-legislation.
[02:01:29]  Is I think that we have to have a trial run for these types of legislations.
[02:01:33]  To see if they work because there's a lot of unintended consequences.
[02:01:37]  And you're not an idiot if you don't predict every eventuality from something as complex as an ecological system that has to interface with a legal system.
[02:01:45]  That's hard and complicated.
[02:01:46]  Yeah, that's it.
[02:01:47]  So what we should do with the straws is being like, okay, we all agreed that the goal of less straws in the ocean would be nice.
[02:01:53]  We also think that it's actually proportionately, it's only this part, much of the problem.
[02:01:56]  Yeah, so let's try this for one year.
[02:01:59]  If we see a reduction in the straws, the law continues.
[02:02:02]  If it doesn't, we get rid of it.
[02:02:04]  It goes back to the way it was.
[02:02:05]  And that way there's an automatic provision for that.
[02:02:09]  What's problematic is when we keep stacking things that didn't work on top of each other.
[02:02:13]  And then to get anything launched as a new product or a building or something like that, there's all this bureaucracy and stuff that you have to go through, which is all fine if it's all effective.
[02:02:23]  But we should just have like a trial period for these types of regulations.
[02:02:26]  So we should say, hey, let's try a $1 deposit on straws and plastic bags.
[02:02:31]  Let's see if that keeps them from floating around parking lots and oceans.
[02:02:35]  I like that not only for environmentally friendly legislation, but like we could do that with cops.
[02:02:41]  Why don't we do it with everything?
[02:02:43]  This idea that you have a trial period for any change and then you just share data.
[02:02:50]  Like, for example, if you have, what is it called?
[02:02:52]  The you know, cop cams.
[02:02:54]  What were they called?
[02:02:55]  Oh, the body cams.
[02:02:56]  Yeah, if you have body cams on every cop, right?
[02:02:58]  You keep them on.
[02:03:00]  And if we find out 12 months later, there was a 20% reduction in police shootings, not just black people, but just in general, right?
[02:03:06]  Without any reduction in the amount of people who had warrants out for their arrests or whatever, solved, right?
[02:03:14]  We need to put these things in beta.
[02:03:16]  So you remember how, like, every beta.
[02:03:18]  What's the beta version of this?
[02:03:20]  100%.
[02:03:21]  So that's the clever things that remember, like, but just if it's the point, but like, I guess what I'm trying to say is if we came back and shared the data, like, yo, there was this reduction for this change, and the cops come back and go, like, yeah, at first it was kind of annoying, but it didn't really change the way I police.
[02:03:33]  And if 20% less people are getting shot by us, that makes us look better.
[02:03:36]  And then if after a year the opposite happened, like there was an increase, we could go, hey, the body cams aren't the issue.
[02:03:41]  Let's throw it out.
[02:03:42]  But we try to make these declarations and make these, like, chisel them in stone.
[02:03:46]  And of course, you're going to have all this pushback because they're in a wiggle room.
[02:03:49]  I think the most empowering thing a leader could do is just say they don't know about things they clearly can't know.
[02:03:57]  So I really like that.
[02:03:59]  Did you read that Adam Grant book, The Think Again?
[02:04:01]  He sent it.

=== Public Mistakes on YouTube (11:41) ===

[02:04:02]  I didn't read it.
[02:04:02]  Yeah, you didn't.
[02:04:03]  Good book.
[02:04:04]  I'll tell you about it later.
[02:04:07]  Sorry, Adam.
[02:04:08]  Thank you, though.
[02:04:08]  So he talked about it's not necessarily how quick you are to come up with an answer.
[02:04:12]  It's often how quick you are to change your answer when your answer is clearly wrong.
[02:04:16]  Yeah.
[02:04:16]  So he brings up the example of like Steve Jobs versus the Blackberry guy.
[02:04:20]  Remember Blackberries?
[02:04:21]  Blackberries were kind of lit for a bit.
[02:04:23]  Obama refused to get rid of the Blackberry.
[02:04:25]  Right.
[02:04:25]  And it's like the guy that created the BlackBerry was an engineer, really smart.
[02:04:30]  He was much more on the actual inventor side.
[02:04:32]  He figured all these things, had a bunch of patents to his name.
[02:04:35]  He was really in the weeds technologically.
[02:04:38]  He thought that his early success in creating this popular device made him too married to the beliefs about the sort of what made the device successful.
[02:04:50]  Whereas Steve Jobs always said, I'm not going to do a phone.
[02:04:52]  I'm not going to do a phone.
[02:04:53]  Phones are stupid.
[02:04:54]  I don't want to do a phone.
[02:04:55]  Don't want to do a phone.
[02:04:56]  He let himself be convinced by his younger employees that phones were going to be this really important thing in the future.
[02:05:02]  So it wasn't that Steve Jobs always had the vision right, it was that he was willing to be wrong and change.
[02:05:09]  And I think the same things with that.
[02:05:11]  If we ask our politicians, hey, always be right, never flip-flop, never change your mind, then we get exactly the political climate and world we deserve.
[02:05:22]  If we encourage the people to be like, this is a really complex, challenging issue.
[02:05:27]  I want to try this.
[02:05:28]  We're going to try it for this period of time.
[02:05:30]  If this happens, we'll keep doing it.
[02:05:33]  If this doesn't happen, I was wrong and we'll move on and try the next thing at this really big problem that we all agree is important.
[02:05:39]  This seems like a no-brainer.
[02:05:41]  I mean, this seems like a no-brainer.
[02:05:43]  I'm shocked that we don't do this already.
[02:05:44]  It's hard to be wrong publicly.
[02:05:46]  It really is.
[02:05:48]  Yeah, I can see that, especially if your career is based on whether you're right or wrong in the decisions you make and the legislation that you're doing.
[02:05:54]  Yeah, Netflix is done.
[02:05:55]  Netflix is done, dude.
[02:05:57]  Yeah.
[02:05:58]  I think you actually might end up being right about that just prematurely.
[02:06:01]  Really?
[02:06:01]  Well, I think your thesis before I do another special Netflix is great.
[02:06:07]  First of all, but one, I think when they so much of their power was being like a first adopter, and we look at like how much ground Disney Plus, Disney Plus is kicking ass.
[02:06:19]  Yeah, but it's not affecting culture yet.
[02:06:22]  It's still yet to get a stronghold.
[02:06:25]  Like The Mandalorian was the closest thing they had to a show that people cared about and people didn't even really care about.
[02:06:31]  They still need a Game of Thrones.
[02:06:33]  They still need something that's going to just take over the world.
[02:06:36]  Like Tiger King took over the world for a second.
[02:06:39]  And until Disney or any streaming platform has that, they just can't be in a conversation.
[02:06:44]  They're dominating young people.
[02:06:46]  If you own the IP that young people grow up with, you're eventually going to win.
[02:06:50]  Yeah.
[02:06:51]  I hear what you're saying.
[02:06:52]  So it's like, it's, I get it from, like, I'll watch like The Mandalorian, but I don't watch a lot of shows on Disney Plus.
[02:07:00]  I watch way more stuff on HBO and Netflix.
[02:07:02]  Yeah.
[02:07:03]  But when I talk to my friends that have kids, it's like Disney Plus is their babysitter.
[02:07:08]  Yeah, of course.
[02:07:08]  And if those kids get, it's like why, like, we're never, you know what Roblox is?
[02:07:14]  Roblox?
[02:07:15]  It's like Minecraft, but interactive.
[02:07:17]  It's like the YouTube.
[02:07:18]  It's like a platform that lets you sort of make video games on top of this basic infrastructure that's very similar to Minecraft.
[02:07:24]  They just had an IPO and they're blowing up.
[02:07:26]  It's something like 50% of kids under the age of 16 have logged into it in the last three days.
[02:07:33]  We don't know anything about it.
[02:07:35]  I invested in the stock because I heard it was a good idea.
[02:07:37]  That was about it, right?
[02:07:38]  So the future is going to be like things like that.
[02:07:42]  We're not the future.
[02:07:43]  We're the present.
[02:07:45]  But we still got a few years to write out and all sorts of fun.
[02:07:50]  And so when I look at like a Netflix, I think your prediction has a really good chance of being right.
[02:07:59]  Just slower than what you actually sort of predicted.
[02:08:02]  Because I still think YouTube gets content for free that gets more views than a lot of shows on Netflix.
[02:08:07]  Yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable what YouTube is doing.
[02:08:09]  YouTube owns the pipeline of like young aspirational talent.
[02:08:13]  YouTube's issue is they're terrified of taking responsibility for content because of what happened with the advertisements going on the ISIS beheading videos.
[02:08:23]  Yeah.
[02:08:24]  That's just good capitalism at work.
[02:08:27]  How so?
[02:08:28]  Well, it's like they're there to make money.
[02:08:31]  They're ad-supported media.
[02:08:33]  You're not paying for YouTube unless you're getting the ad-free version.
[02:08:36]  Oh, I thought you said putting the ads on the ISIS beheading videos was good capitalism at work.
[02:08:41]  No, but getting rid of stuff.
[02:08:43]  Yeah, no, no, no.
[02:08:44]  I think what they're doing is smart.
[02:08:45]  What I'm saying is if they wanted to make a dent in like the paid streaming platform, if they want to take something away from Netflix or Disney, what they've got to do is they got to buy those big shows.
[02:08:56]  And when I made that prediction, I was like, okay, they got an unlimited bank account.
[02:08:59]  So they're going to buy the next Game of Thrones.
[02:09:01]  They're going to buy these next things.
[02:09:03]  And then they're going to be making their own content and having the platform where we're watching all of our stuff anyway.
[02:09:07]  And then all of a sudden, there's no reason to have anything else.
[02:09:10]  They got some pushback for anything they put their brand behind because they're servicing the whole world.
[02:09:15]  So if you're servicing the whole world, how dare you put out a show where a woman is being assaulted, et cetera.
[02:09:21]  And they basically said, it's not worth us for us to take this heat.
[02:09:25]  We don't even want to be criticized for our year-end wrap-ups.
[02:09:28]  You remember when they would do that year and wrap-up and everybody's like, this is horrible.
[02:09:31]  Don't do it anymore.
[02:09:32]  So they are just trying to be hands-off.
[02:09:34]  And if you're going to be hands-off, you're not going to win.
[02:09:36]  Whether Netflix or Disney, I don't know.
[02:09:40]  I don't know.
[02:09:41]  I'm curious about it.
[02:09:42]  Yeah.
[02:09:43]  I think it's this way, right?
[02:09:45]  I think Amazon is going to be a big player.
[02:09:47]  I think a lot of people are underestimating that.
[02:09:49]  Netflix makes.
[02:09:51]  So all these when, when they're bidding for the next Game Of Thrones and I think it's gonna be like the Wheel Of Time and they're basically taking every epic fantasy book and gonna be turning it into a show, shout out to fantasy writers like yeah, you're cashing it.
[02:10:02]  Hey there nerds, it took a while.
[02:10:05]  Push through all those like sword and sandals.
[02:10:08]  Uh, posters on your wall are finally paying off.
[02:10:10]  Yeah, but they're making like a hundred million dollar bets on these like shows.
[02:10:14]  They're really expensive to produce.
[02:10:16]  Yeah, YouTube doesn't have to bet anything.
[02:10:19]  They just have to like let all these young, hungry people.
[02:10:22]  So it's like.
[02:10:23]  It's like our boy, Mike from Modern Builds.
[02:10:25]  I think he's like the prototypical youtuber and I actually think he's like a great example for, like your audience in particular to kind of like aspire to.
[02:10:32]  Yeah, Mike has a channel like 1.5 million subscribers, really good sized channel.
[02:10:38]  He makes about $500,000 a year right, 25.
[02:10:41]  Yeah, didn't go to a college dropout, didn't study.
[02:10:44]  What he's doing works really hard.
[02:10:47]  Yeah, worked probably for the last five years, seven days a week, 70 hours a week um, and is crushing it, and he's built like a really amazing business for himself at the age that a lot of people with more academic credentials are just getting out of grad school.
[02:11:01]  Yeah, and now he's got a ton of money in the bank.
[02:11:03]  Yeah, he's like on an upward trajectory, audience is only getting bigger and he's not doing entertainment, he's doing instruction.
[02:11:09]  It's like not everyone, I think, that watches you, feels like they could be a comedian, because it takes a certain kind of personality type charisma, stuff like that.
[02:11:17]  Right, but there's a lot of like hvac technicians plumbers, up drivers contractors builders, engineers that could do what Mike's doing, where you're just displaying competency in a very blue collar way.
[02:11:31]  And there's a lot of people that just want to watch informative things about practical things.
[02:11:36]  Yeah, so I think that's why sort of Youtube has a lot of strength, where Mike has different watching.
[02:11:42]  Yeah, there is a huge appetite for what Mike does, what you do, what I do.
[02:11:49]  There's also a huge appetite for Game Of Thrones.
[02:11:51]  Yeah, and those things can coexist.
[02:11:54]  I don't think one has to have both.
[02:11:56]  I don't think Netflix can take on us, because you kind of need you almost need there to be like a thousand creators for us to exist.
[02:12:05]  Yes, you know what i'm saying.
[02:12:07]  There needs to be a tournament.
[02:12:08]  Yeah, there needs to be a Tournament Of Champions, a tournament that's algorithmically decided.
[02:12:13]  Yeah 100, I mean, that's what youtube is.
[02:12:15]  It's a constant like ecosystem, termite hill, swarm of ants all competing to get attention, and that's why we do the crazy thumbnails and we trial and error and test different ways of titles and yeah like, how often do you like, how much time do you guys spend figuring out, like titles and thumbnails of clips?
[02:12:34]  So it's like a, it's a considerable yeah, an hour after an episode right, so if we record for two hours, you do it while it's fresh.
[02:12:40]  We, an hour afterwards, we're probably thinking about what the title and thumbnail could be and the and the cleverness is it's, it's a needle mover that could affect performance like 20 to 30 percent conservatively, or even drive something up if you really nail it really high.
[02:12:53]  Yeah, and what we don't even realize is that we're evolutionarily conditioned.
[02:12:58]  This algorithm's teaching us.
[02:13:00]  It's like yeah, it's teaching us how to behave in a way that fits that particular platform and that thumbnails that look like this work because they're this many pixels at the corner of the screen.
[02:13:09]  It's funny to watch youtubers like find their niche.
[02:13:12]  Yeah like, there are certain youtubers that you'll see, like found what they, what resonates with their audience and then they're basically just kind of like replicating it in different ways.
[02:13:23]  You know, and uh, it's also a Youtube trap you can fall into right.
[02:13:27]  People go on runs, they get high yeah yeah yeah, and you'll see someone just like blow up over like six to eight months and then that person's at conferences being like here's the five best ways to do it.
[02:13:37]  And then Youtube's like oh, that's cute, and they change one thing in the algorithm and like, and then it's like, but then they come back, they figure it out again.
[02:13:42]  They go through that iteration, evolutionary process, figure out what works and then capitalize on it.
[02:13:47]  Yeah, but yeah, I think, like it's hard to bet against Youtube as a platform.
[02:13:52]  I mean it's it's, I wouldn't.
[02:13:54]  Yeah I, I wouldn't.
[02:13:55]  I mean I see it as a more effective search platform than um, than Google in a lot of ways.
[02:14:01]  Like, often when I want to learn something, i'm not googling it.
[02:14:04]  I used to google it.
[02:14:05]  Now I youtube it and I watch some asshole explain it to me in his living room.
[02:14:09]  Yeah, and that's way more effective for me to learn from.
[02:14:12]  I can do that while i'm biking to work.
[02:14:14]  I can do that while i'm maybe texting somebody else, like I can just have that like we were talking about that like secondary learning experience and um yeah, it's just I, I love it, but I think it has to be something that coexists with fantasy, coexists.
[02:14:28]  Well, it could be sports we could have sports on there, right but we're always going to want fantasy.
[02:14:32]  Yeah, we're always going to want like a big epic, mission impossible type movie, and those things are going to have to happen until those get really cheap to make, and it will happen in our lifetime.
[02:14:41]  In our lifetime, there will be guys like us diying Game Of Thrones right, it's like Cgi gets better and better like.
[02:14:48]  I saw somebody they made like a.
[02:14:49]  It was like a fake Pokeman movie trailer, but it looked like and it looked like real animals like fighting.
[02:14:56]  I'm like.
[02:14:57]  It was like nature is metal like, but Pokeman like that's kind of.
[02:15:02]  It's kind of dark.
[02:15:03]  That's gonna happen, though.
[02:15:04]  That's gonna happen.
[02:15:04]  I mean, that's why we're here, because cameras got cheap, editing equipment got cheap yeah yeah, and the difference is like it's so funny and it's like the.
[02:15:12]  The answer for tv production companies isn't to also take advantage of the cheapness.
[02:15:17]  It's like let's spend even more money on a smaller advantage.
[02:15:21]  Yes, that's what we separate.
[02:15:23]  That's what ESPN did.
[02:15:24]  Oh, Barstool's starting to catch up on us.
[02:15:26]  Yeah, let's build a 10 million dollar set that'll make Sports Center pop.
[02:15:30]  Yeah, it's like really, what they should have done is more talent, more creativity cheaper, more shows flood the market.
[02:15:37]  Yeah, they did the exact worst thing.
[02:15:39]  Oftentimes, people make the worst decisions.
[02:15:41]  Benueda um, you're the man you know.

=== Shipping Container Housing (15:17) ===

[02:15:44]  I love you.
[02:15:45]  We're grateful for everything you've done to help us and uh, i'm so glad that we got to introduce you to the audience.
[02:15:51]  You know uh, go check out Ben Ben.
[02:15:53]  Where can they check you out?
[02:15:54]  Just give them all the platforms, instagram, Benjamin Ueda, check it out.
[02:15:58]  That's where I build stuff and post stuff, and if I do anything where i'm talking lectures, stuff like that, I normally link off of that.
[02:16:04]  So check it out.
[02:16:04]  Go check him out on instagram.
[02:16:06]  He's got amazing stuff.
[02:16:07]  I mean, like it's, it's weird, like you live a double life to me Yeah.
[02:16:13]  You're like, okay.
[02:16:17]  You're like either Superman or Batman.
[02:16:20]  I'm deciding which one.
[02:16:22]  Like you're this like genius that's masquerading as a table builder.
[02:16:27]  You're kind of like Jesus.
[02:16:29]  No.
[02:16:32]  You're like Jesus, Benjamin Uyeda.
[02:16:35]  You might be like Jesus.
[02:16:36]  I like building stuff.
[02:16:38]  It's relaxing to me.
[02:16:39]  Like it's something where it uses just enough of my brain, but a lot of my body, and it feels active.
[02:16:45]  It feels productive.
[02:16:46]  It feels like I'm adding something to the world.
[02:16:48]  We should have done this in the beginning of the episode, but maybe it's kind of cool to do it reverse.
[02:16:53]  Yeah.
[02:16:53]  As many of us, I mean, we're here probably because we reverse engineered careers.
[02:16:57]  We reversed a lot of different things.
[02:16:58]  So maybe we'll end this episode with how you fucking got here.
[02:17:01]  You go to school.
[02:17:02]  Where'd you go, Penn?
[02:17:03]  Cornell.
[02:17:04]  You went to Cornell.
[02:17:05]  Okay.
[02:17:05]  Ivy, but almost not.
[02:17:07]  Yeah.
[02:17:07]  It's like the blue collar Ivy.
[02:17:08]  Like we have a hotel school and we have a really good architecture program.
[02:17:12]  So you go to Cornell, you study architecture.
[02:17:16]  Yes.
[02:17:17]  Okay.
[02:17:18]  You start a tech business.
[02:17:20]  Start an architecture company and then a tech company.
[02:17:22]  Okay.
[02:17:22]  So you start the architecture company first.
[02:17:24]  Yes.
[02:17:24]  Tech company.
[02:17:25]  Yeah.
[02:17:26]  You go back to school?
[02:17:27]  No.
[02:17:27]  I did my undergrad and grad all at one time.
[02:17:30]  You motherfucker.
[02:17:31]  So basically, I didn't start college till I was 21.
[02:17:34]  I was a 21-year-old college freshman.
[02:17:36]  Neither one of my parents went to college.
[02:17:38]  They never said take the SATs.
[02:17:40]  I had no idea whether or not I'd be good at school.
[02:17:42]  So I ended up going to community college.
[02:17:45]  Yeah.
[02:17:45]  And I promise you he's Asian.
[02:17:48]  I promise you.
[02:17:48]  Yeah.
[02:17:49]  But I'm also half white.
[02:17:50]  So, you know, and that is a dominant fucking gene when it comes to your academics.
[02:17:54]  Yes.
[02:17:55]  So I took the SATs when I was like 20.
[02:17:58]  Hilarion.
[02:17:59]  Did really well on them.
[02:18:00]  Yeah.
[02:18:00]  Didn't know I need to have a calculator.
[02:18:02]  And one of my teachers at community college was like, you can kind of go wherever you want.
[02:18:07]  And that's when I was like, all right.
[02:18:09]  But it actually ended up being kind of a blessing to get a late start because while everyone else is throwing up in their first year of college and figuring out how to like drink and live on their own, I'd already been working like a sort of adult.
[02:18:20]  And so I was like, oh, college is expensive and I was paying for it.
[02:18:24]  Like I'm going to, the more credits I take per semester, the less I spend on housing and those kind of things.
[02:18:31]  And I'm like, I don't need to fuck around and figure out how to join a fraternity and all that kind of stuff.
[02:18:36]  So I was just like, I'm going to get my money's worth out of this.
[02:18:41]  So blasted right through college, really fell in love with design and then actually stayed on and became part of the faculty.
[02:18:47]  So I didn't start college till I was 21, but I was an Ivy League, I guess not a professor, but a visiting lecturer.
[02:18:52]  Same thing.
[02:18:53]  Basically, you're the one teaching and leading and creating the classes by the time I was 27.
[02:18:58]  Then I started a sustainable architecture firm, Zero Energy Design.
[02:19:01]  We leveraged a bunch of new technology and 3D modeling to kind of get ahead.
[02:19:07]  And then I thought, okay, I'm pretty clever.
[02:19:09]  And in like 2006, you could kind of raise money for a tech startup pretty easy.
[02:19:14]  It was like, there's been these booms.
[02:19:16]  And I'm like, all right, I have this idea.
[02:19:18]  I'm going to make architecture free because that's what everybody's doing with the internet.
[02:19:23]  They're taking something that was paid, made it free, blow up and things.
[02:19:27]  So it worked.
[02:19:28]  I went out and I gave a PowerPoint presentation.
[02:19:30]  We won this all Ivy League sort of business plan competition and we got an investment of over a million dollars.
[02:19:37]  I was like, wait, you can do a PowerPoint and people give you a million dollars?
[02:19:41]  Like, and I thought I was so fucking smart.
[02:19:45]  Yeah, yeah.
[02:19:46]  I was just like cocky.
[02:19:47]  I was just like, oh, you know, it just changed the way I talk.
[02:19:50]  I started using all these like tech bro jargons because I was experimenting in this place.
[02:19:55]  I got rewarded for those experiments and it reinforced this kind of like arrogant, kind of tech douchey behavior.
[02:20:02]  Then 2008 happens and our business model was to sell advertising in the construction industry.
[02:20:10]  What happened to construction budgets?
[02:20:12]  They went to nothing.
[02:20:14]  What happened to advertising?
[02:20:15]  They went to less than nothing.
[02:20:17]  And not only that, the fund that was investing in us because we were a sustainability forward business, they were invested in all the U.S. solar and sustainability companies, which all evaporated.
[02:20:28]  The fund went under.
[02:20:28]  We were owed another half of the money of the million that we were promised, but the fund went under, so they couldn't give us the rest of the money.
[02:20:36]  We had to lay off people.
[02:20:37]  And it was a great lesson because what I learned was, I'm not as smart as I think I was.
[02:20:43]  Or success isn't an indicator of how smart you are.
[02:20:46]  Yeah.
[02:20:47]  Yeah.
[02:20:47]  It's partially that.
[02:20:49]  And my ideas weren't bad, but they also weren't as great as the results too.
[02:20:55]  And I was like, okay, this is humbling.
[02:20:58]  But fundamentally, what I learned is that the idea that I had, which was to, I loved architecture.
[02:21:04]  I love designing things.
[02:21:06]  But when you have to monetize design as a service, that means you're only making it available to people that can pay for custom services.
[02:21:13]  And so the more successful I got as an architect designing sustainable houses, the richer my clients got.
[02:21:19]  So I was designing like five to $10 million sustainable homes.
[02:21:22]  Congratulations to those really rich people that have a second or third home that uses less carbon.
[02:21:27]  Doing absolutely fucking nothing for the environment.
[02:21:30]  At the same time, I'm winning environmental rewards.
[02:21:33]  And that hypocrisy drove me fucking crazy because it's like driving a hydrogen-powered escalade and being like, I'm not flexing with these spinners, but like my fuel source is actually really clean.
[02:21:45]  And meanwhile, you have fucking eight gas-powered cars in your garage as well.
[02:21:49]  It's complete bullshit.
[02:21:51]  But at the same time, you kind of, you're not doing that to be a fraud.
[02:21:55]  You're doing that because you're kind of just like pushed into things.
[02:21:57]  You're like, oh, I care about sustainability.
[02:21:59]  These are the people paying to me.
[02:22:00]  And then you try to justify what you're being forced into.
[02:22:04]  And that's why when people call people frauds, I'm always like, are they frauds or are they just like victims of like the pressures that they're kind of pushed into?
[02:22:11]  Now they're fraudulent if they oversell their actual good that they're doing, but they're not necessarily terrible people for making compromised choices as we all have to.
[02:22:20]  You don't have to be terrible to be a fraud.
[02:22:22]  No.
[02:22:22]  I don't think all frauds are terrible, but I think you can be a fraud as long as you're aware of what you're doing.
[02:22:29]  Yeah.
[02:22:29]  So the thing I learned.
[02:22:30]  Self-awareness that makes you a fraud.
[02:22:31]  Yes.
[02:22:32]  The thing I learned with the tech company that I ended up is what I sort of, the thing that I pulled from that failure was that I could design, I could give away my design ideas for free.
[02:22:42]  I didn't have to charge people.
[02:22:44]  So if I produced design as media content and then monetized it through marketing, I could not, I didn't have to charge people to access my ideas.
[02:22:52]  And that was really fun.
[02:22:53]  That felt like it opened up this kind of, it unlocked this whole way of reaching people is that now I can design affordable things, whereas before I had to only design expensive things.
[02:23:02]  And I actually got, I think like, I always thought Gmail was such an impressive thing.
[02:23:06]  I know like multi-millionaires that uses Gmail.
[02:23:09]  I know people like Mark that use Gmail.
[02:23:12]  Like it's like the one product is great for rich people and it's great for everyone else.
[02:23:16]  It's in and out.
[02:23:17]  So it's like, can I do that with like design?
[02:23:19]  So I started making YouTube videos and they sort of took off and I started by building like little things like coffee tables and just like fun DIY projects that would look nicer than store-bought furniture and be way cheaper.
[02:23:33]  And then slowly scaled that all the way up to bigger and bigger projects because now we're building spiral staircases with robots.
[02:23:40]  We're still building the cheap and easy stuff.
[02:23:41]  We're building shipping container houses.
[02:23:43]  We're recycling windmill blades.
[02:23:45]  Yeah.
[02:23:45]  And I want to get into that.
[02:23:46]  I said, but with the same idea, right?
[02:23:48]  Is you're going to give away the architecture.
[02:23:50]  You're going to give away the design and then you'll monetize the advertising on giving that away.
[02:23:53]  You're telling people how to make these things.
[02:23:55]  You're not saying I want you to buy the chair from me.
[02:23:57]  You're saying, this is how you make the chair yourself.
[02:23:59]  And I'm going to do an advertisement with Home Depot and get all my material with Home Depot.
[02:24:02]  Like to me, you like broke the advertisement.
[02:24:05]  When we first sat down, you shattered the mold.
[02:24:08]  You're like, it was just such a great idea to basically get the people who provide the materials that you're going to use for the video to pay you instead of the consumer.
[02:24:18]  Right.
[02:24:18]  And it actually benefits Home Depot, whoever else is providing it, because those people that want to make your chair are going to have to go to Home Depot Depot.
[02:24:27]  You know how when you get like a new sponsor, they're always like, here's the call to action.
[02:24:30]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:24:31]  I made it.
[02:24:32]  Right.
[02:24:33]  I made it for you.
[02:24:34]  And then the whole video is the call to action.
[02:24:36]  And then you said this to me.
[02:24:38]  This is what I thought was brilliant.
[02:24:39]  You said that the, was it Home and Garden Network or one of these like HETV, yeah?
[02:24:44]  Because HETV, Home Devo might spend half a million dollars on a TV advertisement on a show on home and garden TV.
[02:24:52]  It costs 80,000 to make.
[02:24:54]  The show itself costs 80,000 to make.
[02:24:56]  Right.
[02:24:57]  So if you tell Home Depot, yo, hit me off with, I don't know what the fuck you get.
[02:25:01]  We're just going to put an arbitrary number out there.
[02:25:02]  Hey, give me $50,000.
[02:25:04]  I'll give you the show, the advertisement.
[02:25:08]  I'll give you the whole thing.
[02:25:09]  And then you use Facebook, whatever the fuck you want to put those ads out there in the world.
[02:25:14]  They saved $450,000 and got to target the exact people that you want with an influencer.
[02:25:19]  So that's what we did with the shipping container house.
[02:25:21]  Fucking brilliant.
[02:25:22]  Is we originally pitched it to Netflix.
[02:25:24]  Oh, sorry.
[02:25:24]  So then you went from making these, you making these small projects and you start building up.
[02:25:28]  Right.
[02:25:28]  You do furniture, then you start going into bigger sort of home improvement, home remodeling, like remodeling a whole bathroom, building out an entire kitchen.
[02:25:40]  And then from there, we started using robots and 3D printers.
[02:25:43]  And when do you get into the container?
[02:25:45]  That was in 2018.
[02:25:47]  The container thing is so brilliant because I think like for tax reasons.
[02:25:51]  Yeah, there's some tax advantages for the depreciation thing.
[02:25:54]  It's complex, but if you have a lot of passive income, look into like industrial assets and buying them and talk to a tax attorney about how you can use it to offset your passive income.
[02:26:04]  Anyway.
[02:26:05]  But I was interested in that because when I look for content ideas, I look at one, what's popular.
[02:26:11]  You can look for what's popular by what people are searching for.
[02:26:14]  But that's just one end of the economic spectrum.
[02:26:16]  Yeah.
[02:26:17]  Supply is the other aspect of on the other side of the coin of demand.
[02:26:21]  So I'll look for things like, oh, there's a lot of people searching for shipping container housing content.
[02:26:26]  Like, could these be affordable housing?
[02:26:27]  Could this be a solution for my little tiny house cabin that I want?
[02:26:31]  And there's a number of people.
[02:26:31]  And there wasn't a lot of supply showing good information.
[02:26:34]  It's like a few guys in Australia that like built them with charming accents.
[02:26:38]  Consider this creators if you're a creator and you're watching.
[02:26:41]  Like if you're making the same type of content that a thousand other creators are making, that's a lot of competition.
[02:26:47]  Right.
[02:26:47]  But if there's a lot of desire, which is what Ben was saying, there's a lot of desire for a certain type of content and not a lot of people making it.
[02:26:54]  Right.
[02:26:55]  That's how you get to the top of the end.
[02:26:56]  If there's proportionately more vegans than vegan restaurants, vegan restaurants are a better investment, even if veganism isn't more popular than conventional eating.
[02:27:05]  And so that's what we saw with sort of the shipping container house thing.
[02:27:08]  So we pitched it to Netflix and Amazon being like, hey, we want to do like this whole series, pitch it to HGTV.
[02:27:14]  HTTV was the most interested.
[02:27:15]  And they said, well, you'd have to build a house an episode.
[02:27:18]  And we're like, no, no, no.
[02:27:19]  People want to know the details.
[02:27:21]  They want to, how do you get building permits?
[02:27:22]  How do you do septic?
[02:27:24]  When you flush a toilet, where does it go?
[02:27:25]  How do you insulate it?
[02:27:26]  And you can't tell that in one episode.
[02:27:28]  So we stuck to our guns and we said, we'll do it on YouTube.
[02:27:31]  We got Home Depot to sort of underwrite it, provide all the materials for it.
[02:27:34]  So we built an entire shipping container house all out of stuff from Home Depot.
[02:27:38]  We built the whole thing for under $200,000 in California, expensive place to build.
[02:27:43]  Showed every step of the process.
[02:27:45]  And then we rented it on Airbnb for like $6,000 to $7,000 a month and then ended up selling it for $385,000.
[02:27:51]  Amazing.
[02:27:51]  And that's what's really fun is that we can tell you the numbers too.
[02:27:54]  We don't have to be like, oh, yeah, it's all smoke and mirrors.
[02:27:58]  We'll show you the receipts.
[02:27:59]  It's much more fun and interesting that way.
[02:28:02]  Series blows up.
[02:28:03]  Yeah.
[02:28:04]  We did.
[02:28:04]  So the average HGTV show, I think, does about 800,000 views per episode.
[02:28:08]  Yeah, we did about 2 million views per episode, and we launched it on a new channel.
[02:28:12]  Yeah, that's right.
[02:28:13]  You had no followers.
[02:28:14]  Zero subscribers.
[02:28:15]  Went from zero to like 370 subscribers and averaged about 2 million views an episode.
[02:28:20]  And that was where we're sort of like, and that's why I still think like YouTube is such an interesting platform.
[02:28:25]  That's just great.
[02:28:26]  You don't have to wait for the permission.
[02:28:28]  Like, we're in talks now again with the platform.
[02:28:31]  So you still always got to entertain your options, but it still comes down to you're going to have to spend six months of back and forth negotiating, figuring it out, detailing it.
[02:28:40]  But now they're on your timeline.
[02:28:41]  Yeah.
[02:28:42]  And now they know that you don't need to go with them.
[02:28:44]  Right.
[02:28:45]  Because you can create yourself and you can monetize yourself and you have the proof.
[02:28:48]  You can start an entirely new channel and you have confidence that you can build it up.
[02:28:51]  Right.
[02:28:52]  It's a completely different game right now.
[02:28:53]  So if you want to take the bag from them, by all means, take the bag.
[02:28:56]  And there is value to being validated by them.
[02:28:59]  But you don't have to wait for them.
[02:29:01]  You can constantly strengthen.
[02:29:02]  And this is what I always do.
[02:29:03]  Build, build, build.
[02:29:04]  And when they're ready to take the shot, never stop moving even as you're waiting for them to sort of come around to you.
[02:29:10]  Exactly.
[02:29:10]  Like just constantly reinforce and strengthen your position.
[02:29:14]  Yeah.
[02:29:14]  So I always liked it when like eBay first happened, eBay is like so early internet.
[02:29:18]  I saw this story of this guy that he started with like a paperclip and then he traded it for like a cigarette lighter and created a cigarette lighter for like a stapler all the way up to a car and then to a house.
[02:29:27]  You can do the same thing like that with your career and content.
[02:29:31]  Yeah.
[02:29:31]  Is you can start with what you can do right in front of you, make some content, get a little audience, do a little bit of a bigger project, keep growing and trickle it up.
[02:29:39]  And it's funny, in like six years, we went from making coffee tables to whole houses and now we're like recycling 30 foot long windmill blades and building hotels.
[02:29:48]  That's the cool thing that I think that if people look at your journey, they can learn how to scale up on social media.
[02:29:59]  Like if you go from your first video to where you are now, and I don't even know if you started making videos for the projects you're working on now.
[02:30:05]  Like, have you?
[02:30:06]  Have you started telling people about this?
[02:30:07]  Can we talk about the home?
[02:30:09]  Yeah.
[02:30:09]  We're in the permitting process.
[02:30:10]  We haven't released a lot of visuals, but it's a direct extension of the container house.
[02:30:15]  Exactly.
[02:30:16]  So you go from a table to some chairs.
[02:30:20]  Now you have a kitchen.
[02:30:22]  Now you have a living room.
[02:30:23]  Now you have a house, but you're doing a container house.
[02:30:25]  Now you have multiple of them and you sell it as a container community.
[02:30:28]  Now you're building these hotels and you're doing the exact same thing, just scaling up along the way.
[02:30:35]  And now you're this concept is really cool where you're saying that people want an experience in their hotel.
[02:30:43]  So instead of going to a hotel that's in a city because they want the experience of the city, they go to a hotel that's out of the city that has nature that's valuable.
[02:30:53]  Amon Geary is a perfect example.
[02:30:55]  It's fucking exploded if you guys don't know what it is.
[02:30:57]  Fucking expensive.
[02:30:58]  A dog.
[02:30:59]  It is $3,000 a night.
[02:31:00]  Three to five from three to five thousand dollars a night.

=== Glamping Investment Trends (04:47) ===

[02:31:02]  I mean beautiful.
[02:31:03]  Check it out on Instagram.
[02:31:04]  Stunning.
[02:31:04]  It is absolutely Amon Geary.
[02:31:06]  The Kardashian Jenners went there.
[02:31:08]  And I think after that, it was to the moon.
[02:31:10]  So, but like you're now you're buying actual land that you're building these hotel experiences onto.
[02:31:19]  It's just a really cool thing to watch happen, you know?
[02:31:22]  And that you can see the whole journey through.
[02:31:24]  What we started seeing is that like when Instagram started taking off, we started watching me and my sort of group of they're kind of like people that I occasionally invest in projects with partners.
[02:31:35]  They're not really like direct employees or co-workers, but we like we partner on things and we just sort of stay interested, share ideas.
[02:31:42]  Yeah.
[02:31:43]  Kind of a group chat type business relationship.
[02:31:46]  Yeah.
[02:31:46]  And what we saw that was interesting, and we always just have this thing where if you see something that you're not sure what to do with, but you see it as a trend, bring it into the group and let's all hash it out and we'll figure out something to do with it.
[02:31:56]  And we were looking at the rise in visitorships to national parks.
[02:32:00]  America has amazing national parks.
[02:32:03]  Everyone should go to the national parks.
[02:32:05]  They're super cheap.
[02:32:06]  They're all over the country.
[02:32:07]  They're all incredible.
[02:32:08]  But what we saw is that as Instagram was getting more users, we were getting more and more visitorships and ticket sales to national parks.
[02:32:16]  And that makes sense.
[02:32:17]  If people are sharing and wanting digital artifacts and photos of themselves, nature is kind of like a nice, subtle flex.
[02:32:26]  It's a wholesome flex.
[02:32:27]  It is, it is the subtlest, but the most flexible.
[02:32:32]  It's not flexible, but you know, it's way better than a car.
[02:32:35]  You in front of a waterfall.
[02:32:37]  Yeah.
[02:32:37]  You're not bragging that you bought the waterfall.
[02:32:40]  No.
[02:32:40]  But it is way more cool to look at than a G-Wagon.
[02:32:43]  Right.
[02:32:43]  Watching Lil Duvall's Instagram is amazing.
[02:32:47]  Because we understand nature as inherently scarce.
[02:32:51]  We cannot recreate the earth.
[02:32:53]  We can't.
[02:32:53]  These things took so long to, like, Grand Canyon took so many millions of years to form.
[02:32:58]  Yes.
[02:32:59]  We can't artificially create it.
[02:33:00]  If we do, it looks like fucking Disney World.
[02:33:02]  And access to natural beauty is expensive, usually.
[02:33:04]  Right.
[02:33:04]  So we do, we do assign a dollar value to a beautiful waterfall or like pristine water, an island, et cetera.
[02:33:11]  It's rich without going, yo, I got money.
[02:33:13]  Right.
[02:33:13]  Yeah.
[02:33:14]  And it also shows that you have like, oh, you're kind of a well-balanced thing.
[02:33:16]  So it's like, it's a flex for both poor and wealthy people.
[02:33:19]  Wealthy people like showing themselves in nature, being, see, like, I'm not all about, you know, the cars of the care about the squirrels.
[02:33:26]  And then poor people like me at Asia goes, yo, see, I'm wealthy.
[02:33:28]  Yeah, I can reach this too.
[02:33:29]  So it's actually like, of all the trends that are terrible about social media, making nature more valuable is not a terrible thing.
[02:33:37]  But we saw that there's this visitorship to national parks are going up.
[02:33:41]  We took this as a thing that nature is only going to get increasingly more valuable.
[02:33:44]  And we started buying land outside of national parks.
[02:33:47]  And it tends to be kind of inexpensive.
[02:33:50]  And we think the future of hospitality will be less infrastructure for the things.
[02:33:55]  Like, I don't really care.
[02:33:56]  Like, I like staying at nice hotels.
[02:33:58]  Like, the four seasons is great when you just kind of want to be pampered and order room service.
[02:34:01]  Yeah.
[02:34:01]  But I want a more distinct experience than I want a completely catered, luxurious experience for the most part.
[02:34:08]  I was show me something interesting.
[02:34:09]  Tell me something new.
[02:34:11]  Show me something amazing that takes my breath away more than like catering to my every whim, right?
[02:34:16]  Yeah.
[02:34:16]  And I think some of these, like the Among Gear is both, right?
[02:34:19]  Yeah.
[02:34:20]  Here's this experience in nature, but also this is the nicest hotel that you're going to stay at.
[02:34:24]  Right.
[02:34:25]  And what is harder to access?
[02:34:27]  Well, nature is harder to access than the nice sheets on the fucking bed.
[02:34:30]  Spoken like a true city boy, right?
[02:34:31]  Like, so we grew up doing a lot of camping and hiking and fishing and stuff like that.
[02:34:35]  So we had all the gear and stuff like that, but we lived in a suburban environment where you have room to store the stuff.
[02:34:40]  Yeah.
[02:34:41]  I have a lot of friends that live in cities that love to get out in nature, but they can't store anything.
[02:34:45]  So that's why things like Auto Camp are so popular because you can get out and go camping, but everything's all set up for you.
[02:34:50]  But they're charging $350 a night to stay at an Airstream trailer.
[02:34:55]  It's like, but people are paying for it.
[02:34:57]  Then I'm telling you, every time I open Airbnb and they have like the experiences section, and it's a treehouse.
[02:35:04]  It's like a treehouse in the Hudson Valley.
[02:35:06]  And I'm saying it to my girl, my one of these weekends, we're going to go to a treehouse.
[02:35:10]  We're going to spend $500 staying in a fucking treehouse where I got to walk to an outhouse to go pee or take a shit in the middle of the night.
[02:35:15]  I'm like, why is this so scintillating?
[02:35:18]  Do you know how cheap a treehouse is to make compared to a real fucking house?
[02:35:23]  And that's the sort of arbitrage opportunity that's sort of available.
[02:35:26]  It's blowing up.
[02:35:27]  There's a lot of investment groups getting into this kind of glamping space.
[02:35:31]  We'll ruin it.
[02:35:32]  Like we'll overinvest and do it.
[02:35:34]  But it's kind of a cool trend.
[02:35:35]  It's kind of like when people thought the whole foods kind of phenomena, this like kind of more organic, but more expensive food is like, that's not going to last.
[02:35:42]  Oh, it'll just become the mainstream.
[02:35:45]  It's just cool to see.
[02:35:46]  Like I had Peterson on last week and I had this conversation with him.

=== Treehouse Weekend Escapades (01:19) ===

[02:35:49]  I was like, I was like, your rise to like success was around the same time as mine.
[02:35:54]  And it was both because of the internet.
[02:35:57]  And the internet gave access to a place for our ideas, my maybe art or whatever you want to fucking call it, stand-up comedy.
[02:36:03]  And then it's also cool to see you had the exact same experience.
[02:36:07]  And we're all scaling up at the more or less the exact same time and doing very similar things within our business.
[02:36:13]  And now we're all kind of cross-pollinating.
[02:36:15]  I mean, you've been involved in our business a lot longer than we have known Jordan Peterson.
[02:36:20]  But it's just a really cool thing to see somebody do something completely different, but scale in the exact same way.
[02:36:27]  Yes.
[02:36:27]  And have that.
[02:36:28]  That's how we first connected was talking about YouTube versus sort of like networks and stuff like that.
[02:36:33]  We've experienced very parallel rejections that ultimately were the best things that happened to us.
[02:36:37]  Yeah.
[02:36:38]  And being lifted up by the people.
[02:36:40]  Yeah.
[02:36:40]  Like we're only here because the people enjoyed what we do.
[02:36:43]  Right.
[02:36:44]  And the more we did, the more they enjoyed it and lifted up a little higher, a little higher, a little higher.
[02:36:49]  And now you're making fucking hotels.
[02:36:51]  Yeah.
[02:36:52]  We're doing these specials and coming down to Miami and other stuff that maybe we can't mention yet, but like things are cool.
[02:36:57]  We're going to get our pace that we want to.
[02:37:01]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:37:02]  It's great.
[02:37:02]  It's great.
[02:37:03]  It's great to be on a journey with you, brother.
[02:37:05]  I love you so much.
[02:37:05]  Thank you so much for coming on.
[02:37:06]  My pleasure.
[02:37:07]  Yeah, man.
[02:37:07]  This has been Flavor Dew.