0:00:04 All right, today we’re talking about trends. So I have this list I’ve been keeping. I want to bring
0:00:08 it to you today and riff on those with you because a lot of success in business just comes from
0:00:23 surfing the right wave. I think founders like to believe that it’s our own genius that’s causing
0:00:29 our success. And when it’s failure, then it’s market conditions. And actually, often it’s the
0:00:33 opposite. It’s the market conditions that can create success or really amplify your success.
0:00:38 And I’ve learned the hard way that the most important thing is finding the right wave to surf.
0:00:43 Have you ever been on the inside of a product that has taken off like that? I haven’t.
0:00:48 But I’ve had friends who they’d be texting me as it was happening. But have you ever
0:00:56 seen that? Yeah, a couple of them. There’s one that we did recently that I invested in my friend
0:01:00 and they’re doing a, I can’t say, I don’t want to say the thing because the trend is like
0:01:05 still going. It’s still hot right now, but it’s a health, it’s a health supplement. And so like,
0:01:10 you know, in the health world, there’s just like every few years, there’s a new diet trend. There’s
0:01:16 a new like, you know, a few years ago, a big thing was like leaky gut. And it was like, oh my God,
0:01:21 leaky gut health, leaky gut. I got to do something about that. And so there’s these things that just
0:01:27 come in these waves of awareness. And so we backed one of those and it just is crazy growth. I mean,
0:01:33 zero to 30 million in one year. That’s like just wild. And profitably, like it was just like crazy
0:01:38 growth. We have another company that we started that I haven’t announced yet. Maybe I’ll do that
0:01:43 soon. But we have another one in that space. That’s kind of like the same thing as zero, you know,
0:01:52 in one year, just doing millions and recurring revenue profitably. It’s just like, wow. And it’s
0:01:56 not because we did something so much better. It’s not because we worked harder. It’s not because we
0:02:02 were smarter. We didn’t have some genius strategy. We just picked something that was like, had market
0:02:07 pull. Inherently, the market wanted this and all you had to do was show up. You know, it’s you’re
0:02:12 selling cold waters on a hot day. That’s really what I want to do. So in any case, here’s a bunch of
0:02:17 trends. I think I have three or four trends that I think are going to be really big. I think if you
0:02:21 watch this episode two years from now, a lot of this will be proven right. And then I have some
0:02:25 bonus ones for you. All right. You ready? Yeah, let’s do it. All right. Trend number one,
0:02:32 short drama apps. So what are these? If you remember a few years ago, there’s this company
0:02:38 called Quibi that was started by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who created DreamWorks. I think Meg Whitman,
0:02:44 the former CEO of HP. Who is she? I don’t know who she is, but she’s somebody big deal in Silicon
0:02:54 Valley, eBay and HP. So Quibi raised $1.75 billion in funding pre-launch to build this out. And they
0:03:00 were like, look, the future is short form. You see what’s happening with TikTok. This was early days of
0:03:05 TikTok. You see what’s happening with TikTok. Well, guess what? That’s what the next Netflix is going to
0:03:11 look like. It’s going to look like TikTok content. And they take their $1.75 billion of funding. They
0:03:16 hire a crack team in Silicon Valley, fancy offices. They got the executives. Dude, they came to our
0:03:23 office to pitch you and I to like, they wanted Shad and Sam or MFM to be like a content series. And I was
0:03:28 like, guys, we’re behind our laptops all day. Like, this isn’t interesting. They were like, we need you
0:03:34 guys for business unscripted. And we were like, what? What does that mean? They’re like, there’s a, it’s a
0:03:41 category. We’re like, we’re in that? Okay, nevermind. So they, they, you know, they wanted content. They
0:03:47 needed content on the platform. Anyways, Quibi launches, fails in under a year. So 1.7 billion, all this
0:03:52 talent, all the resources, all the brand name, the guy created DreamWorks in an under a year, it folds, didn’t work.
0:03:57 They were mocked. And I thought that was kind of nonsense. I thought it was a great, like, that’s
0:04:05 you take swings. Just in the arena doing stuff. Yeah. I mean, like it was like, it was like, uh,
0:04:11 you know, uh, they tried something, you know, who might’ve mocked them for that? People don’t like
0:04:16 when people with pedigree and resources go after something they like when you’re the underdog. So
0:04:23 the consensus opinion since then has just been Quibi equals failure. That whole category,
0:04:31 failure will quietly in the meantime, a handful of apps have basically run where Quibi’s crawled
0:04:37 and they are doing pretty much exactly the same thing, but to tremendous success. I don’t know
0:04:40 if you’ve seen any of these apps. Can I tell you about some of these? Tell me. All right. So
0:04:45 they all started in China and they’re Chinese companies, but they’re big in the United States.
0:04:49 Um, so for example, here’s, I’m just going to tell you the revenue of the top four apps.
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0:05:26 Revenue of the top four apps, 150 million. That’s number four, 160 million. That’s number three,
0:05:34 275 million annual and the top one, $315 million. Okay. That’s insane. Isn’t that insane? Okay. So
0:05:39 how do these work? So I downloaded a couple of these. I watched them now, what they did that was
0:05:46 very, very smart was they realized the American consumer is pretty much an idiot. And what Jeffrey
0:05:51 Katzenberg did wrong was he tried to give people what they should want rather than what they do want.
0:05:59 And what they should want was well-made, um, you know, these, these series that were really cool
0:06:04 premium. Hey, we’re not going to do that short form, just rubbish. We’re going to do Netflix original
0:06:10 level content, but just made for your phone 10 to 15 minute episodes. And you’ll pay for it because
0:06:14 otherwise, how are we going to fund these things that are like millions of dollars? Artsy shit.
0:06:18 So these guys came out. I’ll give you an example of one of them. So
0:06:21 one of them is called drama box. The other one’s called real short.
0:06:27 And, um, I’m just going to show you the first one on this. Can you read the title of that?
0:06:30 Yeah. It’s called pregnant with my brother’s baby.
0:06:39 And I didn’t just show him, uh, you know, corn hub. I did. This is the, this is a real thing,
0:06:44 right? So these are all, it’s kind of trashy soap opera style stuff. Now what they did differently
0:06:50 was the key changes from Quibi was free instead of paid. So you, you, Quibi was a subscription you had
0:06:55 to pay for. This is free, but you pay to unlock more episodes. So you get hooked on one of these
0:07:00 little dramas and then you sort of buy coins to unlock the next episodes as you get, once you get
0:07:06 hooked. So they lowered the friction. The next thing was they did kind of trashy TV. They did,
0:07:11 you know, Hallmark and Maury Povich have a baby. That’s the type of content that this is like.
0:07:17 I watched one. Um, honestly, wasn’t bad to be honest. I’m not going to lie. Like it’s bad,
0:07:23 but it’s not like, like I watched four episodes. I probably only needed to watch one for, for my
0:07:28 research and the episodes are all only 90 seconds long. So it’s not that big of a commitment.
0:07:33 Whenever I think of these, uh, I think of in, on wedding crashers where there’s a Jamaican guy,
0:07:38 he’s like the butler and they’re like trying to like bother him. He’s like, Hey, I’m watching my
0:07:43 stories, man. Like it’s this time to watch his soap operas and like, you can’t interrupt. You can’t
0:07:46 interrupt anyone when they’re watching their stories because the soap operas are so good.
0:07:53 And you know that we talked about this. Uh, we talked about this in 2019 or 2020, right?
0:07:56 What do you mean? We talked about it. What did, what did we say?
0:08:02 So, uh, we talked about it in a few ways. The first was there is this massive trend of these.
0:08:07 This was when YouTube was, uh, obviously it was not up and coming. It was already up,
0:08:14 but in 19 and 18, there was these guys making these somewhat tacky dramas and they were doing
0:08:20 something very different on YouTube. They were making like a 30 minute fictional videos on YouTube.
0:08:25 And it was like tacky in the sense of it was like a soap opera clearly appealing to middle America
0:08:30 women. So it was like a little like cringy, but very addicting. Do you remember these guys that
0:08:35 they would get like 8 million followers or they were making Facebook, uh, videos where it was
0:08:40 like huge dramas or it was like the kid who got bullied on the bus and how he grew up to become
0:08:43 president. Do you remember these like 20 minute videos? There’s been some, there’s been some YouTube
0:08:50 series like this. And I get, by the way, I get sucked down this like rabbit hole, like often where like
0:08:55 I’m on Facebook and it’s like a kid getting bullied and like, it’s like very, I do a lot of
0:09:00 message market research. Yeah. Yeah. Like it’s hard to turn away. And then
0:09:06 also I told you the story about when I was helping Ramon, he, his original idea for a business
0:09:16 was to do erotic fiction, audible stories. And we, we ran a test and on like 50 bucks,
0:09:25 I think romance, it was short form romance, right? It was erotic. It was like, no, it was like sex.
0:09:31 It was like, it was like, it was for women. So tasteful though. They were in love. It was not,
0:09:40 it was a romantic sex. Yeah. And basically what we did was we, uh, he had a friend who loved writing
0:09:45 these stories. He wrote one of these stories and then he had a Fiverr voice actor read it. And then
0:09:50 we ran an ad, uh, and we called it captivating Claire. I think, uh, I forget what we called it,
0:09:54 but we called it short, but romantic. And we spent like 50 bucks running ads and we got like a hundred
0:10:01 dollars in recurring revenue on a crappy WordPress site. And like, anyway, my point being is like all
0:10:06 signs have pointed to, yeah, this makes sense. And so like, for example, this one that I watched is
0:10:12 called Eris crash lands on her husband. And, um, I think I lied. I’m on episode six actually. So what
0:10:17 happens is the story starts and it’s this girl, she’s so excited. This guy’s going to propose to her.
0:10:22 She thinks he thinks she’s a door dasher, but actually she’s a billionaire heiress,
0:10:27 but she hid that from him because she doesn’t want him to want her for the money. And she’s so
0:10:32 happy that he’s going to propose to her and, uh, blah, blah, blah. But then, um, his mother-in-law
0:10:36 is like, she’s not good enough for you. How about this other girl? And then she’s like, you don’t even
0:10:40 know who I am. And then she reveals it. And I’m like, Oh, cliffhanger. Like God, I got to see more.
0:10:45 So what they’re doing is 60 to a hundred seconds, you free to watch, you pay for
0:10:52 more. And these things are growing like crazy. And so they, you know, I guess half of China’s
0:10:58 internet users are watching these, what they call mini dramas. And guess what? I think that a lot of
0:11:02 Americans are going to do this too. I think a lot of Americans are going to watch mini dramas and these
0:11:08 will continue to grow. I’d be very interested to see if some, if an American company can come out and do
0:11:13 this, um, and do it maybe better than, than just today, the top four, I think they’re all
0:11:18 Chinese companies. And I don’t think that’s going to last or maybe it will last like TikTok, but I
0:11:23 think there’s an opportunity for somebody to do this. I also, not just in the States. So for example,
0:11:30 my mom for years, when she comes over to my house, it’s wonderful. Uh, we hang out, we have fun,
0:11:34 we eat together, we talk together. She plays with the grandkids. Like it’s all great. But then there’s
0:11:39 this moment at nine 30 at night where I just hear the most annoying sounds on TV. And it’s
0:11:44 these special effects coming from what she likes to call her Pakistani dramas. And it’s basically
0:11:49 soap operas from Pakistan that she likes to watch and she’s Indian, but she’s like, they make the
0:11:54 juicier stuff. They make the better ones. And I’m like, where did you find these? And how many episodes
0:12:00 are there? She’s watched like the series will have 650 episodes and she’ll like finish multiple of
0:12:03 these series. And it’s not just her, all her sisters love this. And they’re just watching
0:12:08 these on YouTube today. And they’re like, you know, 15, 20 minute episodes. And, um, and I looked
0:12:14 up some of these and like, if you go to look at their YouTube channels, the top 10, uh, of these will
0:12:20 have like 4 billion views. I remember when people were talking about, uh, YouTubers and I just remember
0:12:25 being like, this is long time ago, but I was like, I only watch a YouTube video when somebody sends me a
0:12:29 link of like a funny clip from Saturday night live or a basketball highlight. Like I don’t just
0:12:34 go to YouTube and browse to see what’s on. I thought that was like a wild, weird behavior that
0:12:39 people were doing. And sure enough, now I do that every single day. I do it every day, every single
0:12:43 day. I think it’s a man thing, by the way. I think it’s a man, it’s a young person thing. And then people
0:12:47 our age, it’s only men. But did you think you would do that when you first saw that people do that?
0:12:51 Cause like, no, I had like the same thing of watching video games. I don’t even play video games,
0:12:56 but sometimes I’ll watch people play. I had a Twitter account for years before I ever tweeted
0:13:00 a single word. I was like, Oh, why would I ever just tweet? I’m not going to try to do that. Like
0:13:06 I’ll just consume. And so like some of these behaviors actually take a lot of time to, to
0:13:10 kind of propagate. And it’s, it’s sort of like in the tech world, they say like, you know, what the
0:13:14 nerds are doing on the weekends, we’ll all do in 10 years. I think there’s like a version of that in
0:13:20 culture, which is like what the, what the degenerates are doing today, right? Like what the daytime TV
0:13:26 watchers are doing today, we’re all going to do. I remember hearing about musically and being like,
0:13:30 Oh, people are doing like lip synced, lip sync videos on their phone. Like that’s stupid.
0:13:34 And then sure enough, you know, TikTok buys music becomes huge.
0:13:40 Sure enough. You’re now making videos for your lip syncing and you haven’t shared it here,
0:13:42 but we all know you do it. What, uh, what’s another one?
0:13:45 All right. Next trend that I want to do is
0:13:52 one that you probably know a lot about. It’s a fitness trend. Friend number two is
0:13:58 rucking, which is first of all, just an amazing word rucking. And secondly, I just keep seeing this
0:14:04 and I’ve seen it four or five times from four or five of the right people. And it instantly resonates
0:14:09 when you hear it, which tells me that this is just going to spread more and more. So what is
0:14:15 rucking Sam? You want to describe it? You put a heavy bag on your body and you go for a walk. It turns
0:14:21 the, the hot girl walk into a, uh, a workout. So, you know how you go for walks in the morning,
0:14:23 except now you do it with a 20 pound pack on.
0:14:29 You, you either wear a backpack or like a, I like the ones that are like the weighted vest. It’s
0:14:33 like a bulletproof vest looking thing. Like, yeah. So that’s the downside of all this, by the way,
0:14:38 I do like particularly when my daughter, when she was born and it’s like, you know how, when you want
0:14:43 to get steps in, when the kid goes to sleep, cause they’re sleeping all the time. I have, that’s when I
0:14:47 really got into it. I would put, first of all, I screwed up. I would put a 40 pound vest on. Cause I
0:14:51 thought that was like, well, more is better. And then your back is like killing. So I’m like, all right,
0:14:57 you know, 20 pounds is more than a plenty. Uh, and then you, uh, just walk. But if you put your
0:15:01 heart rate, I would put my heart rate monitor on an hour walk, it would be 120 beats per minute,
0:15:07 which is like a pretty like hardcore walk. And it didn’t feel that bad. So it basically supercharges
0:15:14 a walk. So you get more fitness out of a leisure activity. Yeah, exactly. There’s these charts you
0:15:18 could see, like I’ll put this up on the, on YouTube, but it’s basically calories burned. So in the same
0:15:26 amount of time, just walking, but wearing the rucking vest, you will burn about like 200 more
0:15:31 calories. So, um, which is enough to put you like in a, if you did nothing else different, you would
0:15:36 not, you might go from, you know, surplus to a deficit or, or break even to a deficit. And it’s not
0:15:41 significantly harder. It’s not significantly harder. Right. And so I think this is going to be a big
0:15:47 trend. It’s sort of like pickleball where pickleball was the much more accessible version of tennis.
0:15:53 I think that rucking is one of the most accessible versions of fitness because my, like my parents in
0:15:59 their sixties will go for walks. And I think that over time, if you realize that, Hey, if I wear this
0:16:05 15 pound vest, I’m getting much more of a benefit without having to then without having to like go
0:16:10 learn a new thing or do a new thing, um, or add in an extra workout, I think that’s going to be really
0:16:13 popular. Like I want to buy one of these. And then I looked at some of the brands that are taking
0:16:17 advantage of this trend, right? Cause you see, you see people talk about this. You see Huberman
0:16:22 and others talking about how rucking is really good, how it’s, there’s like this thing, low intensity,
0:16:27 steady state cardio, which is known to be like really good for fat loss. And it’s basically just
0:16:32 like walking at a moderate pace for a lot, like 40 minutes or 45 minutes for like a longer period of
0:16:38 time and how that’s actually better for weight loss than, um, than like, you know, traditional high
0:16:43 intensity cardio. And so then you go look at these brands. Have you seen this brand go rock? Do you
0:16:47 know about these guys? No, let me look at go rock. The issue that I’ve had with a lot of these packs
0:16:53 is like, I would do my walk sometimes at night and it would, it looks like I’m wearing a bulletproof
0:16:58 vest and like the issue or the benefit. Cause it’s like the main reason I’m trying to get one.
0:17:04 Dude, they like, like people would see me like, and I, there were one walk in particular. I was
0:17:08 walking at night and people kind of stared at me funny. And then Neville saw me out in a walk. He
0:17:12 goes, dude, you look like you’re about to go like on a shooting. You look like you have like a
0:17:16 bulletproof vest on it. I was like, man, everyone’s been staring at me. I, because, because it just
0:17:22 looks very intimidating. You do have, I got the look vibes. Yeah, I had the look. And so I had to,
0:17:27 I actually went and bought a different one that looked less like bulletproof vest. And so this
0:17:31 company go rug, it looks like they make backpack. They’re basically backpacks, right?
0:17:35 They do it as the back. I think the backpack is their hero skew, but they have, they have
0:17:39 the vest too. Um, I was interested. I probably wouldn’t have even realized they’re looking
0:17:43 at me for the wrong reason. I would have thought they all think I look so cool. Um, and that’s
0:17:47 why they’re staring at me like, dude, if I can wear like a Superman cape and get away with
0:17:51 it, I would like, why would I not want to feel like a superhero or like a Navy seal? So
0:17:56 this, this brand was started by, I think an ex is the ex military guy. I don’t know
0:18:01 if he’s a Marine or what he was. And he was like, yeah, like this is like a big deal in
0:18:05 the, in, in the Marines. And so he created this brand called GORUCK and he started partnering
0:18:12 with these kinds of fitness and toughness influencers and a toughness influencer. That’s
0:18:17 a good one. Toughness influencer. David Goggins. What is he? Yeah, you’re right. He’s a toughness
0:18:20 influencer. That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Jocko. What’s Jocko? Jocko’s a toughness
0:18:24 influencer. Did you just make this up or is that the category? On the spot, off the dome, off the
0:18:30 cup. That’s great. A toughness influencer. Okay, cool. And so the, so, and as you can see,
0:18:35 like that, that’s a trend. And so they, they take off, I guess they’re doing like over 50 million
0:18:43 a year in revenue now. No way. Really? So they’re doing really well. And they turned it into a whole
0:18:47 lifestyle brand. I mean, they, they announced it. They were like 46 million last year. So, you know,
0:18:52 they’re, they’re going to be higher than this year. So they, they also do shoes and shorts and like
0:18:57 shirts. Like it’s a whole like lifestyle brand now. And I think this is really smart. And I think a lot
0:19:01 of people do this. Now, where’s the opportunity? I think the opportunity is go look at the prices
0:19:09 on their website. Like how, how expensive is their like rock bag? 450 bucks. Correct. $420 for just one
0:19:17 that I’m seeing here. My friends, it’s time to undercut. I think if I was going to enter this
0:19:24 space, I would be trying to go be the, the lowest cost good enough solution, which is never a sexy pitch,
0:19:30 right. The sexy pitches were the highest quality, most premium, most unique made in America. That’s
0:19:36 their pitch, right? $450 backpack. That’s great. And there will be somebody in that category, but
0:19:42 guess who makes more money? The good enough at the, at the more accessible price point almost always makes
0:19:47 more money. Like when we were hanging out with Mr. Beast and he’s like talking about chocolate and he’s
0:19:52 like, yeah, Hershey’s or whatever. And all of the people there were basically like rich people who
0:19:56 either don’t even grocery shop for themselves anymore or like only eat whole foods. And we
0:20:03 were like, we like Hugh chocolate. It’s like, I like their cashew butter, you know, like $7 chocolate
0:20:08 bar. And he’s like, yeah, yeah, their, their chocolate’s great, but Americans can’t buy $7 chocolate
0:20:14 bars. Like he’s like, we sell at Walmart and look, look where Hugh is at Walmart. And it was like,
0:20:19 like, so off to the side in this, like one tiny little footprint area, because again,
0:20:24 it’s not the like mainstream price point. So I would be trying to build the, uh, the sort
0:20:28 of like Walmart Ruck brand. And I know that’s not really sexy, but it would work very well.
0:20:34 Do you remember Echelon? So when Peloton was really popular, me and I, I don’t think you
0:20:39 went, but for some reason I was there with Moyes at the CES, the electronic show. And there
0:20:48 was this booth for this fitness like bike called Echelon. And it was 100% identical to Peloton.
0:20:54 There was only one difference is that it was half the price and it was called Echelon. And I think
0:20:59 they got sued by Peloton, but they still exist. And everything that Peloton has, Echelon has,
0:21:04 it’s just literally half the price, but it’s the same, it’s the same logo. It’s the same
0:21:07 everything. Do you, have you, did you, have you ever seen Echelon?
0:21:12 Yeah. Cause they’re at Costco. They’re, they are the hero fitness product at Costco. And which is
0:21:16 again, the same thing, like the Costco price point. And what they did was they just like,
0:21:21 Oh, Peloton. Great. Okay. We got the trend. We even got the brand. We got the shape of the bike.
0:21:27 We got the whole arsenal. Awesome. And they literally like took a, like a knife and just
0:21:32 scraped off the letters off the bike. And we’re like, here’s a new sticker. Echelon.
0:21:35 It’s even like a chat GPT name.
0:21:40 Like it was, uh, I think they even got sued. It looks like they changed their logo. They were
0:21:44 literally the exact same red. It was, everything was the same. Uh, and I remember like going to the
0:21:48 CES booth and I’m like, wait, is this, are you guys like a sub brand of Peloton? What’s going on
0:21:54 here? Uh, and we’re not familiar with that brand. Uh, we, we, we have no comment and no familiarity
0:22:03 with that brand, uh, completely coincidental. All right, my friends, I have exciting news for
0:22:07 that business idea. That’s been sitting in your notes app. The hustle, which is my old company
0:22:13 has partnered with indie hackers. One of my favorite websites to launch a pitch competition. It’s called
0:22:18 the hustle’s big break. And it’s a pitch competition with a simple premise. You tell us
0:22:23 your business idea in 60 seconds or less, and the winner gets $5,000 to turn it into a reality.
0:22:28 Here’s how it works. Record a 60 second video pitch of your business idea, include your business name,
0:22:34 description, revenue model, and tagline. And finally submit it at the hustle.co slash big break.
0:22:40 And it all has to be done by April 4th. The winner gets $5,000 in cash to kickstart their business
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0:22:55 The winner will be announced on April 11th. So again, if you have a business idea, go to the hustle.co
0:22:58 slash big break. All right, back to the pot.
0:23:06 All right, I want to do the next one. The next one that you have is pretty cool. Did you see the tweet
0:23:10 that I have there for your next one? That’s a good way to kick it off.
0:23:11 Okay, do it.
0:23:17 All right, so you have plastic-free everything. So you’re on board with plastic-free. Is that what you
0:23:17 guys are doing at your house?
0:23:24 I’m not hardcore about plastic-free. We still have plastic stuff and whatever. I mean, I can’t say it.
0:23:30 I can’t with a straight face be like, okay, we’re eliminating all plastic from our life. And then I’m
0:23:34 giving my kids Kraft mac and cheese sometimes. So I’m like, common sense test fails.
0:23:41 Do you have, do you go out of your way to buy cotton clothing or natural clothing?
0:23:48 Yeah, I try to. I try to buy the highest quality stuff for myself because I know I can, you know,
0:23:53 like with my kids, that’s the monkey wrench, right? Like I can’t get my kids to eat certain things
0:23:57 yet. And so, you know, that’s where we fall apart a little bit.
0:24:02 So the trend that you care about, you had plastic-free everything. And I had saved a tweet by this guy
0:24:06 named Miles Snyder. It happened March 2nd. So only 10 days ago from when we’re recording this.
0:24:12 And he said, Lulu, Lemon, and Viore really psyoped the whole generation. Which, by the way,
0:24:14 psyoped, that’s a new word. Have you noticed that word’s trending?
0:24:16 Dude’s trending like crazy.
0:24:18 Psyop is it. Psyop is it.
0:24:23 High agency, psyop, I don’t know what else is trending, but those two are on my radar.
0:24:28 Someone tweeted out that they psyoped me and I didn’t understand what it meant. And so I still
0:24:31 don’t entirely understand, but I was like, is that like an insult towards me?
0:24:32 Yeah.
0:24:37 So he said, Lulu, Lemon, and Viore really psyoped the whole generation. $70 shorts made from
0:24:41 plastic and petroleum that smell disgusting every time you work out in them and they destroy
0:24:46 your fertility. Meanwhile, cotton shorts are cheaper, comfier, and better on every metric.
0:24:53 And so you had listed here plastic-free everything. I think that the obvious thing that’s going on
0:24:59 right now is plastic-free or Teflon-free pans, which is in the same ballpark. But like, for example,
0:25:02 at my house, we only have glass Tupperware.
0:25:03 And so we-
0:25:07 Bro, there’s nothing more uppity than any sentence that starts with, at my house.
0:25:08 At my house.
0:25:15 The next, the end of that has to be uppity. And literally, you just spit on somebody every
0:25:19 time you, anytime somebody uses that phrase. Not you particularly, I’m just saying.
0:25:28 At my estate. At the Par estate. At Par Manor. It’s glass only. How dare you. For the record,
0:25:33 I have Diet Mountain Dew in the refrigerator right now. So I think I can get away with saying
0:25:33 this.
0:25:37 You’re like tobacco in your lip presently. You’re worried about microplastics.
0:25:40 You have a hole in your gum.
0:25:44 Yeah. So I think I get away with it sometimes. But no, we don’t do plastic stuff. Plastic,
0:25:48 like anything that goes in the microwave, it’s not plastic. But now our new thing is like,
0:25:52 my daughter has this thing, she calls her baby. What do they call it? Lovey. Loveys or whatever.
0:25:56 You know, like the, I don’t even know what they are. But we’re doing all cotton, those,
0:26:01 which by the way, they’re like way less comfortable. I understand why like-
0:26:07 Do you use a plastic pacifier? No. No, we don’t give her, we actually quit taking the
0:26:14 pacifier at three months. But, and we even have glass bottles. But it’s like a bunch of like glass
0:26:18 stuff. And we’re not crazy. Like we use the Teflon pan for like scrambled eggs. That’s like the only
0:26:25 thing that we can’t get away with for nonstick. But it mostly is not plastic. And we are taking it to
0:26:30 clothes. So a company that I like, I have no affiliation with them. I just think they’re cool is
0:26:32 Riker clothing. Have you seen them? They’re-
0:26:35 Yeah, I just, I actually just ordered some of their stuff because I want to try it out.
0:26:36 It just arrived. So I’m going to-
0:26:37 I love it. It’s great.
0:26:38 Give an honest review.
0:26:43 I think they’re cool. But like, it’s really actually hard finding all cotton workout gear.
0:26:46 And so I’m on board with the plastic free trend.
0:26:51 By the way, I’m also so prepared for somebody to be like, oh my God, cotton, haven’t you heard?
0:26:56 And then be like, cotton is a lie. Like cotton is a huge lie. It’s like when Joe Gabbia told us
0:26:59 that recycling was a lie. Have you heard this part, this bit?
0:27:04 I’ve been saying this for years. Recycling is 100% bullshit. It should be reduce, reuse,
0:27:05 get rid of the recycle.
0:27:08 And you’re saying it because what?
0:27:12 It all gets thrown away in the trash. Like recycling is nonsense.
0:27:17 But there’s even more to it that he told us about. I want to get him on to do his recycling rant
0:27:22 because he’s got like a great recycling rant. But I believe that one of the core things is
0:27:24 recycling is a psyop. You ready?
0:27:31 Recycling is a psyop, which was that the companies that make all the plastic products were like
0:27:35 under some heat. They’re like, oh shit, this is like really bad. And they’re like, what do we do?
0:27:38 What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? We blame the consumer. And they were like, blame the
0:27:43 consumer. That’s brilliant. How do we do that? And they were like, what if we made it their job to deal
0:27:48 with the plastic? And they’re like, how would we do that? We convinced them that the obligation is on
0:27:55 them to recycle these products. And so they funded the like recycle movement knowing that it’s like
0:27:57 most of it’s not getting recycled anyways. It doesn’t really work.
0:28:00 Dude, the blue bins are bullshit. They’re bullshit.
0:28:01 Yeah.
0:28:02 They’re totally bullshit.
0:28:04 I’m telling you, cotton’s next.
0:28:05 They convince you.
0:28:06 I can feel it coming.
0:28:11 You know what I often would do with the blue bins? And it would like freak out people. I remember
0:28:15 people at my office, the hippies at like the like typical like granola people at my company
0:28:20 would like complain to me. But I’m like, just throw the trash in the recycle bin. It doesn’t
0:28:25 matter. It’s all going to the same place. And they would like flip out to like, it was like
0:28:29 I could tell they were like, we’re losing sleep over this because they base their personality on
0:28:35 this blue bin has always been my like, it’s okay to consume this and throw it away. But it all
0:28:40 goes to the trash. And instead, we should just reduce the stuff we consume, or we should reuse
0:28:47 what we can. The blue bin, I can’t stand the blue bin. So Joe and I are the same on this
0:28:49 one. So I’m on board with plastic everything.
0:28:52 So plastic free everything. I think this is going to extend into clothes. I think it’s
0:28:58 going to extend into like homeware pans, everything like cups that you use. I think it’s going to
0:29:03 extend into baby products, all baby products. I think there’s going to be a, the way that
0:29:08 Honest came out with Jessica Alba and was like, these juices are full of sugar. So they’re
0:29:12 like Honest Juice. And I think that, and they have, you know, they have wipes and they have
0:29:16 diapers and they’re like, oh yeah, you know, you need to use these, these products. I think
0:29:21 there’s going to be a plastic free, um, big brand that gets built in the baby space.
0:29:25 Well, you know what that used to be, right? I grew up using this because my parents were
0:29:32 a little hippie. It was cloth diapers that you threw into a hamper and then you had to wash
0:29:37 them. It was disgusting. And for that reason, I’m out. It was, it was honestly filthy, but
0:29:40 my mother. My wife tried to propose that by the way. She was like, I think we should
0:29:46 cloth diaper. It is like cool. The look of disgust I gave her. I mean, I was, I was just
0:29:51 like, listen, you can cheat on me. You can abuse me. You can do whatever you want. You
0:29:56 will not bring cloth diapering into my lifestyle. There’s usually, my parents used to do, and
0:30:00 we’re poor. And so they would, they said it was cheaper, but they had a service that would
0:30:07 come and pick it up once a week. But it’s still just like the idea of using cloth that other kids
0:30:13 have shit in. It’s, that’s, it’s filthy. Like we’re animals. So the cloth diapers are not even just
0:30:18 your cloth. It’s a mixed pool of cloth. It was like a wash and fold. It was like a wash and fold
0:30:25 service, except the stuff, the clothing had poop in it. And so it was basically you throw it into this
0:30:31 bin and they come and pick it up and then they bring you new cloth diapers that are clean and
0:30:36 you’re just like reusing them. Yeah. It’s like, it is, it’s disgusting, but that’s what, that’s how
0:30:42 it used to be. Which now that I’m saying this, by the way, this is kind of an interesting, you know,
0:30:47 we had Jake on or whatever the, the young guy the other day who talked about how he thinks of ideas.
0:30:49 Jake, Zach, same thing.
0:30:56 The kid, we had, uh, what was his name? Zach was his name. Um, we had Zach on and he was talking
0:31:00 about how, um, when you asked him how he comes with ideas and he’s like, I just think about what
0:31:07 would be awesome in an ad and a cloth diaper is like revolting, but it is clickable and it is
0:31:12 interesting. Uh, so I actually am on board with cloth diapers. Now I just talked myself into it.
0:31:19 I also think by the way for plastic for everything that there’s gotta be a supplement that people are
0:31:24 going to try to sell. That’s going to like remove the plastic from your balls and your bloodstream.
0:31:28 I think people are going to get on the, you know, every category is going to, going to try to,
0:31:35 to take this angle. And I think that it’s, um, it’s sort of like protein, how protein, you know,
0:31:40 became a thing. It’s like, great, eat more meat. And then they’re like, or take this powder
0:31:44 or you want protein chips. How about protein cookies? How about protein brownies? How about
0:31:49 protein, everything, uh, protein waffles, protein pancakes. And so protein just made its way into
0:31:52 everything on the protein wave. I think I had protein water yesterday.
0:32:00 It was amazing. What was protein water? It was basically water with like, uh, it was a scoop
0:32:05 that looked like lemonade mix and it was high protein and it sounded filthy and disgusting.
0:32:09 And it was delicious. That’s how I drink my protein shakes. It’s just per scoop of water.
0:32:15 Yeah, but there’s something, there’s something cool where you think creamy and protein that
0:32:19 for some reason that’s okay, but fruity and protein, that’s just unacceptable. Do you know
0:32:25 what I mean? Like, uh, this was fruity or this was, it was fruity. It was lemonade, but you
0:32:30 said unacceptable, but you liked it. Yeah, I loved it, but I, I had to like get over that barrier.
0:32:34 Right. Is that, was that really hard for you?
0:32:39 Yeah. Like I had to like, like a motivational, like talk to like figure out how to, yeah. Like
0:32:42 David Goggins, like definitely had to hype me up.
0:32:44 How bad do you want it?
0:32:52 We fight for these inches. All right. So next one, ready? There’s another health trend, um,
0:32:58 that I think is going to be big. Have you ever heard of anybody who’s doing nervous system work?
0:33:07 Our most popular retreat at Hampton is called nervous system reset and people go to the woods and we have
0:33:13 a facilitator who guides these things. It’s very, uh, this is totally a niche thing and it was really
0:33:15 smart of you to call this out. So go ahead.
0:33:19 Okay, great. So you’re, you’re already on this. This was, I’ve just, my spidey sense is tingling.
0:33:20 I’m hearing a little things.
0:33:22 It’s the new leaky gut.
0:33:27 It’s the new leaky gut. Cause who, you know, who doesn’t want your nervous system to be reset or to
0:33:32 be calmed down? Right. It’s like this thing that’s so central to literally it’s your central nervous
0:33:38 system. It’s so central to you. Um, you have your vagus nerve and like all this stuff. So I first got
0:33:42 hooked on this cause my trainer was telling me about this. He was talking about like, when you work out
0:33:48 and what you eat, it’s not just about what you do. It’s about the state that you’re in, that you’re,
0:33:52 your nervous system is that when you do it, I’m like, what do you mean? He goes, well, you have these
0:33:57 two, um, modes or modalities for your nervous system, parasympathetic and sympathetic. You’re familiar with
0:34:04 this? Yeah, I know what those, I’ve heard those words before. I can’t teach a class on this, but I, I, I vaguely
0:34:10 here’s my bro science. Okay. My bro science for this, which is probably half wrong, but basically you have
0:34:17 two, two core modes that you could be in. One is your fight or flight, um, your fight or flight
0:34:22 response. So this is where adrenaline, cortisol, you have these hormones that get released and they’re,
0:34:26 they’re not just bad, right? People say cortisol is the stress hormone. Well, stress, stress is good
0:34:30 in certain scenarios. Adrenaline is good in certain scenarios. You don’t want to be in that all the time.
0:34:36 That’s the problem, but you need it when you need it. If there’s a lion chasing you, you, you want to be in
0:34:43 fight or flight mode, right? Uh, the problem is there’s no lion chasing us. It’s just slack and email and, you know,
0:34:47 scrolling on, on Instagram and feeling like you’re not good enough. And like looking at your body in the mirror and
0:34:51 feeling like you’re too fat and you, then when you eat, you’re stress eating or you’re, you’re working too hard
0:34:56 than you’re stress eating or you’re not sleeping, things like that. So if you’re operating in that sympathetic
0:35:03 system, which is that fight or flight, um, your body’s secreting certain hormones, but then also, uh, your body
0:35:07 shuts down other functions. So like, let’s say you stress heat. One of the problems with your stress
0:35:12 heat is not only do you overeat or you make poor choices, but your body literally digest less poorly,
0:35:17 uh, digest more poorly during that, when you’re in that system, right? Because if you’re in fight or
0:35:21 flight, the body’s going to take its resources and say, guys, we’re not digesting food right now.
0:35:26 That’s not what’s important. We got to be doing these other things. The lion is chasing us. And so,
0:35:31 uh, then you have the parasympathetic system, which when you’re in, it’s more rested,
0:35:36 more relaxed, your body could do things like digest. It can recover. It could do other things.
0:35:41 And so literally being able to shift your mood or your state from one to the other is really
0:35:45 important. How do you do that? Some people get that from exercise. Some people get it from the
0:35:50 sauna, from the cold plunge. Some people get it from breath work. Some people get it from meditation.
0:35:54 There’s a bunch of different ways. And all of these are a means to an end, which is to calm
0:35:59 your nervous system down. And a lot of good things happen, both health-wise, but also
0:36:04 decision-making, creativity. You’re much, you operate differently when you’re in different states.
0:36:09 Okay, cool. Um, we’ve not, so that’s the, that’s the theory. That’s where I first got on my radar and
0:36:11 I believed it and I started paying attention to it.
0:36:16 Well, you’ve been about, uh, breath work for like four years now or five years now.
0:36:21 Yeah. And the breath to me is like, cause I’m always like, I’m not trying to supplement or like,
0:36:28 I’m very skeptical of the flashy hard things. So I always look for advice that nobody could sell me.
0:36:30 No, you’re not. You love that. You love that.
0:36:33 No, no. Like in the health, in the health space, let’s say.
0:36:33 Yes.
0:36:38 Right. Like I like, why did I talk about rucking? Cause I’m like, oh, it’s walking with a little
0:36:43 extra weight. Cool. That kind of resonates with me. It’s a, that’s, that makes sense. Cold plunging.
0:36:47 I never really was able to get into because I was like, I just think this is like this extreme
0:36:54 thing. That’s like, seems like it’s for show. I don’t, I don’t know. It didn’t really resonate
0:36:58 with me in the same way. Uh, breath work did. Cause it’s like, oh yeah, I could tell that literally
0:37:02 just controlling my breath for a couple of minutes, I will feel much differently at the, at the end of
0:37:07 it. And it also makes sense to me to like work on my breathing system. Cause I’m going to do that.
0:37:12 I don’t know, 50,000 times a day. And I went to a breath work class in San Francisco and I like,
0:37:17 it made me kind of high. It was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s like the Wim Hof stuff. You
0:37:21 can, you can literally hyperventilate yourself and you’ll, you’ll get high, you’ll pass out. You could
0:37:27 do a lot of things. Yeah. It was great. That goes more into the category of the extreme, but okay.
0:37:31 Fair enough. So our buddy Jack Smith had come on. Remember that thing he told us about on the
0:37:36 podcast where he’s like, I went in this room with 50,000 screens of different colors. And he’s like,
0:37:42 basically they flash things. I sit in a lawn chair and I paid these guys 10, like thousands of dollars
0:37:47 and it healed me. And I was like, well, we were both just like, okay. So we were both like, what?
0:37:51 There’s one down there. Like he came to my, visited me in my house. I live in a tiny suburb in Connecticut.
0:37:57 There’s one, I’m not joking, 200 yards of my house. And we went, and we went to it.
0:37:57 How was it?
0:38:02 It was, I forgot to bring this up. It was insane. So basically to everyone listening, it’s,
0:38:08 this is like 90% of the people are going to be like, that’s, you’re crazy. And 10% of the people
0:38:13 are going to like be into this. It’s very like fringe shit. You go to a room and you’re surrounded
0:38:19 by literally 20 TV screens. And it looks like it’s playing white, like snow, you know, like a,
0:38:24 like when you’re white noise. Yeah. Yeah. Like where your TV wasn’t working. And so it, and then
0:38:31 the room is about the size of, let’s say it looks like a, like a mini bunk room. It was like a 50 feet
0:38:37 long, 20 feet wide, just a plain room with reclining chairs in it. I go and I sit in the chair and I just
0:38:41 like fall asleep. That’s all I do. And so I go home where you’re supposed to fall asleep.
0:38:43 You’re just supposed to do whatever you want. You’re supposed to relax.
0:38:46 Are you supposed to close your eyes or close your eyes and relax?
0:38:50 You’re supposed to close your eyes or just relax. And I fall asleep. And part of me was like,
0:38:53 did I just do like a Ron Swanson thing where they’re like, where I’m just standing there
0:38:56 meditating. And he’s like, this is so stupid. I just stand here and I’m thoughtless. Like,
0:38:59 like, yeah, that’s the point. I was like, is that, it was like, is that what I’m complaining
0:39:02 about? It’s like, I just fell asleep and I actually did achieve. I wasn’t sure what happened,
0:39:08 but I go to Jack and I say, you know, I did kind of like how they had vibrating chairs there.
0:39:11 Like the vibrating massage chairs they had were amazing. And he goes,
0:39:15 dude, they, those chairs weren’t plugged in. They were not vibrating. They were not,
0:39:21 the chairs didn’t vibrate. And I was like, no, like I vibrated the whole time and it made me relax.
0:39:27 And I felt so calm. And he goes, brother, I talked to the owner. I saw the whole thing. Here’s a photo.
0:39:32 It was not a plugged in chair. There was no electricity in this chair. It did not vibrate.
0:39:39 And I swore that it was vibrating me the whole time. So something happened. So that’s my story with this,
0:39:41 with this, with this place.
0:39:43 And how is it to be a Scientologist?
0:39:50 It went, you know, it felt crazy. Like it does. And I was so turned off because the guy who,
0:39:56 uh, the guy who owned the place explained how like his wife had cancer and he went into debt to start
0:40:01 this place. And this cured the cancer. And I sort of felt like these people took advantage of you,
0:40:06 man. Like, you know, you didn’t use modern medicine. You’re so like delusional. I feel sad for you,
0:40:11 which is silly for me to judge, but that was my judgment. And yet I left think like my thinking
0:40:15 my body was vibrating. And so maybe there was something there. That’s all I’m saying.
0:40:23 Yeah. So I’m kind of fascinated by this and, um, it does feel like something that like someone would,
0:40:28 like a YouTuber would make up to make like a cool YouTube video or something like a prank video.
0:40:35 It also feels like, like, like the hatch in lost, like the Dharman initiative created this thing.
0:40:39 So, you know, there’s definitely a part of me that’s like, oh my God, this is bullshit. However,
0:40:44 I do believe that nervous system work makes sense. And who am I to say that that’s not one of the
0:40:51 methods that would, uh, you know, reset, rewire, calm, change the frequency. I don’t know. I don’t
0:40:56 know all that stuff, but people are really into grounding. You’ve seen grounding go stand on the
0:40:56 grass.
0:41:01 To me, my college friends used to be into this. So they, they, they would, after playing sports,
0:41:05 all the basketball players would do it. They would take their socks off and they would go
0:41:10 and they would stand in the grass because they said they use the word ions, something
0:41:15 about negative ions or negative electrons were going from the earth to their body. And that
0:41:20 was going to heal them. It was the same thing to me as like, do you remember Brett Favre promoting
0:41:26 like copper, the, the, the balance bands, the balance band. It’s it. I don’t know, man. I don’t
0:41:27 know about it.
0:41:31 I absolutely don’t know about these and I’m not, I have no, I don’t know the science.
0:41:35 I don’t know if this worked. What I’m saying is I think there’s market demand. I think this
0:41:39 is a trend. I think there’s pull. I think this is an area where when you talk about it, it
0:41:44 has that leaky gut type of thing where people say, you know what? I think I have that problem.
0:41:47 I think I want that improved. And whether it’s through this room with screens, whether it’s
0:41:52 through grounding, whether it’s through breath work, I don’t know what it is, but that’s a trend.
0:41:56 And I, I see it. That’s a wave. And I think a lot of people are going to go surf that wave.
0:42:00 You should go check out one of the, what’s the screen thing called? It’s called the
0:42:04 electro magnetic therapy or something like that. Maybe.
0:42:09 And let me know if you have a similar experience. I’m a hater on it, but I’m telling you, I left,
0:42:10 my body felt different.
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0:43:28 All right, let’s do something that’s not a health hack real quick. I have another one
0:43:35 for you. Religion? AI social network? Which one? Dumb phones? Okay, let’s do biohacking and plants,
0:43:41 which I don’t have a lot here. I’m just going to say it out loud, but there’s a moment in time
0:43:48 right now. So this is, what is this? Trend number three, four? We did five. This is five? Okay,
0:43:54 five. Trend number five. So trend number five is biohacking plants. So there’s a moment in time
0:44:00 right here where I think biohacking has never been as popular as it is now, thanks to Brian Johnson,
0:44:07 thanks to Ozempic, thanks to people, real peptides, people realizing like, oh, I can just kind of
0:44:13 take this, stab this, do this, eat this, drink this, whatever, and I’m going to improve my own
0:44:21 health. So biohacking is a thing. And AI has changed the game of science because AI is now doing kind of
0:44:24 remarkable things. I don’t know if you’ve paid attention to AlphaFold or some of the stuff that’s
0:44:33 coming out of Google where it’s basically like AlphaFold is basically a AI breakthrough where AI was
0:44:38 able to predict how proteins fold, which is really important for a couple of reasons. But I think the
0:44:44 simple explanation is like the shape of proteins really matters. It matters how other things can
0:44:47 connect to it. It matters how it can connect to other things, how the building blocks can link.
0:44:52 And it was something that we didn’t as humans know how to do. We didn’t know how to, we knew what was,
0:44:56 what it was made up of, but we didn’t know how it would fold. We didn’t know the shape of the
0:45:05 protein. And AlphaFold was like beat all, beat all the, like won the competition of modeling protein
0:45:09 folding. And so let’s assume this is only going to get better. And the implication of this is what?
0:45:14 We can make new drugs? Yeah, exactly. Therapeutics, drugs. You know, so you have all these different,
0:45:20 like these different technologies, CRISPR, you have, you know, protein folding stuff that’s going on. You
0:45:25 have, in general, an interest around biohacking. But the problem is biohacking in humans is really
0:45:29 hard. And when you biohack in humans, you have to worry about all kinds of health concerns.
0:45:33 You have to worry about like getting approvals for things. It’s going to be a long, hard road.
0:45:38 And so in the same way that I think the longevity startups that are focused on dogs are going to do
0:45:44 well, because who doesn’t want their dog like to live longer? I think that’s like a problem everybody
0:45:47 has. The background of that is that we had Kevin Rose on and he was trying to create,
0:45:55 or he invested in a longevity drug company and their model, their phase one was using it on dogs
0:46:00 because that’s an easy, easier way to get into it. Easier way to go to market and to test your
0:46:06 products. I think the even easier version of this is plants. And I know that like David Freeberg is
0:46:12 doing this for a hollow, which is basically like, it’s basically a biohacking, but for different crops.
0:46:16 So how do we make a strawberry that does, has certain properties? Maybe it’s resistant to certain
0:46:21 bugs, or maybe it can be riper. Maybe it could be bigger. Maybe it can be juicier. Maybe it can
0:46:28 grow in different, different weather conditions and therefore can, therefore certain places can now
0:46:30 grow their own crops that don’t have to import, right? So it’s like all these like implications,
0:46:37 if you could biohack plants, uh, cause plants are food. And so how do you do biohacking and plants
0:46:42 and plants for a long time, like a lot of the, like the breakthroughs and people’s understanding of
0:46:47 genetics was because of plant experiments. Like you breed true crops with each other and, oh, this is
0:46:54 how we figured out, like, you know, the little Punnett square about, about how genetics can, can, uh, uh,
0:47:00 genetic combinations work and combinatorial effects of, of crossbreeding. And so I think that there’s going to
0:47:08 be some really successful startups that take AI and the concept of biohacking and then use plants as
0:47:11 their focus, as their target market rather than humans.
0:47:20 What’s, uh, David Freeberg’s thing? It’s called a hollow. And, and, uh, so it’s accelerating evolution
0:47:27 to unlock nature’s potential. That sounds like a great mission. Um, and so he basically, they’re basically
0:47:33 creating new seeds or new style plants. Yeah. Um, I don’t know, you know, they’re, they haven’t been
0:47:37 super like, they’re not, they’re not in stealth, but they’re not like, it’s not like super obvious
0:47:40 exactly what they’re doing, but like, they have this thing like boosted breeding. So it’s basically
0:47:46 like, how do you get more yield on, uh, on your crops, right? Or they’ll have like value added traits,
0:47:52 which is like, how do you take a crop, but then add, you know, a, a trait that you want, right?
0:47:56 Gain a function, but not for viruses, but for, for your, for your strawberries, for your almonds,
0:48:02 for your potatoes, for corn, for core crops. And so this is going to become technology that they’re
0:48:06 either going to be able to like vertically do themselves, or they’re going to sell this to farms
0:48:10 and be like, and that’s kind of what he did with his other thing, you know, climate or whatever.
0:48:15 This is so much better than working on creator economy software.
0:48:23 Like when you’re telling me about this, I I’m a, I’m a dumb, dumb. I, I, I will never be able to start
0:48:27 anything in this space. But like, part of me is like, if I had a friend that started something like
0:48:34 this, I would quit everything I’m doing to go work there because this is such an easy mission to get
0:48:43 behind, you know, like this is so much more important than creating a new link tree and so much more
0:48:49 exciting. And so I love this. I think this is really a really interesting thing to call out.
0:48:53 Yeah. So that’s a trend I’m watching. I’ll give you another one, AI social network. So what does this
0:49:00 mean? Uh, every decade or so a new social network comes out. So, you know, you had, uh, Facebook,
0:49:07 which was 2004 and then roughly 2012, you had this next generation of social networks. So those were
0:49:12 Snapchat, Instagram, and they were taking off. Um, and so what did, what, and what did they do
0:49:17 differently? They took advantage of the new tech. So the new tech was your phone, the phone that had a
0:49:23 camera, the phone that had a GPS, the phone that, um, uh, was with you at all times. And so
0:49:29 it unlocked a new social use case. And I think that the new social use case that’s coming out is,
0:49:35 um, is AI. So what is, and what, what is AI going to be able to do here? I don’t know exactly what
0:49:40 this is going to look like, but I would bet with very high probability, this is a bit of a safe bet,
0:49:46 I guess, but, um, I would bet very high probability that the next breakout social app is going to be based
0:49:53 on AI. Arguably it already happened. Arguably that TikTok is the breakout. Uh, it was the first breakout AI app.
0:49:59 Right. In the same way that like, you’re mean that I’m following AI people as opposed to real people.
0:50:03 There’s a few ways that can take it. So the most obvious one was TikTok, which was basically everybody
0:50:09 thinks TikTok’s big innovation was short form video, but actually short form video was around before that
0:50:15 Vine, musically others. What TikTok did was TikTok was like, Hey, how about, how about this? How about
0:50:20 the AI just tells you what to follow instead of you? So every social network up until that point
0:50:26 was based on, was based on the user creating a graph. So going and following people or friending people
0:50:32 and that following or friending people, this was Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all of them that you
0:50:35 would choose content that’s interesting to you. And then you would keep coming to the back to the app
0:50:40 because you have content that’s interesting for you. And that worked to an extent. And then TikTok came
0:50:44 out, was like, let’s never let the user say what’s interesting. Let’s see if the AI can figure out
0:50:49 what’s interesting at a higher rate, like almost like we were talking about this crops thing. Like
0:50:54 what if you got higher yield of interestingness? If you used AI for the feed instead of the human
0:51:00 choosing what to follow. And so, um, and that’s what it did. And TikTok is super addictive and TikTok
0:51:07 has a higher usage rate than every other social platform because the AI is serving you the content
0:51:10 instead of you picking yourself. So that was like the first breakthrough, but it’s under the hood. You
0:51:14 don’t see it. It’s the algorithm. Okay, cool. Um, and now by the way, everybody copied it.
0:51:18 And Instagram and others, everybody’s moved to this for you feed. The, the, that was the real
0:51:23 innovation of TikTok is the for you page. Um, okay. So what’s coming next? So now I’m thinking
0:51:29 that the next breakthrough is probably going to be that up until now, all social networks were based
0:51:34 on content that humans make. And now I think it’s going to be based on content that AI makes in some
0:51:38 way. That sounds a little far-fetched. Like why would I want to follow an AI influencer? Well,
0:51:44 let’s, let’s first start with one example, little Michaela. We’ve talked about her years ago when
0:51:50 they started this. Little Michaela is an Instagram influencer that is just AI generated. It’s a girl
0:51:56 that’s like, she’s an AI, uh, image basically. And they put her, she’s an Instagrammer and she posts
0:52:02 photos. Do you know how much money little Michaela makes? Last we talked about it, it was like
0:52:07 interesting, but not wild. It was like 800 grand a year. I think, I think we started talking about her
0:52:11 in 20 or so. I don’t have this confirmed, but I heard it’s over $10 million now.
0:52:14 Yeah. That’s insane. Okay. So that’s like, I like Michaela.
0:52:19 Yeah. You and a few million other people.
0:52:23 All right. So that’s one, but here’s a more interesting version of this. Cause I think
0:52:26 people have heard the AI influencers, but I’ll even pitch you a different style of AI social product.
0:52:31 It’s actually in the music space. So I think there’s an opportunity to create,
0:52:37 create the AI version of Spotify. What I mean by this is I started listening to
0:52:45 like a non-trivial, non-trivial amount of AI music. So like in my pie chart of my market share of music,
0:52:50 uh, used to be a hundred percent, just like artists, right. Uh, that I, I know. So like Spotify or
0:52:54 wherever, right. Let’s just say that’s where I started. And now I started adding in a little bit
0:53:01 of AI generated music. You go to Suno. So Suno, Suno has a lot of music there, but also there’s
0:53:06 these YouTube channels. Like there’s this one called golden age hip hop, which I don’t think is AI. I
0:53:09 think he might use AI in the making of it, but golden age hip hop is great. Great YouTube channel. What
0:53:14 he does is he makes these mashups, right? Like if you go to, dude, I listen to it too. And then like
0:53:22 Mac Miller lo-fi or like main character playlists, I’m getting recommended all of these. And at first
0:53:29 I was like, this is weird. And lately I’m attracted to them even more and like going to, it’s like when
0:53:34 I listen to you all day when I work, uh, this is my new workout track. So golden age hip hop is, uh,
0:53:41 if you look at the channel, so it’s got 800,000, 730,000 subscribers, every thumbnail is AI generated.
0:53:46 Yes. All of the concepts are like things that don’t even make sense. It’s like, wait,
0:53:50 so this is, uh, it’ll be like somebody from the like eighties and then like somebody from the
0:53:55 two thousands collabing on a song or like all the top, top songs are like, you know, like if it’s
0:54:00 sort by popular. So this one has 11 million views at Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, DMX or Snoop Dogg,
0:54:05 Eminem, Dr. Dre, uh, 50 cent exhibit and, and Ice Cube all on one track. And you’re like, what?
0:54:09 That, that never happened. Uh, and that, that song has 8 million plays.
0:54:14 And what I think what the person is doing is I think they’re just like a mashup artist,
0:54:18 more like girl talk where they, they’re just sampling from different songs and overlaying
0:54:22 them well together. Yes. But I think there’s a little bit of a sign to come. I wouldn’t be
0:54:27 surprised if they’re using AI to do this or if they’re just going to take a, a voice, uh, artist
0:54:32 voice and just use AI to make a song from it. Like, I think you tweeted something out. Did you tweet
0:54:40 out that like the number one song right now was an AI song? Uh, it was, um, the Beatles won a Grammy
0:54:48 this year and it didn’t get talked a lot, a lot about, but basically they had lyrics from when John
0:54:54 Lennon was alive and they used, uh, machine learning and AI and they finished the song and it won a
0:55:00 Grammy and it’s a great song. Like that’s crazy. It’s crazy. Nobody’s even, you’re the only person
0:55:04 I know who talked about that. I saw it and I was reading about this and I was like, this is a huge
0:55:09 deal. Why isn’t anyone discussing this? I felt like it was a totally undercovered story. Uh, and the
0:55:13 song is great. It’s not that nobody’s talking about it, but you’re right. Under like less
0:55:17 underreported, uh, story. So here’s what I think is going to happen. I think you’re going to have
0:55:22 a service as sort of like a Pandora or a Spotify where you’re going to prompt it, or you’re going
0:55:26 to tell it what songs you like. And it’s just going to start generating AI music on the fly.
0:55:30 And what’s going to happen is it’s going to generate music that’s in the genres you like.
0:55:34 It’s going to figure out, it’s going to basically train on the songs that exist and it’s going to
0:55:40 create net new songs. And I think the last piece of what’s going to happen there is in the same way
0:55:44 that today you have what’s called like vibe coders, you know, you know what vibe coding is.
0:55:49 I’m still trying to figure this out. I just, this is, this got on my, this got on my radar,
0:55:52 uh, on Monday. This is how new I am to vibe coding.
0:55:54 All right. So there’s, there’s a couple of startups like
0:55:57 it’s because of Peter levels is how I know about it.
0:56:02 Okay. So there’s a couple of startups like cursor, which is like absolutely blown up.
0:56:06 I think it’s become like a two or $3 billion company or $10 billion company in a very short
0:56:11 period of time. Cursor is basically like a coding terminal, but you can, but AI is built
0:56:14 in. Right. And so you can code, but you can basically like just
0:56:17 tell the AI it’ll write the code for you. And they can tell it to debug it for you.
0:56:21 You can tell it to build for you. Replit is doing the same thing. You go to replit.com
0:56:25 now and it just says, what would you like me to build? And you just tell Replit like,
0:56:29 Hey, I’d like an app that does blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it’s just, it starts spitting
0:56:33 out code on the screen, just scrolling like huge amounts of code. And then you’ll see it
0:56:36 thinking it’s like, Hmm, I can’t, the initial screen’s not loading properly. Let me see
0:56:39 what’s wrong. Ah, I found it. And then it just like continues on. It’s like,
0:56:43 kind of amazing to watch. And I’ve built up lots of little Replit apps that way. And so
0:56:47 this is like, you know, basically what’s happening now is that people are going to be able to make
0:56:51 software without knowing how to write code. Well, I think what’s going to happen next is
0:56:55 I’m going to be able to make music without knowing how to make music without knowing how to play
0:56:58 instruments or sing. So what’s going to happen is I’m going to be, I’m just going to be able
0:57:03 to prompt the music or tell it what I want or tell it how to tweak the songs. And then I’m
0:57:07 going to make it. And then by the way, are you ready for me to just go full blown,
0:57:12 full blown, you know, idiot here. I’m going to say three letters that you’re not going to like.
0:57:18 Okay. NFTs. They’re coming in here. So here’s, here’s the business model. Here’s where this
0:57:22 actually pairs up. And this is not so crazy, but listen, listen to this. So do you remember when,
0:57:27 uh, you used to say, you used to celebrate like, ding, ding, ding, we found a use case.
0:57:32 Is this, is this that? We did now. We found a use case. Exactly. So ladies and gentlemen,
0:57:38 we did it. What is an NFT? NFT is basically, uh, any kind of digital collectible, digital art,
0:57:43 digital property. Uh, that’s unique. It’s a way to say that this is unique and I own this,
0:57:47 I made this. And if you bought it now, you own this and I, and it shows who made it and the
0:57:51 royalties are attached to it. This is kind of a, actually like a kind of a cool thing. If I make art
0:57:56 in Photoshop, which I think both of us would agree is art, right? I think being able to say that I made
0:58:01 this and nobody can say that they made it. That’s important. Being able to sell my art also
0:58:06 important. And if you sell it, me being able to capture a royalty of subsequent sales also cool.
0:58:11 So I think we all agree that’s actually pretty cool as obnoxious as NFTs became to be. Now,
0:58:15 what’s going to happen in the music case is I’m going to be generating music with AI and I’m going
0:58:20 to be able to mint that song. So I’m going to be able to say that song. I helped create that by
0:58:25 prompting it. I’m going to create it. All of the artists whose music was used, I think they’re going to get
0:58:30 personal ownership of that. And now I’m going to be able to upload that track as a musician,
0:58:36 but in the same way that like, you know, a lot of musicians today, they’re using like auto-tune
0:58:40 and like, you know, just like basically digital program. They’re not, they’re not sitting there
0:58:46 with a guitar strumming, right? They’re in a piece of software making the computer strum the guitar and
0:58:51 they just type in the notes, A, B, C, D. And then the, you know, they’ll type in the chord and the guitar
0:58:54 just plays it. It’s kind of like to a pure musician. They’re like, that’s not music. That’s,
0:58:58 you’re just cheating. I think that’s, what’s going to happen next. I think with AI. And so
0:59:04 I think the next version of Pandora or Spotify, it’s the next big social product that’s around
0:59:09 music is going to be about creating music using AI, being able to mint it as a curator saying,
0:59:14 oh, this is cool. I like this. I’ll pay to create this and to own this. And then I’ll share that with
0:59:18 other people. And then I will get like the way this golden age hip hop guy is getting 10 million
0:59:23 streams on his songs. I think somebody who’s a non-musician would be able to get that. Did I just go
0:59:24 crazy or what just happened?
0:59:31 No, I, I think that’s very smart. I think you’re, I think you’re doing a good job of looking ahead.
0:59:36 And I agree with the future that you’re painting. I think that I’m shocked. I’m shocked so far that
0:59:43 music has been as, uh, not with AI. It’s been, and I guess this makes sense because the guys making AI
0:59:49 are also into this other stuff. Uh, but, uh, like AI has been like coding and like just a variety of
0:59:53 other tools. And I’m shocked that it hasn’t impacted art and particularly music as much as,
0:59:58 as little as it has. Um, and I think the future of your painting makes a lot of sense. I think that
1:00:05 if you were to play me like an AI post Malone song in a real post Malone song, I don’t think
1:00:09 anyone would know the difference, which is unbelievable. We’re already there, right?
1:00:14 Yeah. We’re already there. We’re already there. And also if you were, if I were to go to a concert,
1:00:18 like I would be into going to a concert of a fake person. Like, do you remember the gorillas?
1:00:24 I loved the gorillas. I listened to the gorillas. What’s their story? I mean, I’ve only heard their
1:00:29 songs, but never been to a concert. The guy who created the gorillas is a genius. So the gorillas,
1:00:34 for those listening who are below the age of 30, the gorillas was a band. It was created by,
1:00:40 do you remember blur? Remember the band blur? So it, uh, like a kind of a punk Rocky, uh, guy,
1:00:45 but he created the gorillas as like a weird, like hobby, like a side project where he wrote,
1:00:50 and this was in the nineties, he wrote songs and then he had a music and he sang it. He was the
1:00:55 musician. He played all the instruments. And then he had a music video where it was cartoons and it was
1:01:01 animations. And so for years, uh, and this was before the internet was popular. So we couldn’t like
1:01:06 Google who was behind it. It was like rumors. And like, it was like, you know, you never, you didn’t
1:01:10 actually know, you know, in that age, how it was, you didn’t totally know. You’re like, I heard it was
1:01:14 this guy. I heard it was this guy. I don’t know who it is. And the gorillas was the band that he made.
1:01:18 It was a fake band. It was all cartoons. They went so far as to being on talk shows.
1:01:22 And so they would like, at the time, the tech wasn’t great, but they would do holograms. So
1:01:26 they appeared on David Letterman and shows like that. And then eventually they would do concerts
1:01:30 where they would play. At first it was simple and janky. It was basically just a movie theater.
1:01:36 Uh, and then eventually they figured out how to hologram it. And then now he’ll go out and perform.
1:01:40 Now we all know who the guy is and he’ll actually go and perform. And it’s like amazing,
1:01:44 but he did all of this before all this technology was a thing.
1:01:49 And I loved the gorillas. I don’t, I don’t, I loved them before I knew who the person was.
1:01:53 I just thought like, I knew like the characters and I like actually liked them and I got to know
1:01:58 the personalities was very strange. But because I was into that when I was a kid and even as an adult,
1:02:02 I like it. I can now see how it doesn’t seem crazy that I’m going to like the AI stuff.
1:02:08 Totally. Totally. I mean, dude, I was so into like WWF growing up, right? It’s like,
1:02:13 it’s like you get into these things that sound on the surface, silly, stupid, illogical.
1:02:17 Why would you care? It’s all fake, right? It’s fake wrestling. And then guys are like,
1:02:21 you know, paying thousands of dollars to sit front row and scream their heart out to like,
1:02:25 watch it. Right. It’s like these things seem on the surface. If you just described it to somebody,
1:02:29 it would seem like it wouldn’t work, but it does. And that’s the, I think the point I’m trying
1:02:35 to make with this episode is that these are all trends that today sound small, sound weird,
1:02:42 but I think in the future are going to be bigger. And knowing that is good for two reasons. Either a,
1:02:46 you’re the type of person who just likes to be in the know. You like to know things before you,
1:02:52 maybe you like to try products early on before they become cool. Um, I, I like to do that. That’s,
1:02:56 that’s one reason. Do you want to know these? And the other reason is jumping on trends early
1:03:01 is the way to make a lot of money, right? There, there is riches in these niches. If you actually
1:03:06 like go, go pursue them. And, or you’re just going to be the guy that always waits for something to be
1:03:09 proven out. And then you’re going to feel like you’re too late every time. Right. So like that’s,
1:03:14 those are your options as an entrepreneur. And so I think being early to trends is, um,
1:03:19 trends that are going to last or be big is, is a great way to get rich. All right. So the ones we
1:03:25 mentioned, uh, number one, short drama apps. So mini dramas, these, these apps that basically
1:03:30 are like Netflix, but the episodes are 90 seconds long to taken off for apps that are doing over a
1:03:34 hundred million a year in revenue today. They’re all Chinese apps. I think there’s an opportunity
1:03:39 for somebody to make this, uh, both like made in America, but also for really any of your geography,
1:03:43 like make the biggest one of these in Brazil, make the biggest one of these in India. These are
1:03:47 going to be very, very big. The next one, fitness trends. So rucking we had,
1:03:51 which is walking with weighted vests, go rock, doing over 50 million a year in revenue.
1:03:55 Shirtless ripped guys are going to just tear you up in the comments saying, Sean, we’ve been here.
1:04:03 Of course. And I say, congratulations on being early, um, plastic free everything. So I think just
1:04:07 microplastics being something that people, the next thing people are going to be afraid of,
1:04:12 and then figuring out how to sell solutions to that fear. Nervous system work we talked about.
1:04:19 So the parasympathetic nervous system, people who create solutions that, that are marketed towards
1:04:24 calming or tuning or resetting your nervous system, a reboot for your nervous system.
1:04:32 Uh, we talked about biohacking for plants. So, uh, AI plus biohacking, but using plants as a go-to-market
1:04:37 because it’s a lot safer. You can kill plants and nobody cares. Um, and ultimately there’s a huge
1:04:41 market of improving crops and the food that we all eat. Uh, and then the last one that we talked
1:04:47 about is the AI social network. So every decade or so there’s a new big hit social product, Facebook,
1:04:53 then Instagram, Snapchat, now Tik TOK where it’s time we are due for a new one. And the twist will be
1:04:57 that the content is somehow generated with AI. I pitched a music one, but there’s probably many
1:04:58 other variations of that.
1:05:04 That was very educational. Good job. You, you, uh, you came with the goods. You carried us on this
1:05:06 one and I think you did a wonderful job. So thank you.
1:05:10 Thank you. Let us know in the comments, which trends you like in the YouTube comments,
1:05:13 and I’ll be replying to, uh, to all of them.
1:05:15 All right. That’s it. That’s the pod.
1:05:19 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
1:05:25 I put my all in it like no days off on the road. Let’s travel. Never looking back.
1:05:45 Hey, Sean here. A quick break to tell you an Ev Williams story. He started Twitter.
1:05:49 And before that he sold a company to Google for a hundred million dollars. And somebody asked him,
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