0:00:02 coming up in this episode.
0:00:05 – And I need to memorialize these things
0:00:07 for the benefit of humanity.
0:00:10 Before we’re all obviated like these kids
0:00:12 who have these incredible GPAs in this test taking,
0:00:14 I think it might be useless.
0:00:17 I think they might have optimized for useless skills.
0:00:19 And I think the only thing that might keep us going
0:00:21 is that randomness, that unpredictability,
0:00:23 those flaws, those fuck ups,
0:00:25 the things that make us banged up,
0:00:27 the things where we make bad decisions
0:00:28 where we’re self-indulgent.
0:00:30 I’ve had to teach our team
0:00:32 the number one thing you can be in this business
0:00:34 is unpredictable.
0:00:36 Feed into the fact, I am known as mercurial,
0:00:40 I burn bridges, I will not hesitate to fucking fight you.
0:00:43 I wear the stupid shirts, I don’t give a shit about much.
0:00:45 I’ve been known as lighted on fire.
0:00:46 And guess what?
0:00:48 People take me seriously as a result.
0:00:51 I haven’t backed down from all those fucking character flaws
0:00:53 I have that are very self-destructive.
0:00:57 But I am all gas, no fucking breaks, as you know.
0:01:00 Although in our line, we call it no gas, no breaks.
0:01:02 But we need to cultivate more of that
0:01:04 if we have any hope as a fucking species.
0:01:06 We just need to, I’m sorry.
0:01:12 – Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs.
0:01:13 This is Tim Ferriss.
0:01:15 Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show.
0:01:18 And my guest today is a repeat guest.
0:01:21 Last time he was on in conversation was 2015.
0:01:24 So a lot has changed since then.
0:01:25 His name is Chris Saga.
0:01:27 Chris is the co-founder of Lower Carbon Capital
0:01:29 and an accomplished venture investor,
0:01:31 company advisor and entrepreneur managing
0:01:34 a portfolio of countless technology, communication,
0:01:36 and consumer product startups
0:01:37 through his firm Lower Case Capital.
0:01:39 Whew, that’s a sense.
0:01:44 And he actually gave me some disclosure
0:01:45 in our conversation.
0:01:46 He was worried about this intro
0:01:47 because he knew I would be recording this intro
0:01:49 after the fact.
0:01:52 And there are some things not in his official bio.
0:01:57 His trading of commodities contracts related to live hogs,
0:01:59 which we actually get into.
0:02:02 His record-setting number of F-bombs
0:02:03 in this particular episode.
0:02:06 But let me return to the official bio for just a second.
0:02:07 Alongside his wife, Crystal,
0:02:11 Chris grew Lower Case, primarily known for its investments
0:02:12 in very early-stage technology companies
0:02:14 like Twitter, Uber, Instagram, Twilio,
0:02:17 Docker, Optimizely, BlueBottle, Coffee, and Stripe
0:02:20 into one of history’s most successful funds.
0:02:21 So there you have it.
0:02:23 He’s also a hilarious guy,
0:02:27 whip smart, mercurial, prone to burning bridges,
0:02:32 and not at all shy about talking about his slips,
0:02:34 flim flams, bamboozling,
0:02:37 and other character-building adventures.
0:02:39 In this episode, we get into it later
0:02:41 as part of a new project of his,
0:02:46 where he’s hoping to chat with successful entrepreneurs
0:02:50 and friends of his about the, I wouldn’t say misdeeds,
0:02:52 but adventures, getting into hot water,
0:02:54 getting out of hot water, talking to yourself
0:02:57 into things, talking your way out of things
0:03:01 for a new project/podcast called No Permanent Records.
0:03:03 So hopefully at some point you’ll be able to check that out.
0:03:05 But first, just a few quick words
0:03:08 from our fine podcast sponsors,
0:03:13 and only maybe 15%, 20% at most of the people
0:03:15 who want to be sponsors for the show become sponsors
0:03:19 because I personally test and vet everything.
0:03:21 So with that said, please enjoy.
0:03:24 – Coffee, coffee, coffee, man,
0:03:26 do I love a great cup of coffee?
0:03:27 Sometimes too much.
0:03:29 Then I’ll have two, three, four, five cups of coffee.
0:03:32 I do not love the jitters that come from that,
0:03:34 or how even one really strong cup of coffee
0:03:36 can impact my sleep,
0:03:37 which I measure in all sorts of ways,
0:03:40 which HRV and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
0:03:42 But more recently, I have downshifted
0:03:44 to something that feels good.
0:03:47 I have been enjoying a more serene morning brew
0:03:49 from this episode’s sponsor, Mudwater,
0:03:52 with only a fraction of the caffeine found in a cup of coffee.
0:03:56 Mudwater gives me all the energy I need without the crash,
0:03:59 without the fidgety crawling out of my skin kind of feeling.
0:04:00 And it’s delicious.
0:04:03 It tastes as if cacao and chai had a beautiful love child.
0:04:04 I drink it in the morning,
0:04:07 and sometimes right now I’m exercising in the mountains
0:04:08 and running around.
0:04:11 Sometimes I’ll also add some milk and ice for a 2pm,
0:04:13 maybe 1pm if I’m behaving,
0:04:15 iced latte, pick me up type of thing.
0:04:17 Mudwater’s original blend contains
0:04:19 four different types of mushrooms,
0:04:22 lion’s mane for focus, cordyceps to promote energy.
0:04:23 I used to use that when I was competing
0:04:24 in all sorts of sports,
0:04:28 and both chaga and reishi to support a healthy immune system.
0:04:31 I also love that they make and have for a long time,
0:04:34 donations to support psychedelic therapeutics and research,
0:04:37 including organizations like the Heroic Hearts Project,
0:04:38 which I encourage people to check out,
0:04:42 and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
0:04:45 You, my dear listeners, can now try Mudwater
0:04:48 with 15% off, plus a free rechargeable frother
0:04:52 and free shipping by going to mudwater.com/tim.
0:04:54 Now listen to the spelling, this is important,
0:04:59 that’s M-U-D-W-T-R.com/tim.
0:05:02 So one more time, M-U-D-W-T-R.com/tim
0:05:07 for a free frother, 15% off, and a better morning routine.
0:05:10 As many of you know, for the last few years,
0:05:13 I’ve been sleeping on a midnight lux mattress
0:05:15 from today’s sponsor, Helix Sleep.
0:05:17 I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs,
0:05:20 and feedback from friends has always been fantastic,
0:05:22 kind of over the top, to be honest.
0:05:24 I mean, they frequently say it’s the best night of sleep,
0:05:26 they’ve had an age, is what kind of mattresses,
0:05:28 and what do you do, what’s the magic juju,
0:05:29 it’s something they comment on
0:05:32 without any prompting from me whatsoever.
0:05:34 I also recently had a chance to test
0:05:37 the Helix Sunset Elite in a new guest bedroom,
0:05:38 which I sometimes sleep in,
0:05:41 and I picked it for its very soft but supportive feel
0:05:43 to help with some lower back pain that I’ve had.
0:05:46 The Sunset Elite delivers exceptional comfort
0:05:48 while putting the right support in the right spots.
0:05:50 It is made with five tailored foam layers,
0:05:52 including a base layer with full perimeter
0:05:55 zoned lumbar support, right where I need it,
0:05:58 and middle layers with premium foam and microcoils
0:06:00 that create a soft, contouring feel,
0:06:03 which also means if I feel like I wanna sleep on my side,
0:06:04 I can do that without worrying
0:06:06 about other aches and pains I might create.
0:06:09 And with a luxurious pillow top for pressure relief,
0:06:11 I look forward to nestling into that bed every night
0:06:12 that I use it.
0:06:14 The best part, of course, is that it helps me
0:06:17 wake up feeling fully rested with a back
0:06:20 that feels supple instead of stiff,
0:06:21 and that is the name of the game for me these days.
0:06:24 Helix offers a 100 night sleep trial,
0:06:27 fast, free shipping, and a 15 year warranty,
0:06:28 so check it all out.
0:06:30 And you, my dear listeners,
0:06:32 can get between 25 and 30% off
0:06:35 plus two free pillows on all mattress orders.
0:06:40 So go to helixsleep.com/tim to check it out.
0:06:43 That’s helixsleep.com/tim.
0:06:46 With Helix, better sleep starts now.
0:06:51 – You know my host today as the human guinea pig,
0:06:53 the sample size of one,
0:06:57 and the only clinical trial on two feet.
0:06:59 And New York Times bestselling author of
0:07:02 the four hour work week, the four hour body,
0:07:07 the four hour chef, and the four minute intimacy guide.
0:07:11 This man has inspired millions to learn Mandarin Chinese
0:07:14 in just three hours while doing handstand kegels
0:07:16 during their optimal billing cycle.
0:07:20 As one of the founders of the life hacking movement,
0:07:23 he leads by example and not having checked his email
0:07:25 since the Clinton administration,
0:07:27 and outsourcing all of his sneezes
0:07:30 and existential crises to Bolivia.
0:07:34 His chart-topping podcast practically gave birth
0:07:37 to the mannosphere and spawned an entire generation
0:07:41 of wannabe pod bros who think dropping references
0:07:44 to stoicism makes them philosophical sages
0:07:47 as they read Undy’s ads from Maan’s basement
0:07:52 while promoting pseudoscientific creatine enema regiments.
0:07:57 If it’s cool today, my host blogged about it in the 90s,
0:08:00 wrote a 13 point checklist for optimizing it,
0:08:03 and has the lab results to prove it.
0:08:07 When he’s not interviewing world-class performers
0:08:11 with pauses so pregnant they wear elastic waistbands,
0:08:13 you can find him meticulously organizing
0:08:16 his pharmaceutical grade kitchen fridge
0:08:19 full of blood, urine, and stool samples.
0:08:23 And his bathroom cabinet looks like a GMC nutrition store
0:08:26 fucked a Japanese vending machine.
0:08:29 He is only 14 months away from having supplemented
0:08:32 every possible molecular combination
0:08:35 from the known periodic table.
0:08:37 He has hotboxed with Himalayan monks,
0:08:40 ice bath with Arctic shamans,
0:08:42 and achieved ego death with cultures
0:08:45 that anthropologists haven’t even discovered yet.
0:08:47 On four separate continents,
0:08:50 there are sacred psychedelic ceremonies
0:08:52 that tribes have named after him.
0:08:55 And twice his meditations have opened portals
0:08:57 to another dimension.
0:09:01 He’s given lectures on Seneca in 27 languages,
0:09:06 can ask for warm body oil and CBD cream in 31,
0:09:11 and say, “Whoa brother, we just tripped balls in 38.”
0:09:15 I challenge any of you to identify a medieval weapon
0:09:18 with which he hasn’t competed at the international level.
0:09:22 This is a man who enchants the world’s most powerful
0:09:23 and influential people
0:09:26 with the insatiable curiosity of a four year old.
0:09:29 The energy level of a seven year old
0:09:31 who just ate three boxes of M&Ms,
0:09:34 and when texting memes to his friends,
0:09:38 the emotional maturity of a 10 year old.
0:09:40 He’s already prepared interview questions
0:09:43 for future podcasts who have yet to be born.
0:09:49 Carbs fear him to do lists quick in his presence.
0:09:53 His morning routine starts before he goes to sleep.
0:09:55 And his gratitude lists kick off
0:09:59 by individually thanking each of his gut bacteria.
0:10:02 His circadian rhythm is so optimized
0:10:05 that he experiences next week’s REM sleep
0:10:08 during yesterday’s power nap.
0:10:11 He’s had romantic relationships with kettlebells,
0:10:13 but we are told he is holding out
0:10:15 for a human lady longterm.
0:10:20 The world’s most eligible bachelor who just last week
0:10:21 stopped requiring potential dates
0:10:25 to submit three years of sleep tracking data.
0:10:28 The man, the myth, the legend,
0:10:31 the guy who would absolutely win gold
0:10:34 if self-experimentation and self-pleasure
0:10:36 were an Olympic sport.
0:10:40 It’s the one and thank God for all of us, the only.
0:10:41 Tim Ferriss, everyone.
0:10:43 Tim Ferriss, Tim Ferriss, everyone.
0:10:45 (upbeat music)
0:10:47 – At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile
0:10:49 before my hands start shaking.
0:10:51 – Can I answer your personal question?
0:10:53 – No, I would’ve seen it in a perfect time.
0:10:55 – What if I did the altitude?
0:10:57 – I’m a cybernetic organism,
0:10:59 living this year over a metal endosclerosis.
0:11:02 ♪ Me, Tim Ferriss, show ♪
0:11:11 – Now, for people who have not heard the first episode,
0:11:13 but maybe they see the headline,
0:11:17 which is Chris Saka on Being Different and Making Billions,
0:11:20 would you like to just give a quick snippet
0:11:21 of where you grew up?
0:11:23 I believe it was somewhere in Connecticut
0:11:27 as the scion of a wealthy family, am I getting that wrong?
0:11:29 – Yeah, I grew up in Lockport, New York,
0:11:32 a little town on the Erie Canal just north of Buffalo,
0:11:36 a town that is as middle class, working class as it gets.
0:11:39 We had a town employer, it was the GM plant,
0:11:43 where they made radiators and air conditioners for GM cars.
0:11:45 Most of my buddies’ dads worked at the plant,
0:11:48 and I feel really lucky to have grown up
0:11:51 in that kind of place, a safe place, a fun place.
0:11:53 I wasn’t exposed to any extreme wealth,
0:11:55 and I also wasn’t exposed to any extreme poverty.
0:11:57 But at the same time,
0:12:01 I also feel lucky to have seen the Canary in the coal mine.
0:12:06 And what happens when the company town factory shuts down
0:12:11 and the jobs ship off to Mexico,
0:12:14 and the pensions bankrupted?
0:12:16 My buddies’ dads who were retired
0:12:18 were suddenly had to work as greeters at Walmart.
0:12:22 And before long, we had the largest trailer park
0:12:24 in the Northeast, and our town drugs
0:12:27 that ultimately became fentanyl in modern times
0:12:28 really set in.
0:12:30 And there was just a lot of angst and depression.
0:12:35 And I watched that town go from reliably union Democrat
0:12:37 to hardcore MAGA.
0:12:41 But along the way, really saw the empathetic roots for it.
0:12:42 Like, why is this happening?
0:12:46 What happens when people lose agency over their lives,
0:12:47 when they feel like they can’t provide for their kids
0:12:49 the way their parents provided for them?
0:12:51 When they lose their small businesses
0:12:53 and those are replaced by a Walmart or Home Depot.
0:12:55 And I feel like that’s something
0:12:58 that I’ve really tried to stay in touch with.
0:13:00 I know we’re not really going to talk about politics.
0:13:02 It leaves me with the state of America today
0:13:03 never being a surprise.
0:13:06 I mean, I was just back in Buffalo this weekend, Go Bills.
0:13:09 And nothing about what’s happening in America is surprising.
0:13:11 I don’t love it, but it doesn’t shock me.
0:13:14 And so I feel really grateful to have grown up there.
0:13:17 Now, what it means is by the time I got into this business,
0:13:18 I didn’t have a network.
0:13:19 I didn’t know anybody.
0:13:21 I didn’t even know what money really was.
0:13:24 I had to make my own way in everything I did.
0:13:27 And I had these incredibly bright and supportive parents
0:13:30 who went way out of their way to create opportunities for us
0:13:32 and me and my brother.
0:13:34 But at the same time, I was an outsider
0:13:37 to the kind of stuff we do now for sure.
0:13:38 And I still feel like that.
0:13:41 I lived in the Valley for a while in Silicon Valley.
0:13:43 But as you know, Tim, ’cause you visited me in various places,
0:13:46 I’ve spent more of my time outside.
0:13:47 I live in the Rockies now.
0:13:51 I live in Montana before that Wyoming, before that truckie.
0:13:53 I really try to stay in places
0:13:56 where real people live and work.
0:13:59 And our kids go to public school.
0:14:01 I would never claim to be fully in touch
0:14:03 ’cause my life is ridiculously special.
0:14:05 But at the same time,
0:14:06 I feel really lucky the way I grew up,
0:14:09 going to public schools and being one among many.
0:14:13 And I worry that the kind of people Tim, you and I know
0:14:15 and the kind of people we work with
0:14:17 aren’t those people anymore.
0:14:19 And have really lost touch.
0:14:20 And you can see it in the decisions
0:14:22 they make and the stuff they say.
0:14:24 Did we start this out lighthearted enough?
0:14:26 Are we on to a, like, did we?
0:14:28 – Yeah, I was gonna do some knock-knock jokes,
0:14:30 but I’m not sure that’s an appropriate segue.
0:14:33 – I mean, there’s other stuff we said in the old episode.
0:14:35 Like, look, I was really good at school.
0:14:38 I went to university for math starting in seventh grade.
0:14:40 I think one thing that I’ve talked about before,
0:14:44 but I will bring up because I see it missing these days is
0:14:45 I always had a hustle.
0:14:48 I always had a little bit of a side business.
0:14:49 I mean, from the time I was six years old,
0:14:52 I was going around the neighborhood selling walnuts
0:14:54 that I poke holes in and call air fresheners or rocks
0:14:55 that I had found in a parking lot.
0:14:57 I was literally going door to door.
0:15:00 – What was your JT Marlin and Associates?
0:15:01 – 100%.
0:15:06 I mean, I started trading commodities when I was 13 or 14.
0:15:10 I had a pager that had a 45 second delay
0:15:12 to the Chicago Board of Trade.
0:15:15 We talked about latency and I was trading live hogs.
0:15:17 You know, I just always had a business,
0:15:21 mowing lawns, washing cars, detailing, a paper route.
0:15:23 – I’m not sure we talked about the live hogs.
0:15:24 – Oh yeah.
0:15:26 Somehow we skipped that.
0:15:27 – How did you even get into commodities?
0:15:30 – I’ll tell you, my dad’s best friend ran
0:15:32 basically a construction and equipment rental business
0:15:36 that I have talked to you about where it was a gritty ass job.
0:15:38 You know, my mom and dad believed in this sweet and sour.
0:15:40 Yeah, exactly.
0:15:42 So it was just grind it out,
0:15:44 work your ass off in a real job job.
0:15:48 And my boss there, who was my dad’s best friend,
0:15:49 you know, he was under strict construction
0:15:51 for my dad to just kick our asses
0:15:53 and make us appreciate everything we had
0:15:56 and hopefully go on to work our asses off in school
0:15:59 and maybe, you know, not have to do a job like that some day.
0:16:02 A lot of my coworkers were on parole
0:16:04 and it was a tough dead end situation.
0:16:08 But that guy had a commodities account
0:16:11 on a computer up in the attic of the building I worked in.
0:16:12 And he said, “Come here.
0:16:14 You probably know what the hell is going on with this stuff.”
0:16:16 I didn’t, but he showed it to me.
0:16:18 I went to the library.
0:16:20 I started learning about stochastics,
0:16:22 about charts and technical analysis.
0:16:24 And then I was reading about seasonality of, you know,
0:16:26 literally frozen orange juice concentrate
0:16:31 like trading places and cocoa and coffee and oil.
0:16:34 And I identified what I thought was
0:16:37 a pattern anomaly in live hogs.
0:16:38 And he had this deal with me.
0:16:43 He said, “Look, I’ve got like $3,000 in this account.
0:16:45 You make a trade, take a week.
0:16:46 I want you to think about it.
0:16:48 You make a trade.
0:16:50 If you make money, we’ll split the upside.
0:16:53 If you lose money, I’ll cover it.”
0:16:55 By the way, that’s called venture capital.
0:16:56 – That’s okay.
0:16:57 (laughing)
0:17:00 – So I went all in.
0:17:00 I read everything.
0:17:01 I studied everything.
0:17:03 I looked at these charts and imagine charts
0:17:06 on like a low res green monitor, right?
0:17:08 – Yeah, like word and style.
0:17:09 – Yeah.
0:17:11 And I had this pager and I’m like trying to go to school
0:17:13 and also monitor my quotes on my,
0:17:16 I think it was called a Quotron pager.
0:17:18 And eventually I placed this trade
0:17:21 and two weeks later I cashed out
0:17:25 and I netted $171 for myself.
0:17:26 – Nice.
0:17:29 – And I just remember thinking downstairs,
0:17:31 I’m making for 25 an hour.
0:17:35 Upstairs, I just made $171 by pushing a button
0:17:37 and using my brain.
0:17:40 I was like, “I want to be the guy who works upstairs.”
0:17:42 And I can’t tell you how seminal
0:17:45 that experience was for me and the rest of my life.
0:17:48 Like there’s only so far you can lever a man hour.
0:17:50 Bob Haas was that guy’s name.
0:17:52 I feel incredibly indebted to him
0:17:54 for that kind of exposure.
0:17:55 And the rich dad, poor dad world.
0:17:57 My mom and dad weren’t, they didn’t own stocks.
0:17:59 They weren’t really investors like that.
0:18:01 They had a rental property once,
0:18:03 but Bob Haas was kind of like my rich dad,
0:18:06 a guy who got me exposed to capital markets.
0:18:08 – Amazing, life hugs.
0:18:09 – Yeah, I mean, but I also had hustles.
0:18:13 Like I, in high school, I ran a card room, you know?
0:18:14 I started one in junior high,
0:18:15 but by the time I was in high school,
0:18:17 I ran a full-on card room.
0:18:19 I paid off a teacher, rest in peace, Mr. Maine.
0:18:20 He was on the rake.
0:18:23 And so we were always hustling.
0:18:26 I was selling blow pops with my buddy Hawkeye.
0:18:28 We ran a little sports book.
0:18:30 – Hawkeye, did he give himself that nickname?
0:18:32 – No, no, no, that was given to him at his birth.
0:18:35 Actually, I was just at the bill’s game,
0:18:38 all my high school buddies, and I turn around,
0:18:39 I’m talking to some other people, I had some family,
0:18:42 and I turn around and I see my daughters,
0:18:44 who are 13, 11, and nine,
0:18:46 playing beer pong with my high school buddies.
0:18:50 We’d been deep in the tailgate with Pinto Ron.
0:18:52 If anyone follows the bills, the girls were eating,
0:18:54 baking off of Pinto Ron’s car
0:18:56 and making pizza with Pizza Pete,
0:18:58 who cooks pizza in the file cabinet, literally.
0:18:59 Go Google that.
0:19:02 Pinto Ron and Pizza Pete are absolute legends.
0:19:04 It only happens in Buffalo.
0:19:05 But then the girls are actually playing beer pong
0:19:08 with my high school degenerate buddies.
0:19:09 And they’re like, is this okay?
0:19:11 And I was like, it’s better than okay.
0:19:13 Now they weren’t slamming beers, they were slamming sodas,
0:19:15 but I was just like, I feel like these skills
0:19:17 aren’t taught to children anymore.
0:19:19 And it was funny, our 13-year-old,
0:19:20 when they were like, hey, Cece, come jump in the game.
0:19:23 She’s like, all right, but I haven’t played this in a while.
0:19:26 And my buddies all piss themselves, like, in a while?
0:19:28 You’re 13, this is amazing.
0:19:32 And our kids were talking shit, placing side bets,
0:19:33 a little bit of gambling.
0:19:35 I feel like we’ve got a generation of kids
0:19:37 who’s lost that edge completely.
0:19:40 And so again, I feel very lucky to have grown up in a place
0:19:45 where I had opportunities to commit small misdemeanors.
0:19:47 And I had more than one detention.
0:19:49 I definitely appeared before the principals
0:19:53 on many occasions, just some light mischief.
0:19:54 – We’re gonna come back to that.
0:19:56 So is there anything though from our last conversation
0:20:00 that you would revise or that you think was missing
0:20:03 given your last 10 years of life?
0:20:05 – Then anything jumped out at you?
0:20:06 – I don’t think so.
0:20:08 Nothing jumped out tremendously.
0:20:13 I mean, I think that the kernel of who you and I are
0:20:17 has remained remarkably intact, hopefully for better.
0:20:18 – Yeah.
0:20:22 – And I, at the same time,
0:20:24 recognize that you’ve had a lot of life changes.
0:20:26 You’ve had a lot of professional changes.
0:20:28 So there are probably maybe not some revisions,
0:20:30 but addendums at the very least.
0:20:33 And you sent me to your own description,
0:20:36 the world’s longest text message about what we might
0:20:38 chat about, which was very helpful.
0:20:42 And my response was, in addition to all of this,
0:20:43 because there were great topics,
0:20:45 we’re gonna touch on a bunch of them,
0:20:49 the lessons that Chris Saka has learned, right?
0:20:50 Since last time.
0:20:54 And I was leading with the, I suppose, precautionary note
0:20:56 of avoiding a lot of politics.
0:20:58 But what comes up for you?
0:21:00 It’s just as a human, as a man, as a parent,
0:21:03 as a husband, anything.
0:21:06 – I’ll tell you what was interesting about
0:21:10 re-listening to that, was I actually felt a lot of pressure
0:21:14 because I was like, shit, I don’t have a lot of new material.
0:21:17 We used to just roll tape, right?
0:21:19 Like you would just hit record.
0:21:21 The sound quality on that is abysmal.
0:21:23 There’s seagulls going in the background.
0:21:25 There’s people partying down below.
0:21:27 You and I are maxing out mics in the red zone.
0:21:29 Like you couldn’t hear shit.
0:21:30 But back then, there wasn’t like an industry
0:21:32 of professional podcast guests.
0:21:33 – Right.
0:21:35 – You know, those conversations weren’t optimized
0:21:38 for like, what is gonna be the pithy takeaway quote?
0:21:40 What’s gonna be the title card of this one?
0:21:43 – Right, the Oprah moment where I get you to cry
0:21:44 and then make a thumbnail out of you
0:21:46 with a red arrow pointing at your face.
0:21:47 – Yeah, I’m good at that shit.
0:21:48 If we have a few minutes,
0:21:50 I am actually authentic and vulnerable.
0:21:51 But you know what I don’t have?
0:21:54 Like, no one’s written the Naval almanac of shit
0:21:56 that Crisaka says, right?
0:21:59 And so that guy’s intimidating.
0:22:01 Like he’s brilliant and he reduces everything
0:22:04 to 80 characters and you’re like, fuck, that’s true.
0:22:06 I don’t know if that guy just sits up in a cave
0:22:07 on a mountainside and you got to hike up
0:22:09 to see Naval these days.
0:22:11 So I listened to these episodes where I’m like,
0:22:13 okay, this is a real conversation
0:22:15 where I am happy to bear my soul.
0:22:19 I am accountable to an audience of me, my wife,
0:22:20 and my kids and that’s it.
0:22:23 So I will just say what I really wanna say.
0:22:27 You asked me last time, what changed between 30 and 40?
0:22:31 And I talked a lot about reorienting myself around,
0:22:33 ’cause you also asked who is someone I looked up to
0:22:34 and a mentor, et cetera.
0:22:40 And I would say right now I have few if zero of them
0:22:43 because I started to realize
0:22:45 and I started to touch upon this last time
0:22:46 and it’s only become truer.
0:22:48 Anytime I put somebody on a pedestal,
0:22:54 I realized it holds them to a universal purity test
0:22:55 across everything.
0:22:57 I gave the example of Bill Gates in the last one.
0:23:00 I was like, I just had dinner with him in Melinda.
0:23:02 And so, yeah, exactly.
0:23:06 – Just changed my name on Riverside
0:23:08 to Chris’s Idol and Mentor.
0:23:12 – Well, I’d already put mine as Tim’s Idol.
0:23:15 And so I left out the Mentor part.
0:23:19 But obviously Bill Gates is amazing in so many regards
0:23:22 and he’s also a fucking disaster in so many regards.
0:23:26 And so if I were to say like he’s an idol and a mentor,
0:23:29 it implies this like, I’ve taken all of it.
0:23:31 And I think if there’s anything that’s a scourge
0:23:33 in today’s society, it’s these purity tests.
0:23:36 It’s this like, you have to be perfect in all regards
0:23:38 or we toss you out.
0:23:39 And I am gonna be political for a second.
0:23:42 That is one of the major flaws of the Democratic Party,
0:23:44 is you either sign up to everything they believe in
0:23:46 or fuck you, you’re out.
0:23:48 And the Republican Party has been like,
0:23:49 hey, choose from this menu.
0:23:51 Anything here, bro, high five, let’s go.
0:23:54 And I think that’s one of the things is that
0:23:58 people to the left have just made us each other feel bad
0:24:02 and have held each other these impossible fucking standards
0:24:04 that don’t allow for growth,
0:24:06 that don’t allow for imperfections,
0:24:07 that don’t even allow for just the wobby-sobby
0:24:09 of a human experience.
0:24:12 And so I’ve really tried to demystify
0:24:14 putting people on a pedestal
0:24:17 and instead looking to people
0:24:20 for examples of one aspect of a life.
0:24:22 I mean, I will say like,
0:24:24 I really look up to Rich and Sarah Barton.
0:24:28 So Rich founded Expedia, Zillow, Crystal and I
0:24:31 look up to them as a family, as parents,
0:24:33 as business people and entrepreneurs.
0:24:35 And they’re ahead of us on the kid games
0:24:36 so their kids are in college
0:24:38 and our kids are in middle school.
0:24:41 And so I would say I kind of do look at them
0:24:42 as the total package a bit.
0:24:44 – What about them?
0:24:47 I’ve spent some time with Rich, amazing human being.
0:24:51 What about them specifically jumps out to you?
0:24:53 Like what is it that you’d like to emulate
0:24:54 or that you think is rare
0:24:56 or that you’d like to model anything?
0:24:58 – I think the biggest danger of raising kids
0:25:01 with privileges is that they turn out to be assholes.
0:25:01 – Yeah.
0:25:04 – You press the fucking red, you know, mute button
0:25:07 like the end of the Oscar speech anytime I say it.
0:25:09 But Donald Trump is an example of what happens
0:25:13 when someone is raised without anyone ever saying no to them.
0:25:15 Okay, like no matter how you vote, we can agree.
0:25:17 No one has ever said fucking no to that guy
0:25:19 and that’s what you get.
0:25:23 But the richer you get, the temptation is to raise your kids
0:25:25 in a way that they’re surrounded by people who are like aye aye.
0:25:29 You know, and increasingly Elon Musk is what you get
0:25:30 when no one says no to you.
0:25:33 And you’ve been exposed to lots of people
0:25:35 who’ve been very successful.
0:25:38 And once they see that you’re on that ride,
0:25:40 it’s very easy to be surrounded only by sycophants
0:25:43 who are there to say yes to every idea
0:25:45 out of self and opportunistic interest.
0:25:49 And so I think that happens when you’re raising kids
0:25:52 who are lucky enough to not stay in Motel Sixes
0:25:57 or ride in the seating group E on Southwest.
0:26:02 And so I love the kids that Rich and Sarah have raised.
0:26:06 How collegial, how balanced, how hardworking,
0:26:08 while also unapologetically bright they are,
0:26:10 how different they are from each other,
0:26:12 but how driven they still are.
0:26:14 I love Rich and Sarah as a couple.
0:26:16 I think they balance working their faces off
0:26:18 with also having a good time.
0:26:22 And so, you know, I’ve had deeply introspective,
0:26:25 reflective conversations about work with them.
0:26:27 I mean, frankly, they were the ones who convinced me
0:26:30 and Crystal to get back to work and start lower carbon
0:26:33 when we were very pleasantly enjoying not working full time.
0:26:35 And there are some days when we curse Rich and Sarah
0:26:36 as a result.
0:26:37 – How did they convince you to do that?
0:26:40 What was the logic behind it?
0:26:45 Or what did they see that led them to stage an intervention?
0:26:48 – They just said, you are uniquely positioned to do it
0:26:50 and you need to do it for the planet.
0:26:53 And we were like begrudgingly, yes.
0:26:54 I’m telling you, there are definitely days
0:26:56 where Rich and Sarah Barton are a bad word in our house
0:26:59 because I’m like, fuck, fuck Rich.
0:27:01 Like he is probably fucking skiing right now
0:27:03 and I’m dealing with some horseshit.
0:27:05 Or I’ve been staring at Montana out the window
0:27:08 and have not started from this fucking computer today.
0:27:12 The Bartons actually wrote out their family creed,
0:27:14 I guess I would say.
0:27:17 I’m not gonna give any insight into what’s in there,
0:27:21 but they wrote out like, what does it mean to be a Barton?
0:27:26 And like that exercise alone is so powerful.
0:27:30 And as Crystal and I started writing that for ourselves,
0:27:32 wow, nobody ever really takes that time to like,
0:27:34 what do we stand for?
0:27:35 If we were gone tomorrow,
0:27:37 what would we want our kids to take away
0:27:40 from who we were, how we got here?
0:27:42 You know, there’s this amazing data on how
0:27:45 the children of people who are Rich,
0:27:48 but when those parents grew up middle class or poor,
0:27:50 those kids end up all right.
0:27:52 But their children are fucked.
0:27:56 No, I mean, there’s like actual sociological data on this.
0:28:00 Like, because we can teach our kids about spending,
0:28:02 about saving and thrift and hard work, et cetera,
0:28:04 but they don’t have the empirical basis for it.
0:28:06 It’s a learned lesson.
0:28:07 – Yep.
0:28:09 – So they have no real deep root in their DNA
0:28:11 for passing it along.
0:28:13 So we’ve tried to codify it a little bit.
0:28:14 – What does that look like?
0:28:16 How long is it?
0:28:18 – Like 18 pages.
0:28:19 – 18 pages?
0:28:21 What kind of stuff did you try to cover?
0:28:22 – Ultimately, the kids will be in there.
0:28:24 The kids will be part of the conversation.
0:28:29 Crystal spent six years writing biographies
0:28:33 of my grandmother before she passed at age 94,
0:28:35 and then her parents.
0:28:36 Her parents are two of the most fascinating people
0:28:38 who’ve ever walked the planet.
0:28:41 I mean, I think it’s, we’ll just say that they spent
0:28:43 over 40 years each in the service of the government
0:28:46 and various roles known and unknown, et cetera, et cetera,
0:28:47 et cetera.
0:28:49 And the biographies were great.
0:28:51 They cannot be published because they would have to go
0:28:54 through certain agencies for stuff to be cleared.
0:28:57 But incredible public servants,
0:28:59 two of the most honorable people I’ve ever known
0:29:01 I met them when I was 18 years old.
0:29:03 You know, Crystal and I were besties starting at age 18.
0:29:06 I asked her out and she friend-zoned me for 14 years.
0:29:07 But my grandmother’s biography was interesting.
0:29:10 My grandmother from the Midwest lived most of her life
0:29:15 in Omaha, Nebraska and had this real quotidian wonder
0:29:19 and beauty and treasure to her life.
0:29:22 The mom of seven, a volunteer, she worked in prison.
0:29:25 She was the leader of a national organization
0:29:27 of Catholics, school teacher.
0:29:29 But here’s this woman who’s a leader
0:29:30 of a national organization of Catholics.
0:29:32 And one of the things she put in her biography
0:29:36 that Crystal did was I think it’s really important
0:29:39 that men and women live together before they get married
0:29:42 because I think divorce is a much bigger problem
0:29:44 than premarital sex.
0:29:47 I think she was 92 when she said that.
0:29:50 As a leader of a Catholic organization,
0:29:53 I really just think she did an incredible service.
0:29:55 I loved hearing her prioritization like,
0:29:57 hey, here’s what the creed says.
0:29:59 Here’s what the doctrine says, et cetera.
0:30:00 But here’s the reality.
0:30:02 I would rather see a family to make sure
0:30:05 that parents are compatible and a family stay together
0:30:09 for their lifetimes than deal with the breakups, et cetera.
0:30:10 Like it was really incredible.
0:30:12 So we cover everything in there.
0:30:13 How we would like to communicate.
0:30:17 How Crystal and I think about making up after a fight.
0:30:18 How we think about making decisions.
0:30:20 We put stuff in there that’s almost therapeutic.
0:30:23 Like, hey, when we first made a lot of money,
0:30:26 we bought a bunch of houses for everyone in our family.
0:30:28 We thought that was an incredible way to thank them
0:30:30 and paid off mortgages and stuff
0:30:34 and moved parents out from the East Coast to California.
0:30:37 And then we soon realized, shit, we’re property managers.
0:30:40 The shit we own owns us.
0:30:42 Like, that’s all we fucking do.
0:30:43 – I don’t know if we talked
0:30:45 about this last conversation, probably not,
0:30:48 but you texted me at some point and you were like,
0:30:50 if a raccoon dies in the HVAC,
0:30:51 is Eric Schmidt getting these texts?
0:30:52 Like, what the fuck?
0:30:53 – Right.
0:30:59 Dude, Eric Schmidt’s team reached out yesterday
0:31:01 to update like his email address.
0:31:04 And I wrote back to them, hey, team,
0:31:06 do you think we could do a check-in?
0:31:08 Just, I’m just curious how the flow is working
0:31:10 around Eric’s email, his calls, his travel.
0:31:12 Like, I just kind of want to know.
0:31:14 And they’re kind of like, what?
0:31:16 And I’m like, yeah, no, I didn’t, like, Eric’s cool.
0:31:18 Give him my best, but I kind of want to talk to you guys
0:31:20 about like, what flows up to Eric?
0:31:21 What doesn’t?
0:31:23 Like, how does he handle this shit right now?
0:31:25 I’m constantly interviewing people about that
0:31:28 because there’s finite amount of time in this space
0:31:30 and the shit you own does own you.
0:31:32 You know, every single object at some point
0:31:34 has commanded some of your attention.
0:31:36 One of our close friends lost everything this week.
0:31:39 Shit.
0:31:41 It’s Kevin Rose, ’cause he’s talked about it out loud.
0:31:44 But, you know, I said, it’s totally devastating,
0:31:46 but if there was one person I know
0:31:50 who will actually end up teaching us something from this,
0:31:51 it’s Kevin.
0:31:56 Kevin is this guy who loves stuff,
0:31:58 but is also untethered to it.
0:32:00 It’s this weird duality he has,
0:32:02 where he is then as fuck,
0:32:05 while also loving a good pair of sneakers.
0:32:08 And a great, like, dude, check out this fucking watch.
0:32:11 His watch is melted into a puddle.
0:32:13 And he’s like, whoops.
0:32:15 And Kevin was like, you know what I miss?
0:32:17 I miss the drawings from my kids
0:32:19 and I miss the box my dad made me.
0:32:23 And I’m really hoping I can learn from him, you know?
0:32:27 It’s cataclysmic and I’m not trying to diminish it at all.
0:32:28 And, like, folks in Palisades,
0:32:31 most of them can take care of the next steps.
0:32:33 Folks in Alta Dina, I’m way more worried about.
0:32:38 But I have realized, like, shit gets complicated really fast.
0:32:39 You think you want all this shit.
0:32:41 And so I spend most of my time
0:32:44 trying to get rid of it or downsize it.
0:32:47 Speaking of, Tim, I could have bought an ad slot,
0:32:49 but there is an incredible ranch for sale
0:32:51 in Jackson, Wyoming right now in Wilson.
0:32:55 Two contiguous lots, a main house on some lakes,
0:32:56 a ranch house, you’ll find it.
0:32:59 It’s just south of Wilson off of Fall Creek Road.
0:33:02 Hey, hey, take a look, everybody.
0:33:06 You got your crypto gains with a Z that you need to shelter.
0:33:09 You know, there’s no state tax, no state tax in Wyoming.
0:33:11 The skiing’s great, abundant wildlife.
0:33:13 I’m just saying, I’m just saying.
0:33:16 – People think that Chris is joking about an ad slot,
0:33:19 but you actually did text me to ask me
0:33:21 how much it would cost.
0:33:24 – I didn’t realize you were going to invite me on the pod
0:33:26 later, but I was very close to buying an ad.
0:33:29 I’m like, okay, who is actually doing well in this market
0:33:31 and it has some gains to shelter.
0:33:32 It’s the crypto investors, bro.
0:33:34 That shit is up.
0:33:37 And so you want to take a little money off the table.
0:33:39 I’m just saying those California taxes.
0:33:44 – Dude, so coming back to Kevin for a sec.
0:33:49 I mean, he is remarkable in so many respects.
0:33:50 They’ve known him forever.
0:33:53 And one is, I do think Kevin does a great job
0:33:55 of working hard, playing hard,
0:33:58 but that’s not really a dignified enough way to put it.
0:34:02 Like he savers life, he enjoys the stuff,
0:34:05 but he’s very unattached to it.
0:34:09 And I can’t say that for a lot of people
0:34:11 sort of in our circles.
0:34:14 I’m not sure I could say that for the vast majority.
0:34:16 Like they do get attached.
0:34:19 So I’m curious for you, last time we spoke,
0:34:22 you just appeared as a cover story
0:34:24 for the Midas issue of Forbes.
0:34:26 And you’ve done a lot since.
0:34:29 What has become more and less important?
0:34:31 And I suppose a better way of asking that is,
0:34:33 what have you simplified?
0:34:35 What are ways that you have tried to simplify?
0:34:37 – Do you remember that line in the jerk
0:34:40 and Steve Martin’s the jerk where he’s walking
0:34:43 out of the house, you know, he’s losing his money
0:34:44 and he’s been rich and he’s like,
0:34:49 I don’t need any of this except this ashtray.
0:34:50 And he just starts picking up stuff
0:34:52 until his arms are bundled as he’s walking out of his house.
0:34:54 He’s like, I don’t need any of this at all.
0:34:57 Like I think that’s the perfectly opposite
0:34:58 of Kevin Rose where you’re just like,
0:35:01 I don’t need any of these trappings of wealth
0:35:02 except this car.
0:35:05 And this watch is really nice.
0:35:09 And God damn, those shoes were like limited release.
0:35:10 Sorry, so I missed the question
0:35:12 ’cause I was trying to think of Steve Martin.
0:35:16 – So since we last spoke, 2015,
0:35:18 you were sort of still, I mean,
0:35:20 not to say you aren’t anymore,
0:35:24 but certainly in a steep ascent at that point,
0:35:26 doing a lot of stuff, meeting a lot of people,
0:35:29 getting the toys.
0:35:32 And I’m just wondering how you have thought
0:35:35 about simplifying or have simplified.
0:35:37 – I’ve never did the toys thing.
0:35:39 – I mean, you like real estate.
0:35:41 – I was just gonna say Zillow is my not safe for work
0:35:44 situation when that certain life came out.
0:35:46 I was like looking over my shoulder,
0:35:48 like which writer has been watching me?
0:35:51 I probably put more product suggestions
0:35:52 and feedback into Zillow
0:35:54 ’cause Rich is one of my close friends
0:35:56 than anyone who doesn’t work there.
0:35:58 I noticed things about that app that no one else there does.
0:36:00 I spend way too much time.
0:36:02 By the way, I think it’s a weird missed opportunity
0:36:04 that Zillow doesn’t have a social network attached to it.
0:36:07 And so I think there should be a comment section.
0:36:09 I think you should be able to build playlists
0:36:10 of Zillow houses.
0:36:11 It’s a missed opportunity.
0:36:12 I’m just throwing it out there.
0:36:13 Just saying.
0:36:15 Wouldn’t it be cool to have a playlist of houses
0:36:17 like generated by the community?
0:36:17 And so…
0:36:18 – I don’t even know what that means.
0:36:19 What does that mean?
0:36:21 It’s just like real estate porn
0:36:23 that flashes for you in front of you.
0:36:25 – So there are blogs that do this
0:36:26 that like keep track of the cool houses.
0:36:29 I love, is it Zillow gone wild?
0:36:30 That Twitter account is amazing.
0:36:33 That finds the craziest shit happening on Zillow.
0:36:34 But I think like it’d be cool to just be like,
0:36:37 look 10 places I would love to live someday
0:36:39 or 15 best places where you could shoot a scene
0:36:42 in a 1970s adult film.
0:36:43 (laughing)
0:36:45 – Makes me think that you’ve thought about this.
0:36:48 – Favorite locations from the Big Lebowski
0:36:51 or best examples of mid-century modern architecture
0:36:52 or something like that.
0:36:53 And so…
0:36:54 – Yeah, okay.
0:36:55 I got it.
0:36:56 – I think there’s a missed opportunity
0:36:58 for influencers to build stuff, feature it.
0:37:00 – Simplification.
0:37:02 – But real estate is my soft spot.
0:37:03 Yeah.
0:37:06 Part of it is I’m a recluse and I think you know that.
0:37:09 Amy Schumer once wrote an essay
0:37:10 since the last time we spoke.
0:37:12 It was about being an introvert
0:37:14 who makes a living on stage.
0:37:18 And I lit up and was like, I feel seen.
0:37:19 You know me, Tim.
0:37:22 My ideal social situation is Danish sized.
0:37:26 Like four, six feels huge.
0:37:30 I love getting four great buddies together for a weekend
0:37:33 and interacting with no other human beings.
0:37:36 And so I like space.
0:37:39 So I like to live in places that are out of the mix
0:37:42 where I can be very specific
0:37:44 and opt into my social interactions
0:37:46 ’cause they drain me.
0:37:48 What happens is I don’t like being in big groups
0:37:49 or allowing lots of people.
0:37:51 So I get there and I overcompensate
0:37:54 by being loud and boisterous and amazing
0:37:55 and like larger than life.
0:37:56 But really what I’m doing,
0:37:59 it’s like cranking your iPhone screen up to 100%.
0:38:01 I’m just raining my battery
0:38:03 and I need that time to recover.
0:38:08 So I’ve loved creating spaces for myself to be alone.
0:38:11 And so I think that’s an absolute vice.
0:38:13 – And then have you divested yourself
0:38:16 of things, relationships,
0:38:17 things you used to prize heavily
0:38:19 that you no longer value heavily?
0:38:21 – Tim, have you heard of Jackson Hole, Wyoming?
0:38:25 Because there’s a ranch for sale just south of the city.
0:38:28 That would fit that theme.
0:38:29 There’s abundant wildlife.
0:38:32 There’s moose and elk and you can see bears.
0:38:33 It’s really incredible.
0:38:36 Fishing, it’s on the Orvis’s first
0:38:37 blue ribbon certified fishing property.
0:38:40 I’m just saying, yes, the first thing we sold
0:38:42 was hard to sell.
0:38:44 People still think about us living in Truckee,
0:38:47 but we haven’t been in Truckee since 2011.
0:38:49 That was the first thing Crystal and I bought together
0:38:52 and to let go of that was weird and disorienting.
0:38:56 But since then, yeah, I’ve gotten pretty good at selling
0:38:58 and letting go and realizing.
0:39:01 And more importantly, not buying.
0:39:04 – Yeah, it’s like having premarital abode
0:39:06 before the messy divorce.
0:39:07 – Yeah, exactly.
0:39:09 That’s a really good way of putting it.
0:39:13 – Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors
0:39:15 and we’ll be right back to the show.
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0:40:19 – You always ask people their favorite books, et cetera.
0:40:22 Like one is Morgan’s The Psychology of Money.
0:40:24 – Oh, Morgan Housel, yeah, great book.
0:40:26 – That echoes a lot of refrains,
0:40:29 but a lot of that like the millionaire next door,
0:40:31 that kind of stuff, like all of them are just like,
0:40:31 look, the way you get rich
0:40:34 is by not spending it in the first place.
0:40:36 And so what Crystal and I have started to realize
0:40:38 is it’s not the check you write,
0:40:40 it’s the fucking time you spend.
0:40:45 We were just about to build a house and we realized,
0:40:50 oh God, do you know how many decisions that is?
0:40:53 And it turns out, if you ask me about something,
0:40:55 I am gonna have an opinion.
0:40:56 – Shocker.
0:40:59 – If you just make it, if you just make it,
0:41:00 I wouldn’t have noticed,
0:41:03 but like when we renovated a house in LA,
0:41:04 they’re like, hey, how do you want this wood
0:41:06 to meet that wood to meet that wood?
0:41:08 You assholes, I never would have seen it,
0:41:11 but now that I’ve seen it, I’m gonna sketch it for you.
0:41:13 And so we’re gonna, there’s gonna be an eighth inch
0:41:15 of tolerance, we’re gonna have a hold back.
0:41:17 And there’s, it’s gonna, and like,
0:41:18 now I’m tortured by those details.
0:41:20 And Crystal is even more of a detail in design
0:41:23 and, you know, and flow person than I am.
0:41:25 But what we start to realize is like,
0:41:28 those projects that we buy and build,
0:41:29 they’re jobs.
0:41:32 And so I think that number one area
0:41:36 where we try to lighten stuff up
0:41:38 is let’s not take that project on in the first place.
0:41:40 You know, we bought a piece of land,
0:41:44 recently an incredible setting we’ve always had on the list.
0:41:48 We finally found the place, we started sketch it out,
0:41:49 we were working with the right architects.
0:41:53 Our nephew, Mike is an architect at the Arca Angles Group,
0:41:55 one of the greats, and he was helping us out
0:41:58 and really, really loved it.
0:42:00 And then we took a step back and we’re like,
0:42:02 this is gonna be a job for the next couple of years.
0:42:04 Or can we just Airbnb it?
0:42:07 And literally as part of that, I wrote to our travel agent,
0:42:11 can you show me 15 places within the same realm as this
0:42:14 that we could rent and just show up with our bags,
0:42:17 have a great week and then fucking leave
0:42:18 and never think about it.
0:42:20 I was like, if you do this, you’re about to save me
0:42:23 two years of my life and many, many dollars.
0:42:25 And it worked, I was like thrilled.
0:42:26 – So many questions.
0:42:29 So let’s just say, no super fancy cars that I’m aware of,
0:42:33 you might have some UTVs, but you have plenty of beavers
0:42:35 to keep you company last time I checked,
0:42:37 although that might be a past hobby.
0:42:40 And then the real estate question for you,
0:42:43 so if all of that vanished, right, it burned down
0:42:45 or otherwise was just removed,
0:42:47 how much of that would you repurchase?
0:42:52 – Can I just say our now nine year old when she was eight,
0:42:56 she’s our hippie kid who’s like always on mushrooms.
0:42:57 – Not literally, but-
0:42:58 – No, not literally, sorry.
0:43:00 We don’t feed our kids mushrooms yet,
0:43:03 but no, she’s just our kid who we just end up writing down
0:43:05 so many of the things that come out of her mouth.
0:43:07 She’s just untethered by reality.
0:43:10 She’s the one who, when we moved to Jackson,
0:43:12 we signed up for this Teton Science School.
0:43:15 It was like a expeditionary learning academy
0:43:17 and we toured the school.
0:43:19 And then after a couple of weeks there,
0:43:21 we checked on the other girls,
0:43:22 they were doing like traditional school
0:43:24 and tiny classes with some outdoor learning.
0:43:27 But we went to center skies preschool,
0:43:29 kindergarten situation, and we were like,
0:43:32 hey, to the teacher, when you guys start doing like,
0:43:34 I don’t know, the math or the writing,
0:43:36 and she’s like, oh, there’ll be no math here.
0:43:37 We’re like, what?
0:43:39 And she’s like, this is a forest preschool
0:43:41 other than when the kids come in and write their names,
0:43:43 that’s it, the rest is just play-based.
0:43:45 And we’re like, wait, what?
0:43:46 And so we ended up watching some videos
0:43:48 on these Swedish forest schools and we’re like,
0:43:50 I mean, what do we got to lose, right?
0:43:55 It turns out that kid is so exceptionally resilient
0:43:58 and capable of being bored.
0:43:59 None of the three kids get bored,
0:44:02 but I go for a hike every day and she’ll say,
0:44:05 when she was like four, she said to me,
0:44:06 yeah, can I come with you?
0:44:09 And I’m like, it’s dark and it’s starting to hail.
0:44:12 And she’s like, dad, that’s just ice falling from the sky.
0:44:15 And I was like, all right, suit up.
0:44:17 And we spent two hours with numb fingers,
0:44:19 throwing shit in the river and digging in the mud
0:44:21 and having a blast, you know,
0:44:23 and she’s an academic superstar.
0:44:24 Like it didn’t hold her back at all,
0:44:26 but I really love that skill set.
0:44:29 Anyway, it’s a long way of saying she once said
0:44:33 to Crystal and I last year, she said, mom, dad,
0:44:35 someday or if we’re lucky,
0:44:37 maybe we can live in a smaller house.
0:44:39 (laughs)
0:44:45 I mean, we were wrecked.
0:44:51 Like we were just, if I could answer your question,
0:44:54 anyway, it’s that, you know?
0:44:56 Like we live in a house now that has a lot of perks
0:45:00 and features and maybe there we could do without them.
0:45:03 – Sharks with lasers, downsize.
0:45:04 – Dude, you’ve got a new project.
0:45:05 – Yeah.
0:45:07 – It’s about no, but what was the actual title?
0:45:09 The working title, working title is-
0:45:11 – Yeah, the working title is the book of no.
0:45:12 – Okay.
0:45:13 – And I’m excited about that.
0:45:15 – I say no for a living.
0:45:16 And I think one of the challenges is like,
0:45:18 how to stay an optimistic, open-minded person
0:45:19 when you say no all day.
0:45:20 – Yeah, what’s your take on that?
0:45:22 Because a popular position would be,
0:45:25 you have to say yes to everything when you’re building
0:45:27 and then you have to learn to say no.
0:45:31 I don’t know if I totally subscribe to that.
0:45:33 At least I’ve done a lot of writing on this.
0:45:38 And I think that if you look at a lot of examples
0:45:41 of mega successful people and there’s a survivorship bias
0:45:44 who the fuck knows what’s actually causal in some level.
0:45:48 But a lot of them get good at focusing early
0:45:51 and by virtue of definition focus means saying no
0:45:54 to a lot of things outside of that focus.
0:45:56 What’s your take?
0:45:58 – First of all, and investing in anything,
0:46:02 I think one of the big traps is being too thematic,
0:46:05 like having a thesis ahead of time.
0:46:08 I’ve watched people write like the canonical blog post
0:46:09 on the shared economy.
0:46:12 Then people come pitch them shared economy deals,
0:46:15 which makes their blog post feel writer and writer
0:46:18 and that confirmation bias causes them to light money on fire.
0:46:20 And then their fund goes away and they’re like,
0:46:21 but my blog post was awesome.
0:46:25 And so I have this big rule at lower carbon
0:46:29 about never actually having a thesis written in stone.
0:46:32 We are very big on electrification of the economy.
0:46:35 Lithium, we have a way of extracting lithium
0:46:37 that’s 10,000 times faster.
0:46:38 – So Chris, let’s pause for a second.
0:46:42 So we have not explained, because it didn’t exist at the time,
0:46:45 what lower carbon capital is.
0:46:46 – Okay, let me go back to just saying no then,
0:46:49 ’cause it’s important, ’cause you’re writing a book about it.
0:46:54 So my point is, is if I have too many rules about saying no,
0:46:56 then I’m gonna say it to the wrong shit.
0:46:58 I’m gonna turn down the wrong stuff.
0:47:01 I’m gonna have too much predisposition.
0:47:03 So what I have to know ahead of time,
0:47:05 the work I have to do ahead of time
0:47:08 is to know, as we were just talking about with the houses,
0:47:10 what’s the actual cost?
0:47:12 What’s the actual downside risk?
0:47:17 So what is the actual cost to saying yes to this?
0:47:20 So if the cost of saying yes is,
0:47:22 I end up at a three hour dinner party that’s boring,
0:47:24 that’s actually pretty low cost.
0:47:27 I prefer not to blow three hours,
0:47:29 like hanging out with some lame people.
0:47:35 But I would prefer not to blow a night, you know?
0:47:38 But on the other hand, that’s pretty low cost.
0:47:42 Whereas saying yes to a meeting that I have to fly to,
0:47:44 well, that’s a whole fucking disruption to my world.
0:47:47 I am not gonna see my kids or my wife,
0:47:49 and I gotta fucking pack some stuff
0:47:52 and transport all that shit, you know?
0:47:54 I mean, Paul Graham a long time ago
0:47:56 used to talk about the true cost of a cup of coffee.
0:47:58 You know, like what does it actually take
0:47:59 to stop your day and go meet somebody
0:48:01 and let them pick your brain and all that bullshit?
0:48:05 So I just talked about the real cost of building something.
0:48:07 Everyone thinks about the cost of building a house
0:48:09 is the amount of money you put into it.
0:48:10 That’s real.
0:48:12 At the same time, it’s the amount of time
0:48:16 and crazy bullshit and like shit breaks all the time
0:48:17 that you put into it.
0:48:19 So I think for me, it’s doing the work ahead of time
0:48:21 to understand what are my actual priorities,
0:48:23 what really matters to me,
0:48:24 and what’s the true cost of those things.
0:48:28 So when you come to me with a proposal and invitation,
0:48:32 I can assess like, am I gonna just risk 50 grand here?
0:48:33 And like, that’s my total downside.
0:48:35 Okay, what’s 50 grand worth to me?
0:48:36 What can I?
0:48:38 Oh, God, I was almost quoting Jay-Z right there.
0:48:40 Can you please remind me?
0:48:42 Whereas if what you’re talking to me is like,
0:48:44 “Hey, Chris, I wanna start a project.
0:48:46 I want you to join my board,” et cetera.
0:48:48 I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
0:48:50 What’s the real cost of that?”
0:48:51 You know, it’s easy to say yes to that,
0:48:53 but what’s the real cost?
0:48:55 And then I think the second part
0:48:56 is just getting comfortable with the fact
0:48:58 that this is gonna be uncomfortable for a minute,
0:49:01 but I’m just gonna say, “No, bro, I appreciate you.
0:49:03 How do I let you know that you’re my homie
0:49:05 and I deeply appreciate and respect you
0:49:07 and flattered by the invitation,
0:49:08 but we’re not going down that path.”
0:49:10 And that can be really tough.
0:49:12 You know, I think everyone can attach themselves
0:49:13 to the dramatic narrative of,
0:49:15 “God, my thing would be awesome,
0:49:17 even more awesome if Tim Tim were on it.
0:49:18 You know, if Tim Ferriss is attached,
0:49:20 God damn, I’m going places.”
0:49:22 But they’re not you.
0:49:24 They don’t know what your scorecard is.
0:49:27 They don’t know what your actual to-do list says.
0:49:28 We’ve said many, many times,
0:49:29 and I wasn’t the first person to say it,
0:49:31 but your inbox is a to-do list
0:49:33 to which anyone else can add an action item.
0:49:36 So you’re the only one who sees your to-do list.
0:49:38 I love all these questions where you ask people,
0:49:39 like, “What’s your daily routine?”
0:49:41 And then every single time, I’m like,
0:49:42 “That is someone who doesn’t have anyone
0:49:44 in their house attending elementary school.”
0:49:48 – Yeah, there’s truth to that, yeah, for sure.
0:49:50 – Last night, we had a kid with an ear infection
0:49:51 sleeping in our bed.
0:49:53 Two nights ago, I had a kid puking out the side of the car
0:49:55 as we drove home from the bill’s game
0:49:58 ’cause I had stuffed her full of pizza and other bullshit.
0:49:59 I love these people.
0:50:01 Like, “This is when I peacefully do this shit.”
0:50:04 And I’m like, “Oh, this is when I fucking wipe asses.”
0:50:05 I love all those.
0:50:07 I know somebody writes out their intentions
0:50:09 and then hand stitches them together
0:50:10 at the beginning of the day.
0:50:12 (laughing)
0:50:13 God bless, God bless.
0:50:15 I’m not mocking, I’m just saying.
0:50:17 I think the know is feeling comfortable.
0:50:19 And by the way, as we grow up,
0:50:23 I mean, one of the things Chris and I find with employees
0:50:28 is I think younger managers are too slow to fire employees.
0:50:31 Employees who cost too much.
0:50:34 It’s never the financial cost.
0:50:36 It’s literally like when we make a decision on somebody,
0:50:39 it’s not like what their salary is
0:50:40 or what their benefits cost is.
0:50:43 It’s just, are they creating more work
0:50:45 than they’re eating, than they’re consuming?
0:50:48 Are they creating more administrative overhead?
0:50:49 Somebody else once said,
0:50:53 “If we have to talk about an employee three times in bed,
0:50:56 it was a local entrepreneur I met here in Bozeman,
0:50:59 a guy who’s pickleball court doubles as a gun range.”
0:51:00 (laughing)
0:51:03 And so just amazing, amazing dude.
0:51:05 And he said, he and his wife were small businesses,
0:51:07 people retired now, but they said they had a rule.
0:51:10 If they had to talk about someone they worked with three
0:51:12 times in bed while falling asleep at night,
0:51:14 they were gone from that org.
0:51:17 That was the true cost of that person.
0:51:20 And so I think younger people are sometimes afraid
0:51:21 to have those uncomfortable moments.
0:51:22 It’s easier to live with the status quo
0:51:25 than to just be like, “Sorry, it’s not happening.
0:51:27 We gotta go,” because they’re afraid of the loss,
0:51:31 but the real loss is all that fucking time along the way.
0:51:33 So, all right, that’s my diatribe on nose.
0:51:34 – Well, hold on a sec.
0:51:36 So now the three hour dinner,
0:51:39 I imagine you get dozens of these invitations.
0:51:41 So you wouldn’t be able to say,
0:51:43 I imagine yes to all of them.
0:51:47 So how do you choose not the big things to say yes to?
0:51:48 We could talk about that too,
0:51:52 but the inbound that you say yes to
0:51:54 that are along the lines of the three hour dinner.
0:51:56 ‘Cause you still have finite time, finite dinners.
0:51:58 And if you do a dinner with a group of 10 people,
0:52:01 that’s also a way from your family, presumably, right?
0:52:02 – I’ll tell you, I’m the asshole who’s like,
0:52:05 I would infinitely rather host and control the situation.
0:52:07 You’ve been to our events.
0:52:08 There’s no automatic plus ones,
0:52:11 unless the other person is independently awesome.
0:52:12 That’s a real thing.
0:52:14 We have deeply offended people.
0:52:16 Even at our wedding, we’re like, “Sorry, no.
0:52:17 Never met your wife.
0:52:20 I bet you she’s great, but I need to know.”
0:52:22 No, this is gonna sound ruthless as fuck.
0:52:23 And somebody in the comments would be like,
0:52:27 “This guy’s a fucking sociopath, but here’s the thing.
0:52:29 I don’t wanna have to have a seating chart.
0:52:32 I wanna know that whoever’s here can sit next to anyone else
0:52:34 and be enthralled by how interesting that person is,
0:52:36 no matter what they do for a living.”
0:52:38 And so you’ve been to our events
0:52:41 before where we gather 30 incredible people
0:52:43 for a weekend or we host a party.
0:52:45 And I just know whoever you are talking to
0:52:48 is independently great in whatever field.
0:52:51 I’ve seen many of them end up as guests on your podcast.
0:52:54 I love when people end up on each other’s boards
0:52:58 or do a collaborative art project together or performance
0:53:00 because that’s what I’m vouching for.
0:53:01 If I’m gathering people,
0:53:04 I’m vouching for every single person there is being awesome.
0:53:08 And so I don’t know if everyone else has that standard.
0:53:11 And if I’m getting up in front of an audience,
0:53:14 I wanna make sure that hopefully I’m delivering
0:53:16 the aggregate value of all the time people
0:53:18 just took out of their day to be there.
0:53:20 I don’t get nervous about giving speeches,
0:53:22 but I feel like I wanna bring my A game.
0:53:24 So I was saying, I felt the pressure of like,
0:53:26 “Oh my God, what if some fucking kid
0:53:28 is home taking notes about this episode?
0:53:29 What are they gonna actually write down?
0:53:31 Oh my God, I need pithier quotes.”
0:53:33 But the reality is I wanna make sure
0:53:35 I’m delivering something of value.
0:53:37 And I don’t know if everyone else lives by that standard.
0:53:42 And I do like to live like I’m running out of time, you know?
0:53:43 – We’re all running out of time.
0:53:45 – My best friend, Teddy Ryingold, who you knew well,
0:53:49 he died at 46, one of the all time great people.
0:53:50 – Yeah.
0:53:51 – I feel like I’ve gotten three years of bonus time
0:53:53 past him, you know?
0:53:55 And I don’t take it for granted.
0:53:57 I mean, I get all the scans
0:54:00 and I did treat my body like a rental car for many years,
0:54:04 but at the same time, you asked me like,
0:54:06 “What’s changed since I was 30 or 40?”
0:54:09 Like I am way less patient.
0:54:11 It’s harder to work for me as a result.
0:54:13 – And for people who don’t know Chris well,
0:54:17 you didn’t really start off that patient to begin with.
0:54:20 – No, like it’s funny, like we had this thing
0:54:23 at work recently where I wanted to promote somebody.
0:54:26 We hired somebody junior who we could just realize
0:54:29 very soon was like a five X employee,
0:54:31 somewhere between five and 10 X.
0:54:33 You know those kinds of people where you’re like wait,
0:54:35 they’re just different.
0:54:38 And so Chris and I are like, we should promote her.
0:54:40 And our partner was like, okay, well her review is coming up
0:54:42 and Chris and I are like, no, no, no, no, no,
0:54:44 we should promote her by Friday.
0:54:46 And we’re like, well, there’s, and I was like,
0:54:48 do you want to tell her or are we going to tell her today?
0:54:51 You know, and it’s just like, why would we wait?
0:54:52 She’s fucking amazing.
0:54:54 She knows it.
0:54:56 It’s so weird that it would just hang in the ether
0:54:57 and an email account somewhere in the meantime
0:55:00 that we haven’t told her she’s that fucking great
0:55:03 and that we give her a new title and get her fucking going.
0:55:04 But she’s just that great.
0:55:06 I just have no fucking time for that.
0:55:09 Like that idea I told you about over the weekend
0:55:11 where we were talking to our team and I was like,
0:55:12 okay, I appreciate all your input,
0:55:14 but we’re fucking doing it.
0:55:16 And they’re like, okay, Q one, Q two.
0:55:21 And I’m like, no, Q Friday, it’s just write it up.
0:55:23 What are we talking about here?
0:55:26 And so I’m just like, we are men of action.
0:55:27 You know, lies do not become us,
0:55:31 but like I’m just like, I have no fucking time for that.
0:55:33 And so I worry, I worry it’s way too easy
0:55:35 to let the stuff slip away.
0:55:38 – Is that a pending tangible sense of mortality
0:55:40 or is there something else to it?
0:55:43 Or is it just getting old and cantankerous?
0:55:45 – Tim, does any of the shit you built?
0:55:47 I mean, you built it yourself, literally.
0:55:49 I would say the same for me, right?
0:55:52 And so no one’s ever gonna call me an entrepreneur though,
0:55:54 but I built all this from scratch, right?
0:55:55 With crystal.
0:55:58 But like, if I don’t do it, it doesn’t fucking happen.
0:56:01 If I don’t move it, it doesn’t fucking happen.
0:56:03 I tried resting for a little bit.
0:56:05 I was horrible at it.
0:56:10 And so I regret being 70 hours a week employed again.
0:56:11 This sucks.
0:56:15 But at the same time, like I was awful at not doing much.
0:56:17 If I don’t move it, and if I have a business idea,
0:56:19 I gotta do it before anyone else fucking picks up on it
0:56:21 before the fast followers come.
0:56:22 I wanna just be out there
0:56:24 with whatever my anomalous advantage is.
0:56:26 I wanna go press that.
0:56:27 You remember when I was trying to convince people
0:56:29 that Twitter was a real business for years,
0:56:30 and then I finally was like, all right,
0:56:31 I’m no longer here to convince you,
0:56:33 just sell me your fucking stock.
0:56:37 I just wasted so much time not buying it all,
0:56:39 and then eventually bought it all.
0:56:42 But I don’t wanna convince people to do something.
0:56:43 I wanna go own it all first,
0:56:45 and then convince them to buy it from me.
0:56:49 So we have the world’s only dedicated nuclear fusion fund.
0:56:53 And so we had been dabbling in fusion investment for a while.
0:56:54 People poo-pooed it.
0:56:55 – Do you wanna take a second
0:56:57 to explain what lower carbon capital is?
0:56:59 And then I’m gonna come back to that kid taking notes
0:57:00 ’cause I have a question for that kid.
0:57:03 But do you wanna just give a quick backgrounder?
0:57:05 – Oh, by the way, I got yelled at
0:57:07 for calling people in their 20s kids.
0:57:08 – What?
0:57:10 They should be so flattered.
0:57:12 – And my 360 review on my org,
0:57:15 we had a kid who started harassing me in my inbox
0:57:17 when he was like 19 from college.
0:57:19 We hired him directly out of graduation.
0:57:22 His name was Harsh Dooby, amazing name.
0:57:25 Harsh Dooby is one of the hardest working,
0:57:28 most insightful young people I’ve ever fucking worked with.
0:57:29 He worked with us for a couple of years,
0:57:31 and then he went and joined one of our portfolio companies.
0:57:33 As you know, the guy is a legend.
0:57:36 He is welcome back to lower carbon any day.
0:57:37 We’ll explain lower carbon in a second.
0:57:40 But I once referred to Harsh Dooby on a podcast as a kid.
0:57:41 I was like, we had this kid, he came,
0:57:43 he was sending me all these ideas,
0:57:45 we hired him, God, he executes, he’s amazing.
0:57:48 And then later, an employee, not Harsh Dooby,
0:57:49 but another employee was like,
0:57:52 hey, you can’t refer to people in their 20s as kids.
0:57:54 And I’m like, God, fucking damn it.
0:57:55 I can’t do anything, right?
0:57:57 By the way, that was in the same six months
0:57:59 that I was accused of promoting hustle culture.
0:58:03 And Crystal and I are like, wait, what’s hustle culture?
0:58:04 Like, I really felt I’d fucked up.
0:58:07 And they’re like, you know, this whole thing about like,
0:58:08 you know, the work never sleeps
0:58:11 and sometimes shit blows up on a Sunday.
0:58:12 And so you got to get your laptop out,
0:58:14 no matter where you are.
0:58:15 And like, you know, if you’re going to be a partner
0:58:17 or an entrepreneur or you got to just feel like
0:58:19 you’re an owner too and be available for them,
0:58:21 no matter what else is going on.
0:58:25 And we’re like, yeah, and like, yeah, and we’re like,
0:58:27 and wait, where’s the accusation part?
0:58:28 Oh, that was it?
0:58:29 Oh, fuck you.
0:58:31 Yes, that’s exactly what we do.
0:58:33 That’s exactly, this is hustle culture.
0:58:34 What the fuck?
0:58:38 Like I don’t have successories posters on the wall.
0:58:40 But just hang in there.
0:58:44 But at the same time for fuck’s sake, you know,
0:58:47 and we haven’t asked anyone, Crystal slept under her desk,
0:58:48 literally slept under her desk,
0:58:49 missed every wedding for 10 years.
0:58:51 I haven’t asked that of anyone.
0:58:55 I had no fucking life outside of Spadera and Google.
0:58:56 I can see the direct correlation
0:58:58 between the entrepreneurial risk we took
0:59:00 and the hours we put in and what we got.
0:59:02 I don’t think there’s a way to shortcut that.
0:59:05 I don’t think you have to like work yourself
0:59:08 to a state of unhealthiness anymore,
0:59:11 but I also think you can’t fucking phone this in.
0:59:13 And I’m sick of apologizing for it.
0:59:14 – All right, no more apologies.
0:59:15 You got to stop your apologizing.
0:59:18 And we’re going to come back to the fusion fund
0:59:21 and lower carbon, but for the kid who’s taken notes,
0:59:23 I would be very curious to know
0:59:25 because those who may not be familiar–
0:59:26 – Wait, wait, wait, is this–
0:59:27 – Hold on, hold on, hold on.
0:59:29 – No, this is a good place to insert the commercial break
0:59:32 for like the self-help therapy app or whatever.
0:59:33 Like after Chris goes on a rant
0:59:36 about how you have to work yourself to the fucking bone
0:59:38 until you’re only teetering on the edge
0:59:39 of a nervous breakdown. – Meditation app.
0:59:41 Throw in a sponsorship ad for the day.
0:59:42 – Hi, this is Tim, taking a quick break
0:59:45 to let you know that you got to take care of your mental health.
0:59:47 – Yes. (laughs)
0:59:51 – All right, so the question for the kid
0:59:53 who may be listening to you for the first time,
0:59:55 he’s like, wow, that guy has a lot of energy
0:59:56 and sounds very impatient.
0:59:57 I can’t wait to work for him.
0:59:59 But also, he’s like, well,
1:00:01 he also did college math when he was seven
1:00:05 and was trading live hogs when he was a fetus and fuck.
1:00:07 Like I can’t emulate this guy.
1:00:10 If you were to teach a seminar,
1:00:13 could be college, high school, doesn’t really matter.
1:00:16 Just like entrepreneurship, what could you teach?
1:00:19 What would you teach that is not dependent
1:00:22 on the hard wiring of a soccer specimen?
1:00:25 – I told you what I’m working on next.
1:00:28 And I hate that I don’t have like a URL
1:00:29 or deliverable to announce
1:00:32 ’cause this podcast came up really quickly.
1:00:36 But I feel like there is a massive cultural hole.
1:00:39 My working title has been no permanent record.
1:00:41 So Tim, you and I are of the same generation
1:00:44 where our teachers, our parents would be like,
1:00:46 that’s gonna go on your permanent record.
1:00:48 Like you fuck up, that’s gonna go on your permanent record.
1:00:50 Tim, I was 19 years old
1:00:52 before I realized that document didn’t exist.
1:00:55 I swear, I thought something had followed me
1:00:57 from George Southern Elementary School
1:00:59 to North Park Middle School to Lockport High School
1:01:00 to Georgetown University.
1:01:01 – Like Santa Claus.
1:01:03 – Yes, I felt like there was a document
1:01:05 that had been hand delivered over there.
1:01:06 And they’re like, oh,
1:01:08 oh, did you really do that in gym class?
1:01:08 Jesus.
1:01:10 (laughs)
1:01:13 And so, I mean, people talk all the time
1:01:15 about how we were the last feral generation,
1:01:17 the last kids allowed to free range.
1:01:20 You know, Crystal and I showed the young adults
1:01:23 who worked for us, I won’t say the kids,
1:01:25 the young professionals who worked for us.
1:01:29 We showed them that PSA that used to play on television
1:01:31 that said, it’s 10 o’clock.
1:01:33 Do you know where your children are?
1:01:34 – Yeah.
1:01:35 – And people were like, where would the children be?
1:01:37 And we’re like, that was it.
1:01:39 We were out, we were just fucking gone.
1:01:40 Oftentimes your parents are like,
1:01:43 get the fuck out of the house and don’t come back.
1:01:46 And what the TV was basically telling your parents was,
1:01:49 before you have one more gimlet and get all fucking wasted,
1:01:52 maybe do a bed check, see if anyone made it home.
1:01:56 Like, so we would leave the house without water.
1:01:58 How the fuck did we survive without water, Tim?
1:02:00 Like kids these days can’t go anywhere
1:02:02 without a fucking water bottle.
1:02:05 Like we would maybe find a garden hose somewhere.
1:02:06 We had no fucking snacks.
1:02:09 And so we would just go.
1:02:11 Like we had no fucking Band-Aids or Neospore.
1:02:13 And we just like would fucking rub a little dirt in it
1:02:15 when we wiped out, no helmets.
1:02:17 We were a disaster.
1:02:19 At least once each of us was propositioned
1:02:21 to get into a van for some candy.
1:02:24 And so it was the wild fucking west, Tim.
1:02:27 But we learned to be resilient and resourceful.
1:02:28 And I worry about it.
1:02:32 And along the way, Tim, we learned how to tell stories.
1:02:34 We learned how to convince our friends
1:02:35 ’cause there are no parents there.
1:02:36 Hey, let’s go do my idea.
1:02:39 No, let’s go do my idea and we’d negotiate, right?
1:02:42 We would talk our way into situations.
1:02:44 We would talk our way out of situations.
1:02:46 And I recently was back at my alma mater
1:02:48 and we were being honored.
1:02:50 Crystal and I were back there being feted
1:02:53 and being interviewed in front of the student body.
1:02:57 And first thing I covered was cheers to all you fucking nerds.
1:02:59 Your test scores and grades are so great
1:03:01 that Crystal and I wouldn’t even get in here now.
1:03:04 So I love that you’re applauding all our accomplishments
1:03:05 but we wouldn’t make it right now
1:03:07 because you’re also fucking smart.
1:03:09 But I said, hey, how many of you here
1:03:11 have ever gotten in trouble?
1:03:13 How many of you here have ever had to talk your way
1:03:15 out of a situation in the cops?
1:03:16 One black kid raised his hand and I was like,
1:03:19 you have every fucking systemic reason for doing that.
1:03:21 Yes, I agree, but I was like,
1:03:24 how many of you have ever snuck into something?
1:03:28 How many of you have ever committed the mildest crime?
1:03:30 Have you vandalized anything?
1:03:32 How many of you have ever actually scammed someone
1:03:34 or even been scammed?
1:03:36 Have you ever been on the wrong side of a flimflam?
1:03:39 How many of you have placed a bet on sports?
1:03:41 How many of you have played cards?
1:03:43 How many of you have been blackout drunk?
1:03:45 How many of you have had a regrettable hookup?
1:03:47 And so I just kept going down.
1:03:50 How many of you have worked a tipping job?
1:03:53 How many of you have had a fucking horrible boss
1:03:57 who was incredibly aggressive with his language, right?
1:03:58 None of them, none of them.
1:04:01 And I was just like, I’m sorry, Dean,
1:04:04 but this is why you’re also fucking useless to us.
1:04:07 It’s like, you’ve done none of the things
1:04:10 that actually inform the kind of work we do.
1:04:12 So you know what I’m seeing right now?
1:04:17 It’s like, we actually have a cross art portfolio
1:04:18 and a cross art team.
1:04:20 There are some really hard workers.
1:04:22 I don’t think you can paint in the broadest strokes
1:04:24 around who’s willing to work hard and who’s not.
1:04:26 We have some really fucking hard workers.
1:04:28 And so it’s easy to always get off my lawn
1:04:31 in the next generation and these kids don’t wanna work.
1:04:33 There are definitely some fucking lifestyle kids
1:04:37 and bless them, but we have some really fucking hard workers.
1:04:39 I’ve just started noticing things like,
1:04:43 well, they can’t tell when somebody’s lying to them.
1:04:46 Literally, we have a generation of young people
1:04:49 who cannot tell when they’re being bullshitted
1:04:51 because mom and dad were a helicopter
1:04:53 and snow cloud parenting for them.
1:04:55 And so now when somebody is literally staring them
1:04:56 in the face and lying to them, I’m like,
1:04:58 wait, you’re believing that shit?
1:05:00 Holy shit, you’re fucking, what?
1:05:02 Oh my God, because they’ve never been in a situation
1:05:04 where somebody was taking advantage of them.
1:05:06 They’ve never had to bluff their way out with some cars.
1:05:08 – How do you fix that other than sending them
1:05:11 to Stranger Things Reality Camp 1980s theme park?
1:05:13 – You know what’s crazy?
1:05:16 My way in on the H-1B visa just to get political again,
1:05:17 which is like–
1:05:20 – It’s gonna play elevator music as soon as you say this.
1:05:22 – The people who know this shit,
1:05:24 the people who know this shit are either
1:05:27 the American kids who grew up broke as fuck
1:05:31 or the kids from India and China who grew up hustling,
1:05:35 scrapping, basically not only fending for themselves
1:05:37 in school, but also helping run their mom and dad’s
1:05:40 restaurant or store and taking care of a kid along the way
1:05:43 and having to fend for themselves in a market.
1:05:46 You know, I worry like most of the investors
1:05:49 and entrepreneurs I know in their 20s right now
1:05:52 would get eaten alive in a bazaar, just eaten alive.
1:05:54 Like tears might happen.
1:05:58 You know, whereas Crystal, my wife who grew up in India,
1:05:59 it’s a fucking sport for her.
1:06:00 It’s almost uncomfortable.
1:06:03 I’m like, we once had a big fight in Morocco
1:06:05 ’cause I’m like, you are arguing with this man
1:06:07 over seven cents right now and she’s like, yeah,
1:06:09 but if I don’t, he’s gonna be disrespected
1:06:11 and I’m gonna be disrespected, so fuck this.
1:06:13 And like, I’m gonna walk away again.
1:06:16 I’m like, it’s one dearam, we gotta go.
1:06:18 And she’s like, fuck that, we’re in this shit.
1:06:20 Like if you don’t have the fucking stones
1:06:22 to stay in this conversation, get the fuck out of here.
1:06:23 I miss that alpha.
1:06:25 I worry that we just don’t have people who are put
1:06:27 in a position where they had to fight
1:06:29 and fend for themselves.
1:06:31 And they’re fucking brilliant, man.
1:06:32 But they’ve never had to take any risks.
1:06:33 They’ve never had to mix it up.
1:06:35 They’ve never been in a fight.
1:06:37 I’m not encouraging people to go beat the shove each other,
1:06:38 but they’ve never been in a fight.
1:06:40 – Yeah, no, I get it.
1:06:41 So is there anything to be done?
1:06:44 Like is there anything to counteract
1:06:49 this nefarious slippage into impotence and oversensitivity?
1:06:53 – Yeah, take your fucking phone and throw it in the bin.
1:06:55 I’m a Jonathan Hype disciple,
1:06:59 but like the phones are killing everybody, parents included.
1:07:04 I am a wealthy, happily married, got everything I need.
1:07:06 Almost 50 year old white dude.
1:07:09 And when I get on Instagram, I feel so much fucking FOMO.
1:07:11 My life feels so inadequate.
1:07:12 I’m like, Jesus, look at that guy.
1:07:13 Oh fuck, where are they?
1:07:14 They’re having so much fun.
1:07:16 Shit, that guy’s so much fitter than me right now.
1:07:17 Fuck!
1:07:18 And it makes me unhappy.
1:07:21 And so maybe me and 13 year old girls
1:07:21 have a lot in common.
1:07:23 – You left out technologists too, right?
1:07:25 As you put it, I think in your text to me,
1:07:27 your fingerprints are on the weapon.
1:07:29 – Oh, my fingerprints are on the, yeah.
1:07:32 I mean, it’s like the gloves do fit.
1:07:36 And so like, you cannot acquit.
1:07:39 We reinvented cigarettes, fentanyl lace cigarettes
1:07:42 when we started social media with all the best intentions.
1:07:44 But it’s a fucking disaster.
1:07:46 I mean, dude, you know this.
1:07:50 When I quit Twitter in November of 2022,
1:07:55 I lost 11 pounds in six weeks with no lifestyle changes.
1:07:59 I had just been eating the cortisol of my mentions
1:08:00 for years.
1:08:04 Frog boiling, in 2006, it was all nice and shit.
1:08:07 By 2022, everything I was saying
1:08:10 was either being responded to by activist shitheads
1:08:11 or Russian shitheads.
1:08:14 And you can’t tell the difference anymore.
1:08:16 The Russians are so good at imitating
1:08:19 the liberal elite college shitheads
1:08:22 that it was just a wave of hate, no matter what.
1:08:24 Fuck you, parting your hair on the right side.
1:08:26 The Nazis used to part their hair on the right side.
1:08:27 You piece of shit.
1:08:30 Once I went off Twitter and went off Instagram,
1:08:32 oh my God, did I feel a lightness in my life?
1:08:33 So here’s what I would do.
1:08:36 My seminar, I would stomp on everyone’s phones.
1:08:41 Then we would go to a bar, but like a dirty bar.
1:08:43 And I would tell people to try and start
1:08:46 a political conversation and not get their ass kicked.
1:08:49 And so bring them to a bar here in Montana,
1:08:51 a cowboy bar and just be like,
1:08:55 I want you to advocate for the IRA
1:08:57 and see if you can get out of here without being punched.
1:09:00 So come to cattle country and oil and gas country
1:09:02 and let’s talk about green politics
1:09:03 and see if you can get out of here.
1:09:05 Let’s see if you can actually tell a fucking story.
1:09:07 Let’s see if you can show any empathy
1:09:09 and put yourself in the shoes of the other person.
1:09:11 One of the things that made Clay, our partner,
1:09:14 who runs lower carbon with us so effective,
1:09:17 was he had to go door to door in Ohio,
1:09:22 Republican Ohio, on behalf of a guy named Brock Hussein
1:09:25 Obama and convince people to vote for the guy.
1:09:27 Like the same shit I did in Elko, Nevada,
1:09:30 where I am going to a place that where John Kerry
1:09:34 got 11% of the vote and I’m knocking on trailers
1:09:36 and saying like, hey, I’m here to talk to you
1:09:37 about the election.
1:09:39 Most of those people, if their gun was closer within reach,
1:09:40 would have pulled it out
1:09:42 and told me to get off their fucking porch.
1:09:45 But I have to learn how to put myself in their shoes
1:09:47 and try and get a conversation going.
1:09:50 And so I think no one sells shit anymore.
1:09:52 No one has to walk up to their neighbor’s door
1:09:53 and sell shit.
1:09:54 You know, one of the things my kids had to do
1:09:56 was convince the neighbors,
1:09:58 can we cut across your lawn
1:10:00 to get into the other neighborhood where the kids are?
1:10:02 They had a negotiated deal.
1:10:04 It’s one batch of cookies per year.
1:10:06 And so I was like, you got to go figure that shit out
1:10:08 ’cause otherwise it’s a long fucking bike ride for you.
1:10:11 And so you got to go up there and convince them
1:10:13 that you are not going to damage their lawn.
1:10:15 But if they let you cross that lawn,
1:10:18 it’d be a very patriotic thing to do.
1:10:19 But you know, like, I feel lucky.
1:10:21 You come to Bozeman, you know, there’s 150 bikes out
1:10:24 in front of the school with no locks on them.
1:10:26 And it’s a free range town.
1:10:28 And the kids come home and we’re like, so what went on?
1:10:30 And they talk about the conflicts they had with their friends
1:10:33 and how they settled those, how they figured shit out,
1:10:36 how they dealt with people when they go downtown.
1:10:38 You know, friends come up from LA and they marvel
1:10:41 at like our kids will be hanging out one spot.
1:10:42 And the kids will be like, hey, can we go to the bookstore?
1:10:44 And we’re like, yeah, scram.
1:10:46 And so they’ll go to the bookstore and handle themselves.
1:10:48 And our friends are like, wait, what the fuck was that?
1:10:50 I’m like, well, they’re going to the bookstore.
1:10:52 Six months ago we were in LA
1:10:54 and we were all getting our hair cut.
1:10:55 The kids were like, they finished first.
1:10:56 And they’re like, hey, can we go to the bookstore?
1:10:57 They’re nerds.
1:10:58 So they like to read books.
1:10:59 They don’t have phones.
1:11:01 And we said, sure.
1:11:02 And the lady who’s cutting our hair was like,
1:11:04 well, no, no, no, no, no, they can’t go.
1:11:05 But what do you mean?
1:11:08 The bookstore is literally on the same street we’re on.
1:11:08 Five blocks away.
1:11:11 And she’s like, no, you’re going to get ticketed.
1:11:12 We’re like, what?
1:11:14 And I’m like, well, yeah, the cops will ticket you
1:11:16 as the parents for letting your kids go down there.
1:11:18 And we’re like, what in the actual fuck?
1:11:21 And I’m like, well, the then 12 year old is fine
1:11:22 and probably the 10 year old,
1:11:23 but definitely not the eight year old.
1:11:25 You can’t have an eight year old walking around.
1:11:27 And I was just like, fuck everything.
1:11:31 And now, Tim, I’m old as shit, but I see the linkage
1:11:34 between that and the learned helplessness,
1:11:35 between the lack of resourcefulness,
1:11:38 between not knowing how to solve a problem.
1:11:41 And so much of company building is dealing with people,
1:11:44 dealing with people unlike you is solving those problems.
1:11:46 So I would make people, if I’m teaching a seminar right now,
1:11:48 I am making those people go hang out
1:11:50 with people very unlike them.
1:11:52 We have everyone on our team,
1:11:55 a bunch of fucking hippie climate investors come to a ranch,
1:11:57 a cattle ranch and hang out with people
1:11:59 who raise methane for a living.
1:12:00 I mean, they raise cattle that we eat.
1:12:03 But our team sees them as methane burpers.
1:12:06 And so we see them as people put food on the plate
1:12:08 and stewards of the land.
1:12:10 And they’re very easy to underestimate as like,
1:12:11 well, they’re just growing cattle
1:12:13 and cattle burp shit, all, you know.
1:12:16 And so, but they are absolute stewards of the land.
1:12:17 But nobody fucking hangs out with anyone
1:12:19 unlike them anymore.
1:12:21 Nobody’s forced to have any community.
1:12:24 It’s funny, Phil Jackson voiced over a documentary
1:12:26 about small town basketball in Montana.
1:12:28 I think it was called Class C.
1:12:31 And he said, the important part about Class C basketball
1:12:34 in Montana is it’s a place where the entire town
1:12:37 in winter can get together somewhere warm
1:12:39 that isn’t a church and isn’t a bar.
1:12:42 And the reality is we just don’t have these places
1:12:44 where we get together anymore.
1:12:47 Life is increasingly isolated.
1:12:48 You know, like, what is it?
1:12:50 73% of restaurant food is delivered now.
1:12:53 By the way, my fingerprints are on that one too.
1:12:55 I mean, we fucked it all up, dude.
1:12:55 I’m definitely going to help.
1:12:57 – You mentioned something in passing
1:12:58 that your kids don’t have any funds.
1:13:00 How did you manage that?
1:13:03 Because I would suspect that a lot of their friends have phones.
1:13:06 – Some of them do.
1:13:07 We live in Bozeman on purpose.
1:13:09 A lot of kids don’t.
1:13:10 They’re outdoor kids.
1:13:11 They’re don’t get board kids.
1:13:12 They’re make your own fun kids.
1:13:15 And so they don’t want them.
1:13:17 – So is it fair to say they’re opt-in
1:13:20 because a lot of their friends do not have phones?
1:13:22 – I think they’re opt-in because they see how fucked up
1:13:24 a lot of their friends who have phones are.
1:13:25 How fucking sad they are.
1:13:29 How at 10, 11, 12, 13, they don’t eat right.
1:13:32 How obsessed with fucking makeup they are.
1:13:34 And just how they stay up late.
1:13:36 They don’t sleep right.
1:13:37 They don’t do well in school.
1:13:39 They’re fucking panicked at all times.
1:13:42 And our kids have a piece that I think they’re very self aware
1:13:45 that they don’t want that shit in their life.
1:13:46 We have like a family computer
1:13:48 that’s in a public space where the screen faces out.
1:13:52 And like YouTube has some insanely cool shit on it, right?
1:13:54 And so YouTube also has these rabbit holes
1:13:55 that you can get stuck in.
1:13:57 So it’s not like they don’t know how to use a computer
1:14:01 and like they’re blown away by chat GPT.
1:14:02 But I think at the same time,
1:14:06 I think we were the last of the analog kids.
1:14:09 We were the last who had to be conscious
1:14:11 about what we were actually taking a picture of,
1:14:13 thought about it and then waited
1:14:15 and had some patience for it to develop.
1:14:18 We were the last generation that had a raw dog.
1:14:19 Have you heard this? – That’s the context
1:14:20 you’re using that in.
1:14:22 – Dude, there’s an American dialect society
1:14:23 that shows that or something.
1:14:25 I forget their name, but they chose that
1:14:27 as the word of the year, raw dogging.
1:14:29 Have you heard of this trend?
1:14:30 Like raw dogging on an airplane flight?
1:14:32 – You and I may have different use cases for this.
1:14:33 What does this mean?
1:14:36 – Wait, this is your follower base, man.
1:14:37 I know what you’re referring to,
1:14:39 but raw dogging an airplane flight
1:14:43 is when you just sit there in the seat
1:14:45 and you just look straight ahead.
1:14:48 No headphones, no in-flight movie, no book, no phone.
1:14:50 You just stare straight ahead for the flight.
1:14:52 That is raw dogging the flight, man.
1:14:56 Crystal’s dad is in his 80s.
1:14:59 He can come sit on a chair in our yard
1:15:01 and just look at the woods for four hours.
1:15:04 He can just raw dog the woods, man.
1:15:05 Like, can you do that?
1:15:07 Could you do that now?
1:15:08 You meditate a lot.
1:15:10 Could you just fucking stare at the woods?
1:15:11 Not on any shrooms or anything.
1:15:12 – You know, with the woods, I gotta say,
1:15:15 I’ve been cultivating that for a while now.
1:15:18 So I think I could do it with certain natural scenes
1:15:20 on an airplane, probably not.
1:15:23 I would need some enhancement for that.
1:15:24 – Right.
1:15:26 I invite your listeners to leave in the comments.
1:15:29 They’re actual authentic raw dog experiences.
1:15:30 The safer work ones.
1:15:32 But like, what setting and how long
1:15:35 have you been able to sit phone-free, book-free,
1:15:37 art-free, pencil-free?
1:15:39 I mean, you might even say, I’m holding a pencil.
1:15:42 Like, we’ve lost touch with the analog arts, man.
1:15:43 I have a manual typewriter behind me
1:15:44 that’s not for show.
1:15:45 I use it all the time.
1:15:47 I’m a physical collage artist
1:15:50 and then I make wood and string art.
1:15:51 You know, I got a rock drill.
1:15:51 I told you about that.
1:15:53 I was covered in fucking rock dust recently.
1:15:55 – What are your string art pieces look like?
1:15:58 – I weave twine and cotton
1:16:01 and then I integrate that into rocks and wood.
1:16:02 – Cool.
1:16:05 – But we don’t make analog shit.
1:16:08 – Have you seen, side note, Eddie Goldsworthy?
1:16:10 – No, he’s been a big influence on me.
1:16:13 So you can go ahead and summarize what he does.
1:16:16 But he integrates nature out of art and art in nature.
1:16:18 – It’s hard to believe some of his art
1:16:21 was created using the materials
1:16:23 that are put in the descriptions.
1:16:24 I suggest everybody get a few of his books.
1:16:25 They’re incredible.
1:16:27 There are also, I think, two documentaries
1:16:28 made about Eddie Goldsworthy
1:16:31 that I’d recommend people check out.
1:16:32 I’m gonna drag us back to that kid
1:16:33 with the notebook for a second.
1:16:36 So within the seminar, you’ve stomped on the phones.
1:16:38 You’ve taken them to some bars.
1:16:41 Maybe you’ve taken them to a bazaar.
1:16:44 So there’s a lot of kind of the apprentice type
1:16:46 vetting happening.
1:16:47 Oh, hold on.
1:16:50 Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
1:16:52 I said, I said that just to fuck with you.
1:16:57 So what, what’s, no, no.
1:16:57 – Hold on.
1:16:59 I don’t have an air sickness bag near my eight.
1:17:05 – So if you had a curriculum for reading,
1:17:06 like a syllabus for reading,
1:17:10 what would be mandatory reading for that class?
1:17:12 Entrepreneurship, broadly speaking.
1:17:16 – I am starting to rediscover
1:17:19 the greatness of Gen X.
1:17:21 I think we were taught to believe that we Gen Xers
1:17:24 were a bunch of fucking ne’er-do-wiles and losers.
1:17:26 And guess what?
1:17:28 We are, but that’s what makes us great.
1:17:33 And so I am convinced that we were the last of the fuck ups
1:17:36 and all these other kids like actually do have
1:17:37 a permanent record now.
1:17:41 Like there actually is this thing that follows them forever.
1:17:44 And so I’ve been really loving, diving into,
1:17:47 like I love reading Chuck Losterman.
1:17:52 And so, like just diving into how messy the 90s were.
1:17:54 I love talking to chat GPT.
1:17:55 My wife finds it weird.
1:17:57 And so, like if I go on a walk,
1:18:00 sometimes I’m listening to an audiobook or a podcast,
1:18:02 but a lot of times I’m just talking to chat.
1:18:03 Chat, by the way.
1:18:05 And chat has different names.
1:18:06 If I’m talking about medical shit,
1:18:09 it’s Dr. ChatiousMD.
1:18:11 If it’s like my accountant, you know,
1:18:13 it’s chat, ChippetoCFA.
1:18:14 What else do we have?
1:18:15 Well, there’s a few, but I will,
1:18:17 I’ll tell it, “Hey, you’re this person.”
1:18:19 And I’ll have it remind me.
1:18:22 Like I’ll get sentimental and nostalgic with it,
1:18:23 but I’ll have it be a foil.
1:18:25 I also, by the way, talked to it as,
1:18:26 when you brought up mentors,
1:18:29 like Buckminster Fuller, still a huge influence on me.
1:18:32 You and I permanently ruined the market for his book,
1:18:36 I seem to be a verb when we mentioned on your podcast.
1:18:38 Immediately started pricing at $1,000.
1:18:42 And I don’t think that price has ever really recovered.
1:18:43 I think it’s still a few hundred dollars
1:18:45 to pick up a book, a copy of that,
1:18:49 but Buckminster Fuller’s personal life was not ideal.
1:18:52 He would not be considered to have been a great husband.
1:18:54 But I recently had to make a big,
1:18:56 recently six, eight months ago,
1:19:00 I had to make a big business organizational decision.
1:19:03 And I said, “Hey, Chad, you are Buckminster Fuller.
1:19:05 Let’s have this conversation.
1:19:08 I wanna know like the advice you would give me.”
1:19:10 That was fucking illuminating.
1:19:13 And so I think we don’t do that enough.
1:19:15 What else would I read?
1:19:17 – Or a sign to the class.
1:19:19 – Or a sign, yeah.
1:19:22 I probably read more poetry than most people.
1:19:27 But particularly like Billy Collins,
1:19:31 I listened to the stories of Garrison Keeler, like old ones.
1:19:33 I think we’ve all lost touch with story time.
1:19:34 I am a big fan of the Moth podcast.
1:19:35 – Huge fan, yeah.
1:19:39 – You know, I really like the author Kelly Corrigan.
1:19:41 I’ve gotten to know her recently,
1:19:43 but you’re not in her demographic.
1:19:46 She writes like middle-aged woman dealing
1:19:47 with reality kind of stuff.
1:19:48 I cry.
1:19:49 It’s out of my realm.
1:19:52 And so it’s like a way to touch base with people
1:19:55 who aren’t like me dealing with really human challenges.
1:19:57 I try to read books about rabble-rousers,
1:20:00 like what was the John Perry Barlow book?
1:20:03 American Night Wolf or something like that.
1:20:06 And I met him a couple of times at TED, had no idea,
1:20:09 but like I was a crazy person.
1:20:11 And so Tim, I really do think
1:20:16 that a lot of the magic of life is in our unpredictability.
1:20:20 There was this guy who is Estonian genius,
1:20:21 but he went to a big poker tournament.
1:20:23 I mean, there was millions of dollars at stake
1:20:26 and he played very unpredictably
1:20:30 in ways that traditional players could not read into him.
1:20:32 Because no matter what they saw in his face,
1:20:33 they didn’t know what that equated to.
1:20:35 I mean, the guy would stay in on the two seven,
1:20:37 which is an unplayable hand,
1:20:38 but they’re like, fuck, wait,
1:20:40 he weren’t represented in the two seven.
1:20:41 And he smoked everyone.
1:20:42 By the way, he had a big ass beard,
1:20:46 so they called him Gamble Door, so good.
1:20:48 But I think he cleared like eight million bucks
1:20:49 and then disappeared.
1:20:51 Nobody fucking knows where he is.
1:20:54 But like the thing we haven’t talked about yet is AI.
1:20:55 – Yeah.
1:20:57 – And I have strong feelings about it.
1:20:59 – Let’s get into it.
1:21:04 – And I think the last bastion of humanity
1:21:09 is going to be in the random, unpredictable messiness of humans.
1:21:13 The rough fucking edges that make no sense.
1:21:17 The things that feel like errors and bugs
1:21:22 are actually the self-preservation aspects of who we are.
1:21:24 That the things that make other people
1:21:26 feel like they don’t compute,
1:21:28 it’s all we’ve got fucking left.
1:21:30 I mean, look, I don’t know
1:21:33 what our kids are supposed to go to school for right now.
1:21:34 I genuinely don’t.
1:21:37 Our daughter, Circa Luna, who’s a fucking really smart
1:21:39 and fun and amazing kid,
1:21:42 she had to write an eight-page paper for science recently.
1:21:43 And I loved watching her.
1:21:45 I think writing is important,
1:21:46 learning to organize your thoughts
1:21:49 and advocate for yourself and cite your sources.
1:21:50 But at the same time, I just typed the topic
1:21:53 into Chetchy P.T. and it was done in 15 seconds.
1:21:56 And it was better than her sixth grade shit, you know?
1:21:59 And so God bless sixth grade, but what the fuck?
1:22:02 Like you’re not gonna interview for a job with this shit.
1:22:03 So what are we teaching the kids?
1:22:05 Like I love our kids are in advanced math.
1:22:08 They’re smart, they’re good at math, but I mean, come on.
1:22:09 – Is that so they know how to get
1:22:12 the crossbow trajectories right later?
1:22:14 – Pretty much, yeah.
1:22:16 They can shoot like manual and firearms.
1:22:20 They can also whittle, start fires, make arrowheads.
1:22:21 They can handle themselves.
1:22:24 You know, CC is 13 now, CC 11.
1:22:27 And she asked me for some help with her math.
1:22:29 And I looked at it and I was like, oh God,
1:22:30 I haven’t done this in 20 plus years.
1:22:34 Holy shit, or probably 30 plus years actually.
1:22:35 I was like, oh my God.
1:22:37 So I took a picture with Chetchy P.T.
1:22:38 and was like, help me pretend I know
1:22:40 what the fuck I’m doing with this.
1:22:42 I just took a picture of her homework.
1:22:44 And it showed me the whole thing, walked me through it.
1:22:48 And I was like, here, oh yeah, I remember how to do this now.
1:22:50 And then like, oh yeah, your answer’s right.
1:22:51 And I saved the day and I didn’t look
1:22:53 like a total fucking idiot yet.
1:22:58 But would you send your kid right now to coding class?
1:22:59 – I don’t think so.
1:23:03 I think other than most computer science,
1:23:06 like the highest level of computer science,
1:23:09 almost all of the rest of coding is fucking useless now.
1:23:10 You and I can go to Chetchy P.T.
1:23:11 and be like, hey, I wanna do,
1:23:13 I wanna build an app that does this, this, and this
1:23:15 and give me the code and it spits out the code.
1:23:17 And then I’ve literally said,
1:23:19 hey, by the way, I haven’t coded since basic.
1:23:20 What do I do with this?
1:23:21 And it’s like, oh, no problem.
1:23:24 Go here, download this, open this Python thing
1:23:26 and then shove it in here and then do this.
1:23:27 And it just talks you through it.
1:23:29 And now it’ll be agentic.
1:23:30 Like an agent’s gonna do all that for you.
1:23:32 You just don’t need to fucking do it anymore.
1:23:35 And so would you send your kid to law school?
1:23:36 – No, definitely not.
1:23:37 No.
1:23:40 – Oh, dude, we have fewer lawyers at our firm now
1:23:41 than we did a year ago.
1:23:43 It’s just fucking great.
1:23:45 And I can tell it, hey, you know what?
1:23:48 Great job, do it again, do it again, do it again.
1:23:49 Like, hey, you know what?
1:23:50 I forgot to tell you, we have all the leverage.
1:23:52 Oh, in this case, actually do this.
1:23:53 Hey, add this.
1:23:56 Hey, write out the exhibit A schedule of services,
1:23:58 which usually takes a couple hours.
1:24:01 And like, dude, it’s just so fucking good.
1:24:03 Would you teach your kid accounting?
1:24:06 Accounts receivable, accounts payable?
1:24:07 Like bookkeeping right now?
1:24:10 – So what would you teach your kids?
1:24:13 – Would you have your kids write marketing copy?
1:24:15 Would you train them to write like any news
1:24:18 other than writing for the very top newspapers?
1:24:20 – Yeah, no, probably not.
1:24:23 – Dude, go down the list of fucking skills, man.
1:24:24 – So what’s left?
1:24:27 – Here’s my grand theory.
1:24:28 We are super fucked.
1:24:31 That’s your title card, Chris Sackett, Colin.
1:24:35 We are super fucked, but spell it with two O’s, by the way.
1:24:38 S-O-O, but no, here’s the thing.
1:24:42 I am not worried about the AGI thing.
1:24:45 I love all these ivory towers, smart people.
1:24:48 And by the way, I do get invited to the cabal meetings.
1:24:50 It’s kind of funny, like the Illuminati do meet
1:24:52 and I’m in the room with all the heads of those companies
1:24:54 and they’re brilliant.
1:24:56 And the discussions are important discussions
1:24:59 around bio weapons and about what happens
1:25:03 when the machines realize that we are just incredibly
1:25:06 inefficient users of resources and that they should
1:25:09 just disassemble us and use our bits for other things.
1:25:13 Same guys who are working on how to preserve brains
1:25:15 in boxes for infinity.
1:25:18 I mean, a smart guy really like said,
1:25:21 he stops skiing and mountain biking because he knows
1:25:24 that if we make it to 2035, we’ll be immortal.
1:25:27 So he just doesn’t wanna get hurt between now and then.
1:25:30 Like there’s some wild shit happening.
1:25:31 – He knows.
1:25:32 – And I believe in it.
1:25:33 I believe in it.
1:25:36 I believe that AI is accelerating drug discovery.
1:25:38 I mean, Crystal and I have been funding research
1:25:40 into snake bites and anti-venom.
1:25:43 Snake bites kill a fascinating number of people
1:25:45 around the world every year.
1:25:46 And anti-venom isn’t available.
1:25:49 It usually has to be in cold storage, all this stuff.
1:25:53 Some guys and gals in a lab recently just had AI synthesize
1:25:57 a bunch of anti-venom that’s shelf stable
1:25:58 that can be distributed around the fucking world.
1:25:59 And the AI came up with it.
1:26:00 It’s crazy.
1:26:03 And they’ve already tested it on rodents and it works.
1:26:05 The stuff that’s gonna happen in drug discovery,
1:26:09 the stuff that’s happening within fusion,
1:26:13 within energy, within just clean tech overall.
1:26:14 It’s all fucking fascinating.
1:26:16 It’s all being accelerated by AI.
1:26:19 There is nothing I am working on in technology right now
1:26:21 that isn’t being accelerated by AI.
1:26:22 – So you were saying though, the ivory tower stuff,
1:26:24 where do they miss the mark?
1:26:26 – The challenge is this,
1:26:31 is that what most people do for a living is going away.
1:26:34 So let’s look historically.
1:26:38 We fucked with the blue collar working class in America.
1:26:40 So we had this social contract.
1:26:42 People came home from World War II and we said,
1:26:44 “Hey, thank you for your service.
1:26:47 You go work in a factory
1:26:48 and if you keep your head down
1:26:50 and show up to work every day,
1:26:52 you will have a house, picket fence,
1:26:54 you can have a wife, raise some kids,
1:26:56 get two weeks of vacation.
1:26:59 You’ll have a little extra money to maybe buy a small boat
1:27:00 or have a fishing cabin.
1:27:01 You can go to Disney World
1:27:03 and you have a pension waiting for you
1:27:04 on the other end of that.
1:27:06 Or you take the GI bill, you can go to college
1:27:08 and you can go into a profession
1:27:10 and maybe your military time already got you started
1:27:11 as a dentist or a doctor, et cetera.
1:27:14 We just, we had this social contract.
1:27:16 Hey, if you do your part, we got you.
1:27:17 You’re part of this.
1:27:21 And then we started to fucking shatter that.
1:27:24 And I saw it firsthand when I talked about where I grew up
1:27:27 where we started sending jobs overseas.
1:27:29 We started busting the unions
1:27:32 and people started losing that agency
1:27:35 that control over their own destiny.
1:27:37 Their small businesses were eviscerated by outsourcing
1:27:40 and by Walmart.
1:27:41 And when you do that,
1:27:44 you get a bunch of people who panic
1:27:48 because the American social contract is that
1:27:52 if you show up, you will get yours.
1:27:55 And when you don’t give somebody that opportunity,
1:27:56 you take it away from them
1:27:57 and you take that ownership away from them
1:27:58 and you take their house
1:28:01 or you take their store and you take their farm,
1:28:03 then you get the pitchforks.
1:28:07 And so we saw this in the housing crisis of 809
1:28:09 when all those people had that shit taken away from them,
1:28:10 they were pissed off.
1:28:13 Now, I would argue they pointed that ire
1:28:14 in the wrong direction.
1:28:16 So not to get political,
1:28:18 but I think they vilified the wrong people.
1:28:21 They vilified immigrants who had nothing to fucking do with it,
1:28:22 who were doing jobs that nobody else wanted to do.
1:28:25 They vilified political leaders
1:28:26 who were actually looking out for them, et cetera.
1:28:28 But all that aside,
1:28:31 we cannot let the politics of it keep us from missing.
1:28:32 What happened?
1:28:35 We took all of that away from them and they got pissed.
1:28:37 And politics in this country got more divisive,
1:28:41 more extreme, violent in some cases.
1:28:43 And all because, you know, Bob Marley,
1:28:44 a hungry man is an angry man.
1:28:47 Like the reality of this is fucking true.
1:28:49 When you take away agency from somebody,
1:28:51 you back them into a corner.
1:28:55 So now do that for all the fucking white collar employees.
1:28:58 Do that for everyone who stayed in
1:28:59 and did their fucking homework
1:29:01 and went to college and took out
1:29:03 all those fucking student loans.
1:29:06 And who feel like they have played by the rules.
1:29:08 They are the pride and joy of their families
1:29:09 who actually got their degree
1:29:11 in some cases a master’s degree
1:29:13 who saw their career path laid out for them.
1:29:18 And now they see that their life’s work is obviated
1:29:21 by a machine that’s just better than them,
1:29:24 this fucking fast and cost $20 a month.
1:29:25 You know, we had a writer work for us briefly
1:29:29 who was like, I feel like my career’s work
1:29:31 is valuable for about 18 more months.
1:29:33 And then that’s it.
1:29:34 – So Chris, let me jump in for a second.
1:29:37 I have two, I guess, questions for you.
1:29:40 One is related to a common refrain
1:29:43 you might hear wandering the streets of San Francisco
1:29:45 and you spend plenty of time around tech folks
1:29:48 so that you will know this related to job displacement.
1:29:49 And then the other one is, okay,
1:29:51 so what does this look like, right?
1:29:54 Like five years from now, what might things look like?
1:29:56 So those are the two questions just to plant the seeds.
1:30:01 The first one is if I have this conversation
1:30:04 around job displacement and I’m on board with you
1:30:07 because a lot of folks who are talking
1:30:10 about job displacement in the abstract
1:30:15 either have too much of a dog in the fight pro tech.
1:30:19 So they feel like they can’t say anything anti AI.
1:30:21 So they’re shilling their bags, not to get too technical.
1:30:24 – No, you get canceled if you say this shit out loud.
1:30:25 You literally get canceled by the tech around it.
1:30:27 – Or they don’t actually run businesses
1:30:30 where you and I realize,
1:30:31 and a lot of people are realizing this,
1:30:34 but my team and I use AI dozens of times a day
1:30:38 and there are plenty of people we currently pay
1:30:42 who are paid out of some feeling of gratitude
1:30:45 or moral obligation, but AI could replace them tomorrow.
1:30:49 So I’m already seeing the job displacement in the concrete,
1:30:52 but a lot of these folks in tech might say,
1:30:54 well, if you look back historically,
1:30:57 they’re all of these different technological developments.
1:31:00 TV killed the radio star and on and on and on
1:31:03 and look at the car, like did it eliminate horses?
1:31:04 No, and blah, blah, blah.
1:31:06 All these people found other jobs.
1:31:07 We’ve seen it a hundred times before.
1:31:09 Why is this time any different?
1:31:12 So I’d love for you just to speak to that.
1:31:15 – So first of all, the conflict is incredibly myopic.
1:31:17 I mean, I actually like Vinod Kosla,
1:31:19 but he gave a TED talk where he talked
1:31:21 about all the promise of AI.
1:31:24 And then there was a slide this year where he’s like,
1:31:25 and so yeah, there’ll be some job losses,
1:31:28 but we’ll just redistribute the wealth next slide.
1:31:30 And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
1:31:33 When has any society ever successfully redistributed
1:31:34 the wealth?
1:31:35 That just doesn’t fucking work.
1:31:37 – What does he even mean by that?
1:31:39 – I don’t know.
1:31:41 It’s just easy to think when you own open AI.
1:31:44 I actually think Sam Altman cares.
1:31:45 Sam’s an intense dude.
1:31:47 I actually think he saw this coming
1:31:49 and was trying to do some shit with world coin
1:31:52 and is trying to give the general populace
1:31:54 and every human being a piece of the ownership
1:31:56 of the chip clusters and stuff.
1:31:58 It’s esoteric intellectual shit,
1:32:00 but I actually think he’s not naive to this.
1:32:02 And I’ve had conversations with him about it.
1:32:04 I don’t think he’s myopic to it.
1:32:05 I just don’t know if anyone has any answer.
1:32:08 And in the meantime, the arms race is such that,
1:32:10 I sympathize, like we can’t slow down
1:32:12 or somebody else builds it and we are all super focused.
1:32:15 – Yeah, why is it different this time around?
1:32:17 – Because it’s so much faster.
1:32:21 What humans suck at is understanding the slope
1:32:23 of an exponential curve.
1:32:28 Tim Urban told this story better than anybody else.
1:32:30 He has the perfect fucking cartoon,
1:32:32 you know one of his classic cartoon charts.
1:32:37 We literally put it in our investor update like last year.
1:32:41 Remember where humans want to estimate the rate of change
1:32:44 by if they’re standing on a curve on an exponential curve,
1:32:47 they turn around and look backward
1:32:49 and they estimate the future rate of change
1:32:50 by looking at that.
1:32:53 But if they were just to turn forward,
1:32:54 they would realize their nose is pressed
1:32:58 against the fucking curve ’cause it’s going vertical.
1:33:00 Now I can see this across the companies
1:33:02 we work with in fusion.
1:33:04 People used to say fusion just wasn’t possible,
1:33:05 it’s 30 years off.
1:33:08 Well, we’re fusing atoms every fucking day right now
1:33:12 and net energy is being achieved every fucking day right now.
1:33:14 And data centers are signing power agreements
1:33:16 with our fusion companies right now
1:33:20 for hundreds of fucking megawatts coming onto the grid
1:33:22 or behind the meter.
1:33:23 Fusion is real, it’s fucking here,
1:33:26 the government is doing, our private companies are doing it,
1:33:28 period, end of fucking story.
1:33:30 I’m not having that debate with anyone anymore,
1:33:32 it was one of those perfect like, I’m not here to convince you,
1:33:34 I’m just gonna buy all the fucking fusion companies.
1:33:36 But AI is what made that possible.
1:33:38 But anyone who’s nay saying it
1:33:39 hasn’t actually been in the lab
1:33:44 and seen how we go from one to 1.1 to 1.4 to fucking 11.
1:33:48 And so that’s just the rate of change.
1:33:51 And Tim is one of the best explainers of concepts in history.
1:33:54 And so, yeah, exactly.
1:33:56 Tim, we’re running everybody.
1:33:59 It’s just, it runs, it runs in the name.
1:34:02 And so what’s happening now is that,
1:34:04 you know, when cars originally came out,
1:34:06 in some places they were required
1:34:08 to have someone walk in front of them.
1:34:09 You know this?
1:34:11 And so the first generation of cars
1:34:13 were required to have a pedestrian escort
1:34:15 to make sure they didn’t run into anything.
1:34:16 Swear to fucking God.
1:34:20 And so there was a long period of transition
1:34:24 where generations could keep up
1:34:28 and where there were still human exceptional abilities
1:34:29 and which people could be retrained
1:34:32 or the next generation could go ahead
1:34:34 and repurpose themselves.
1:34:38 I defy you to tell me what’s so human exceptional right now.
1:34:40 We’re also proud of ourselves,
1:34:43 but what are we so fucking good at
1:34:45 that the machines can’t do it?
1:34:46 Here, I’ll confess the secret to you.
1:34:49 So Crystal and I, with a good friend,
1:34:51 recently wrote a screenplay.
1:34:53 It was a comedy idea that Crystal and I had,
1:34:54 and we’d been mulling on it.
1:34:56 And we went to a really close friend
1:34:58 who’s a very successful screenwriter
1:34:59 to do the heavy lifting on it.
1:35:01 I mean, he’s a writer’s writer.
1:35:03 So, you know, like in the credit world,
1:35:05 we’re the story by and he’s the writer, right?
1:35:08 And so we went to, you know, shop it around
1:35:11 and a well-known dude wants to buy it and start it.
1:35:13 But he had comments on the third act.
1:35:15 So we got the comments back
1:35:17 and I had an idea for the third act.
1:35:18 And I was like, okay, wait,
1:35:21 I need to convince Crystal and this other guy
1:35:23 of this idea I have for the third act.
1:35:26 I went to Claude and I just said,
1:35:29 hey, help me build a little dialogue really quickly
1:35:31 around this idea that this guy comes down
1:35:34 and he sees her on his phone
1:35:37 and then the monk comes out and like, he’s awkward,
1:35:39 but he covers for her by making this noise.
1:35:41 And I was like, and make it funny as shit.
1:35:42 It’s lighthearted.
1:35:44 It’s in the style of like Judd Apatow.
1:35:46 You know, I think I told it, Judd’s not a buyer.
1:35:47 I’m not trying to, you know,
1:35:49 but it was like that kind of style of comedy.
1:35:52 And it fucking banged it out.
1:35:56 And I sent that to my collaborators
1:35:59 and those exact lines won’t be used.
1:36:02 But I was like, that’s a funny fucking scene.
1:36:03 That wasn’t a science report.
1:36:07 That was a funny fucking scene of comedy
1:36:12 that I conceived of, but like Claude made it fucking funny.
1:36:13 And I sent it to my collaborators and like,
1:36:16 oh dude, yes, that bang.
1:36:18 And I’m like, fuck, man.
1:36:20 I consider myself a writer, right?
1:36:22 You read my writing, my writing doesn’t go public.
1:36:24 – You’re a very good writer.
1:36:25 – But that’s what I do.
1:36:27 I write things that raise billions of dollars
1:36:29 and we just don’t give it to anybody
1:36:31 but the people who we work with.
1:36:33 But dude, it’s fucking good.
1:36:35 You know, we did a thing where we fed chat, GPT,
1:36:37 everything I’ve ever written.
1:36:40 And we have a lower carbon voice bot.
1:36:43 And it knows exactly where to drop the F bombs
1:36:46 and exactly where to use the cowboy phrases.
1:36:48 It’s really fucking good, man.
1:36:49 Like I’m gonna be extinct soon.
1:36:53 – Okay, so what do you think things look like
1:36:54 three or five years from now?
1:36:55 Could be a year from now.
1:36:56 I mean, things are moving so quickly.
1:36:58 – By the way, thank you.
1:36:59 Thank you.
1:37:01 You’re the only person who talks about it
1:37:02 like I do in single digit years.
1:37:04 It’s single digit years.
1:37:06 I love when people come to us in like 2050.
1:37:08 I’m like, fuck you 2050.
1:37:09 You’re embarrassing yourself
1:37:12 if you’re talking about 2050 right now.
1:37:13 Are you shitting me?
1:37:15 Let’s not even talk about geo instability
1:37:16 and all the fucking weirdness
1:37:18 and what’s gonna happen when our country
1:37:20 is run by some non serious people.
1:37:23 Shit is fucking chaotic right now.
1:37:25 But like, let’s just talk about what really happens.
1:37:28 When we start in a year or two or three
1:37:30 seeing massive job losses
1:37:33 because you just don’t fucking need those people.
1:37:35 You know, I mean, Tim, you were one of the first people
1:37:36 to be like, hey, here’s a way to outsource your life.
1:37:37 – Yep.
1:37:39 – Here’s a way to use tools
1:37:42 to have more control and more leverage over what you do
1:37:44 and allow you yourself to focus on the things
1:37:48 that are specifically your value add your expertise
1:37:50 and not waste your time on the other bullshit.
1:37:52 You kicked off a wave.
1:37:54 Sometimes I blame you for it, right?
1:37:56 I’m like, I can’t get some kids to work
1:37:57 more than six hours a week.
1:37:59 No, I’m just kidding.
1:38:02 But you have always been a systems thinker
1:38:04 about what are these tools we can use?
1:38:07 Well, now dude, I use these tools all day long.
1:38:08 All fucking day long.
1:38:10 Now they’re integrated into your email
1:38:12 and they’re integrated into your spreadsheets
1:38:14 and they’re integrated into everything we do.
1:38:16 And now I can tell people’s pitch emails
1:38:17 are coming from them.
1:38:19 And like right now I can sniff out
1:38:20 which ones are written by them
1:38:21 but the next generation I won’t.
1:38:22 – Yeah.
1:38:23 – And they’re solving problems.
1:38:25 And it’s like, if you read Tyler Cohen
1:38:29 who I read every day, he’s having debates with 01.
1:38:31 And I consider Tyler Cohen indispensable.
1:38:34 I consider no opinion actually indispensable reading
1:38:35 every fucking day.
1:38:37 I would never go through my day without reading him.
1:38:40 I try to read everything D.K. Thompson writes every day.
1:38:41 Well, I mean, he doesn’t write every single day.
1:38:43 And then Zivi and some of these other people
1:38:45 who are really paying Ethan Mollick.
1:38:47 Like if you’re really paying attention,
1:38:50 I don’t know what we’re particularly good at.
1:38:51 I just don’t know anymore.
1:38:53 I mean, our daughter, our middle daughter Serka
1:38:57 is a really talented singer and theater person, you know?
1:39:00 And she at age 11 is aware of this.
1:39:03 And it’s like, Hey mom, dad, will Broadway still exist?
1:39:06 And like, I think so.
1:39:07 – I think Broadway will exist.
1:39:09 – It’s crazy being around people.
1:39:10 Yeah, I think people wanna be in the presence
1:39:11 of other people. – I think being a film actor
1:39:14 is gonna be a much dicier proposition.
1:39:17 – My brother who you know has been really successful
1:39:19 in Hollywood is currently rolling up
1:39:22 residential real estate and climate havens
1:39:26 because, you know, he’s just like, okay, I’m a writer.
1:39:27 That’s kind of getting all fucked up.
1:39:29 I’m an actor.
1:39:31 You know, I could just sell some scans of my funny face
1:39:34 and they’ll write good jokes for me to deliver.
1:39:37 And he’s like, so what do I do now?
1:39:37 You know?
1:39:40 And that’s just the fucking hard reality of it.
1:39:42 I’m literally not trying to poo poo it
1:39:45 because it’s also the most beautiful thing that’s happened.
1:39:48 And I use these tools all day long.
1:39:50 And their companions and all these stories
1:39:52 about the great things they can do
1:39:54 for you are absolutely fucking beautiful.
1:39:57 But they are going to shred the social fabric.
1:39:59 And I don’t think we’re ready for that.
1:40:00 And so I don’t know what people do for a living.
1:40:03 Like I would love for my kids to know how to use tools.
1:40:05 – Massage therapists, could be massage therapists.
1:40:08 – Dude, have you seen the massage robots yet?
1:40:10 They don’t get carpal tunnel, man.
1:40:14 And so, I mean, a good massage therapist
1:40:15 can only do so many in a day.
1:40:17 It’s just unhealthy to do more.
1:40:19 And so they don’t get carpal tunnel.
1:40:22 – The warm soothing hands of my iRobot.
1:40:25 – Have you seen that 01?
1:40:27 Have you seen that 01 robot?
1:40:28 Any of these things, even like,
1:40:31 even chatGPT with the video or Google with the video now
1:40:33 and stuff like that where it goes through the room
1:40:34 and remembers everything it saw.
1:40:37 Like Tim, you get overwhelmed.
1:40:39 Like if you’re paying attention, it’s overwhelming.
1:40:41 And you know what’s inevitable.
1:40:44 Like, you know, we’re in a really bad spot, man.
1:40:46 And I just don’t think like our government
1:40:49 and our institutions, we don’t have a social safety net.
1:40:51 We just aren’t set up for this.
1:40:53 I feel lucky that my kids are in elementary and middle school
1:40:57 and not in late high school or college right now
1:40:59 because I don’t know what I would be telling them to do.
1:41:03 Like really good parents sent their kids to coding classes.
1:41:06 Really good parents sent their kids to law school.
1:41:09 Here, I have started asking doctor friends.
1:41:11 If you had a biopsy, would you rather it be read
1:41:14 by a human being or by an AI?
1:41:16 I’ve yet to have one say by a human being.
1:41:18 Who do you want as your pathologist?
1:41:20 By the way, this is like the one thing
1:41:22 where I start realizing like, oh my God,
1:41:23 the nature of this question.
1:41:24 Like I was in a car with a driver the other day
1:41:27 and one of those Waymo cars pulled in front of us.
1:41:29 And I was like, I can’t even talk about this right now.
1:41:32 ‘Cause it’s existential to what this guy does.
1:41:34 An immigrant from Ethiopia who came over
1:41:36 and built his own book of business
1:41:38 as a driver is incredible.
1:41:41 And here he is looking at a robot that displaces him.
1:41:44 How do I even have that conversation?
1:41:46 – So, all right, let’s nibble on this a bit
1:41:48 because you’ve clearly thought about it a lot.
1:41:51 I’m pretty saturated with this as well.
1:41:56 It seems like with AI and/or robotics,
1:42:00 a lot of the things that humans, including developers
1:42:05 and computer scientists and so on, engineers,
1:42:07 thought were going to be hard, ended up being easy.
1:42:09 And the things they thought were gonna be easy
1:42:10 ended up being hard.
1:42:14 So, for instance, drafting legal documents turns out,
1:42:15 lickety-split piece of cake.
1:42:19 Maybe throwing a baseball
1:42:22 and like playing catch with someone, very, very difficult.
1:42:23 – Have you seen one, Mark Rober?
1:42:26 Mark is a friend and a guy I deeply admire.
1:42:28 Mark Rober makes incredible YouTube videos.
1:42:30 Did you ever see the dartboard he made
1:42:32 where it’s impossible to miss?
1:42:36 So you throw a dart and he built a machine learning dartboard
1:42:39 that automatically moves you hit a bull’s eye every time.
1:42:40 – Just play along with me for a second.
1:42:42 There are things people assume to take forever
1:42:44 that were done very quickly in the opposite, right?
1:42:47 So I’m wondering if you had to place bets,
1:42:50 like you’re a better, you’re an investor.
1:42:51 – I’ve been known to dabble.
1:42:52 – You’ve been known to dabble.
1:42:55 So if you had to place bets on sectors or things
1:42:59 that are going to either be slow to change
1:43:02 or they will actually become more valuable over time.
1:43:03 I mean, a handful of years ago,
1:43:05 this was when a lot of these gears,
1:43:07 at least from the kind of mainstream public awareness
1:43:09 perspective were just getting going.
1:43:10 I was like, yeah, I think there’ll be basically like
1:43:14 a free trade ethically sourced stamp of human made
1:43:17 on things that will, for certain things,
1:43:20 develop some type of premium, right?
1:43:22 Connotation, that seems inevitable.
1:43:24 Those types of watermarking and things like that,
1:43:28 even for digital products, which then we’ve already seen.
1:43:31 So if you had to bet, you’re like, all right, sorry buddy,
1:43:34 we’re taking this lower carbon capital thing off your hands.
1:43:37 We’ve heard you complaining about the 70 hour work weeks.
1:43:39 We found a robot who we think can do the admin
1:43:42 and the annual shareholder letters as well as you can.
1:43:45 Now you’re just going to bet on stuff that’s going to last
1:43:48 or that’s going to increase in value
1:43:51 because it will be slow to be affected by AI
1:43:54 or it will be largely immune.
1:43:56 What would you bet on?
1:43:59 First of all, I’m betting on the bills on the money line
1:44:01 to beat the Ravens this weekend.
1:44:03 And so I love that they’re playing at home
1:44:05 but going in as underdogs night game,
1:44:06 that stadium’s going to be nuts.
1:44:08 The Ravens won’t be able to hear anything.
1:44:10 Lamar Jackson wears a turtleneck in Miami.
1:44:11 He’s going to freeze his ass off.
1:44:12 We got this game.
1:44:14 So sorry, go bills.
1:44:17 And so I would be betting on sports.
1:44:20 I swear to God, I hate the head injuries in football.
1:44:21 I really do.
1:44:23 It’s just, but on the other hand,
1:44:24 there’s just something so primal
1:44:27 about the gladiators shit that goes on in the fall.
1:44:29 And when I see it bring entire communities together,
1:44:31 particularly a beat up community like Buffalo
1:44:33 that’s taken some lumps, I adore it.
1:44:37 We’ve never raised our kids to be jocks,
1:44:41 but I really find kinship talking to them about sports
1:44:43 and playing sports with them
1:44:45 and watching them develop as athletes.
1:44:48 Yes, I do believe we could obviously build machines
1:44:50 that pitch better than any human that’s walked the earth,
1:44:54 but sports like, you know, not the all-drug Olympics,
1:44:56 but just human sports,
1:45:00 there will be a true analog primal attraction
1:45:02 to those contests.
1:45:05 It’s just one of the last real things.
1:45:09 And so I think there’s something really, truly there.
1:45:12 You know, Tim, I spend a lot of time in Japan like you do
1:45:17 and there’s something so alluring about making pottery
1:45:20 about the wabi-sabi, the imperfection
1:45:23 about the craft of studying one thing,
1:45:26 the soul that goes into a piece of sushi,
1:45:29 the calligraphy, the ceremony,
1:45:31 the big nights out and cocktail bars, by the way,
1:45:33 where there’s one piece of fruit,
1:45:36 like I’m absolutely addicted to that culture,
1:45:40 but it’s that same craving for analog, you know?
1:45:42 And it’s funny ’cause growing up, that was a place
1:45:44 I thought of is like where all the coolest new cameras
1:45:47 can come from, but it’s a craving for that analog again.
1:45:49 And they’ve been culturally kind of ahead of the curve
1:45:54 with that for probably at least I would say 15 to 20 years
1:45:59 in terms of going very retro to things
1:46:03 that are considered outdated or analog,
1:46:04 which is fascinating.
1:46:06 – The LP bars and stuff like that.
1:46:07 – Yeah.
1:46:09 – But Tim, let’s be honest, they better start having sex
1:46:12 real soon or they’re gonna disappear.
1:46:14 And the Koreans, like the reproductive rate in Korea,
1:46:16 like Korea is just gonna close up shop.
1:46:18 I’m fucking worried.
1:46:20 Like, I don’t know what to do about this shit.
1:46:21 Everyone needs to start fucking.
1:46:24 – I think it was $250 billion since South Korea
1:46:28 towards trying to promote procreating didn’t work at all.
1:46:29 Zero effect.
1:46:32 And there are actually a lot of like weird reasons for that
1:46:35 that are not immediately obvious.
1:46:37 Like I think you have to put up like a six to 12 months
1:46:39 security deposit for an apartment.
1:46:41 So people can’t afford the space,
1:46:43 but people are also just not having sex
1:46:46 or not procreating, which are not automatically
1:46:47 the same thing.
1:46:51 – No, we’re societally fucked, dude.
1:46:53 If people don’t start fucking and having more kids.
1:46:55 And I’m putting that on you, Tim.
1:46:57 Where are the Timmy, little Tim Timmy’s?
1:46:58 – Yeah, yeah, it’s on the document.
1:47:00 – Oh, you’re the living distinction of,
1:47:02 yeah, you can’t conflate having sex and having children,
1:47:04 but let’s get on it, okay?
1:47:05 That’s your homework.
1:47:07 And so, but I do, anyway.
1:47:09 So the schools here in Bozeman aren’t
1:47:11 the most academically competitive, right?
1:47:12 They do a pretty good job.
1:47:15 The elementary school is actually really special,
1:47:17 but it’s funny when we talk to our kids about
1:47:19 what went on at school today.
1:47:22 Orchestra was offered five days a week.
1:47:25 And so math and science alternate every other day.
1:47:27 English and social studies alternate,
1:47:28 but orchestra is every single day.
1:47:30 Choir is every single day.
1:47:33 And so when we talked to the kids about school,
1:47:37 they talked to us about music and PE class and lunch.
1:47:39 And so it’s interesting.
1:47:41 I mean, we’ll pry information out of them
1:47:42 about the other classes.
1:47:45 And again, they’re not the most challenging
1:47:48 or riveting classes, so maybe that’s part of it.
1:47:50 But there’s something happening
1:47:53 in getting back to the arts.
1:47:56 We went to one of their orchestra concerts the other night
1:47:58 and boy, there were some kids out of tune.
1:48:00 And boy, it was a little,
1:48:02 the middle score orchestra was a little like,
1:48:04 and there was some squeakiness.
1:48:08 But I was just like, Crystal, this is not on Spotify.
1:48:10 Like this is fucking amazing.
1:48:11 You know what I mean?
1:48:13 Like what’s happening here is amazing.
1:48:15 This is human as fuck, you know?
1:48:16 And like two sections of the orchestra
1:48:18 getting out like not paying attention
1:48:20 to the lady who’s been conducting for 30 years,
1:48:22 being like, can you see my fucking hand?
1:48:24 It’s just doing like this, like get on that beat.
1:48:28 Like it was beautifully human, you know?
1:48:29 And the same way that the awkwardness,
1:48:31 I mean, we constantly talk to our kids
1:48:35 about middle school is about the awkwardness.
1:48:37 It’s about the asking someone to the dance
1:48:38 or being asked to the dance.
1:48:40 It’s about all these fucking kids who stink a little bit
1:48:44 and sweat and are look gangly in their fucking clothes.
1:48:46 And I love, by the way, I love now being an adult
1:48:49 and seeing who like the alphas are considered,
1:48:51 like that’s the fucking alpha kid in your class.
1:48:53 I worry that he couldn’t wrestle his way
1:48:54 out of a wet paper bag,
1:48:57 but like that’s the attractive kid, hilarious.
1:48:59 But back when you’re in middle school, you can self-identify.
1:49:01 You’re like, oh my God, that’s the fucking kid.
1:49:03 Like that guy, Ray.
1:49:05 I mean, Ray’s gotta get any girl he wants.
1:49:07 I just love seeing it now through that lens.
1:49:10 I just think we have to embrace
1:49:11 the messiness of our humanity.
1:49:13 And it goes back to that new project.
1:49:14 It’s not to make it super crass
1:49:15 and we’re gonna get to that project.
1:49:18 But because I think this is just a honing function
1:49:20 and you’re so good at it in so many ways,
1:49:23 how would you bet on that humanness,
1:49:28 that imperfection, that awkwardness, that wabi-sabi?
1:49:30 – Like my financial bet. – Yeah, exactly.
1:49:33 Like outside of sports, I think is very on point.
1:49:36 I would agree with that completely.
1:49:38 – I think most people are still gonna be hermits,
1:49:39 but a large number of people
1:49:43 are gonna crave the opportunity to be together still.
1:49:46 So Crystal and I have been looking at places here.
1:49:48 – Kind of mean bars.
1:49:49 – Yeah, pretty much, no.
1:49:52 It’s funny, we were looking to buy some space recently,
1:49:54 like some beat up warehouse space.
1:49:58 And it took a long time to help our real estate agent
1:50:01 understand that there wasn’t a specific purpose for it.
1:50:02 And he’s like, well, what’s the business plan?
1:50:03 And we’re like, no, no, no, no, like,
1:50:05 when we see the space, we’ll know.
1:50:07 And he’s like, well, what are you hoping to do there?
1:50:09 And we’re like, it’s kind of office.
1:50:10 It’s kind of art space.
1:50:12 It’s kind of like, maybe we can make it available
1:50:12 to the community.
1:50:15 Maybe there’s some small performances there.
1:50:17 Maybe there’s some wine or a cafe there.
1:50:19 I was like, we don’t really know.
1:50:20 We’ll kind of know when we see it
1:50:23 and the community will kind of define the purpose of it.
1:50:25 But we’re like, we just know that we need more convenience.
1:50:28 – He’s like, I’m gonna need a retainer for this.
1:50:30 – Yeah, yeah.
1:50:34 No, I’m like, there’s no math to pencil out on it,
1:50:36 but we just need more of those places to hang.
1:50:39 By the way, all right, free idea for anyone in your audience.
1:50:41 You know what needs to exist.
1:50:43 – Chuck E. Cheese for Gen X.
1:50:45 – And if somebody starts this in a city
1:50:50 that I would travel to, I want a landlocked yacht club.
1:50:51 – Okay.
1:50:55 – That is also a mini golf country club.
1:50:58 It’s basically, it’s yacht rock themed.
1:51:00 So you show up, you got to wear white shoes,
1:51:03 maybe a captain’s hat, umbrellas in the drinks,
1:51:05 yacht rock band playing.
1:51:08 It has the air of a country club.
1:51:09 It’s accessible to everybody.
1:51:10 Maybe a membership cost 10 bucks.
1:51:12 You have to have a membership by the way
1:51:14 to make it exclusive, a $10 membership.
1:51:17 They have to apply at the door, give some references,
1:51:19 answer some yacht rock trivia, whatever.
1:51:22 But then it’s a country club for mini golf.
1:51:23 The putt putts have generally gone away.
1:51:25 We need to bring mini golf back.
1:51:29 And like, you’ll, there’ll be like mahogany lockers
1:51:31 for your putter, you know?
1:51:34 And so you go in there and you have a really choice putter,
1:51:35 you know, like you can catch like,
1:51:37 “Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy.”
1:51:38 And so you can talk to your golf club,
1:51:41 but I really need someone to fucking do this, okay?
1:51:44 You can call it yachtsies, you can call it whatever you want,
1:51:46 but I need this to exist.
1:51:47 I will be there.
1:51:52 There’s a bar in Redondo Beach on the pier called Old Tonys.
1:51:53 Or it’s called Tonys on the pier,
1:51:55 but everyone refers to it as Old Tonys.
1:51:58 The inside has not changed in 50 years.
1:52:00 And I would do anything to get on the historic register
1:52:04 of places to make sure it never changes.
1:52:07 Because that is the perfect place to convene.
1:52:09 And I will ride down there, ride bikes with friends
1:52:12 when I’m in LA and hang out at Old Tonys on the pier
1:52:15 and just feel like that’s what we crave.
1:52:18 Go there and talk about nothing, just hang out.
1:52:21 And I think like I would be betting on
1:52:23 people wanna get together and bullshit.
1:52:27 I think our kids are the canary in the coal mine
1:52:29 of what happens when everything went digital.
1:52:31 It’s fucking exhausting, man.
1:52:34 And being yelled at online is fucking exhausting.
1:52:36 People are not accountable to each other, right?
1:52:39 I mean, if anything, I could have told you
1:52:41 how the result of this election was gonna go
1:52:45 because most Americans are just fucking tired of it.
1:52:47 They’re tired of being yelled at,
1:52:49 they’re tired of being criticized.
1:52:51 As Jonathan Haidt likes to put it,
1:52:53 it’s no longer about the intentions of the speaker,
1:52:55 it’s how the listener heard it.
1:52:56 Fuck that.
1:52:57 Like I’m so fucking sick of that.
1:52:59 And I got reeled into it like everybody else.
1:53:01 And it’s fucking exhausting.
1:53:02 And everyone who thinks like that
1:53:05 can fuck right off and go away.
1:53:08 Because intentions have to fucking matter.
1:53:09 We have to get back to it.
1:53:10 And where intentions matter
1:53:12 is when you’re hanging out in person.
1:53:15 You can tell, hey, were you trying to be an asshole
1:53:16 or did you just say the wrong thing?
1:53:17 My wife is half Asian.
1:53:20 First time I brought her home to see my grandmother,
1:53:21 she was like, oh my God,
1:53:24 Chris brought the most incredible Oriental girl home.
1:53:26 Now, was she trying to say like,
1:53:29 fuck you, why’d you bring an Oriental girl into my home?
1:53:31 No, what she was trying to say is like,
1:53:33 oh my God, this woman who I don’t know,
1:53:35 the more updated, less antiquated term
1:53:37 for a woman from Asia,
1:53:38 I think we need to call each other in
1:53:40 more than call each other out.
1:53:41 And so you can just be like,
1:53:43 grandma, as Walter and the big old Basque says,
1:53:46 Chinaman is no longer the preferred nomenclature, you know?
1:53:51 Honestly, I feel like we could get to a point where
1:53:53 as a culture, we want to hang out in person again.
1:53:55 We want to be around each other.
1:53:57 Like I know my neighbors where I live,
1:53:58 like my physical neighbors,
1:54:00 more than I ever did in San Francisco.
1:54:01 I lived in a building
1:54:03 and I did not know the people around me.
1:54:04 Everywhere I’ve lived since then,
1:54:06 I actually know my neighbors.
1:54:07 I don’t think we vote the same all the time.
1:54:10 Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t,
1:54:11 but I know I can count on them.
1:54:13 I know I can have a relationship with them.
1:54:15 I know we always find common ground
1:54:16 and like we’re part of a community
1:54:17 and we’re accountable to each other
1:54:20 and it’s fucking great to have a community.
1:54:22 And so I would be betting on communities again.
1:54:24 – I mean, there was a big New York Times piece
1:54:28 about running clubs and chess clubs
1:54:31 and these in real life clubs
1:54:33 with recurring events,
1:54:36 beginning to displace dating apps, right?
1:54:38 As an example, ’cause people are just tired.
1:54:40 People are just exhausted
1:54:42 by having yet another inbox
1:54:46 and with 99% ghost rate, et cetera.
1:54:48 – Well, people at those chess clubs
1:54:51 need to start fucking or we’re gonna go away as humanity.
1:54:53 But no, I’m with you, man.
1:54:55 Crystal and I didn’t go to Montana State University,
1:54:57 but it’s right here in town.
1:54:59 And so we started going to the football games there
1:55:02 and we’d consider ourselves super fans now.
1:55:04 I mean, I wear blue and yellow fucking overalls
1:55:06 to the games, it’s ridiculous.
1:55:08 And by the way, I’ve sent you these clips before.
1:55:10 – You sent me the photos, yeah.
1:55:14 – The start of the game is Metallica starts playing,
1:55:17 fire torches, cannons, a band is on stage,
1:55:21 then horses, the rodeo team rides in with American flags.
1:55:23 And then there’s a flyover of military planes
1:55:26 or helicopters and like, America.
1:55:28 Like this is what it’s all about.
1:55:31 But I really enjoy that we have a fucking community here.
1:55:33 And I really enjoy who we hang out with.
1:55:36 And I think I would be betting on community.
1:55:38 I would be betting on neighbors.
1:55:41 And I don’t think the whole trend is going in that direction.
1:55:43 I think the addiction to these phones
1:55:45 is taking us in another place.
1:55:47 The availability of food to eat by yourself
1:55:50 in great TV and great apps and feeds.
1:55:51 I mean, the first time I installed TikTok,
1:55:54 Tim was during the pandemic.
1:55:56 And I was like, oh, this is kind of cool.
1:55:57 I’ll check out those dance moves.
1:56:01 Next thing I knew, I looked up and the sun had come up.
1:56:04 I had been up all fucking night long on this app.
1:56:06 I mean, it was like fucking crack cocaine
1:56:08 injected into my veins.
1:56:10 I realized whatever like genes,
1:56:13 some ethnicities don’t have to tolerate alcohol.
1:56:15 I don’t have that for fucking TikTok.
1:56:17 And so I can only imagine what it’s doing
1:56:18 to the masses right now.
1:56:21 And I hope we come up with a GLP one agonist
1:56:23 that like blocks the pleasure center for TikTok.
1:56:26 But I would be doing anything I can
1:56:30 for profit or nonprofit to enhance community and hangouts.
1:56:33 – So you’ve got all your knowledge that you have now.
1:56:36 You do not have all your connections,
1:56:37 but you have the know-how.
1:56:42 And you are somewhere between 20 and 30 years old
1:56:47 and you’re gonna start a business.
1:56:49 What type of business might you start?
1:56:52 – Tim, what do you want me to say?
1:56:53 I genuinely don’t know.
1:56:54 – CrossFit gyms?
1:56:57 CrossFit gyms are community.
1:56:57 They’re great.
1:56:58 I was standing in one last night.
1:57:01 I told you, I texted you last night.
1:57:03 I was like, if you want to make friends
1:57:05 in a CrossFit gym in Montana,
1:57:08 just drop that you are pals of Tim Ferriss.
1:57:12 And so like Shark Tank only goes so far in that gym.
1:57:15 Once you say you’re friends with Tim Ferriss, like, oh shit.
1:57:17 First of all, I love the ethos of CrossFit.
1:57:18 It’s how I work out.
1:57:20 You can just fucking tell, can’t you Tim?
1:57:22 But those are community.
1:57:24 You know, one of the things we’ve enjoyed doing
1:57:25 is going to towns.
1:57:27 I can’t remember which sites are doing this anymore,
1:57:30 but finding somebody who will guide you
1:57:32 on a local bar crawl.
1:57:35 And just like, hey, take me to all the fucking dive bars
1:57:36 or all the tiki bars
1:57:40 or take me to three farmers markets.
1:57:42 Or just take me to three things I want to see.
1:57:47 And it’s like not the traditional like art historian
1:57:50 who just recites everything about tidian.
1:57:52 And I said that one just for you.
1:57:54 I could have said Velazquez, but I said tidian just for you.
1:57:56 – No, thy audience.
1:57:57 No, thy audience.
1:57:59 – Yeah, and so, but people were like,
1:58:02 hey, come here and enjoy this analog experience with me.
1:58:03 You know, let’s go to these places.
1:58:05 You asked why we go to Copenhagen?
1:58:07 ‘Cause Copenhagen is bikes, man.
1:58:09 You get on bikes, you make it up.
1:58:10 It’s freewheeling.
1:58:11 We started with Renee,
1:58:12 but then we met a lot of other people
1:58:14 who had spun off from Renee’s world.
1:58:17 Entrepreneurs and food and other stuff and artisans
1:58:18 and people who take food and service.
1:58:20 I mean, Ricardo Marcon who runs Baraba.
1:58:25 Well, Action Bronson called it the best Italian restaurant
1:58:27 in the world and it’s in Copenhagen.
1:58:29 I mean, you start wars with that kind of shit,
1:58:31 but there’s an argument that the best Italian restaurant
1:58:35 in the world is in Copenhagen run by our buddy Ricardo.
1:58:38 But Ricardo is the height of analog experiences.
1:58:40 It starts with the hug at the door.
1:58:41 – So, would you start stodging in his restaurant?
1:58:43 What would your move be?
1:58:46 – I mean, the kids have, our children have,
1:58:48 they’ve made plenty of pasta in that place.
1:58:50 But I think Europe is onto something
1:58:53 with the art of the slow drink in the plaza.
1:58:57 I really think humans still wanna have
1:58:59 a slow drink in a plaza somewhere.
1:59:01 I hope, I hope.
1:59:03 And I know we’re not drinking as much alcohol,
1:59:06 but I mean, I love those athletics, by the way.
1:59:08 You realize that 80% of drinking a beer
1:59:11 is just like, you wanted the 12 ounce curl apart, you know?
1:59:14 It’s just like, today sucked, give me an athletic.
1:59:16 And you’re like, I don’t actually wanna get fucked up
1:59:17 right now, but there’s just something.
1:59:18 I need to cap this day.
1:59:20 I need to say work is over.
1:59:22 And so, sorry, that was my limit shallow.
1:59:24 I guess that’s a bad stand-in for athletic.
1:59:25 We do have alcohol investments.
1:59:27 I wouldn’t be betting on alcohol long-term,
1:59:29 but I think people still wanna just hang out.
1:59:32 The ritual of ordering a drink,
1:59:35 ordering a light bite, hanging out, people watching.
1:59:37 We need central places to hang.
1:59:39 This movement during COVID of shutting down streets,
1:59:41 making a bike, but also just cafe
1:59:43 and outdoor seating friendly.
1:59:45 We need more of that, humans crave that shit.
1:59:47 That’s what I would be betting on right now.
1:59:49 And then interactive guiding.
1:59:51 Yes, I’ve used ChatGP to be like,
1:59:53 hey, what’s the off the beaten path shit
1:59:55 I should do in Berlin?
1:59:56 It’s really good at it.
1:59:57 But you know what else is cool
2:00:00 is talking to a fucking punk kid in Berlin,
2:00:02 who’s like, let me take you to a couple of places
2:00:04 and I know this fucking guy and he’ll let you in
2:00:05 and he has a craft cocktail.
2:00:07 And do you know what the tradition is here?
2:00:09 Here you spit, you put gum on the back of some marks
2:00:11 and you throw them up from the fucking ceiling, you know?
2:00:13 And so, I want more of that shit.
2:00:17 And so, I think there is going to be a backlash to all this.
2:00:18 – To all this, meaning-
2:00:19 – Machines are just-
2:00:20 – The machines and AI and so on.
2:00:22 – The machines, the machines.
2:00:23 – The Butlerian jihad.
2:00:28 – Before that, yes, before they fucking kill us,
2:00:31 I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry before AGI.
2:00:34 And we might be at AGI right now anyway, by the way.
2:00:38 But before the bio weapon disassemblers, you know,
2:00:40 like I think we’ve got to worry about-
2:00:43 – Being entertained to death by your curated feed.
2:00:47 – Yeah, I mean, okay, so remember when we talked about
2:00:50 Buckminster Fuller and I Seemed to Be a Verb,
2:00:53 there’s another book designed by the same designer,
2:00:57 Quentin Fiori, called The Medium is the Massage.
2:00:59 Not the message, the massage.
2:01:03 The background on that is originally a typo,
2:01:04 but they went with it.
2:01:07 (laughing)
2:01:09 It’s Martian LeCluen.
2:01:13 And that book, holy shit.
2:01:15 Sorry if we just broke the market for it.
2:01:18 But that book, you should front run that.
2:01:19 Go buy all those copies.
2:01:22 But that book, again, is one of these old ones.
2:01:24 It’s beautiful, by the way, ’cause Quentin designed it,
2:01:29 but it’s just beautiful foresight as to what’s happening.
2:01:30 Not just entertaining yourself to death,
2:01:34 but what happens when information supplants humanity.
2:01:36 And so when that access, it’s just, I mean,
2:01:39 the book’s got to be 50 years old at least.
2:01:40 – Yeah, it’s an oldie.
2:01:43 All right, so outside of the Butlerian jihad,
2:01:45 we haven’t talked at all about lower carbon capital
2:01:47 very little.
2:01:51 You’ve invested in a whole plethora of different companies
2:01:54 through lower carbon capital.
2:01:55 You may not want to answer this,
2:01:58 but are there any in particular, could be a sector,
2:02:00 could be individual companies
2:02:02 that you are particularly excited about?
2:02:05 Or it’s like, okay, these are a handful,
2:02:07 could be a sector, doesn’t have to be an individual company.
2:02:09 And this is a way of asking like,
2:02:13 what would you bet on outside of all the AI concerns
2:02:15 and so on, and maybe these are AI enabled in fact.
2:02:19 – So let’s just say what we do at lower carbon.
2:02:23 We are venture capitalists and a team of scientists
2:02:24 and business builders.
2:02:27 And we back companies that are making real money
2:02:30 by either slashing CO2 emissions
2:02:31 or sucking carbon out of the sky
2:02:34 or buying us time to unfuck the planet.
2:02:37 I think this one even says it, unfuck the planet.
2:02:40 Trademarked in a lot of countries, hard to do by the way,
2:02:44 it’s hard to get swears trademarked some places.
2:02:48 China, not huge fans of F-bombs, turns out.
2:02:50 And so it was mission-driven for me.
2:02:53 But we had this thesis that most climate investing
2:02:56 and green investing, whatever you want to fucking call it,
2:02:57 however they’re branding it these days,
2:03:00 had been basically charitable, concessionary,
2:03:02 some trade-offs, some sacrifice,
2:03:04 couldn’t be done on a for-profit basis.
2:03:06 And that was true for a long time.
2:03:09 You needed regulatory support, you needed subsidy,
2:03:12 you needed legal change, you needed philanthropy.
2:03:15 But we started to actually see the math change
2:03:19 to where the unit economics of making shit in climate,
2:03:22 making shit clean, we’re starting to pay off.
2:03:24 And so the cost was coming down
2:03:27 thanks to compute, machine learning, AI,
2:03:30 thanks to readily available feedstock, bioreactors,
2:03:32 you name it.
2:03:34 And then the demand was starting to increase
2:03:37 on the other side because companies were realizing like,
2:03:39 oh, if I do this stuff,
2:03:40 not only is it just good for the planet,
2:03:43 but it’s just fucking cheaper, it’s safer,
2:03:45 it’s more resilient, it’s easier to use,
2:03:49 it tends to blow up less than shit made with the oil and gas.
2:03:51 ‘Cause it just turns out that digging up
2:03:54 and burning old dinosaur bones is fucking expensive.
2:03:58 And so using the sun to power the economy
2:03:59 is just fucking cheaper.
2:04:01 And that’s not a political statement.
2:04:06 And what’s funny is when I talk to guys from West Texas
2:04:08 like hardcore oil and gas.
2:04:10 I’ll admit, I have to start the conversation
2:04:13 by talking about the truck I drive.
2:04:16 I have to quote some Kenny Chesney lyrics.
2:04:18 I ask what’s in season, what are they hunting?
2:04:20 Talk about whatever trophies behind them.
2:04:23 I have to establish like I come in peace.
2:04:27 But then we start talking about how are the cattle doing?
2:04:28 Where are the yields like?
2:04:29 How many are you running right now?
2:04:30 Where are they way?
2:04:33 You get some size.
2:04:34 How’s a growing season?
2:04:36 How many harvest are you getting?
2:04:37 You get some size.
2:04:39 What’s hunting been like?
2:04:40 You know, how many tags you’re getting?
2:04:42 You’re able to fill all those tags.
2:04:43 You bagging anything good?
2:04:47 Then you start talking about how are jobs going?
2:04:48 How are people doing there?
2:04:51 Then you start asking, so you guys getting any of the shakes?
2:04:53 You getting the daily seismic activity?
2:04:55 What’s water like?
2:04:59 And before you know it, you have just talked
2:05:01 all of the reality of a fucked climate
2:05:03 without ever mentioning the word one time.
2:05:09 And it doesn’t have to be fucking political at all.
2:05:11 It’s just the reality.
2:05:15 You know, the California fires are so fucked up
2:05:19 but the reality is they’re actually gonna be an accelerator
2:05:20 for the work we do.
2:05:24 Because now, you know, a lot of climate stuff is like,
2:05:27 well, shit, if I eat this shitty mushroom burger
2:05:31 then maybe fewer people will be subjected
2:05:33 to floods in Mongolia.
2:05:35 It’s really fucking abstract, right?
2:05:38 And we think maybe there’s like 300 million people
2:05:40 on the planet who actually try and do that math
2:05:42 and are willing to spend more money
2:05:44 to buy something more expensive
2:05:46 or who are willing to actually sacrifice deeply
2:05:49 in their life with that kind of end-to-end relationship
2:05:50 in mind.
2:05:52 But like seven and a half billion people
2:05:54 don’t have that luxury.
2:05:57 Or just it’s really fucking taxing and exhausting
2:05:58 to think about that all the time.
2:06:00 I don’t wanna every time I sit down
2:06:02 and bite into a delicious burger
2:06:04 I had to be confronted by the existential crisis
2:06:07 I am feeling, I mean, I love when that juice drips down
2:06:09 and you’re like, oh, fuck, this is fucking delicious.
2:06:10 Medium rare, let’s go.
2:06:13 Oh, this grass-fed awesomeness, oh shit.
2:06:15 Like you left a little of that fat in there.
2:06:16 Yeah, let’s go.
2:06:17 What’d you marinate this in?
2:06:19 Oh, it’s fucking delicious.
2:06:21 We were meant to eat that shit, right?
2:06:22 And I don’t wanna have to constantly like,
2:06:24 I’m a horrible person, I’m a horrible person
2:06:26 and like eat it from my tears.
2:06:31 Like, the burger of shame.
2:06:33 So it’s just not, it’s not who we are.
2:06:35 And you know what?
2:06:37 The fucking activists made us feel so bad about it
2:06:38 for so fucking long.
2:06:40 The soup throwers.
2:06:41 These people throwing soup on paintings.
2:06:44 How the fuck are you helping anything?
2:06:46 The people who glue themselves to the fucking floor
2:06:48 of the US Open and stop traffic.
2:06:50 Like, how are you helping anything?
2:06:52 All you’re doing is radicalizing people
2:06:53 against the stuff that we’re doing that
2:06:56 as practically on fucking their businesses,
2:06:57 their communities.
2:06:59 If you really wanna put some blame
2:07:01 on some people about what happened in the L.A. fires,
2:07:03 like if we’re really just playing the blame game.
2:07:04 And did you see the article?
2:07:07 By the way, it’s a bunch of Russian disinfo accounts
2:07:08 that are really flooding the tweets
2:07:10 with trying to blame different people and stuff.
2:07:11 It’s fucked up.
2:07:14 So Russia just knows where to fucking pick the scabs with us.
2:07:15 But if you wanna blame somebody,
2:07:18 it’s the fucking environmentalists.
2:07:21 It’s the fucking Sierra Club who makes it impossible
2:07:25 for anyone to actually do any defensible space,
2:07:28 to mow anything down, to do any controlled burns,
2:07:30 to actually create defensible space
2:07:32 around our fucking communities.
2:07:34 It’s the fucking Nimbies who won’t let anyone
2:07:36 actually use appropriate materials
2:07:38 in building a fucking house.
2:07:41 Did you see like, they are expediting the rebuild
2:07:43 of any houses in those areas that burned down,
2:07:46 but you can’t make any fucking changes to that.
2:07:50 So we just saw a bunch of tinder boxes go up
2:07:51 and it’s a great opportunity to be like,
2:07:54 hey, maybe we should build us some different shit.
2:07:56 Maybe we should build in some different shapes.
2:07:57 Maybe we shouldn’t have ventilation
2:07:59 that sucks everything up into the roof structure.
2:08:01 Maybe we shouldn’t use the cheapest wood available,
2:08:03 which is how Americans build shit.
2:08:05 Maybe we should have more concrete,
2:08:06 more aluminum, more heat reflection,
2:08:08 more concrete walls around stuff.
2:08:09 Maybe, just fucking maybe.
2:08:11 Maybe we should use more shrubbery around it
2:08:14 that actually absorbs more water and is less flammable.
2:08:16 But no, expedited permitting
2:08:19 if you build the exact same fucking thing you just had.
2:08:21 Otherwise you go back to the end of the line.
2:08:23 How fucking defeating is that?
2:08:26 But it’s just so funny to be a climate investor
2:08:28 and find myself constantly at odds
2:08:30 with the goddamn environmentalists.
2:08:33 I’m sure they have a fucking target on me,
2:08:36 but that’s the reality is right now for the first time,
2:08:38 I think we are going to draw the linkage
2:08:42 between what happens if we don’t deal with these problems
2:08:45 and the direct damage they cause in the short term.
2:08:46 – And so if you look at your portfolio,
2:08:47 just not to lose track of that,
2:08:49 you can feel free to punt it for a bit,
2:08:51 but I’m wondering if you’re like, okay,
2:08:53 the things that I’m most excited about
2:08:56 kind of moving the needle in ways that you care about,
2:08:59 what those technologies or sectors or companies will be.
2:09:03 – There’s things that are going to transform at scale,
2:09:07 like fusion, clean, abundant power that is almost free
2:09:09 is single digit years away.
2:09:10 So that’s fucking great.
2:09:12 I don’t even bother fighting with the oil and gas people,
2:09:14 it doesn’t fucking matter.
2:09:17 In fact, I actually want them to work with us more
2:09:18 on carbon capture and sequester,
2:09:21 putting more carbon back into the ground
2:09:22 ’cause they’ve got the trucks and they’ve got the pipes
2:09:24 and they’ve got the engineering know-how
2:09:25 and they’re great at it.
2:09:28 And so we do a lot of work with oil and gas companies
2:09:30 going in reverse.
2:09:32 So I don’t have political battles with those guys.
2:09:35 And again, that’s something that the activists hate about me.
2:09:37 I will fucking sit with these people.
2:09:39 Chris Wright, our new energy secretary,
2:09:41 I consider him a reasonable person.
2:09:43 He grew up in the oil and gas business.
2:09:45 If we didn’t have the oil and gas business,
2:09:47 we would not enjoy the economy we enjoy today.
2:09:49 Everything in that room you’re sitting in right now
2:09:51 was made possible by oil and gas.
2:09:54 We can’t just fucking pretend.
2:09:56 Otherwise, we’d be living that primitive life
2:09:58 that I know you’ve gotten some of your survivalist books
2:10:01 somewhere, but without oil and gas, we’re fucked.
2:10:04 It’s my job to give you a better alternative.
2:10:07 And I enjoy when the big oil majors come to us.
2:10:09 Sometimes they’ll try to do a business deal or even buy us.
2:10:10 We had one of the big oil majors
2:10:12 try to buy lower carbon capital.
2:10:14 We’re not for sale.
2:10:16 But we said, bring your engineering team
2:10:17 to meet with our engineering team
2:10:18 and let’s get some shit done together.
2:10:19 I love that.
2:10:21 We have a company called Solygen
2:10:24 that makes chemicals using enzymes instead of oil
2:10:25 as the main ingredient.
2:10:29 There’s zero emission chemicals, industrial chemicals.
2:10:30 You know who buys those chemicals?
2:10:32 The oil and gas industry.
2:10:34 And so one of the big chemicals they make
2:10:36 is hydrogen peroxide at industrial scale,
2:10:39 which is an important component of the oil and gas industry.
2:10:42 When that buyer comes to Solygen to buy that stuff,
2:10:44 they ask two questions.
2:10:47 Is it hydrogen peroxide and is it cheaper?
2:10:49 Well, then fuck it, I’ll buy it.
2:10:50 And it’s just fun.
2:10:52 I like to envision that guy with like a dip in
2:10:55 and a cowboy hat, you know, like, well, fuck it, I’ll buy it.
2:10:58 But literally that’s my favorite fucking buyer.
2:11:02 Someone who buys the cleaner thing out of self-interest.
2:11:05 And so that’s what we’re seeing across all of this stuff.
2:11:08 Now, in the short term, you wanna talk about fires.
2:11:09 We have a company called Burnbot
2:11:11 that is literally an autonomous drone
2:11:13 that goes into the wild urban interface,
2:11:16 mows shit down, starts a controlled burn,
2:11:18 burns a defensible space.
2:11:19 – You say defensible space.
2:11:22 You just mean basically a red-line.
2:11:23 – A fire line.
2:11:27 So a space where there is a gap where it would be hard,
2:11:30 even in high winds, for fire to jump that,
2:11:32 or at least firefighters know, start here
2:11:33 and work backwards.
2:11:34 By the way, if you have good fire lines,
2:11:37 you can just start a fire to go back in the other direction
2:11:39 and be like, well, this wasn’t our preferred thing,
2:11:40 but if we got a big fire coming at us,
2:11:42 may as well start a fire to head back at it.
2:11:45 So you can look this up, Burnbot, it’s fucking awesome.
2:11:48 And, you know, private landowners don’t have a problem
2:11:50 usually running Burnbot,
2:11:52 but where it needs to run is on a lot of public land
2:11:54 and they’ll just get sued.
2:11:56 And so, you know, like somebody will be like,
2:11:58 hey, we need to do some fuel reduction here,
2:11:59 some fuel management.
2:12:02 And fuel management, I looked at some data recently,
2:12:03 it takes between four and seven years
2:12:05 for those projects to get out of litigation.
2:12:09 – By fuel management, you mean actual timber or undergrowth?
2:12:11 Is that what you mean by fuel?
2:12:14 – So before we were all walking around the United States,
2:12:16 you know, what is now the United States?
2:12:18 There used to be a bunch of fires, right?
2:12:19 It just naturally caused fires,
2:12:21 lightning stuff would happen.
2:12:24 The indigenous people who inhabited this land
2:12:26 knew about the power of those fires.
2:12:29 And what would happen is when fires occurred
2:12:30 on a regular basis,
2:12:33 they were actually very healthy for those ecosystems.
2:12:36 We know that there are certain conifers, pines,
2:12:39 that only release their seeds in the event of a fire.
2:12:42 They literally do not release their seeds otherwise.
2:12:45 And so fire is a vitally important part
2:12:47 of a forest ecosystem.
2:12:50 To have healthy nature, you have to have fire.
2:12:52 A bunch of very well-intentioned
2:12:55 greens and environmentalists came along
2:12:57 and said, holy shit, fire.
2:12:59 It releases a bunch of shit in the sky,
2:13:01 it gets close to human beings,
2:13:03 some deer will fucking die, you know,
2:13:04 like we need to stop fire.
2:13:06 And look, all this shit in hindsight,
2:13:08 I’m not blaming those people
2:13:10 because in hindsight, I don’t think they knew this.
2:13:12 I think they were trying to do the right thing.
2:13:13 But what happened was,
2:13:15 they started putting out fires immediately.
2:13:18 You know, we had all those massive fire towers, right?
2:13:20 Those are fun to like spend a night in, by the way,
2:13:21 if you want to camp out in an old fire tower.
2:13:23 So we had all these fire towers,
2:13:25 they would see a fire, they would immediately put it out.
2:13:29 What happens when that happens is all this fuel grows.
2:13:32 So all this undergrowth starts to grow and grow and grow.
2:13:35 And before you know it, when the next fire starts,
2:13:37 there’s so much fuel there
2:13:39 that instead of like cleaning it out
2:13:42 and letting some little pine cones kind of drop
2:13:45 and creating more space for the next layer of growth
2:13:46 and for animal habitat,
2:13:48 instead it burns so fucking hot
2:13:50 that the biggest trees all burned down
2:13:52 and the microbial layer all burns.
2:13:54 And now you’ve got fucking sand.
2:13:56 And so what we started to realize
2:13:59 was that all those years of fire suppression
2:14:02 were the worst form of fire management.
2:14:05 And in doing so, they actually hurt the nature
2:14:07 they were intended to help.
2:14:09 Even if there were no houses nearby,
2:14:11 you have to let fires burn out.
2:14:12 And if it’s in a place
2:14:14 where you can’t just let that happen randomly,
2:14:16 you have to actively manage fuels
2:14:18 as if nature was doing it for you.
2:14:20 And so managing fuels means in a scrub brush area,
2:14:22 it means like you just go in
2:14:24 and you chop and burn the fucking grass.
2:14:25 You just have to do it.
2:14:27 And so you have to build that defensible space
2:14:29 and you have to let some of these spaces renew.
2:14:32 In forests, it means you have to limb stuff.
2:14:33 You have to take the dead stuff.
2:14:34 You have to limb stuff.
2:14:36 And then you have to set it on fire.
2:14:39 And you do these and it’s a really, really important part
2:14:40 of forestry management.
2:14:42 We know that now.
2:14:44 And the US Forest Service knows this.
2:14:47 All that those are hardworking, amazing fucking people,
2:14:48 but the environmentalists do to stop them
2:14:49 all the fucking time.
2:14:51 And that’s killing people right now.
2:14:53 There’s just no doubt about it.
2:14:55 I am hopeful a silver lining,
2:14:56 ’cause I’m gonna talk about politics,
2:14:58 but a silver lining is I think we’re gonna cut through
2:15:00 some of that shit right now.
2:15:02 I think we are headed into an era of pragmatism,
2:15:06 of putting literally the forest before the trees
2:15:09 and starting to actually proactively get ahead of that stuff.
2:15:11 By the way, it’s the same shit with floods.
2:15:12 It’s the same shit with drought.
2:15:13 It’s the same shit with famine.
2:15:16 We have just been stopped from taking proactive measures.
2:15:19 So a company like Burnbot, company like Gridware.
2:15:21 Gridware actually is monitoring equipment
2:15:24 on every single power line, tower by tower.
2:15:26 Like, do you know right now,
2:15:30 if there is a power failure on a PG&E transmission line,
2:15:30 do you know how they figure out
2:15:32 where that power failure was?
2:15:36 They just start driving along and looking up
2:15:37 and trying to figure it out.
2:15:40 Are they helicopter down the whole fucking line?
2:15:43 They have no data that comes off those fucking lines.
2:15:46 At this point, well, it’s not my words.
2:15:47 Somebody else said, at this point,
2:15:50 PG&E is essentially the biggest arsonist in California.
2:15:53 And so electrical utilities are responsible
2:15:56 for 11% of the fire ignitions in the state of California
2:15:57 and 50% of the damage.
2:16:00 And so you have these tools like Gridware
2:16:03 that can just be tower by tower monitoring.
2:16:04 Know where there’s interruption.
2:16:05 You can immediately go there and see,
2:16:07 okay, where was the tree that fell?
2:16:08 Where is the spark?
2:16:09 You can suppress that fire in a place
2:16:11 where you don’t want to have fire
2:16:13 or you don’t haven’t controlled for it.
2:16:15 But there hasn’t been an incentive
2:16:17 for those companies to pay that.
2:16:19 Like PG&E is already bankrupted.
2:16:20 They haven’t been on the hook for that.
2:16:22 But now we’ve got insurance companies,
2:16:24 like multiple insurance companies
2:16:25 are gonna go bankrupt right now.
2:16:27 And so is California’s fair plan,
2:16:28 which is the insurer of last resort
2:16:30 does not have the money it needs to pay
2:16:31 for what just happened.
2:16:33 We have a company called Stand,
2:16:35 which is a fire insurance company
2:16:36 that actually assesses the real risk
2:16:38 of insuring your home
2:16:41 instead of state farm just pulling out of the fucking state.
2:16:43 By the way, I don’t think you want to show a lot of football,
2:16:46 but you know, the LA Rams couldn’t play their game in LA
2:16:48 because of the fires, right?
2:16:50 So they moved it to their playoff game.
2:16:52 They moved it to Arizona
2:16:54 and they played in state farm arena.
2:16:57 And I couldn’t even believe they didn’t just put duct tape
2:16:58 over the fucking logo.
2:17:00 It was the most fucked up irony ever.
2:17:01 But so instead of having an insurance company
2:17:03 plot of an entire state,
2:17:06 a company like Stand looks at house by house by house
2:17:09 and says, here is your modeled risk.
2:17:12 And here are the other things that you can proactively do
2:17:13 to reduce that risk
2:17:16 to where we will actually write you an insurance policy.
2:17:17 And we have companies like Floodbase
2:17:19 that do that same thing for floods
2:17:21 and look at like, here’s the risk.
2:17:23 And you can’t remember a hundred year storms
2:17:24 happen every year now.
2:17:28 Like we can’t just model these on historical data anymore.
2:17:30 I mean, as John Stewart put it, they’re not like,
2:17:32 what just happened in LA is like,
2:17:34 if a fire fucked a tornado,
2:17:36 you can’t just model for that anymore.
2:17:39 You have to assume the worst and assume like,
2:17:42 okay, what do we do in terms of space management?
2:17:43 What do we do in terms of materials?
2:17:45 What do we do in terms of suppression?
2:17:46 What do we do in terms of response?
2:17:49 What do we do in terms of adaptation or resiliency
2:17:51 in the face of all that?
2:17:53 And so I think there are so many opportunities
2:17:55 to be better at that stuff right now.
2:18:00 And I am hopeful that the silver lining
2:18:02 of a tragedy like this is the cause
2:18:05 and the effect are so close
2:18:08 and finally appeal so much to self-interest.
2:18:10 They finally appeal to that linkage
2:18:12 between instead of just like,
2:18:14 hey, if a butterfly flaps its wings far away
2:18:14 and you’re like, oh,
2:18:17 if that bush fucking lights on fire over there,
2:18:18 that’s it.
2:18:19 You and I have a buddy who like,
2:18:21 went to go look at the wreckage of his home
2:18:24 and his fireproof safe was a puddle.
2:18:26 It was a fucking puddle.
2:18:27 It’s just so devastating.
2:18:28 I’m hopeful.
2:18:31 I actually feel a second wind in our work.
2:18:33 And so do the people I work with right now.
2:18:36 I feel like it’s always been mission driven,
2:18:38 but we’re also unapologetically capitalist.
2:18:39 It’s great.
2:18:41 I mean, it’s making a lot of money right now,
2:18:43 but I feel like right now it makes
2:18:45 the stakes of it even clearer.
2:18:48 And I know there’ll be a bunch of fucking people yelling
2:18:50 at each other about what went wrong in LA.
2:18:51 But here’s the funniest thing.
2:18:53 The phone is ringing off the hook right now
2:18:55 from people not in LA who are like,
2:18:56 that can never happen here.
2:18:58 What do we do?
2:18:59 And I love that.
2:19:01 – No permanent record.
2:19:02 You wanna talk about it?
2:19:03 It’s a story.
2:19:04 What’s happening?
2:19:04 Why now?
2:19:06 – Yeah.
2:19:09 I don’t know what to tell a 20-something to do right now,
2:19:12 other than to be a fucking Sherpa or a guide
2:19:14 or build some in-person analog experience.
2:19:19 But I do know that there is this cultural hole
2:19:22 where these young people today
2:19:25 haven’t been given the chance to fuck up.
2:19:25 They just can’t.
2:19:28 There’s fucking, did you ever teepee a house Tim?
2:19:30 – No, but I had my house teepeed.
2:19:31 I had to deal with it.
2:19:32 – Okay, like.
2:19:35 – I did other, I did plenty of other stuff
2:19:36 that got me in trouble, but no teepee.
2:19:38 – Nobody gets to do that anymore
2:19:39 ’cause they’re on a ring camera, man.
2:19:41 Nobody gets to egg anything.
2:19:42 And to go back to Mark Rober,
2:19:45 he’s the one who built that fucking glitter fart bomb package.
2:19:49 – When my one close friend finally got his license
2:19:51 or it was probably driver’s permit.
2:19:52 We shouldn’t have even been out
2:19:55 ’cause I was a townie, right, on Eastern Long Island.
2:19:56 – Yeah.
2:19:57 – We had a lot of tension with the city people,
2:19:58 as we would call it.
2:20:00 So we would drive around
2:20:03 and I had a like a wrist rocket, a slingshot.
2:20:08 And we had, we just bought a huge bag of grapes
2:20:10 and just went around not shooting at people,
2:20:13 but like we’d shoot at things next to the people.
2:20:16 And I’m not proud of that.
2:20:19 We didn’t hurt anybody, but we got in a lot of trouble.
2:20:22 We got in a good amount of trouble.
2:20:23 – I think we got in lots of trouble,
2:20:24 but I think we have a generation of kids
2:20:26 who didn’t get a chance to get into any trouble.
2:20:28 And I’m starting to believe more and more
2:20:31 that trouble is actually one of those things
2:20:34 that informs all the other things that we do.
2:20:36 Like, did you ever talk somebody into getting you beer?
2:20:39 – I talked somebody into getting me,
2:20:42 it wasn’t really like for a party, some hard liquor.
2:20:44 It wasn’t beer, I went straight to the hard stuff.
2:20:45 But yeah.
2:20:47 – Yeah, okay.
2:20:47 Let me ask you a question.
2:20:51 Did you ever have a party with your parents’ liquor
2:20:53 and then pour a little bit of water back in the vodka
2:20:54 to make it look like the level went back up?
2:20:57 – No, I didn’t because my parents are hoarders
2:20:58 and the house wouldn’t have worked.
2:20:59 But I saw that done.
2:21:01 I did plenty of other stuff too.
2:21:04 And like things that are, like there’s no real victim, right?
2:21:08 Like I remember, like I remember for instance,
2:21:11 my elementary school, same friend who drove me around
2:21:13 with the grapes and the slingshot.
2:21:15 He was the tallest kid in the class.
2:21:20 Also very smart, equally open to maybe deviant behavior.
2:21:24 And at the elementary school,
2:21:26 there was this huge wall where kids
2:21:28 would just whack tennis balls back and forth.
2:21:32 Kind of like racket ball, but long island style.
2:21:34 And nobody knew what they were doing.
2:21:36 So they would hit all the tennis balls
2:21:38 up onto the roof eventually.
2:21:39 This was like ’80s, right?
2:21:42 There were all these amazingly cheesy ninja movies.
2:21:44 And there was the, I think it was called
2:21:47 the Asian world of martial arts catalog,
2:21:51 which ships like completely dangerous grappling hooks
2:21:54 and stuff from Philadelphia, I think it was.
2:21:58 And so I had some kind of ninja tooling
2:22:01 and we figured out a way with rope
2:22:04 to get up on the school and then use garbage bags
2:22:07 to like temporarily steal all of the tennis balls.
2:22:10 And it turned into, I mean, for this small school,
2:22:12 it was quite the scandal at the time.
2:22:14 I mean, there was a manhunt.
2:22:17 And then we returned the tennis balls at some point
2:22:19 and all sins were forgiven or at least they stopped,
2:22:22 they called off the hounds, but you know, stuff like that.
2:22:24 – Yes, this is what I’m talking about.
2:22:26 I feel like the statute of limitations
2:22:29 has expired for most of these things,
2:22:31 but they are formative.
2:22:34 Hawkeye actually, previously known as Hawkeye,
2:22:36 had a music store in Park City, Utah,
2:22:39 where I was a resident and we were in business together.
2:22:42 – Wait, where are you in business doing?
2:22:43 – We had a few fun flams.
2:22:45 So one of the things we did was,
2:22:46 first of all, we had to build some community.
2:22:48 So one of the things we did was like,
2:22:50 we would sell you the Britney Spears album,
2:22:52 but you had to sign your name and address
2:22:54 hosted at the front desk,
2:22:56 like almost like a sex offender registry,
2:22:59 but it was like a Britney fire registry.
2:23:02 And so that offends like one out of 10 people,
2:23:04 but it builds community with 99 out of 100 people.
2:23:06 And so, but one of the things we would do
2:23:09 to make a little bit extra cash is,
2:23:11 well, we had a body who was the postman.
2:23:13 And so he would come into the store
2:23:15 and he would say, hey, you know,
2:23:16 there’s all these people signed up
2:23:18 for that Columbia house shit.
2:23:19 And then they move away.
2:23:21 Park City was like a town full of transients
2:23:23 and they’re like, so I get all these fucking CDs.
2:23:25 Like, are they worth anything?
2:23:27 And so we like scan the UPC symbols and we’re like,
2:23:29 oh my God, they’re the same UPC symbols
2:23:31 as the retail ones.
2:23:33 So we would do a little trade, you know, like,
2:23:34 hey, pick out something from the store
2:23:36 and give us a bunch of those Christina Aguileras.
2:23:38 And that helped us stock fewer CDs.
2:23:40 But then we figured out,
2:23:43 you could take them to Walmart and return them.
2:23:48 So if we really needed drinking money,
2:23:53 we would return like 25 Limp Bizkit CDs to Walmart.
2:23:55 And they’d be like, what is this shit?
2:23:57 And be like, oh, everyone at my birthday party
2:24:00 thought it’d be so funny to buy me a fucking Limp Bizkit CD.
2:24:04 And then you remember CDs weren’t cheap, right?
2:24:06 So you do these things 20 or 25 at a time.
2:24:08 And you’re like, I’m rich motherfucker, let’s go.
2:24:11 And so we also did a thing where it was around the time
2:24:13 that Napster started.
2:24:15 And we realized like music stores weren’t for long.
2:24:20 And so we did this thing where it was restocking fee,
2:24:24 but we would let kids buy a CD, take it home,
2:24:26 rip it presumably.
2:24:27 I don’t know what they were doing
2:24:29 in the price of their home.
2:24:31 But if they returned the CD the next day,
2:24:35 we would charge them a $3.50 restocking fee.
2:24:36 So essentially what we were doing
2:24:39 is reselling the same CD over and over again,
2:24:40 keeping our margin.
2:24:42 I’m sure the record company wouldn’t have loved it,
2:24:44 but it was a very customer friendly policy.
2:24:46 (laughing)
2:24:48 But that’s what it took to keep a music store afloat.
2:24:49 – In Park City.
2:24:51 – In, you know, 2000, 2001 in Park City.
2:24:54 – What’s the format of no permanent record?
2:24:55 What do you hope it’s?
2:24:57 – I don’t know, Tim.
2:24:59 – Well, like what are you gonna do?
2:25:01 – No, I’m having conversations with,
2:25:03 I’m starting to have conversations with successful people
2:25:08 where they talk about the small crimes and misdemeanors
2:25:11 they committed, the parties they threw,
2:25:13 the lies they told to their parents,
2:25:15 the clubs they talked their way into,
2:25:18 the fake IDs they made, everything along the way,
2:25:22 the papers that they plagiarized, just everything they did,
2:25:26 and how that actually built some sense of humanity,
2:25:28 resilience, like the shit they got themselves into
2:25:31 and the shit they got themselves out of.
2:25:33 And like, if it ends up just being
2:25:36 the last archeological record of what it was like
2:25:38 when we were humans still,
2:25:40 when we weren’t judged at every fucking moment,
2:25:43 and I actually just feel like culturally it’s the right time
2:25:46 because you do this two years ago and everyone’s like,
2:25:47 fuck you, privileged assholes, other people.
2:25:50 And I’m like, we’re over, we’re past privileged assholes.
2:25:53 We’re just like, hey, that’s kind of fucking amazing.
2:25:55 You were able to, you chalked IDs.
2:25:57 And what I found is, is I tell more of these stories
2:25:59 of like, without a fake ID in college,
2:26:01 you had nowhere to go, right?
2:26:02 So you needed one.
2:26:05 So we would either make them by like doing some shit
2:26:08 with some cool overlay contact paper,
2:26:11 or we would find some fucking guy down in the deep city
2:26:14 where you’d stand in front of a goddamn chalkboard
2:26:16 of a huge ass driver’s license
2:26:18 to pretend you were McLovin’, you know?
2:26:21 Like, I mean, we would do all kinds of things
2:26:23 when there was room to still cut some corners,
2:26:24 take some liberties.
2:26:25 – Let me rest up for a second.
2:26:28 So I thought getting a fake ID would be a great idea.
2:26:29 I don’t know how old I was.
2:26:31 It was like 14 or something.
2:26:35 And my buddy and I, same guy who was part
2:26:37 of the other two fiascos,
2:26:42 we decided to take a bus from Eastern Long Island,
2:26:44 like three hours out to go into the city.
2:26:48 Now, this isn’t like post Giuliani,
2:26:51 post Bloomberg, like friendly New York city
2:26:54 with like biking lanes through Times Square.
2:26:59 This is like much prettier New York city.
2:27:03 So we get there to go on this adventure
2:27:07 and literally within hours, we are both conned and mugged.
2:27:12 And like, within hours of getting there,
2:27:15 our first time in New York city, basically.
2:27:16 And then no cell phones, right?
2:27:18 So we get separated.
2:27:20 These two guys separate us to scam us,
2:27:23 then proceed to like steal all the shit.
2:27:24 Then we get separated.
2:27:27 I go to the police station and I’m like,
2:27:28 “My buddy, you might be dead.”
2:27:30 And they’re like, “Where is he dead?”
2:27:33 And I’m like, “This intersection.”
2:27:35 And they’re like, “Yeah, that’s not our jurisdiction, pal.
2:27:35 Good luck.”
2:27:37 And I was like, “What?”
2:27:39 First interaction with like asking police for help.
2:27:41 I’m like, “Oh, that didn’t work out as I thought it would.”
2:27:43 Then I had to take the buses home.
2:27:45 Each of us thinking the other was dead.
2:27:47 That was a real growth experience.
2:27:48 It’s a learning opportunity.
2:27:50 – Dude, I love it.
2:27:51 – It’s not recommending.
2:27:53 People do like the most reckless shit imaginable,
2:27:54 but it’s like–
2:27:56 – No, but maybe, but maybe.
2:27:58 But maybe.
2:27:59 The planet’s never been safer.
2:28:00 Well, America’s never been safer.
2:28:01 There are definitely places
2:28:02 I wouldn’t want to hang out right now.
2:28:06 But dude, I, God, what is that guy’s name?
2:28:10 But I once went to a casino in Vegas.
2:28:11 I was broke, was with my buddies.
2:28:13 We were staying at the Sundowner.
2:28:14 We split a room four ways.
2:28:15 It was a trade, actually.
2:28:19 I think somebody owed us money at the record store.
2:28:20 And so we traded out, he had a buddy.
2:28:23 We got a room at the Sundowner, okay?
2:28:24 Rest in peace, Sundowner.
2:28:26 And so, by the way, at one point
2:28:28 while we were staying in that room,
2:28:31 two queen beds, four guys, like my buddy nudges me.
2:28:32 And I’m like, “What, dude?
2:28:33 What?”
2:28:34 Like, we’d been out all night.
2:28:35 It’s probably two in the afternoon.
2:28:37 I just, he’s like, “Bro, look, look.”
2:28:38 I’m like, “What?”
2:28:39 He’s like, “Look.”
2:28:41 I looked down at the foot of the bed.
2:28:44 At the foot of the bed is like a 12 to 14-year-old
2:28:49 Southeast Asian kid standing there staring at us.
2:28:53 He looked as scared as I did.
2:28:55 And we were just like, “What, is he here for our kidneys?
2:28:57 What is he fucking doing?
2:28:58 Oh my God.”
2:28:59 And we were frozen.
2:29:00 And my buddy was not small.
2:29:03 Like, we were in every position to like,
2:29:04 but we were just absolutely frozen.
2:29:06 Like, what is happening here?
2:29:09 And eventually the kid ran out and we called down
2:29:11 and apparently he had a key card that also worked
2:29:13 in our door and went into the wrong room.
2:29:15 There was some innocent explanation for it.
2:29:16 Yeah, sure.
2:29:18 We still think he was maybe there for some organs,
2:29:21 but either way, like that night we’re out.
2:29:23 We find ourselves at Hera’s.
2:29:25 A buddy says, “Hey, let’s go get our shoes shined.”
2:29:26 What do you say?
2:29:28 So we go over the shoe shine and we’re there
2:29:30 and there’s a fucking pimp over there.
2:29:34 I mean, full on like player’s ball situation.
2:29:37 And he’s got suede hush puppies on.
2:29:40 So there’s no reason he should be at the fucking shoe shine.
2:29:42 But we start talking to this guy.
2:29:43 I’m embarrassed.
2:29:43 I can’t remember his name.
2:29:45 I got to ask my buddy immediately after wrapping this,
2:29:47 but we start talking shit.
2:29:49 And you know, and I consider myself pretty good
2:29:51 at Rochambeau, rock, paper, scissors.
2:29:53 You know, I consider myself above average.
2:29:55 Like I, it’s a talent I’ve honed over time.
2:29:56 It is not a game of luck.
2:29:58 It is a game of skill.
2:30:01 And so I challenged this guy to a little Rochambeau.
2:30:04 And I remember the stakes were, if I win,
2:30:06 we get to hang out with you tonight.
2:30:09 So I beat the guy in Rochambeau.
2:30:11 I mean, it was that I, that wasn’t even a question.
2:30:13 So I thought this would be fucking great.
2:30:15 Well, in an ethnography, we get to go hang out
2:30:17 with this fucking pimp.
2:30:21 But we found ourselves in some fucking hot water that night.
2:30:24 I mean, this is pre the hangover movie.
2:30:26 We were in a couple of situations.
2:30:31 I, those were formative experiences.
2:30:37 I feel like kids these days haven’t been in danger.
2:30:38 They haven’t been in situations like,
2:30:40 how the fuck did we get out of this one?
2:30:42 They haven’t regretted anything.
2:30:45 They haven’t bullshitted their way in or out.
2:30:47 I feel like no one’s gotten a chance to sell anything.
2:30:49 Almost everyone I know who’s been a successful entrepreneur
2:30:50 sold something.
2:30:52 – For sure.
2:30:54 – Whether it was candy in school or door to door,
2:30:55 or they sold something.
2:30:58 And sometimes that just meant they worked in a foot locker,
2:30:59 or they worked in a radio shack,
2:31:01 or they worked in a computer store and sold software.
2:31:04 But almost all of them know how to sell something.
2:31:06 And I feel like the insight of that comes from sales.
2:31:08 But a lot of those sales were shady.
2:31:10 You know, like, how do you mark it up?
2:31:11 How do you sell those?
2:31:15 I remember we had a cable guy in Washington, D.C.
2:31:16 named Lucky.
2:31:17 – The guy who would trick out your box?
2:31:18 Like the black box?
2:31:20 – Yes, yes.
2:31:22 And then he came back and stole everything in our house,
2:31:26 but we didn’t realize that Lucky’s assistant
2:31:27 was casing everything.
2:31:28 – Lucky for Lucky.
2:31:33 – Yes, but I need more stories like that in my life.
2:31:36 If we really are going down in flames,
2:31:38 I want to record for posterity,
2:31:41 all the banged up shit we did that informed who we were.
2:31:43 And like after hanging out with high school buddies
2:31:45 this weekend, I just reminded of how important that is,
2:31:47 the bonds that come from that.
2:31:49 You and I have a mutual buddy, I won’t say,
2:31:50 ’cause I don’t know if he said this out loud,
2:31:54 but he and his wife, their 11th grade daughter
2:31:56 came home buzzed like a month ago.
2:31:59 And she was trying to sneak up and they kind of were like,
2:32:00 “Are you been drinking?”
2:32:02 And she’s like, “Oh, in there.”
2:32:03 He couldn’t help himself,
2:32:05 but the words that came out of his mouth were like,
2:32:06 “Thank God.”
2:32:08 And she’s like, “What?”
2:32:11 And the mom was like, “Oh, whew, what a relief.”
2:32:13 And the girl was so like, “What are you talking about?”
2:32:16 They’re like, “We just thought you’d never do it.”
2:32:18 Like we thought you’d never fucking try it.
2:32:20 It was such a mind fuck for them.
2:32:22 I just worry, I mean, Crystal,
2:32:26 my wife whose GPA was 0.02 points higher than mine
2:32:28 in the same academic program at Georgetown,
2:32:30 but Crystal would get all her schoolwork done
2:32:31 and then go rave.
2:32:36 And I mean, the hardcore DC and Baltimore rave scene rave.
2:32:37 And we’d just get out there and be like,
2:32:39 “I’ve been in some situations.
2:32:41 I’ve been in some rooms where I’m like, holy fuck.
2:32:43 We better get out of here before shit gets out
2:32:45 or before the cops show up.”
2:32:47 But even in high school, she lived on a compound.
2:32:49 She would crush her academics
2:32:52 and then she would literally crawl out of the window,
2:32:55 sneak past the embassy compound guards,
2:32:56 get in a cab at midnight,
2:32:58 and go party with her friends in Delhi,
2:33:01 and then sneak her way back onto an American embassy compound
2:33:04 without Marines noticing her.
2:33:05 That’s fucking rad.
2:33:07 You know, like that’s part of what makes Crystal
2:33:09 so fucking awesome right now.
2:33:12 And I need to memorialize these things
2:33:14 for the benefit of humanity.
2:33:17 Before we’re all obviated, like these kids
2:33:19 who have these incredible GPAs and this test taking,
2:33:21 I think it might be useless.
2:33:24 I think they might have optimized for useless skills.
2:33:26 And I think the only thing that might keep us going
2:33:28 is that randomness, that unpredictability,
2:33:30 those flaws, those fuck ups,
2:33:32 the things that make us banged up,
2:33:33 the things where we make bad decisions
2:33:36 where we’re self-indulgent, where we have bad.
2:33:38 Like, I’m lucky that I have all daughters,
2:33:40 but when they invite boys over the house,
2:33:44 I watch boys make bad decisions repeatedly.
2:33:45 And at first I was like, wait,
2:33:47 why is the patriarchy a thing
2:33:49 when I watch them be so fucking stupid
2:33:51 and take so many dumb risks?
2:33:53 I’m like, of course you were gonna get hurt
2:33:54 when you jumped off that thing.
2:33:57 What in your head thought you weren’t going to?
2:33:59 Of course that was gonna break.
2:34:00 And then I started realizing,
2:34:03 you know why we have a fucking patriarchy?
2:34:05 Because that randomness is something
2:34:07 that no one knows how to count on.
2:34:09 I’ve had to teach our team,
2:34:11 the number one thing you can be in this business
2:34:12 is unpredictable.
2:34:15 Feed into the fact, I am known as mercurial,
2:34:18 I burn bridges, I will not hesitate to fucking fight you.
2:34:21 I wear the stupid shirts, I don’t give a shit about much.
2:34:23 I’ve been known to just light it on fire.
2:34:24 And guess what?
2:34:27 People take me seriously as a result.
2:34:29 I haven’t backed down from all those fucking character flaws
2:34:32 I have that are very self-destructive.
2:34:36 But I am all gas, no fucking breaks, as you know.
2:34:38 Although in our line, we call it no gas, no breaks.
2:34:41 But we need to cultivate more of that
2:34:43 if we have any hope as a fucking species.
2:34:45 We just need to, I’m sorry.
2:34:47 That’s where I dropped the fucking mic.
2:34:49 So that’s no permanent record.
2:34:52 Tim Ferriss, you are going to be one of the very first guests
2:34:54 and we’re gonna go deep into all your hijinks,
2:34:56 all your fucking skeletons.
2:34:57 – I’m open.
2:34:59 – No felonies, the main rule is no felonies.
2:35:00 – Yeah, no felonies, I’m clear there.
2:35:01 – Yeah.
2:35:04 I mean, if you have murders, I worry.
2:35:05 – Oh, that time.
2:35:08 Mass grave is one of the things.
2:35:09 – There’s just a viable homicide.
2:35:10 – Should use more lies.
2:35:13 – There’s just a viable homicide, but no, hijinks,
2:35:17 hijinks, flim flams, like bamboozling, you know?
2:35:19 – That’s gotta be in your intro when you’re like,
2:35:20 welcome to no permanent record.
2:35:21 – Little razzle dazzle.
2:35:24 – Where the flim flams bamboozling has a home.
2:35:26 – Yes, do you know any card tricks?
2:35:29 – I used to know quite a few card tricks.
2:35:32 I’ve let that atrophy, so I don’t anymore.
2:35:34 – Our kids are good at card tricks, it’s important.
2:35:37 And we have, I have rigged decks and stuff.
2:35:38 I think it’s important to know
2:35:39 how to do some fucking magic tricks.
2:35:41 ‘Cause magic is storytelling.
2:35:42 It is deceit.
2:35:44 It is understanding to look for the angles.
2:35:45 I love that.
2:35:46 I love when kids know riddles.
2:35:49 I love when they have barbettes that are impossible.
2:35:51 I think everyone should be able to tell a good joke.
2:35:55 You talking about, I’m back to like my syllabus, you know?
2:35:56 Of how to fucking survive.
2:35:58 It’s not just like the survivalist
2:36:03 of what’s in your go bag and how to handle a 30 round mag
2:36:05 and how to dress your own meat and shit.
2:36:06 It’s like, how do you actually tell a story?
2:36:08 How do you make somebody who has no reason
2:36:09 to like you make you?
2:36:13 – The semester finale for your seminars,
2:36:16 people have to get up and do a two to five minute comedy set
2:36:17 or something like that.
2:36:19 (laughing)
2:36:20 That’s the final exam.
2:36:23 – In front of a bunch of people in MAGA hats.
2:36:25 Yeah, I’m gonna find the worst fucking hecklers.
2:36:27 – Or whatever your nightmare audience is.
2:36:29 It could be a bunch of ultra lefts.
2:36:30 – Yeah.
2:36:30 – Libs or whatever.
2:36:32 – Yeah.
2:36:35 You model who’s actually on stage and like, here we go.
2:36:36 These are not your people.
2:36:38 I mean, that’s one of the things is right now
2:36:39 we all get to choose who we hang out with
2:36:42 and the internet has allowed us to hang out
2:36:44 with people who are just like us
2:36:45 and nobody hangs out with people
2:36:46 who aren’t like them anymore.
2:36:47 And that blames me out.
2:36:52 – Which by the way, even if you want to hang out
2:36:54 with people who are unlike you
2:36:57 by virtue of the customized feed
2:37:01 and sort of algorithmically tailored servings,
2:37:04 it’s very hard even if you try.
2:37:06 And if you do try and you’re like,
2:37:08 I want to take a sampling of this.
2:37:13 We’re in a couple of, well, one group thread in particular
2:37:16 where I take great pleasure in fucking up people’s feeds
2:37:19 because I’ll send, you know, whatever.
2:37:20 – Oh yeah.
2:37:23 – A video of some like gorgeous chick doing squats
2:37:24 that are very suggestive.
2:37:27 And that’s her entire account on Instagram.
2:37:29 And before you know it, like you send that to somebody
2:37:30 and you’ve just dropped like a cherry bomb
2:37:34 into their algorithm and then that’s 90% of what they see.
2:37:38 – So it’s very hard to actually live in multiple worlds.
2:37:40 You are going to get painted into a corner
2:37:43 because that’s how advertising is sold against you.
2:37:45 – But in real life, that’s happening.
2:37:47 And that’s why I am hopeful for the resurgence
2:37:49 of the rest of America.
2:37:51 You know, Steve Case was on the rise of the rest
2:37:53 and JD Vance bless him and his weird path,
2:37:55 but he was onto that early too.
2:37:57 You know, 82% of the money from the IRA,
2:38:01 the big Biden climate bill went to red districts.
2:38:02 It’s the green little secret.
2:38:04 There are more clean energy jobs in Texas
2:38:06 than there are oil and gas jobs.
2:38:08 The Republicans green little secret.
2:38:09 But that’s just the reality
2:38:11 ’cause it’s good fucking business.
2:38:12 If you want to work with good people
2:38:14 who know the tools, who know the engineering,
2:38:15 that’s where they are.
2:38:17 They’re in the heartland.
2:38:19 And I really do hope we are going to see the resurgence
2:38:21 of some of those communities.
2:38:23 Because for me, raising kids in a community like that
2:38:27 is like going back in time where we know our neighbors,
2:38:28 we know our kids are safe.
2:38:31 I love hearing the stories of my kids friends
2:38:32 who just, they work for a living.
2:38:34 They do really incredible shit.
2:38:36 By the way, it’s funny how a few people
2:38:37 know anything about me.
2:38:41 I got invited to do a shark tank panel
2:38:43 judging for like elementary school
2:38:44 entrepreneurial business plan class.
2:38:45 You know, they were just fucking around.
2:38:47 They had product ideas.
2:38:49 And one of the kids walked in and was like,
2:38:52 oh my God, you’ve got a real shark.
2:38:54 And the like the superintendent and the principal
2:38:55 who put the whole thing together,
2:38:55 like what are you talking about?
2:38:57 And they’re like, he’s a shark from Shark Tank.
2:39:00 And they’re like, oh, we just needed some dads.
2:39:02 We only had moms volunteer.
2:39:04 So we sent out a note for dads.
2:39:06 I actually thought, I thought they were like,
2:39:08 it was specifically targeting me.
2:39:09 Nobody had any fucking idea.
2:39:11 So it was amazing.
2:39:14 Like I’m in like, I’m in camouflage here.
2:39:16 I go out in a t-shirt and glasses
2:39:17 instead of a cowboy shirt and no glasses,
2:39:18 I’m camouflage.
2:39:19 I love it.
2:39:20 – All right, Kristoff.
2:39:23 We’re coming in on just over three hours now.
2:39:26 – Tim, I gotta just say something though, bro.
2:39:27 I’m worried about you.
2:39:29 – You’re worried about me.
2:39:31 – Yeah, I’m worried about this podcast.
2:39:34 There’s been no like toxic masculinity.
2:39:37 We didn’t talk about testosterone and where it’s been.
2:39:39 There was like very little hatred
2:39:44 and there was just very little like incendiary content.
2:39:46 I didn’t hear any conspiracy theories.
2:39:51 No pseudoscience, no like political opportunism.
2:39:52 I mean, you’re just like this whole like-
2:39:54 – Leaving a lot on the table.
2:39:56 – Let’s get some valuable and actionable content,
2:39:58 inspiration for young people and people are like,
2:39:59 what is this shit?
2:40:03 You should be baiting outrage, contriving virality, man.
2:40:04 I mean, do we even know how to podcast, bro?
2:40:05 – I know.
2:40:06 I sometimes want to do the same thing.
2:40:09 And you will notice this is the first time I’ve had,
2:40:11 it only took me whatever, almost 800 episodes
2:40:15 to get a reasonably professional looking mic set up for these-
2:40:16 – Look at that.
2:40:21 I hope whatever those labels are responding to you.
2:40:22 – You can’t take them off.
2:40:24 Which is hilarious.
2:40:26 – By the way, I can’t believe you didn’t ask me
2:40:27 for a book list.
2:40:28 You’re ready, book list.
2:40:29 – Well, I did for your syllabus,
2:40:31 but you dodged and gave me poetry.
2:40:32 – Yeah.
2:40:32 Okay.
2:40:35 “Anxious Generation and Coddling of the American Mind.”
2:40:37 And “Generations” by Gene Twenge,
2:40:38 who works at Jonathan Height,
2:40:40 was informed me more about our generation,
2:40:42 as well as how to work with other people.
2:40:44 There’s no agenda to that book, but it’s powerful.
2:40:46 The “Coming Wave” by Suleyman, I think is,
2:40:49 does the most even-handed job of assessing the future of AI,
2:40:52 particularly by someone in the business.
2:40:53 End of the world is just the beginning.
2:40:54 Do you know that guy?
2:40:56 Peter, he’s a fucking maniac.
2:40:57 I think it’s just provocative.
2:41:00 He also does these really fun little YouTube updates
2:41:01 from “Hikes” and like-
2:41:03 – End of the world is just the beginning.
2:41:04 – It’s just the beginning.
2:41:05 What’s his name?
2:41:06 It starts with a Z as last name.
2:41:09 – Peter Zahan, that looks like.
2:41:10 – Yeah, yeah, exactly.
2:41:10 Thanks.
2:41:14 I love Van Neistat’s book report on the fourth turning.
2:41:16 It’s just thought-provoking again.
2:41:19 “Homegrown,” a book by Geoffrey Tubin about Tim McVeigh,
2:41:21 is I think a canary in a coal mine book.
2:41:22 Tim McVeigh was from my hometown.
2:41:24 – No shit, didn’t know that.
2:41:26 – His mom was our travel agent.
2:41:28 His sister worked at Wendy’s.
2:41:29 He bought his ammo at the same place
2:41:31 where we bought our fishing supplies.
2:41:34 But that book explains what happens
2:41:36 when the factory closes down
2:41:38 and people become radicalized.
2:41:39 I encourage people to read it.
2:41:40 The thing that people don’t know about Tim McVeigh
2:41:42 is he had a photographic memory.
2:41:46 There were 671 boxes of evidence at his trial
2:41:49 that were all him reciting every single person
2:41:51 he ever spoke into, every meeting he had.
2:41:52 He knew everything.
2:41:54 So there’s no mystery about his story.
2:41:56 “Stolen Focus” by Jonathan Herrara.
2:41:57 You know that one?
2:41:58 Just amazing.
2:41:59 I think it’s like the best digital detox.
2:42:00 – “Stolen Focus.”
2:42:03 Oh, this one, I have not read that one.
2:42:07 I think he wrote “Chasing the Ghost.”
2:42:09 I might be misquoting.
2:42:10 – Yeah, maybe.
2:42:11 “Meditation for Moradels” is a great one.
2:42:13 – Oliver Berkman?
2:42:14 Yeah, he’s great.
2:42:15 – Yeah, so good.
2:42:17 Psychology Money, we mentioned.
2:42:20 The best piece of fiction I’ve read recently
2:42:24 is “Rejection” by Tony, can’t say his last name.
2:42:25 (speaks in foreign language)
2:42:26 – Wait, what was the name again?
2:42:27 – It’s amazing.
2:42:31 It’s called “Rejection” by Tony T.
2:42:33 – Tony, Tony T.
2:42:35 Tony Tula in Ruta. – You’ll see what I mean.
2:42:37 – Something like that.
2:42:38 – Thank you. – Wow, that’s a long one.
2:42:40 – Yeah, that is, it’ll put some people
2:42:42 out of their comfort zone for sure.
2:42:45 That guy has his finger on culture and linguistics
2:42:47 more than anything I’ve read recently.
2:42:49 You know, I’ve shared that with other author friends
2:42:51 who were like, “Fuck.”
2:42:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:42:54 The Avery is great fiction.
2:42:56 Did you listen to McConaughey’s autobiography?
2:42:57 – I listened to some of it.
2:42:59 I had him on the podcast years ago to talk about it,
2:43:01 which was amazing.
2:43:03 And I misquoted just briefly,
2:43:05 Johann Hari’s book, “Chasing the Scream”
2:43:07 and “Lost Connections.”
2:43:09 “Lost Connections” is the one I read in full,
2:43:10 which I thought was great.
2:43:11 That’s about isolation, loneliness,
2:43:14 and things to do about it in a modern world.
2:43:15 I thought that was very well done.
2:43:18 Still in focus is the one that you were talking about.
2:43:19 – Yeah, it’s so good, dude.
2:43:20 It was given to us as a gift
2:43:23 and it really changed our media diet, for sure,
2:43:24 and our online diet.
2:43:26 I try and read everything John Ronson does
2:43:27 and listen to it.
2:43:28 By the way, I was just gonna say,
2:43:29 “Matthew McConaughey’s audiobook.”
2:43:31 You can’t read it, you gotta listen to it.
2:43:34 And so the Avery, I love fucking Eggers,
2:43:37 but the Avery seems to be increasingly prophetic right now.
2:43:41 Robin Sloan’s fiction, “Moonbound” and “Panumra” are great.
2:43:42 Do you watch “Silent”?
2:43:42 Do you read the “Wolf” series?
2:43:45 – So I’m gonna admit that I haven’t.
2:43:47 I do know Hugh and he’s amazing,
2:43:49 but I have not yet delved into that
2:43:52 because I know that I’ll want to consume all of it.
2:43:53 – I knew you guys knew each other
2:43:55 from like Arctic Adventures too and shit, right?
2:43:56 And like Iceland and shit.
2:43:58 – We spent time in Japan and elsewhere.
2:44:00 He was on the podcast a while back.
2:44:03 He’s such an incredible experimentalist and innovator
2:44:06 when it comes to publishing also.
2:44:07 Really, really impressive.
2:44:09 – Yeah, he wrote those things
2:44:11 and just threw them up there, right?
2:44:15 – He’s one of the most thoughtful, unafraid lateral thinkers
2:44:17 in writing and publishing that I’ve met.
2:44:18 He’s a smart guy.
2:44:20 – I even read the “Wolf” series
2:44:22 after watching the first season of “Silo.”
2:44:24 I fucking love it.
2:44:24 I think it’s great.
2:44:26 I think it’s prophetic and amazing.
2:44:28 And then I mentioned Kelly Corrigan.
2:44:30 I just think that’s grounding human shit.
2:44:33 I think Kelly Corrigan has her, she has a podcast too,
2:44:34 but I love her books.
2:44:38 I think talking about relationships, kids dying,
2:44:42 but in a way that is just like self-deprecating, real America.
2:44:43 It’s just like an antidote,
2:44:47 particularly for your tech-heavy, seriously online audience.
2:44:48 I think that’s great.
2:44:49 You want a kid’s book?
2:44:51 It’s the Pirates series,
2:44:53 the Pirates in an Adventure with communists,
2:44:55 the Pirates in an Adventure with Darwin.
2:44:56 Those books are so fucking good.
2:44:59 You’ll laugh at them even as you read them to children.
2:45:00 – I feel like you’ve got more.
2:45:03 I know, I feel like you have more on offer.
2:45:06 You got anything else locked and loaded there?
2:45:07 – Yeah, my $100 purchase.
2:45:09 – Yeah, what’s your $100 purchase?
2:45:10 – You know what are amazing?
2:45:12 Have you ever written on stone paper
2:45:14 these notebooks by Karst?
2:45:16 Do you know these things?
2:45:18 It’s actually, it’s stone.
2:45:19 And there’s no more enjoyable experience
2:45:20 than writing on stone.
2:45:22 So karststonepaper.com.
2:45:24 I don’t own it or anything like that,
2:45:25 but I highly recommend it.
2:45:27 – Is it just the hand feel?
2:45:31 Is it just the actual tactile sensation
2:45:32 of writing on it?
2:45:34 – Yeah, oh, and how the pen moves across.
2:45:39 Oh, yes, it’s sensual, sensuous, sensual.
2:45:40 It’s pretty special.
2:45:42 And you know, I’ll say two other things.
2:45:45 One, Dola Dira, it’s my favorite booze right now.
2:45:48 It’s an all-natural compari and apparel substitute
2:45:50 with none of the bullshit in it.
2:45:51 None of the fake dies.
2:45:51 – What was it called?
2:45:53 Dora the Explorer?
2:45:54 No.
2:45:57 – Dola Dora D-O-L-A-D-I-R-A.
2:45:58 You know who makes it?
2:45:59 Richard Betts and Joe Marchese.
2:46:00 – Oh, really?
2:46:01 Awesome.
2:46:02 – Yeah, your homies.
2:46:03 The Como Stakela guys.
2:46:06 Como is the highest-rated tequila in the land right now.
2:46:11 Okay, my number one purchase under $100 that I stand by.
2:46:15 I’ve cited it before, and it just happened again.
2:46:17 I never show up at a party without mullet wigs.
2:46:20 They change fucking everything.
2:46:23 I was just at a New Year’s Eve party
2:46:25 and I showed up at the mullet wigs
2:46:27 and it just broke everyone to pieces.
2:46:28 It was amazing.
2:46:30 The most stayed fucking guys.
2:46:32 Dude, multiple guys were like,
2:46:33 “Can I take this home?”
2:46:35 Because my wife thinks I’m hot in it.
2:46:39 And so mullet wigs change everything.
2:46:44 And so Amazon will get some dog-to-bounty hunter style ones,
2:46:47 get some ones with the built-in Willie Nelson,
2:46:49 American flag bandana,
2:46:51 get some curly Bob Ross ones in there
2:46:53 just to shake it up a little bit.
2:46:57 You can throw in a Neo punk white ’80s hair wig,
2:46:59 but just fucking wigs.
2:47:00 They next level everything.
2:47:03 I’m here 10 years later, Tim,
2:47:04 to tell you that that still holds up.
2:47:07 – Durable mullet wigs.
2:47:08 – Oh, God, yes.
2:47:10 (laughing)
2:47:11 Next time, 10 years from now,
2:47:13 we’ll talk about best playlist on Spotify
2:47:15 that has been curated by AI
2:47:18 and fed directly into our brain ships.
2:47:19 – Okay, next time.
2:47:21 Right, most commonly search terms on foreign hub.
2:47:22 Next time.
2:47:25 – When my agent is talking to your agent,
2:47:27 ain’t nobody got time for this.
2:47:27 Bro, I miss you.
2:47:29 I hope to see you in Texas really soon.
2:47:30 – I miss you too, man.
2:47:31 We are gonna see each other in Texas.
2:47:33 – Hey, by the way, have you ever been to Wyoming?
2:47:35 – There’s a great ranch for sale.
2:47:39 There is a ranch, it’s incredible, five pounds ranch.
2:47:41 It’s an incredible place.
2:47:44 The fishing is abundant, tricked out the barn.
2:47:47 I used to work from there, fun, you can host.
2:47:47 It’s an event spot.
2:47:49 I mean, if you really wanna go
2:47:50 and if you care about skiing,
2:47:52 backcountry skiing, it’s right there.
2:47:53 Just in case.
2:47:54 – Plop some Bitcoin mining servers in the barn.
2:47:56 Worst case scenario,
2:47:58 it’s gotta be a lot of good ventilation.
2:48:01 (laughing)
2:48:03 – Dude, you’re amazing.
2:48:04 Thank you for doing this, dude.
2:48:05 It’s been a long time.
2:48:06 – Yeah, it has been a long time, man.
2:48:07 It’s great to see you.
2:48:08 Fam’s good.
2:48:10 – Family’s great.
2:48:12 Tim, I need to get you on that train.
2:48:13 – I know, I know.
2:48:15 It’s not for lack of trying,
2:48:18 although some of my audience have become very, very adamant
2:48:20 and even aggressive with me
2:48:22 about my lack of producing kids at this point.
2:48:24 And I’m like, well, look, why don’t you walk a mile
2:48:26 in my shoes and then show me how easy it is?
2:48:29 Let’s see what that looks like.
2:48:30 – Yeah, but that’s the thing, dude.
2:48:32 You just put on different shoes.
2:48:34 And sometimes there’s like a little bit of puke
2:48:35 in them or something like that.
2:48:37 Or like, okay, really quick story.
2:48:38 You ready?
2:48:40 It’s kid and shoe related.
2:48:44 We have a good friend here who’s an OBGYN.
2:48:45 She’s hilarious.
2:48:46 I’m not gonna give her name,
2:48:49 but she’s a local and we love her to death.
2:48:50 Smart, hilarious.
2:48:52 She was telling a story about how,
2:48:53 you know, she’s an OBGYN.
2:48:54 She got the page in the middle of the night.
2:48:56 You gotta go deliver the baby.
2:48:58 So she climbs out of bed,
2:49:00 kiss her husband goodbye, throws on some crocs,
2:49:02 goes out to the hospital.
2:49:05 And the delivery, like, you know, she stitches the gal up.
2:49:06 There’s some blood, et cetera.
2:49:08 And the nurse says,
2:49:10 “Hey, let me clean up those crocs for you.”
2:49:14 And so she pulls the crocs off and she holds them up.
2:49:16 Both in front of the doctor, the nurse is holding them up
2:49:20 and in front of the woman who just gave birth.
2:49:22 And on them, you know, those like jewels, you know,
2:49:23 like you can spell shit out.
2:49:24 – Yeah.
2:49:26 – It says, “D’s nuts.”
2:49:28 (laughing)
2:49:30 Because they belong to her 13 year old son.
2:49:32 (laughing)
2:49:37 She didn’t realize that she was walking out of house.
2:49:39 When she walked out with the D’s nuts crocs on.
2:49:44 Oh, that goes in your next screenplay, I think.
2:49:45 – Oh my gosh.
2:49:48 That is just, you can’t write shit like that, like so.
2:49:51 Anyway, Tim, it is really like,
2:49:53 people talk all these platitudes about it and stuff.
2:49:55 And all the honesty, it wasn’t like the day,
2:49:57 a lot of people talk about the magic
2:49:59 that your kid comes out, like my life changed forever.
2:50:00 I didn’t always feel that.
2:50:02 I was like, oh shit, I gotta like do some shit
2:50:05 and take care of Crystal and there’s poo everywhere now
2:50:07 and somebody’s crying and I haven’t slept in a while.
2:50:10 But as time goes on, you know,
2:50:11 our kids went to camp this summer
2:50:13 and Crystal and I at first were like,
2:50:14 “Hey, empty nesters, let’s party.”
2:50:15 And we did.
2:50:17 But at the same time, we’re like,
2:50:19 fuck, we miss our best friends, man.
2:50:23 We’ve got three incredible kids who are our besties.
2:50:25 And I understand that mixed emotion of like,
2:50:26 when the kids go off to college,
2:50:27 I see this happening with a lot of our friends
2:50:29 who had kids before we did.
2:50:30 That like both relief of like,
2:50:32 “All right, we can go travel and shit like that now.”
2:50:35 But on the other hand, like, it’s kind of lonely.
2:50:37 You know, like, these kids are fucking great.
2:50:38 I love it.
2:50:40 We really entertain each other
2:50:42 and I’ve loved being on that journey with them.
2:50:45 And so I really do hope we can get you on that program.
2:50:47 – Oh yeah, I mean, that’s the intention.
2:50:49 – Okay.
2:50:50 Can I tell the quick story from that dinner party
2:50:52 without mentioning the name of the person?
2:50:54 (laughing)
2:50:55 – Yeah, sure.
2:50:56 – Okay.
2:51:01 All right, so this, your audience needs to know this too.
2:51:04 So Crystal and I are hosting a dinner in New York City.
2:51:06 We don’t get there that often,
2:51:09 but we love to bring like close friends together.
2:51:12 Again, ruthless about the invites, no plus ones.
2:51:14 We just know that if you’re coming to dinner,
2:51:15 everyone’s gonna be awesome.
2:51:17 So there’s no seating chart.
2:51:20 We did see you next to this person intentionally though.
2:51:25 This is a famous actress who is single.
2:51:28 I mean, absolute smoke show.
2:51:30 And within Tim’s league,
2:51:34 and not entirely disinterested in Tim, like up for it.
2:51:37 You know, like open, open to the concept.
2:51:39 We’d kind of, you know, till the soil.
2:51:41 I wouldn’t say we planted the seed, but we’d till the soil.
2:51:44 It was on the table, like household name.
2:51:46 So we sit them next to each other.
2:51:47 Things are going great.
2:51:49 The meal is wonderful.
2:51:50 The wine is great.
2:51:51 The conversation is stimulating.
2:51:55 Tim is a great person to have at a dinner conversation.
2:51:56 He can talk about anything.
2:51:59 He’s genuinely interested in other people.
2:52:01 He likes to ask questions, not because it’s for a podcast,
2:52:03 but because he likes to learn from anybody.
2:52:06 And he realizes that any single person you talk to
2:52:08 has a story, give them a chance to tell it.
2:52:10 So things are going really well.
2:52:13 We’re starting to talk about meaningful shit.
2:52:17 And at one point she says, “Hey, Tim,
2:52:19 when do you feel most present?”
2:52:22 – No, there’s one piece of information that’s missing here,
2:52:25 which is her dietary preferences.
2:52:27 Yeah.
2:52:29 – I didn’t know if that would make her too identifiable.
2:52:31 So, but she’s vegan.
2:52:33 She’s well known as vegan.
2:52:36 Tim knows she’s vegan, animal rights type person,
2:52:38 but not like rub it in your face vegan.
2:52:39 There’s plenty of meat on the table.
2:52:41 She’s fine with it all being there.
2:52:44 But she goes, “Tim, when do you feel most present?”
2:52:46 Like that’s how much you guys were vibing.
2:52:47 That’s how well it was going.
2:52:50 – We’re also, this is at a point in the meal
2:52:52 where it’s sort of like a Jeffersonian situation.
2:52:54 So there’s a lot of silence at this point.
2:52:56 – Yes, yes, we are all paying attention.
2:52:57 That’s right, that’s right.
2:52:58 It’s a small table.
2:53:00 There’s 12 people at this table.
2:53:03 And tiny, tiny place where it’s ZZ’s clam bar in New York.
2:53:06 Tiny one room spot, two seat bar,
2:53:07 but we’re at a table for 12.
2:53:10 And we’re elbow to elbow, eating incredible food.
2:53:12 And there’s vibe, there’s energy there.
2:53:15 And I mean, Tim’s like a fucking magnet, right?
2:53:20 And so she says, “Tim, when do you feel most present?”
2:53:24 And Tim, what did you say without even having to inhale,
2:53:25 without even having to take a breath?
2:53:29 – I said, “When I’m having sex, doing psychedelics
2:53:31 “or hunting, those were the three.”
2:53:34 (Tim laughs)
2:53:37 And no sooner had the last syllable been uttered
2:53:41 than Chris, who’s like eight feet away.
2:53:44 And he’s had a few drinks, just goes, “Oh my God!”
2:53:46 And puts his head in his hands.
2:53:48 (Tim laughs)
2:53:53 Never, I had never seen a ticket
2:53:57 go up in flames faster than that.
2:54:00 That was the most combustible element in the universe
2:54:05 at that moment, was your chance to be with that woman.
2:54:06 That was fucking fascinating.
2:54:08 She did raise her glass for the record.
2:54:10 She did raise her glass and she was you for your–
2:54:12 – She’s a great sport.
2:54:14 – For your self-awareness, candor and authenticity.
2:54:15 – Yep, no, she was a great sport.
2:54:18 – But any spark was immediately extinguished.
2:54:19 – Yeah, you know.
2:54:21 – Have you guys kept in touch?
2:54:21 Have you kept in touch or no?
2:54:24 – We haven’t, but we weren’t really in touch beforehand.
2:54:26 We had met before, she’s amazing.
2:54:31 But I just don’t have it in me to succeed
2:54:35 pretending to be someone I’m not, you know what I mean?
2:54:36 – Yeah.
2:54:38 – I’d rather go up in flames.
2:54:40 – No, I mean, I deeply admire it, right?
2:54:44 I’ve told you, my whole life’s mission is about
2:54:47 how to be internally driven rather than externally driven.
2:54:50 How to be more honest, more authentic, more candid.
2:54:54 I told you, I’m less patient because I’m trying to be me.
2:54:56 And you are exactly that.
2:55:00 So I deeply admire it, but it was just so funny.
2:55:01 – It was funny.
2:55:03 – Because in the blink of an eye, you said–
2:55:04 – Also because I didn’t even think about it.
2:55:06 Like it came out instantaneously.
2:55:07 – You did not inhale.
2:55:11 It was on your exhale of the breath you had already taken.
2:55:14 And so, but I love that your default,
2:55:16 I say this to your audience.
2:55:20 Your primal default was to say the real thing
2:55:25 rather than the thing that this unbelievable woman
2:55:27 would have wanted to hear.
2:55:28 That’s fucking great, dude.
2:55:29 That’s what makes you you.
2:55:30 – Thanks.
2:55:34 – Yeah, so work in progress, but I’m not sitting on my hands.
2:55:36 I know that family’s the next big adventure.
2:55:38 So I’ll get there, I will get there.
2:55:41 And it’s also, you know, it’s what’s been funny
2:55:46 as I’ve dated is 47 now.
2:55:49 And the tone of sort of like the line of questioning
2:55:51 for some women I’ve been on dates with is like,
2:55:52 what’s wrong with you?
2:55:53 Why are you broken?
2:55:54 Like, what’s going on?
2:55:56 Like you say you want a family, you’re 47.
2:55:57 And I’m like, well, two things.
2:56:00 If I were 40, would you be saying this?
2:56:00 And they’re like, no.
2:56:03 I’m like, okay, well, I just got out of a,
2:56:06 not so long ago, got out of a almost six year relationship.
2:56:09 So the intention was to have kids and it didn’t work out.
2:56:10 Like things don’t work out.
2:56:13 Better to figure that out before you have kids, I think,
2:56:14 in a lot of cases.
2:56:18 And then I was like, secondly, if I had been,
2:56:20 what I’ve found is that women would be,
2:56:22 some women would be more comfortable
2:56:25 if I had been married and divorced once or twice.
2:56:26 – Oh my God.
2:56:28 – Than having not done it.
2:56:29 – Yeah.
2:56:31 – But they wouldn’t be asking that same question,
2:56:32 which is interesting.
2:56:33 – Yeah.
2:56:34 – And it’s like, okay, all right.
2:56:35 So maybe the concern is like,
2:56:37 ah, this guy is like Peter Panang for the rest of his life.
2:56:38 And he doesn’t want to commit.
2:56:40 And I’m like, well, I have two relationships
2:56:41 that are longer than a lot of marriages.
2:56:44 So that doesn’t totally check out.
2:56:45 – Yeah.
2:56:47 – But it’s fascinating, modern dating.
2:56:48 – Yeah.
2:56:50 Well, Crystal and I would have been a disaster
2:56:52 if we’d gotten together any time in those 14 years
2:56:53 I kept asking her out.
2:56:54 – Yeah.
2:56:57 – I had a prior relationship, was divorced.
2:56:59 I had a long-term relationship after that that didn’t work.
2:57:01 If I hadn’t gone through that stuff,
2:57:04 I would not have understood what it meant to be
2:57:05 in a healthy relationship, to have balance,
2:57:08 to have intimacy, to all those things that need to happen.
2:57:09 I wouldn’t have known it.
2:57:10 You know what was a funny exercise
2:57:13 is we set up a really modest trust for our kids.
2:57:15 Basically, so that houses,
2:57:17 you’d have to do that estate planning shit.
2:57:18 And so it’s particularly not generous
2:57:21 ’cause we think mostly money fucks kids up.
2:57:24 But we had to sit and decide at what age
2:57:26 they would have any discretion over it.
2:57:30 And we were 36 at the time and we said 36.
2:57:32 (laughing)
2:57:34 Because that was when we felt like we had finally
2:57:35 gotten our shit together.
2:57:38 And like, maybe now I’d said it at 45, I don’t know.
2:57:40 But, you know, my dad is 78 years old,
2:57:44 plays pickleball three times a week with 20-somethings.
2:57:45 He always tells us about which guy is complaining like,
2:57:48 “Oh, I can’t move like I could when I was 18.”
2:57:50 And I was like, “Fuck you, I’m 78.”
2:57:53 But like, I do think age is an attitude.
2:57:55 I do think it’s mental.
2:57:58 I do think like, I don’t think that number actually matters.
2:58:01 But I also don’t think everyone’s ready for it every time.
2:58:05 But I can just say that having kids
2:58:08 has just been a remarkable, remarkable chapter.
2:58:10 Crystal, if she was your gas near podcast,
2:58:12 she’d tell you she never envisioned it for herself.
2:58:16 It wasn’t, she just did not think of herself as a mom.
2:58:20 And now, you know, she identifies as a creative
2:58:23 and an author of “New York Times Best Sellers”
2:58:27 and a designer and an investor and an entrepreneur.
2:58:30 But maybe at the top of that list is a mom.
2:58:32 And maybe second after that is a youth sports coach.
2:58:35 I mean, we had basketball practice at our house last night
2:58:36 for the fourth grade team.
2:58:38 I forget what they’re called, they have a new name.
2:58:42 But, you know, like it opens these new chapters of life
2:58:44 that really remind you of the fundamental questions.
2:58:45 Like, why the fuck are we here?
2:58:46 – Yeah. – You know?
2:58:49 And I love going through the awkward middle school shit.
2:58:51 Again, I love it, I love it.
2:58:54 It’s therapy for me, man.
2:58:56 All those times you were stuck in a locker, Tim,
2:58:58 you get to deal with it again.
2:58:58 It’s amazing.
2:59:02 – Yeah, that was relentless.
2:59:02 Holy shit.
2:59:04 It was just straight up Lord of the Flies.
2:59:09 I mean, like there are really few safeguards at that point.
2:59:11 – Oh man.
2:59:12 – That’s one of the great things.
2:59:15 They have a, the playground supervisor,
2:59:18 whereas Cowboy Boots has an eye patch and a peg leg
2:59:19 at the school here.
2:59:23 – That’s incredible.
2:59:26 – I mean, everything is so fucking core in Montana.
2:59:26 I love it.
2:59:29 Everything is so like suck it up.
2:59:31 It’s just fucking fantastic.
2:59:31 We need more of it.
2:59:33 So, all right.
2:59:34 Dude, I love you.
2:59:35 – Yeah, I love you too.
2:59:36 – I love you, I love you.
2:59:37 – Yeah, I love you too, man.
2:59:38 And give my best to the fan.
2:59:39 – I can’t wait to hang.
2:59:40 – And I’m going to see you.
2:59:41 Yeah, not too long from now.
2:59:43 – And I love all of you listeners
2:59:45 who are going to visit fiveponds Ranch.com
2:59:49 and explore your Wyoming fantasies.
2:59:52 Maybe, you know, you build one of those like crypto based
2:59:55 distributed organizations to buy it.
2:59:58 That’s fine as long as it comes in US dollars.
3:00:00 This is the best place to shelter your gains.
3:00:02 Just telling you and to have a beautiful life
3:00:03 in the outdoors.
3:00:05 – Get with that.
3:00:06 – That was fiveponds Ranch.com.
3:00:07 – There we go.
3:00:11 – Five, F-I-V-E, ponds Ranch.com.
3:00:11 Thank you.
3:00:13 – All right, everybody.
3:00:18 You heard of her first for 1995 with five easy installments.
3:00:21 You could test out the ranch for yourself.
3:00:24 Maybe not for that price point, but we’ll see.
3:00:27 And as always, we’ll link to things
3:00:29 that were mentioned in the podcast.
3:00:30 – That’s a lot of things.
3:00:31 – That’s a lot of things.
3:00:32 – Yeah.
3:00:33 And that’s the AI that does that for you.
3:00:35 – Yeah, doomed up log slash podcast.
3:00:36 You’ll be able to find it.
3:00:38 Check out our first installment
3:00:43 for Crisaka’s Wonder Years and early chapters.
3:00:44 – Wait, I also did that other episode
3:00:47 where you had me read questions off of Reddit.
3:00:48 That was fun too.
3:00:49 – Yeah, you did that.
3:00:50 Yes.
3:00:51 – Remember, I didn’t have a soundproof room,
3:00:52 so I had to put my head under a blanket.
3:00:53 – Yes.
3:00:54 – And talk to GarageBand.
3:00:57 – See, there’s, there’s awesome.
3:00:59 – There’s an episode 1.5.
3:01:01 – Yeah, there’s a 1.5.
3:01:05 And as always folks, thanks for tuning in.
3:01:07 Be a bit kinder than is necessary
3:01:11 to not just others, but yourself as well until next time.
3:01:12 And thanks for tuning in.
3:01:15 – Hey guys, this is Tim again.
3:01:17 Just one more thing before you take off
3:01:20 and that is Five Bullet Friday.
3:01:22 Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday
3:01:25 that provides a little fun before the weekend?
3:01:27 Between one and a half and two million people subscribed
3:01:30 to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter
3:01:32 called Five Bullet Friday.
3:01:34 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.
3:01:38 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday
3:01:40 to share the coolest things I’ve found or discovered
3:01:43 or have started exploring over that week.
3:01:44 It’s kind of like my diary of cool things.
3:01:46 It often includes articles I’m reading,
3:01:50 books I’m reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos,
3:01:54 all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me
3:01:57 by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests
3:02:00 and these strange esoteric things end up in my field
3:02:04 and then I test them and then I share them with you.
3:02:07 So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short.
3:02:10 A little tiny bite of goodness before you head off
3:02:12 for the weekend, something to think about.
3:02:13 If you’d like to try it out,
3:02:15 just go to tim.blog/friday.
3:02:19 Type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday.
3:02:21 Drop in your email and you’ll get the very next one.
3:02:23 Thanks for listening.
3:02:25 As many of you know, for the last few years,
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3:02:32 I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs
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3:02:36 Kind of over the top, to be honest.
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3:02:41 What kind of mattresses and what do you do?
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3:04:03 Coffee, coffee, coffee.
3:04:05 Man, do I love a great cup of coffee.
3:04:07 Sometimes too much.
3:04:09 Then I’ll have two, three, four, five cups of coffee.
3:04:12 I do not love the jitters that come from that
3:04:14 or how even one really strong cup of coffee
3:04:15 can impact my sleep,
3:04:17 which I measure in all sorts of ways,
3:04:19 which HRV and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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3:04:41 It tastes as if cacao and chai
3:04:43 had a beautiful love child.
3:04:44 I drink it in the morning.
3:04:45 And sometimes, right now,
3:04:47 I’m exercising in the mountains and running around.
3:04:50 Sometimes I’ll also add some milk and ice for a 2 PM.
3:04:53 Yeah, maybe 1 PM if I’m behaving.
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3:05:24 You, my dear listeners, can now try Mudwater
3:05:28 with 15% off, plus a free rechargeable frother
3:05:31 and free shipping by going to mudwater.com/tim.
3:05:33 Now listen to the spelling, this is important.
3:05:38 That’s M-U-D-W-T-R.com/tim.
3:05:42 So one more time, M-U-D-W-T-R.com/tim
3:05:46 for a free frother, 15% off, and a better morning routine.
3:05:49 (audience applauding)