0:00:02 AI is happening, and AI is only happening in two places.
0:00:05 Like, it’s only U.S. versus China, and there’s a whole competition thing there.
0:00:07 But, like, the U.S. is, like, very powerful.
0:00:11 If you disaggregate sectors of the economy over the last 25 years,
0:00:15 what you find is basically everything that technology touches basically collapses in price.
0:00:19 If the country is growing faster, it’s going to be a fundamentally happier place
0:00:22 because people, whichever side of the political spectrum you’re on,
0:00:23 there’s going to be a sense of optimism.
0:00:25 There’s going to be a sense of opportunity.
0:00:27 There’s going to be the sense that your kids are going to live better lives than you do.
0:00:34 Today on the A16Z podcast, we’re sharing an episode from Joe Lonsdale’s American Optimist,
0:00:37 recorded live at the first Ronald Reagan Economic Forum.
0:00:42 Joe sits down with A16Z co-founder Mark Andreessen to explore one of the biggest questions of our time.
0:00:45 Can the rise of AI spark a new American industrial revival,
0:00:50 and what would it take to make sure the entire country, including rural America, shares in the growth?
0:00:55 They cover the history of U.S. manufacturing, the debate over tariffs and trade,
0:00:59 and how AI and robotics might create the jobs and economic momentum of the future.
0:01:03 They also dig into immigration, regulatory bottlenecks,
0:01:06 and what smart policy should look like in an AI-driven world.
0:01:07 Let’s get into it.
0:01:13 This information is for educational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy,
0:01:16 hold, or sell any investment or financial product.
0:01:20 This podcast has been produced by a third party and may include paid promotional advertisements,
0:01:24 other company references, and individuals unaffiliated with A16Z.
0:01:29 Such advertisements, companies, and individuals are not endorsed by AH Capital Management LLC,
0:01:31 A16Z, or any of its affiliates.
0:01:34 Information is from sources deemed reliable on the date of publication,
0:01:37 but A16Z does not guarantee its accuracy.
0:01:43 Mark, everyone, welcome to our first annual Reagan Economic Forum.
0:01:44 It’s an honor to have you guys here.
0:01:48 We talk a lot here, of course, about Reagan’s economic pillars and policies,
0:01:52 which include deregulation and lower taxes and lower spending,
0:01:53 all of which are very relevant today.
0:01:57 But Mark, I want to start off asking you about someone I know you’ve been reading about
0:01:59 and President Trump’s been reading about from 100 years before,
0:02:00 which is William McKinley.
0:02:04 And William McKinley, of course, was a staunch protectionist at first.
0:02:07 Is this historical example of how to revitalize American industry relevant today?
0:02:10 Is it relevant to everything we’re doing in AI and energy?
0:02:11 Like, how do you think about this?
0:02:14 Yeah, so I’ve been doing my best to kind of spin up in the history of this.
0:02:16 And so there was something in the 19th century,
0:02:18 actually originally created by Alexander Hamilton,
0:02:20 when he was Treasury Secretary, called the American system.
0:02:23 And, you know, this was like 80 years before McKinley, 90 years before McKinley.
0:02:26 What they were dealing with was the British Empire, right?
0:02:28 The UK was the preeminent industrial power.
0:02:31 They were the first, like, giant industrial power on planet Earth
0:02:35 and had built this very commanding economic, technological military position.
0:02:38 And, of course, America at the time of the Revolution was mostly farmland.
0:02:40 And then there was this raging debate between Hamilton and Jefferson
0:02:44 as to whether you’d want America to be an industrial, kind of urban, financialized power,
0:02:45 which is what Hamilton wanted,
0:02:48 or of kind of a rural farming aristocratic power,
0:02:49 which is what Jefferson wanted.
0:02:50 And Hamilton won that debate.
0:02:52 And so that led to what was called the American system.
0:02:57 The American system led to the creation of the United States as an industrial power.
0:02:58 That developed over the course of the 19th century.
0:03:01 But it really took off at the tail end of the 19th century
0:03:04 in what was called the Second Industrial Revolution.
0:03:08 And so between, call it, 1870, 1880, and, like, 1930,
0:03:12 basically everything we view today as the modern world was basically invented then.
0:03:15 And you could almost look around the room here today,
0:03:18 and you could say basically every piece of physical infrastructure,
0:03:20 everything around us, literally everything.
0:03:25 The airplane manufacturing techniques to be able to make modern glassware at scale,
0:03:29 air conditioning, television, radio, the automobiles we drove to get here.
0:03:31 It all was the result of the Second Industrial Revolution.
0:03:34 And then the McKinley presidency was right in the middle of that period.
0:03:36 It’s really when the whole thing catalyzed.
0:03:39 And so it was really the point at which America became the world’s industrial superpower.
0:03:42 And then, of course, that led to America being able to become a huge player
0:03:44 in both World War I and World War II,
0:03:47 ultimately winning World War II and becoming the arsenal of democracy.
0:03:49 It all kind of floated out of that period.
0:03:52 And so the American system is something that people really don’t like to talk about these days
0:03:54 because it was heavily protectionist.
0:03:58 And the whole theory of it was you don’t industrialize just with a single technology
0:03:59 or a single company.
0:04:02 You industrialize by having an entire ecosystem, right?
0:04:04 You industrialize by having not just three car companies,
0:04:08 but by having all the thousands of part suppliers that make all the parts for the cars.
0:04:10 And so the Brits had done this.
0:04:12 They had run a very heavily protectionist program
0:04:15 to be able to boot up the first industrial revolution in the UK.
0:04:17 They then advocated for free trade
0:04:18 when exports became more important.
0:04:21 McKinley was the inheritor of the American system,
0:04:24 and so he was heavily protectionist to build up the second industrial revolution.
0:04:27 And then he actually switched to become more of an advocate for free trade
0:04:30 because as American exporters were becoming more successful,
0:04:31 they needed exports, they needed foreign markets.
0:04:34 And then, by the way, in the 20th century,
0:04:36 basically every industrial revolution in every other country
0:04:38 that has worked in the last hundred years
0:04:39 basically follows that model as well.
0:04:41 So it’s the same thing Germany did.
0:04:42 It’s the same thing Japan did.
0:04:43 It’s the same thing Korea did.
0:04:45 It’s the same thing China is doing right now.
0:04:48 China’s basically been running the American system playbook in China.
0:04:51 And so, and then this goes to tariff policy.
0:04:53 And I’m not here to make an argument like it’s like in favor of tariffs,
0:04:55 but more of a historical observation
0:04:57 that there has been this phenomenon over time
0:05:00 that if you want to have the kind of clustering effect
0:05:02 that leads to industrial preeminence,
0:05:05 it is not unusual to have a combination of tools
0:05:07 and kind of tools and methods used to do that.
0:05:09 It has been historically characteristic
0:05:10 that tariffs would be a part of that.
0:05:12 But it’s also historically characteristic
0:05:13 that there becomes this point
0:05:15 when you also therefore want to go for exports
0:05:16 and you want to go for free trade.
0:05:17 And McKinley specifically,
0:05:20 he ran for office very much on the idea
0:05:21 of having a high and permanent tariff.
0:05:22 Once he was in office,
0:05:26 he switched more to a model of what he called reciprocity, right?
0:05:27 And basically it was,
0:05:28 we start out by tariffing,
0:05:30 but the goal actually is to get everybody to lower their tariffs.
0:05:33 The goal is to get a world of much more free trade
0:05:34 and then therefore these American exporters
0:05:36 were able to succeed globally.
0:05:38 And of course, he was able to use American tariffs
0:05:40 as a lever to get other countries to drop their tariffs.
0:05:41 And so in that sense,
0:05:43 what we’re going through right now in the U.S.
0:05:45 is sort of very characteristic of that.
0:05:47 And what makes maybe the whole thing kind of more poignant
0:05:50 is there is this kind of fundamental underlying question,
0:05:51 which is do we want the U.S.
0:05:53 to be an industrial superpower or not, right?
0:05:54 And in the 19th century,
0:05:56 they were like completely clear that they wanted that.
0:05:56 And in our time,
0:05:58 I think we’re still ambiguous about it.
0:06:00 So it’s interesting though,
0:06:02 because, and you’ve said this yourself in other contexts,
0:06:04 we had this manufacturing wave.
0:06:05 And then in starting the 1960s,
0:06:08 services really drove a lot of our growth the last 60 years,
0:06:09 which obviously was not as tied to that.
0:06:10 So the elite,
0:06:11 maybe we’re not thinking about these issues as much.
0:06:13 And I guess the question is today,
0:06:15 are we shifting into something else?
0:06:17 Is it an AI-driven economy?
0:06:17 What is it?
0:06:19 And it seems like Trump’s camp’s a little bit split.
0:06:21 You have really two visions.
0:06:21 One vision,
0:06:24 you’d say maybe more like the Bannon side
0:06:26 is more focused on reviving traditional manufacturing
0:06:27 through tariffs,
0:06:29 through industrial incentives.
0:06:30 Then you have the other side
0:06:31 that’s more about tech acceleration
0:06:32 via AI,
0:06:33 via chips,
0:06:33 via energy.
0:06:35 So how do these things play into,
0:06:35 I mean,
0:06:37 are we going to be able to copy the past
0:06:38 or is it a new policy here?
0:06:38 Yes.
0:06:39 I mean,
0:06:40 this is sort of the central question,
0:06:40 I think.
0:06:42 So my read of the trajectory basically
0:06:44 is call it between 1870 and 1920.
0:06:46 The U.S. economy was heavily based on industrialization,
0:06:48 all the stuff I just talked about.
0:06:48 By the way,
0:06:51 very high immigration environment at the time,
0:06:52 very rapid rate of immigration
0:06:53 and then actually very high tariffs.
0:06:54 And by the way,
0:06:56 an annual growth rate of something like 3x,
0:06:58 the current growth rate of the U.S.,
0:06:59 with a much smaller population
0:07:00 and with fewer tools to work with.
0:07:03 Then there was sort of the 1920 to 1970 period
0:07:05 where the growth rate was maybe something like 2x,
0:07:06 the rate that we have now.
0:07:08 And that was the space race
0:07:09 and rockets and electronics
0:07:10 and the beginning of the computer industry
0:07:12 and it went quite well
0:07:13 from an economic growth standpoint.
0:07:14 And then around the time I was born,
0:07:15 around 1971,
0:07:17 basically the U.S. economy
0:07:19 permanently downshifted its growth rate
0:07:21 and both in terms of productivity growth,
0:07:22 which of course measures
0:07:24 technological transformation in the economy
0:07:25 as well as economic growth.
0:07:27 And so we went from like super high growth
0:07:28 to like high growth to low growth.
0:07:31 That low growth coincided with this shift, right?
0:07:33 With all the shifts that happened in the 1970s,
0:07:35 many of which Reagan was a reaction to,
0:07:36 but many of those shifts happened
0:07:37 and many of those shifts have continued.
0:07:38 As you said,
0:07:39 less industrial enthusiasm,
0:07:41 more what they call services.
0:07:42 And by the way,
0:07:43 the good news of that transition
0:07:44 is the transition to knowledge work
0:07:45 has worked really well.
0:07:47 And we live and work in places
0:07:48 like Silicon Valley and Austin
0:07:50 and others that have done phenomenally well
0:07:51 because you’ve got all these tech companies
0:07:53 that are global exporters to technology
0:07:54 and the AI revolution is happening in the U.S.
0:07:56 You know, and it’s absolutely tremendous.
0:07:57 But, you know,
0:07:58 we transformed the American economy
0:07:59 to basically have knowledge work
0:08:00 on the high end
0:08:01 and then financialization,
0:08:03 banking and currency
0:08:04 and being the safe bond asset
0:08:05 on the other hand.
0:08:06 And then we basically chose
0:08:08 to de-industrialize, right?
0:08:09 And we chose to de-industrialize
0:08:11 through a set of explicit policy choices,
0:08:12 not least of which is
0:08:13 we made a lot of industrial activity
0:08:14 illegal over time.
0:08:15 And I would argue that formula,
0:08:16 first of all,
0:08:17 it just hasn’t worked that well
0:08:18 in terms of growth, right?
0:08:19 If it doesn’t pay off
0:08:20 in terms of productivity growth
0:08:20 and economic growth,
0:08:22 like how is it actually going?
0:08:22 And of course,
0:08:23 the problem,
0:08:24 the irony of this is
0:08:25 if you don’t like populism,
0:08:27 the way that you get populism
0:08:28 is slow growth, right?
0:08:29 Because slow growth
0:08:30 puts everybody in the mind
0:08:31 of zero-sum, right?
0:08:32 Everything becomes a zero-sum
0:08:33 kind of fight for resources
0:08:34 because people don’t think
0:08:35 that there’s a lot of opportunity
0:08:35 in the future.
0:08:37 And so the formula
0:08:39 that kind of all the smart people did
0:08:40 actually created the preconditions
0:08:41 for the sort of research
0:08:43 of populism on both left and the right.
0:08:44 And then the other kind of
0:08:45 really critical thing
0:08:46 happening right now
0:08:47 that you see just happening
0:08:47 kind of everywhere
0:08:48 in our politics and society
0:08:50 is this just giant divide
0:08:50 between the cities
0:08:51 and the countryside.
0:08:53 And I’m sort of a weird
0:08:54 example of this myself.
0:08:55 I grew up in rural Wisconsin
0:08:56 in what was sort of
0:08:57 originally farming
0:08:58 and then sort of light industry
0:08:59 kind of world.
0:09:00 And then when I graduated college,
0:09:01 I moved to California.
0:09:02 I did a jump to
0:09:03 kind of the polar opposite
0:09:04 kind of culture
0:09:05 and kind of world.
0:09:05 And of course,
0:09:06 when I was in Wisconsin,
0:09:07 I was like,
0:09:07 wow, those smart people
0:09:08 on the coast
0:09:08 must be so much better
0:09:10 and smarter than we are.
0:09:10 And then I got to the coast
0:09:11 and I was like,
0:09:12 wow, these people on the coast
0:09:12 really hate everybody
0:09:13 where I grew up.
0:09:15 This is interesting.
0:09:16 I knew they didn’t like us.
0:09:17 I didn’t realize they despised us
0:09:19 quite to this degree.
0:09:20 And so now we have this
0:09:22 just like raging cultural,
0:09:23 social, economic disconnect
0:09:24 between the cities
0:09:24 and the countryside,
0:09:26 which I think is quite dangerous.
0:09:27 Let’s be controversial
0:09:28 and dig into this
0:09:29 a little bit more in cities.
0:09:30 So I think a lot of us
0:09:31 have noticed
0:09:32 that our cities
0:09:33 are deeply dysfunctional.
0:09:34 they’re broken
0:09:35 in our society, right?
0:09:36 I think we have a candidate
0:09:37 who’s like a socialist Islamist
0:09:38 who’s in danger
0:09:39 of taking over New York
0:09:40 very soon right now.
0:09:41 And we have all sorts of problems.
0:09:42 People can’t afford
0:09:43 to have kids in cities
0:09:44 the way they’re set up.
0:09:45 I think there’s this
0:09:46 cost disease for everything.
0:09:47 What went wrong?
0:09:48 What’s going on
0:09:48 with these cities?
0:09:49 And what’s an optimistic
0:09:50 take on it, Mark?
0:09:51 How can we fix this?
0:09:52 Yeah, so the guy in New York
0:09:53 is interesting
0:09:54 and he’s kind of running
0:09:54 slightly behind Cuomo
0:09:55 for New York mayor,
0:09:56 but he’s literally running
0:09:56 a platform,
0:09:57 among other things,
0:09:58 of having city-owned
0:10:00 grocery stores, right?
0:10:01 And so the joke is
0:10:02 he’s reinventing bread lines
0:10:03 for the 21st century.
0:10:04 That’s impressive.
0:10:05 Really tremendous platform.
0:10:07 Seattle is another case study
0:10:07 of this.
0:10:08 Seattle, to give you a sense
0:10:09 how crazy things are,
0:10:10 the district in Seattle,
0:10:11 the city council district
0:10:12 where the most Microsoft
0:10:13 and Amazon executives live,
0:10:15 I elected a city council woman
0:10:16 who ran a platform
0:10:16 of nationalizing
0:10:17 Microsoft and Amazon.
0:10:19 Right, and then, you know,
0:10:20 in the Bay Area,
0:10:21 I live in ground zero
0:10:22 of dysfunction and collapse
0:10:23 and I’ve got thousands
0:10:24 of stories from the Bay Area.
0:10:25 Yeah, so I think there’s
0:10:26 like a very fundamental
0:10:27 political economy thing
0:10:29 happening which falls out
0:10:29 of this sort of
0:10:30 economic transformation
0:10:31 that’s happened
0:10:31 and this policy transformation
0:10:32 that’s happened
0:10:33 and so there’s actually
0:10:34 a French writer,
0:10:35 a geographer,
0:10:35 who has, I think,
0:10:37 the best analysis on this
0:10:38 and has written a great book
0:10:38 on it called
0:10:39 Twilight of the Elites
0:10:39 and what he basically
0:10:40 observes is if you look
0:10:41 at all the Western countries
0:10:42 through this process
0:10:44 of sort of deindustrialization
0:10:45 and financialization
0:10:46 and sort of technology
0:10:46 and knowledge work
0:10:47 becoming preeminent
0:10:48 at the high end
0:10:48 of the economy,
0:10:49 you sort of have
0:10:50 this pattern where
0:10:51 basically like
0:10:53 in an agricultural economy
0:10:54 or in a manufacturing economy,
0:10:55 you kind of have to spread
0:10:55 everything out
0:10:56 throughout the country
0:10:57 because like natural resources
0:10:58 really matter
0:10:59 and energy really matters
0:11:00 and physical infrastructure
0:11:01 matters and access
0:11:03 to trains and all these things,
0:11:03 you know, really
0:11:04 in rivers and water
0:11:05 and so forth really matters
0:11:06 but if you’re going
0:11:07 to replant the sort of
0:11:08 commanding heights
0:11:08 of your economy
0:11:09 on knowledge work,
0:11:09 then what you’re going to do
0:11:10 is you’re going to slam
0:11:11 basically all economic growth
0:11:12 into the cities, right,
0:11:13 which is what Silicon Valley
0:11:14 has done, right?
0:11:14 So you’re going to
0:11:15 all the software developers
0:11:16 in one place.
0:11:17 The good news is
0:11:17 they’re going to eat
0:11:18 at high-end restaurants
0:11:19 and they’re going to
0:11:19 employ a lot of nannies
0:11:20 but fundamentally
0:11:21 they’re going to be
0:11:21 sitting in conference rooms
0:11:23 designing software together
0:11:24 and you want that
0:11:24 to happen in a single
0:11:25 concentrated place
0:11:26 and so what happens
0:11:27 is basically
0:11:27 the cities become
0:11:28 a magnet for basically
0:11:29 two kinds of people.
0:11:30 One is sort of
0:11:31 the upper class
0:11:32 which is to say
0:11:33 kind of the highly educated
0:11:34 elite in the knowledge
0:11:34 of professions
0:11:35 who make enough money
0:11:36 where they can afford
0:11:37 to buy, you know,
0:11:38 three million dollar houses
0:11:39 so you’ve got basically
0:11:40 like super expensive homes
0:11:41 and then you’ve got
0:11:42 so-called public housing, right?
0:11:43 Council estates in the UK
0:11:44 or section 8, 8H
0:11:45 or whatever it is
0:11:45 housing here
0:11:46 where you’ve got
0:11:47 basically public housing
0:11:48 and then the public housing
0:11:49 is basically
0:11:50 it’s people who are
0:11:50 very low-paid
0:11:51 kind of on the low end
0:11:52 of the service economy
0:11:53 and then that’s the city
0:11:54 and then who’s squeezed
0:11:55 out of the city
0:11:55 is basically right
0:11:56 the entire middle class
0:11:57 is squeezed out
0:11:58 and just to give you
0:11:58 an example of this
0:11:59 in the Bay Area
0:12:00 if you’re a cop
0:12:00 or a firefighter
0:12:01 in the Bay Area
0:12:02 and you work in Palo Alto
0:12:03 you commute three hours
0:12:04 both ways
0:12:05 just to be able to like
0:12:06 have a house
0:12:07 and afford a family, right?
0:12:08 And then of course
0:12:08 you look what’s happening
0:12:09 in the cities
0:12:09 and like there’s like
0:12:10 lots of dogs
0:12:11 there’s very few kids, right?
0:12:11 And it’s like
0:12:12 what on earth is that about?
0:12:14 Well, you can’t buy a house
0:12:15 you can’t have a family
0:12:16 you may not even own a car
0:12:17 like how are you
0:12:17 going to get kids anywhere?
0:12:19 But what happens is
0:12:20 from a political standpoint
0:12:20 is the cities
0:12:21 that are run
0:12:22 in their local democracies
0:12:24 it’s these super high-end
0:12:25 kind of very progressive elites
0:12:26 and then it’s sort of
0:12:27 the clientele underclass
0:12:28 right of, you know,
0:12:28 in the US
0:12:29 it’s Hispanic immigrants
0:12:30 or African Americans
0:12:31 in Europe
0:12:32 it’s their other kind
0:12:32 of clientele underclass
0:12:33 that they’ve developed
0:12:34 in places like Paris
0:12:35 and so you’ve got
0:12:36 this high plus
0:12:37 you’ve got this kind of
0:12:37 old political
0:12:38 kind of structure
0:12:39 of sort of top plus bottom
0:12:40 kind of configuration
0:12:41 which you’ve done
0:12:42 is you’ve squeezed the middle
0:12:43 and you’ve ejected the middle
0:12:43 out of the cities
0:12:44 into the countryside
0:12:46 but you’ve de-industrialized
0:12:47 and so there’s no
0:12:48 new economic activity
0:12:49 happening in the countryside
0:12:50 for all the middle class
0:12:50 people to do.
0:12:51 This so far
0:12:52 is not an optimistic panel, Mark.
0:12:53 Sorry.
0:12:54 Sorry.
0:12:56 Let me try to make it optimistic.
0:12:56 Sorry.
0:12:57 Let me try to make it optimistic.
0:12:58 Okay.
0:12:59 Let me try to make it optimistic.
0:13:00 These are choices.
0:13:01 These are choices.
0:13:02 These are policy choices.
0:13:03 Sometimes the way
0:13:04 this stuff gets painted
0:13:05 is that these are just
0:13:06 like impersonal economic forces
0:13:07 or technology forces
0:13:07 and of course
0:13:08 you know I get this a lot
0:13:09 it’s like you idiot
0:13:10 don’t you understand
0:13:10 that like you know
0:13:11 manufacturing is old fashioned
0:13:13 we have all this new stuff
0:13:13 we shouldn’t need you know.
0:13:14 No these are choices
0:13:16 like there were specific choices made.
0:13:17 So the classic choice
0:13:18 the classic choice
0:13:18 that was made
0:13:19 since I wrote the Reagan Library
0:13:20 I’ll beat up on Nixon.
0:13:21 So Richard Nixon
0:13:22 the year I was born
0:13:22 1971
0:13:23 he proposed something
0:13:24 called Project Independence.
0:13:25 He actually
0:13:26 visionary visionary president
0:13:28 he saw the energy crisis coming
0:13:28 and he said
0:13:29 it’s a national imperative
0:13:30 to build a thousand
0:13:31 new nuclear power plants
0:13:32 civilian nuclear power plants
0:13:33 in the U.S.
0:13:33 by the year 2000
0:13:34 cut the entire U.S.
0:13:35 electric grid over to nuclear.
0:13:36 by the way
0:13:37 would have gotten us
0:13:38 to electric cars
0:13:39 probably 30-40 years faster
0:13:40 and would have completely
0:13:41 separated us
0:13:42 from strategic involvement
0:13:42 in the Middle East
0:13:43 for energy.
0:13:44 So that was the good news.
0:13:45 The bad news is
0:13:46 he created the EPA
0:13:47 and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
0:13:48 which then prevented
0:13:48 Project Independence
0:13:49 from happening
0:13:50 and of course
0:13:51 no new nuclear power plants
0:13:51 got built.
0:13:53 But that was a policy choice
0:13:54 right
0:13:54 and I’m sure
0:13:55 that was not the result
0:13:55 that he intended
0:13:57 but that was a policy choice.
0:13:58 And by the way
0:13:58 a lot of this is happening
0:13:59 right now in Washington
0:14:00 like there is an opportunity
0:14:01 to look at everything
0:14:02 from nuclear power
0:14:03 minerals
0:14:03 natural resources
0:14:04 I was on a call
0:14:04 this morning
0:14:05 on natural resources
0:14:06 with very promising
0:14:07 progress being made
0:14:08 you know rare earth metals
0:14:09 there’s construction
0:14:10 we have a project
0:14:11 to build a new city
0:14:11 in California
0:14:12 we’ve bought
0:14:13 four times the acreage
0:14:14 of Manhattan
0:14:15 in Solano County
0:14:16 we’ve had the opportunity
0:14:16 to build like
0:14:17 entirely new cities
0:14:18 in this country
0:14:19 there’s any number
0:14:20 of these policy decisions
0:14:21 that we could make
0:14:21 that would cause
0:14:22 revitalization
0:14:22 so we’re going to fix
0:14:23 better policies
0:14:24 there’s something else
0:14:24 going on though
0:14:25 which I think you and I
0:14:26 are both very bullish on
0:14:27 which is this AI wave
0:14:28 and AI services
0:14:28 right
0:14:29 and so I think
0:14:30 one thing that’s very
0:14:31 interesting right now
0:14:32 is obviously we all know
0:14:33 there’s major cost disease
0:14:33 in our society
0:14:34 healthcare is becoming
0:14:35 more and more unaffordable
0:14:36 I think people are talking
0:14:37 about our 36 trillion dollar debt
0:14:39 it’s actually 150 trillion more
0:14:40 if you include our healthcare
0:14:40 promises
0:14:41 much bigger problem
0:14:42 obviously education
0:14:43 housing
0:14:43 all these things
0:14:45 are becoming less affordable
0:14:46 but you and I have both seen
0:14:47 that a lot of these new technologies
0:14:48 are going to turn
0:14:48 some of these services
0:14:50 into much more affordable products
0:14:50 and I think we’re making
0:14:51 big bets on that
0:14:52 tell us about this
0:14:53 yeah so first of all
0:14:54 just a moment on AI
0:14:55 so you asked a question earlier
0:14:56 which is there’s a traditionalist view
0:14:57 of like we need to go get the jobs
0:14:58 that used to exist
0:14:59 we need to somehow bring them back
0:15:00 and here you get into this argument
0:15:02 of well you’ve got Chinese laborers
0:15:03 working for a dollar an hour
0:15:03 or whatever
0:15:05 it was just not cost effective
0:15:05 to bring those jobs back
0:15:07 what we have though
0:15:08 is we’re at this very specific
0:15:09 and important and fundamental
0:15:10 and I think profound
0:15:11 turning point in technology
0:15:12 which is the rise of AI
0:15:13 and I would say the good news
0:15:14 let’s make the panel optimistic
0:15:15 the good news is the US
0:15:17 is like by far the leader on AI
0:15:18 now by the way
0:15:19 we need to decide
0:15:20 whether we want to be the leader in AI
0:15:21 because there’s like a lot of forces
0:15:22 in the US
0:15:23 and in the US government
0:15:24 that are trying to prevent that
0:15:24 from happening
0:15:25 but
0:15:26 there’s over a thousand laws
0:15:26 at state level
0:15:28 we’ve been trying to fight and stop
0:15:29 that would screw this up
0:15:29 right so there’s a lot of people
0:15:30 who are against this
0:15:31 California state government
0:15:32 almost passed a law
0:15:33 outlaw AI in California
0:15:34 six months ago
0:15:35 which is an indication
0:15:36 how crazy California is
0:15:36 but yes
0:15:38 it’s like everything else
0:15:39 we can have it if we want it
0:15:40 AI is happening
0:15:41 and AI is only happening
0:15:42 in two places
0:15:43 like it’s only US versus China
0:15:45 and there’s a whole competition thing there
0:15:45 but like the US
0:15:46 is like very powerful
0:15:47 on this
0:15:47 and then by the way
0:15:48 the US is benefiting a lot
0:15:49 because Europe
0:15:50 has basically made AI illegal
0:15:51 like they’re regulating themselves
0:15:52 to death
0:15:53 and so the smart AI people
0:15:54 in Europe
0:15:55 are moving to the US
0:15:55 and so like
0:15:56 the US really is ground zero
0:15:57 for AI
0:15:58 today
0:15:59 AI is software
0:16:00 right
0:16:01 and so when you use AI
0:16:02 you use chat GPT
0:16:03 it’s an app on your phone
0:16:03 right
0:16:04 there’s no manufacturing
0:16:05 kind of component
0:16:06 people are building
0:16:06 giant data centers
0:16:08 but it’s not a huge generator
0:16:09 of like middle class jobs
0:16:10 but there’s another turn
0:16:11 on AI that’s coming
0:16:12 which is the turn
0:16:13 to embodied physical AI
0:16:14 which is robotics
0:16:14 right
0:16:15 and this is a transition
0:16:16 that has already happened
0:16:17 it’s already actually happened
0:16:18 in drones
0:16:19 where drones went from
0:16:20 being human piloted
0:16:20 to actually being
0:16:21 autonomously piloted
0:16:22 they now fly themselves
0:16:23 it’s a transition
0:16:24 that’s happening
0:16:25 in cars right now
0:16:25 right
0:16:26 where cars went from
0:16:27 basically purely
0:16:27 physical products
0:16:28 to now basically
0:16:29 being rolling computers
0:16:30 that drive themselves
0:16:31 and if you haven’t
0:16:31 tried this yet
0:16:32 if you ever
0:16:33 have the misfortune
0:16:33 of finding yourself
0:16:34 in San Francisco
0:16:35 take a Waymo
0:16:36 it’s amazing to live
0:16:37 in a cyberpunk
0:16:38 future reality
0:16:38 where you’re in
0:16:39 literally a state-of-the-art
0:16:40 self-driving car
0:16:41 that’s literally out
0:16:42 of the Jetsons
0:16:42 driving past people
0:16:43 who are dying
0:16:43 of fentanyl overdoses
0:16:44 on the sidewalk
0:16:45 I recommend
0:16:46 having the experience
0:16:46 at least once
0:16:48 but the self-driving car
0:16:48 really does work
0:16:49 like it’s really happening
0:16:50 and then what’s going
0:16:51 to happen
0:16:52 you’ve all probably seen
0:16:52 you know Elon
0:16:53 has this Optimus robot
0:16:54 that he’s building
0:16:54 these humanoid robots
0:16:56 like the general purpose
0:16:56 robotics
0:16:58 thing is going to happen
0:16:59 and it’s going to happen
0:16:59 in the next decade
0:17:00 and it’s going to happen
0:17:01 at giant scale
0:17:01 and I think there’s
0:17:02 a plausible argument
0:17:03 which Elon also believes
0:17:04 that robotics
0:17:04 is going to be
0:17:05 the biggest industry
0:17:05 in the history
0:17:06 of the planet
0:17:07 it’s going to be gigantic
0:17:08 there’s going to be
0:17:08 billions
0:17:08 tens of billions
0:17:09 hundreds of billions
0:17:09 of robots
0:17:10 of all shapes
0:17:10 sizes
0:17:11 descriptions
0:17:11 running around
0:17:12 doing all kinds
0:17:12 of things
0:17:13 those robots
0:17:14 need to get designed
0:17:14 and built
0:17:15 right
0:17:16 and so my view is
0:17:17 we don’t try to get
0:17:18 the old manufacturing jobs
0:17:18 back
0:17:18 what we should do
0:17:19 is lean hard
0:17:20 into the manufacturing jobs
0:17:21 of the future
0:17:22 which is designing
0:17:23 and building
0:17:24 all of these new things
0:17:24 right
0:17:25 by the way
0:17:27 right
0:17:27 and robots
0:17:29 and we shouldn’t be
0:17:30 building manufacturing lines
0:17:30 that have people
0:17:31 sitting on a rubber mat
0:17:32 for 10 hours
0:17:33 screwing screws in by hand
0:17:34 but we should be building
0:17:34 what Elon calls
0:17:36 alien dreadnought factories
0:17:36 right
0:17:36 which is like
0:17:37 these super sophisticated
0:17:37 factories
0:17:38 with like tons of robotics
0:17:40 but you can imagine
0:17:41 thousands and thousands
0:17:42 of different categories
0:17:42 of industrial production
0:17:43 that have to happen
0:17:44 all across the U.S.
0:17:45 in order to make this happen
0:17:46 and would cause
0:17:47 just like enormous
0:17:47 economic growth
0:17:48 throughout the country
0:17:49 we get a huge payoff
0:17:50 from all the tech investment
0:17:51 that the coasts are making
0:17:52 but we generate
0:17:53 many tens or hundreds
0:17:54 of millions of jobs
0:17:55 in the countryside
0:17:56 and then the U.S.
0:17:57 would lead
0:17:58 it would be the third industrial
0:17:59 or fourth industrial revolution
0:17:59 we would lead
0:18:00 in the development
0:18:01 of all these new things
0:18:02 and then you get
0:18:02 to the national security
0:18:03 side of this
0:18:04 which is
0:18:05 if you don’t do this
0:18:06 you’re living in a world
0:18:07 of Chinese robots everywhere
0:18:08 and that has
0:18:09 very profound consequences
0:18:10 for let’s just say
0:18:11 yeah profound consequences
0:18:11 and it’s an important
0:18:12 policy point
0:18:13 and I want to dig
0:18:14 into this a little bit more
0:18:14 a lot of
0:18:15 I was just in an interview
0:18:16 up there
0:18:16 like aren’t we going to
0:18:17 destroy tens of millions
0:18:18 of jobs
0:18:18 isn’t AI scary
0:18:19 a lot of people
0:18:20 are very scared right now
0:18:20 with the disruption
0:18:21 I’m very excited
0:18:22 about the higher productivity
0:18:23 because I see it
0:18:24 being disinflationary
0:18:25 I see it creating more jobs
0:18:26 assuming we’re aligned
0:18:27 how do we explain this
0:18:27 to people
0:18:28 how do we explain
0:18:28 this is actually
0:18:29 a really good thing
0:18:29 for the country
0:18:30 because a lot of Luddites
0:18:31 are going to attack this
0:18:32 they are going to try
0:18:32 to stop it
0:18:33 yeah so the Luddites
0:18:34 are wrong
0:18:34 they’re wrong
0:18:35 in the sense of like
0:18:35 for the reason
0:18:36 they’ve always been wrong
0:18:37 which is the reality
0:18:38 is we have not
0:18:39 in the last 50 years
0:18:39 been in an era
0:18:41 of fast productivity growth
0:18:41 technological change
0:18:42 we’ve been in an area
0:18:43 of slow productivity change
0:18:44 slow economic growth
0:18:46 AI if it works the way
0:18:47 that actually people
0:18:48 either hope or fear
0:18:48 that it’s going to work
0:18:49 it’s going to cause
0:18:50 productivity growth
0:18:50 to shoot up
0:18:51 that will naturally
0:18:52 accelerate economic growth
0:18:53 but look if it just
0:18:54 stays as software
0:18:55 then the result of that
0:18:56 is it’s going to make
0:18:57 the cities much better off
0:18:57 right it’s going to make
0:18:58 San Francisco and LA
0:18:59 and New York much better off
0:19:00 and Austin much better off
0:19:01 but it’s still not
0:19:02 going to answer this question
0:19:03 of what happens
0:19:03 in the countryside
0:19:04 to answer the question
0:19:05 of what happens
0:19:05 in the countryside
0:19:06 you need to get
0:19:07 to the next thing
0:19:07 you need to make
0:19:09 AI hardware as well
0:19:09 as software
0:19:10 and you’re right back
0:19:11 to that same prescription
0:19:12 of basically re-industrializing
0:19:12 the country
0:19:13 and again
0:19:14 not re-industrializing
0:19:14 the country
0:19:15 on the stuff
0:19:16 that has already left
0:19:17 re-industrializing
0:19:17 the country
0:19:18 based on all the things
0:19:18 that have to be
0:19:19 invented and built
0:19:20 and it’s just like
0:19:21 we know
0:19:21 I’d be just like
0:19:22 incredibly highly confident
0:19:23 that there’s going to be
0:19:24 these giant industries
0:19:26 of computerized everything
0:19:26 AI powered
0:19:27 all kinds of hardware
0:19:28 of all kinds of
0:19:29 shape sizes to descriptions
0:19:29 you know
0:19:30 you’re funding a lot
0:19:30 of that kind of thing
0:19:31 I’m funding a lot
0:19:31 of that kind of thing
0:19:32 I mean look
0:19:33 the entire defense base
0:19:34 has to get rebuilt
0:19:35 around this day
0:19:35 we’re going to redo
0:19:36 the manufacturing
0:19:36 we’re going to build
0:19:37 roads and tunnels
0:19:38 and everything cheaper
0:19:39 it’s going to be exciting
0:19:39 yeah
0:19:40 and so this is the thing
0:19:41 to do
0:19:41 like to me
0:19:42 the path on this
0:19:42 is very clear
0:19:43 because we have to do this
0:19:44 because it’s necessary
0:19:44 from a national security
0:19:45 standpoint
0:19:46 we have to do it
0:19:46 because we need
0:19:47 the economic growth
0:19:47 we have to do it
0:19:48 because we need
0:19:48 an answer
0:19:49 for the entire population
0:19:50 of the country
0:19:50 not just the cities
0:19:51 yeah
0:19:52 and we have to do it
0:19:52 because if we don’t do it
0:19:53 China’s going to do it
0:19:54 and we don’t want to live
0:19:54 in that world
0:19:55 so I want to circle back
0:19:57 to another controversial topic
0:19:58 which over the last
0:19:58 several decades
0:19:59 you mentioned this
0:20:00 we’ve kind of pursued
0:20:01 deindustrialization
0:20:02 financialization
0:20:03 we’ve also pursued
0:20:04 mass immigration
0:20:05 and the view
0:20:06 from the tech world
0:20:07 has almost always been
0:20:08 we need more
0:20:08 of the smartest people
0:20:09 to come here
0:20:09 and build with us
0:20:11 a lot of my smartest friends
0:20:11 are immigrants
0:20:12 and they’ve built great things
0:20:14 but at the same time
0:20:15 some of this mass immigration
0:20:15 has really affected
0:20:16 the working class
0:20:17 in certain ways
0:20:18 that’s maybe not great
0:20:18 I know your views
0:20:19 have evolved on this topic
0:20:21 like what is the right
0:20:21 immigration policy
0:20:22 and how does it tie into
0:20:23 what you’re seeing
0:20:24 for the next few decades
0:20:25 yeah so separate it
0:20:26 you know the classic split
0:20:26 between so-called
0:20:27 high-skilled and low-skilled
0:20:28 immigration
0:20:29 so on the low-skilled
0:20:29 immigration side
0:20:30 it’s actually
0:20:31 a lot of the AI doomers
0:20:32 kind of have this split
0:20:33 personality
0:20:33 where they’re like
0:20:34 AI’s going to eliminate
0:20:34 all the jobs
0:20:35 and we need to import
0:20:36 another 100 million people
0:20:37 from the third world
0:20:38 as fast as possible
0:20:39 or we won’t have any
0:20:40 you know so there’s a bit
0:20:41 of a weird kind of
0:20:42 disconnect I think
0:20:43 in the logic on that
0:20:44 look the country
0:20:44 went through this before
0:20:45 as I said earlier
0:20:46 there was very high
0:20:47 immigration between
0:20:48 like 1870 and 1920
0:20:49 they closed the gates
0:20:50 in 1925
0:20:52 and 1925 to 1970
0:20:52 you could argue
0:20:53 it would have grown faster
0:20:54 with higher immigration
0:20:55 but they grew a lot
0:20:55 faster than we’ve grown
0:20:57 right and so
0:20:57 like I do think
0:20:58 if you have AI
0:20:59 if you have advanced
0:21:00 high productivity growth
0:21:01 if you have lots of
0:21:01 robots running around
0:21:02 I do think there is
0:21:03 a question of exactly
0:21:04 how much low-skilled
0:21:05 labor you need in the country
0:21:06 which bears on a lot
0:21:07 of the immigration debates
0:21:08 the high-skilled
0:21:08 immigration debate
0:21:09 is the one that’s coming
0:21:10 and it’s not really
0:21:11 top of mind right now
0:21:11 but it’s the one
0:21:12 that’s coming
0:21:13 and the reason it’s coming
0:21:14 is because I mean
0:21:15 look we need talent
0:21:16 of course to build
0:21:16 all the AI
0:21:17 build all the robots
0:21:17 to do all these things
0:21:18 and you see this
0:21:19 in the debates
0:21:20 around the universities
0:21:20 with the move
0:21:21 that the administration
0:21:22 is doing on foreign
0:21:23 students and so forth
0:21:24 and there’s this kind
0:21:25 of very one-sided
0:21:25 argument that’s happening
0:21:26 on that right now
0:21:27 which is you kind of
0:21:27 need a limited
0:21:28 high-skilled immigration
0:21:29 from the rest of the world
0:21:29 or you’re not going to
0:21:30 have the smart people
0:21:31 building stuff here
0:21:32 and I would say
0:21:32 you know look
0:21:33 like Joe
0:21:34 our portfolio
0:21:34 at our firm
0:21:35 is like the United Nations
0:21:36 it’s founders
0:21:37 from 100 countries
0:21:38 I benefited enormously
0:21:39 by working in a place
0:21:40 characterized by very
0:21:40 high-skilled immigration
0:21:41 the thing that’s really
0:21:42 coming to roost though
0:21:43 is this fundamental issue
0:21:44 which kind of nobody
0:21:45 wants to talk about
0:21:46 but I’ve started to talk about
0:21:47 which is it’s the intersection
0:21:49 of DEI and immigration
0:21:51 that has really I think
0:21:52 warped I think our perceptions
0:21:53 on high-skilled immigration
0:21:54 over the last 50 years
0:21:55 and you see this by the way
0:21:56 in like you look at like
0:21:57 the foreign enrollment rates
0:21:58 of the top universities
0:21:59 which went from like
0:22:00 2 or 3 or 4 percent
0:22:01 50 years ago
0:22:02 to whatever 27 or 30 or 50
0:22:03 and Columbia is over half
0:22:04 right
0:22:05 70 percent or whatever it is
0:22:05 and so there’s been
0:22:06 this massive transformation
0:22:07 in who gets educated
0:22:08 and then there’s been
0:22:09 this massive transformation
0:22:09 of who gets admitted
0:22:11 through affirmative action
0:22:12 and then as we now know
0:22:12 at DEI
0:22:14 and again this goes straight
0:22:15 to the political divide
0:22:15 in the country
0:22:16 which is if you’re a family
0:22:17 if you’re parents of a kid
0:22:18 where I grew up
0:22:20 and you’ve got a smart kid
0:22:21 and you think you’re going
0:22:21 to get them into
0:22:22 you know a top university
0:22:22 in this country
0:22:24 like you are fooling yourself
0:22:25 like there is no chance
0:22:26 right
0:22:27 because they’ve got their
0:22:28 well like
0:22:29 the top universities basically
0:22:30 the top universities
0:22:31 have basically an admissions program
0:22:32 that looks like this
0:22:33 it’s like DEI for white people
0:22:34 which is the donors
0:22:35 and all the fake sports
0:22:36 right
0:22:36 and so
0:22:37 a lot of fake sports
0:22:38 like I have a friend
0:22:38 who got into Yale
0:22:39 to play varsity croquet
0:22:40 which let me just say
0:22:41 is not a sport
0:22:42 that we played a lot
0:22:42 in rural Wisconsin
0:22:44 and then you’ve got
0:22:44 DEI generally
0:22:45 for the other groups
0:22:46 and then you’ve got
0:22:47 this immigration influx
0:22:48 and as a consequence of that
0:22:50 it is nearly impossible
0:22:51 for somebody coming
0:22:52 from like a midwestern
0:22:52 or rural background
0:22:53 or southern background
0:22:54 to get into the US
0:22:55 by the way
0:22:56 this doesn’t just affect
0:22:56 white people
0:22:57 this also obviously
0:22:58 we now see how
0:22:59 it’s affecting Jewish people
0:22:59 but it actually also
0:23:00 affects African Americans
0:23:02 in a very interesting way
0:23:02 which is actually
0:23:03 both the universities
0:23:05 and the corporate employers
0:23:05 are literally
0:23:06 this is true
0:23:07 they literally import Africans
0:23:08 so that they don’t have
0:23:09 to hire African Americans
0:23:10 because it still
0:23:10 counted as black
0:23:11 there was a great story
0:23:12 the thing that woke me up
0:23:12 to this
0:23:13 there was a story
0:23:13 in the New York Times
0:23:14 20 years ago
0:23:14 about Harvard
0:23:15 is this is
0:23:16 Harvard admits
0:23:16 black students
0:23:17 but which ones
0:23:18 back when the New York Times
0:23:18 could talk about
0:23:19 these things honestly
0:23:20 and it quoted actually
0:23:21 Henry Louis Gates
0:23:21 and Lonnie Guineer
0:23:22 at the time
0:23:23 at Harvard Law School
0:23:24 basically observing
0:23:25 that African Americans
0:23:25 were not benefiting
0:23:26 from an affirmative action
0:23:27 because Harvard
0:23:27 had figured out
0:23:28 that they could
0:23:28 import Nigerians
0:23:29 right
0:23:30 and again
0:23:30 it’s just like
0:23:30 great
0:23:31 the Nigerians are great
0:23:31 they’re very smart
0:23:32 they’re very productive
0:23:33 it’s fantastic
0:23:34 all other things being equal
0:23:34 you’d like to have
0:23:35 as many of them
0:23:35 in your country
0:23:36 but is that really
0:23:37 why we’re doing
0:23:38 the set-aside programs
0:23:39 and so there is
0:23:40 this really fundamental question
0:23:41 which is like
0:23:42 what level of untapped talent
0:23:43 exists in this country
0:23:44 that a combination
0:23:45 of DEI
0:23:45 and immigration
0:23:46 have basically cut
0:23:47 out of the loop
0:23:48 for the last 50 years
0:23:49 and how long
0:23:51 can we have this story
0:23:51 to everybody
0:23:52 in the Midwest
0:23:52 and the South
0:23:53 that says
0:23:53 sorry
0:23:54 because of historical oppression
0:23:55 your kids are SOL
0:23:57 this is the angry populism
0:23:58 people are worried about
0:23:59 that’s affecting our politics
0:24:00 yeah like what do you do
0:24:00 like this is what
0:24:01 I’ve really come to appreciate
0:24:02 from growing up
0:24:03 in the one place
0:24:03 and now being in the other place
0:24:04 which is
0:24:05 if you’re in the center
0:24:05 of the country
0:24:06 you’re just like
0:24:06 wow these people
0:24:07 really hate me
0:24:08 they really hate my kids
0:24:09 they’re really out to get me
0:24:10 and like that’s just
0:24:11 such a toxic dynamic
0:24:12 like that’s a very
0:24:12 very bad thing
0:24:13 for that to continue
0:24:14 so I guess to finish
0:24:15 on a more positive note
0:24:16 we have all these challenges
0:24:16 you’ve outlined
0:24:17 no sorry
0:24:17 it’s fair
0:24:19 I think in order to be optimistic
0:24:20 you first have to say
0:24:21 what are the challenges
0:24:21 and diagnose it
0:24:22 and then say
0:24:22 what are the ways
0:24:24 here’s an optimistic thing
0:24:25 which is we have talent
0:24:25 in this country
0:24:26 we have so many smart people
0:24:27 in this country
0:24:27 who are not being
0:24:28 properly trained
0:24:29 properly educated
0:24:30 and properly employed
0:24:31 we really genuinely do
0:24:32 we have tons of smart kids
0:24:32 running around
0:24:33 who have all kinds of potential
0:24:34 who have been completely
0:24:35 cut out of opportunity
0:24:36 for the last 50 years
0:24:37 so we’re going to have
0:24:39 this wave of productivity growth
0:24:39 it’s going to be
0:24:39 in the real world
0:24:40 with robotics
0:24:41 we’re going to start to build
0:24:42 hopefully to get the policies right
0:24:43 and it’s going to lift
0:24:44 all these people up
0:24:45 what are the bottlenecks
0:24:46 or things in the way
0:24:46 of doing that
0:24:47 we have the amazing
0:24:48 secretary of energy here
0:24:49 energy is obviously
0:24:50 a really key thing
0:24:50 to get right
0:24:52 there’s obviously the chips
0:24:53 there’s the critical minerals
0:24:53 you mentioned
0:24:54 regulatory stuff
0:24:55 is insane in this country
0:24:56 it needs to be fixed
0:24:57 like what are the biggest ones
0:24:58 you’re focused on
0:24:59 and how are we going to get
0:25:00 those to a place we need
0:25:00 that it ends up
0:25:01 with the optimistic outcome
0:25:02 so I say yes
0:25:03 those
0:25:05 so I mean
0:25:05 the good news on this
0:25:06 is a lot of it’s obvious
0:25:06 right
0:25:07 the minute you look at it
0:25:07 you’re just like
0:25:08 well obviously
0:25:09 we have to do these things
0:25:10 if you talk to anybody
0:25:10 running businesses
0:25:11 in any of these sectors
0:25:11 they’ll tell you
0:25:12 right off the bat
0:25:13 the things that need to happen
0:25:14 and the current administration
0:25:15 I think is pretty devoted
0:25:16 to a lot of this
0:25:17 the other positive thing
0:25:17 that’s happening
0:25:18 there’s this new book
0:25:19 out called Abundance
0:25:20 from Ezra Klein
0:25:20 who I would say
0:25:21 I disagree with
0:25:22 on approximately zero
0:25:22 of everything
0:25:23 but I think this book
0:25:24 is really good
0:25:25 and I think he and his co-author
0:25:25 you know
0:25:26 they don’t necessarily
0:25:27 have the policy prescriptions
0:25:28 I would outline
0:25:29 but they make this point
0:25:30 of liberals used to believe
0:25:31 in building things
0:25:32 right
0:25:32 well I mean
0:25:33 if you go all the way back
0:25:34 like communists
0:25:34 really believed
0:25:35 in building things
0:25:35 right
0:25:37 all like Soviet iconography
0:25:37 100 years ago
0:25:38 was all like rockets
0:25:39 and skyscrapers
0:25:39 and cars
0:25:40 and motion
0:25:40 and energy
0:25:41 and it was all amazing
0:25:42 and they built
0:25:42 all these huge things
0:25:44 and then liberals
0:25:45 up until basically
0:25:45 the 1970s
0:25:46 they really believed
0:25:47 in building things
0:25:47 they really believed
0:25:48 in building the future
0:25:49 and so Ezra
0:25:49 and Derek Thompson
0:25:50 are trying to recapture that
0:25:51 by the way
0:25:52 there’s a bunch of leaders
0:25:52 of that party
0:25:53 in Washington
0:25:53 that are now
0:25:54 pushing that quite hard
0:25:56 although it seems hard
0:25:57 to believe these days
0:25:57 but you know
0:25:58 there may be an opportunity
0:25:59 for some actual bipartisanship here
0:26:00 and again
0:26:01 it just makes sense
0:26:01 if the country
0:26:02 is growing faster
0:26:03 it’s going to be
0:26:04 a fundamentally happier place
0:26:05 because people
0:26:06 whichever side
0:26:06 of the political spectrum
0:26:07 you’re on
0:26:07 Reagan
0:26:10 there’s going to be
0:26:10 a sense of mourning
0:26:10 in America
0:26:11 there’s going to be
0:26:12 a sense of opportunity
0:26:12 there’s going to be
0:26:13 the sense
0:26:13 that your kids
0:26:13 are going to live
0:26:14 better lives
0:26:14 than you do
0:26:15 and I don’t think
0:26:16 that’s a particularly
0:26:16 partisan view
0:26:17 at the end of the day
0:26:18 and I think
0:26:18 there may be
0:26:18 an opportunity
0:26:19 to maybe bridge
0:26:20 the divide a bit
0:26:20 and I want to dig
0:26:21 a little tiny bit deeper
0:26:22 as we end
0:26:23 into what that means
0:26:24 because for me
0:26:24 for example
0:26:25 I think both of us
0:26:25 see how healthcare
0:26:27 doesn’t need to take up
0:26:27 20% of our GDP
0:26:28 right
0:26:29 it’s very obvious
0:26:29 that AI
0:26:30 can make these things
0:26:31 half a third the cost
0:26:32 for better outcomes
0:26:33 and yet
0:26:34 every one of our states
0:26:35 in this country
0:26:36 has very powerful
0:26:38 provider and payer lobbies
0:26:38 and has very powerful
0:26:39 cartels
0:26:40 that block competition
0:26:41 and so if we want
0:26:41 to go build something
0:26:42 with AI
0:26:42 we’re not allowed to
0:26:43 right now
0:26:44 do you see
0:26:45 the left and the right
0:26:46 tech working together
0:26:47 to fight these special interests
0:26:48 to actually fix
0:26:48 the regulatory state
0:26:49 because it’s not like
0:26:49 the administration
0:26:50 could just do it
0:26:50 right
0:26:51 it’s going to take
0:26:51 a lot of effort
0:26:52 like what does
0:26:53 that coalition look like
0:26:54 of the good guys
0:26:55 against this kind of
0:26:56 broken regulatory cartel
0:26:57 in all these industries
0:26:58 is that something
0:26:58 we’re going to all
0:26:59 have to fight
0:27:00 yeah so the way
0:27:00 I think about this
0:27:01 is there’s basically
0:27:02 three components
0:27:02 to the American dream
0:27:03 right there’s
0:27:04 a house for your kids
0:27:05 and kind of a definition
0:27:06 this goes back
0:27:07 to the geographic lens
0:27:08 the house needs to be
0:27:09 like near a place
0:27:09 where there’s like
0:27:10 great job opportunities
0:27:11 right so it can’t be
0:27:12 the house in the middle
0:27:12 of nowhere
0:27:12 it has to be a house
0:27:13 where there’s going
0:27:14 to be great jobs
0:27:14 and you know
0:27:15 a safe environment
0:27:15 and so forth
0:27:16 number one
0:27:17 number two
0:27:17 is health care
0:27:18 you need great health care
0:27:19 for you and your family
0:27:19 and then three
0:27:20 is education
0:27:20 you want to send
0:27:21 your kids to good schools
0:27:23 if you disaggregate
0:27:24 sectors of the economy
0:27:25 over the last 25 years
0:27:26 what you find is
0:27:27 basically everything
0:27:28 that technology touches
0:27:29 basically collapses
0:27:29 in price
0:27:31 and so television sets
0:27:32 and computer games
0:27:33 and anything with
0:27:34 electronics in it
0:27:34 basically
0:27:35 productivity growth
0:27:35 in those sectors
0:27:36 has advanced very fast
0:27:37 product prices have collapsed
0:27:38 everything is much cheaper
0:27:40 but if you chart
0:27:41 housing education
0:27:41 and health care
0:27:43 the prices of those things
0:27:43 are skyrocketing
0:27:44 right and we all see this
0:27:45 it’s just the price
0:27:46 of housing is exploding
0:27:47 the price of education
0:27:47 is exploding
0:27:48 the price of health care
0:27:49 I mean health care
0:27:50 is 20% of the economy
0:27:51 on its way to 50%
0:27:52 and so the prices
0:27:53 are exploding
0:27:53 and so it’s like
0:27:54 okay what makes
0:27:55 those three components
0:27:55 of the American dream
0:27:57 have these exploding prices
0:27:58 basically it’s two things
0:27:59 number one is
0:28:00 and these are interrelated
0:28:01 but number one is
0:28:02 technology is not really
0:28:03 touching them very much
0:28:03 and you could say
0:28:04 the tech industry
0:28:05 has done a bad job
0:28:06 at addressing housing
0:28:07 and health care
0:28:07 and education
0:28:08 or you could say
0:28:09 that those industries
0:28:10 have been resistant to it
0:28:11 but technology hasn’t
0:28:11 really touched them
0:28:12 that much
0:28:12 which means that
0:28:13 the productivity growth
0:28:14 hasn’t happened in them
0:28:15 and then the other thing
0:28:16 is they’re heavily regulated
0:28:17 they’re heavily dominated
0:28:18 by the government
0:28:18 they’re heavily regulated
0:28:19 and then in all three
0:28:20 of those sectors
0:28:21 the government
0:28:22 both restricts supply
0:28:23 right and so
0:28:24 zoning laws
0:28:25 university certifications
0:28:26 and so forth
0:28:27 right mean that
0:28:28 it’s very hard
0:28:28 to actually build
0:28:30 new of those three things
0:28:31 and then the government
0:28:32 responds to the political
0:28:33 pressure caused
0:28:33 by the rising prices
0:28:35 by subsidizing demand
0:28:36 and of course
0:28:37 if you subsidize demand
0:28:37 and it affects supply
0:28:39 you get skyrocketing prices
0:28:40 right and so every time
0:28:41 there’s a housing crisis
0:28:41 you know it’s a
0:28:42 perpetual housing crisis
0:28:42 in California
0:28:43 the answer always is
0:28:44 subsidies for home buyers
0:28:46 which always has the effect
0:28:47 of driving prices up further
0:28:48 and making the problem worse
0:28:49 right and so
0:28:50 those are the microeconomics
0:28:51 of what’s happening
0:28:52 I don’t think there’s
0:28:53 easy answers on this
0:28:54 but I think the acknowledgement
0:28:55 that this is in fact
0:28:56 what’s happening
0:28:56 and then I think
0:28:58 the people have to decide
0:28:58 that they do not want
0:28:59 to live this way
0:29:00 I think the marginal
0:29:01 American voter
0:29:02 needs to decide
0:29:02 look it’s just not
0:29:03 acceptable that if I can’t
0:29:04 spend three million dollars
0:29:05 I can’t have a house
0:29:06 that’s in a good neighborhood
0:29:06 with a good job
0:29:07 attached to it
0:29:08 and it’s just not
0:29:09 acceptable that a
0:29:10 four-year college degree
0:29:11 is going to cost a million dollars
0:29:11 which is what it’s
0:29:12 on its way to doing
0:29:13 and it’s just not
0:29:14 acceptable that like
0:29:15 this healthcare you know
0:29:15 monster is running
0:29:16 out of control
0:29:16 and so you know
0:29:17 in many ways
0:29:18 this is like the
0:29:18 fundamental policy
0:29:19 political question
0:29:20 of our time
0:29:20 that kind of needs
0:29:21 to be dealt with
0:29:22 again these issues
0:29:23 become much easier
0:29:23 to deal with
0:29:24 in a high growth
0:29:24 environment
0:29:25 right
0:29:25 in an environment
0:29:26 with very rapid
0:29:27 technological development
0:29:28 let me give you
0:29:29 the good news story
0:29:29 on healthcare
0:29:30 everybody talks about
0:29:30 healthcare
0:29:31 you can’t break
0:29:31 these curves
0:29:32 there’s one area
0:29:33 of healthcare
0:29:33 that is incredibly
0:29:34 sophisticated
0:29:35 technologically advanced
0:29:36 and the price curve
0:29:37 looks like Moore’s Law
0:29:38 the price curve
0:29:38 looks like video games
0:29:39 the price curve
0:29:40 is just a straight line
0:29:40 down
0:29:41 and the quality
0:29:41 of the service
0:29:42 has gone way up
0:29:43 and that’s LASIK eye surgery
0:29:44 right
0:29:45 and the reason
0:29:45 that’s the case
0:29:46 is because it’s
0:29:47 outside the system
0:29:47 it’s a discretionary
0:29:48 purchase paid for
0:29:48 by the consumer
0:29:49 LASIK eye studios
0:29:51 are in like strip malls
0:29:51 and they’ve got
0:29:52 three people
0:29:53 and like a super advanced
0:29:54 incredibly advanced
0:29:55 like laser eye machine
0:29:56 and you go in there
0:29:56 and you get zapped
0:29:57 and you have perfect eyesight
0:29:58 and every year
0:29:59 it gets better and cheaper
0:30:00 and so that’s like
0:30:01 an example of what happens
0:30:03 if you’re able to touch
0:30:04 these sectors with technology
0:30:04 and if you’re able
0:30:05 to get them out
0:30:05 from under
0:30:06 all the regulatory
0:30:07 and government overhang
0:30:08 and so that potentially exists
0:30:09 I think throughout the system
0:30:10 but fundamentally
0:30:11 we have to decide
0:30:11 we want it
0:30:12 and fundamentally
0:30:13 the population
0:30:13 in the country
0:30:13 has to decide
0:30:14 that it wants it
0:30:15 well I’m optimistic
0:30:16 more of the leaders
0:30:16 in the tech
0:30:17 and government sector
0:30:18 are going to be on our side
0:30:18 and push through
0:30:19 and fix these regulations
0:30:20 and the technology
0:30:21 is going to get us there
0:30:22 so thank you Mark
0:30:22 for being here
0:30:23 appreciate it
0:30:23 good
0:30:28 thanks for listening
0:30:30 to the A16Z podcast
0:30:31 if you enjoyed the episode
0:30:32 let us know
0:30:32 by leaving a review
0:30:34 at ratethispodcast.com
0:30:35 slash A16Z
0:30:36 we’ve got more
0:30:37 great conversations
0:30:38 coming your way
0:30:39 see you next time

0:00:08 it wasn’t necessarily a fait accompli that i would have this kind of hit or anything like that
0:00:13 i was taken to task by the critics and i was considered really polarizing and difficult
0:00:16 um let’s back up for a second please say your name and what you do
0:00:20 david ajmi is my name and playwright is my game
0:00:26 ajmi has been a playwright for a few decades now his work was typically staged
0:00:33 in regional or repertory or experimental theaters but never under the much brighter lights of
0:00:39 broadway or the west end that changed last year with a play he wrote called stereophonic
0:00:44 stereophonic is a play about a dysfunctional family and art making and about the struggle
0:00:51 to become an artist that’s another way of saying that stereophonic is a play about the mind of david
0:00:56 ajmi i always work off of tropes in the culture but then it’s always really a way for me to talk
0:01:04 about me the plot of stereophonic is so slender that it barely sounds like a plot a five-piece band
0:01:10 is struggling to record their second album the band very much resembles fleetwood mac at least
0:01:16 superficially there are two sound engineers also and the entire play takes place in california
0:01:23 recording studios in the late 1970s that’s it but that slender plot supports an entire universe of
0:01:29 emotion some of the most psychologically astute writing you’ll ever hear on a stage and then
0:01:34 there’s the music stereophonic is not a musical not even close but the music says a lot of things
0:01:41 the characters aren’t able to and the music was written by will butler a longtime member of the band
0:01:47 arcade fire last year as we were trying to make a series about the strange economics of the live
0:01:53 theater industry stereophonic had just moved to broadway from a well-received off-broadway run
0:02:01 at playwrights horizons i saw the play a few times i loved it we wound up making a pair of episodes
0:02:08 about it we interviewed producers cast members and david ajmi stereophonic went on to be nominated for
0:02:15 more tonys than any play in history and at one five including best play and so when i was recently
0:02:20 in london for some other tapings and i saw that stereophonic was in rehearsals for its debut in the
0:02:26 west end i asked ajmi if he would meet up in a recording studio and tell us everything he’s been up
0:02:33 to as you’ll hear he is a fun person to have a conversation with he is super smart but also earnest
0:02:41 he’s remarkably candid he’s rarely mean-spirited except toward himself sometimes and he’s consistently
0:02:48 interesting at least to me i hope you will agree today on freakonomics radio after a stereophonic
0:02:52 size success what can david ajmi possibly do now
0:03:12 this is freakonomics radio the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with your host
0:03:31 david ajmi grew up in brooklyn in a turbulent syrian jewish family he describes the turbulence well in a
0:03:37 memoir called lot six we also learned that ajmi started reading the new york times when he was two
0:03:43 he saw his first broadway musical at five he went to college at sarah lawrence and the grad school for
0:03:49 playwriting at both juilliard and the university of iowa and then came the hard work
0:03:58 the last time we spoke which was just as stereophonic was starting to explode you said there have been times
0:04:04 when you thought about just quitting playwriting but you didn’t and now you’ve been writing plays for
0:04:12 roughly 30 years and when you look around you realize that almost nobody really does that anymore yeah
0:04:18 i think it’s true i sort of made some decisions and choices that compromised me in terms of the kind of
0:04:24 life i would have i was willing to do that because i knew that my purpose here is really to do a certain
0:04:31 kind of writing and to be very very truthful and exploratory in the kind of work i do and if i can’t
0:04:37 have that freedom to explore and sort of mull over what i believe the truth is for me in this kind of
0:04:43 dramatic dialectical context of a play i don’t want to do it and i don’t know if i want to do anything
0:04:49 you know what i mean that kind of feels like that is my reason for being so i made a lot of sacrifices
0:04:55 to get to write these plays what do you mean by sacrifices i would live in people’s homes i’d live in
0:05:02 attics i’d live in basements i’d find patrons essentially i went into an enormous amount of debt
0:05:08 credit card debt credit cards and you know i couldn’t pay my taxes the problem is they tax grants
0:05:12 which prior to reagan they didn’t do so when artists got grants if i got guggenheim let’s say
0:05:17 which i was fortunate enough to get one then i would use that money to try to pay some of my debt
0:05:21 the grants were a huge boon and then suddenly it became the bane of my existence because i was like
0:05:26 oh my god i’m running from the tax man you also go into a little bit of denial like i’ve got all this
0:05:31 money hooray and then you want to go out and celebrate and it’s like oh no i’ve got this albatross
0:05:36 of these taxes that makes me sad because i feel like someone should have said to you hey the first thing
0:05:41 you need to do is take 30 of that and just set it aside but nobody said that to you nobody said it
0:05:46 but i also think maybe i wouldn’t have listened because i wanted to experience the ecstasy of money
0:05:54 were you somewhat hedonistic yes on what well i took myself out for nice dinners maybe i bought a little
0:05:59 outfit here and there that doesn’t sound hedonistic for me it was it’s so funny because people thought
0:06:05 i was so rich i remember having dinner with a professor of mine from college for my undergraduate
0:06:10 after my first play opened in new york and she’s like you must be doing so well now financially and
0:06:15 i said they paid me seven thousand dollars what was she a professor of she taught literary theory
0:06:19 and literature i would have thought she would understand the economics of theater a little bit
0:06:25 she had not the vaguest idea i saw her recently we had dinner again a couple months ago and she said i
0:06:29 remembered that day really vividly because it was such a shock to my system people don’t understand
0:06:35 that playwrights make literally nothing and just how broken it is and of course now it’s just we’re
0:06:39 going down even a darker black hole which i didn’t even think was possible but of course it always is
0:06:47 during the 10 or 11 year gestation period of stereophonic which is the show that people now
0:06:53 know you for talk about how close you came or how many times you came close to quitting playwriting
0:06:59 what i realized making stereophonic was that i couldn’t give up this is the kind of torture i think
0:07:05 that gets crystallized in the play itself because i think people realize i love this too much and the
0:07:11 thing that i love is killing me and i will never stop loving it that’s why the play rings i think with
0:07:18 the intensity that it has because i was really living it for real i made the play over 10 years i thought it
0:07:26 was never going to get done at some point i mean it’s hilarious in a dark way because it does mirror the
0:07:30 trajectory of the play because the play is about this album that’s like never getting finished and everyone’s going
0:07:37 insane and people are wondering like am i going to make it alive out of this studio to see this record
0:07:42 come out and i was really feeling that and yet that was the thing that kept you in it didn’t make you run
0:07:48 from it it was a bit of a beckett situation you know i think about the end of strindberg’s play i think it’s
0:07:54 a dream play where the character says you want to stay and you want to go and wild horses are tearing you
0:08:00 apart in both directions simultaneously and i really felt those two opposite emotions with equal intensity
0:08:04 i learned how to be quite disciplined during that period
0:08:06 and very very rigorous
0:08:08 and
0:08:13 just put my emotions to the side as much as possible but there were times when i really thought
0:08:17 i was losing my mind i had holes in my clothes and i couldn’t afford anything i mean
0:08:19 it got really really bad for me
0:08:22 and my director daniel walken was actually quite worried about me
0:08:24 even to the point where
0:08:28 when we were in previews at playwrights horizons i made sort of a dark joke
0:08:34 we were up in the roof he was smoking a cigarette and i sort of alluded to the fact that
0:08:37 well if it doesn’t go so great maybe i’ll just you know and i kind of
0:08:41 nodded downward and he just burst into tears because i think he was so worried about me
0:08:46 the relationship you two have along with will butler is i think quite remarkable because you
0:08:50 were collaborators for years and years and years before there was a play yeah
0:08:53 yeah i mean you were a team you formed a band essentially
0:08:58 we just sort of decided that we would have unconditional faith in each other it was some
0:09:03 sort of spiritual contract that we made i don’t know how we made it or why we did it
0:09:08 but we intuitively just knew that we could trust each other and that we were going to be
0:09:14 really decent with each other and that i was going to learn how to be civilized which i
0:09:20 maybe wasn’t prior to this process because i am quite controlling and i am very demanding
0:09:26 daniel sat me down prior to the process and said listen you have a reputation of being very demanding
0:09:30 this is how i need to work can you work this way and i said yeah
0:09:33 just to be clear you drafted these guys into your band
0:09:37 several years before anyone would have ever heard of stereophonic
0:09:43 and they worked for essentially free for years for 10 years so this is will butler who was at the
0:09:50 point still in arcade fire he was in arcade fire this was 2013 he’s so smart he’s so dramaturgical will
0:09:56 he has the mind for theater and that was something i did not know it’s an accident you went to him
0:10:01 because you were able to find a connection yes or you reached out and he said yes i reached out to
0:10:06 arcade fire period i was like i want arcade fire to do it just because you love them i love arcade
0:10:09 fire and i just thought there was something about the anthemic quality of some of the songs
0:10:14 especially in their first album i was like there’s something about the intensity of this and the sort
0:10:20 of fever of some of these songs that i think will rhyme with what i want for this show and i love them
0:10:25 and then they were all busy no no no i can’t do it and will was like well i’ll meet with you
0:10:30 and i just thought i like this guy he’s a bit like peter pan or something i mean he’s kind of
0:10:37 iconoclastic for a rock star he’s a sweet sweet soul he’s goofy and he’s silly and he’s really fun
0:10:43 and he’s very very brainy when we were doing my show he moved to cambridge and got a degree in
0:10:50 public policy from harvard in the middle of recording for arcade fire he’s a unicorn in the world of rock
0:10:56 music and then daniel auken is a working director in new york his father i think was head of the
0:11:02 national theater here in london for a time yeah he was yeah so when you say you know we all made this
0:11:07 contract where we agreed to be good to each other and to collaborate in a certain way i could see why
0:11:14 you would want to do that right you’re the writer and you need them a director and a musician to write
0:11:20 what is a very essential piece of this play but what was in it for them i have no idea i think
0:11:25 daniel you know we went to sundance together they have this theater lab and i developed my first
0:11:30 real play there called the evildoers daniel saw the reading which was quite extraordinary michael
0:11:34 stubert was in it and it was great he got really jazzed about it and thought i want to work with
0:11:40 this guy so we had been talking about doing something together and i remember thinking this is the play for
0:11:43 daniel like i saw it in my mind’s eye and then i just went that’s for daniel
0:11:50 what did your script look like over the years and how much archival stuff is there are there
0:11:55 cartons full of paper versions was it all on a computer i’m really bad at archiving my stuff
0:12:00 because i’m so disorganized what i was doing in the beginning was just taking notes of every single
0:12:07 thing that i could learn about a recording process in the 70s jargon equipment what they would say to
0:12:12 each other what their problems would be then i would riff on it and make dialogue it was a very
0:12:17 batter shot process my assistant now is saying like what’s your process explain to me so i can
0:12:20 help you and i’m like i can’t explain it because i don’t know what i’m doing i’m just following my
0:12:25 intuitions did all the characters already exist when all this is going on no no no they didn’t exist i
0:12:30 didn’t have an engineer for the first part because i didn’t i was just like oh it’s a band they go into
0:12:35 the studio i didn’t know anything and then i said okay i’ll have an engineer and then i showed it to
0:12:40 john kilgore who is this very famous engineer producer who worked for philip glass and steve reich and all these
0:12:45 people and john was amazing and we said could you be our advisor he read through what i had and he said
0:12:50 why is there only one engineer he needs an assistant and so that opened up the dramaturgical thing of
0:12:55 like oh there’s two guys and now it becomes like rosencrantz and guildenstern so then that became the next
0:13:01 draft i developed it in workshop so i do it like 10 or 15 pages at a time 20 pages here and there
0:13:07 i think for people who aren’t accustomed to making things especially over a really long period of time
0:13:12 they show up they buy a ticket they see it and in the case of your play it’s a long play so maybe you
0:13:17 feel like you’re getting money’s worth it’s three hours long but i think it’s not natural to think
0:13:22 about the ingredients or the process you know if you and i were to go to have a really nice dinner
0:13:30 somewhere we don’t stop to think about all the growing and planting harvesting preparing education
0:13:35 that goes into that one meal but it’s years and years and years and years and similarly what you’re
0:13:40 describing now is years and years of minute work that’s gone into this thing that people will show
0:13:46 up and buy a ticket and love it or not love it whatever and then it’s over does that get to you
0:13:51 that people don’t generally think about or understand what it takes to make something like this
0:13:55 well that’s where i wrote the play i heard an interview i think it was about barbara streisand
0:14:01 barbara streisand was in the studio and they were playing these violins and she said one of these it’s
0:14:06 flat and they were like what are you talking about there were like 12 violins and she goes which one play
0:14:13 it you that’s the kind of expertise that when you hear the anecdote you’re like oh my god barbara
0:14:17 streisand doesn’t brag about this hey do you know what i do i have to listen to all these flat
0:14:24 instruments she’s just focused on the work at hand i find there’s such nobility in that for me
0:14:31 that artists often don’t have to display their expertise they just do their work i find that very
0:14:38 beautiful there are romantic relationships among the characters in your play that ebb and flow but
0:14:42 even among those for whom there’s no romantic relationship being in a band is a little bit
0:14:47 like being married to several people simultaneously right i like the idea that you’re getting to
0:14:52 there’s something in there but i don’t understand it the reason i’m asking is that i was in a band and
0:14:59 i quit as we were kind of at the brink we’d gotten a record deal we were in pre-production on our first
0:15:06 record and i decided this was not the life that i wanted we were on arista records it was oh my god
0:15:13 i’d been working toward it for clive davis yeah clive came to cbgb’s to see us play and then he led us out to
0:15:19 his stretch limousine it was very cold he put his silk scarf around my neck oh my god oh my god and
0:15:24 we went up to his office the next day and he had aretha franklin get on the phone with us to tell us
0:15:32 how great oh my what it was but anyway once we got into the making of the record and once i had
0:15:38 exposure to people who were successful i realized it was not the healthy lifestyle for me because it’s
0:15:44 too much fun but the band i deeply loved every individual in that band it’s just a very hard
0:15:50 relationship which is one of many reasons i loved your play i think it’s a dynamic that your play helps
0:15:54 people understand about themselves maybe the thing that i started out with when i was writing the play
0:16:01 was collaboration and working together and being together and functioning as a collective and also
0:16:07 as individuals inside of a collective like that tension how do you do it how do you partner where
0:16:13 are the nightmares because i do have trouble with that i’m much better one-on-one than i am working
0:16:21 inside of a group however ironically with this play with this group i can’t tell you how harmonious it is
0:16:28 it’s very beautiful and very magical and we do fight and sometimes i want to fight more probably
0:16:32 should be fighting more but i just love them so much i don’t want to fight with them i don’t like
0:16:37 conflict i want to be loved and just everything to be nice with everybody but i sometimes push things
0:16:43 into conflict because of that but not gratuitously i don’t think it’s ever gratuitous because i love
0:16:48 harmony and i don’t like to fight with people but then i will sometimes push things one particularly
0:16:54 compelling element of this play to me and i think to many people is peter he ends up being the leader
0:17:02 of the band by merit but it wasn’t a vote it just happened because he was the most let’s say driven and
0:17:10 talented i’m just curious if that dynamic that reality of you know a leader emerging and everyone
0:17:15 is kind of bitchy about his being the leader in the way that he is the leader because he is very
0:17:22 exacting but they also benefit hugely by his being that kind of leader and so he’s in this kind of
0:17:27 difficult situation where he too wants to be loved like you just said he wanted to be invited over for
0:17:34 that chicken dinner does that have a connection to you or anyone in your life i think that’s like
0:17:40 the obverse that’s like the dark night version of me that’s where it could have gone but i think peter
0:17:45 couldn’t have survived and doing theater because theater you can’t control it every night and you
0:17:49 can’t record it and get all the levels exactly right which is sort of what i want to do is that
0:17:54 why you don’t go to the performances then that’s part of it because i am compulsive i literally sometimes
0:17:59 spasm when the actors don’t do something the way i want them so if you’re sitting in the audience you
0:18:05 might shout what are you doing it’s kind of what i’m doing the whole time in my head and and i think i would
0:18:12 just my energy no but it is dark comedy i am compulsive and peter is compulsive i am an
0:18:18 obsessive person and i hear things at a frequency daniel keeps saying my director he just goes you hear
0:18:23 things at a frequency that normal people can’t and i’m like going well that doesn’t help like he thinks
0:18:28 that like oh it’s not a big deal that we don’t do that because you hear it and so specific but no one
0:18:34 else will know all i can do is tell you what i need to hear but i have a really good bedside manner
0:18:41 i can be charming i’ve cultivated this new york jewish persona that i work the room with it’s not just a
0:18:46 persona i actually do have this sort of sense of comedy about myself and my own obsessiveness and my
0:18:52 neuroses and i have a light touch and a kind of weird hovering overview of the absurdity of everything
0:18:59 that we’re doing all the time so that i don’t get so you know annoying about things i try anyway i mean
0:19:03 i did like say to will this song needs a bridge and this song needs that and i want it more intense and
0:19:07 blah blah blah and he’d be trying and at some point will would just be like god damn it and he just
0:19:13 started screaming at me and i was like will what can i do calm down it’s gonna be good what can i do
0:19:21 stereophonic was good it won all those tony awards and sold out night after night in new york
0:19:27 so why did it close after just nine months that’s coming up after the break i’m stephen dubner
0:19:30 and this is freakonomics radio
0:19:45 stereo phonic opened on broadway in april 2024 and it was a runaway hit some hits play on for years
0:19:54 but stereophonic closed in january 2025 after just nine months i asked david adjmi why well we were
0:19:59 kicked out of the house it’s not up to me or the producers we were trying to fight for more time
0:20:04 but the schubert people wanted to put in another show the schubert organization is the biggest
0:20:10 landlord on broadway they own 17 of the 41 theaters they made a promise to another show and
0:20:15 we had maybe the opportunity to move to another theater but then that’s a whole other expense
0:20:20 we just decided let’s just end on a high the good thing about closing when we did was like
0:20:25 we had sold out houses through the entire run but i can imagine that the producers must be saying
0:20:29 there’s so much money we’re leaving on the table yeah i mean we had just
0:20:33 recouped like a couple of weeks before we close and i think that it would have been nice for the
0:20:37 investors and everyone to make a little bit of money from it can you explain that to someone who
0:20:43 doesn’t know the economics of broadway how can one of the biggest hits in a long time only recoup
0:20:48 after eight or nine months and not make money well because there are running costs every week they’re
0:20:52 paying the actors they’re paying the stage fans but it’s a relatively cheap cast and you were able to
0:20:58 charge quite a bit for tickets as it became a hit we were and yet we had to pay back the investors
0:21:02 it was something like a three or four million dollar production so we had to pay all that back
0:21:08 and also pay for the running costs every week i don’t understand exactly like the compass of how
0:21:13 that all works because i kept saying when are we going to recoup i can’t wait and my agents were like
0:21:18 well it’s happening soon we don’t know but also they put in money for advertising and then they put in
0:21:22 money for this and then these campaigns and i don’t know it just all costs money somehow
0:21:27 much more money in new york than here in london though right every producer talks about
0:21:33 the huge spike in costs in new york everything from building sets to advertising to union labor
0:21:38 it’s a unions really in america they’re very hardcore in america and maybe not so much here
0:21:42 they’re definitely not i’m guessing you’re the kind of person who politically aligns with
0:21:48 union i do i do but i do think it might end up being the death of the american theater
0:21:53 it’s so intense the demands of the unions and it’s so expensive to put on shows so then you know
0:21:57 they put on these shows with movie stars and then they charge five hundred dollars eight hundred dollars
0:22:05 for a seat that’s not going to help us build a theater culture in the united states and it’s
0:22:12 heartbreaking for me do you see a way around that a way forward right now i’m feeling very very lost
0:22:17 and you haven’t even spoken about the regional theaters they’re in even worse shape i think
0:22:21 they’re in worse shape i think covid really struck a blow to so many regional theaters and so many
0:22:27 non-profit theaters in america and then now what’s happening with the new priorities of this particular
0:22:32 administration new plays isn’t really something they care about is that why you’re planning to move to
0:22:37 london i don’t know if that’s for public consumption yet i haven’t announced it but i’ve told my friends
0:22:43 they have a special visa it’s called a global talent visa out here and if you are talented enough
0:22:48 that’s a humble title i don’t know what to do i’m not blaming you i know but when i found out about it
0:22:53 i thought well i’m going to avail myself of this if i’m globally talented enough to qualify i’m going to do
0:23:00 it did you decide this before you were over here for stereophonic we were out here for auditions
0:23:04 and i kept telling my music director i really think you should move out here you would love it here
0:23:09 look how great it is here and then i realized i was kind of doing some freudian thing where really i was
0:23:15 saying it to myself and then i went to a party and this woman who’s american she told me about this special
0:23:19 visa that i could get because i was thinking well maybe i could live out here but i don’t know if i could
0:23:24 get a visa she said no no i think you can get one why do you want to move here i’m a little bit
0:23:30 disconcerted by some of the political goings-on in the united states right now but also i just like it
0:23:37 here i think new york has become crazily expensive and such a luxury playground for the rich and tech
0:23:43 people you know i grew up there i’ve seen the city change and change and change i suddenly realized like
0:23:49 maybe i feel a little alien here i was looking for a new apartment i was looking in guanis which is not
0:23:53 necessarily the most you know glam i mean they’re trying to build it up and turn it into tribeca
0:23:58 for those who don’t know just describe guanis most famous for its toxic canal well they have the toxic
0:24:04 canal and so you probably get cancer and everything but it can be nice i remember growing up there’s
0:24:09 park slope and then there’s guanis in between and then there’s carol gardens if there was a party at
0:24:13 park slope but then we wanted to go to carol gardens we just run through guanis because we were so
0:24:18 petrified because there was just nothing there except for this toxic canal and maybe muggers but
0:24:22 then they said oh let’s build this up and turn it into a playground for the rich so that’s where
0:24:26 you’re looking i was looking and i thought i’d like to have an office i’ll get a two-bedroom
0:24:32 and they were so expensive i was like do i really want to spend this kind of money and live here
0:24:37 i don’t know that i do so when i came out to london i just thought actually it’s a little bit less
0:24:43 expensive here and i kind of like it and maybe i’m ready for something new so so let’s talk if you
0:24:49 don’t mind about the state of theater in general let’s say new york versus london no you make a sad
0:24:54 face the ft ran a piece i don’t know how much you might agree with it or disagree with it but it said
0:25:02 that the west end has maybe surprisingly become a better place to do good theatrical work it’s
0:25:08 definitely cheaper to produce here than it is on broadway and that broadway has become as we all
0:25:16 know the redoubt of celebrity casting and or sitcom ish shows etc etc so in that way stereophonic stood
0:25:23 out have you sensed any significant ways in which writing for the stage in england is significantly
0:25:28 different than writing for the states and is that part of why you want to be here it’s not actually a
0:25:34 factor in my coming here no i did a show at the rsc about 20 years ago that was like one of my first
0:25:38 ever production royal shakespeare at the royal shakespeare company in stratford it came to london
0:25:43 as well as let’s just like a one person show that the royal court commission when i was like a graduate
0:25:49 student and that was really fun what i’ve noticed just in general is that it’s a very humane place in
0:25:55 a lot of ways the funding is not what it was let’s get that straight right now in england anywhere the
0:26:01 arts are underfunded it’s bad everywhere although here there’s much more from the state much much more
0:26:05 and i’m sure that’s going to be more pronounced once we lose you know our national endowment of the
0:26:11 arts which will probably happen very soon in america so that’s absolutely true i think there’s a theater
0:26:17 culture here that does not exist in america in general there’s a certain kind of value placed on
0:26:24 the arts in england and that is the thing about this tradition right we’re part of a history this is part
0:26:28 of how we do things it’s very codified and there’s constricting elements of that and then there’s very
0:26:34 wonderful elements to it so you really do feel that the theater going is part of our culture and
0:26:39 that’s why like you know in the royal court they have seats in the bleachers for like 10 pence so
0:26:44 everyone can come because it’s part of the democracy that is part of the democracy that’s how the greeks
0:26:51 thought of it as well i thought of you and this play the other day we were up in chester england it’s an old
0:26:58 roman city they’ve still got intact roman walls and there’s a thousand year old cathedral and while we were
0:27:03 there we went to the races the oldest horse racing track in the world is there it’s almost 500 years old
0:27:11 it’s fun and it’s also weirdly identical to what it must have been almost 500 years ago you’ve got animals
0:27:17 you’ve got people on them and other than like the hats that the ladies wear they call fascinators them
0:27:22 being made of things that i’m sure materials that didn’t exist 500 years ago otherwise it’s pretty
0:27:28 much the same i was thinking that that’s a tradition that carries on maybe it’s because it’s a form of
0:27:33 entertainment where you can also bet but it’s social right people get together in the sunshine you drink
0:27:37 and i was thinking about well theater you know the same time that chester was happening like
0:27:42 shakespeare probably went to the chester race course at some point right and i’m just thinking
0:27:46 about the trajectories of these two things in some ways are very similar they’re analog things that are
0:27:53 events but the theater sadly to me and i gather to you as what would seem to be a different trajectory
0:28:01 going forward what do you think is lost for humankind oh my god listen i’m a playwright so clearly i like
0:28:06 it i think there are a lot of bad plays i think it’s a very hard medium i think some of the curators
0:28:11 are a little bit boring but i think in terms of people getting together in a shared space and having
0:28:18 a collective experience it can be breathtakingly beautiful and important and you know again i go
0:28:24 back to the earliest democracies i mean it was a democratic requirement to go to the theater
0:28:31 in ancient greece not for women because they weren’t considered people or slaves but still okay there was
0:28:37 this idea that theater and democracy they go together and the theater was often about the
0:28:41 ideas of the day it wasn’t pure entertainment we should say yes yeah there were ideas of the day but
0:28:46 then it was also who knows people were stabbing each other and killing the sheep and going crazy i guess
0:28:52 those are the ideas of the day we’re all going mad but you know there was a kind of psychic penetration
0:29:01 that those plays engaged there was a shadow side of human behavior and what it meant to be part of
0:29:08 a social contract and also to be a leader of some kind or to be disenfranchised those are the plays
0:29:15 that really move and interest me sometimes we go into phases of history where boulevard plays i guess
0:29:20 they’re called that are just lovely and entertaining and kind of throw away but fine in the moment
0:29:26 become more the order of the day and then i think there are moments in history where
0:29:34 the work can get more difficult speaking of work that can be difficult the street that we’re on
0:29:39 today old compton in soho central london do you happen to know anything about who lived on the street
0:29:44 in the past gay people i’m guessing that’s all i know it’s like a gay area yeah i’m guessing that’s
0:29:51 true who lived here well many people but the most noteworthy when i looked up was wagner richard
0:29:57 wagner lived here oh my god i asked my favorite ai search engine what wagner and david ajmi have in
0:30:02 common oh no we’re both control freaks didn’t give me that it may not know you well enough yet
0:30:09 says david ajmi and richard wagner share several notable commonalities rooted in their contributions to the
0:30:14 performing arts you like it so far this is crazy particularly in how they both innovated within
0:30:21 their respective mediums okay so this is legit ready therefore pioneering theatrical storytelling
0:30:26 ricard wagner as a composer and libretticist to revolutionize opera with his concept of
0:30:32 that word i can never say the sum constant yeah i love that and david ajmi as a contemporary playwright
0:30:36 known for pushing the boundaries of dramatic form and content i don’t know what you call the face
0:30:40 you just made it’s all right it’s like a jewish it’s like my larry david okay if you say so
0:30:48 number two focus on music as central to their work okay not a bad point i mean he was a musician but um
0:30:54 okay number three exploration of artistic process and creative tension wagner’s works often depict
0:31:01 artists gods and mortals struggling with creation ambition and interpersonal conflict while ajmi’s
0:31:08 stereophonic similarly dramatizes the intense often fraught dynamics and number four influence and
0:31:14 controversy both have attracted controversy wagner for his personal views and the revolutionary nature
0:31:21 of his art ajmi for legal disputes over the sources and inspirations for plays including stereophonic
0:31:26 and its alleged parallels to fleetwood mac’s history so all right that’s what the ai machine has to say
0:31:31 about you and wagner what do you think no comment can you give me some kind of response to this
0:31:38 the lawsuit that the ai brings up this was a fleetwood mac adjacent lawsuit there was a settlement i
0:31:44 understand say what you can or will i can’t say anything you know i’m not allowed we settled it i’m so
0:31:50 glad we settled it the play did not have to change as a result of the lawsuit i assume or am i wrong no
0:31:55 was there serious concern at some point that you might have to either shut down the show or rewrite parts
0:32:02 well we couldn’t do anything with the lawsuit hanging over us we wouldn’t have been able to go to london or do a tour or anything like that
0:32:08 it was too fraught i know the settlement amount is not made public as it never is in these cases
0:32:15 but i would assume that might have been a contribution to why it took a little while to recoup yeah a chunk must have gone there
0:32:17 i mean i don’t think i’m allowed to say but no
0:32:24 the case had been brought by ken calais a producer and engineer who worked on fleetwood mac’s record
0:32:31 rumors and who wrote a memoir called making rumors there are as i mentioned earlier a lot of fleetwood
0:32:37 mac parallels in stereophonic from the makeup of the band itself to the way that the peter character
0:32:42 like lindsey buckingham in real life winds up taking over the project there’s also the fact that both
0:32:48 peter and lindsey have a brother who’s an olympic swimmer but now that the lawsuit has been cleared
0:32:55 stereophonic is playing in london with sold out houses and rave reviews and there will be a u.s tour
0:33:00 later this year i’m stephen dubner this is freakonomics radio we’ll be right back
0:33:13 so what’s different about the london production of stereophonic from the new york production
0:33:19 the cast is three of them came from new york and they all had the option to come but the rest of
0:33:23 them said no we don’t want to come okay so we recast it all did have the option they all had the option
0:33:31 listen it’s a very very draining play to do they were just like we’ve done it we came out in january
0:33:37 and we recast the four other roles and it was very very hard because it’s not just about getting
0:33:42 people playing instruments and who are good actors they have to feel a certain way i mean i really cast
0:33:48 for the quality first and then it’s like okay how can you act and can you play instruments what do you
0:33:53 mean cats for quality first i wanted people who felt like artists and that they were a little bit weird
0:34:00 i didn’t want people that felt like actors a lot of actors are really good actors but they feel like actors
0:34:07 acting i didn’t want that for this show and i really wanted to give the audience a very easy ramp into
0:34:13 the kind of naturalism that we’re asking in the play and we found these actors but there were like one or two
0:34:20 like okay you could play that role you’re the only one you could do it all of england kind of but that’s
0:34:21 what happened in america too
0:34:31 several cast members of stereophonic in new york weren’t really musicians tom pasinka who played the
0:34:35 peter character it told me that before he started training for rehearsals he only played what he called
0:34:42 garbage guitar but some of the london cast members are experienced musicians at playwrights horizons it was
0:34:45 like you know what’s that movie where they were getting the ship up the hill
0:34:51 fitz carraldo that’s what that was it was a little bit like oh my god this is going to kill me whereas
0:34:55 you know three days in they were playing all the songs and it sounded great they’re musicians they can
0:35:02 do this with zero disparagement toward american cast would it have been a different experience had you cast
0:35:08 actors who were also musicians for the american version i’m sure it would have been different would it have
0:35:13 been better not necessarily because so much of the charm and the deliciousness of that experience
0:35:20 was the meta story of can we make ourselves a band can we do this can we play instruments
0:35:28 it was wild seeing them step up to that plate for will brill to learn how to play bass and for tom to
0:35:40 learn the riff for masquerade they were so petrified but inside of that fear was a kind of laser focus like
0:35:47 i’m in it to win it and it brought out something very primal and thrilling that made its way into the
0:35:51 performance so i actually think it helped us in a certain way i understand there’s a new song
0:35:58 for the london production yeah it’s not in the production in the play diana speaks about this song
0:36:04 which is from the first album and it’s the song that starts creeping back up the charts and then
0:36:10 propels their album into success so will said i’m gonna write that song and then he said i’m gonna give
0:36:16 the cast something to do that’s their own to let the british cast shine for themselves and they kill it
0:36:31 i read that brad pitt’s film production company has acquired rights to stereophonic true i don’t know
0:36:37 if they acquired the rights they’re just my producers for the film which i’m writing right now oh so you’re
0:36:42 writing the film i’m writing the film i just decided not to sell it to a studio quite yet because i’d like
0:36:48 to take my time and get it right and not have to take notes part of the problem is like okay you like
0:36:54 the play now what do you imagine the hollywood version of it to be i don’t even know what it is
0:36:59 yet i have to redo the whole thing in my mind is this going to take another 10 years roughly i hope to
0:37:06 god not i mean i am working on it right now and i can’t rush it but i don’t want to do a bad movie
0:37:12 i really want it to have the integrity that the play had but it can’t be a play can you give a couple
0:37:17 ideas just of how the film would be different from the play i can’t talk too much about the film
0:37:22 because i don’t want to jinx it there are talky speeches that will never be in this film i love
0:37:27 them and they’re central to the play and they can’t have anything to do with it there’s a character who
0:37:33 is alluded to this receptionist who is an aspiring singer model person who sort of works her way through
0:37:39 the band who becomes a character in the film i love writing her it’s a big thing in the play this
0:37:44 demarcation between public and private those spaces are quite collapsed in the play everything becomes
0:37:49 public because they’re just in the studio and there’s no escape it’s inspiring to me that you’re
0:37:54 so confident about this because it’s a different kind of writing it’s totally different and you have
0:37:59 to embrace it but i don’t have an ego about it all so i think that’s where playwrights get in trouble
0:38:05 like oh my wonderful play it’s like no no i’ve got to kill it’s like oedipus kill the play marry the movie
0:38:10 you know what i mean that’s how i’m approaching it i can’t deify this play this play is its own
0:38:15 thing and there’s things that i’m going to keep because they’re going to work in the movie but i
0:38:19 have to figure out the proportions and stuff it’s just different what about other plays what are you
0:38:26 working on i’m doing a play for the public theater that i can’t really talk about it’s a two-part play
0:38:32 is it contemporary it is but it also spans something like 50 years it’s very different
0:38:39 from stereophonic it couldn’t be more different and i can’t talk about it i can’t i’m gonna get in
0:38:46 trouble does it engage more with the outside world than stereophonic does whether that’s political
0:38:53 engagement or whatnot yeah it does but not because i felt an obligation to i think that’s where artists
0:38:58 get into trouble when they’re being pointed oh let me write about the issue of the day because it’s
0:39:03 very important and i need to speak to it i never do that i don’t like those kind of plays and yet
0:39:10 i’ve written one despite the fact that i dislike it it came from a place of obsession and not
0:39:16 understanding what i was examining that’s when i trust myself when i’m coming from a place of rational
0:39:22 inquiry that’s when i know i’m on the wrong track i’ve heard you talk about this notion of an event
0:39:29 a thing that happens in a given place in time and that there’s less and less appreciation of that and
0:39:34 i will say as a human that worries me a little bit because we’ve lived the entirety of our civilization
0:39:43 with that notion so i don’t know open thread on digital versus analog i just think it’s very
0:39:49 troubling that it was so controversial that i had a play that was three hours it was such an object of
0:39:57 controversy that people couldn’t bear to have the attention span to sit with a play like that it was
0:40:01 so daunting for them you sure your play was really singled out it’s just that you paid more attention
0:40:06 because it was your play maybe i was paying more attention i think that feels to me more like a
0:40:13 symptom of a kind of tiktokification of people’s attention span and that worries me that people don’t
0:40:22 know what it is to really pay attention and to devote sustained attention to a work of art on the other hand
0:40:27 the way you just described it there no offense makes it sound a little bit like homework whereas the point
0:40:32 of a piece of theater is that you become so immersed that you kind of are holding your breath
0:40:38 everard alby once said to me that’s a good sentence however it ends i know right he once said entertainment
0:40:47 isn’t just about you being entertained it’s about what you are willing to entertain i think there is a
0:40:54 fine line between edification you might call it homework and a certain kind of devotion and attention
0:41:01 that really does pay dividends and pay rewards but that it’s not always instant gratification
0:41:08 and there’s something about that ethos i guess that’s sort of how i was raised a little bit when
0:41:14 i read hegel and kant in college i wasn’t going oh my god this is so riveting except ultimately it was
0:41:21 riveting to me i assume that this play has brought you already and will bring more financial security that
0:41:29 is a little bit surprising and unusual to you yes yes up to a point it’s not like i’m set for life
0:41:37 the money has been unbelievably helpful for me and has kind of healed me poverty is just no fun feeling
0:41:41 like you’re constantly trying to figure out how am i going to pay my rent next month how am i going
0:41:46 to pay my rent i have three months of rent i can pay okay now what about this that’s a drag and that
0:41:53 has been alleviated and i’m very grateful for that talking today you seem pretty normal you seem like
0:41:59 you’ve i’m not adjusted no no you’re just i’m faking it because i know you’re very shy i am shy is that
0:42:05 where the sunglasses came from the sunglasses came from when i was at playwrights horizons and i was
0:42:11 starting to get extremely anxious about having to do press not even press it started on the first
0:42:17 rehearsal something happened to me maybe i’m getting more neurotic as i get older but i feel really naked
0:42:26 and i feel very nervous and shy and embarrassed i feel so flayed more than other plays yeah why do you
0:42:33 think it was for this show i think this is the most nakedly honest thing that i’ve ever written even
0:42:40 though from the outside there’s nothing or anyone in the play that remotely resembles david adjmi
0:42:46 right but there were times in auditions actors were reading scenes over and over that i thought i was
0:42:50 going to have a nervous breakdown because i couldn’t keep hearing the lines anymore i was like i can’t
0:42:58 handle this play okay so you write this play it does as well as one could possibly wish you win the
0:43:03 awards you’re selling out all kinds of real rock stars are coming to see the play people like jeff
0:43:10 bezos are coming to see it how did this whole experience change your self-image your self-identity
0:43:16 i don’t really think it has i just think i have so much to prove that’s how i look at it it’s like i
0:43:24 have so much to prove and i have so much to myself and to the world do you wish you were able to kind
0:43:30 i don’t want to say normalize more but respond in the way that most people might think you would
0:43:36 respond or are you very satisfied having the same gestalt you’ve got i feel like dolly parton is like
0:43:43 a good north star she’s totally who she is she’s self-possessed she respects herself she’s an artist
0:43:48 and that’s the end of it that’s the end of the conversation and now it’s like let’s get to work
0:43:55 and be humane and be a good citizen that’s my goal i will say this i hope theater continues to exist and
0:44:02 thrive if only so that future people who are as obsessive and compulsive will have a productive
0:44:08 thing to do with their lives those people are going to find their way into this no matter what because
0:44:15 when you are really driven to do this and this is your life you are going to do it no matter what
0:44:19 you will lay down whatever you need to lay down to make sure that it happens i feel like that’s what
0:44:25 i learned about myself like this is what i have to do i know it there’s no other life for me i’m going
0:44:34 to do this the end that again was david ajmi in a london recording studio on the street where
0:44:40 wagner used to live i’d like to thank ajmi for the conversation and i’d like to thank you as always
0:44:46 for listening please let us know what you think our email is radio at freakonomics.com coming up next
0:44:53 time on the show we head back to the real world at one point early on after the russian invasion of
0:44:58 ukraine before i could actually get into ukraine i decided that i would meet my ukrainian counterpart
0:45:03 dmitry kuleba on the border between poland and ukraine and technically set foot into ukraine
0:45:10 i talked to former secretary of state tony blinken on the fragility of democracy the care
0:45:18 and feeding of autocrats and how diplomats like him do what they do that’s next week until then take
0:45:23 care of yourself and if you can someone else too freakonomics radio is produced by stitcher and
0:45:29 renbud radio you can find our entire archive on any podcast app also at freakonomics.com
0:45:35 where we publish transcripts and show notes this episode was produced by alina kullman with help
0:45:41 from zach lapinski it was mixed by eleanor osborne with help from jeremy johnston the freakonomics radio
0:45:47 network staff also includes augusta chapman dalvin abuaji ellen frankman elsa hernandez jasmine
0:45:53 clinger gabriel roth greg rippon morgan levy sarah lily and teo jacobs our theme song
0:45:57 is mr fortune by the hitchhikers and our composer is luis guerra
0:46:05 it’s not like we’re completely extirpated good vocabulary you sir oh thank you thank you
0:46:13 the freakonomics radio network the hidden side of everything
0:46:18 stitcher

0:00:02 There’s a lot nobody tells you about running a small business,
0:00:08 like the pricing, the marketing, the budgeting, the accidents,
0:00:13 the panicking, and the things, and the things, and the non-stop things.
0:00:17 But having the right insurance can help protect you from many things.
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0:00:32 Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G.
0:00:34 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions
0:00:37 about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
0:00:40 If you’d like to submit a question for next time,
0:00:43 you can send a voice recording to officehoursofproptimedia.com.
0:00:46 Again, that’s officehoursofproptimedia.com.
0:00:49 Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit,
0:00:52 and we just might feature it in our next episode.
0:00:58 The first question comes from Star Hardgrove on Reddit.
0:00:59 They say,
0:01:04 Student loan debt in the U.S. has ballooned to $1.8 trillion,
0:01:07 and I personally carry $145,000 of that burden.
0:01:12 Estimates suggest that it would take anywhere from $50 billion to $680 billion a year
0:01:13 to make public college free for all.
0:01:17 What’s your honest prediction for the future of student loan debt in this country
0:01:19 for those of us earning a moderate salary?
0:01:22 Is there a smart, realistic way out of this hole?
0:01:25 Okay, I think a lot of people are dealing with this.
0:01:28 The Trump administration resumed collections in May of this year.
0:01:31 According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,
0:01:32 in the first three months of 2025,
0:01:36 2.2 million student loan recipients saw their credit scores drop by 100 points,
0:01:40 and an additional 1 million had drops of 150 points or more.
0:01:43 Delinquencies are spiking as of March 2025.
0:01:47 One in four people with student loans were over 90 days late in payments.
0:01:50 Okay, so I may not have the answer you want here,
0:01:54 and I find there’s a lot of populism around student debt and let’s cancel it,
0:01:56 or a lot of empathy, which I understand.
0:02:02 I think the president’s plan to reduce substantially student debt,
0:02:04 I think it was going to cost $600, $700 billion.
0:02:05 I thought that was bad policy.
0:02:10 I don’t think you can offer that kind of unilateral executive action
0:02:14 that’s going to cost that much money without it being an investment, not a bailout.
0:02:17 This was a bailout, and it was a bailout of the third of America
0:02:22 that was fortunate enough to go to college being paid for by not only them,
0:02:25 but the two-thirds that didn’t have the opportunity to go to college.
0:02:29 So I think it creates a situation where there’s moral hazard,
0:02:34 and that is right now young people don’t feel as if they need to pay back their student loan debts,
0:02:38 and I wonder if it means they think they might not have to pay back their credit card debt
0:02:39 because they signed this paperwork,
0:02:43 and basically for three or four years now they haven’t had to pay it back.
0:02:44 So what to do?
0:02:48 In some, I think that student loan collection should begin again,
0:02:51 and I think the real culprit here is universities
0:02:56 where some nice woman in a pantsuit with a big university logo over her head saying
0:03:02 you should always invest in yourself is willing to issue paperwork on cheap credit and student loans
0:03:06 such that she can cash your $72,000 tuition check to NYU
0:03:09 and give you a philosophy degree at the end of four years
0:03:13 that you can’t get a job that helps pay back your student loans.
0:03:15 And NYU is actually one of the better places
0:03:17 because the majority of people who come out of NYU can find a job
0:03:18 where they can manage their student loan debt.
0:03:22 And the vast majority of people can manage their student loan debt.
0:03:24 I think the average payment is $200 or $220.
0:03:27 So what do we do moving forward?
0:03:30 One, if you were going to spend that kind of money, it would need to be an investment.
0:03:34 And I think the investment should have been something along the following.
0:03:37 Say to our five or 700 biggest public universities,
0:03:43 which educate two thirds of our students will give you a size adjusted a billion dollars.
0:03:47 So UCLA gets $5 billion, Cal State Northridge gets $200 million and say,
0:03:50 all right, in exchange for this grant, you’re going to do three things.
0:03:54 One, you’re going to reduce tuition 2% a year through scale.
0:03:59 You’re going to expand your freshman class 3% a year through use of technology.
0:04:05 And you’re going to offer 20% of your certificates are going to be in non-traditional degrees,
0:04:11 nursing, specialty construction, cybersecurity, because there’s a lot of jobs in the real economy
0:04:13 that don’t require a four-year liberal arts degree.
0:04:16 And there’s a lot of people, young people, especially young men,
0:04:20 who don’t have the inclination, the money, or the desire to go get a traditional liberal arts
0:04:21 college education for four years.
0:04:22 Where does that get us?
0:04:24 That means on an inflation-adjusted basis in 10 years,
0:04:28 we double the number of freshman seats at colleges, still think it’s a fantastic on-ramp
0:04:29 to the middle class.
0:04:33 We reduce costs on an inflation-adjusted basis, we cut them in half.
0:04:39 And we have more formal on-ramps into the middle class using the infrastructure of our great public
0:04:40 universities.
0:04:45 This is a forward-leaning investment that helps all youth and takes us back to where we were
0:04:48 in the 90s in terms of cost and admission rates.
0:04:54 My colleagues have become drunk on the self-aggrandizement and exclusivity and rejectionist culture.
0:04:58 of artificially creating scarcity around freshman seats.
0:04:59 It is immoral.
0:05:03 It’s tantamount to the head of a homeless shelter bragging that he or she turned away 90% of the
0:05:07 people last night by saying we have an admissions rate of 10%.
0:05:09 Now, there’s some losers here.
0:05:15 There’s some people who, in my opinion, were sold a bill of goods around taking on too much
0:05:15 student debt.
0:05:18 But look, I’m a bit of a hard-ass here.
0:05:19 I think it sucks to be a grown-up.
0:05:20 You took on the debt.
0:05:21 You owe it.
0:05:22 You need to pay it back.
0:05:26 Programs to help you work it down for certain industries.
0:05:29 Absolutely dischargeable in bankruptcy.
0:05:34 And schools need to be on the hook such that they stop loaning money to people who they know
0:05:36 will have a difficult time paying it back.
0:05:39 Very much appreciate the question.
0:05:42 It’s a difficult and nuanced problem.
0:05:46 Our second question comes from BitterSample7760 on Reddit.
0:05:53 They ask, hey, Scott, how do you go about not comparing yourself to others as a young male
0:05:54 in your 20s?
0:05:58 Look, I was very insecure.
0:06:03 I think I was more secure than most 20-something-year-old males, and I was highly insecure.
0:06:11 I struggled with my professional success, even though I had registered more than most people.
0:06:16 I really wanted to be perceived as professionally successful and was constantly insecure about
0:06:16 that.
0:06:20 I was very insecure about my economic background.
0:06:23 I was raised, I was sort of upper-lower middle class, single mother.
0:06:28 I remember someone, this is probably too much information, someone complimented me on my teeth.
0:06:29 I have nice teeth.
0:06:35 I have probably spent $100,000 or $150,000 on my teeth.
0:06:37 I grew up with really bad teeth.
0:06:38 My parents are British.
0:06:40 Dental care was not a big priority.
0:06:44 While my friends were getting braces, it wasn’t even a conversation in my household.
0:06:47 My mom couldn’t afford braces, and my mom had bad teeth, and my dad had bad teeth.
0:06:48 I just didn’t even notice.
0:06:52 And I literally looked, I wasn’t a freak show, but I had bad teeth.
0:06:57 And it was always for me a constant reminder, when I looked in the mirror and then I smiled,
0:07:02 that I wasn’t worthy, that I came from a lower-income background.
0:07:04 And it made me feel very insecure.
0:07:06 And so when I was in graduate school, I got braces.
0:07:08 That’s fun, to be in grad school and have braces.
0:07:09 That was a real good wrap.
0:07:13 And then I still didn’t like my teeth, so I got veneers.
0:07:19 I have spent so much time and money on my teeth because I’m very insecure about my teeth
0:07:21 and what it says about my economic status.
0:07:25 I also had body dysmorphia when I was in my 20s.
0:07:28 I grew up very skinny, painfully skinny.
0:07:29 I had bad acne.
0:07:35 And when I joined crew at UCLA and I put on a bunch of weight, all of a sudden I started
0:07:36 getting attention from women.
0:07:39 My skin cleared up thanks to this wonder drug called Accutane.
0:07:46 And for the first time in my life, it wasn’t just my humor that got me social capital.
0:07:50 And that was such an unlock for me that for the rest of my life, I’ve always conflated
0:07:55 being bigger or having some muscle with really good things happening to me.
0:07:59 So when I look in the mirror, and I’m 6’2″, 190, when I look in the mirror, I see someone
0:08:00 who’s emaciated.
0:08:01 I have body dysmorphia.
0:08:06 So, and by the way, I talk about this transparently because I don’t think I’m that fucked up.
0:08:09 I think all of us have this shit that we deal with.
0:08:11 And how did I deal with it?
0:08:12 I worked on it.
0:08:14 One, I talked about it.
0:08:15 I understood it.
0:08:18 I understood there is something called body dysmorphia.
0:08:23 I understood the link between feeling bad about my teeth and economic insecurity.
0:08:29 And the moment you sort of understand something and feel like you can address it, either by
0:08:34 getting braces or understanding it’s normal or developing other skills or feeling bad about
0:08:36 your body so you start working out.
0:08:41 You know, my means of trying not to compare myself to people was, yeah, I think over time
0:08:44 maturity and people who love you will help you get past that.
0:08:48 But my way of addressing it was to just try and be a better version of me, to work out,
0:08:51 to be more economically successful.
0:08:56 One of my unlocks as I’ve gotten older, and I think this is hard for people in their 20s,
0:09:02 but one of my biggest unlocks around comparing myself to others and being disappointed, I’m
0:09:03 worried about being shamed by people.
0:09:09 I hate being wrong or saying something stupid and being called out or not being liked.
0:09:13 And as I’ve gotten older, I’m much less sensitive to it for the following reason.
0:09:15 I’m going to be dead soon, and so are you.
0:09:20 And that, when you’re in your 20s, for good reason, you can’t wrap your head around your
0:09:21 mortality.
0:09:24 You literally don’t believe you or anyone in your life is going to die.
0:09:29 And the first time that you start to believe that, in fact, is a reality is when you lose
0:09:29 a parent.
0:09:34 That was sort of an awakening for me, the brutality and finality of that.
0:09:38 And also, as I’ve gotten older and have lost a couple of close friends, I am now squarely
0:09:40 in touch with the finite nature of life.
0:09:45 I’m an atheist, I believe at some point I’ll look into my kid’s eyes and know our relationship
0:09:46 is coming to an end.
0:09:52 But it’s a huge unlock, because if you can establish a sense of the finite nature of life in your
0:09:58 20s, what you realize is that as embarrassed as you are about your teeth or not being a size
0:10:03 two or not having the professional success of your friends, you’re mostly embarrassed.
0:10:06 You might be disappointed a little bit in yourself because you need to make a certain amount of
0:10:10 money, but most of the shame comes from your perception of other people’s perception of you.
0:10:15 And what has really helped me, I went to dinner last night with a bunch of impressive people,
0:10:17 and I remember thinking, the guy next to me, I really wanted to like me, and I could just
0:10:18 tell he just didn’t like me.
0:10:23 And that would have rattled my world 20 years ago.
0:10:27 And now it’s sort of like, he’s going to be dead soon and so am I.
0:10:30 And it just doesn’t, I mean, it’s meaningful, but it’s not profound.
0:10:35 And if there’s anything I would want to give someone in their 20s is a sense of their mortality
0:10:38 responsibility and just how fast it’s going to go.
0:10:42 And you’re going to realize like, do your best, work hard, work out, try and look good.
0:10:47 I think it’s important to be mindful of your dress and your aesthetics and feeling strong
0:10:53 and wanting to look good naked and wanting to dress well and wanting to be smart and wanting
0:10:54 to make money.
0:10:59 I think those are wonderful things to aspire to, but also a recognition that the people you’re
0:11:02 doing this for are going to be dead soon.
0:11:08 And it really does in three, in 30, 40 years, none of them are going to be around or three
0:11:09 generations.
0:11:10 No one’s going to remember them.
0:11:11 No one’s going to remember you.
0:11:13 So this is how you win.
0:11:19 The best means of achieving self-esteem, the best means of revenge, if you feel people have
0:11:22 wronged you, is to just live a fucking amazing life.
0:11:27 And that is to try and express your emotions with abandon, to try and be nice to yourself, to
0:11:32 forgive yourself, to appreciate the good things you have going for you, to tell people how
0:11:37 much they mean to, to embrace shit, to say yes, to go out, to laugh out loud, to enjoy
0:11:41 friendship, to tell your friends how much you’re enjoying their friendship, to tell your parents
0:11:42 how much you love them.
0:11:46 And also just let the other shit just go away.
0:11:47 Because guess what?
0:11:48 Guess what?
0:11:53 Anyone you’re worried about, what they think of you, anyone who doesn’t return your affection,
0:11:58 your romantic interest, any business that fires you, any investment that goes wrong, guess
0:11:58 what?
0:12:00 They’re all going to be dead or meaningless.
0:12:03 So why not just enjoy it?
0:12:06 Why not just look at the glasses half full?
0:12:07 Do your best.
0:12:08 Wake up every morning.
0:12:08 Create a list.
0:12:10 Make progress.
0:12:14 Success is a small set of disciplined actions every day.
0:12:16 But for God’s sakes, forgive yourself.
0:12:20 At the end of your life, at the end of your life, you’re going to look back and think in
0:12:23 your 20s, you know, I was better looking than I gave myself credit for.
0:12:27 I was trying harder than I gave myself credit for.
0:12:30 I was more successful than I gave myself credit for.
0:12:33 And you’re not going to be upset about the things that happened to you in your 20s.
0:12:36 You’re going to be upset at how hard you were on yourself.
0:12:38 Forgive yourself.
0:12:41 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:13:41 card recommendations, and a ton of resources to help you scale your business like a boss.
0:13:44 SoFi, now helping you get your business right.
0:13:49 Visit SoFi.com slash PropGPod and see your options in minutes.
0:13:52 It’s Today Explained.
0:13:54 What’s going on, my boys and in some cases, gals?
0:13:57 Recently, one of you emailed us with this request.
0:13:58 You’ve got mail.
0:13:59 Hello.
0:14:04 I’m an avid listener, and I strongly believe you should cover the story of Curtis Yarvin.
0:14:09 It’s important to explore who he is and how he has influenced the MAGA and the tech bros
0:14:09 movement.
0:14:16 Curtis Yarvin is a very online far-right philosopher whose ideas include the fascinating, the esoteric,
0:14:19 the absurd, the racist, and so on.
0:14:23 Six months into the Trump administration, there’s evidence that he is influencing the MAGA movement
0:14:25 and even President Trump.
0:14:25 J.D.
0:14:27 Vance knows him and likes him.
0:14:30 Elon consulted him about this third-party idea.
0:14:36 Yarvin can take some credit for inspiring Doge, and as you’ll hear ahead, one of Trump’s most
0:14:42 controversial, doesn’t even begin to cover it, ideas may have come from Yarvin or someone
0:14:43 who reads his substack.
0:14:46 I can almost guarantee you that Trump does not.
0:14:47 Everything’s computer.
0:14:49 Today Explained, weekday afternoons.
0:14:58 Hey, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, a show about media and tech and what happens
0:14:59 when they collide.
0:15:05 And this may be hard to remember, but not very long ago, magazines were a really big deal.
0:15:10 And the most important magazines were owned by Condé Nast, the glitzy publishing empire
0:15:13 that’s the focus of a new book by New York Times reporter Michael Grinbaum.
0:15:19 The way Condé Nast elevated its editors, the way they paid for their mortgages so they
0:15:24 could live in beautiful homes, there was a logic to it, which was that Condé Nast itself
0:15:28 became seen as this kind of enchanted land.
0:15:33 You can hear the rest of our chat on Channels, wherever you listen to your favorite media podcast.
0:15:39 Welcome back.
0:15:42 On to our final question from CookingWithFire2030 on Reddit.
0:15:44 God, I love these titles.
0:15:50 What would it take to change your mind on a fundamental idea you have when presented with
0:15:52 information that contradicts the old data?
0:15:55 How do you balance between recency bias and traditionalism?
0:15:57 I’ve tried to get better at this.
0:16:03 If I find, when I go into conversations with people, I just did a podcast called Lost Boys
0:16:08 with Anthony Scaramucci and he had a friend of his, I forget her name.
0:16:09 She was, oh, I know she was a real housewife.
0:16:13 That’s our recruiting pool now for podcasts as we bring on real housewives.
0:16:17 Anyways, we were talking about men and women and she was saying the patriarchy has hurt everybody
0:16:19 and she and I just have a different view on this.
0:16:28 But when I do go into these situations, I do try and listen and I find that the key, one of
0:16:33 the keys are things are zeitgeist or themes I want to promote moving forward in my life
0:16:36 is the restoration and refurbishment of alliances.
0:16:42 And I think a good way to establish common ground is to acknowledge good points on the other side.
0:16:46 And even I’ll even say sometimes in a podcast, like your takes better than mine.
0:16:50 You’ve changed my mind or you’ve influenced the way I look at this.
0:16:57 And I also think it’s important that we do have something resembling a truth that Jim Barksdale,
0:17:02 the CEO of AT&T, and then went on to be the CEO of Netscape, said, if we’re going with opinions,
0:17:03 let’s go with mine.
0:17:05 If we have data, let’s look at the data.
0:17:08 One of the things that worries me about our society is the intersection between our perceptions
0:17:10 and information.
0:17:13 And that is none of us are willing to acknowledge when actual data comes in.
0:17:17 The Congressional Budget Office is saying that the big, beautiful bill will add three and
0:17:19 a half trillion dollars to the deficit.
0:17:19 And what happens?
0:17:26 The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, comes out and says, oh, no, that’s traditional
0:17:27 Washington insider scoring.
0:17:32 So let’s shitpost the experts and diminish the government of which we’re a part of and say
0:17:33 that the scoring is wrong.
0:17:37 It used to be that when the CBO weighed in, both sides would acknowledge those are the numbers.
0:17:39 That’s it.
0:17:40 We got to acknowledge those are the numbers.
0:17:46 And now we’ve decided we don’t even want to try and develop something resembling a truth
0:17:48 between our perceptions and the data.
0:17:54 So when I hear really compelling data, I think it’s the right thing.
0:17:59 And I think it means you’re evolving as a human to say, I didn’t know that.
0:18:00 That is super interesting.
0:18:06 And, you know, my general sort of view was, oh, the poor pay too much in taxes.
0:18:10 I was very much a, you know, I believe I’m an income inequality guy.
0:18:14 And the reality is the bottom half of our population in the United States pay almost no federal
0:18:14 taxes.
0:18:15 That’s just not true.
0:18:21 And I saw the data on the near wealthy or the kind of workhorses that is people who make
0:18:23 between, say, $200,000 and $2 million a year.
0:18:26 They pay more than their fair share of taxes because it’s all current income.
0:18:31 It’s the people that are the super owners that make the majority of their income from buying
0:18:33 and selling assets that pay the lowest taxes.
0:18:38 25 wealthiest Americans in America is supposed to pay about a 6% income tax rate.
0:18:43 Anyways, I find comfort and resolution in the data.
0:18:48 And I think at some point, one, we need to restore trust in institutions.
0:18:54 And two, our role in that is to acknowledge when we see data that contradicts our own beliefs,
0:19:01 to acknowledge the point and even acknowledge that that data or that individual has influenced
0:19:01 you.
0:19:05 And what I find is that’s an effective way to restore alliances because they’re willing to
0:19:06 give a little bit too.
0:19:12 The fastest way to diffuse an argument, I find, is to acknowledge the other’s points to some
0:19:14 degree and see if there’s some middle ground.
0:19:23 I find that we have this unfortunate zeitgeist in our society where you say something stupid
0:19:26 and you feel like you have to double down and keep going as opposed to saying, you know,
0:19:29 I’ve said a couple of times in conversations, I’m like, I would draw the comment.
0:19:30 I don’t know where I was going with that.
0:19:31 And you’re right.
0:19:32 Your data is better than mine.
0:19:33 And what you’re saying makes a lot of sense.
0:19:39 And I find when you say that, it disarms them and they’re much more likely to agree with
0:19:40 you and come together.
0:19:42 Anyways, appreciate the question.
0:19:44 That’s all for this episode.
0:19:49 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursofprofgmedia.com.
0:19:51 That’s officehoursofprofgmedia.com.
0:19:55 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit
0:19:58 and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.
0:20:04 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
0:20:06 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
0:20:09 Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:20:12 Thanks for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:20:14 Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:20:16 Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod.

0:00:06 All right, I’ve got a relatively simple recurring revenue side hustle you could start today even.
0:00:11 The idea is to help local businesses gain more visibility in Google so they can make more money.
0:00:16 And the market is huge. Think millions of potential small business customers here.
0:00:22 Today’s guest runs a six-figure digital agency while traveling the world with his family and
0:00:28 says if he was starting over, he’d focus on selling a simple local SEO service. This might
0:00:34 be the last bastion of SEO, local SEO. From ericdingler.com, Eric Dingler, welcome to the
0:00:39 Side Hustle Show. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to unpack this with you for your audience.
0:00:44 You bet. Stick around in this one. I’m excited as well. We’re going to figure out how do we find
0:00:48 customers, how are we going to deliver this service quickly and effectively, and maybe how to remove
0:00:55 yourself from being the hands-on technician in the business. But kick us off with what do you see as
0:01:03 the opportunity here in local SEO? Well, for me, and especially as somebody that every three weeks to
0:01:09 three months, I’m moving into a completely new city with my wife and our four teens, we’re constantly
0:01:15 going to Google Maps or Apple Maps looking for restaurant, barber, you know, grocery store,
0:01:23 dentist, whatever it is we need. And I don’t see people stopping that. People are still looking for that
0:01:30 local service. I don’t see it going away. And everybody in the entire world uses Google Maps,
0:01:37 Google My Business, and Apple Maps. Yeah, where regular SEO, article SEO, website SEO is all being
0:01:44 eroded away by AI and maybe Reddit in the search results. Local SEO is maybe a less competitive game,
0:01:49 and it still works by the old rules, more or less. Whereas like, if I want a restaurant near me,
0:01:54 it’s not being eaten by AI just yet. Yeah. The thing about Google, they have invested
0:02:01 millions and millions upon millions of dollars, mapping every city, every country, every road
0:02:09 in the world, adding all of the businesses that they can find to it, working to ensure that we have access
0:02:16 to a business’s hours, contact information, all these things. Yeah. And they don’t charge for this.
0:02:22 They don’t charge you and me as the end user trying to find a place. And they don’t charge the businesses
0:02:29 to be on it. But even with that, only about, according to Google’s most recent numbers in the USA,
0:02:37 only about 20, 25% of businesses have claimed their Google business profile and have optimized it.
0:02:46 So 75% of the local businesses around you haven’t done this yet. And they all already know about Google.
0:02:53 They already know about SEO. And if you can learn a few key phrases and use those when you’re talking
0:03:00 to businesses, it’s a very easy service to sell. In fact, Nick, today is our oldest son’s 18th
0:03:01 birthday. Oh, okay.
0:03:06 And he is an outdoor kid through and through. Computer’s not his thing. You know, he wants
0:03:11 to be outside all the time. He wants to play soccer and stuff like that. But if he was to come to me today
0:03:18 and say, okay, dad, I want to start my own thing. You know, what, what should I do? And my agency,
0:03:24 we do, we do web design development, app work. We focus a lot on helping businesses meet accessibility
0:03:29 standards. We do paid ads, social media, like we do all those things.
0:03:33 Yes. And this is in transit studios. If anybody wants to go check that out, that’s all right. Go
0:03:37 ahead. Thanks. Yeah. But if my 18 year old came to me today and said, I want to start my own thing,
0:03:43 I would give him a checklist to start a local SEO business. And I would say, this is what you need to
0:03:47 go do. All right. Coach me through this. We’ll worry about like the technical skills. I don’t know.
0:03:49 I don’t know the first thing about local, we’ll worry about that in a second, but like,
0:03:54 okay, let’s say I’m your, I’m your son. You know, like you talk me through this. What do I do first?
0:04:00 Great. The first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to go sell it. I do this a lot. I often sell
0:04:07 services that I don’t know how I’m going to deliver it. In fact, my very first local SEO client,
0:04:17 I sold them local SEO. I collected the money and then I use that money to go pay for somebody to
0:04:24 teach me how to do what I need to do. Because you can tell your customer, this is going to take me
0:04:27 four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks. They don’t know.
0:04:30 Yeah. Yeah. You set up expectations. Sure.
0:04:36 Exactly. So you set those expectations. So what I like to do in this case, and this is so kind of
0:04:42 take going step by step, really breaking this down. The first thing I would do is I would write a,
0:04:47 what we call beta test social media post. And later at the end of the episode, Nick,
0:04:53 we can give people a link to, I have this written out in an actual checklist with links and everything
0:04:55 that can, people can follow. Perfect.
0:05:01 But for, for the conversation, the thing I like to do is I like to create a beta social media post.
0:05:08 People that are listening, they probably have friends that are business owners or they use local
0:05:15 businesses. They have a dentist. They probably have a barber or hair salon. They have a favorite
0:05:21 restaurant. That’s not a chain. You have your local mom and pop favorite places, landscape or whatever it
0:05:28 might be. You have friends that have these businesses. So what I like to do is create a social media post
0:05:35 that says, Hey, fellow business owners or Hey, business owners who are friends. I’m testing a new piece
0:05:48 of software or I’m testing a new system that lets me help local businesses be found more often when somebody
0:05:57 searches for them. I’m looking for three businesses that I can use that would be willing to let me use their
0:06:06 business as an experiment. You’ll get an increased visibility on Google and I’ll share all the results
0:06:11 with you in exchange for helping me out. If you’re interested, let me know. So that’s kind of the
0:06:18 gist, something, something like that. You put that out there and then you tell every business owner the
0:06:22 next time you talk to them, you know, if you’ve got a neighbor that has a local business, you go knock on
0:06:26 the door and you’re going to tell them you’re going to do this. And then you can say when they
0:06:32 respond to the Facebook ad or when you go talk to them, you say it’s $500. You know, the first time
0:06:38 I did it, I sold it for $1,300 had never sold it before. Sold it for $1,300. Okay. If you’re as
0:06:44 arrogant as I am, you can do that. But if you’re a little more like, uh, I don’t know, that makes me
0:06:52 nervous. Start lower. That’s okay. Yeah. But there is a guy, Sam Sarston, and he has a, a coaching
0:07:02 program. It’s $49 without the community aspect, $99 if you want into the community and that’s monthly.
0:07:09 And he teaches exactly how to do all this. I don’t have a course, but I know Sam, Sam’s course is great.
0:07:16 Okay. You can go sell this and then go sign up for Sam’s course. And he’ll, he’ll show you exactly
0:07:23 how to do this. And what you’re selling specifically is a one-time SEO boost. So that’s what you’re going
0:07:28 to sell. It’s your, your foot in the door offer. That’s why I’d sell it for 500. One-time SEO boost.
0:07:33 And you tell them, I’m going to improve your position in Google maps and Apple maps within three
0:07:38 months. Okay. Within three months, you’re going to be ranking higher, which means, and here’s that,
0:07:43 one of those key phrases, Nick, I was telling you, I like to use. Yeah. We’re going to increase
0:07:50 your customer activity. I’m not promising more leads because I can’t promise. I can’t deliver on
0:07:55 that. I’m not promising specifically more website visitors or more phone calls. I’m just promising
0:08:02 more customer activity. And every local business owner understands that. And a restaurant is never
0:08:08 going to use the term leads. Restaurants aren’t looking for leads. A barbershop’s not looking for
0:08:15 leads. They’re looking for appointments or walk-ins. A roofer is looking for leads. And so to me,
0:08:18 the most universal phrase that I have found is customer activity.
0:08:22 Okay. And this allows you to not worry, because that was kind of the next thing I was going to ask
0:08:28 about, do you worry about niche? So like, well, I’m only going to target roofers, but then it becomes
0:08:33 maybe a potential conflict of interest if I sign up five roofers in the same town. And now I’m like
0:08:38 competing. Well, who do I, who’s my favorite? Like, how do I figure out who I want to rank the
0:08:42 highest? Yeah. So you’re going to go, you go, you go kind of broad. It sounds like, because this is the
0:08:46 same skill set or the same toolbox can apply across any number of different businesses.
0:08:53 Yeah, absolutely. And the fastest way to a sale is the face-to-face conversation. For a side hustle,
0:09:00 especially to just get started, you’re just talking about finding three or four local businesses that are
0:09:05 going to do this SEO boost, $500, because here’s what happens. You’re going to do the local SEO
0:09:10 boost. And then within that three months, you’re going to get results. And here’s what you’re going
0:09:16 to do. Okay. When they say, yeah, I’ll do this. This sounds great. I’d love to do it. Okay. It’s $500.
0:09:21 So, you know, here’s, you know, set up a Stripe account, take PayPal, take check. You’re starting
0:09:25 out as a side hustle. Like cash is fine. Like however you can get them to pay you.
0:09:28 Yeah. Yeah. Somebody can Venmo you. Sure. Don’t, don’t, don’t let that be the bottleneck.
0:09:34 Exactly. Exactly. Like there’s lots of ways to get people’s money from them. So receive the money
0:09:40 and then say, Hey, listen, I need 24 pictures of your business, people in your business behind the
0:09:48 scenes, the front of the place. I need 24 pictures. And that’s what you need to send to me. And if
0:09:54 they’re like, Oh, I don’t have them. Do you have a 17 year old, an 18 year old, a 25 year old on your
0:09:58 team? Like everybody on your team’s got an iPhone. That’s all I need. I need somebody to take out their
0:10:04 phone and get 24 pictures. Then they’re going to send you those pictures. You’re going to take
0:10:12 those pictures. You’re going to create 12 posts with those pictures about their business. And this
0:10:19 is a great place to leverage AI. AI is really fast, fantastic at this. And then every week you’re going
0:10:23 to go in and you’re just going to post to their Google business profile that so they’re going to,
0:10:28 they’re going to give you access. It’s, it’s super easy to get access to their Google business profile.
0:10:31 You’re going to get access to the Google business profile. You’re going to go in once a week.
0:10:34 You’re going to post a picture for 12 weeks.
0:10:39 And maybe this is for these 75% of businesses that haven’t even claimed theirs. Maybe that’s step one.
0:10:42 Like, Hey, here, here’s an easy quick win for you, Mr. and Mrs. Business owner. Let’s,
0:10:46 let’s do that first. And then we’ll go do this one-time boost.
0:10:49 Right? Well, this is part of the one-time boost. Yeah, this is, this is it. This is part of the one-time
0:10:54 boost. So for the one-time boost, you’re going to use AI to rewrite their description.
0:10:59 You’re going to use AI to help you create those 12 posts. And then you’re going to go in and you’re
0:11:05 going to schedule those. Now down the road, there are tools you can get to automate this. We now,
0:11:12 when we do an SEO boost, we, we create all the content takes us about two hours. We pre-schedule
0:11:15 it for three months and we’re done. We move on to the next one. Yeah.
0:11:19 But you’re going to grow into this as a side hustle. I was, I didn’t start there. And so
0:11:22 to keep it simple, you don’t need a fancy automation tool.
0:11:27 Why does the description need to be rewritten or what are, what are some of like the checkboxes
0:11:29 you want to see in that rewritten description?
0:11:34 Yeah. Well, they probably haven’t done it if, especially if they’ve never claimed their Google
0:11:40 business profile, or if the business owner wrote a, wrote it, the business owner talks about
0:11:48 how they’ve been in business since 1985 and grandpa gave it to dad and dad gave it to me. And we’ve
0:11:54 got six employees and we’re so proud of our community and we love serving dah, dah, dah. And nobody
0:12:01 cares. They want to know, are you the place for them? You know, if you’re a barbershop, you want to,
0:12:07 you want to answer what we call their pre-qualifying questions. You can walk in, you can pay with cash,
0:12:15 credit card. You can book an appointment. We do kids, we do fade ins, we do beards. Like
0:12:21 what are the common questions people ask you about your business? And that’s what has to go in the
0:12:25 description. And so most business owners talk about themselves and not their customer and their
0:12:31 customers needs. So real easy fix. Plus you want to make sure that you mentioned, you know,
0:12:39 the business type you are, you know, AJ’s barber, proudly serving Columbus, Ohio, men, kids,
0:12:44 short hair, you know, then you, then you list the things, walk-ins, welcome, all that kind of stuff.
0:12:50 So that’s in the description. I got it. Got it. Okay. Then, and this is in that, the checklist I have
0:12:55 a lot of businesses, local businesses, they go to set up their Google business profile, Nick, and they’re
0:13:00 like, I want to serve everybody. So they put their service areas, the United States of America.
0:13:10 Okay. Huge mistake. Huge mistake. Because when Google decides who to show to somebody in Google
0:13:16 maps, and when Apple decides in Apple maps, the first thing they’d look at is the geographic location of
0:13:22 that phone. So I’m in Budapest, Hungary right now. If I get my phone and I search
0:13:29 barber near me, it’s going to show me a couple of the closest barbers right here to me in Budapest.
0:13:38 But if I turn my VPN on, and I say I’m in Miami, and then I open Google maps, and I ask for a barber,
0:13:45 it’s going to start showing me barbers in Miami. If you say you’re in the United States, that puts your
0:13:50 business geographic location out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, because it goes clear up past
0:13:55 Alaska down around Hawaii. And the only people that’s going to see your pizza shop barbershop
0:14:01 mechanic is somebody trolling for fish out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, not what you’re going
0:14:07 for. More with Eric in just a moment, including the exact type of posts you should be creating for
0:14:12 local businesses. Plus, how to scale this thing into a six figure recurring revenue business with a remote
0:14:18 team right after this. With our partner Mint Mobile, you can get the coverage and speed you’re used to
0:14:23 just for way less money. And for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering side hustle show listeners
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0:16:41 All right. So another quick win. Sounds like, okay, narrow down that service area location. And you
0:16:47 kind of draw a perimeter and, okay. The service area. Yeah. All kinds of ways to do that. You know,
0:16:54 just the city or a couple of towns. But I just start with that one central space. And so you do that.
0:17:02 That’s optimizing. Optimizing the description. Optimizing the service location. You get those
0:17:07 things optimized. And a lot of people, they haven’t, business owners, they haven’t bothered filling in
0:17:14 all the little boxes about parking, accessibility. Is it, you know, veteran owned, woman owned,
0:17:20 you know, something like, there’s all these things. And it’s because Google keeps adding these questions
0:17:26 and information every few months, they add a new one. And most businesses aren’t updating that.
0:17:30 So you’re just going to go through the Google business profile. And, and here’s the thing,
0:17:37 if you’re like, Oh, I don’t know the answer, make a list and send an email to the, say, Hey,
0:17:40 just wanted to follow up with a couple more questions. Do you do this, this, and this, and
0:17:45 this? They’re going to answer it. You’re going to put it on their Google business profile. Super
0:17:49 simple. Yeah. So that’s optimizing. You’re just going to do it one time. Then you’re going to create
0:17:55 the 12 pieces of content and you’re going to go in once a week and add those. So one day added on
0:18:00 Monday, one day added on Tuesday, you want it to seem kind of natural. And then once, once a week,
0:18:05 you’re going to add a picture, those things right there, you’re going to start to see their rankings
0:18:11 improve. You’re going to see increased customer activity. We like to use a tool called local
0:18:18 Falcon. I think I pay around $29 a month for local Falcon. It’s a super inexpensive tool.
0:18:25 You go into local Falcon, you go to reports and you, you, you find the business. If they’ve got a
0:18:32 Google business profile, local Falcon is going to find them. And then you, you said a geographic region.
0:18:37 We normally start with like two miles and then you put in a search term or a couple of search terms,
0:18:44 barber, men’s haircut, pizza, pizza, delivery, pizza pickup, depending on the business.
0:18:54 Okay. And what local Falcon does is it goes and it scans the entire area because I can be a quarter mile
0:19:03 to the East of a business and it’s in 20th place on Google. I can go a quarter mile to the right or to,
0:19:10 to the West. And it’s going to be in first place. Your position on Google changes street by street.
0:19:16 Yeah. What this does is it creates a heat map and it shows you all of these dots and it puts the right
0:19:21 position of where you are. So you’re going to have some areas that are green, some areas that are red,
0:19:28 some that are in between in the yellow and orange. Now some businesses may be all green. This whole
0:19:34 lit expand out, look for a different search term, expand the radius. Okay. Some businesses it’s all red
0:19:39 except for right where their business is. It’s green. And those are the business owners that go,
0:19:44 well, we thought we were in first place on Google. Yeah. You are. If you’re searching from your front
0:19:50 door. Yeah. Yeah. In your business, but you can either get in a car and drive around town and refresh
0:20:00 your search every street, or we just create this geo grid for you. Now down the road, you can offer this
0:20:06 geo grid as a freebie. This is a good way. Once you start getting some clients, as you’re getting
0:20:11 established and you start to promote some things, this is a great lead magnet because a lot of business
0:20:16 owners see this map and they’re like, Oh, I want, I want to see that for my business. You don’t need
0:20:22 to do that starting out. That’s kind of a 2.0 kind of strategy. Okay. Right now you’re going to just talk
0:20:26 to a couple of businesses, get a couple of people to hire you. You’re going to go in and do these things.
0:20:30 You’re going to create one of those maps every month. You’re going to run the scan. Again,
0:20:36 a local Falcon has this whole list of suggestions after it runs the report, AI generated suggestions
0:20:40 that’ll tell you a wealth of information of things to do to improve your rank.
0:20:46 Do you have an example or two of, of, of like the type of post that you’re posting on behalf of these
0:20:50 different businesses to their Google profile? Sure. Give me an industry. It’s just any industry
0:20:56 you want. We can go with the barbershop example again. Barbershop. Great. So they give you a picture
0:21:00 of a kid getting a haircut. You’re just going to, you know, take that and you’re going to say,
0:21:06 depending on the type of year, maybe it’s another one of our, you know, customers in getting ready
0:21:12 for the summer, getting a haircut before vacation, back to school seasons coming up, getting ready to
0:21:19 head back to school here in Pittsburgh. Talk about, you know, vacation coming up, just whatever you can,
0:21:24 or maybe it’s the barber that’s cutting their hair. Maybe they’ve been there five years, you know,
0:21:29 Hey, here’s Tony been with us for five years, cutting one of our favorite little customers hair again,
0:21:34 helping them get ready for vacation. Okay. But you don’t know, you don’t always have that insight.
0:21:38 So you got to like kind of probe the business owner for what’s, what’s the occasion. You don’t want to
0:21:43 just make stuff up. Oh, Tony’s Tony’s Tony really just started last month. That’s always a little
0:21:48 weird. I wouldn’t make up anything like that. I wouldn’t make anything like that. But, but here’s
0:21:53 the thing that can be a little annoying with this. Very few people read these. That’s what’s annoying.
0:21:59 Sure. No, I get it. It’s like you need to feed the machine, even though nobody’s realistically
0:22:02 reading. It’s like, but you got to give it some data. You got to give it some stuff to chew on.
0:22:10 Yes. People read reviews and people look at the pictures, but very few people read the post,
0:22:17 but Google does. And Google wants to make sure that if it’s going to recommend you,
0:22:20 somebody’s there turning the lights on. Yeah.
0:22:26 Because if Google sends somebody to a closed business, they’re going to lose their trust
0:22:32 in Google. They may start, they may switch to another tool. If Google starts losing eyeballs,
0:22:40 Google starts losing advertising. Google will not lose advertising. I mean, that’s, that’s how
0:22:42 they make their money is advertising. Yeah.
0:22:48 So they want to keep the eyeballs. They want to make sure that they’re giving you and me when we
0:22:56 look for a business, a business that’s open, a business that other people use, a business that
0:23:03 keeps their hours up to date. Google will reward you by what these, these are called signals.
0:23:07 Yeah. Yeah. Giving positive signals, make it look active, right? It’s active and engaged. They’re,
0:23:10 they’re using our tools and helping people in that way.
0:23:14 Yes. And right now, again, for those that are listening, they’re just trying to get started.
0:23:22 You’re just doing a one-time local SEO boost. So you’re doing a minimal viable product here
0:23:27 to get results. You’re, when you run that first local Falcon scan, you’re going to take a screenshot.
0:23:31 Each time you run it, you’re going to take another screenshot and suddenly you’re going to get before
0:23:37 and afters, you know, had very little green, two months later, all of this green, they’re showing up
0:23:43 all over the top of Google. Okay. Because then what you can do, you’ve got these first few
0:23:50 seed clients. They’ve given you the money that’s given you the money to invest in higher, you know,
0:23:56 into a training and the getting some tools, but now you can go back to them and say, here’s the
0:24:02 results we got. This is great. Here’s what it’s going to take to keep you at the top of this.
0:24:07 You’re going to need to keep posting once a week and you can do this. And we got to get into
0:24:12 eventually what there’s these things called directories. There’s some great tools that help
0:24:19 with this mods local is one. Yext is another. These are tools. A business owner can go and pay
0:24:27 for themselves to do it. And the business starts getting added to directories. Directories are
0:24:34 websites that link to businesses. So this is how you get those backlinks. They’re still gold,
0:24:40 even in local SEO. This is still a big thing. This was NAP listing, name, address, phone number
0:24:44 listings, like all across the internet, all pointing back to your, your home base, your website.
0:24:51 Exactly. And some of these directories now power voice search. So it’s important to have these
0:24:58 directories up to date because Google looks for consistency of NAP, name, address, phone number.
0:25:05 If you’re listed on 20 websites, but sometimes the name is spelled out one thing. Sometimes it’s this,
0:25:09 sometimes that the address is a little bit, sometimes the phone number is different because
0:25:13 you had it, you got a new phone number. So that that’s a signal to Google. Like, um, do they have
0:25:18 their act together? Can they really be trusted? But this is an advanced and this isn’t, we don’t,
0:25:25 we don’t touch directories for a local SEO boost. I don’t have to. Okay. But for our monthly recurring,
0:25:31 where we go and we say, Hey, listen, we can manage this for you and we can write content.
0:25:38 We need to have a strategy session once a quarter where I come in and I interview you about your
0:25:42 bar. How long have they been here? How long have they been like, this is where you get into the
0:25:47 nitty gritty and we do a quarterly strategy session. And we have, you got any specials coming up next
0:25:52 three months, anything you want to put, like you have a seasonality to your business in the next three
0:25:56 months. This is where somebody like, Oh, back to school is big for us. Valentine’s day is big.
0:26:02 Okay, great. So then you create that content calendar. And at this point you’ll get a tool
0:26:06 where like, now you’re going to create the content and post it. So it’s automated and done for three
0:26:14 months and things like that. Or better yet, how I do it is I now have a team that does this. I’ve got
0:26:21 an amazing person on my team from El Salvador. She’s a rock star and this is all she does for us.
0:26:27 She only does local SEO content. She creates it, but she meets with the clients once a quarter,
0:26:36 does a strategy session, maps out their content. She can do two of these a day. And we typically charge
0:26:44 around $750 a month for the ongoing monthly recurring revenue. Wow. But again, I grew into
0:26:50 that. So this is local SEO. It’s not going away. But that’s no, that’s like really, really cool to
0:26:57 see what is potentially possible down the road with a trained up team member who is taking half a day
0:27:04 to service this customer that you’re charging $750 a month for. You imagine the margins on that are quite
0:27:09 healthy. Yes. Even if you hired somebody in the States, I have one person on my team in the States,
0:27:14 but the rest of my team are remote. We’re an entire remote. I’m remote. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:27:19 You know, so my team is remote. Yeah. And, and we just, that’s how we, we operate because we are able
0:27:24 to keep them very high margins. We’re able to keep our costs very competitive that way. And it’s fun to be
0:27:31 able to travel around the world and meet your staff. Do you worry, you know, this is the Bezos line of,
0:27:35 you know, your margin is my opportunity. Do you see clients getting poached from under you
0:27:42 from other competing services? It was just like the number of small businesses is so vast,
0:27:46 so massive. That’s like, well, even if we lose a client, it’s fine. We’ll go find somebody else.
0:27:52 Like it’s, we try to play this game of churn versus retention and margins versus like, well,
0:27:55 wait a minute. How much does this really cost them to fulfill?
0:28:02 Yeah. If you show up every month with a report that’s showing results, Hey, we got you these
0:28:08 results. That’s you. Most business owners, that’s the number one complaint I get when we get a new
0:28:13 customer, we were spending all this money. I never knew if it was working. Got it. You know, I didn’t
0:28:20 know where the results were because in the agency world, we’re known for just sending a report,
0:28:26 expecting our clients to read it. They don’t have time for that. We show up proactively. Hey,
0:28:30 we just looked, you’re at it. And we just tell people we’ll, we might call a client and say, Hey,
0:28:36 we just ran your report. And you know, on average, we’ve dropped three positions and we use that. We
0:28:42 We use we, not you, not, you know, it’s, it’s, we’re in this together. Hey, we dropped three points.
0:28:47 And so we looked and here’s what we’d like to do. We’d like to do this and this and this over the next
0:28:53 six weeks. And they’re just like, Hey man, you’ve got our back, whatever you need to do. Like, cause it
0:29:00 just, you build trust, you build trust. And for us then, how this led to then the, I had no intentions
0:29:07 to own an agency. I was pastoring a church and my wife and I decided to adopt a sibling group from
0:29:12 Bulgaria. We had two biological children and we just felt like the next thing we were being called
0:29:18 to do was adopt. And I had to come up with an extra $50,000 because we wanted to adopt debt free.
0:29:18 Okay.
0:29:24 I didn’t know how I was going to come up with $50,000. So I had to come up with a side hustle
0:29:32 and I knew how to build websites. And so I started building websites and that kind of got a little
0:29:40 bit of traction and I got a couple dozen clients. And then I learned about this local SEO and I just
0:29:46 went back and I upsold my very first client to do it. I was like, Hey, I’m testing this thing and you
0:29:51 know, and they’re like, yeah, okay, sure. And I was like, it’s $1,300. And they’re like, yeah,
0:29:54 sure. Let’s do it. I’m like, great. And then I went to some businesses I didn’t even know. I did
0:30:01 the same thing and I did that. And then I started, then I worked through my network, my local business
0:30:07 network, onboarded all the low hanging fruit. And then we started to learn how to do another service.
0:30:12 And so I just went back through and I said, Hey, we’re now doing reviews as a server. We can help you
0:30:16 get more five-star reviews from your satisfied customers. Oh yeah, Eric, let’s do that.
0:30:21 Yeah. I was going to, I was going to ask if the reviews were a part of this like ongoing monthly
0:30:26 package review, uh, uh, reputation management, collecting reviews, reputation management. Yes,
0:30:32 it is now. It is now. Absolutely. But it is really its own separate kind of monster,
0:30:38 if you will. And that’s okay. So we packages it as a separate service because I can either sell
0:30:43 somebody reputation management or I can sell them a local SEO boost. We always start with the boost
0:30:48 and then I can come back and say, Hey, we can add this. We’re constantly trying to figure out how can
0:30:55 we increase wallet share? You know, how do I increase that monthly recurring revenue per customer? When I
0:31:02 first started out, my average monthly recurring revenue per customer was $49 a month. Okay. Yeah. You come
0:31:09 a long ways. Yes. We’re now more like $490 average per customer per month with a whole lot more
0:31:17 customers. Now, some of our customers are $2,000 a month. Some of our customers are still $99 a month,
0:31:22 but you know, it averages out across the board about $495 a month. More with Eric in just a moment,
0:31:29 including why accessibility compliance could be the next big service opportunity. Plus his fastest path
0:31:36 to $25,000 a month in recurring revenue coming up right after this. Let me know if this sounds familiar.
0:31:41 You’ve got more ideas than you’ve got hours in the day. And that to-do list is never quite done.
0:31:46 That’s why finding the right tool to stay on top of everything and simplify things is such a game changer.
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0:32:41 For such an important channel like phone, the software powering this important channel was
0:32:47 super outdated and clunky. We wanted to make it delightful and make it very easy for businesses
0:32:53 to connect with their customers through voice and text. That’s Darina Kulia, co-founder of our sponsor
0:32:58 OpenPhone. Trusted by more than 60,000 customers, this is the number one business phone system that
0:33:04 streamlines and scales your customer communications. I like to think of it like a centralized hub to receive
0:33:10 and respond to calls and texts in your business. And I asked Darina about who’s typically signing up
0:33:17 for this kind of service. We definitely have a lot of folks who come to us and their personal cell phone
0:33:22 has become their company phone number and they’ve hired a team or they’re starting to scale their
0:33:28 business and they just find themselves as a business owner, as a founder being the bottleneck. So we see
0:33:35 that all the time. And then we also see folks much further along where they’re using some legacy
0:33:40 complicated tools that are just not really made for how communication happens these days.
0:33:48 We also just recently launched Sona, which is our voice AI agent that can handle any missed calls.
0:33:54 If you have clients calling outside of business hours, instead of them going to voicemail, it can go
0:34:01 into Sona, which is capable to handle any replies and can also take a message. So you are capturing that
0:34:06 lead information. And it’s like, and it’s a robot, like it responds like on the fly with some
0:34:12 pre-programmed responses. It does such a great job. This way they can handle questions 24 seven.
0:34:18 Now here’s, here’s a scenario for you. So let’s say I’ve committed to a certain business phone number
0:34:24 and I’ve distributed flyers. It’s printed on my business cards. It is on my local business listings,
0:34:30 on directories throughout the internet. Like what’s the process to now have that ring open phone system
0:34:35 versus the current system? Totally. So we see this all the time. This process is called
0:34:41 phone number porting. We port numbers from all kinds of carriers. So basically no matter what
0:34:47 provider you’re using, we can take that number and move it over to open phone. It is free. We handle
0:34:51 the whole thing. And if you want to try out open phone, we have a free trial. You can try it out,
0:34:57 see how you like it. And if you like it, you can then decide to port your existing number over and
0:35:02 handle the whole process. Now open phone has automatic AI call summaries. So you don’t have
0:35:06 to worry about taking notes while you’re on the call. But another cool feature is what Darina called
0:35:13 AI call tagging, basically allowing you to quickly filter for the calls that were sales objections or
0:35:19 customer complaints or requests for a discount. So you can review those and see what worked, what didn’t
0:35:25 and train team members on the most effective tactics and language in those cases. And it’s all in the name of
0:35:30 building a better, faster and friendlier customer experience. I want all open phone customers to
0:35:36 five stars only. Right now open phone is offering side hustle show listeners 20% off your first six
0:35:45 months at open phone.com slash side hustle. That’s O P E N P H O N E.com slash side hustle. And like we
0:35:49 talked about, if you’ve got an existing phone number with another service, open phone will port it over
0:35:57 at no extra charge, open phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. What’s your take on this? I’ve
0:36:03 seen some people advocating this as a potential foot in the door strategy. And it’s to say, thanks to
0:36:09 these AI website building tools, you know, type in a quick little prompt, you know, spins up this really
0:36:15 nice looking website for local business XYZ. You could send that straight to the, Hey, look, I noticed
0:36:19 your website was maybe looking a little dusty, a little outdated. I made you this new one. You could
0:36:25 have it for 200 bucks. It took you all of three minutes to create with AI. Like, and people using
0:36:29 that as a potential foot in the door one for, okay, I could sell that website as a quick little revenue
0:36:34 hit, but maybe this guy clearly knows what he’s doing on the tech side. Maybe I can hire him for this
0:36:38 local SEO and potentially this recurring revenue. Holy grail down the road.
0:36:43 I think that’s totally doable. You can do that first. There’s a whole lot more people doing that.
0:36:49 And you’re running up against ads for Wix and Squarespace that run during the Superbowl. That’s
0:36:56 what you’re competing against. And so I have found it’s become a little bit harder to sell websites
0:37:03 because there’s a lot more, well, I think I can just do this tomorrow. You know, business owners move
0:37:10 towards the squeaky wheel. They’re always going to want more customers and they all use Google.
0:37:15 A lot of times I’ve even had some clients start to tell me like, oh, I can’t Eric. I can’t remember
0:37:20 the last time I looked at a website if I’m not doing research. And so I’m not saying websites aren’t
0:37:25 going to always be important, but for a local bit, like when’s the last time you went and looked at
0:37:28 the barbershop? I’m kind of bald. I don’t look at a lot of barbershop.
0:37:32 That’s a funny example for two bald guys to be using here.
0:37:38 Maybe barbershop’s not the right one, but you know, for a barbershop, even a landscape or something
0:37:45 like that, like I’m not going to go look. I might go look at a dentist website, but I don’t know.
0:37:54 Sure. Absolutely. I would rather help somebody because it’s hard to qualify the win of a website.
0:37:58 Like, hey, I got your new website up. Now, if they’re vain, they’re going to, oh, look at me.
0:38:02 I got my nice new website. They’re going to like that. But if you can show up and say,
0:38:08 this is why I like reputation management is actually another foot in the door offer because I can show
0:38:15 up four weeks after we launch and I can read you three five-star reviews. Hey, Nick, let me show you
0:38:20 what this customer said about you. They said, you’re the best and you’re great. You know, and then this
0:38:27 customer said this and you’re able to give them that feedback. Then you can say, now I was looking
0:38:31 at your website. Now that we’re getting more reviews, your website needs a little bit of work.
0:38:39 They’re going to trust you and say, oh yeah, let’s redo it. It’s easier in my opinion to go that way
0:38:42 than to start with the website. And that’s been my experience.
0:38:46 Right. That’s fair. No, I was just curious to get your take on that as somebody who’s in the space.
0:38:50 All right. What else do we need to know? So we’ve kind of covered, we’re going to start with this
0:38:56 local SEO boost. We can hopefully transition into an ongoing monthly maintenance package. We could
0:39:01 layer on reputation management, collecting reviews, and there’s software tools to help you do really
0:39:06 all of this stuff and hopefully make it a little more automated and potentially sell websites down the
0:39:10 road. Like, you know, getting your foot in the door and hopefully, you know, business owners,
0:39:14 no other business owners, right? So the word of mouth starts to spread. Do you want anything else
0:39:18 proactive on the marketing side to try and build up that client base?
0:39:27 Yes. Accessibility. Accessibility is both a social justice issue as well as a good for business.
0:39:37 In every business, unless it is a religious organization or a private club, every business has to legally
0:39:45 meet the standards and requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And just this last week,
0:39:52 the European Union’s new accessibility laws rolled out. So this is becoming very, very universal.
0:39:59 20 to 25% of people that use the internet have some type of barrier. Could be a disability,
0:40:07 could be slow internet. It could be they use a SIM card with limited data. So they have images turned
0:40:14 off. If you can design a website or social media content that is super easy to read, or you make
0:40:22 sure you use what’s called the alt text, you’re opening up a business to about 20 to 25% more customers.
0:40:29 So accessibility is huge. It’s never going to go away. And that’s the other problem with all of these
0:40:34 places that are spinning up webs. None of them yet are spinning up websites that meet accessibility.
0:40:41 So you can spin up a website for a foot in the door offer, but you’ve just put a legal target on them.
0:40:47 And not only that, you’re not being a good neighbor to people with disabilities. So that’s how we talk about
0:40:52 it with our agency. Like, we want to help you be a good neighbor. Accessibility is a whole nother new
0:40:56 fascinating world. But I don’t think I would try to get into it as a side hustle.
0:41:03 Okay, so this is another add on service. Like, hey, by the way, did you know a websites? You know, I think
0:41:09 it’s all businesses over a certain size, something like their website has to be ADA compliant, according to the
0:41:14 like, yours is not, but we can help get it there. And, and here’s what it’s going to take.
0:41:23 Yeah. So the confusion that comes in on the size of business is there are a couple different articles
0:41:28 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the part of the article that deals with the physical
0:41:35 and employment accessibility, making accommodations for that, but specifically to the physical property
0:41:43 depends upon the size of your business. There are zero exceptions for your web content. Your way it
0:41:50 does not matter how many employees, it doesn’t matter your revenue. If you’re selling $3,000 a
0:41:56 month, and you’re a business, your web content technically has to be accessible. Now, there’s no
0:42:03 enforcement, unless somebody chooses to bring a lawsuit. But last year, this changed, the Department
0:42:09 of Justice came out with some new regulations last April, that said if you receive any money from the
0:42:16 government through a grant, through a grant, maybe you’re a doctor’s office and you accept Medicaid or
0:42:25 Medicare, maybe you’re the local garbage company, and you have a contract with the state to, or I’m sorry,
0:42:35 the city to provide garbage pickup within the city. If you get any federal or state money, or local money,
0:42:41 in exchange, you’re providing a service to continue to be eligible after April next year,
0:42:46 you must have your website compliant. And we’re starting to get clients that are coming to us
0:42:52 saying, Eric, we’re filling out our application for our state funding for next year, and they’re asking
0:42:59 for a website compliance certificate. So that is happening in a very specific industry. So that’s a little
0:43:04 bit different. But here’s the beautiful thing about it. I tell people this all the time. Real estate agents
0:43:10 don’t build the houses they sell. Nick, I have no clue how to go in and set up what’s called ARIA
0:43:15 tags on a website. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t even know what that is. Yeah. But my developers
0:43:23 do, and they do it every day, you know. And so I’ve never ran a Google ad. I’ve never logged into the
0:43:28 Google business platform area, whatever, I forget it. I mean, it’s struggling, but you can think of what
0:43:32 it’s called right now. But the Google ads platform, I’ve never, I’ve never done it. I don’t have no
0:43:41 idea. But we run Google ads every day for, for customer. Eventually, from a side hustle, team
0:43:47 building becomes key to it. And again, if my son was wanting to start a business, this would be
0:43:52 something I would try to get him to do from the, from the very beginning is to find somebody that can
0:43:57 do fulfillment and then go out and sell it and then pay that person to do the fulfillment.
0:44:03 Got it. Is there a sweet spot in terms of metro area size or is there markets that are just like,
0:44:08 this is too competitive? I wouldn’t trust myself to sell a one-time SEO boost because I don’t think
0:44:13 we can move the needle here. No, because even in a very competitive market, there are plenty of
0:44:18 businesses that those other brands are not even going to give the time of day to. They’re going to
0:44:23 judge them based upon their location or the condition of the business or something like
0:44:29 that. And they’re looking for mass. They’re marketing broad strokes, running ads, you know,
0:44:35 cold calling, cold, I can’t stand cold calling, cold emailing. So they’re getting bombarded with cold
0:44:40 emails, cold calls. In my experience, Nick, and I don’t know what your thoughts are on this or what
0:44:50 you’ve seen. In my experience, the fastest way to $25,000 a month in recurring revenue is local
0:44:55 networking. And sometimes we go into new markets and by geographic markets. I just recently hired
0:45:02 somebody in Kent, Ohio, and we’re following our process in Kent. It’s a US-based employee. We needed
0:45:07 a new person. The last person was leaving. I found somebody in Kent. It’s always good for me to have
0:45:12 somebody in the US. And we just started the same thing. Signed up. This person started going to all
0:45:18 the local networking events. We found a local business association and went to them and said,
0:45:23 hey, we’d like to host a podcast for you. You’re the producer of it. It’s under your branding.
0:45:31 We’ll interview your members and it becomes a member benefit for you to give to your members for free and
0:45:36 help you recruit more members. This is the fourth or fifth local area business podcast we’ve done.
0:45:42 And they’re like, they love it. And so we just, Katie started going around and interviewing all
0:45:47 of Main Street Kent. That’s the business, that’s the business association. She just started interviewing
0:45:52 all of their businesses. And at the end of it, she’s just like, she’s built a relationship. And she says,
0:45:58 hey, can I add you? I actually am with In Transit Studios. Can I add you to our weekly email newsletter?
0:46:02 And they’re always like, oh yeah, that would be great. We’d love to get that. And we’ve signed on
0:46:07 all kinds of clients that way. So over and over and over again, it’s hard to beat. I’m not saying
0:46:13 the Chamber of Commerce or BNI. Those are great and they have their places. But I’m talking about
0:46:19 going to the local community business association and getting in there and then finding some of the
0:46:25 strategic partnerships. When I was in Oceanview, Virginia, one of my best strategic partnerships was
0:46:33 a commercial real estate agent because Duncan knew every single time a new business was coming in to
0:46:40 town. And he was able to make referrals for me over and over and over again for, you know, hey, so-and-so
0:46:45 starting this business. Hey, did you hear so-and-so is going to try to open up an ice cream shop? Oh, no,
0:46:49 I hadn’t heard that. You know, I’d reach out and build. Hey, I heard you’re going to start an ice cream
0:46:56 shop. You know, how can I help? And stuff like that. So it’s hard to beat that there’s no money
0:47:02 hiding behind your computer, especially starting out in a side hustle with a local business. It’s just
0:47:08 hard to be getting out there, hitting the pavement and meeting people, having a face-to-face conversation
0:47:14 and getting those first few clients in. Like you said, they start talking to others. You get a couple
0:47:19 case studies. Now you can start to branch out. Now you can start to grow. And it’s just,
0:47:25 to me, the fastest way to $25,000 a month in recurring revenue is local networking.
0:47:30 All right. That’s fantastic. You heard it here first. The digital nomad life comes second.
0:47:35 What comes first is this? Boots on the ground, local effort. There’s no money hiding behind your
0:47:40 computer. I love that line. Eric, you’ve got the agency. What’s next for you? You got the family,
0:47:45 you got the travels. What’s got you excited these days? We are trying to figure out where in the world
0:47:50 we’re going to live. We need to settle down as our children are turning 18. We have another one
0:47:57 will be 18 next year. It’s time for them to start transitioning to young adult life. And literally,
0:48:04 the world is open. In three and a half years, we’ve lived in over 20 countries. And we’ve just learned
0:48:09 that we love all the places. And so what’s exciting for us is trying to figure out that.
0:48:11 Give me like your top three. Like where are your favorite spots?
0:48:19 Oh my goodness. Our favorite spot. So London would be a great to live in. We really love Buenos Aires,
0:48:26 Argentina. Argentina’s fantastic. We really like that. And let’s see a third one. Istanbul,
0:48:30 Turkey. We wouldn’t settle there. But if you’re looking for someplace to visit,
0:48:35 check out Istanbul, Turkey. It’s a great city. Very good. I’ve been fortunate enough to have
0:48:40 visited all three of those. So I will all vouch for those all very cool places. So okay, there you go.
0:48:45 This has been awesome. I’ve got a ton of notes. I know people will hopefully take a lot of action
0:48:50 based on this episode and go sell some of this service on their own. If you would like to grab
0:48:56 Eric’s local SEO side hustle checklist, I would encourage you to do that. It’s at ericdingler.com
0:49:02 slash side hustle with all the details that we talked about in this episode. That’s Eric with a
0:49:09 C, ericdingler.com slash side hustle for that local SEO side hustle checklist. Let’s wrap this up with
0:49:14 your number one tip for side hustle nation. Real estate agents don’t build the houses they sell.
0:49:20 So don’t fall into the trap that you have to be the one doing it. There are some side hustles where it
0:49:26 makes sense and things like that. But if your long-term kind of desire is to start a side hustle
0:49:33 to escape the nine to five with it, then figure out how to be a leader. If I was starting over,
0:49:39 the two things I would study starting over, and I’m talking like I’m 50. If I was going back to my 20s,
0:49:44 the two things I would study to start over is leadership and list building.
0:49:47 Okay. Well, you heard it here first. Leadership and list building.
0:49:52 Real estate agents don’t build the houses they sell. My interpretation is don’t find yourself
0:49:56 getting stuck in fulfillment. You don’t want to be the technician doing the work all day,
0:50:00 every day. You want to be building client relationships. You want to be leading the team
0:50:06 rather than getting stuck in the freelancer’s trap of selling your skills. You don’t even need to know
0:50:10 necessarily how to do this. You just need to be able to play matchmaker with the people who need
0:50:15 the service and the people who know how to get it done. That’s absolutely right. I have a 90-day
0:50:19 accelerator. I do every quarter where I take a group of people through the process of
0:50:26 gearing up to hire, onboard, and lead a remote team. If that’s something somebody would be interested in,
0:50:31 go ericdingler.com forward slash side hustle. They’ll download that. They’ll be able to reach
0:50:37 me from there and be more than happy to help somebody navigate hiring a remote team.
0:50:44 Very cool. Go check it out, ericdingler.com slash side hustle. My other note that I have here is,
0:50:48 you know, you want recurring revenue. You got to solve a recurring problem. Businesses needing to
0:50:53 increase their customer activity, like Eric said, hey, that’s a recurring problem. It’s never going
0:50:57 to go away, right? So sell that result. And if you want recurring revenue, you got to keep selling it.
0:51:00 Give those follow-up reports. Hey, before and after, here’s what we did. Here’s what we’re able to get
0:51:05 done. Here’s where we want to go next. So really cool stuff. Again, ericdingler.com.
0:51:10 The Side Hustle Show, as you may or may not know, just had its 12th birthday. And whether it’s your
0:51:14 first time listening or you’ve been here since the beginning, I appreciate you spending some time
0:51:19 with us in your earbuds today. If you’re newer to the show and you want to go a little bit deeper,
0:51:22 hey, what else you got here? It’s been around for this long. You can actually get a personalized
0:51:28 playlist at hustle.show. All you have to do is answer a few short, multiple choice questions,
0:51:32 and it’s going to recommend eight to 10 of our greatest hits to start with based on your answers.
0:51:38 Totally free. Hustle.show for that personalized playlist. Big thanks to Eric for sharing his
0:51:41 insight. And can I shout out our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone?
0:51:46 Sidehustlenation.com slash deals is where to go for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:51:51 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That’s it for me. Thank you so much for
0:51:56 tuning in. If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:52:01 Fire off that text message. I know you got at least one friend who can take Eric’s model and run with it.
0:52:04 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you in the
0:52:07 next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.

0:00:02 – Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,
0:00:04 where we revisit past episodes
0:00:07 for the most potent and actionable science-based tools
0:00:10 for mental health, physical health, and performance.
0:00:12 I’m Andrew Huberman,
0:00:15 and I’m a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
0:00:17 at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:00:20 Today, we are going to talk all about healthy
0:00:21 and disordered eating.
0:00:23 And indeed, we are going to talk about
0:00:24 clinical eating disorders,
0:00:29 such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder,
0:00:32 as well as some other related eating disorders.
0:00:34 However, before we get into this material,
0:00:38 I want to emphasize that today’s discussion will include
0:00:41 what it is to have a healthy relationship with food.
0:00:44 We are going to talk about metabolism.
0:00:46 We are going to talk about how eating frequency
0:00:51 and what one eats influences things like appetite and satiety,
0:00:54 as well as whether or not we have
0:00:57 a healthy psychological relationship to food
0:01:00 and our body weight and so-called body composition,
0:01:04 the ratio of muscle to fat to bone, et cetera.
0:01:07 So as we march into this conversation,
0:01:09 I’d like to share with you some interesting
0:01:11 and what I believe are important findings
0:01:15 in the realm of nutrition and human behavior.
0:01:18 I know these days, many people are excited about
0:01:21 or curious about so-called intermittent fasting.
0:01:24 Intermittent fasting is, as the name implies,
0:01:28 simply restricting one’s feeding behavior, eating,
0:01:31 to a particular phase of the 24-hour
0:01:33 or so-called circadian cycle.
0:01:37 Other forms of intermittent fasting involve not eating
0:01:40 for extended periods of time, for entire days,
0:01:43 or some people will extend to two days or three days.
0:01:46 Typically, and hopefully, they will drink water
0:01:50 during those times, sometimes referred to as water fasting,
0:01:52 which means that they are ingesting fluids,
0:01:55 and hopefully they are ingesting electrolytes,
0:01:57 such as salt, potassium, and magnesium as well,
0:02:02 because while one can survive for some period of time
0:02:04 without ingesting calories,
0:02:06 it is extremely important to continue
0:02:10 to ingest plenty of fluids and electrolytes.
0:02:12 And the reason for that is that the neurons
0:02:14 of your brain and body that control your movements,
0:02:18 your thoughts, clarity of thinking in general, et cetera,
0:02:22 is critically dependent on the presence of adequate levels
0:02:26 of sodium, potassium, and magnesium, the electrolytes.
0:02:28 And that’s because neurons can only be electrically active
0:02:31 by way of movement of particular ions,
0:02:34 which include things like sodium, potassium, and magnesium.
0:02:37 So without those, you can’t think, you can’t function,
0:02:39 and it actually can be quite dangerous.
0:02:42 So why all the excitement about intermittent fasting?
0:02:45 Well, a lot of the excitement relates to work
0:02:47 that was done by a former colleague of mine
0:02:50 down at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
0:02:51 in San Diego named Sachin Panda.
0:02:55 Sachin’s lab identified some very important
0:02:57 and impactful health benefits
0:03:00 of restricting one’s feeding window
0:03:02 to particular times within the 24-hour cycle,
0:03:07 or even to having extended fasts that go for a day
0:03:08 or two days or maybe even three days.
0:03:13 What they saw was an improvement in liver enzymes,
0:03:15 an improvement in insulin sensitivity,
0:03:17 which is something that is good.
0:03:20 It means that you can utilize the calories
0:03:23 and the blood sugar that you happen to have.
0:03:25 Being insulin insensitive is not good
0:03:28 and is actually a form of diabetes.
0:03:33 What Sachin’s lab and subsequently other labs showed
0:03:35 was that restricting one’s feeding window
0:03:39 to anywhere from four to eight or even 12 hours
0:03:42 during each 24-hour cycle was beneficial in mice.
0:03:45 And some studies in humans have also shown
0:03:47 that it can be beneficial for various health parameters.
0:03:51 However, the excitement about intermittent fasting
0:03:56 seems to be related to the foundational truth
0:03:59 about metabolism and weight loss
0:04:01 and weight maintenance and weight gain,
0:04:04 which is that regardless of whether or not
0:04:05 you intermittent fast
0:04:08 or whether or not you eat small meals all day long
0:04:10 or you eat one meal in the evening
0:04:11 and snack up until then,
0:04:15 it really doesn’t matter in the sense
0:04:19 that the calories that you ingest from whatever source
0:04:23 are going to be filtered through the calories
0:04:26 that you burn by way of exercise,
0:04:27 basal metabolic rate,
0:04:29 which is just the calories that you happen to burn,
0:04:32 just being alive and thinking and breathing
0:04:33 and your heart beating, et cetera.
0:04:38 And the reason why many people prefer intermittent fasting
0:04:41 to other forms of, let’s just call it what it is,
0:04:43 diet or nutritional framework,
0:04:47 is that many people find it easier to not eat
0:04:50 than to limit their portion size.
0:04:53 And here I’m not talking necessarily about eating disorders,
0:04:54 I’m talking about the general population.
0:04:56 So why are we talking about this?
0:04:59 And in particular, why are we talking about this
0:05:01 during an episode that includes a discussion
0:05:02 about eating disorders?
0:05:07 The reason is nobody, not the government,
0:05:09 no nutritionists, no individual,
0:05:13 no matter how knowledgeable they are about food
0:05:14 and nutrition and food intake,
0:05:19 can define the best plan for eating for any one individual.
0:05:21 I’m going to repeat that.
0:05:25 Nobody knows what truly healthy eating is.
0:05:27 We only know the measurements we can take,
0:05:31 liver enzymes, blood lipid profiles, body weight,
0:05:34 athletic performance, mental performance,
0:05:36 whether or not you’re cranky all day,
0:05:37 whether or not you’re feeling relaxed.
0:05:39 Nobody knows how to define these.
0:05:43 And these have strong cultural and familial
0:05:46 and socio-societal influence.
0:05:50 So if you hang out with people that intermittent fast all day,
0:05:51 that will seem normal.
0:05:52 If you spend time with people
0:05:54 that have never heard of intermittent fasting,
0:05:57 intermittent fasting is going to seem very abnormal.
0:05:59 Now, we are going to talk about eating disorders
0:06:01 that really fall into the category
0:06:04 of clinically diagnosable eating disorders
0:06:07 for which there’s actually serious health hazards
0:06:09 and even the serious risk of death.
0:06:12 There are clear criteria in the psychiatric
0:06:13 and psychological communities
0:06:17 to define things like anorexia, bulimia,
0:06:18 binge eating disorder,
0:06:19 all of which we will talk about.
0:06:21 But as we have that discussion,
0:06:24 I want to emphasize that self-diagnosis
0:06:28 can be both a terrific but also a very precarious thing.
0:06:30 There’s always a temptation
0:06:33 as one learns about the symptomology of a given disorder,
0:06:35 doesn’t really matter what the disorder is,
0:06:37 to ask the question,
0:06:38 well, do I have that?
0:06:40 Does so-and-so that I know have that?
0:06:42 It’s tempting to diagnose them and or ourselves
0:06:45 as either having or not having a particular disorder.
0:06:50 However, diagnoses really need to be carried out
0:06:53 by people who are trained in that particular field
0:06:54 and that have deep expertise
0:06:56 in recognizing the symptomology,
0:06:59 including some of the more subtle symptomology
0:07:00 of eating disorders.
0:07:03 So if any of the symptoms resonate with you
0:07:06 by way of you thinking
0:07:07 that you have this particular disorder
0:07:09 or someone that you know has a disorder,
0:07:11 I would take that seriously,
0:07:13 but I would take that information
0:07:15 to a qualified healthcare professional
0:07:18 that could diagnose or rule out
0:07:19 any of these possible disorders.
0:07:21 I’d like to take a quick break
0:07:23 and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element.
0:07:25 Element is an electrolyte drink
0:07:27 that has everything you need and nothing you don’t.
0:07:28 That means the electrolytes,
0:07:30 sodium, magnesium, and potassium
0:07:32 in the correct amounts, but no sugar.
0:07:33 Proper hydration is critical
0:07:35 for optimal brain and body function.
0:07:37 Even a slight degree of dehydration
0:07:40 can diminish cognitive and physical performance.
0:07:41 It’s also important
0:07:42 that you get adequate electrolytes.
0:07:45 The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium
0:07:46 are vital for functioning
0:07:48 of all the cells in your body,
0:07:50 especially your neurons or your nerve cells.
0:07:52 Drinking Element dissolved in water
0:07:53 makes it very easy to ensure
0:07:55 that you’re getting adequate hydration
0:07:56 and adequate electrolytes.
0:07:58 To make sure that I’m getting proper amounts
0:08:00 of hydration and electrolytes,
0:08:01 I dissolve one packet of Element
0:08:03 in about 16 to 32 ounces of water
0:08:05 when I first wake up in the morning
0:08:06 and I drink that basically
0:08:07 first thing in the morning.
0:08:09 I’ll also drink Element dissolved in water
0:08:11 during any kind of physical exercise
0:08:11 that I’m doing,
0:08:13 especially on hot days
0:08:14 when I’m sweating a lot
0:08:15 and losing water and electrolytes.
0:08:18 Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors.
0:08:19 I love the raspberry.
0:08:20 I love the citrus flavor.
0:08:22 Right now, Element has a limited edition
0:08:23 lemonade flavor
0:08:25 that is absolutely delicious.
0:08:26 I hate to say that I love one
0:08:27 more than all the others,
0:08:29 but this lemonade flavor
0:08:29 is right up there
0:08:30 with my favorite other one,
0:08:32 which is raspberry or watermelon.
0:08:34 Again, I can’t pick just one flavor.
0:08:34 I love them all.
0:08:36 If you’d like to try Element,
0:08:39 you can go to drink element.com slash Huberman,
0:08:42 spelled drink L-M-N-T dot com slash Huberman
0:08:44 to claim a free Element sample pack
0:08:46 with a purchase of any Element drink mix.
0:08:49 Again, that’s drink element.com slash Huberman
0:08:51 to claim a free sample pack.
0:08:53 So what is an eating disorder?
0:08:56 Well, we have to take a step back
0:08:58 and confess to the fact
0:09:00 that every society, every culture,
0:09:01 every family,
0:09:02 and every individual
0:09:04 has a different relationship to food.
0:09:06 Eating disorders, however,
0:09:08 have particular criteria
0:09:10 that allow us to define them
0:09:13 and to think about different modes of treatment
0:09:15 as it relates
0:09:17 to the particular symptoms,
0:09:18 in particular,
0:09:20 the psychological and biological symptoms
0:09:21 of those disorders.
0:09:23 What are the major eating disorders?
0:09:26 Anorexia nervosa,
0:09:29 most commonly referred to as anorexia,
0:09:32 is perhaps the most prevalent
0:09:34 and the most dangerous
0:09:35 of all eating disorders.
0:09:37 In fact,
0:09:39 anorexia is the most dangerous
0:09:40 psychiatric disorder of all,
0:09:42 even more than depression.
0:09:45 the probability of death
0:09:47 for untreated anorexia
0:09:48 is very high.
0:09:50 And sadly,
0:09:51 the prevalence of anorexia
0:09:52 is very high.
0:09:54 If you look it up online
0:09:55 or you talk to a qualified professional,
0:09:57 it’s essentially a failure
0:09:58 to eat enough
0:09:59 to maintain a healthy weight.
0:10:01 You can see all sorts
0:10:04 of very troubling symptoms
0:10:05 of somebody who’s been anorexic
0:10:06 for some period of time,
0:10:10 a general loss of muscle mass
0:10:12 because they’re ingesting fewer calories
0:10:13 than they burn.
0:10:15 They will have a low heart rate.
0:10:17 This is the body
0:10:18 and brain’s attempt
0:10:19 to lower energy output.
0:10:21 They will have low blood pressure.
0:10:23 They will sometimes have symptoms
0:10:24 like fainting,
0:10:26 loss of bone density,
0:10:28 osteoporosis,
0:10:29 loss of periods
0:10:31 in girls and women,
0:10:35 and all sorts of disrupted gut
0:10:36 and immune functions.
0:10:38 So there are just tons
0:10:39 of terrible symptoms
0:10:40 of anorexia
0:10:41 that really place
0:10:42 the anorexic
0:10:45 into a very risky state,
0:10:47 which is why mortality
0:10:49 from anorexia gone untreated
0:10:50 is extremely high.
0:10:53 Now, one of the misconceptions
0:10:55 about anorexia
0:10:57 is that it stems
0:10:58 from an overemphasis
0:10:59 on perfectionism
0:11:00 or that because
0:11:02 of all the images
0:11:03 in social media
0:11:05 and in advertising
0:11:07 of extremely thin
0:11:07 and fit
0:11:07 and fit
0:11:08 or muscular people
0:11:10 that individuals
0:11:11 are looking at themselves
0:11:12 and comparing themselves
0:11:13 to those images
0:11:14 and thinking
0:11:15 that they don’t match up
0:11:17 and developing anorexia.
0:11:19 That turns out
0:11:20 to not be the case.
0:11:21 If you look
0:11:22 at the prevalence
0:11:23 or the rates
0:11:24 of anorexia
0:11:26 in the last 10 years
0:11:27 or 20 years
0:11:28 and you compare that
0:11:29 to when anorexia
0:11:30 was first identified,
0:11:32 which was in the 1600s
0:11:33 and perhaps even earlier,
0:11:34 what you find
0:11:36 is that rates
0:11:36 of anorexia
0:11:37 are not going up.
0:11:39 Classically defined anorexia
0:11:40 has existed
0:11:41 at essentially
0:11:42 the same prevalence
0:11:45 for the last 100,
0:11:45 200,
0:11:46 300,
0:11:47 and 400 years,
0:11:48 which is incredible
0:11:49 and really speaks
0:11:50 to the likelihood
0:11:52 that there’s a strong
0:11:53 biological contribution
0:11:54 to what we call
0:11:55 anorexia nervosa.
0:11:57 Anorexia nervosa
0:11:58 is extremely common.
0:11:59 It’s anywhere
0:12:02 from 1% to 2%
0:12:03 of women
0:12:05 and the typical onset
0:12:06 is in adolescence,
0:12:07 close to puberty,
0:12:09 but it can show up
0:12:10 later in life as well.
0:12:11 In fact,
0:12:13 the identification
0:12:14 and diagnosis
0:12:15 of anorexia
0:12:15 tends to be
0:12:17 in the early 20s,
0:12:19 but if you look back
0:12:19 at the history
0:12:20 of those individuals,
0:12:21 there were typically
0:12:23 signs of anorexia
0:12:23 that stem back
0:12:24 into their early teens
0:12:26 or maybe even before that.
0:12:27 Now, of course,
0:12:28 men can be anorexic
0:12:29 as well,
0:12:30 but anorexia nervosa
0:12:31 does seem to occur
0:12:33 at 10 times
0:12:33 the rate
0:12:34 in women
0:12:35 and young girls
0:12:36 than it does
0:12:37 in men
0:12:38 and young boys.
0:12:40 So what is hunger
0:12:41 and what is satiety?
0:12:41 Satiety,
0:12:42 of course,
0:12:43 being sated
0:12:43 or feeling
0:12:44 like we’ve had
0:12:45 enough food.
0:12:46 I want to remind people
0:12:48 of the basic mechanisms
0:12:49 by which the brain
0:12:50 and body communicate.
0:12:51 The body
0:12:52 is communicating
0:12:53 two types of information
0:12:53 to the brain
0:12:55 on a regular basis,
0:12:56 but in particular
0:12:57 around feeding.
0:12:58 and those two types
0:12:59 of information
0:13:00 are mechanical information
0:13:03 and chemical information.
0:13:04 When your stomach
0:13:05 is full,
0:13:06 it sends signals
0:13:07 to your brain
0:13:08 that are purely based
0:13:09 on this mechanical fullness.
0:13:10 That’s nothing
0:13:11 to do with nutrients
0:13:12 that says,
0:13:13 I’m full
0:13:15 and therefore
0:13:17 don’t be as hungry.
0:13:17 Don’t motivate
0:13:18 to find
0:13:19 or ingest food.
0:13:20 Whereas when our gut
0:13:21 is empty,
0:13:22 even if we have plenty
0:13:23 of nutrients
0:13:25 or plenty of body fat stores,
0:13:26 we tend to focus
0:13:27 on food a bit more.
0:13:29 So volume
0:13:31 and mechanical influences
0:13:32 have a profound effect
0:13:33 on how we think
0:13:34 and what we consider
0:13:35 doing or not doing.
0:13:36 Likewise,
0:13:37 chemical effects.
0:13:39 When we ingest food,
0:13:40 our blood glucose goes up.
0:13:41 That information
0:13:42 is signaled to the brain
0:13:45 via neuronal pathways
0:13:46 and hormonal pathways.
0:13:48 And in particular,
0:13:49 there are neurons
0:13:50 within our gut
0:13:51 that signal to areas
0:13:52 of our brainstem
0:13:52 that are involved
0:13:53 in satiety
0:13:54 in our sense
0:13:54 of having enough
0:13:55 that there’s food
0:13:56 in our system.
0:13:58 So that’s chemical information.
0:14:01 So how are hunger
0:14:02 and feeding
0:14:03 and satiety regulated?
0:14:05 By way of mechanical
0:14:06 and chemical signaling.
0:14:08 You have,
0:14:08 I have,
0:14:09 we all have
0:14:11 neurons in our hypothalamus
0:14:12 that trigger eating
0:14:14 and neurons
0:14:15 that trigger
0:14:16 cessation
0:14:17 or stopping of eating.
0:14:18 Your hypothalamus
0:14:19 at the base
0:14:19 of your forebrain
0:14:20 sits more or less
0:14:21 above the roof
0:14:21 of your mouth.
0:14:22 The hypothalamus
0:14:23 contains lots
0:14:24 of different kinds
0:14:24 of neurons.
0:14:25 including neurons
0:14:26 that stimulate
0:14:27 sexual activity
0:14:28 and desire,
0:14:30 regulate your body temperature
0:14:32 and control appetite
0:14:33 and ceasing
0:14:34 of eating
0:14:35 and appetite.
0:14:38 There are two types
0:14:38 of neurons
0:14:39 within a particular area
0:14:40 of your hypothalamus
0:14:41 that are relevant here.
0:14:42 There are the so-called
0:14:45 POMC neurons.
0:14:46 Okay?
0:14:48 Pro-opioid melanocortin neurons
0:14:50 that tend to act
0:14:51 as more of a break
0:14:53 on appetite
0:14:55 by way of another hormone
0:14:56 called melanocyte
0:14:57 stimulating hormone.
0:14:58 And you have a class
0:14:58 of neurons
0:15:00 called the AGRP neurons.
0:15:01 The AGRP neurons
0:15:01 are the ones
0:15:03 that stimulate feeding
0:15:04 and they create
0:15:05 a sort of anxiety
0:15:06 or excitement
0:15:07 about food.
0:15:09 If you eliminate
0:15:10 or kill these neurons,
0:15:11 which has been done
0:15:13 in experimental mouse models
0:15:14 in the laboratory,
0:15:15 but also there are humans
0:15:15 that have lesions
0:15:17 or neurotoxic effects
0:15:18 on these AGRP neurons.
0:15:20 And what you find
0:15:21 is that they don’t want to eat.
0:15:22 They have no appetite
0:15:23 for food whatsoever.
0:15:25 Whereas if you stimulate
0:15:26 these AGRP neurons
0:15:27 or in humans
0:15:28 that have say
0:15:29 a small tumor
0:15:30 near these AGRP neurons,
0:15:32 they become hyperphagic.
0:15:32 They will eat
0:15:33 to the point of bursting.
0:15:35 Now there are signals
0:15:36 coming back
0:15:37 from the body
0:15:38 to inform the brain
0:15:39 about presence
0:15:40 of different levels
0:15:41 of nutrients.
0:15:41 And that generally
0:15:43 comes from three sources.
0:15:44 first of all
0:15:46 is body fat.
0:15:48 The more body fat we have,
0:15:49 the more we secrete
0:15:50 a hormone called leptin,
0:15:51 L-E-P-T-I-N,
0:15:53 leptin from body fat.
0:15:55 Leptin goes to the brain
0:15:57 and suppresses appetite.
0:15:58 Not incidentally,
0:16:00 leptin signaling
0:16:01 is disrupted
0:16:02 in people
0:16:03 that have bulimia
0:16:04 and obesity
0:16:05 and certain forms
0:16:07 of binge eating disorder.
0:16:08 The body fat
0:16:09 is doing something else
0:16:09 really interesting
0:16:11 that relates to anorexia.
0:16:13 When there’s sufficient levels
0:16:13 of body fat
0:16:15 and leptin circulating
0:16:16 in the blood
0:16:17 and that leptin signal
0:16:18 gets to the brain,
0:16:20 the hypothalamus
0:16:21 and the pituitary gland
0:16:22 register that signal
0:16:24 and in a completely
0:16:25 subconscious way
0:16:26 trigger
0:16:28 the deployment
0:16:28 of eggs
0:16:30 in females
0:16:31 and the production
0:16:32 of sperm
0:16:32 in males.
0:16:34 So when body fat stores
0:16:35 are very low,
0:16:36 the reason why
0:16:37 periods shut off
0:16:38 or sperm production
0:16:39 is reduced
0:16:40 or even shut off
0:16:41 is because there’s
0:16:42 not enough leptin
0:16:44 getting to the hypothalamus
0:16:45 and to the pituitary
0:16:47 and they shut off
0:16:48 the signals,
0:16:49 the hormones,
0:16:50 things like gonadotropin,
0:16:50 releasing hormone,
0:16:51 luteinizing hormone,
0:16:52 follicle stimulating hormone
0:16:54 that travel to the ovary
0:16:55 or to the testes
0:16:56 and cause the ovary
0:16:56 and testes
0:16:57 to ovulate
0:16:58 or to produce
0:17:00 more sperm.
0:17:00 So you’ve got
0:17:01 two categories of neurons,
0:17:02 one that acts
0:17:03 as an accelerator,
0:17:04 the AGRP neuron
0:17:05 saying eat,
0:17:05 eat
0:17:07 and gets you excited
0:17:07 to eat
0:17:08 and then you have
0:17:09 a category of neurons,
0:17:10 the PMOC neurons
0:17:13 that are suppressing hunger,
0:17:14 they’re acting like a brake
0:17:15 and the body
0:17:16 is informing the brain
0:17:17 all the time
0:17:17 about the status
0:17:18 of the body
0:17:18 and whether or not
0:17:19 it needs more food.
0:17:20 So you might ask,
0:17:21 why is it
0:17:22 that people who are overweight
0:17:23 and have a lot of body fat,
0:17:24 why they would continue
0:17:25 to eat a lot?
0:17:26 It seems like
0:17:27 that just shouldn’t happen.
0:17:29 From an evolutionary standpoint,
0:17:31 it makes sense
0:17:32 that we should eat
0:17:34 as often as we can,
0:17:35 as much as we can
0:17:37 and as fast as we can.
0:17:38 There are circuits
0:17:38 in the brain
0:17:40 to reward eating often,
0:17:41 eating fast
0:17:43 and cramming
0:17:43 as much food
0:17:44 into you as possible
0:17:46 because from a purely
0:17:47 evolutionary standpoint,
0:17:49 food was scarce
0:17:50 and seeking food
0:17:51 was dangerous
0:17:52 whether or not
0:17:53 it was from animal sources
0:17:53 or not
0:17:55 and it’s always
0:17:56 been competitive.
0:17:57 Every animal,
0:17:58 including humans,
0:18:00 has a hardwired
0:18:00 circuit
0:18:01 that we were born
0:18:03 with that pays attention
0:18:04 to how much food
0:18:05 is available,
0:18:06 how much we are getting
0:18:07 now and how much
0:18:08 we are likely to get
0:18:09 in the future
0:18:11 and without going down
0:18:12 the rabbit hole
0:18:14 of arcuate nucleus biology,
0:18:17 in two sentences,
0:18:19 you have a hypothalamic area
0:18:20 called the arcuate nucleus.
0:18:21 It’s actually the area
0:18:22 that houses
0:18:23 these PMOC neurons
0:18:24 and these other types
0:18:24 of neurons
0:18:25 that regulate hunger
0:18:26 and satiety
0:18:29 and these neurons
0:18:30 in the arcuate nucleus
0:18:31 start getting active
0:18:33 when we see food
0:18:34 and think about food
0:18:35 and they drive hunger
0:18:36 in a way
0:18:36 that’s responsive
0:18:37 to what the food
0:18:38 looks like,
0:18:40 what it smells like,
0:18:42 but also our prior history
0:18:43 of interactions
0:18:43 with that food
0:18:45 and it takes into account
0:18:47 social context.
0:18:48 What’s the pathway?
0:18:48 How does this work?
0:18:52 Well, you can frame
0:18:53 all of behavior,
0:18:55 good decision-making
0:18:56 and bad decision-making
0:18:57 in a pretty simple
0:18:59 box diagram model.
0:19:01 We have knowledge
0:19:02 of what we should do
0:19:03 in one box, okay?
0:19:04 We should eat that,
0:19:05 we shouldn’t eat that,
0:19:06 we should wait for dinner,
0:19:07 we shouldn’t wait for dinner
0:19:08 and then we have
0:19:09 what we actually do
0:19:11 in another box.
0:19:13 In between those two boxes
0:19:15 are two intervening forces
0:19:16 and those intervening forces
0:19:18 are critically important.
0:19:19 those intervening forces
0:19:21 are homeostatic processes
0:19:23 that regulate the balance
0:19:25 of different systems
0:19:25 in your body,
0:19:26 hot and cold,
0:19:27 awake or asleep,
0:19:30 dopamine and the desire
0:19:31 to pursue things,
0:19:32 serotonin and the desire
0:19:34 to just relax and chill.
0:19:36 So homeostatic processes
0:19:38 and reward systems
0:19:40 and as we now move
0:19:41 into discussion
0:19:42 about anorexia
0:19:43 and bulimia specifically,
0:19:45 what you’ll see
0:19:47 is that anorexia and bulimia
0:19:49 are not a breaking
0:19:51 of the mindset
0:19:52 of what one should do
0:19:53 or shouldn’t do.
0:19:55 It’s a disruption
0:19:56 of these homeostatic
0:19:57 and reward processes
0:20:00 such that decision-making
0:20:01 is completely disrupted
0:20:02 and in many cases
0:20:03 is not available
0:20:05 to the anorexic or bulimic.
0:20:06 Now, I don’t want
0:20:07 to be abstract here.
0:20:07 What I’m saying is
0:20:09 that the person
0:20:11 who starves themselves
0:20:11 to the point
0:20:12 where they might die
0:20:13 and in some cases
0:20:14 sadly do die,
0:20:16 they can know perfectly well
0:20:17 that their behavior
0:20:20 is leading to bad outcomes
0:20:22 and possibly even death
0:20:24 and yet they are not able
0:20:25 to intervene
0:20:26 unless they get
0:20:28 particular clinical help
0:20:31 because the homeostatic processes,
0:20:32 the signals from the body
0:20:33 and brain that say
0:20:34 you need food,
0:20:36 those aren’t registering
0:20:37 in the same way
0:20:38 that they are
0:20:39 for other individuals
0:20:40 and just as a little teaser
0:20:41 of where we’re headed,
0:20:44 anorexics have a sort of switch
0:20:45 that’s been flipped
0:20:48 such that their decision-making
0:20:50 is actually pretty darn good.
0:20:51 It might even be better
0:20:51 than yours
0:20:52 in terms of evaluating
0:20:54 food nutritional content
0:20:55 but their habits
0:20:56 are disrupted
0:20:57 so they’re not even
0:20:59 consciously aware
0:20:59 of the fact
0:21:00 that they’re making terrible
0:21:01 and in some cases
0:21:03 very dangerous food choices.
0:21:04 It turns out habits
0:21:06 and the way that we build
0:21:07 and break
0:21:09 and rebuild new habits
0:21:10 is one of the most
0:21:11 effective treatments
0:21:11 for anorexia.
0:21:13 I’d like to take
0:21:13 a quick break
0:21:14 and acknowledge
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0:22:49 So now let’s talk
0:22:50 about anorexia,
0:22:51 this failure
0:22:52 to consume enough energy
0:22:53 such that the individual
0:22:55 is at risk of death
0:22:56 and if not death,
0:22:58 then severe metabolic disorders,
0:23:00 lack of bone density,
0:23:01 et cetera.
0:23:02 A careful analysis
0:23:04 through medical epidemiology
0:23:05 has shown
0:23:06 that you find anorexia
0:23:07 even in cultures
0:23:08 and societies
0:23:09 where food is scarce.
0:23:11 So that really speaks
0:23:13 to biological mechanism.
0:23:13 Typically,
0:23:14 anorexia starts
0:23:15 in adolescence
0:23:16 right around puberty.
0:23:17 Puberty
0:23:19 at a very broad level
0:23:21 is the most significant
0:23:23 and dramatic developmental step
0:23:24 anyone goes through
0:23:24 in their lifespan.
0:23:25 The body changes,
0:23:26 the brain changes,
0:23:27 perceptions change,
0:23:29 one’s own self-perception
0:23:30 changes.
0:23:32 And most of those changes
0:23:33 are driven by changes
0:23:34 in circuitry
0:23:36 within the hypothalamus.
0:23:37 So neurons
0:23:37 that are controlling
0:23:38 the production
0:23:39 of the so-called
0:23:40 sex steroid hormones,
0:23:41 things like testosterone,
0:23:41 estrogen,
0:23:42 and related hormones,
0:23:43 prolactin,
0:23:43 et cetera,
0:23:45 those are all changing
0:23:46 at very rapid rates.
0:23:48 Let’s look under the hood.
0:23:50 Let’s look at what’s known
0:23:51 about the neural circuitry
0:23:52 and the sorts of perceptions
0:23:53 and behaviors
0:23:54 of the neural circuitry
0:23:55 is driving
0:23:56 in order to understand
0:23:58 what they are truly
0:23:59 suffering from
0:24:00 at the level of cause,
0:24:01 not just symptoms.
0:24:03 First of all,
0:24:04 there’s a challenge
0:24:05 in studying anorexia
0:24:06 because in anorexia,
0:24:07 what you’re essentially studying
0:24:09 is the absence
0:24:09 of a behavior.
0:24:10 It’s very hard
0:24:11 to study
0:24:12 the absence
0:24:12 of a behavior
0:24:13 as opposed
0:24:14 to a behavior.
0:24:15 So they did
0:24:16 some experiments
0:24:17 with anorexics,
0:24:17 giving them
0:24:19 a gallery
0:24:19 of pictures
0:24:20 of different foods
0:24:21 and allowing
0:24:23 those anorexic patients
0:24:25 to arrange those foods
0:24:26 according to preference
0:24:28 about what they would select,
0:24:31 about food nutrient content,
0:24:32 about caloric content.
0:24:33 They essentially
0:24:34 asked these anorexics
0:24:36 to evaluate food
0:24:37 and in doing so,
0:24:38 they were able
0:24:38 to identify
0:24:39 something that’s
0:24:40 very unique
0:24:41 to anorexics
0:24:42 at the level
0:24:43 of their perception
0:24:44 of food.
0:24:45 Anorexics,
0:24:47 rather than being anxious
0:24:48 in the presence
0:24:48 of food,
0:24:50 have a hyperacuity,
0:24:51 a hyperawareness
0:24:52 of the fat content
0:24:53 of foods,
0:24:54 almost to the point
0:24:55 of being sort of
0:24:56 fat content savants.
0:24:57 Now,
0:24:58 it’s a well-known
0:24:59 symptom of anorexia,
0:25:02 especially young anorexics
0:25:02 that they have
0:25:04 kind of an obsession
0:25:05 with food,
0:25:06 caloric contents,
0:25:07 macronutrient ratios,
0:25:08 meaning fat,
0:25:08 protein,
0:25:10 and carbohydrate ratios.
0:25:12 They are actively
0:25:13 avoiding
0:25:15 high-fat content foods,
0:25:16 calorie-rich foods,
0:25:17 and defaulting
0:25:18 towards
0:25:19 very low-calorie foods
0:25:21 if they have to eat.
0:25:23 And that’s very important
0:25:24 because what that means
0:25:25 is that we need
0:25:25 to look at
0:25:26 the areas of the brain
0:25:27 that drive
0:25:29 habit formation
0:25:31 and habit execution.
0:25:32 In the case
0:25:32 of the anorexic,
0:25:34 those habits
0:25:35 are exactly
0:25:36 the place
0:25:36 where things
0:25:37 start to go awry
0:25:39 and that drive
0:25:39 this very
0:25:41 dysfunctional,
0:25:41 under-eating behavior
0:25:43 that sadly
0:25:43 often leads
0:25:44 to death
0:25:45 or certainly
0:25:46 bad medical outcomes.
0:25:47 And it turns out
0:25:49 that the brain areas
0:25:50 associated with
0:25:51 habit formation
0:25:52 and execution
0:25:53 are the best
0:25:54 point of intervention.
0:25:55 So
0:25:57 you have reflexes
0:25:59 and you have
0:26:01 neural processes
0:26:02 that include
0:26:03 what are called
0:26:04 duration path
0:26:04 and outcome
0:26:05 type processes.
0:26:06 A duration path
0:26:07 outcome type process
0:26:08 we can shorten
0:26:09 with DPO.
0:26:11 DPO is
0:26:13 for all types
0:26:14 of goal-related behaviors.
0:26:16 So for instance,
0:26:17 if you want
0:26:17 to go to the grocery store
0:26:18 and pick some stuff up
0:26:20 and then head home,
0:26:21 you’re going to think
0:26:22 duration,
0:26:23 how long do I have?
0:26:23 Okay,
0:26:24 do I have 45 minutes
0:26:25 to get to the store?
0:26:25 How long does it take
0:26:26 to get to the store?
0:26:27 Path,
0:26:28 which way am I going
0:26:28 to drive there?
0:26:29 Which way am I going
0:26:29 to navigate
0:26:30 through the grocery store?
0:26:31 Outcome,
0:26:32 was I able to get in
0:26:33 and get the items
0:26:33 I need
0:26:34 and get home in time?
0:26:35 Okay?
0:26:35 DPO,
0:26:36 duration path outcome.
0:26:37 It’s a very conscious
0:26:39 process that requires
0:26:40 decision-making
0:26:41 and it’s reward-based.
0:26:42 You use these
0:26:44 DPO type processes
0:26:45 in the short term
0:26:47 to pick up groceries
0:26:48 and pick a line
0:26:49 at the grocery store
0:26:50 and decide which
0:26:52 trajectory to take home
0:26:53 and you use them
0:26:54 for navigating
0:26:56 long extended processes
0:26:56 in life,
0:26:57 trying to get a degree
0:26:58 or raise children
0:26:59 or get through
0:27:00 a particularly
0:27:01 challenging year,
0:27:02 et cetera.
0:27:04 So duration path outcome
0:27:06 and that entire process
0:27:07 relies on your
0:27:08 forebrain,
0:27:09 this prefrontal cortex.
0:27:11 The prefrontal cortex
0:27:13 is what allows you
0:27:14 to take information
0:27:14 from memory,
0:27:15 combine it
0:27:16 with information
0:27:17 about what’s happening
0:27:18 in the present context
0:27:20 and then to direct
0:27:20 your behavior,
0:27:22 your speech,
0:27:23 et cetera,
0:27:24 toward particular outcomes.
0:27:25 Reflexes,
0:27:26 on the other hand,
0:27:28 don’t involve
0:27:28 the prefrontal cortex
0:27:29 in the same way.
0:27:31 Habits and reflexes,
0:27:32 like once you know
0:27:32 how to walk,
0:27:34 that doesn’t rely
0:27:34 on prefrontal cortex.
0:27:35 It’s subconscious
0:27:37 as it’s sometimes called,
0:27:37 but basically
0:27:38 you don’t have
0:27:39 to use the parts
0:27:39 of the brain
0:27:40 that are involved
0:27:41 in duration path
0:27:42 and outcome type analyses.
0:27:44 But basically
0:27:45 you have a brain area
0:27:46 and anorexics
0:27:46 have a brain area
0:27:47 that’s involved
0:27:48 in evaluating
0:27:49 and decision-making
0:27:49 around food
0:27:51 and then another brain area
0:27:52 that’s involved
0:27:53 in the reflexive
0:27:54 consumption
0:27:55 of particular foods
0:27:56 and the reflexive
0:27:57 avoidance
0:27:58 of other foods.
0:27:59 There are always
0:28:00 homeostatic
0:28:02 and reward systems
0:28:03 influencing
0:28:04 this kind of thing.
0:28:05 well,
0:28:07 in the brain
0:28:07 of the anorexic,
0:28:09 it turns out
0:28:10 that the reward systems
0:28:11 have been attached
0:28:13 to the execution
0:28:14 of habits
0:28:15 in a way
0:28:16 that is unhealthy
0:28:17 for body weight,
0:28:18 but at least
0:28:19 from a purely
0:28:20 neural circuit perspective,
0:28:22 the reward
0:28:23 is now given,
0:28:24 this chemical reward
0:28:25 in the brain
0:28:25 is given
0:28:26 for avoiding
0:28:27 particular foods
0:28:29 and only approaching
0:28:30 these very low-calorie,
0:28:32 low-fat foods.
0:28:33 so there really
0:28:34 does seem
0:28:35 to be a flip
0:28:36 in the switch
0:28:38 in the anorexic brain
0:28:39 that rewards
0:28:39 them internally.
0:28:41 They feel good
0:28:42 when they avoid
0:28:43 certain foods
0:28:44 and they approach
0:28:44 others.
0:28:45 So it’s not
0:28:46 a deprivation-based
0:28:47 model where
0:28:48 they are
0:28:49 flagellating themselves
0:28:50 or masochistic
0:28:51 or actively
0:28:52 avoiding food
0:28:53 in order to punish
0:28:54 themselves,
0:28:55 which is interesting
0:28:56 because a lot
0:28:57 of psychological theories
0:28:58 support that idea.
0:28:59 rather,
0:29:01 once this transitions
0:29:02 into a set
0:29:03 of habits,
0:29:04 they are actually
0:29:05 getting a sense
0:29:05 of reward.
0:29:07 They feel good,
0:29:07 presumably from
0:29:08 the release
0:29:08 of a different
0:29:09 neuromodulator
0:29:10 called dopamine,
0:29:12 by approaching
0:29:13 foods that are
0:29:14 low-fat,
0:29:15 low-calorie content,
0:29:16 and so their
0:29:17 whole brain circuitry
0:29:18 is skewed
0:29:19 toward avoiding
0:29:20 particular things
0:29:21 and they actually
0:29:22 are rewarded
0:29:22 for that
0:29:24 and they feel good.
0:29:25 they feel better
0:29:26 than if they were
0:29:27 eating in a healthy
0:29:28 weight-supporting way.
0:29:29 So how do you
0:29:30 break a habit?
0:29:31 How do you rewire
0:29:32 the brain circuitry
0:29:32 that’s literally
0:29:33 causing a reflex
0:29:34 and in this case
0:29:35 causing a reflex
0:29:36 that is killing
0:29:37 the individual
0:29:38 or at least leading
0:29:40 to very bad
0:29:40 health outcomes?
0:29:42 The way that you
0:29:44 do that is
0:29:45 through a cognitive
0:29:46 mechanism where
0:29:47 you teach the
0:29:48 individual what
0:29:49 is leading up
0:29:49 to the habit.
0:29:50 So let’s talk
0:29:51 about what those
0:29:53 things are that lead
0:29:53 into a habit.
0:29:54 because those
0:29:55 turn out to be
0:29:56 the exact points
0:29:57 of entry for
0:29:58 changing and
0:29:59 eliminating and
0:30:00 rewiring habits
0:30:01 toward more
0:30:02 healthy behaviors.
0:30:02 There are two
0:30:03 main features of
0:30:04 thinking that go
0:30:05 into the sorts
0:30:06 of habits that
0:30:07 anorexics execute.
0:30:09 The first is
0:30:10 something called
0:30:10 weak central
0:30:11 coherence.
0:30:12 Weak central
0:30:13 coherence is
0:30:14 essentially an
0:30:15 inability to see
0:30:16 the forest through
0:30:17 the trees.
0:30:18 It’s a hyper
0:30:19 acuity and focus
0:30:21 on details within
0:30:21 a given environment.
0:30:22 You miss the
0:30:23 big picture.
0:30:24 The other
0:30:24 is a challenge
0:30:25 in set shifting
0:30:26 that once you
0:30:27 identify something
0:30:28 that’s of particular
0:30:30 interest and that’s
0:30:31 driving some sort
0:30:33 of reward for the
0:30:33 anorexic, that would
0:30:34 be identifying the
0:30:36 high fat foods or
0:30:37 identifying the one
0:30:37 food on the table
0:30:38 that one could eat
0:30:39 without anyone
0:30:40 hopefully noticing
0:30:41 that they’re eating
0:30:43 just the green beans
0:30:44 and not touching any
0:30:45 of the other food.
0:30:46 If you ever had a meal
0:30:47 with an anorexic,
0:30:48 they become masterful
0:30:49 actually at trying
0:30:50 to keep people’s
0:30:51 awareness away
0:30:52 from what they’re
0:30:53 doing, which is to
0:30:53 home in on these
0:30:54 low-fat, low-calorie
0:30:55 foods.
0:30:57 What’s amazing and
0:30:58 frankly also important
0:31:00 are these findings that
0:31:01 once you teach
0:31:02 anorexics what’s
0:31:03 happening to them,
0:31:04 that they’re doing
0:31:06 this, they are able
0:31:06 to intervene.
0:31:07 Now, they need
0:31:09 support, right?
0:31:10 And another form of
0:31:11 therapy that seems
0:31:12 to work well for
0:31:14 anorexics that ideally
0:31:15 is combined with this
0:31:18 habit rewiring is a
0:31:19 family-based model.
0:31:21 Family-based models are
0:31:22 starting to surface a lot
0:31:23 now in various therapy
0:31:24 settings.
0:31:26 Therapy-based models in
0:31:27 short are basically
0:31:29 where the entire family
0:31:30 is made aware of the
0:31:31 individual’s challenges
0:31:32 with a particular eating
0:31:33 disorder or other
0:31:35 disorder and in
0:31:36 understanding some of
0:31:36 the biology and
0:31:37 psychology around it,
0:31:39 they stop condemning
0:31:40 the individual, they
0:31:41 start to support that
0:31:42 individual through
0:31:44 queuing them towards
0:31:45 their own habits that
0:31:46 they observe, they
0:31:46 give them some
0:31:47 autonomy, they realize
0:31:48 that none of this
0:31:49 changes overnight, but
0:31:50 they’re taught about
0:31:50 things like
0:31:51 neuroplasticity and
0:31:52 the ability to change
0:31:53 one’s brain in response
0:31:54 to experience.
0:31:55 And so there’s a whole
0:31:57 internal support network.
0:31:58 All of these things
0:31:59 fall under the umbrella
0:32:01 of cognitive behavioral
0:32:02 therapy, and I should
0:32:02 mention that cognitive
0:32:03 behavioral therapies
0:32:05 are often done in
0:32:06 conjunction with
0:32:07 pharmacologic therapies.
0:32:09 before we move on to
0:32:10 talking about bulimia and
0:32:11 some related disorders, I
0:32:12 want to talk about an
0:32:13 aspect of anorexia that’s
0:32:15 very interesting, quite
0:32:17 troubling, in fact, but
0:32:18 that has received a lot of
0:32:21 attention, and that’s the
0:32:23 distorted self-image.
0:32:26 Now, in the episode on
0:32:27 depression, we talked about
0:32:30 a very powerful aspect of
0:32:32 major depression, which is
0:32:33 this anti-self-confabulation
0:32:34 that people who are depressed
0:32:37 seem to genuinely believe
0:32:38 and even confabulate about
0:32:39 the fact that they are
0:32:41 performing poorly in life and
0:32:42 that they are no good or
0:32:43 worthless, et cetera.
0:32:45 It’s literally a lie that
0:32:47 they believe, and their
0:32:48 statements and their
0:32:49 feelings and their behaviors
0:32:51 start to reflect that lie.
0:32:52 They’re not conscious of it.
0:32:53 That’s why we call it a
0:32:54 confabulation.
0:32:58 Anorexics often will see
0:33:00 themselves as overweight or
0:33:02 imperfect in ways that are
0:33:04 of an obsession for them.
0:33:04 In the case of the
0:33:06 anorexic, the problem seems
0:33:08 to be that they have a
0:33:11 genuine distortion of their
0:33:13 self-image, so much so that
0:33:15 they don’t actually see
0:33:16 themselves accurately.
0:33:18 Their visual perceptions are
0:33:20 off, and the reason we know
0:33:21 this is because of some
0:33:22 really important and
0:33:23 beautiful studies that were
0:33:25 done in my colleague Jeremy
0:33:27 Balenson’s lab at Stanford.
0:33:28 What’s really interesting
0:33:29 about these studies is they
0:33:30 give us a window into the
0:33:32 perceptual defect that
0:33:33 anorexics have.
0:33:34 I’ve actually done one of
0:33:35 these experiments.
0:33:36 I’m fortunate to not be
0:33:38 anorexic, but I’ve done some
0:33:39 work with the VR lab over
0:33:40 there, and what you get to
0:33:41 do is you get to adjust this
0:33:43 avatar of yourself to the
0:33:44 point where you think it’s as
0:33:46 accurate as it could possibly
0:33:48 be, and anorexics really
0:33:50 distort this avatar.
0:33:52 In other words, they create
0:33:54 this serious mismatch between
0:33:55 their perception of
0:33:56 themselves and the reality.
0:33:58 So, indeed, it does seem to
0:33:58 be the case.
0:34:01 Now, what’s relieving, or I
0:34:02 should say, what’s encouraging
0:34:05 about some of the therapies that
0:34:06 we talked about before, the
0:34:08 family-based model, the cognitive
0:34:10 behavioral treatments, yes, and the
0:34:12 drug treatments as well, but this
0:34:15 habit intervention model is that as
0:34:18 one starts to shift those things, it
0:34:19 does appear that the perception of
0:34:22 self seems to follow, that the
0:34:24 perception of self seems to shift
0:34:26 along with the change in habits.
0:34:28 So it doesn’t seem that trying to
0:34:29 tell someone, oh my gosh, you’re so
0:34:31 thin, you really need to eat, that
0:34:32 doesn’t seem to work.
0:34:35 They just don’t see themselves the
0:34:36 same way that you see them.
0:34:39 And so I offer that as a point of
0:34:40 consideration if you know someone
0:34:42 that’s anorexic or if you look at an
0:34:43 anorexic and you think, how is it
0:34:45 that they are still critical of the
0:34:48 small, even non-existent amount of
0:34:49 body fat on their triceps or
0:34:50 something?
0:34:51 How is that?
0:34:52 Well, it’s literally that their
0:34:54 brain, as it relates to perceptions,
0:34:56 visual perceptions in particular,
0:34:58 they’re completely off.
0:35:00 And fortunately by changing habits, you
0:35:01 rewire those circuits as well.
0:35:04 I’d like to take a quick break and
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0:36:45 Okay, so let’s talk about bulimia, which
0:36:49 is overeating and then purging, typically
0:36:52 by self-induced vomiting or by ingestion
0:36:53 of laxatives.
0:36:54 And then we’ll also talk about binge
0:36:56 eating disorder, which has a lot of
0:36:59 the same features as bulimia, but
0:37:00 typically no purging.
0:37:02 The criteria that were described to
0:37:05 me is that if somebody is doing this at
0:37:07 least once a month over a period of
0:37:08 anywhere from two to three months, then
0:37:10 one, it likely would qualify.
0:37:12 They’re not making the decision to
0:37:13 overeat.
0:37:16 They are driven from the inside to
0:37:19 ingest far more food than they need.
0:37:21 And in some cases than they would want
0:37:21 to eat.
0:37:24 So it’s a lot like the habit that we
0:37:26 described for anorexia.
0:37:28 It’s almost like it’s turned into a
0:37:29 reflex once they get going.
0:37:32 All the homeostatic signals are being
0:37:33 overridden.
0:37:35 All the signals from the body, the
0:37:38 leptin, the insulin, the glucose, all
0:37:40 that stuff is cosmically sky high.
0:37:42 And yet they’re just what we, you
0:37:45 know, the nerds call hyperphagic.
0:37:46 They’re just eating like crazy.
0:37:49 There’s a lot of shame associated with
0:37:53 bulimia, oftentimes because people are
0:37:55 vomiting and it’s hard to hide that
0:37:56 vomiting behavior.
0:37:58 People are aware of it.
0:38:00 The hallmark feature of bulimia that
0:38:03 distinguishes it from anorexia, aside
0:38:04 from the fact that it’s overeating as
0:38:06 opposed to under eating, is a lack of
0:38:08 what they call inhibitory control.
0:38:10 And that might come as no surprise.
0:38:15 But first of all, the bulimic, unlike the
0:38:21 anorexic is hyper impulsive and oftentimes has
0:38:22 other types of impulse behaviors.
0:38:25 And for that reason, many of the treatments
0:38:26 that you see for bulimia and binge eating
0:38:29 disorder are the sorts of treatments that
0:38:32 don’t seem to work so well, or at least most of
0:38:33 the time for anorexia.
0:38:36 So the drugs that increase the neuromodulator
0:38:41 serotonin, for instance, fluoxetine, also called
0:38:45 Prozac, Paxil, et cetera, those things oftentimes can be
0:38:47 effective in bulimia.
0:38:49 Some of the drugs that are used to treat attention
0:38:52 deficit hyperactivity disorder and ADD, some of those
0:38:56 same drugs like Adderall, Vyvanse, and things of that sort
0:39:01 can also be used to treat bulimia and binge eating disorder.
0:39:02 Why would that work?
0:39:05 Well, now you are familiar with the prefrontal cortex.
0:39:08 Prefrontal cortex is involved in this analysis of duration,
0:39:09 path, and outcome.
0:39:13 Duration, path, and outcome is how we avoid impulsivity.
0:39:15 It’s how we think, okay, if this, then that, if that,
0:39:18 then this, you can imagine how for the obsessive compulsive
0:39:22 or for the anorexic, these are circuits that are overactive.
0:39:26 For the bulimic, this is the circuit that’s going to
0:39:27 essentially be underactive.
0:39:30 So really the polar opposite of what you see in anorexia.
0:39:35 So this lack of impulsivity implies a lack of prefrontal
0:39:37 control, what we call top-down control.
0:39:38 They become more impulsive.
0:39:45 So bulimics have an issue with impulsivity and therefore drugs
0:39:48 that can increase serotonin and sometimes these drugs that
0:39:52 increase dopamine and norepinephrine levels in the brain
0:39:54 allow for more top-down control.
0:39:57 And that’s also why they’re used to treat ADHD and attention
0:39:58 deficit disorder.
0:40:01 These drugs tend to create a hyper-focus and tend to push the
0:40:04 brain and general mode of processing into one in which you
0:40:06 think, if this, then that, if this, then that.
0:40:07 So anticipating outcomes.
0:40:10 Do behavioral interventions work for bulimia?
0:40:14 In some cases, yes, provided that those interventions are done
0:40:15 early enough.
0:40:20 Regardless, behavioral interventions coupled with drug-based
0:40:22 interventions are always more effective than either one alone.
0:40:27 Fortunately, there is a decent-sized kit of drugs that can help
0:40:27 with bulimia.
0:40:30 We have, on the one hand, anorexia, which seems to be a
0:40:35 disruption in habit and a coupling of unhealthy habits, in this
0:40:38 case, food restriction, to the reward pathway.
0:40:42 And on the flip side, we have binge eating disorder and bulimia,
0:40:46 where a very unhealthy habit of gorging oneself with food, sometimes
0:40:49 followed by purging, is not necessarily coupled to reward.
0:40:51 They feel terrible when they do that, right?
0:40:54 The anorexic feels great about restricting their food intake.
0:40:56 They feel like they’re winning some sort of game.
0:40:59 The circuitry is flipped somehow that way.
0:41:04 With bulimia, they feel horrible about the fact that they’re binging.
0:41:05 There’s immense shame.
0:41:07 They can’t control themselves.
0:41:10 The reward is set up before the behavior.
0:41:16 The reward is set up in drawing them to food and in making food look like
0:41:21 something that’s incredibly appetizing, and there’s no impulse break.
0:41:23 There’s no way for them to stop that kind of behavior.
0:41:27 I think for those of us that know anorexics or have observed anorexia,
0:41:31 it’s so hard to see somebody starve themselves to near death or to death.
0:41:36 Equally disturbing is somebody who has an abundance of food and is gorging
0:41:38 themselves and then feels terrible about it.
0:41:41 So these are heavy topics.
0:41:47 These are topics that, frankly, no one really wants to talk about unless they know
0:41:49 someone who’s suffering from them or they themselves suffer from them.
0:41:55 What I’ve tried to do today is try and give you a window into what really underlies these
0:41:57 things that we call eating disorders.
0:42:03 I hope I’ve done that at the level of biology, neurocircuitry, mechanism, endocrinology, and
0:42:04 some of the psychology.
0:42:10 As with any episode of this podcast, but especially where we’re talking about mental health issues
0:42:15 and mental health disorders, behavioral disorders, there’s no way that I can exhaustively cover
0:42:17 all the different forms of treatment.
0:42:21 The major takeaways today are we should all be asking the question, what is healthy eating
0:42:22 for us?
0:42:28 How do we develop a relationship to food that we can enjoy food, hopefully both socially and
0:42:32 on our own, but that we are not neurotic and compulsive about it?
0:42:39 Today, we focused on the extremes of food-related behaviors that really qualify as genuine disorders.
0:42:47 They are in the psychiatric manuals and they are diagnosable and they are serious health concerns.
0:42:51 They’re not just mentally troubling and concerning for the people suffering from them and the people
0:42:53 around them, but they are genuine health concerns.
0:43:01 Just want to reiterate that anorexia nervosa is the most deadly psychiatric disorder by a huge margin.
0:43:06 And if you look statistically at the number of people with eating disorders and that die
0:43:11 of eating disorders, it’s not far off from the number of people that die from automobile accidents.
0:43:17 I would love for you to take away this model that was handed off to me that I think is so powerful
0:43:21 for thinking about all sorts of things, not just eating, but all kinds of behaviors and perceptions
0:43:28 that you have one box for what you think, one box for what you do, and what is intervening
0:43:28 between those?
0:43:31 Why is it that you can know better and not do better?
0:43:37 Well, it’s because you also have to cope with the subconscious homeostatic processes and reward
0:43:38 processes.
0:43:45 And those oftentimes can be disrupted in ways that we find ourselves doing things that are
0:43:46 not good for us or not good for other people.
0:43:52 But fortunately, there is this great gift, which is that knowledge of knowledge can allow
0:43:59 you to do better without question, and that knowledge of knowledge allowing you to do better
0:44:04 over time leads to this incredible phenomenon called neuroplasticity, which essentially is translated
0:44:09 into doing better over time, even if difficult, eventually makes doing better reflexive.
0:44:15 And last but not least, I want to thank you for your time and attention, and thank you for
0:44:16 your interest in science.
0:44:25 And as mentioned at the beginning of today’s episode, we are now partnered with Momentus
0:44:29 supplements because they make single ingredient formulations that are of the absolute highest
0:44:31 quality, and they ship international.
0:44:36 If you go to livemomentus.com slash Huberman, you will find many of the supplements that have
0:44:40 been discussed on various episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast, and you will find various protocols
0:44:41 related to those supplements.