The Cheat Code to AI Content with Roberto Nickson

0:00:04 It’s just so interesting to me how far we’ve come with music generation.
0:00:06 This is kind of like a cheat code for any creator out there.
0:00:10 Two years ago, none of the stuff existed, and now it’s like central to my workflow.
0:00:12 And that’s why I think AI is so magic.
0:00:16 The reason I mentioned it and wanted to bring it up with you is because you had the Kanye thing.
0:00:19 Was there backlash, good feedback, bad feedback?
0:00:21 Mostly negativity for sure, man.
0:00:23 I was getting lambasted.
0:00:25 I think that was like one of the most viral things in AI that I saw.
0:00:26 Oh, yeah.
0:00:28 I knew it was going to go viral.
0:00:32 I studied this stuff really deeply, like there was so many things in that script
0:00:34 where I was like, this is going to go nuclear.
0:00:38 Hey, welcome back to the next wave podcast.
0:00:39 My name is Matt Wolf.
0:00:41 I’m here with my co-host, Nathan Lanz.
0:00:46 And with this show, we bring you all of the latest news and information in the AI world
0:00:51 and have fascinating conversations with the people that are building this AI world.
0:00:54 And today we’ve got another really awesome conversation.
0:00:57 Today we’ve got Roberto Nixon on the show.
0:01:02 Roberto is a serial entrepreneur, and he’s one of the top creators on Instagram
0:01:04 and TikTok in the AI world.
0:01:08 You may even know him from his viral Kanye West clone video
0:01:11 that was all over the internet about a year ago.
0:01:15 He also recently interviewed Mark Zuckerberg on Instagram
0:01:17 all about what they’re doing in the world of AI.
0:01:21 And we have some amazing conversations with him in this episode.
0:01:25 We talk about the crossover between content and AI.
0:01:29 We talk about the responsibility we have as content creators
0:01:33 to keep people the best informed possible in the AI world.
0:01:39 And we also talk to him about how the heck did he manage to get Mark Zuckerberg on his show?
0:01:41 So many cool rabbit holes we’re going out in this one.
0:01:43 So excited to share it with you.
0:01:45 And let’s dive right in with Roberto Nixon.
0:01:49 Thank you so much, Roberto, for joining us.
0:01:50 How are you doing today?
0:01:51 Dude, I’m pumped to be here, man.
0:01:54 Next wave, first of all, congrats on the podcast.
0:01:55 Been listening to everything.
0:02:00 I’ve been a like religious follower of you guys for some time.
0:02:04 And actually, Matt, I was introduced to you.
0:02:06 Forget how it must have been about a year ago now.
0:02:08 And I think I’ve watched every single one of your videos.
0:02:10 It’s like part of the reason how I keep updated on the space.
0:02:12 Everybody always asks me, how do I keep updated?
0:02:15 Like, you’re one of the names that I always put out there
0:02:18 as well as as as Lore and Nathan’s newsletter and everything.
0:02:19 So like, I’m pumped to be here, man.
0:02:21 I’m excited to talk with you guys.
0:02:23 Lot to, lot to talk about.
0:02:24 Yeah, there’s a lot to cover.
0:02:27 You know, I think I first came across you.
0:02:29 You had both Instagram Reels and I think TikTok
0:02:32 were sort of the domain you’ve been playing in, right?
0:02:34 And I came across your TikTok
0:02:38 about how you recreated like a Kanye sounding song.
0:02:40 And that video just went super viral
0:02:43 and just I followed along to your journey ever since as well.
0:02:45 So it’s, you know, it’s really cool.
0:02:48 And I think that’s what we want to get into a little bit today
0:02:50 is all three of us here are creators.
0:02:52 We all consider ourselves creators.
0:02:57 And, you know, that overlap between creator and AI,
0:02:59 you know, it’s just that Venn diagram,
0:03:01 that center of that Venn diagram
0:03:03 is getting bigger and bigger every single day.
0:03:05 So let’s start with your story a little bit too.
0:03:07 How did you get into AI in the first place?
0:03:09 Like, what was, what was the catalyst for that for you?
0:03:11 Dude, it’s a long story, but I’m going to make it short.
0:03:15 So basically the last decade I was actually in product.
0:03:17 So my obsession was UI, user interfaces.
0:03:21 I’ve been a UI UX designer for some time,
0:03:23 first started off doing it for agencies
0:03:27 and then consulting for companies small and large.
0:03:30 And then I actually got into building iOS apps.
0:03:32 So for like the last eight years,
0:03:36 or I would say like 2013 to 2021, that’s all I was doing.
0:03:37 I was just like obsessed with building
0:03:39 creativity software for iOS.
0:03:43 We had like some major years in 2015, 2016.
0:03:46 We had an app called HitGlab that was a top photo editor.
0:03:48 The most downloaded photo editor in the United States
0:03:51 for that year, we had something like 75 million downloads
0:03:53 across our suite of apps.
0:03:57 And then sold some of them 2017, 2018,
0:04:00 and then exited the rest of them in 2021.
0:04:03 And then I was like, alright, what do I want to do next?
0:04:03 Right?
0:04:04 Like I kind of had no idea.
0:04:07 I found actually web three and it was super interesting.
0:04:08 So I kind of got into that.
0:04:10 But then I said, you know what?
0:04:12 I want to start making content personally.
0:04:15 ‘Cause for so long I’ve been creating content,
0:04:17 like every one of my app brands and other brands
0:04:18 had big Instagram pages.
0:04:21 That’s been like my domain for like the last 10 years.
0:04:23 So like really intimately understand
0:04:24 how to communicate with an audience on Instagram
0:04:26 and how to grow audiences there and whatnot.
0:04:28 But it’s always been faceless.
0:04:30 It’s always been for my apps or faceless media brands,
0:04:32 some of which I still run today.
0:04:33 And I decided, you know what?
0:04:35 I want to do this individually personally.
0:04:37 And I chose AI because at the time
0:04:40 we were building this SaaS platform.
0:04:42 It was called a Luna media generation.
0:04:45 So we’re now pivoting and we’re building this other platform
0:04:47 called post coming out too much I’m really excited about.
0:04:50 And initially when I started making content,
0:04:51 I was like, I’m going to make content
0:04:54 ’cause I’m looking for customers for my SaaS.
0:04:55 That’s it, nothing else.
0:04:58 I’m going to ride this AI trend just because, you know,
0:04:59 that’s how we’re going to do it.
0:05:00 But then a few months into it,
0:05:02 I fell in love with the creative process, man.
0:05:04 And like now I’m like doing stuff.
0:05:06 Some of the stuff doesn’t even have
0:05:08 like an economic incentive behind it.
0:05:10 It’s just like me exploring my creative curiosities.
0:05:13 And I’ve really just fallen in love with the process.
0:05:15 And now it’s like, it’s just,
0:05:17 I wake up every day excited to just create
0:05:21 whether it be business focused or just creatively focused.
0:05:23 And that’s sort of where I’m at today, man.
0:05:25 And that’s kind of like the long story cut short.
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0:06:13 (upbeat music)
0:06:16 – I feel the same way about video production
0:06:17 as I feel about AI, right?
0:06:18 Like for me, like that’s where the,
0:06:21 like coming back to this sort of Venn diagram metaphor, right?
0:06:23 That’s where it sort of overlapped for me
0:06:25 was I loved production, I love video,
0:06:27 I love all the toys.
0:06:28 And then I saw AI and I’m like,
0:06:30 this is just another of that.
0:06:33 It’s more like toys, but more, more digital,
0:06:35 more online, more SaaS.
0:06:37 Dude, I play with so many of them.
0:06:39 Like every time, I mean, not as much as you,
0:06:41 like future tools, this must be like,
0:06:43 you must be tired of actually seeing AI tools.
0:06:47 But yeah, I mean, bro, there’s probably like 15 tools
0:06:50 that are part of my workflow, I would say right now.
0:06:52 I’m like using so many.
0:06:54 And the thing about the space that you guys know is
0:06:55 use it for like two weeks
0:06:57 and then something better comes along.
0:06:59 And it’s like, things get outdated
0:07:00 really, really quickly in the AI space.
0:07:03 So that’s something that, it can get exhausting.
0:07:06 I really don’t know how you do it curating future tools.
0:07:07 It’s like, it’s just too much.
0:07:10 – I get sick of seeing the same damn tool
0:07:12 over and over and over again.
0:07:13 That’s the frustrating part for me, right?
0:07:17 Is the people that submit the tools now are mostly like,
0:07:19 okay, we’ve already seen 15 other tools
0:07:21 that do this exact same thing.
0:07:24 Why do you need to go create another version of it
0:07:26 and try to charge people for it?
0:07:27 It just doesn’t make sense.
0:07:29 That’s the part I get frustrated with.
0:07:31 But when I see something new that I haven’t seen before,
0:07:35 like, you know, I’m still just as dirty and excited
0:07:37 about it as, you know, any other thing
0:07:39 that I’ve seen for the first time.
0:07:40 – Well, a bit on a tangent.
0:07:42 Like, ’cause I was kind of guilty of it.
0:07:44 Like, candidly with Illuna, we had this great idea
0:07:45 of stable diffusions, unbelievable,
0:07:47 but there’s no good UI for it.
0:07:49 So we’re like, we’re gonna be the first to build this out.
0:07:52 But you know, it was like 5,000 other entrepreneurs
0:07:53 who kind of built the same thing.
0:07:56 That product went, we hit 25K MRR pretty quickly,
0:07:59 but it was, we understood very soon, all right?
0:08:01 We don’t feel like competing against mid-journey
0:08:04 and Google and Adobe.
0:08:05 So now we’re building something
0:08:07 that hopefully people haven’t seen before.
0:08:09 I’ll let you know when that comes out.
0:08:10 And you can be honest with me
0:08:13 if it’s not, you know, good enough for future tools.
0:08:14 Not a problem.
0:08:15 (laughing)
0:08:15 – I’m sure it will be
0:08:17 because you’re probably approaching it from the same way.
0:08:19 You know, someone like us would approach it as like,
0:08:21 all right, let’s actually do something
0:08:24 that you haven’t seen other people doing yet.
0:08:27 Or, you know, at least put a twist on it, right?
0:08:29 Like put some sort of twist on it
0:08:31 where it’s like, okay, maybe it’s art generation,
0:08:33 but it’s niche to this specific industry
0:08:35 or something, right?
0:08:37 – Well, let me ask you guys this,
0:08:39 ’cause I actually think this is a really interesting question.
0:08:40 I’d love to get your guys’ take.
0:08:43 It’s like, are the incumbents just gonna take all?
0:08:45 Or is there, I mean, like right now,
0:08:46 people have had head starts.
0:08:47 Like mid-journey came out
0:08:49 and to me they’re still best in class,
0:08:52 but I don’t know if you guys saw image in three from Google.
0:08:53 It’s like right there, you know?
0:08:55 And some of these other tools now,
0:08:56 even some of these stable diffusion models
0:08:57 that we see on Civiti,
0:09:00 they’re like very close to mid-journey’s output.
0:09:03 And some of these head starts have been kind of erased.
0:09:06 And I just feel like there is this possibility
0:09:10 that the incumbents, you know, Google, Meta, Microsoft,
0:09:12 they’re just, they’re gonna take the whole pie.
0:09:14 – I don’t know, my feeling is like, you know,
0:09:16 like when’s the last Google, like new Google product
0:09:18 that like people actually use?
0:09:19 I can’t name one.
0:09:21 I mean, they own YouTube, that’s great.
0:09:22 You know, they bought that,
0:09:25 but what have they built that people actually use
0:09:26 that’s new?
0:09:27 – Nothing, basically.
0:09:30 So mid-journey has a lot of users who love the company.
0:09:32 And so even if like Google releases something
0:09:33 that’s like similar in quality,
0:09:35 I don’t think that means everyone’s just gonna jump ship
0:09:37 to the new Google product.
0:09:38 I don’t see it.
0:09:40 – You know, this is actually a conversation we had
0:09:41 with a mutual friend.
0:09:43 We had Greg Eisenberg on the show
0:09:46 and we actually had this conversation with Greg as well.
0:09:48 And Greg’s point was, you know,
0:09:51 the tools that managed to build a community around them,
0:09:54 the tools that managed to build like some sort of brand,
0:09:56 maybe even in a smaller niche,
0:09:58 will probably still get some traction
0:10:00 over the big incumbents.
0:10:04 I think the general population will probably migrate
0:10:06 towards the big incumbents, right?
0:10:08 The Microsofts, the Googles, you know,
0:10:10 I would say open AI, but, you know,
0:10:12 Microsoft is just building everything open AI does
0:10:14 into it anyway.
0:10:16 But I think, you know, the majority of the population
0:10:18 will probably move to the big incumbents,
0:10:20 but the ones that managed to build community around them
0:10:22 will still manage to get traction
0:10:25 and build pretty solid businesses around them.
0:10:28 Will they turn into multi-billion dollar unicorns?
0:10:29 Probably not.
0:10:32 And the ones that I think do things really unique
0:10:35 that do a good job will probably just get scooped up
0:10:36 and acquired by Google.
0:10:38 You know, Google has a,
0:10:41 they don’t really create a lot of new stuff
0:10:42 that gets people excited,
0:10:45 but they’re really good at acquiring products
0:10:47 that once people are excited about it,
0:10:49 then Google comes in and scoops it up, right?
0:10:52 You know, the last big products that Google made
0:10:55 that are really, really still popular to this day
0:10:59 are pretty much Gmail and Android, right?
0:11:01 Everything else that’s really popular
0:11:04 was something that Google came in and acquired.
0:11:05 – Yeah, I mean, it’s really tough.
0:11:07 Even if like, okay, even if your model
0:11:09 is a little bit better, if, you know,
0:11:11 I’m used to Google search,
0:11:12 although that’s even been disrupted.
0:11:13 I’m using Proplexity a lot.
0:11:16 I’m using Met AI, I’m using ChatGBT now on my Mac,
0:11:17 which has been awesome.
0:11:20 But I think for most people it’s like this behavior
0:11:23 that they’ve, it’s like muscle memory
0:11:24 over the last 20 years.
0:11:26 If like, they’re probably still gonna use Google search,
0:11:28 even if Proplexity or even, you know,
0:11:30 if these models like benchmark a little bit higher,
0:11:32 the average person couldn’t care less, right?
0:11:35 And so, yeah, man, I mean, it’s interesting.
0:11:37 I like, I’m not huge on predictions,
0:11:40 but I love just being on the play-by-play like you guys.
0:11:43 And so it’ll be fascinating to watch it all play out.
0:11:45 – I think it’s fun to make predictions
0:11:46 because the ones that I’m right all, you know,
0:11:47 six months from now,
0:11:49 it’s been a round of glory before I was right.
0:11:49 – You re-surfaced them.
0:11:50 – Exactly.
0:11:51 – And then the ones where I was wrong,
0:11:53 I just never mention them again.
0:11:55 – Dude, this is so like in finance,
0:11:56 like all these stock market guys
0:11:58 where they just every single day
0:11:59 they predict the market’s gonna collapse.
0:12:01 And like the one day that it does,
0:12:02 they ride that wave forever
0:12:03 and they just build a career off it.
0:12:04 Totally get it.
0:12:06 – I actually want to go back to something you mentioned.
0:12:09 You mentioned that you were using like 15 different tools
0:12:11 in your creative workflow.
0:12:13 Let’s dive into that a little bit.
0:12:15 I’d like to compare notes a little bit
0:12:17 because I use a lot of AI tools,
0:12:19 a lot of non AI tools in my creative workflow.
0:12:21 So yeah, I’m curious,
0:12:23 what are the tools that you find yourself using
0:12:25 to actually put the content out?
0:12:27 – Well, there was a video I made the other day would be,
0:12:28 it was such a process.
0:12:31 It was actually the longest I’ve ever spent editing a video,
0:12:33 probably took like 12 hours over the course of a week.
0:12:35 And I was like, what did I get myself into?
0:12:37 But the process behind that video
0:12:39 was first creating a lot of images on mid-journey.
0:12:41 So I’d be like step one.
0:12:43 Mid journeys upscaler is decent, it’s not the great.
0:12:45 So then I’d use Magnific.
0:12:47 Shout out to Javi, I know he’s a mutual friend.
0:12:50 I think that’s probably the best in class upscaler.
0:12:53 So at mid-journey and then upscaled in Magnific,
0:12:55 then there was a lot of work in Photoshop to be done.
0:12:57 If you saw the video, you’d understand what I’m getting to,
0:13:00 but basically it was like these buildings
0:13:02 with the windows changing like different colors
0:13:03 and different things happening in the building
0:13:04 as it was like zooming in and out.
0:13:06 So then I’d bring it into Photoshop
0:13:08 and there was a lot of masking and like manual work
0:13:10 in Photoshop, but I also found myself using
0:13:11 a lot of generative fill.
0:13:16 Like generative fill is a huge part of my process.
0:13:18 So mid-journey, Magnific, generative fill.
0:13:20 And then I needed some elements animated,
0:13:22 so then I’d bring it into runway
0:13:24 and then I’d like mask out the exact elements
0:13:28 that I needed animated and I spent some time working there.
0:13:30 There’s by the way, runway, man,
0:13:32 if they can like improve that product just a little bit,
0:13:35 like it’s my favorite UI and like my favorite product,
0:13:38 but I feel like it’s lagging behind a little bit.
0:13:40 And so that process alone, it’s like,
0:13:41 hopefully there’ll be a tool that’ll be able
0:13:42 to automate all of this.
0:13:44 And I actually think this is why
0:13:46 going back to the incumbent conversation,
0:13:48 I actually think Adobe Photoshop and Premiere
0:13:50 will be able to do all this stuff.
0:13:51 And that’s why I was asking,
0:13:53 maybe I won’t need to use mid-journey, Magnific, et cetera,
0:13:56 but for now I’m using like those four tools.
0:13:57 And then I put them together in Premiere
0:13:59 and then I found myself editing my audio
0:14:02 in the enhanced audio, which is new to Premiere.
0:14:05 And so that is an example of five tools
0:14:08 being used right there to like output this one video.
0:14:10 And depending on what I’m doing,
0:14:11 I’m finding myself.
0:14:14 And then before that, even just research and ideating,
0:14:17 just conversationally brainstorming with an LLM.
0:14:18 I mean, like, and it’s crazy, man.
0:14:20 Like two years ago, none of the stuff existed.
0:14:22 And now it’s like central to my workflow,
0:14:24 allowing me to like tell stories
0:14:25 that I previously wouldn’t be able to tell.
0:14:28 And that’s why I think AI is so magic.
0:14:30 (upbeat music)
0:14:31 – We’ll be right back.
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0:15:17 (upbeat music)
0:15:18 – Yeah, well, Generative Fill is one
0:15:21 that I feel like doesn’t get enough talk,
0:15:22 but I use it almost daily.
0:15:25 I love Generative Fill inside of Photoshop.
0:15:26 – Dude, it’s magic.
0:15:28 And it matches the color and like contrast.
0:15:31 It’s actually, it’s the closest thing to magic
0:15:33 that I’ve seen in like the AI space.
0:15:34 It’s like you said,
0:15:36 it’s underappreciated and under talked about.
0:15:39 Yeah, one tool that I find myself using a lot more lately,
0:15:42 and this kind of actually gets into a topic
0:15:43 that we want to discuss too,
0:15:46 is I’ve been using Suno a lot because in videos,
0:15:49 it makes like the perfect music for videos.
0:15:51 Like one thing I’ve started to experiment with
0:15:53 is if I’m showing off a long process
0:15:55 and there’s like a montage going off,
0:15:58 I almost make like a South Park like,
0:16:01 or Team America like montage song, right?
0:16:03 Like here’s my montage of me coding.
0:16:06 It’ll just be like lyrics that I typed into Suno
0:16:08 about what I’m doing on the screen.
0:16:10 And now there’s music playing during the montage,
0:16:12 explaining what I’m doing, right?
0:16:15 I’ve been doing that a lot more in videos as well.
0:16:17 And Suno is really, really impressive.
0:16:19 But the reason I mentioned it
0:16:20 and wanted to bring it up with you
0:16:23 is because you had the Kanye thing.
0:16:25 And it’s just so interesting to me
0:16:28 how far we’ve come with music generation.
0:16:30 ‘Cause I’m assuming back when you did the Kanye thing,
0:16:33 you had to use like the Soviets, SVC,
0:16:35 and you probably had to like run it
0:16:37 through like your terminal on your computer.
0:16:39 And it was a pretty complicated process.
0:16:42 I’m imagining, I don’t remember the exact workflow,
0:16:46 but music generation has just come so damn far since then.
0:16:49 – I mean, that’s how I first learned about Roberto is like,
0:16:51 I think that was like one of the most viral things in AI
0:16:52 that I saw was like you doing this thing
0:16:56 where you’re singing like basically like training,
0:16:59 creating a new Kanye song where you sing the song
0:17:02 and then it goes and it sings it back to you
0:17:03 with Kanye’s voice.
0:17:04 And that was just such a magical thing.
0:17:06 – Well, it helped you that Roberto actually
0:17:07 can kind of rap too.
0:17:09 Like, if I was to try to do the same thing,
0:17:11 it would not have come out like that.
0:17:12 – Kind of is generous.
0:17:14 Dude, a couple thoughts there.
0:17:18 One is, yeah, it was a pretty complicated process back then.
0:17:20 And this is kind of like a cheat code for any creator
0:17:23 out there is like, and part of the process
0:17:25 that we’re trying to streamline with Pulse is like,
0:17:29 I have 30 subreddits that in a folder
0:17:32 and I have them sorted by rising and new, right?
0:17:35 And so a lot of the magic is in the rising and new
0:17:37 that people that never picks up and never makes it
0:17:39 to like the hot or never makes it to the top of the feet.
0:17:41 And I saw this thing like some kid did this thing
0:17:44 with Kanye, he like developed this model
0:17:46 and he put it on Google collab and it was like this discord
0:17:48 but I was searching through Twitter,
0:17:51 nobody was talking about it except for like this small
0:17:54 subset of people in this like random ass discord.
0:17:56 And I went in there and I tried it out
0:17:58 and I ran the Google collab and dude,
0:18:00 I was like mind blown.
0:18:02 I said, this is gonna change everything.
0:18:04 And so I made the video, I’ll put it out there.
0:18:05 And it was really, I think the first like mainstream
0:18:07 introduction of this technology to the world.
0:18:09 And it went mega viral to the point
0:18:12 where I always tell people I’ve had in the last 18 months,
0:18:16 like 70 videos do a million plus views on like short form.
0:18:19 You know, I’ve had five, 10, 20 million view videos.
0:18:21 But like that’s the only video that I consider viral.
0:18:25 And the reason why, because that was like every YouTuber
0:18:26 covered it, like even the big ones,
0:18:29 Unbox Therapy, Penguins, Moist Critical,
0:18:31 like every journalist was reaching out.
0:18:33 I talked to a lot of like label heads actually,
0:18:35 like really prominent label heads,
0:18:38 everybody wanted to understand the technology more,
0:18:40 like TV interviews, everybody was like reaching out.
0:18:42 And I said, whoa, this is crazy.
0:18:47 And then like weeks later it even when there was a kid
0:18:50 named Ghostwriter, you guys might remember that.
0:18:53 And he was making, he had a Drake track with the weekend
0:18:55 where I was like, if this was a real song,
0:18:57 this would be like in Drake’s top 10.
0:18:58 Like it was just absurd to me.
0:19:00 And so yeah, that was a fun time,
0:19:03 probably definitely the video that put me
0:19:04 in a lot of people’s radars.
0:19:06 And I’ve been searching for like that viral,
0:19:08 viral crazy moment ever since.
0:19:10 So that’s why I have my ears and eyes always
0:19:12 to like the AI emerging tech world.
0:19:14 – It sucks that, you know, Drake started going
0:19:15 after everyone after that too.
0:19:17 Like that was one of my first big Twitter threads.
0:19:19 So I learned about you and I’m like, oh, this is amazing.
0:19:22 And then the Drake thing came out
0:19:24 and then the Grimes AI song as well.
0:19:26 And I did like two big Twitter threads
0:19:28 where I like, I wrote my thoughts on all like,
0:19:30 what this means for the future of music.
0:19:30 – Yeah, I remember that.
0:19:32 – And those, you know, they went pretty big.
0:19:35 And then like everyone who was making the Drake threads
0:19:36 or sharing the song,
0:19:38 they started getting like takedown notices on Twitter.
0:19:40 – But yeah, one golden nugget for that real quick
0:19:43 is like definitely a lot of the crazy stuff happening
0:19:45 like the tinkerers in the community,
0:19:46 they’re on Reddit, they’re on Discord.
0:19:48 They’re not so much on like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube,
0:19:51 like some of the more mainstream platforms.
0:19:53 And so keeping your ears and eyes
0:19:56 to these little subsets and weird little subcultures online
0:19:59 is how you can find a lot of the stuff
0:20:01 that’s like starting to bubble.
0:20:03 – Yeah, there’s been so many videos I’ve made
0:20:06 that just kind of spun up from like a cool like subreddit
0:20:08 that I found or from like a random tweet
0:20:09 that nobody else noticed.
0:20:11 And I’m like, why isn’t anybody else talking about this?
0:20:13 – 100%.
0:20:15 – But I’m curious, was there like backlash,
0:20:17 good feedback, bad feedback?
0:20:21 Like what was the general feeling from that video?
0:20:24 Did you get more sort of negativity as a result of it?
0:20:27 More positivity, like how did that land?
0:20:29 – Mostly negativity for sure, man.
0:20:30 I was getting lambasted.
0:20:33 I would say, I knew it was gonna go viral, all right?
0:20:35 Because I’m like, I’m kind of a practitioner.
0:20:38 I’m like, I study this stuff really deeply,
0:20:39 like virality on the internet,
0:20:41 how to create content, how to best.
0:20:44 And there was so many things in that script
0:20:46 and some where I was like, this is gonna go nuclear.
0:20:48 I already knew, I even, I think I tweeted before,
0:20:51 I’m about to drop a video that’s gonna go super viral.
0:20:53 Part of the reason why, I didn’t expect, okay,
0:20:57 so like the woke mob came after me for digital blackface,
0:21:00 which was like CNN had published an article like right after.
0:21:03 And so everybody was like, oh, this is racist,
0:21:07 like a black dude’s voice, white dude singing it.
0:21:10 Okay, but then the other part was,
0:21:11 that part was not deliberate.
0:21:12 I didn’t quite expect that.
0:21:13 The part that was deliberate,
0:21:16 like the way that I engineered the lyrics,
0:21:19 one part where I kind of like took a shot at Kanye,
0:21:21 or remember he did like the whole anti-Semitism thing.
0:21:22 And I took a shot at him,
0:21:26 like for talking down an entire culture,
0:21:28 and I said it was ignorant, this and that.
0:21:31 And then another one was I included a lyric,
0:21:33 and I didn’t mean it for it to be disrespectful,
0:21:36 but I included a lyric about Donda, like his late mother.
0:21:37 That was supposed to be like endearing,
0:21:40 but somebody was like, oh, not only is he digital blackface,
0:21:42 he’s also talking about his mom as him.
0:21:44 This is, I think moist critical called it like diabolical.
0:21:46 So man, I was getting like heat left and right,
0:21:48 which I kind of expected.
0:21:49 So it wasn’t too big of a deal.
0:21:52 But yeah, and then from the artist community,
0:21:55 all here they come to steal the virtue of artists
0:21:56 and human artists and that.
0:21:59 So it was just like negativity straight throughout.
0:22:01 But I think a lot of the technologists and stuff
0:22:02 appreciated it.
0:22:04 But yeah, certainly an interesting time, man.
0:22:05 That was an experience for sure.
0:22:06 – Did that linger on?
0:22:07 Did that continue or?
0:22:09 – Nah, it just, and that’s another thing with the internet.
0:22:11 Like there’s so much like blatant,
0:22:13 not to go on the super tangent,
0:22:15 but there’s like so much blatant corruption in the world.
0:22:16 And they’re just like,
0:22:18 people don’t care anymore because what happens online, man,
0:22:20 you for 24 hours,
0:22:22 you get a bunch of people angry on Twitter
0:22:23 and like writing mean,
0:22:26 dredging comments on this and then everybody forgets
0:22:27 and then they’re on to the next thing.
0:22:30 And so that’s, you know,
0:22:32 people are more fickle now than ever.
0:22:34 – How do you think the like the sentiment around AI music
0:22:36 has changed because now, you know,
0:22:40 you’ve got like Udio and Suno and stuff like that.
0:22:45 And Udio actually has like common and who else?
0:22:47 There’s like a few musicians actually attached
0:22:49 to that product now.
0:22:51 So it seems like more musicians are getting on board.
0:22:53 I was actually at the Google IO event
0:22:56 and Lupe Fiasco was actually there at the event,
0:22:59 wandering around and I got to talk to him for a minute,
0:23:00 but, you know,
0:23:03 he’s actually working with Google on text effects,
0:23:06 but now they have a new one called music effects
0:23:09 that they were showing off at Google IO as well.
0:23:11 And that’s where actually bumped into Lupe
0:23:13 was he was actually playing around
0:23:15 with the music effects tools in real life,
0:23:19 like mixing beats and generating AI music.
0:23:22 And he was like super blown away, super impressed by it.
0:23:23 So like, I mean,
0:23:27 it feels like the sentiment among musicians
0:23:29 is sort of starting to come around,
0:23:31 but I don’t know, what are your thoughts?
0:23:34 – In general, like I actually think about this a lot.
0:23:36 I think anything that’s purely AI generated
0:23:38 is actually really boring.
0:23:40 And I don’t think there’ll ever be a market for it.
0:23:42 I just don’t, aside from the initial novelty,
0:23:44 like when we first started seeing mid-journey images,
0:23:46 you guys probably remember, it was mind-blowing,
0:23:48 but now I see an image from mid-journey
0:23:51 and maybe I don’t know it’s AI at first.
0:23:52 Maybe it looks like an artist,
0:23:54 but once I learned that it’s purely AI generated,
0:23:55 I just don’t care.
0:23:57 Like, and I think as humans,
0:23:58 we all desire that human element.
0:24:01 And case in point, like Sam Altman made this point,
0:24:05 it’s like, hey, we love chess as a game,
0:24:07 the strategy behind it, all this.
0:24:10 Robots can outperform humans in chess,
0:24:12 but we don’t want to watch a robot playing a robot.
0:24:14 So there has to be that human element,
0:24:17 and I think they’re very same in art and in music.
0:24:19 So if something’s purely AI generated,
0:24:20 I actually don’t think it’ll ever hit.
0:24:22 I don’t think there’ll be a market for it.
0:24:23 Now, there is a caveat.
0:24:25 There may be a time where literally we don’t know,
0:24:28 but I do think there just has to be that human element,
0:24:30 like the story behind the art.
0:24:34 So I look at AI as a tool, specific to music.
0:24:37 I look at, you know, like there’s producers
0:24:40 who sample old songs and recreate them and make beats.
0:24:43 So I think people will use AI to like create samples,
0:24:47 to then sort of remix, maybe create drums, drum kits,
0:24:48 that kind of stuff.
0:24:50 But I do think there needs to be that human element.
0:24:52 Otherwise, I just don’t think there’s a lasting market
0:24:55 for purely AI generated media.
0:24:57 – Yeah, I actually feel kind of the same way.
0:25:01 I feel like I’ll hear stuff, be really impressed by it,
0:25:04 but same thing, when you realize it was made by AI
0:25:07 and it wasn’t like a human doing something awesome,
0:25:10 you kind of, it kind of leaves something a little bit there.
0:25:14 I feel like AI is the best sort of helpful tool out there,
0:25:17 both for art and music and, you know,
0:25:20 all of the creative forms, when it comes to writing,
0:25:22 almost all of us now can spot chat GPT, right?
0:25:24 You can read an article and almost immediately go,
0:25:27 okay, I feel like chat GPT wrote this article now, right?
0:25:31 But if you have chat GPT, write you an article,
0:25:34 and then you go back and sort of see that as a rough draft
0:25:35 and clean it up and add your own voice
0:25:37 and add your own comments and opinions,
0:25:39 now you have something that people actually want to read.
0:25:41 Same with like music, right?
0:25:43 Like the stuff that Lupe Fiasco is doing,
0:25:45 for instance, with text effects,
0:25:48 he’s helping, they built an AI to help you come up
0:25:52 with lyrics and alliterations and rhyming words
0:25:54 and synonyms and all that kind of stuff
0:25:56 to help with the creative process,
0:25:57 but then the musician still gets involved
0:25:59 and creates the music.
0:26:01 You know, the stuff that Google was showing off
0:26:02 with their music effects,
0:26:04 it wasn’t actually doing any lyrics
0:26:05 that sounded like a musician,
0:26:07 but it was creating really good beats
0:26:11 by taking styles from this musician and this musician,
0:26:13 blending them together, creating something novel,
0:26:16 and then a rapper or a singer can go
0:26:19 and then put the lyrics over the top of it.
0:26:21 That’s where I feel like AI really shines,
0:26:23 is like that sort of co-pilot,
0:26:25 that tool to help you do the creative thing
0:26:27 you’re trying to do.
0:26:28 – I don’t know, I think we’ll see,
0:26:30 like if it keeps improving, right?
0:26:33 Like I do see it becoming maybe its own genre of music
0:26:33 in the future, right?
0:26:36 ‘Cause like, yeah, we’re talking about like AI music now,
0:26:38 but like, okay, three years from now, five years from now,
0:26:40 maybe it’s producing shit that just like blows our minds.
0:26:44 It’s beyond any human’s ability to create, right?
0:26:46 And so at that point, I don’t know, we’ll see.
0:26:48 – Well, here’s an interesting question
0:26:51 that I’d be curious both of your answers on.
0:26:53 If, let’s say Drake, for instance,
0:26:56 really got on board the AI train and let’s,
0:26:58 I don’t know if you guys are Drake fans or not,
0:27:00 but let’s assume you guys are Drake fans.
0:27:02 Let’s say he trained his voice into the algorithm
0:27:04 and he has like oversight,
0:27:08 but he’s making AI Drake songs and it’s Drake’s oversight.
0:27:10 He’s sort of, you know, deciding the beats
0:27:12 that go underneath it.
0:27:15 He’s helping steer the lyrics,
0:27:17 but the song itself is fully AI generated.
0:27:20 Would that change how you feel about this song?
0:27:21 – So that’s the tricky part.
0:27:23 Like if we knew, so a lot of people,
0:27:26 once they find out Drake has an army of ghost writers
0:27:28 and this and that, like their affinity for him
0:27:29 just goes down a little bit as an artist ’cause it’s like,
0:27:31 oh, he didn’t even write the lyrics, right?
0:27:35 But that’s the part, that’s the big caveat.
0:27:38 If we know, so do you guys know Varun Maya?
0:27:41 He’s a creator, I think he’s mostly on Instagram,
0:27:45 but all of his Instagram content,
0:27:47 all the shorts are AI generated.
0:27:49 Meaning it’s like his model and then he just goes
0:27:52 and writes a script and it’s AI voiced, AI generated.
0:27:54 The script may even be, but people don’t know that.
0:27:57 But because he’s a real human that had like this affinity
0:27:58 in this audience and stuff,
0:28:00 people don’t really mind, I don’t think.
0:28:03 Now, if that was a pure AI-generated creation,
0:28:05 like if that human actually didn’t exist,
0:28:06 I don’t think it would work.
0:28:08 But because there was a human and a story
0:28:11 and a body of work behind it, it sort of does.
0:28:13 And I think it could be the same for music,
0:28:16 where it’s like, if Drake, if he has like seven shows
0:28:17 coming up in the next 10 days,
0:28:20 but he’s gotta get a song out for whatever reason,
0:28:22 there may be a chance, like just get my model to do it.
0:28:25 Nobody will know, if it’s not now,
0:28:27 it’ll be indistinguishable very soon.
0:28:30 And that’s kind of the uncanny value behind it,
0:28:33 where it’s like, if we know, we’re not gonna like it.
0:28:37 But we probably will never know now from here on out,
0:28:40 if something is wrapped by an artist
0:28:41 or just generated by their model.
0:28:45 And that to me is the part where it’s a little eerie.
0:28:46 – I think in the future too,
0:28:48 when like some of these great artists start to pass away,
0:28:50 there’s gonna be more demand there too, right?
0:28:53 Technology gets very good, Drake is no longer around.
0:28:55 There’s still Drake fans.
0:28:57 And now, like maybe he’s sold his rights
0:29:01 before he passed away and you can still have him in songs.
0:29:04 – Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if musicians
0:29:06 actually start writing that kind of stuff into their will,
0:29:11 like what happens to my voice IP once I’m gone.
0:29:14 – But like, to me, it’s still like,
0:29:16 we can make great Tupac songs right now with his,
0:29:19 I will just, and he’s my favorite hip hop artist
0:29:21 of all time, I will still never love them,
0:29:23 like I love the, ’cause it’s just not,
0:29:24 there’s something lacking there.
0:29:25 There’s like, that’s-
0:29:26 – You could patch a human to it though, right?
0:29:28 You could do like a collaboration song, right?
0:29:29 Where it’s like, I’m the new Tupac,
0:29:32 and now I brought in an AI Tupac into my song.
0:29:33 – Well, Drake just did that, right?
0:29:35 And got sued.
0:29:38 – But even then, I think like the novelty’s cool,
0:29:40 but once that wears off, there’s no market for it.
0:29:45 And so my thing is will and will there be regulation
0:29:46 or what will happen here?
0:29:49 But like, if I were a label and I wanted to maximum,
0:29:51 like say I’m representing Drake and he died,
0:29:56 like, do you then just say these were unreleased vocals
0:29:57 from when he was alive?
0:29:58 Because that will hit a lot.
0:30:01 And so then it becomes like an ethical and moral question,
0:30:02 maybe legal, maybe regulatory.
0:30:05 So yeah, man, there’s so many,
0:30:07 it’s so fun to be at the forefront of all this stuff,
0:30:08 ’cause there’s so many questions
0:30:11 and it’s all being sort of written in real time, but-
0:30:12 – Oh yeah, we found a new Beatles album.
0:30:15 It just was hidden in a store somewhere.
0:30:17 – Right, and that would be more impactful
0:30:20 than we just generated John Martin’s voice.
0:30:23 Nobody’s, you know, so that’s where I feel.
0:30:24 It’s like, we need the human element.
0:30:27 There won’t be a market for purely AI-generated stuff,
0:30:30 but a big question, will we even know?
0:30:31 – Yeah, yeah.
0:30:32 Well, I mean, a lot of the vocals from these musicians too
0:30:34 are from their own personal experiences,
0:30:35 their life experiences, right?
0:30:37 You know, talking about Tupac, right?
0:30:40 He lived a pretty crazy life.
0:30:43 So his songs are all about the life that he lived.
0:30:45 So songs that came out now
0:30:48 wouldn’t represent his thoughts, his feelings,
0:30:50 his life story at all.
0:30:52 And I think there’s that element to it
0:30:55 that people just know that this isn’t really him.
0:30:58 And that just diminishes it by quite a bit, I think.
0:30:59 – Yeah, I mean, in art theory,
0:31:01 it’s a concept called the aura.
0:31:04 So it’s like, hey, there’s artists today
0:31:07 that can replicate the Mona Lisa to exact perfection,
0:31:09 but we never, it’ll never hit the same
0:31:10 because of that aura.
0:31:13 Like this was a piece of cardboard
0:31:17 or whatever it was that Leonardo da Vinci himself sculpted.
0:31:19 This was in different fires and a ward almost broke down.
0:31:22 It passed the hands of different monarchs through history
0:31:24 and like that’s what makes it compelling.
0:31:26 It’s not like the actual art or the design
0:31:28 or the way that the colors are strung together.
0:31:30 It’s the story behind it.
0:31:31 And I think it’s with all media, all art,
0:31:35 it’s like we’re drawn to the story behind something,
0:31:37 piece of art, a piece of media,
0:31:40 not so much like the actual construction
0:31:42 of the whatever it is.
0:31:44 And so I think we’ll see that play out with AI
0:31:47 where it’s like, yeah, again,
0:31:48 through our earlier example,
0:31:50 a purely AI generated mid-journey,
0:31:51 it’s just not interesting.
0:31:53 That I don’t care how cool it is or how impressive.
0:31:54 It’s like, it’s not interesting.
0:31:58 I need the story behind the art, the human element.
0:31:59 – I’m gonna shift gears here for a minute too.
0:32:01 I wanna talk about a little bit
0:32:03 about like the ethics of content creation.
0:32:05 Is this is something that,
0:32:07 I mean, I battle with it a little bit.
0:32:08 It’s not too big of a battle
0:32:10 because I know who I’m making the content for,
0:32:12 but there’s this sort of battle
0:32:15 between creating the content for the audience
0:32:17 and making them aware of what’s out there
0:32:18 and what’s not out there.
0:32:21 But then you also have the creators,
0:32:23 the creators of the products, right?
0:32:25 The software companies.
0:32:27 In my case lately, it’s been the Googles
0:32:28 and the Microsofts of the world
0:32:31 who will actually like pay me to fly out to their events
0:32:33 so that I’ll talk about them in videos.
0:32:35 And then I have this sort of dilemma.
0:32:39 Do I, if I’m not impressed with what they’re showing me,
0:32:41 but they paid me to be there
0:32:43 to talk about what they’re showing me,
0:32:45 am I tailoring to the audience?
0:32:47 Am I tailoring to Google?
0:32:49 – Did you do that with Google?
0:32:51 – If you’ve watched my Google videos, you know I don’t,
0:32:56 but this is something that I wanted to talk to you about
0:32:59 because it’s something that I’ve struggled
0:33:00 with a little more recently
0:33:03 because I’ve had companies come to me
0:33:06 and offer me like equity to be an advisor in the company
0:33:09 or who may have reached out
0:33:12 because they want me to be an investor in their company
0:33:13 or something like that.
0:33:16 And for the most part, I’ve said no to almost all of them
0:33:20 because I worry about if I’ve got skin in the game
0:33:21 for some of these companies,
0:33:23 is it going to, you know,
0:33:27 taint how the audience sees me talking about that product.
0:33:30 And so it’s something that’s always kind of on the top
0:33:34 of my mind of, you know, how do I strike this balance
0:33:36 between the thing that’s gonna make me money
0:33:40 as an entrepreneur, but also being true to the audience
0:33:43 and making the best piece of content for my audience.
0:33:44 – I think it’s super important.
0:33:46 And then I definitely want to hear your guys thoughts
0:33:47 because it’s something I struggle with a lot.
0:33:49 I actually have two recent examples.
0:33:52 So one was I was doing some work for Rabbit.
0:33:55 Obviously, you know, disclose paid promo
0:33:57 before the product actually came out.
0:34:00 So I did two, I think sponsored posts for them.
0:34:03 And I actually liked what they were building.
0:34:05 I thought it was like whimsical, it was charming,
0:34:06 it was $200, no subscription.
0:34:08 I was like, there’s a market for this.
0:34:12 And then I had a paid post sponsorship deal lined up.
0:34:15 I got the product, I was gonna review it.
0:34:17 And, you know, make a glowing little,
0:34:20 not so much a review, but like almost like a commercial
0:34:21 online, like a short form video,
0:34:23 TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, et cetera.
0:34:25 And it was just not something that I was comfortable
0:34:27 recommending to my audience.
0:34:28 Not that it’s a bad product.
0:34:30 I think there could be a future for it.
0:34:32 I think there could be a market for it, et cetera.
0:34:36 Like, look, so I didn’t want to like knock Rabbit
0:34:38 or knock the team, but I canceled the deal.
0:34:40 I was like, this is not something comfortable.
0:34:41 And by the way, it was like,
0:34:42 I’m not like the super rich dude
0:34:44 where I can just cancel deals, not a big deal.
0:34:47 Like right now, my creator business sponsorships
0:34:49 and ad and brand deals and stuff
0:34:51 probably represents 50 to 60% of my revenue.
0:34:53 And so, and it was like a pretty well paid thing.
0:34:56 So it wasn’t like easy to do,
0:34:57 but I do feel like as creators,
0:34:59 we got to take those short-term hits
0:35:02 if we’re playing in decades for that long-term trust.
0:35:05 Because I do think that, especially in the age of AI,
0:35:08 trust is gonna be the commodity.
0:35:10 Like everything else can be replicated.
0:35:11 Another example was Google.
0:35:13 Like I was invited to the dinner.
0:35:14 You went too mad.
0:35:16 I couldn’t make it ’cause I had something to do in LA.
0:35:17 But I love Google.
0:35:19 I love the relationship I have with the DeepMind team,
0:35:21 et cetera, but I didn’t really love the presentation.
0:35:23 I thought it was lackluster,
0:35:25 not the technology that they were presenting,
0:35:26 but the way that they presented it.
0:35:29 And so I went on threads and I wrote,
0:35:30 this was really boring.
0:35:31 Google has some work to do on productizing
0:35:36 and on showmanship and presentation,
0:35:37 all that kind of stuff.
0:35:41 Like I worry that will probably hurt me.
0:35:44 Like they’ll probably pull back some potential future deals
0:35:44 because it’s like, well,
0:35:46 this guy’s talking negatively about us online.
0:35:48 But it’s like, those are my honest and true thoughts.
0:35:50 I don’t want to hold them back
0:35:53 just because I may get paid by them in the future.
0:35:54 And it’s really tricky, man.
0:35:57 I mean, like MKBHD obviously has been like super big news
0:36:00 over the last month on this topic itself.
0:36:02 And so my answer would be,
0:36:06 protect the long-term trust with your audience at all costs,
0:36:08 even if there’s some short-term money
0:36:09 that you got to leave on the table.
0:36:11 Yeah, in the early days of my newsletter lore,
0:36:15 I had this sponsor, there was this Korean startup,
0:36:18 was doing like AI pictures kind of stuff early on.
0:36:21 And they sponsored the newsletter for like a month,
0:36:24 paid very well, and then they just like disappeared
0:36:25 and then didn’t say anything.
0:36:27 Like didn’t notify me.
0:36:29 Like I think I maybe even put up an ad,
0:36:31 like a write when their website went down.
0:36:34 And then some users like emailed me like,
0:36:38 hey, I like paid for like a monthly subscription or whatever.
0:36:40 And like now the website is just like gone.
0:36:42 And so that was like a first experience for me like,
0:36:45 oh, like you gotta be careful like which sponsors you take.
0:36:46 You know, it wasn’t huge money at the time,
0:36:47 but it was still, it was like, God,
0:36:48 that’s a horrible experience.
0:36:51 And then for, and obviously you lose a lot of trust
0:36:52 by doing that, right?
0:36:53 Can actually for a while,
0:36:55 I stopped taking sponsors for that reason.
0:36:56 – Yeah, no, I’m on the same page.
0:36:58 I think in what we’re doing,
0:37:01 the credibility and the trust is everything.
0:37:02 That is our biggest currency.
0:37:04 That’s what matters more than anything.
0:37:07 And you know, when it comes to companies like Google,
0:37:08 right?
0:37:10 I’ve made a lot of videos that were critical of Google,
0:37:13 you know, back when they put out their Gemini promo video,
0:37:16 I was very, very critical of them kind of hiding the fact
0:37:18 that this wasn’t real time.
0:37:19 And I put out a whole video
0:37:21 about how disappointed I was in Google.
0:37:23 And I’ve worked with Google in the past
0:37:25 and I’m working with Google again.
0:37:28 So the fact that I’m working with Google again now
0:37:30 shows that they get over it, right?
0:37:31 At the end of the day,
0:37:34 if you build a brand that has an audience
0:37:37 and people are paying attention to what you say,
0:37:39 these companies are gonna get over the fact
0:37:41 that you were negative about them once
0:37:43 because they know that you have the audience.
0:37:48 You’re the trusted voice that people are checking in on.
0:37:52 And so, you know, I would say for every one sponsor
0:37:54 that I have on my channel and in my newsletter,
0:37:56 there was probably 10 that I said no to.
0:37:59 I say no, like I leave so much money on the table
0:38:01 because I look at their product and go,
0:38:02 I don’t wanna promote this.
0:38:05 Like I can already do this inside of chat GPT.
0:38:07 You just like put a wrapper around it
0:38:10 and are charging the same amount as chat GPT.
0:38:13 Why did I pay 20 bucks a month to do this thing
0:38:14 when I can do it in chat GPT
0:38:16 plus everything else chat GPT does.
0:38:18 Like it just doesn’t make sense to me.
0:38:19 I’m not gonna talk about it.
0:38:21 It feels like I’d be pointing my audience
0:38:24 to something that I don’t think is valuable to them.
0:38:27 So I just had that philosophy of like the trust
0:38:30 and the credibility is 100% what we need to live by
0:38:32 as content creators.
0:38:33 And as soon as you lose that
0:38:35 and they start to think of you as like a sellout,
0:38:38 then it’s all downhill from there.
0:38:39 And again, these companies,
0:38:41 if you’ve got the audience, they’ll forgive you.
0:38:42 They’ll come back.
0:38:44 – First of all, respect to you.
0:38:46 And I think that’s why you’re so respected in space
0:38:47 and respect to Google.
0:38:48 Now I think it’s important for companies
0:38:50 to take that criticism.
0:38:53 You know, they gotta take the bad with the good
0:38:55 ’cause some companies do weaponize it.
0:38:57 I don’t know if you guys follow like Dr. Disrespect.
0:38:58 He’s one of my favorite creators.
0:38:59 I think he’s like one of the greatest entertainers
0:39:02 in the world, but like very famously
0:39:03 Call of Duty has blacklisted him.
0:39:05 He’s not invited to any events.
0:39:05 He’s not, you know,
0:39:08 every other creator gets a deal from Call of Duty.
0:39:09 He doesn’t because he like–
0:39:12 – Which too, you got blacklisted by Twitch also.
0:39:14 – And he like insults the game.
0:39:16 And he’s like, these developers are lazy and this and that.
0:39:17 And he’s like, he’s given his honest thoughts.
0:39:20 And, but I think longterm that works out even better
0:39:22 for Dr. Disrespect ’cause he’s way more trusted
0:39:25 than these other creators who may just be looked at
0:39:29 as like a NASCAR with 40 logos on them.
0:39:29 They don’t like,
0:39:31 you don’t really care what they have to say
0:39:34 just because you know they’re just up for sale
0:39:35 to the highest bidder.
0:39:37 – I just think it’s so important,
0:39:40 especially as being in an industry
0:39:42 that’s so sort of uncertain feeling.
0:39:44 Like I don’t know if you guys feel this way at all,
0:39:47 but when I started making content around AI,
0:39:50 this was, you know, somewhere mid 2021 was
0:39:52 when I really started to make content about AI.
0:39:54 And then I really ramped it up in 2022.
0:39:58 But when I was making content about AI in the early days,
0:40:01 I had zero, zero inclination that this was
0:40:03 a controversial topic.
0:40:04 Like this was just me going,
0:40:06 this is a really fun tool.
0:40:07 Everybody should know about this.
0:40:09 Why don’t more people go play with this mid journey thing?
0:40:11 Why is nobody talking about this?
0:40:13 Or like this GPT three thing.
0:40:16 Like you can go play with it on open AI’s playground.
0:40:17 This is prior to chat GPT.
0:40:19 You can go play with this on open AI’s playground
0:40:21 and have it right copy for you
0:40:24 and have it and have conversations with this thing.
0:40:25 Why aren’t more people talking about this?
0:40:27 This is so much fun.
0:40:29 That was like my approach when I started creating content
0:40:33 around AI was just like, this is just fun stuff.
0:40:36 I had no clue that this was going to be so controversial.
0:40:38 And as, you know, more and more,
0:40:39 I don’t really want to say hate,
0:40:42 but more and more like anti AI,
0:40:45 doomerism, that kind of stuff started to bubble up.
0:40:47 And I started to get more of that kind of stuff
0:40:49 on my comments and my feed.
0:40:51 It actually made me go, okay,
0:40:54 I want to understand why people are so scared of this.
0:40:57 Why, like, what is the big deal with this?
0:40:58 What are the fears?
0:41:00 And so I’ve always tried to take this
0:41:03 like very empathetic approach of like,
0:41:06 I really, really think this stuff is cool and fun.
0:41:09 And I see a lot of use cases for it.
0:41:10 But I also understand that a lot of people
0:41:11 are scared of this now.
0:41:13 And I need to like sort of lean into that.
0:41:15 And I need to talk about that narrative as well.
0:41:18 And I need to, you know, help people that have those fears,
0:41:20 kind of get over those fears.
0:41:23 And even to some degree talk a little bit
0:41:25 about the fears that are, in my opinion,
0:41:28 like actual worthy fears to think about, you know,
0:41:32 things like the deep fake scams of like the voice cloning
0:41:35 where people are calling other people using cloned voices
0:41:36 and scamming them out of money.
0:41:39 Or, you know, we talked about a story on the show
0:41:42 about somebody in, I think it was Hong Kong
0:41:44 that got scammed out of $25 million
0:41:46 over a deep fake Zoom call, right?
0:41:49 And so there are like these genuinely scary things.
0:41:53 And I think it’s important to be very holistic
0:41:56 with what we talk about because there is that fear
0:42:00 and not building that trust with people in this time
0:42:02 where everybody feels so uncertain
0:42:05 just seems like a very, very short-sighted approach
0:42:07 to content creation.
0:42:10 – Yeah, I mean, look, some of the fears are warranted, right?
0:42:12 Like there are voice actors on Fiverr, for example,
0:42:14 they’re probably gonna get wiped out.
0:42:15 So I understand it.
0:42:17 But another thing that I often say is like,
0:42:19 the more that we talk about this stuff,
0:42:21 the more people understand what’s going on.
0:42:23 And I do think that knowledge is power.
0:42:27 And, you know, the more we talk about it
0:42:28 and the more other creators and other people talk about it,
0:42:31 the less chance it has to be used maliciously
0:42:32 because now we’re, oh, wait a second,
0:42:35 I just got called from my aunt demanding money.
0:42:36 I saw this on Twitter.
0:42:38 I saw Matt talking about this on YouTube.
0:42:41 Like, this could be a scam, you’re a little bit more aware.
0:42:44 And so the impact, the negative impact that it could have
0:42:45 is gonna diminish.
0:42:48 So I should just think it’s,
0:42:49 first of all, forget the comments, man.
0:42:51 Like this is one thing I’ve learned about
0:42:53 being a creator on the internet is like,
0:42:55 once you have like a really intimate site,
0:42:57 understanding of human psychology,
0:43:00 you begin to understand why different comments are happening.
0:43:03 Okay, this comes from fear.
0:43:06 This is a comment that’s rooted in insecurity.
0:43:06 Oh, I see this guy.
0:43:09 And so like all of a sudden you have like this shield
0:43:11 and invincibility surrounding you once you understand
0:43:13 like kind of the psychology behind it.
0:43:16 Because I think talking about this stuff is not a negative.
0:43:20 I think it’s definitely a net positive because of that.
0:43:21 Like people have to understand what’s going on.
0:43:24 This is technology that’s gonna impact everybody’s life.
0:43:27 And so, you know, kudos to you guys for staying on top of it
0:43:31 and like covering, like Matt, like your YouTube channel is,
0:43:32 dude, it’s like an encyclopedia.
0:43:36 It’s like you can go, it’s like a historical time capsule.
0:43:36 It’s amazing.
0:43:37 I really appreciate that.
0:43:39 And you are as well too.
0:43:40 I love following you on Instagram.
0:43:43 Your videos you put out on Instagram are amazing.
0:43:44 I believe you’re on TikTok as well,
0:43:46 but I mostly see you on Instagram.
0:43:47 I’m not really on TikTok.
0:43:51 I don’t even know if TikTok’s gonna exist in nine months or not.
0:43:53 But that’s a whole different rabbit hole.
0:43:56 Real quick though, prediction, Nathan,
0:43:57 what is TikTok’s fate?
0:43:59 Like, what prediction?
0:44:00 Oh, what’s, okay.
0:44:02 So I’m, you know, I don’t know if you know that.
0:44:04 So I studied Mandarin in Taiwan.
0:44:06 So I’m probably biased against China.
0:44:11 So, so I’m definitely very, you know,
0:44:12 I’m concerned about China.
0:44:15 That’s actually one of the big reasons I’m like, you know,
0:44:17 I don’t know if I’d come up with a member of EAC,
0:44:20 but you know, I do want to, for America to win at AI.
0:44:21 I think it’s very important.
0:44:24 And so I don’t think China should win at AI.
0:44:26 I think that’d be very bad for the world and for freedom.
0:44:30 And so I’m, I think that TikTok will get divested.
0:44:31 I think that they, like, yeah, sure,
0:44:33 they’re saying that they won’t do that.
0:44:34 And the reason they’re saying they won’t
0:44:36 is because they definitely are,
0:44:37 they definitely do indirectly have connections
0:44:39 to the Chinese government.
0:44:41 Like every, like, like China,
0:44:42 like most people don’t realize this,
0:44:44 but like, I think it was like maybe four years ago,
0:44:45 or something like this.
0:44:47 You know, I had a, I have a friend in the Chinese government.
0:44:48 I actually used to spend time out there.
0:44:49 They tried to get me to move out there
0:44:52 and set up an office for me maybe 10 years ago.
0:44:53 And so I got a lot behind the scenes.
0:44:57 And, you know, probably five years ago,
0:45:00 the Chinese government like put a member of the government
0:45:03 on every single board of every major tech company.
0:45:05 And almost nobody reported on it,
0:45:08 but like everybody who like knows people in China,
0:45:09 they all know this.
0:45:10 It’s like, holy crap, that happened.
0:45:13 And it, it like happened overnight where all of a sudden
0:45:16 there’s a board member on every single major tech company
0:45:18 in China and, and that board member,
0:45:19 even if they’re just one board member,
0:45:21 they basically have control of the companies now.
0:45:24 So, yeah, I don’t think we should have a company
0:45:25 that has any connection to the Chinese government
0:45:28 having influence on young people in America.
0:45:32 And, and, and so I, so my prediction is it will be divested.
0:45:33 And, and I think that’s a good thing.
0:45:37 – I do think that probably some company in the US will buy them,
0:45:40 but they’re really hesitant about giving another company
0:45:43 access to their algorithm, right?
0:45:45 So I feel like if that does happen,
0:45:47 it’ll end up being a watered down version of TikTok.
0:45:50 And yeah, I don’t really know
0:45:54 because I’m not somebody that uses TikTok much.
0:45:56 I’ve posted like three videos ever
0:45:57 that have never gotten any traction
0:46:01 and I’ve maybe scrolled the TikTok feed twice my entire life.
0:46:04 So I don’t know a whole lot about TikTok,
0:46:06 just other than what I hear in the news.
0:46:09 But I do think they’ll end up working
0:46:12 with some American company to, you know, get it sold.
0:46:14 But then there’ll be some sort of weird thing
0:46:16 where they don’t actually get access to the algorithm.
0:46:18 And then it’ll be a watered down version of TikTok.
0:46:21 And then I think Reels will end up just taking over
0:46:23 and replacing TikTok anyway.
0:46:27 But again, that is of, you know, it’s not a very hot take
0:46:30 ’cause I don’t really know what I’m talking about in that realm.
0:46:31 – We made an interesting point about Reels.
0:46:32 Like I’m so bullish on Reels.
0:46:36 Actually, the Reels business already generates more revenue
0:46:38 than TikTok’s entire business.
0:46:41 And I think we’re going to continue to see that as creators,
0:46:42 you know, sort of start spreading their eggs
0:46:44 across different baskets.
0:46:46 ‘Cause I do think it’s going to get,
0:46:47 I think it’s going to get banned.
0:46:50 Like maybe just China’s sort of using that as leverage,
0:46:53 saying that divestiture is not an option, this and that.
0:46:55 But it is funny, man, it’s like the one thing
0:46:57 that legislators in the United States
0:46:59 from the left and the right can agree on.
0:47:02 And so it’s like, they’re very determined to take TikTok out.
0:47:04 I do think it eventually happens.
0:47:07 And, you know, just six months ago, I would have told you no.
0:47:09 That’s another reason why I’m very bullish on Meta.
0:47:12 I think they’re the biggest beneficiaries of,
0:47:14 and YouTube and Google, of course.
0:47:16 But I think they’re the biggest beneficiaries
0:47:18 of TikTok’s potential demise.
0:47:20 – Yeah, it’s funny you mentioned that.
0:47:22 As soon as Meta started open sourcing,
0:47:24 like their llama models and stuff like that,
0:47:26 I started buying up stock in Meta because I was like,
0:47:28 all right, Meta’s actually,
0:47:30 Meta’s redemption arc just started.
0:47:33 And I feel– – Not financial advice.
0:47:34 – Not financial advice.
0:47:39 I’m not telling anybody to go buy Meta stock.
0:47:40 But I went and bought Meta stock
0:47:42 as soon as they started open sourcing
0:47:44 because I went, all right, Meta,
0:47:46 I think Meta’s doing the right thing here.
0:47:51 I think their redemption story is turning the corner, right?
0:47:54 I feel like Mark Zuckerberg has gotten some,
0:47:56 you know, bad press in recent years,
0:47:57 but I think what they’re,
0:47:59 the direction they’re taking Meta in
0:48:02 is the right direction with the open source
0:48:04 and really putting the focus on AI.
0:48:08 And, you know, I’m personally still bullish on like VR
0:48:09 and the Meta quest and stuff.
0:48:10 I have a Meta quest.
0:48:11 It is really, really fun
0:48:13 when you get in there and play with groups.
0:48:15 So yeah, I’m a fan of Meta.
0:48:17 – I think the Zuckerberg arc has been hilarious.
0:48:20 Like, you know, just to see his transition.
0:48:22 So I got to say hi to him one time,
0:48:23 but he has no idea who I am.
0:48:24 He was like at a party,
0:48:26 at a game industry party way back in the day.
0:48:28 And, but just seeing how he’s changed,
0:48:30 he looks dramatically different now.
0:48:31 And there was a while, you know,
0:48:33 there was a period where he was like learning Mandarin
0:48:35 and he was trying to get Facebook into China.
0:48:37 – I mean, Facebook being banned in China,
0:48:38 that’s another reason.
0:48:40 It’s like, hey, the reciprocity here
0:48:43 is another reason why I’m not super
0:48:44 against TikTok being banned.
0:48:46 But yeah, come in and dude,
0:48:48 I’ve been buying a lot of Meta stock
0:48:50 and definitely not financial advice.
0:48:52 Cause if you follow my trade, you’re going to go bankrupt.
0:48:54 I’m just letting you know.
0:48:55 But I think if I had a,
0:48:57 I do think Facebook’s on the way
0:48:58 to a $2 trillion market cap.
0:48:59 I think it’ll happen in the next three years.
0:49:01 And I think Mark Zuckerberg is going to be
0:49:03 the richest person in the world.
0:49:03 I just, I mean,
0:49:05 4 billion people using their products.
0:49:07 I think again, like,
0:49:10 I think people still highly undervalue
0:49:14 the power of Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook.
0:49:15 The reality labs and all that stuff
0:49:17 is still yet to be seen.
0:49:21 But I think the biggest reason that I’m bullish on Meta,
0:49:23 and I just interviewed Mark Zuckerberg.
0:49:25 So obviously like there’s a bias there,
0:49:26 but I think it’s him.
0:49:28 Like he’s a founder.
0:49:30 He’s been there for 20 plus years now.
0:49:32 He’s the, maybe the most, like he’s a killer.
0:49:35 Like he’s the most competitive person.
0:49:36 I think in entrepreneurship.
0:49:38 Like he wants it all.
0:49:39 He’s coming for it all.
0:49:40 He actually just wore a shirt
0:49:43 for his 40th birthday post that says,
0:49:45 I think death to Carthage,
0:49:46 which is basically,
0:49:50 it’s a modern day sort of rallying war cry.
0:49:52 And to me represented,
0:49:53 I don’t have any insider information,
0:49:55 but to me it represented like,
0:49:57 he wants to win.
0:49:58 He wants all the smoke.
0:49:59 He’s coming.
0:50:01 Like the guy is kind of like Sam Altman,
0:50:04 just absurdly competitive.
0:50:06 And that’s one guy that I,
0:50:07 much like Tom Brady,
0:50:09 much like Kobe back in the day.
0:50:12 It’s like one guy that I could just never bet against.
0:50:13 – Yeah, yeah.
0:50:14 Did you watch the roast, by the way?
0:50:16 – I love the roast.
0:50:16 And by the way, I have,
0:50:17 dude, I have an idea.
0:50:18 Like everybody,
0:50:21 okay, like Zuckerberg’s arc has been incredible.
0:50:23 Like he’s been,
0:50:24 and by the way,
0:50:27 working with his PR and communications teams,
0:50:28 I get it.
0:50:30 Like these people are sharp.
0:50:32 Like they are so tuned into the culture.
0:50:33 They’re brilliant.
0:50:34 I love the whole experience.
0:50:38 But I think him or Elon or Sam Altman or Sundar,
0:50:40 one of these guys should have a roast.
0:50:42 Because if you want to like humanize
0:50:44 and endear people to a founder,
0:50:47 like there’s no better way to be humanized
0:50:49 and endeared than self-deprecation
0:50:52 and getting shit on for two hours by famous committees.
0:50:55 So if anybody’s out there from Zuck, Elon,
0:50:56 whoever’s team,
0:50:58 like get one of these guys on a roast, man.
0:51:00 I think it’s a good move.
0:51:01 – That’s such a great idea.
0:51:03 But speaking of Zuck,
0:51:04 is there any like,
0:51:06 what’s the story behind how you got them?
0:51:07 I don’t know if that’s something
0:51:08 you’re open to sharing or not,
0:51:09 but is there a story there?
0:51:12 Like how did you actually land Zuck for an interview?
0:51:13 – Yeah, man.
0:51:15 I mean, the first thing I’ll say is a lot of luck involved.
0:51:18 But then I also say that kind of just a PSA
0:51:19 to anybody listening,
0:51:20 you can create your own luck.
0:51:23 So basically what I think happened,
0:51:26 I don’t know what haven’t asked his team, why me,
0:51:30 but I’ve been creating content now about emerging tech
0:51:33 on Instagram for over two years now,
0:51:35 not necessarily on my page,
0:51:36 but on my media pages.
0:51:37 One is called metaverse,
0:51:38 second is a three,
0:51:41 the other one aluna.ai.
0:51:44 And I’ve put a lot of work into that, man.
0:51:45 Like a lot, a lot of work,
0:51:46 especially early in the day,
0:51:48 I’d have like these long,
0:51:49 you know, 10 post care cells,
0:51:50 so much information,
0:51:52 data rich, really well designed.
0:51:53 And it obviously caught the eye
0:51:56 of a lot of people at meta.
0:51:58 And I’d be friended,
0:52:01 dude, this is another reason why I bought so much stock.
0:52:03 Like I have so many friends at meta now
0:52:05 and the teams there are just so talented, man,
0:52:08 across like all of their endeavors.
0:52:11 And I’m doing a lot of work with meta over this year,
0:52:12 like we’re going to Cannes in a month
0:52:14 and like got a lot of stuff going on,
0:52:16 but I’ve befriended a lot of people in meta
0:52:17 and I’ve just like developed
0:52:19 this really great relationship with them.
0:52:21 And they always hit me up and it’s like,
0:52:22 Hey, we got some news drop
0:52:23 and do you mind like covering it,
0:52:25 maybe making a video putting on metaverse or whatever.
0:52:27 And I’m like always happy to do it
0:52:29 just because I love this stuff.
0:52:32 And I’ve never asked for anything in return.
0:52:35 So like my intuition says that
0:52:37 because I’m like an Instagram first creator
0:52:39 and I’ve been like doing so much for them
0:52:41 for two years now without ever asking
0:52:42 for anything in return,
0:52:44 I think it’s almost like this karma
0:52:46 that was just put out there
0:52:47 and they sort of honored me
0:52:50 and rewarded me with it for that.
0:52:51 That’s my guess.
0:52:54 I don’t know for sure,
0:52:56 but I just tell people, yeah, luck,
0:52:57 but you can create your own luck.
0:52:59 I think the last two, two and a half years
0:53:02 creating on Instagram has kind of proven that.
0:53:03 – You know, that actually leads me something
0:53:05 that I wasn’t planning on asking you,
0:53:07 but now I’m curious ’cause you brought it up.
0:53:11 Like how does like the monetization on Instagram work,
0:53:14 is it mostly like sponsors sponsoring your content
0:53:16 or does meta actually pay you similar
0:53:18 to like how YouTube and Twitter does now?
0:53:20 – No, definitely not off platform.
0:53:22 And like that’s another fascinating conversation
0:53:24 that we can get into.
0:53:26 The economics of why it’s,
0:53:28 even though TikTok with the creativity programs doing it,
0:53:29 but I think they’re subsidizing a lot.
0:53:31 I don’t think that’s a longterm thing,
0:53:34 but you know, YouTube, the magic of YouTube is like,
0:53:36 hey, you have pre-roll, you have interstitial,
0:53:38 you have like all these ad placements.
0:53:40 And because it’s an eight plus minute video,
0:53:42 20 minute, in your case, sometimes 30, 40 minute video,
0:53:46 it’s like they can attribute that direct ad revenue
0:53:48 to the creator bringing in these people.
0:53:50 On Instagram, it doesn’t, Instagram and TikTok,
0:53:52 like when I say a lot,
0:53:54 people are more fans of the platform
0:53:55 than they are the creator.
0:53:57 And on YouTube, people are more fans of the creator
0:53:59 than they are necessarily the platform.
0:54:02 So like TikTok, Instagram’s doing the heavy lifting,
0:54:04 getting the discovery, getting people to use,
0:54:06 and making their app sticky, getting people to use it.
0:54:07 And like you’re a beneficiary of that,
0:54:10 but it’s hard to pinpoint and attribute,
0:54:12 you know, where the revenue should be directed.
0:54:14 So like I understand why they don’t pay directors,
0:54:16 or sorry, creators directly.
0:54:19 But yeah, all of my revenue on Instagram,
0:54:20 I just use that as discoverability.
0:54:22 And then the revenue happens third party,
0:54:24 whether it be sponsors, ads, paid communities,
0:54:26 whatever it might be.
0:54:29 But yeah, they don’t pay creators, well they do,
0:54:30 but it’s not a lot.
0:54:33 Like I think one month I had like 30 million views
0:54:35 and I got paid like $32.
0:54:37 (laughing)
0:54:39 – The Twitter actually stays better than that.
0:54:40 (laughing)
0:54:43 – Dude, dude, everything pays better than that.
0:54:44 But yeah, that’s what I say.
0:54:46 Like Instagram’s a discovery platform
0:54:49 with relationship components built in.
0:54:51 But if you’re looking to get paid direct from platform,
0:54:54 I mean YouTube’s a place to be 100%.
0:54:56 – Well, I think, you know,
0:54:58 I think we could probably have
0:55:00 like another hour long conversation,
0:55:02 but I think we’ll have to have you back on, you know,
0:55:04 as one of our more regular guests,
0:55:06 ’cause I feel like we can probably nerd out frequently
0:55:07 about whatever is going on.
0:55:10 But you know, I do wanna be respectful of your time.
0:55:12 – Dude, I could go on for hours and hours.
0:55:14 So anytime you guys need like a third,
0:55:16 even like co-host or whatever you just wanna riff,
0:55:18 I’m always available.
0:55:21 But I do wanna leave with a question.
0:55:22 What do you guys think?
0:55:25 WWDC, I think this episode will go out before then.
0:55:28 So all lies on Apple.
0:55:29 Just we don’t have to get into it super,
0:55:33 but from one to 10, like how big of an impact
0:55:36 or how impactful is that event gonna be,
0:55:38 you guys think from one to 10?
0:55:40 – Three.
0:55:42 So they just now inked the deal with OpenAI.
0:55:43 So that tells me two things.
0:55:45 Like if they’re partnering with OpenAI,
0:55:45 that means I mean,
0:55:48 I think they’re gonna be quite reliant on OpenAI.
0:55:51 And so I doubt that we’re gonna see a major Siri update
0:55:53 ’cause they’re probably relying on OpenAI for that.
0:55:55 So I think a month is so soon
0:55:58 for them to have something amazing new with Siri by then,
0:55:59 but who knows?
0:56:01 Maybe this has been in the works and yeah.
0:56:04 – Unless we saw a sneak peek of what Siri is gonna be
0:56:08 on Monday with the OpenAI GPT-40 demo.
0:56:09 – Yeah.
0:56:11 – That could be what Siri is.
0:56:13 – Yeah, that could be.
0:56:16 That’s gonna, yeah, that’d be like a huge alliance
0:56:18 between OpenAI, Microsoft, and Apple.
0:56:20 And then I guess you’ll have, you know,
0:56:23 Amazon will be, you know, partnering with Interopik.
0:56:24 – I don’t know if Microsoft’s really gonna be a piece
0:56:25 of that deal. (laughs)
0:56:28 I don’t think Microsoft and Apple still have much love
0:56:31 for each other, but I don’t know, it’ll be interesting
0:56:34 because it feels like Microsoft and OpenAI are starting
0:56:35 to make moves to sort of separate
0:56:37 from each other a little bit, right?
0:56:39 – Yeah, but certainly that’s very hard.
0:56:41 Like unless OpenAI comes out with AGI.
0:56:42 – Which you know.
0:56:44 – And they determine what AGI is.
0:56:45 So that’s a whole another.
0:56:47 – Like I said, we’ll do another episode for all this,
0:56:49 but yeah, Matt, one to 10 out of curiosity.
0:56:54 You, like where are your expectation levels for WWDC?
0:56:55 – I, not as great.
0:56:57 The expectation was a lot bigger last year
0:57:00 ’cause we knew Vision Pro was coming this year.
0:57:02 I feel like the big thing they’re gonna be talking about
0:57:06 is, you know, whatever updates they make to Siri.
0:57:08 And I think it’s gonna be stuff
0:57:10 that we’ve already seen before, right?
0:57:13 It’ll be new to Apple, but those of us that are in the AI
0:57:15 world paying attention, you know,
0:57:17 that have seen a few things already.
0:57:18 – Yeah.
0:57:20 – Gonna feel like nothing new to us.
0:57:23 That’s kind of what I’m expecting.
0:57:26 – So my prediction is like you just said,
0:57:30 it’s what we saw with OpenAI, GPT40,
0:57:32 and with Google’s project Dastra.
0:57:34 I think that was a sneak peek,
0:57:36 sort of a preview of what we’re gonna see with iOS,
0:57:38 where it’s like Siri’s gonna be revamped.
0:57:40 It’s gonna be powered by, you know,
0:57:42 some sort of omnimodal LLM that takes,
0:57:45 you know, that uses a lot of the hardware and the device.
0:57:47 And I think it’s basically going to power
0:57:50 the entire ecosystem of Apple devices.
0:57:53 But the difference is they’re gonna present it
0:57:55 in such a spectacular way.
0:57:56 Like I made this point where Google,
0:57:58 it’s like they’re presenting this incredible technology,
0:58:00 but they don’t make us excited about it.
0:58:04 Where Apple sometimes presents like a feature
0:58:06 that nobody ever uses or nobody ever will use,
0:58:07 but we’re like, oh my God,
0:58:09 it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
0:58:11 And so even if they just announced sort of what we
0:58:14 already expect and what we already have seen,
0:58:16 the way that they will announce it
0:58:17 is gonna get people psyched.
0:58:19 So I’m like, I’m more interested in the presentation,
0:58:21 the cinematography, the visuals.
0:58:22 So I’m really excited, man.
0:58:24 I have a lot of, I have a high expectation,
0:58:27 so I’m just setting myself up to be let down,
0:58:28 but we’ll see.
0:58:29 – I think behind the scenes
0:58:30 some really big things are probably happening,
0:58:32 ’cause like open AI partnering with Apple,
0:58:33 and then Apple’s been saying that they’re building
0:58:35 all these new chips that are getting better and better
0:58:37 for AI, you know, and you combine that with Sam Altman
0:58:40 saying that the big limitation on AI right now
0:58:42 is chips and having more chips
0:58:44 and not just relying on Nvidia, you know,
0:58:45 I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some huge alliance
0:58:48 going on there where like open AI and Apple
0:58:50 are gonna collaborate on new AI chips
0:58:51 or something in the future.
0:58:54 – Well, yeah, the M4 may be a puzzle piece there,
0:58:56 but all really interesting, man.
0:58:58 I’m really excited for WWDC.
0:59:00 And for your video covering it, Matt,
0:59:02 I’m gonna be the first one that I watch.
0:59:05 – Yeah, I won’t actually be at WWDC this year,
0:59:07 but yeah, no, I’m excited to watch the stream
0:59:08 and talk about it.
0:59:09 – It’s better when you’re not there,
0:59:10 ’cause then you’re in the lab like ready
0:59:11 to crank something out.
0:59:13 – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:59:15 I mean, going to these events is really cool
0:59:17 because you actually get to meet the people in the company.
0:59:22 And I made a point in my video about the Google I/O event
0:59:28 is that it’s like really easy to sort of think
0:59:30 of these Googles and Apples and Microsoft
0:59:32 as these big faceless companies
0:59:33 that they just want your data
0:59:35 and they don’t really care about the individual.
0:59:37 But then you go to these events
0:59:38 and you talk to the engineer
0:59:40 that built this one feature
0:59:42 that they’re gonna be announcing on stage today.
0:59:44 And that one engineer is like nervous
0:59:47 and anxious and excited that they’re one thing
0:59:51 that they made is being presented today
0:59:53 and they can’t wait to see how it’s being perceived.
0:59:56 And they’re all giddy and nerdy and excited
0:59:58 about this piece that they worked on.
1:00:02 And you start to realize the humanity at these companies.
1:00:03 You start to realize that Google
1:00:05 isn’t a giant faceless company.
1:00:07 It’s made up of people that are just as excited
1:00:10 and nerdy about all of this stuff as we are.
1:00:13 But on the news and all of that,
1:00:16 you just see it as this giant faceless corporation.
1:00:18 And I think putting faces to these companies
1:00:21 and having that sense of humanity behind
1:00:24 like the people actually engineering these things
1:00:26 is really, really powerful.
1:00:29 And I’ll make YouTube videos talking about
1:00:30 like the latest thing Google just dropped
1:00:32 and like half the comments,
1:00:33 I know we need to ignore the comments
1:00:35 but half the comments will be things like,
1:00:36 oh, Google’s evil.
1:00:38 Why are you even talking about them?
1:00:40 Oh, they’re all just trying to harvest our data.
1:00:41 They don’t care about you.
1:00:42 But going to these events,
1:00:46 you realize that’s not really fully the truth.
1:00:47 And so–
1:00:50 – That is so well said, man.
1:00:51 I’ll end it with this,
1:00:52 like Mark Zuckerberg was very similar.
1:00:55 Like I have, I’m living in Charlotte right now.
1:00:58 I have like a lot of family who are kind of like
1:01:00 suspicious of Mark Zuckerberg.
1:01:02 – Not even as a lizard person or whatever.
1:01:03 – Yeah, you see these comments.
1:01:04 Isn’t he like Illuminati?
1:01:06 Like trying to just like ruin the world.
1:01:08 And I’m talking to the guy and he’s just like,
1:01:10 the craziest part about interviewing him,
1:01:12 he’s like, it was like talking to you guys.
1:01:13 He’s just a bro.
1:01:14 Like he’s just one of us.
1:01:17 He loves, I mean with $150 billion in his bank account,
1:01:20 but he really loves this stuff, man.
1:01:22 He’s like a tinkerer at heart.
1:01:24 Like he was so personable.
1:01:27 I was like, he’s going to probably be in a rush
1:01:30 or maybe like, you know, like here’s another funny thing.
1:01:32 Like I looked it up last year, you know,
1:01:35 his net worth balloon and it amounted
1:01:38 to nine and a half million dollars per hour that he made.
1:01:40 So I was like, okay, so my 40 minutes with him
1:01:42 is worth like $7 million for the guy.
1:01:44 He’s going to be like in a rush, like hurry up.
1:01:46 But we got to chat like five minutes before,
1:01:49 five minutes after, like he even wanted to stay longer,
1:01:50 just like shooting the shit about the UFC.
1:01:51 But his team was like, all right,
1:01:52 we got to go next meeting or whatever.
1:01:56 But he was just so weirdly normal.
1:01:57 – Yeah, yeah.
1:01:59 – And I was kind of off put by that.
1:02:01 I was expecting somebody just kind of like annoyed
1:02:03 that he had to talk to me.
1:02:05 But yeah, man, it was a really cool experience.
1:02:07 So to your point, like these people working
1:02:09 at these companies are actual human beings
1:02:10 who love what they’re doing.
1:02:13 They’re not trying to destroy humanity.
1:02:15 – Well, thanks again for hanging out with us today
1:02:18 and nerdin’ out with us before to do it again.
1:02:20 – That was a lot of fun, guys.
1:02:21 I love this.
1:02:21 That was awesome.
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