Hey guys, welcome to Group Chat. We have a very special guest today, our friend Zach White.
Been on the pod a few times before you guys know him by now, but he is on here.
Talking about some interesting companies that he's seeing and then he joins us for the whole
episode to talk about news and all the crazy stuff going on in the world. We have
Russia, you know, there's crazy news out of Russia. We got to go a little tinfoil hat here because
you know, the facts or the details are a little sparse. So the best thing to do when that is
the case, as we all know, is to go ahead and whip up some conspiracy theories.
That's what we do. So that's what we do. That's what we're going to do. We got the fight of the
century coming. I know on this podcast, we are, you know, fans of fighting, I would say me more so
than the murders, but you guys are into it. And then obviously you guys and all of us are into,
you know, the world of tech and CEOs and what's going on. This is the best of both worlds.
We have the fight of the century. It's going to be huge and we're going to go ahead and
give our our picks. And great life advice at the end.
Oh, yeah, great life advice at the end. We have a question from one of our Catholics. If you
have any questions, make sure you put them in the discord. You can DM them to us. The guys are
kind of rounding them all up and they put them in a list for us. So whenever we get a chance,
we answer those at the end of an episode. We picked a good one for Zach being here.
It was really good. There's a lot of other news that we talked about. We'll get to that. The
other thing is merch. So Eric, you know, Eric Deluxe is just whipping up merch left and right.
So anytime we mention anything that really like catches steam, he's got a shirt for it. You know,
it seems like the next day. So he has a new, should we say what it is on him?
I think so. Yeah, he has a new shirt coming that's, you know, a member's, members tent.
We'll just say, you know, we talked a lot about Onan and, you know, he's a liberal.
He runs with and yeah, where he hangs out. And so, you know, we went ahead and we made a
member's tent. It was dedicated to his time spent at the U.S. Open. And we're dropping that
this week, I think, right? It's a great color wave. Yeah, it's really good.
Okay, so that's it. Got some new merch. ShopnewRepublic.com. Be on the lookout for that.
A lot of hot topics today. Zach in the building. Let's do it.
It's a Sunday night. We got Zach and Anand in the studio dramas at home, but he's calling in.
It's great to have three gentlemen on the pod. It's going to be a great Sunday night episode.
We're going to talk about all things Russia, Zach, Zach versus Eli.
You don't have to do the whole intro. Yeah, you have to do the intro. We have an intro.
There you go. Take it away. And D quit.
D quit. Mega D quit. He said it got too woke. He's out of here.
Yeah, I think D's in Minneapolis. He had to go, you know, Canvas for R.F.K.
DeSantis. I don't know what he's doing. He's the entire backs campaigning.
Yeah. He's in those states.
Well, Wednesday's back on Wednesday's episode.
Yeah, he's back tomorrow night.
Nice. Okay. Well, we have our good friend, Zach White, in the building.
He has been on the pod many times. You guys should be well aware.
Do we need to intro him? They should know him, right?
Yeah, they should know him, but Zach is actually, you know, a good friend of all of ours. He's
a very successful technology investor. Zach and I actually talk pretty much every day.
We exchange ideas. We exchange company names. And, you know, he's just someone that
is on our realm. And I'd love to pick his brain on things. And he's so focused on two companies
that he keeps explaining to me. And I'd love for him to explain to all of us why he's so excited
about them, because it's things that I don't understand, but he's very well versed in.
Zach. Yes. What are these companies? Andrew, go first.
So I think, yeah, Andrew is a defense company. It's a company that is basically married.
A lot of the benefits that technology companies for the last 10 years have experienced via software
and hardware integrations and all of these types of things, but basically applied to a very
inefficient and large market, which is the American defense spend. So if you think about it,
American defense spends probably the largest inomination of where your tax dollars go every year.
And for the last probably 60 to 70 years, this market has been controlled by like a very specific
set group of people, which colloquially are known as the defense primes. These are people like
Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc. And they've basically had a strong strangleholds on the American
defense spend for the last 50, 60 years. And nobody has really come in and disintermediated them,
especially in the way that tech has disintermediated a lot of businesses that we know and love. And so
Andrew is probably the first company that really has a shot to become as big as these large defense
contractors that basically contribute a huge part to the American economy. And it was founded by
a guy who actually started Oculus, the VR company that Facebook acquired. And yeah, it's a great
Southern California based company that I think will do really well in the future.
So what's their edge? Their edge is the ability to hire, like if you think about the traditional
defense companies. For the most part, they're unable to hire like the best and brightest engineers
because most of those people end up at Google or Facebook or Instagram, Airbnb, whatever.
What Andrew has been able to do is create a brand name within themselves where they're
cool enough to attract some of the best engineering talent in Silicon Valley, where in years past,
as I'm sure you know, going to a defense company or investing in a defense company was pretty
pretty taboo thing to do in the valley. And so now they've really been the first people to have
like open up the floodgates to basically. And then there's other things that they do which is like,
you know, their proactive, their R&D is like very different from how other companies conduct them.
So they're just really pushing the envelope on a lot of that kind of stuff.
So are they alternative to Raytheon and all the other defense contractors? Is that their goal?
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And so they do things like drones, autonomous submarines. Today they just
announced they are a rocket company to start providing rockets for, you know, missile systems
within the United States. So they do everything.
It's like a tough industry to break into. Like how do you, how do you find a reason for the defense
budget to go away from like, what are they doing better that you would pull money from Raytheon
to give it to someone new? Like don't they seem, yeah, well, it's a lot, you know, in a lot of
instances, like a lot of these contracts can't even get filled. Like, I don't have a good example
of this is that because of the Ukraine war, America's like very short of like Javelin and Stinger
missiles, which are sort of like personnel operated missiles. And so anybody who can manufacture
those or something close to those basically has a lot of capacity for defense spend to come into
their company just to fulfill those orders because other company, the defense industry is pretty old,
pretty inconsistent, you know, like lead times are weird. It's hard to like, there's not a lot
of consistency there. So if there's a company that can come in and consistently and reliably
provide what they're basically selling into the government, you have just a huge lead right there.
So I guess have you, sorry, go ahead, drama. Well, would you say then that the, I'm just so fascinated
by like how you disrupt, you know, we always talk about like disrupting, you know, retail or
disrupting whatever, but disrupting that industry feels so interesting to me. Would you say that
it's really production capabilities in that as one of the many things that allows them to
Yeah, I think I mean, from the andral point of view, they also are a lot of the guys there are
ex-palentiary guys and Palantir was one of the first technology companies that was really able to
break into a capital hill and sell their products through and it took them a really long time and
it was not like an easy process for them to be able to do that. And so I think it's like
capital hill in Washington's one of those places where if you kind of need pre-established
relationships, you need to know the lobbyists, you need to know the lawyers, you need to know the
people that are really like, you know, feeding the decision making process in a lot of these,
you know, defense contract. And so yeah, I guess my question is how do you break through because
this is the establishment, right? So the defense industry is, you know, multi-hundred-billion
dollars a year. How does a new entry company get in? Yeah, I think it's I think it's like the
same way that a software company sells into like a large Fortune 500 company that's using something
else. Like you're just providing a more forward thinking and efficient product. But the government
is like paid by lobbyists, they're paid by all these different folks. Yeah. Like how do you
overcome all those obstacles? I think that it's it's really just like public perception and an
ability to provide products that are better than what's being offered on the market right now,
a more consistent rate. And so, you know, they're focusing on really, they're focusing on weird
things that are like non-obvious, right? They're not like focusing on like what's the next greatest
F-15? They're doing like how do we build the most efficient century tower to put around bases?
And what do we, how can we provide software to that century tower such that we can, you know,
have like a really amazing data set to do interesting things with, you know, right?
And you're right. It's got to be like that those relationships that the Palantir guys have to be.
I mean, that's definitely it's like a whole much relationship base and those guys have been
doing that for years. And it's like an old boys network, right? It's like once you're in,
you're kind of like, you know, they're right person to take to the right stake house to get the,
you know, thing pushed through the last hour. And is this something that like people are
like investing in? Like, why is this on your radar? Like, is this an opportunity for people like you
or? No, the reason why I bring it up is because as we all know, secondary markets, private tech,
everything's trading on a discount. Yeah. Andruro's the only company I've heard in the last month.
That's trading at a premium. And Zack's an investor in Andruro. So I was like, what's going on here?
That this is the only company that's trading. And I think a lot of that comes from like, you
have to think about who the customer is, right? Like the customer is the American government.
And if the American government's not fulfilling contracts, like you have much bigger problems on
your hand than your investment in Andruro. So it's kind of like, you know, the ER is guaranteed.
Yeah, it's very consistent revenue and, you know, a very good customer to to be selling things too.
Oh, interesting. Okay. What's the other one?
Varda. Yes. Varda was a company started by friend of mine, who's a partner at Founders Fund.
He incubated it through COVID. And basically, he had come to this conclusion and was supported by
a couple of scientists that he went to and a couple of people who were working at SpaceX at the time.
That basically, um, gravity as an input is like a very inefficient input in the production of,
like, certain things, which actually is like a margin, compression, compressing function.
And so what it means is like, if you were to make things in microgravity where gravity and
entropy to a certain extent aren't factors that are affecting the way that you're producing
something, break it down like way more simpler. If you produce things in space, you can produce
them a lot more cost efficiently than if you can produce them on earth. Simply because gravity
is a force that compresses margin and specific things. And so like specific things like that
operate in crystalline structures specifically, which are like pharmaceuticals or like 3D printing
organs. If you don't have to work with gravity, you can create much more novel and interesting
structures in that way. And so what Varda does is it basically sends automated factories into
microgravity on the back of SpaceX rockets, allows those automated factories to do things like
create new pharmaceuticals, new drugs, new crystalline structures that like lead to pharmaceuticals
that everybody takes. And then sends them back down to earth. And then pharmaceuticals that
works alongside large pharma took basically create new drugs that way. And then there's a lot of
other things that they can also do. This is Christ. And they're currently doing this like they've
done that. Yeah, they just sent their first, they're doing an R&D project with, forget what the
company is, but it's the largest AIDS drug in the world. And they're trying to find new compounds
around this AIDS drug that would either make it like what you can do is like if you can alter
the crystalline structure in microgravity, you can do things like have faster uptake time, less side
effects, you can like alter the things, alter these structures to be more efficacious. And so
yeah, that's what they're doing. I don't even know what questions ask. That's so far beyond
I mean, Jesus Christ. Yeah, so he's basically saying you could take pharmaceutical manufacturing
to space and make it way more efficient to make it in space, bring it back down and then make
drugs. I get it. I just it's so far beyond. Right. Is that the simplest way? That's pretty high.
Yeah, it's just pharmaceutical, right? Anything that where gravity is a hindrance, right? Yeah,
so like another example is like when the 3D printing, organ printing market becomes a thing. It's
actually really because you're when you three print organs, you do it from the bottom up. And if you
if you're working against gravity, there's a chance that it can cave in on itself. But if you're
doing it in microgravity, there's no chance that it caves in on itself, you can have much more
efficient organ production, stuff like that. So they're figuring out new things that gravity
just sucks with every single day and trying it out. Like how do you like someone comes and pitches
you this, right? And they ask you for millions of dollars or tens of. Like how do you know this
isn't just bullshit? Are these people aren't like just high coming up with creates? Like how do you
check this out to make sure? Yeah, so like the guy who the so the co-founders like somebody within
founders fund who spent a lot of time, you know, researching this specific idea and going to scientists
and people working in space to like really vet this idea. And then his co-founder was the guy
who basically led the SpaceX autonomous rocket program. So he like he knew that from a technical
standpoint, from like a rocketry standpoint, it was completely possible. The the thing that was
really just the thing you had to figure out was could you produce pharmaceuticals in space and that
just took, you know, just like a slight leap of faith. That makes sense. So it's not Elizabeth
Holmes running this thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll give Zach credit because he's been talking about
both of these companies for the last three, four years to me. And I wasn't smart enough to get it.
Yeah, I see why now. One of the few companies that have upgrounds in 2023. And you know,
they're thriving and they have so much excitement around them and
congrats to use that. Thank you. Thank you. Are they both doing upgrounds?
They both do upgrounds in the last three months.
Because that's the other big news going around like in the investment world is
this secondary market thing that's happening where there's, you know, a lot of.
It's a disaster. Yeah, do you guys want to talk about that? I feel like that's a good thing
up your both of your alley that is interesting. Yeah, basically every company raised
every late-stage company raised in 2021 that didn't go public. So if you went public,
you're fine. You went public and you already took your medicine. But if you didn't go public
in 2021, you basically, you basically are worth 70 to 80% less than your last round.
Yeah. But you raised so much capital in 2021 that you don't have to take your medicine yet.
Yeah. But everyone knows your company's not worth what you think it's worth. Yeah.
And so it's a game of chicken between investors and founders. Yeah.
And it's unclear where it's going to settle because I mean, we both
roam in the secondary markets. Companies are trading 70, 80, 90% down from employees and founders.
But their actual company isn't taking that valuation down. That makes sense.
Yeah. But they're just waiting till they have to raise money next time. And it's going to be
in that ballpark, right? Yes. Yeah. 100%. I mean, if your public comp is 80% down, you should be 95%
down. Yeah. So is this a unique, is this a window of opportunity where people are willing to get
rid of shares for for that low or not necessarily because you don't know how much worse it's going to get?
Well, I think if employees want to get rid of shares, this is their last chance of liquidity
because there's going to be a predatory round that's coming, which basically crams everyone down.
So there's got to be like a couple good buys in there, right? Yeah.
There's got to be like a couple people that this is like a specific people who spend their whole lives
like basically because like what's what's interesting about this is like the dislocation is
across a whole market. It's not necessarily across individual names. There are certain
things that are higher, certain things that are lower. But by and large, like everything is
completely fucked, even companies that are here for the long term. And so there's definitely stripes
fucked stripes fucked like retools, like there's all these, you know, relativity space,
every all of these companies have just gone completely fucked in this. And so I think that if
you're the discerning person who can, you know, has like the inside track on these companies and
can go and talk to the people who founded these companies and really get a sense of where they're at,
you probably stand a really good chance to make a lot of money in the next five years.
If you can, you know, be thoughtful about what you're doing. There's definitely buyers in this
market. It's not like it's just freefall. No, there's definitely people interested. Yeah.
We've also been aware in five years, right? Zach and I have both been pinged by a lot of people
that have been interested in buying, but the problem is it's a falling knife and the price keeps
going lower. Yeah, I mean, just anecdotally, I was working on a deal that, you know, I think
probably fell 30% like the price of the shares that I was working on was fell 30% from the time
that I started it to the time that it like made it to the lawyers, which was like two or three weeks.
I think it's the same company, right? Yeah, yeah.
Man, it just is so interesting to me because I
like there are definitely going to be those companies that five, 10 years from now are worth,
you know, an insane amount of some are going to survive and do well and, you know,
place man, how do you pick? How do you know? I guess you're right. It's you got to know,
you got to have the inside info on what they're up to, how they're looking at it and
make your bets. Yeah, I mean, venture capital is the one market where inside information is like
actually highly recommended. So yeah, venture capital is legalized inside your trading. Yeah,
that's fun. You know, that's why it's like part of a VC job to like go to all the fun shit.
Yeah, I mean, that's where you're getting all you're getting that insider information at 11.
We've talked about AI a lot. Zach, I'd love to hear your kind of take on it. How you think about
investing in AI? Yeah, I mean, I think I'm really excited for it. I'm like for me, it's hard to
it's hard to like tell whether or not like how how much to the winner go the spoils type thing
where like I don't know if all of the power in AI is consolidated at the top with people who have
the best models, best access to data are able to like lobby around AI the most effectively.
Like kind of happened in crypto. We saw that where like, you know, there's a bunch of like
shit basically and then on top of that where like played people like Coinbase, etc.
You know, like I think that there's probably going to be a lot of money made and lost.
And I think that people are probably underestimating how big companies like OpenAI with the backing
of Microsoft, companies like, you know, stability or any of these hugging face, any of these
companies, they just have such a lead from like a data standpoint that I think that finding the
companies that are smaller that are coming up that are going to do great is probably just as equally
as hard as trying to find the companies that we're going to be the Amazon's of the .com boom.
I don't know. Yeah.
Jack, does it feel like kind of like before, you know, this was like Metaverse kind of how it was,
but like, is it like anyone that talks about AI is getting investors or is it not that ridiculous
because of the market right? No, I think that it's going to get to that ridiculous at the
probably like by the end of this year. There's massive funds loading up to just do fully dedicated
AI funds. The only funds that are really raising money are people that are doing AI and they're
doing it in like, you know, nine figures, 10 figures, sort of size. And so there's definitely
money coming in. Microsoft's about to put huge, like Nvidia, all of these corporates are trying
to figure out what their strategy is. So there's a lot of money coming into the market.
So I think it will be like kind of like a blood bath at some point in time, but there are companies
that stand to make a lot of money. So, you know, I personally have like hired an AI tutor to like
teach me more about AI. So yeah, that's like where I'm sitting with it. How do you differentiate
between having like a crypto tutor versus an AI tutor? Why is this more important? Because I
think that you can make money in crypto without having like a very deep technical understanding.
Like, you don't need to know how smart contracts and this is like, it's probably helpful,
but you can probably make a lot of money just investing in like the trends of around crypto.
Right. In AI, it like really is useful, I think, to be able to technically speak to why
the companies that you're investing in are different or unique or like providing a
differentiated type of service that can't easily be, you know, competed away.
Come on. Yeah.
Seems like another, I mean, obviously this is most of what ABC's job is, but like another
instance of like, okay, here's a rush. You know, there's going to be some massive winners,
and there's probably going to be a shit ton of losers. And like placing bets now,
you know, I don't think AI is like the metaverse or NFTs or, you know, some of these other things.
Obviously, I think we all agree, like, it's going to be a massive part of the future economy.
But like the people who make the good bets in the next, you know, a couple of years,
it seems like are going to come up big time. It seems like there's going to be a lot of money loss.
Yeah, the way that I've seen in my head is really like a roulette table.
There are people that are betting on black and red, which are like open AI or any of the other
big ones. But then there are also these people, you know, placing all these small bets on the
individual numbers and like some of them are going to hit and get there like what 35 to 1 or whatever
roulette table is. But most of them are just going to, you know, but do we know what the differentiating
factor is between hitting 23 on roulette versus hitting just black or red? Yeah, it's like,
are you going to invest in open AI or are you going to try and like find a seed stage AI company?
No, no, I know that. I know that distinction, but I'm saying in terms of like how do you figure out
if a company has the potential to be 23 on this roulette table?
I think that at this point, it's really team-based. And then like I'm trying to get a better sense
of technical understanding, but there are like very, very differentiated technical approaches to
building these AI models. And you know, like it's, unless you're like really, really deep into that
space, it's hard to tell what's going to be like it's like trying to argue over what types of
blockchains are going to be the most effective over time. Yeah, that's what I think is so much so
interesting about this next version of Silicon Valley is that it's super technical because in 2008,
we were told like, hey, jump in a car with a random person and they're going to take you somewhere.
And that was like, no way. I'm not doing that. But if you actually like break it down and it was
like, oh, I'm actually kind of make sense. Go stay in someone's house that is not there for the day.
Yeah, Airbnb. Yeah. And now it's stuff that I don't think average people actually understand
because we actually understood that social dynamic of Uber and Airbnb and Postmates and DoorDash
and all that stuff. That's very like consumer behavior that we were already doing. But we didn't
actually like disrupt it. And it was easy to digest. I don't know this next stage to be honest.
Yeah, I think that's like more like the internet, right? Like, I mean, the internet or the idea
of telling someone, hey, you're going to go on this website on your computer, you're going to buy
your toilet paper there. And then somebody's going to show up and give it to you, you know, saying that
20 years ago or whatever would have been unimaginable. And most people still don't understand how
a website works or how the internet works. You know, like, it feels like a much larger
piece of the puzzle. Yeah, so do you think AI is more kind of the infrastructure that we just don't
actually know and just happens? Yeah, but I think that there's going to be like a high level of
interactivity with it for like the average person too. Like at a certain point, like, you're never
going to go on and to Google flights and try to book your own flight, you're just going to explain
the exact route you'd like to take the relative price range you'd like to have. And like, what dates
you'd like to go and it'll just optimize whatever that is. And so I think that like, people will have
to interact with it, but people's technical understanding of it are probably going to be completely
just like they're just going to be like, oh, it's like a robot, whatever. I think it's kind of like
the app store. Like, explaining to someone you're going to have a phone, not Uber, but like, there's
even going to be a phone where you download an app and that app will let you push a button and call
a car. You know, it's like the like, it's like this higher level thing, like, like Zach said,
the way it'll manifest itself to my best guess is the way you booked your trip was totally different
than it was a year ago. But how that actually happened and whatever is, you can't even begin to
wrap your head around it as an average person or me. Yeah. And I think, I mean, well, I think the
simplest way to think about is like large language models are the app store and what's built on top
of large language models. You can explain what that is. Large language models are like
artificial intelligence models that take these large data sets and basically learn from what
these large data sets are telling them to be able to provide an order like a consumer-facing
product that you can interact with. That's what chat GBT is. That's what it is an example of a
large language model. OpenAI have been basically collecting data for like five or six or seven years
to be able to provide you like the interface that you can go interact with and have this wide
variety of information, you know, like push to you in a very specific way. It's a similar thing.
You can do that with healthcare data. You can do that with travel data. You can do that with basically
any type of data in the world. And so if you think about, you know, like the meta of a large language
model as the app store, it's the things that you can do with the very specific types of data and build
on top of it that becomes the interesting and like investable layer. But, you know, it's like remains
to be seen. What's the most useful thing off the back of that? Can I ask you another question, Zach,
if when we're talking about AI, like this kind of rush that's happening and you're, you have
someone to teach you about it, like this whole AI stream, are we mainly talking about large language
models? Are we talking just a little bit about large language models or talking about AI as a whole?
Because the one thing that I think a lot of people don't realize is everyone's thinking that like AI
is chat GPT. Like what is AI? It's that thing where you ask it things, but AI is a even much bigger
all encompassing, you know, that's driverless cars and all these different things use AI technology.
Large language models are just one thing. So is this rush mostly based around large language models
or is it AI as a whole? I would say it's AI as a whole, but like the thesis is that it's like
these recursive models that are teaching themselves and large language models are like the most
practical application of that in the current moment. But like the way to think about it is like
anything that is a large set of data that is teaching itself and increasingly getting
smarter and more precise and more accurate around the specific set of data that you're feeding it
is a good way to think about like what AI is. It's just like taking these large inputs of data and
being able to make actionable insights that are like increasingly specific as a result of having
and is the reason why this feels like it came completely out of nowhere just because
everyone was working on this stuff. This stuff's been in development for a long time,
but just people seeing how crazy chat GPT actually is and being able to interact with it so
easily on such a easy user interface. Like it feels like the conversation of AI. Like it used to
just be like Elon warning us that AI is going to take over the world, but you never actually
saw it and now all of a sudden nobody can stop talking about it. Is it just that? The first
kind of user-friendly platform of a LLM? I would say it's basically the first thing at scale that
people actually understand how this works, like how we just described you know
language models and how you can just precisely pick apart everything that you say and everything
you're asking. And I don't think that was ever understood before because Google is pretty much
doing that, but we didn't know that was large language models. So like a year ago when you type
in a Google search, they gave you like, you know, if you look at the you know the question marks,
what are you looking for those three things where after a Google search? That's a large language
model. It's just being described better because OpenAI has been so good at unveiling this product
that everyone can use on a consumer basis. Yeah. And I don't think it's any different than what's
been going on. I just think consumers are now understanding what's behind it. Yeah. Yeah. These
like types of models have always existed within like technology platforms, like things like
search pricing as an example of this, things like like video suggestions on YouTube as an example
of this. I mean, deep mind was bought by Google in 2014. Yeah. YouTube has been doing this since 2014.
Yeah. Yeah. I think actually the most consumer oriented like version of AI that people have
probably been interacting with for the longest is probably like products like ways, Google maps,
etc. That are just consistently giving you like better routes as a result of like understanding
of traffic and how people are reporting things, etc. But like to on its point, the underpinning of
the technology has never been properly explained. And even then the consumer interactivity with like
what the AI of that all is is not very high. Whereas OpenAI really felt like a conversation and
you're kind of breaking the fourth wall into like, you know, having a like parasocial relationship
with technology. Yeah. And so I think that that was the thing. Like OpenAI really like pulled on
people's like heartstrings and emotions around like how do you feel about technology, right?
And I think it's not interesting. It's not interesting to me because OpenAI basically unveiled what
actually was happening in the last 15 years. Yeah. It's kind of been ramping up to that.
But then there was this moment controlled by technology and algorithms and all this stuff.
And OpenAI basically made everyone realize like, oh shit. We're just like robots. Yeah. I mean,
aren't like everyone's been talking about the Facebook and Instagram algorithms for years now. Isn't that
like sort of a cousin of AI in a way? 100% 100%. It's just weird to me. This is what's so
fascinating about just humans and the way we work is when chat GPT launched, it went to like, okay,
so everyone's now work like the people that are scared of AI, the people that are pro AI is the
government doing enough about AI. All the investors are getting pitches for AI. Everyone's new
company is integrated AI, but it was just this like where AI more like finally became a
commercial product. We've been ramping up to it for a year. You know, it's just so interesting.
Yeah, because I mean, I just said this like kind of a few minutes ago. Deep mind was the first AI
at scale. Yeah. And Google bought them in 2014 for 400 million dollars. They had 60 PhDs.
We knew the founder, Mustafa, and we spent a lot of time with him. And it basically made YouTube into
this like unbelievable creator of telling you what you want to watch next. Yeah. Yeah. And they've
been doing this for the last nine years. Yeah. And it's just companies like Waymo and like all the
self-driving shit. And you know, that's all exists. Yeah. I think OpenAI just basically the first time
that commercial people got to see it because of chat GBD. Yeah. And I think maybe it's always working.
It was always working in the background. Yeah. All the things we use. It's almost like if they,
if it wasn't called OpenAI, and the product was just called My Buddy, and they released this new
project, like people wouldn't have, you know, like it's just it was perfectly branded. If it wasn't
named OpenAI, yeah, exactly. If it wasn't named OpenAI and people didn't have that association,
it would probably be a lot less like fanfare around it. Yeah. But because it's like OpenAI,
there's the Elon Musk connection, you go back and look at like who works at OpenAI, and it's probably
some of the most qualified, technically qualified people in the entire world. There's like a,
almost like a lore around, you know, what it is. Like if it was literally just called the Google
Assistant app, I don't think I think everyone would go cool. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that wild? I also feel like
I've heard that like Google, you know, obviously had been making huge progress on this stuff for a
long time, but I think there was a little bit of fear of like how to introduce it to the market,
because people, you know, would be so scared of AI, and I think, you know, OpenAI just went for it.
The company's called OpenAI, and you know, people, some people are frightened, some people are
excited about it, but I think that like there's been almost like a, because of the negative
connotation that like algorithms and stuff have gotten. I think there was sort of a hesitancy to
own that like this is AI that you're talking to. Maybe not. That's just what I heard.
Anyway, fascinating. Should we jump into some news? Because we got some wild shit to talk about.
Let's go. This actually might be good news for you guys over at Anvil, Zach.
Andrew.
Russia is just in chaos. What is this chaos? So I, you know, I just heard from a friend actually
yesterday, they were talking about how there's this, you know, what do you want to call it? Like a
coup almost or some sort of revolt inside of Russia happening. You know, I don't know. So now we
have the, you know, obviously Ukraine war, but now there's something going on inside of Russia.
What's happening? Just give me the down. So I have a few thoughts. It basically makes me
reminisce to the time where we had four channels and no internet. Tom Broca, Dan Radish,
you wish we were back there for a little bit? Yes. 100%. I wish we were back there. Because now
we're in this era where we're on Twitter seeing all these quote-unquote citizen journalists
talking about everything that's going on. No idea if anything sourced, no idea if
anything's real, and I have no idea what to believe. Yeah. You gotta go to my row. I don't know
shit anymore. That's why I'm asking you to tell me what's going on. I don't. So it was so, like,
I literally followed it. I was an idiot. I literally friday night. He went down the rabbit hole.
I went down the rabbit hole. Like, friday night, this started happening and they started saying
Putin's going to start talking in a few hours and it was already midnight and I just kept staying
up waiting for Putin to talk. Yeah. I get it. It's too tempting. Exactly. You did the same thing.
Yeah, I did this. I mean, I think like the context of what's happening is there's like a,
you know, Russia outsource is a lot of their fighting to a third party private military
contractor called the Wagner group. And it was actually started by one of Putin's caterers
who's now like a six billion dollar guy from this. And basically, they've been, there's like
been an abrasive, like increased abrasiveness between them, those two guys. And eventually,
I guess it was friday night. They announced that they were basically going to march on Moscow.
And nobody was really clear like what was happening, but most people assumed that it was a coup.
They shot down some Russian planes, a couple helicopters. And like, these guys, I think that
the way that people should think about them, like their equivalents is basically like
black water or like a bunch of ex navy seals, green braze, like they're the most qualified
probably people in Russia and like the surrounding Eastern European basically area. It's like
basically go fight. And Putin has used these people kind of like indisposibly across, like these
weird Russian conflicts in Africa and Southeast Asia and all these other places. And so yeah,
so they're not the guys like necessarily on the front line and you crane. It's more like
they're super on the front line. They're like the navy seals, but they don't, but they're in
arms distance from Putin. So they're able to like do things that their normal Russian military
would not be able to because they're technically not Russian military. Got it.
File intents and purposes mercenaries that fight alongside them. That's equivalent of black
water, right? Like black water can go to rock and do things that the US military can do. Yeah.
Yeah. So it's like black water. So yeah, there's a bunch of like Russian black water guys
basically rushing on. And then you know, it kind of just like fizzled out. I think that the guy who
owns the group basically got a call or text from Putin and was just like, hey, like if you want
to keep living life, like I would turn around. And that's basically what happened. And now he
fucked off to Belarus. He's somewhere like hiding in Belarus. And he's probably going to die any day.
And yeah. Why do we know why? Like what was he? What was the core of it? It had just been like
increasingly. There's like, I don't know that that's like the thing that's hard to pin down.
Yeah, because the rumor is that he was 200 kilometers away from Moscow. And you already like
covered so much ground. And then he just about faced abruptly and said, I'm out.
And then everyone in Wagner had to sign contracts with the Russian military. So they're like all
contracted Russian military now. And where was he communicating? Like where was Wagner group guy?
He's he's been in and out of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, like he's just been all around.
I mean, where were you? Were we knowing his whereabouts? Like where are we knowing he was
200 kilometers from Moscow? Nobody knows his whereabouts. The 200 kilometers from Moscow
was the battalion of the guys. Him, the guy who owns it all has been like like MIA for a hot
second. So if you want to do tinfoil hat, where you go? Yes, please.
But I want to go tinfoil hat. Where is he right now? No, meaning like what happened?
Who funded this? I don't know. My favorite. I actually don't have like a horse in this fight.
But my favorite one is that the CIA like slipping a bunch of money. Of course. Yeah, that's
the obvious. Yeah. That's the obvious answer. However much money they paid him was not as scary
as what Putin said to him. So he was like fuck that. Yeah. So you know, it's funny. I mean, not funny.
What's crazy is former CIA had Dave Patreus said today, a couple hours ago, I would be very nervous
for a progosen who's the guy that was the head of the counteroffensive to be near an open window.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did say because a lot of a lot of a lot of Russian people, a lot of Russians fall
out of windows. A lot of Russian people fall out of windows. It's weird. They're a clumsy group.
They're very clumsy. There are some politicians, a lot of Russian politicians by windows. They're very
clumsy. But also I feel like because who knows? I mean, I feel like the CIA could also, if they were
working with this guy, you could just toss him out of a window and no one's ever going to think you
did it. I mean, so if you would do deep state, what would you say, drama? Like CIA clearly funded
this operation. So deep state. If I, no, I'm just saying like, no, no, I'm trying to think
little bit aside, the deep state kind of propaganda would be CIA funded turned him.
Him got him to the brink and he turned for some reason. Yeah. Hunter Biden was in there somewhere.
What happened that he turned? Putin was probably just like, I'm going to murder your entire family
and everybody who's ever been associated with you. If you just don't stop.
Because this guy literally has $6 billion. He's like a billionaire. He's not like somebody
like who's easily pushed around by all the tens of, he's a billionaire with a private army.
But think about he did the speech. He did that like that Twitter video or whatever.
No telegram. Telegram. Yeah. He did a telegram. Yeah. And he was so passionate about
pursuing what he thought was right. And he got to the brink. What did he think was right?
Like this, like the war is stupid. Yeah, he's basically saying he was saying that the Russian
military guard has been corrupted. Yeah, corrupt. He's fighting alongside a corrupt force.
Okay. But he was also, didn't he say some things that were anti, you know, that the war was
pointless? Yeah. He was like the one person that could get away with talking shit about the
Kremlin, which was weird in the first place. God, this is good. I love this. I would highly
recommend any listener of this podcast to go look at that guy's background. One of the most
interesting backgrounds of all time. Yeah, he was a hot dog stand. No, he was a thief. He,
nine, nine years in jail came out, started a hot dog stand. Yep. Went from a hot dog stand to
serving somehow serving food to Putin, went from serving food to Putin to being like the number
one caterer in Russia billions of dollars a year. And then he started a private army and now he's
worth like six billion dollars. It's like the craziest story of all time. I'm just concerned that
it's so bad. I don't know. I mean, we hear tinfoil as much. Go a little bit. Go down the road
level. What are you concerned about? That the CIA thought they had him as someone that could
overthrow the agent. And then he turned on the CIA. Yeah. Yeah. But you got to try something different
now. I mean, but the CIA was probably looking at that and was like, oh my god, this is the highest
ROI investment of all time. If Russia collapses because of civil war. And it was just because we
helped out the Ukraine for like eight months, best, best investment. Yeah. They're probably like,
ah, that was too good to be true. What else we got? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, basically,
MLM scheme. It's an angel investing. They're angel investing in the fall of Russia.
It could be Uber. It could be, you know, yeah, any of the others. Yeah. I, um, it's so fascinating.
That's what's wild is like, you just have no idea. There's so many moving parts and so much
mystery and Russia, you know, we don't really know what's going on. So like, you know, we have this
whole war in Ukraine. And we're talking about nukes and we're talking about, oh my god, we could
be in World War III or this fucking Wagner group guy could just start a civil war and the whole
thing is over like tomorrow. It's just, ah, man, the, the, the amount of
stimulation in any given day's news is just wild. Yeah. There's no, uh, stoppage of content. Yeah.
But time to be alive. Yeah. All right. Well, let's keep an eye and I would love to continue the
tinfoil hat conversations because this is a good one. Here's a good one. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg,
fight of the century. I mean, so just to do a little backstory, if you haven't heard of this at all,
um, Elon said on Twitter that he would, I think he was ripping on Zuck for the Twitter knockoff
platform, right? Mm-hmm. Then he, you know, someone responded, whatever he said, hey,
if he wants to fight in a cage match, I'm totally down. Everyone sort of got all riled up about that
and then Zuck responded and said, send me location, which is a famous
Koby-Blind. Koby-Blind, yep. And so the MMA community was like, what, you know, obviously a MMA
dork. And so then everyone now goes crazy. Uh, then Dana White gets involved. Uh, he has full
Zuckerberg, Elon, you know, fight of the century t-shirts made. Uh, he's, he claims that he's
talking to both of them and that they're both very serious about it. I mean, I don't even know where
to start. Do you, let's start with this. Do you guys think there's any chance that this actually
happens? So I want to start with the Sydney location because I think that's pretty relevant.
The conversation. Yeah. The fact that you guys both, I didn't know this. That's like a Koby-Blind.
Yeah. Famous Koby-Blind. And the MMA community, they take their pride in how they
work on their craft. So the fact that he's willing to say that means he's accepted by the community,
correct? I would say so. Well, I would say almost, it's almost the opposite. I would say him saying
that made him more accepted by the community. Like, it shows that he actually pays attention
to MMA. He's not just, you know, that's a pretty like, you got to be like, you wouldn't say that if
you're like, you know, I mean, if you're a Koby disciple and you say something Mamba, you're
probably part of like someone that worked with Koby. Like Kyrie worked with Koby and he can say,
you know, I can talk about Mamba. You know what it's like? It's like if you're a grandpa
was like struggling to get up the stairs and you were like, Oh man, good job. And then he turned
to you and said, Mamba mentality. You'd be like, Oh shit. Gramps gets it. It's like that. But you
don't think it's deeper? No, no. I think he's just a nerd of the MMA world. I think anyone who knows
MMA like, decently well knows that that because I didn't know that. I thought it was just funny
that he said something. No, and the context around that saying is really interesting too.
It was when Koby was fighting Connor and like the fight was coming up and Connor was talking so
much shit that Koby was like, fuck the fight. Like send me your location now because I'll beat you
up before the fight and then we can still fight. It was just like a gangster moment in MMA history.
And I think that to the MMA community, it was like, Oh, fuck. He really is. Yeah. Yeah. He's
like a pretty nuanced moment, I would say. Okay. So that means Zuck's accepted in the community.
Yeah. I would say that's a major point. I follow a bunch of like MMA highlight pages and stuff.
And they're all like posting Zuck training, Zuck choking people out.
Yeah, I would say, yeah, he's, I would say this. I would say Zuck is more accepted in the MMA
community than Jake Paul is in the boxing community. That's my hot take. 100%. Wow.
That's 100%. That's pretty crazy. Yeah. 100%. He got the Joe Rogan stamp of approval. It's
all, it's all good from there. Yeah. So what's the percentage? This happens.
I think pretty high. Yeah. I've heard, I've actually, I've heard, I have heard that this is
high likelihood going to happen 100% for charity. Paper views go to charity and that both parties
are super interested. What is this? Oh, man. It'll be the biggest paper view of all time.
People are saying that it'll be like a world like the viewership will be similar to like a
World Cup group stage or like the Super Bowl or something. It's gonna be huge. It should be.
So I gotta be honest here. I don't know. I think you guys are both on the other side, but outside
of fighting, I'm more an Elon guy than a Zuckerberg guy. I don't know where you, I know where you
stand on and Zach, I'm not sure, but I don't think this looks good for Elon. I mean, Elon getting beat
up by little Zuck. Elon's not gonna be a good look. He's gonna get smoked. And everyone's saying,
oh, it's a 50 pound difference, but Zuck is trained. It's equivalent of like being at a bar fight
and you see the little guy that actually knows how to fight. Yeah. And some big guy comes after him
and he just fucks him up. It's like extremely physically fit. Like, if it goes longer than
two, three minutes, there's like a very low likelihood. I actually, I think I texted you guys
do you think Elon could do 10 push-ups? Yes. Oh, yeah. Probably not 20. Yeah, not 20.
But that's what we're talking about. Yeah. We were talking about this weight during our little break.
Can you do 15 push-ups and 50 jumping jacks? It's a fine line. Like, we're getting really
rampied up here. We're on the edge. Yeah. What is Zuck's out here doing the Merf in 39 minutes?
I know. That's insane. Which literally puts him in the top 2% of the entire world.
Right. No, 1%. No one can do that. Yeah, it's fucked. The average fit person does it in like
55 minutes or something, 53 minutes. Yeah. And look, before we were recording, I also tried to
go down the big guy lane that the weight, it matters, but it just, it isn't gonna matter. I think
that the other thing is that, so look, all Elon would have is just brute force and trying to
lay on the guy. But even, I don't think Elon knows how to throw a punch. But Zuck is being trained
by the number one jujitsu guy and number one white tie guy in the world at his home gym every
single day. Yeah, that guy, Mikey, they tell you, dude, he's the number one jujitsu guy in the world.
Yeah, he's fucked. He's like, he's got to bail out. I think Elon got in over his head here.
I think he likes to go for, but I'm gonna take that. He would, uh, he would train him.
But interchate's gonna tell you from from from Romanian jail. Yeah, from zoom. Yeah, I think,
I think Elon got in over his head here a little bit. Didn't Elon hurt his neck, uh, wrestling,
wrestling. Yeah. So he's made this mistake before.
At his birthday party, right? So Elon famously bought a sumo wrestler at his birthday party and
had to get neck surgery. Right. He slipped a disc. Oh man, he's got to bail out. Okay.
All right. Next up, our favorite, I wish D was here for this. The favorite brand of the pod.
I will say Zach, um, D on the last episode he was on said that everyone should stop talking about
AI because it's stupid. And they should talk about this brand or business because this is where
the real action is at and where the real money is to be made. That business is ozemic. Uh,
people are all over it. We talk about it a lot on here. And apparently now one of the things we
talked about on the last episode was that you have to, you know, do an injection to, to use it
right now. And, you know, that's a little bit of a barrier to entry. I think a lot of people are
freaked out by that. I think it's, you know, it seems a lot more serious. Apparently a pill form
of ozemic is on the way. What do you guys think? So I think ozemic is an interesting topic in the
sense that I think there's a debate in the sense that doctors are like, is it better to be
in your 40s and 50s and 60s fat or just take this drug to not be fat?
And like the tenor balance. No, meaning like, you know, being overweight obese
Yeah. May have more impact on your health long term than being, you know, less overweight.
Yeah. And we don't know the actual side effects of any of these drugs because this is all new
because you should be just for diabetes. And now we're using a fair weight loss.
There's some things that come out though. You can like, if you want to Google like ozemic thyroid,
like there's a bunch of stuff like articles that have already been published from like
reputable sources about how it affects thyroid stuff. Right. So you're saying that it could have
thyroid impact, right? Correct. Yeah. So that's one thing that we've heard a lot about. And
I think doctors are basically like, prescribing this because, hey, if you're obese or you're overweight
and you haven't been able to solve it, I rather have you be less overweight than
and we'll deal with the consequences of whatever ozemic it has. But the problem is
I heard Peter Atia talk about this on, you know, one of those like life hack pods
that ozemic basically takes away your bone density and your muscle mass. Yeah. And he's like,
that's not good. That's not good. That's not good. So right. I mean, that's a big problem as people
start to age. Like one of the things that actually sort of starts people down a road of
that leads to an earlier death than what you otherwise would have had are things like falls.
Like you fall, you injure yourself. Now you're, you know, you have this injury to deal with.
You don't heal at the same. Now you're just bed ridden. Now you're, that starts a chain reaction
of events, right? So it actually is crazy as it sounds. As you get older, one of the best ways to
stay healthy and vibrant is to not fall and to protect yourself against falls. So strengthening
yourself, stabilizing your muscles, being able to catch yourself if you do fall. So even just
things like that, it feels like, yeah, I don't know. We don't know that this is, it seems like the
miracle drug at the moment, but there are definitely some major things that we don't really know.
You know, if you fall over because you lost all this weight, but you have thin bones and no muscle
at, you know, 60 and just shatter both legs, you know, that's, you might have been better off
having some extra weight. I'm not sure. I mean, there's some famous people that we know that are
on Instagram that are pseudo influencers, business people. That's clearly on the
Zampic. Yeah. They don't look very healthy. They've lost a lot of weight. Yeah. You just stop
eating, right? Yeah. And then you're like week to week to train and stuff. I mean, I think that
there's like, I think, I mean, this is going to go down as probably one of the best selling drugs
of all time. It's like, I don't believe it without a doubt. It will be the biggest cash grab of
all time. The pill form will make it a lot fat like we'll spin that wheel a lot faster because
one of the big choke points right now is they can't even make enough between the diabetes
patients and the people who are trying to lose weight. Like, there's just not enough
ozampic or wagovi to go around. And it's all from one producer and Nova Nordisk. I wonder,
do you know when the patent runs out? I don't. Interesting. At some point, there's going to be like
a flood on the market. Yeah. And like, you know, Nova Nordisk will probably not be making as much
money on it all. But yeah, I mean, I think that it's kind of, I don't know, to me, it speaks to like
this kind of like aspect of at least Western culture very specifically that like, you know,
you just take a pill, take a shot, do something, anything but exercise, anything but like,
just do like the thing that has been proven for tens of thousands of years to just improve your
health. You know, it's just like, it's, it's, so I don't know. It's kind of like, yeah, just
because it's tough, right? Yes, I mean, it is tough. No, I, I, I, I mean, I exercise minimum four
days a week. Right. I get a sweat in four days a week. Yeah. Regardless of how intense it is or
how less intense it is. But there's many days where I'm like, I don't want to do it. I just do it.
Yeah, for fair. But that's why like, it's the, like the toughness matches the results. So like,
the reason why those empties are going to be the biggest selling drug of all time is because
the results are insane. Now, there's still a lot of side effects though, but there is something that
exists where you get all of those results and none of the side effects. And that's working out.
And that's why it's so like, you know, like, I just wish. Have you heard of the latest Peter
at T.S. stuff on exercise? I only listened to him like when he pops up on someone else's podcast.
So tell me it's probably not. So basically what he says is like the number one thing is exercise.
Yeah. That increases longevity. Yeah. And he talks about your VO2 state, which is how much oxygen
you're basically able to like produce. Yeah. And there's like a tier two and a tier three,
tier two, you can actually like say a sentence, but you can't actually have a conversation.
Yeah. And tier three is where you can't talk. Yeah, that's like your heart rate zones.
Right. Yeah. And he basically said, you need to get and I forget the minutes because I'm
going to butcher it. So he's like, you need to be in a certain number of minutes in tier two
and certain number of minutes in tier three. And we know for a fact that extends longevity.
Yeah. And it lessens cancer risk. Yeah. It's been seen to reverse cancer of certain kinds.
It's like the biggest thing ever. I just wish and I even hesitate to say this because it's like
the thing. I don't know. It's like, nobody talks about it. Like, like meaning. It's kind of funny,
huh? Yeah. Like we don't, you know, we see that the biggest advertisers on TV are all
pharmaceutical companies. We see that it's like everyone's searching far and wide for the solution.
Maybe it's ozemic. Maybe it's, you know, and like we just went through a pandemic where
the largest killer was obesity and comorbidities, right? And there's one thing that is known to
help all those things. And I think there's probably going to be a lot of people that take ozemic.
And there's other side effects, even if those side effects aren't like, you know,
dizziness, vomiting, the side effect could be that your frail and have no bone mass at 60.
And you fall over and, you know, your whole body shatters. But that's actually like an interesting
point that people don't understand like exercise actually matters. It changes so much in your
mental health and your biological health and everything. But a lot of people just want to take the
pill and just get skinny. Yeah. And like getting skinny isn't the solution. No, no, it's like
an aesthetic choice, not a, like a health choice. No, because if you actually exercise, you feel so
much better. I mean, I could tell you so many times I've been in like pretty depressed states
and I go for a run and I feel better. Yeah. I would say the way that you visually look to other
people is one of the smaller reasons to work out. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like that. I work
out for myself. Yeah. Like feeling better, feeling less tired, feeling mentally better,
you know, living longer, less risk of disease. And it's really like the, oh, and you look great
is kind of, to me, at least one of the lesser reasons to even do it. 100%. No, 100%.
Yeah. But look, I mean, I get it. This is the world that we live in, especially here in America.
And this seems like the best solution to that problem that we've had, I mean, ever it feels like,
like when you talk to quick, take a pill, what can actually make you skinny? What else has been?
Yeah, the problem is we're not solving anything of the underlying problems, right? Yeah, no,
we're making people aesthetically look better. Yeah. Yeah. It's also wild when like, you know,
at this point, I don't know who's, I don't know exactly who's on ozemic and who isn't. Obviously,
everybody. Exactly. But like, I think that that's the perception. Like, I think if you're a kid,
if you're 16 years old, because I think that the Kardashians have talked about it or someone's
talked about them being on it. And I think he likes talks about it. Yeah. And so, but what I'm saying
is I think if you're a young person and you look at any celebrity who, you know, is who we look to,
or young people look to for sort of culture guidance, you don't assume it right now that, oh,
they must have got a great trainer. You assume first, oh, they must be on ozemic. I think that's
what's happening. Yeah. That's wild. Okay. All right. That we got. You want to do a question?
Do a question. Pick one. Okay. Here's a good one with Zach here. We may have done this one before.
I don't remember, but I do want to hear Zach's take on it. And then on and you and I don't remember,
so we could just have a different take if we have done it before at Julie dot alvarado asked
plain and simple advice to 20 year olds. What do you guys think? Don't take those in for it, Zach.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Don't take those in. Although a lot of 20 year olds out here in L.A.
are doing that. But I would say 20 year old, like my advice to a 20 year old would be like kind of
like counterintuitive, but like maybe fuck up as much as possible. And like not in a way that's
like extreme or like detrimental to your life, but like definitely just go out and like try a bunch
of weird and random shit and like fail at it or be good at it, but like help that guide your
direction in life, you know, like if you're consistently trying new things and like putting yourself
out there going out and doing interesting things, not just like sticking in your own lane, you'll
can like I ended up somewhere where I am now at 30 so far away from where I thought I would go at 20.
And like it was just a function of just doing a bunch of random shit and like whatever stuck
just kind of like going with that. And so I don't know, I think that like a lot of like the popular
narrative in, you know, mainstream culture or whatever is to like find one thing get really good
at it like hone your craft be this, but I think that like, I don't know, I would advise a 20 year old
to be like a chameleon and really just go around and try all these different things and see where
you fit, see where you don't and you know, like really find what you're passionate about and just
lean in, you know, like that's that's kind of how I would approach it.
Yeah, that's great. I'll just piggyback on that because literally before you started talking,
the words that came to my mind were try everything. And just to piggyback on what you said, obviously
avoid anything that could do you harm. We don't mean try everything in that regard. But like,
I think that there's this like, I don't know if it's because of social media or, you know,
whatever it is where like 20 year olds feel like they're all grown up and they have to have a
passion and they have to have a calling and they have to have it all figured out and they have
to have a label for what they are. And it's like, you just don't realize how much time you have
at 20 and finding like a job or a career or whatever where you fit. Like I think a lot of people
don't find there like, I think the word passion is a little scary, right? Like you think like,
oh, I'm going to be a musician or I'm going to be a, I knew from 12 I was going to be a venture
capitalist, right? Like I don't think so. I think that you find the area where your natural skills
best fit and you have no idea what that's going to be. And the only way that you can guess by,
you know, looking at stuff on social media, that's not going to tell you what the lives of those
people are actually like. And until you go out and meet a bunch of people and see what it's like
to do these different jobs or careers, there's just no way for you to know. So you got to try it.
No, I completely agree. I think thinking your 20s dictate the next 30 years your life is actually
pretty wrong. And you should do things basically kind of out of your comfort zone, whether it's
moving to a different city, whether it's traveling, whether it's trying different careers, because
you know, we were fortunate enough that we got to, we got exposed to so much stuff that was outside
of our comfort zone, just given that we were in LA and the people that we knew. But I don't think
everyone gets to do that. We were just lucky. And we were able to kind of find ourselves
in this like fantasy land, be like, okay, what's important? What's not? And I think if you're not
in that fantasy land, basically go search different experiences. And like, actually understand
like what you like, what you don't like. And you know, it doesn't matter. Like Travis Kalanick started
Uber at 38. Yeah. Yeah. So like, it's not the end of the world. If you're 25 and you own
figured out what you want to do. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think that's a big, I don't know. I
think that it's probably because everyone feels like a rush to have like a public, like, what's
my personal brand? You know, like, oh, I'm a marketing expert here's my podcast here's my,
you know, page like, yeah. But there's this like rush to have like a label for yourself.
So young. And it just, I don't know. I think that the modern day, like personal identity is
really tied into who you are. What you do is like, oh, are you like, you know, like a very early
question on in a lot of like conversations when you meet somebody new is like, what do you do?
Because that allows people to like put you in kind of like a box and framework you and like,
know how to like approach you. And I think that that's, you know, like, if you looked at like the
60s, right? Like somebody could like work in a fucking factory, but the way that they'd be to find
would be, you know, like, oh, he's like a church going man, good with his family. Yeah.
You know, good with his friend group, right? And like, those things are less important now,
especially in like a socially charged social media charged world, right? Yeah. Because like,
as soon as somebody looks on your profile, they're like, oh, what is this person doing? Like,
how are they living the life that they're portraying here? Yeah. And so people really feel like they need
to back that up to make, you know, themselves feel validated in a lot of ways. Yeah. And I think
that, yeah, it's just this weird shift to like having your work be so intertwined with like your
value as a person is like something relatively new and like, you know, grand scheme of history.
It's like something, you know, like it's not the newest. I think it's also like, you don't have to be
successful right away. Yeah. Most people aren't like most people that are really young and are
claiming they have their thing. They're just lying. And also like some of my most fun moments were like
when I was least successful when I was like stuck in a fucking foreign country like not knowing
how I was going to get home type of like, you know, like that's the end. I mean, yeah. That's the
stuff that really like moat like builds your character too. Oh, 100%. Like I could, I mean,
drama you get out of this if you want, but like we were just 2010. And we basically were at a
moment a young reckless. Do we get an order from Pakistan or do we not? Yeah. And we're either out of
business and we owed $500,000. No, we went to Vegas. And then the show came back on. Yeah.
We were able to tell the printer the show came back on. Pakistan gave us the order. And we all
flew to Vegas. That's literally one of like fondest moments. Yeah. Yeah. Like we literally were
on the brink of not being able to we're bankruptcy. Yeah. That's a great story. I would never edit
that out. That's absolutely. Yeah. And now both of you are like telling that story with a smile
on your face. But like back then, it was probably one of the most fucked up things ever. Yeah.
And like it was pure stress. And now it's one of the best times. And I feel like if you're 20,
like if you're like being faced with these kinds of moments, like you should actually just like
take stop and take a moment and like really think about how amazing it is that you even get to
experience whatever it is that, you know, is happening. And that joy from that moment of basically
being on the brink of bankruptcy to be actually being alive. Yeah. Is more fun than anything that you
made in the future of your life. That's why people who like are born rich are so broken because
they never had that moment where they're like, oh, fuck the switch flips. And now I'm like in a
different place. They're always just in the same place. And so yeah, I would just lean into doing like,
you know, weird, weird things. I mean, we literally went to Vegas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As you show.
It's also like knowing that like I think when you get that experience that things can be so bad
or stressful or almost so bad. And then so good, you know, relatively quickly after is like a good
thing to learn young, you know, like you got to survive some, some punches in the face. And we
were young. I mean, you were probably 23, 24 maybe. Yeah, probably 23. Yeah. 23. I was 26. Yeah.
Like we're really young. Yeah. Yeah. And we had millions of dollars that we would have owed
to people. Yeah. If we didn't figure this out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just I worry that
I'll go ahead. Well, I just learning. I think a lot of people get into like tough or stressful
times. And the biggest thing that gets you is like, this is never going to end. And I think seeing it
end or seeing things turn around once again, either the next day or the next year or the next month,
it's that's an experience that when you were talking about rich kids, I was kind of thinking that
I was like, they've never had to like dig themselves out of a hole. And so it's so easy to like
stay in that hole and not see that you can turn things around, you know, which is such a good feeling.
I mean, I want to make it clear. Like my entire 20s was basically begging people that we owed
money to to not sue us. Yeah. That was literally what I spent my 20s doing. Yeah. I'm surprised
from all companies. Yeah.
I'm like, everyone thinks I'm like, it's like this fantasy investor bullshit. Like, no,
I literally was begging people to not sue us. Right. Yeah. And that's amazing. And I worry
that like the next gen, and this is like kind of like sounds really old. And we're kind of
harping on this at this point. But I feel like the next generation of kids have like you're
you're kind of like pushed to like homogenize your experience, right? Like everyone goes to the
same places does the same things. Nobody like everyone's going to the same place for summer vacation.
Everybody's doing the same thing on the weekend, taking the same Instagram pictures, whatever.
Like when you live such a homogenized experience and you don't get to have like crazy experiences
like this, where everything's on the line, I feel like it just makes for like a less interesting
person. Yeah. And like you should really at 20 be trying to be as interesting as possible. Yeah.
I agree. And sometimes it may be you're really boring at 20. You probably should be. But like,
do the shit now that's going to be the lessons and the stories and the advice you give later.
It's funny. I feel like when we were talking about this, like everyone always just used to be a dig on
LA is like, oh, when you live in LA, everyone just asks you, what's your name and what do you do?
And like, oh, what a bummer. You know, all anyone cares about is what your career is. But it seems
to me that like because of social media, that's almost just everyone's experience now. Like,
those are the first two questions. What's your what's your profile and what does this person do?
You know, you think about like an Instagram profile. Like what are the first two things that most
people put? It's like name and it's like DJ, food blogger, whatever. Yeah. Creative director. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
See you. Yeah. All right. Well, that's the answer. I mean, I think that's about as good as it
gets for a 20 year old. So if you're asking us that question, my guess is that you're probably
are feeling some anxiety around what you should be doing. And the answer is you got to go explore
and soak up as much as possible. It'll serve you endlessly later. That's it. Perfect. All right.
No shoutouts, right? Cool. I think we're good. Okay. Jack, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me. It's always fun. And we'll see you guys on Wednesday.