Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life

00:00:00.000 | So I was trying to figure out how to do photorealistic AI photos.

00:00:02.440 | And it was stable diffusion by itself is not doing that well.

00:00:05.040 | Like the faces look all mangled and it doesn't have enough resolution

00:00:09.440 | or something to do that well.

00:00:10.680 | So, but I started seeing these base models, these fine-tuned models

00:00:15.000 | and people would train on porn and I would try them

00:00:17.240 | and they would be very photorealistic.

00:00:19.280 | They would have bodies that actually made sense like body anatomy.

00:00:23.520 | But if you look at the photorealistic models

00:00:26.720 | that people use now still, there's still core of porn there.

00:00:29.920 | Like of naked people.

00:00:30.960 | So I need to prompt out the naked

00:00:32.800 | and everyone needs to do this with AI startups, with imaging.

00:00:35.040 | You need to prompt out the naked stuff.

00:00:36.560 | - You have to keep reminding the model you need to put clothes on.

00:00:39.200 | - Yeah, don't put naked because it's very risky.

00:00:41.040 | I have Google vision that checks every photo

00:00:43.120 | before it's shown to the user to like check for NSFW.

00:00:45.520 | - Like a nipple detector? Oh, NSFW detector.

00:00:48.080 | - Because you get the journalists get very angry.

00:00:50.080 | - The following is a conversation with Peter Levels,

00:00:55.440 | also known on X as Levels IO.

00:00:59.280 | He is a self-taught developer and entrepreneur

00:01:02.160 | who designed, programmed, shipped and ran over 40 startups.

00:01:06.640 | Many of which are hugely successful.

00:01:08.720 | In most cases, he did it all by himself

00:01:12.320 | while living the digital nomad life in over 40 countries

00:01:16.960 | and over 150 cities.

00:01:18.960 | Programming on a laptop while chilling on a couch

00:01:22.400 | using vanilla HTML, jQuery, PHP and SQLite.

00:01:28.800 | He builds and ships quickly and improves on the fly.

00:01:32.480 | All in the open, documenting his work,

00:01:34.480 | both his successes and failures

00:01:37.120 | with a raw honesty of a true indie hacker.

00:01:39.520 | Peter is an inspiration to a huge number of developers

00:01:43.680 | and entrepreneurs who love creating cool things in the world

00:01:47.760 | that are hopefully useful for people.

00:01:49.920 | This was an honor and a pleasure for me.

00:01:53.200 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:55.840 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:57.920 | in the description.

00:01:58.800 | And now dear friends, here's Peter Levels.

00:02:02.560 | - You've launched a lot of companies

00:02:06.720 | and built a lot of products.

00:02:08.240 | As you say, most fail, but some succeeded.

00:02:10.720 | What's your philosophy behind building

00:02:12.960 | the startups that you did?

00:02:14.000 | - I think my philosophy is very different

00:02:15.920 | than most people in startups.

00:02:17.520 | 'Cause most people in startups,

00:02:18.720 | they build a company and they raise money, right?

00:02:20.880 | And they hire people and then they build a product

00:02:24.080 | and they find something that makes money.

00:02:25.680 | And I don't really raise money.

00:02:27.200 | I don't use VC funding.

00:02:28.320 | I do everything myself.

00:02:29.360 | I'm a designer, I'm the developer.

00:02:31.040 | I make everything, I make the logo.

00:02:33.120 | So for me, I'm much more scrappy.

00:02:35.280 | And because I don't have funding,

00:02:36.960 | like I need to go fast.

00:02:38.160 | I need to make things fast to see if an idea works, right?

00:02:42.720 | I have an idea in my mind and I build it,

00:02:44.720 | build it like a micro, mini startup.

00:02:46.400 | And I launch it very quickly,

00:02:48.560 | like within two weeks or something of building it.

00:02:51.200 | And I check if there's demand

00:02:52.400 | and if people actually sign up and not just sign up,

00:02:54.560 | but if people actually pay money, right?

00:02:56.160 | Like they need to take out their credit cards,

00:02:58.560 | pay me money and then I can see if the idea is validated.

00:03:02.160 | And most ideas don't work.

00:03:03.280 | Like, as you say, most fail.

00:03:05.200 | - So there's this rapid iterative phase

00:03:08.560 | where you just build a prototype that works, launch it,

00:03:12.000 | see if people like it,

00:03:12.960 | improving it really, really quickly

00:03:14.400 | to see if people like it a little bit more enough to pay

00:03:17.200 | and all that, that whole rapid process is how you think of.

00:03:20.800 | - Yeah, I think it's like, it's very rapid.

00:03:22.960 | And it's like, if I compare it to, for example, Google,

00:03:25.680 | you know, like our big tech companies,

00:03:26.960 | especially Google right now is kind of struggling.

00:03:29.120 | Like they made like transformers.

00:03:30.560 | They made all, they invented all the AI stuff years ago

00:03:33.040 | and they never really shipped.

00:03:34.080 | Like they could have shipped ChatGPT, for example.

00:03:36.640 | I think I heard in 2019 and they never shipped it

00:03:38.720 | because they were so stuck in bureaucracy,

00:03:40.880 | but they had everything.

00:03:41.600 | They had the data, they had the tech,

00:03:42.720 | they had the engineers and they couldn't do it.

00:03:44.640 | And it's because these big organizations,

00:03:47.360 | it can make you very slow.

00:03:49.520 | So being alone by myself on my laptop,

00:03:52.160 | like, you know, in my underwear,

00:03:53.760 | in a hotel room or something, I can ship very fast.

00:03:56.000 | And I don't need to like, I don't need to ask like legal

00:03:58.800 | for like, oh, can you vouch for this?

00:04:00.880 | You know, I can just go and ship.

00:04:02.080 | - Do you always code in your underwear?

00:04:04.160 | Your profile picture, you're like slouching on a couch

00:04:07.920 | in your underwear, chilling on a laptop.

00:04:09.680 | - No, no, but I do wear like shorts a lot.

00:04:11.840 | And I usually just wear shorts and no t-shirt

00:04:13.680 | 'cause I'm always too hot.

00:04:14.880 | Like I'm always overheating.

00:04:15.840 | - And thank you for showing up, not just in your underwear,

00:04:18.560 | but wearing shorts.

00:04:19.520 | - And no, you know, I'm still wearing this for you.

00:04:21.040 | - Thank you, thank you for dressing up.

00:04:23.040 | - I think it's 'cause since I go to the gym,

00:04:25.600 | I'm always too hot.

00:04:26.400 | - What's your favorite exercise in the gym?

00:04:27.840 | - Man, overhead press.

00:04:28.960 | - Overhead press, like shoulder press.

00:04:30.400 | - Yeah. - Okay.

00:04:31.520 | - But it feels good 'cause you're doing like, you win.

00:04:34.160 | 'Cause when you, what is it?

00:04:35.840 | I do 60 kilos, so it's like 120 pounds or something.

00:04:37.920 | Like it's my only thing I can do well, you know, in the gym.

00:04:40.880 | And you stand like this and you're like, I did it, you know?

00:04:43.360 | Like a winner pose, a victory pose.

00:04:45.920 | I do bench press squats, deadlifts.

00:04:47.520 | - Hence the mug.

00:04:50.080 | - Yeah. - Talking to my therapist.

00:04:51.680 | - Yeah. - It's a deadlift.

00:04:52.800 | - Yeah, because it acts like therapy for me, you know?

00:04:54.880 | - Yeah, it is. - Which is controversial to say.

00:04:56.880 | Like if I say this on Twitter, people get angry.

00:04:58.640 | - Physical hardship is a kind of therapy.

00:05:00.640 | - Yeah.

00:05:01.040 | - I just rewatched "Happy People" here in the Taiga

00:05:04.480 | that Warner Herzog film,

00:05:06.960 | where they document people that are doing trapping.

00:05:10.480 | They're essentially just working for survival

00:05:12.880 | in the wilderness year round.

00:05:14.720 | - Yeah.

00:05:15.120 | - And there's a deep happiness to their way of life

00:05:18.080 | because they're so busy in it, in nature.

00:05:21.520 | - Yeah, 100%.

00:05:22.480 | - Like there's something about that physical.

00:05:24.080 | - Physical, yeah. - Toil.

00:05:25.600 | - Yeah, my dad taught me that.

00:05:27.280 | My dad always does like construction in the house.

00:05:29.520 | Like he's always renovating the house.

00:05:31.440 | He breaks through one room

00:05:32.560 | and then he goes to the next room

00:05:34.000 | and he's just going in a circle around the house

00:05:35.760 | for like the last 40 years.

00:05:36.880 | So, but so he's always doing construction in the house

00:05:39.680 | and it's his hobby.

00:05:40.480 | And he, like he taught me when I'm depressed or something,

00:05:44.000 | he says like, get a big, like what do you call it?

00:05:47.520 | Like a big mountain of sand or something from construction.

00:05:50.160 | Just get a shovel and bring it to the other side

00:05:54.000 | and just, you know, do like physical labor,

00:05:55.760 | do like hard work and do something.

00:05:58.720 | Like set a goal, do something.

00:05:59.920 | And I kind of did that with startups too.

00:06:02.160 | - Yeah, construction is not about the destination, man.

00:06:05.200 | It's about the journey.

00:06:06.080 | - Yeah.

00:06:06.720 | - Yeah, sometimes I wonder people

00:06:08.320 | who are always remodeling their house,

00:06:09.840 | is it really about the remodeling?

00:06:11.200 | - No, no, it's not.

00:06:12.080 | - Is it about the project? - It's about the journey.

00:06:13.440 | - The puzzle of it.

00:06:14.480 | - No, he doesn't care about the results.

00:06:15.920 | Well, he shows me, he's like, it's amazing.

00:06:17.200 | I'm like, yeah, it's amazing.

00:06:18.240 | But then he wants to go to the next room, you know?

00:06:21.840 | But I think it's very metaphorical for work

00:06:24.880 | 'cause I also, I never stop work.

00:06:26.400 | I go to the next website or I make a new one, right?

00:06:28.960 | Or I make a new startup.

00:06:29.840 | So I'm always like,

00:06:30.640 | like to give you something to wake up in the morning

00:06:33.520 | and like, you know, have coffee and kiss your girlfriend.

00:06:37.200 | And then you have like a goal.

00:06:38.960 | Today, I'm gonna fix this feature.

00:06:40.080 | Today, I'm gonna fix this bug or something.

00:06:41.840 | I'm gonna do something.

00:06:43.040 | You have something to wake up to, you know?

00:06:44.720 | And I think maybe especially as a man, also women,

00:06:48.720 | but you need a hard work, you know?

00:06:50.640 | You need like an endeavor, I think.

00:06:51.760 | - How much of the building that you do is about money?

00:06:55.680 | How much is it about just a deep internal happiness?

00:06:58.880 | - It's really about fun.

00:06:59.840 | 'Cause I was doing it when I didn't make money, right?

00:07:02.240 | That's the point.

00:07:02.800 | So I was always coding.

00:07:03.760 | I was always, I was making music.

00:07:04.880 | I made electronic music,

00:07:06.000 | drum and bass music like 20 years ago.

00:07:08.320 | And I was always making stuff.

00:07:10.880 | So I think creative expression is like a meaningful work.

00:07:14.800 | That's so important.

00:07:15.520 | It's so fun.

00:07:16.560 | It's so fun to have like a daily challenge

00:07:18.240 | where you try to figure stuff out.

00:07:19.840 | - But the interesting thing is

00:07:22.000 | you've built a lot of successful products

00:07:24.320 | and you never really wanted to take it to that level

00:07:27.920 | where you scale real big

00:07:29.760 | and sell it to a company or something like this.

00:07:31.760 | - Yeah.

00:07:32.320 | The problem is I don't dictate that, right?

00:07:33.840 | Like if more people start using,

00:07:35.280 | if millions of people suddenly start using it

00:07:36.960 | and it becomes big,

00:07:39.440 | I'm not gonna say,

00:07:40.080 | "Oh, stop signing up to my website and pay me money."

00:07:42.400 | But I never raised funding for it.

00:07:44.160 | And I think 'cause I don't like the stressful life

00:07:47.040 | that comes with it.

00:07:47.760 | Like I have a lot of founder friends

00:07:50.240 | and they tell me secretly

00:07:52.160 | like with hundreds of millions of dollars

00:07:54.640 | in funding and stuff.

00:07:55.840 | And they tell me like next time,

00:07:57.920 | if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it like you

00:07:59.840 | because it's more fun.

00:08:01.360 | It's more Indies, more chill.

00:08:02.480 | It's more creative.

00:08:03.280 | They don't like this.

00:08:04.960 | They don't like to be manager, right?

00:08:06.320 | You become like a CEO, you become a manager.

00:08:07.840 | And I think a lot of people that start startups,

00:08:11.840 | when they become a CEO,

00:08:13.360 | they don't like that job actually,

00:08:14.560 | but they can't really exit it, you know?

00:08:15.840 | But they like to do the groundwork, the coding.

00:08:19.040 | So I think that keeps you happy,

00:08:21.360 | like doing something creative.

00:08:22.960 | - Yeah, it's interesting how people are pulled towards that,

00:08:27.040 | to scale, to go really big.

00:08:28.720 | And you don't have that honest reflection with yourself,

00:08:33.200 | like what actually makes you happy?

00:08:34.880 | Because for a lot of great engineers,

00:08:36.400 | what makes them happy is the building,

00:08:37.840 | the "individual contributor,"

00:08:41.120 | like where you're actually still coding

00:08:43.040 | or you're actually still building.

00:08:44.800 | And they let go of that and then they become unhappy.

00:08:47.680 | But some of that is the sacrifice needed

00:08:50.400 | to have an impact at scale,

00:08:52.880 | if you truly believe in a thing you're doing.

00:08:54.640 | - But like, look at Elon,

00:08:56.160 | he's doing things a million times bigger than me, right?

00:08:59.120 | And would I wanna do that?

00:09:01.840 | I don't know, you can't really choose these things, right?

00:09:03.440 | But I really respect that.

00:09:04.800 | I think Elon's very different from VC founders, right?

00:09:06.800 | VC start, it's like software,

00:09:08.480 | there's a lot of bullshit in this world, I think.

00:09:10.000 | There's a lot of dodgy finance stuff happening there, I think.

00:09:13.520 | And I never have concrete evidence about it,

00:09:16.480 | but your gut tells you something's going on

00:09:18.160 | with companies getting sold to friends and VCs,

00:09:22.000 | and then they do reciprocity

00:09:23.360 | and there's shady financial dealings.

00:09:26.080 | With Elon, that's not.

00:09:26.880 | He's just raising money from investors

00:09:28.240 | and he's actually building stuff.

00:09:29.280 | He needs the money to build stuff, hardware stuff.

00:09:31.520 | And that I really respect.

00:09:33.880 | - You said that there's been a few low points in your life.

00:09:37.600 | You've been depressed

00:09:38.560 | and the building is one of the ways you get out of that.

00:09:41.280 | But can you talk to that?

00:09:42.560 | Can you take me to that place,

00:09:43.840 | that time when you were at a low point?

00:09:46.160 | - So I was in Holland and I graduated university

00:09:48.880 | and I didn't wanna like get a normal job.

00:09:51.120 | And I was making some money with YouTube

00:09:52.560 | 'cause I had this music career

00:09:53.600 | and I uploaded my music to YouTube.

00:09:54.800 | And YouTube started paying me like with AdSense,

00:09:57.840 | like $2,000 a month, $2,000 a month.

00:10:00.080 | And all my friends got like normal jobs

00:10:02.720 | and we stopped hanging out

00:10:03.600 | 'cause people like in university hang out.

00:10:05.360 | You know, you chill at each other's houses, you go party.

00:10:09.520 | But when people get jobs,

00:10:10.720 | they only party like in the weekend

00:10:12.000 | and they don't hang anymore in a week

00:10:13.920 | 'cause you need to be at the office.

00:10:14.960 | And I was like, this is not for me.

00:10:15.920 | I wanna do something else.

00:10:16.880 | And I was starting getting this like,

00:10:18.800 | I think it's like Saturn return.

00:10:20.160 | It's, you know, when you're turned 27,

00:10:21.920 | it's like some concept where Saturn returns

00:10:24.720 | to the same place in the orbit

00:10:26.480 | that it was when you're born.

00:10:27.600 | - I'm learning so many things.

00:10:29.440 | - It's some astrology thing, you know?

00:10:31.120 | - So many truly special artists died when they were 27.

00:10:34.400 | - Exactly, something of 27, man.

00:10:36.000 | And it was for me.

00:10:36.720 | Like I started going crazy

00:10:38.480 | because I didn't really see like my future in Holland,

00:10:41.200 | buying a house, going living in the suburbs and stuff.

00:10:43.760 | So I flew out.

00:10:44.880 | I went to Asia, started digital nomading

00:10:46.880 | and did that for a year.

00:10:47.840 | And then that made me feel even worse, you know?

00:10:49.920 | 'Cause I was like alone in hotel rooms,

00:10:53.040 | like looking at the ceiling.

00:10:54.560 | Like, what am I doing with my life?

00:10:55.840 | Like this is, like I was working on startups

00:10:58.400 | and stuff and YouTube,

00:10:59.280 | but it's like, what is the future here, you know?

00:11:01.600 | Like, is this something while my friends

00:11:04.880 | in Holland were doing really well

00:11:06.080 | and we have a normal life, you know?

00:11:07.840 | So it was getting very depressed.

00:11:10.480 | And like, I'm like an outcast, you know?

00:11:12.160 | And my money was shrinking.

00:11:13.680 | I wasn't making money anymore a lot.

00:11:15.200 | I was making $500 a month or something.

00:11:17.040 | And I was, you know, looking at the ceiling thinking like,

00:11:20.560 | now I'm like 27, I'm a loser.

00:11:22.560 | And that's the moment when I started building like startups.

00:11:25.200 | And it was because my dad said,

00:11:26.320 | like, if you're depressed, you need to, you know,

00:11:28.080 | get sand, get a shovel, start shoveling, do something.

00:11:30.720 | You can't just sit still,

00:11:31.760 | which is kind of like a interesting way

00:11:34.160 | to deal with depression, you know?

00:11:35.200 | Like, it's not like, oh, let's talk about it.

00:11:36.800 | It's more like, let's go do something.

00:11:38.480 | And I started doing a project called

00:11:42.160 | 12 Startups in 12 Months,

00:11:43.680 | where every month I would make something like a project

00:11:46.320 | and I would launch it with Stripe

00:11:48.160 | so people could pay for it.

00:11:49.120 | - So the basic format is try to build a thing,

00:11:52.160 | put it online and put Stripe

00:11:54.000 | to where you can pay money for it.

00:11:55.200 | - Yeah, add a Stripe check.

00:11:56.240 | I'm not sponsored by Stripe,

00:11:57.120 | but add a Stripe checkout button.

00:11:58.400 | - Is that still like the easiest way

00:12:00.320 | to just like pay for stuff, Stripe?

00:12:02.240 | - 100%, like I think so, yeah.

00:12:03.520 | - It's a cool company.

00:12:04.480 | They just made it so easy.

00:12:05.520 | You can just click and-

00:12:06.480 | - Yeah, and they're really nice.

00:12:08.080 | Like the CEO, Patrick, is really nice.

00:12:09.520 | - Behind the scenes, it must be difficult

00:12:11.440 | to like actually make that happen.

00:12:12.960 | 'Cause that used to be a huge problem.

00:12:14.400 | - Merchant.

00:12:15.360 | - Just adding a thing, a button,

00:12:18.160 | where you can like pay for a thing.

00:12:19.680 | - Dude, dude, I know this

00:12:21.600 | because when I was nine years old,

00:12:24.480 | I was making websites also.

00:12:26.320 | And I tried to open a merchant account.

00:12:28.400 | There was like before Stripe,

00:12:29.440 | you would have like, I think it was called WorldPay.

00:12:32.800 | So I had to like fill out all these forms.

00:12:35.280 | And then I had to fax them to America

00:12:37.440 | from Holland with my dad's fax.

00:12:39.040 | And my dad had to, it wasn't my dad's name.

00:12:42.320 | And he had to sign for this.

00:12:43.120 | And he started reading these terms and conditions,

00:12:44.480 | which was like, he's liable

00:12:45.600 | for like 100 million in damages.

00:12:47.920 | And he's like, "I don't wanna sign this."

00:12:49.360 | I'm like, "Dad, come on, I need a merchant account.

00:12:51.040 | "I need to make money on the internet."

00:12:52.160 | And he signed it and we faxed it to America.

00:12:54.960 | And I had a merchant account,

00:12:56.160 | but then nobody paid for anything.

00:12:57.840 | So that was the problem, you know?

00:12:58.800 | But it's much easier now.

00:13:00.400 | You can sign up, you add some codes and yeah.

00:13:03.360 | - So 12 startups in 12 months.

00:13:04.960 | - Yeah.

00:13:05.760 | - So startup number one, what was that?

00:13:09.840 | What were you feeling?

00:13:11.760 | What were you, you sit behind the computer.

00:13:14.080 | Like how much do you actually know

00:13:15.600 | about building stuff at that point?

00:13:18.000 | - Well, I could code a little bit

00:13:19.440 | 'cause I did the YouTube channel

00:13:20.480 | and I made a website for,

00:13:22.480 | I would make websites for like the YouTube channel.

00:13:24.320 | It was called Panda Mix Show.

00:13:25.920 | And it was like these electronic music mixes

00:13:27.600 | like dubstep or drum and bass or techno or house.

00:13:29.520 | - I saw one of them had like Flash.

00:13:31.280 | Were you using Flash?

00:13:32.080 | - Yeah, my album, my CD album was using Flash.

00:13:34.640 | Yeah, I sold my CD, yeah.

00:13:36.160 | - 'Cause Flash was a software. - Flash was cool.

00:13:38.800 | - This is like the break.

00:13:40.000 | - Like grandpa, you know, but Flash was cool.

00:13:42.160 | - Yeah, and there was, what's it called?

00:13:44.080 | Boy, I should remember this ActionScript.

00:13:45.760 | There's some kind of programming language.

00:13:47.120 | - ActionScript, yeah, ActionScript in Flash.

00:13:49.280 | Back then that was the JavaScript, you know?

00:13:50.720 | - The JavaScript, yeah.

00:13:51.840 | And I thought that's gonna,

00:13:53.200 | that's supposed to be the dynamic thing

00:13:54.720 | that takes over the internet.

00:13:56.080 | I invested so many hours in learning that.

00:13:57.520 | - And Steve Jobs killed it.

00:13:58.800 | - Steve Jobs killed it. - Steve Jobs said,

00:14:00.160 | "Flash sucks, stop using it."

00:14:01.360 | And everyone's like, "Okay."

00:14:02.080 | - That guy was right though, right?

00:14:04.000 | - Yeah, I don't know, yeah.

00:14:05.360 | Well, it was a closed platform, I think.

00:14:07.120 | And it's ironic 'cause Apple, you know,

00:14:10.000 | they're not very open.

00:14:11.360 | But back then Steve was like,

00:14:12.960 | "This is closed, we should not use it."

00:14:14.400 | And it's security problems, I think,

00:14:16.400 | which sounded like a cop-out.

00:14:17.520 | Like he just wanted to say that

00:14:18.800 | to make it look kind of bad.

00:14:19.840 | But Flash was cool, yeah.

00:14:22.320 | - Yeah, it was cool for a time.

00:14:23.520 | Listen, animated GIFs were cool for a time too.

00:14:26.960 | They came back in a different way.

00:14:29.360 | As a meme though.

00:14:30.480 | I mean, like, I remember when GIFs were actually cool,

00:14:34.400 | not ironically cool.

00:14:35.760 | On the internet, you would have like a dancing rabbit

00:14:40.480 | or something like this.

00:14:41.600 | And that was really exciting.

00:14:42.480 | - You had like the, you know, Lex homepage.

00:14:44.320 | Everyone was centered.

00:14:46.000 | And you had like Peter's homepage.

00:14:48.240 | And on the construction GIF,

00:14:50.800 | which was like a guy with a helmet.

00:14:53.280 | And the lights, it was amazing.

00:14:54.560 | - And the banners.

00:14:55.200 | That's how, before like Google AdSense,

00:14:58.400 | you would have like banners for advertising.

00:14:59.760 | - It was amazing, yeah.

00:15:00.960 | - And a lot of links to porn, I think.

00:15:03.680 | - Yeah, I think that was where the merchant accounts

00:15:06.640 | people would use for it.

00:15:07.440 | People would make money a lot.

00:15:08.400 | Only money made on the internet was like porn,

00:15:10.480 | or a lot of it.

00:15:11.200 | - Yeah, it was a dark place.

00:15:13.840 | It's still a dark place.

00:15:14.800 | But there's beauty in the darkness.

00:15:17.280 | Anyway, so you did some basic HTML.

00:15:20.560 | - Yeah, but I had to learn the actual coding.

00:15:23.200 | So this was good.

00:15:24.800 | It was a good idea to like every month launch a startup

00:15:27.280 | so I could learn the codes, learn basic stuff.

00:15:30.240 | But it was still very scrappy

00:15:32.160 | 'cause I didn't have time to, which was on purpose.

00:15:34.160 | I didn't have time to spend a lot of,

00:15:36.000 | I had a month to do something.

00:15:37.120 | So I couldn't spend more than a month.

00:15:38.240 | And I was pretty strict about that.

00:15:39.280 | And I published it as a blog post.

00:15:41.680 | So people, I think I put it on Hacker News

00:15:43.760 | and people would check like,

00:15:44.960 | kind of like, oh, did you actually, you know?

00:15:46.480 | I felt like accountability 'cause I put it public

00:15:48.800 | that I actually had to do it.

00:15:49.760 | - Do you remember the first one you did?

00:15:51.200 | - I think it was play my inbox.

00:15:54.000 | 'Cause back then my friends, we would send,

00:15:55.840 | we would send like cool, it was before Spotify, I think.

00:15:59.440 | We would send like, 2014,

00:16:01.120 | we would send music to each other, like YouTube links.

00:16:03.040 | Like this is a cool song, this is a cool song.

00:16:05.680 | And it was these giant email threads on Gmail

00:16:08.080 | and they were like unnavigatable.

00:16:10.160 | So I made an app that would log into your Gmail,

00:16:12.720 | get them emails and find the ones with YouTube links.

00:16:15.840 | And then make like, kind of like a gallery of your songs,

00:16:18.720 | like essentially Spotify.

00:16:19.840 | And my friends loved it.

00:16:21.360 | - Was it scraping it?

00:16:23.040 | Like what was the API?

00:16:23.440 | - No, it uses like POP, like pop or IMAP.

00:16:26.240 | You know, it would actually check your email.

00:16:28.000 | So that like privacy concerns,

00:16:29.280 | 'cause it would get all your emails to find YouTube links,

00:16:31.520 | but then I wouldn't save anything.

00:16:32.960 | But that was fun.

00:16:35.760 | It was like, and that first product

00:16:37.760 | already would get like press.

00:16:39.120 | Like it went on, I think like some tech media and stuff.

00:16:42.800 | And I was like, that's cool.

00:16:43.680 | Like it didn't make money.

00:16:44.560 | There was no payment button,

00:16:45.840 | but it was actually people using it.

00:16:49.680 | I think tens of thousands of people used it.

00:16:51.360 | - That's a great idea.

00:16:52.400 | I wonder why, like, why don't we have that?

00:16:54.960 | Why don't we have things that access Gmail

00:16:57.280 | and extract some useful aggregate information?

00:17:01.440 | - Yeah, you could tell Gmail like,

00:17:03.040 | don't give me all the emails.

00:17:04.080 | Just give me the ones with YouTube links,

00:17:05.440 | you know, or something like that.

00:17:06.240 | - Yeah.

00:17:06.880 | I mean, there is a whole ecosystem of like apps

00:17:09.120 | you can build on top of the Google.

00:17:10.560 | - Yeah.

00:17:10.880 | - But people don't really--

00:17:12.160 | - Never do this.

00:17:13.040 | - They build, I've seen a few like Boomerang.

00:17:16.480 | There's a few apps that are like good,

00:17:18.720 | but just, I wonder what,

00:17:20.320 | maybe it's not easy to make money.

00:17:21.680 | - I think it's hard to get people to pay

00:17:23.360 | for these like extensions and plugins, you know?

00:17:25.200 | 'Cause it's not like a real app.

00:17:26.400 | So it's not like people don't value it.

00:17:28.320 | People value it, oh, and a plugin should be free.

00:17:30.480 | You know, when I wanna use a plugin

00:17:31.840 | in Google Sheets or something,

00:17:32.800 | I'm not gonna pay for it.

00:17:33.760 | Like it should be free, which is,

00:17:35.840 | but if you go to a website and you actually,

00:17:37.520 | okay, I need this product.

00:17:38.720 | I'm gonna pay for this 'cause it's a real product.

00:17:40.800 | So even though it's the same code in the back,

00:17:42.640 | it's a plugin, you know?

00:17:43.520 | - Yeah, I mean, you can do it through like extensions,

00:17:46.640 | like Chrome extensions from the browser side.

00:17:49.120 | - Yeah, but who pays for Chrome extensions, right?

00:17:50.640 | Like barely anybody.

00:17:51.600 | So that's not a good place to make money probably.

00:17:54.400 | - Yeah, that sucks.

00:17:55.440 | - Like Chrome extensions should be an extension

00:17:57.200 | for your startup, you know?

00:17:58.000 | You have a product.

00:17:58.880 | Oh, we also have a Chrome extension, you know?

00:18:01.520 | - I wish the Chrome extension would be the product.

00:18:05.040 | I wish Chrome would support that,

00:18:06.560 | like where you could pay for it easily.

00:18:08.320 | 'Cause like imagine, I can imagine a lot of products

00:18:11.200 | that would just live as extensions,

00:18:13.040 | like improvements for social media.

00:18:14.880 | - Yeah, it's like GPTs, you know?

00:18:16.880 | - GPTs, yeah.

00:18:17.680 | - Like these chat GPTs, they're gonna charge money for it.

00:18:19.680 | Now you get a rev share, I think, for an open AI.

00:18:22.480 | I made a lot of them also.

00:18:23.520 | - Right, we'll talk about it.

00:18:25.200 | So let's rewind back.

00:18:26.560 | It's a pretty cool idea to do 12 startups in 12 months.

00:18:30.000 | What's it take to build a thing in 30 days?

00:18:32.960 | Like at that time, how hard was that?

00:18:35.360 | - I think the hard part is like figuring out

00:18:38.880 | what you shouldn't add, right?

00:18:39.840 | Which you shouldn't build because you don't have time.

00:18:41.920 | So you need to build a landing page.

00:18:43.840 | Well, you need to build the product actually,

00:18:47.280 | 'cause they need to be something they pay for.

00:18:48.720 | Do you need to build a login system?

00:18:51.360 | Like maybe no, you know?

00:18:52.320 | Like maybe you can build some scrappy login system.

00:18:54.240 | Like for PhotEye, you sign up, you pay with Stripe checkout

00:18:57.200 | and you get a login link.

00:18:58.880 | And when I started, it was only a login link with a hash

00:19:00.880 | and that's just a static link.

00:19:02.240 | So it's very easy to log in.

00:19:03.840 | It's not so safe, you know?

00:19:04.800 | What if you leak the link?

00:19:05.680 | And now I have real Google login,

00:19:07.760 | but that took like a year.

00:19:08.640 | So keeping it very scrappy is very important to,

00:19:11.600 | 'cause you don't have time, you know?

00:19:13.360 | You need to focus on what you can build fast.

00:19:16.320 | So money, Stripe, build a product, build a landing page.

00:19:20.960 | You need to think about how are people gonna find this.

00:19:24.560 | So are you gonna put it on Reddit or something?

00:19:26.640 | How are you gonna put it on Reddit

00:19:27.680 | without being looked at as a spammer, right?

00:19:29.600 | Like if you say, "Hey, this is my new startup.

00:19:32.080 | You should use it."

00:19:32.640 | No, nobody gets deleted, you know?

00:19:34.400 | Maybe if you find a problem that a lot of people

00:19:37.280 | on Reddit already have on subreddits, you know?

00:19:39.120 | Like you solve the problem and say,

00:19:40.560 | "Sup people, I made this thing that might solve your problem

00:19:43.920 | and maybe it's free for now," you know?

00:19:45.680 | Like that could work, you know?

00:19:48.080 | But you need to be very, you know,

00:19:50.560 | narrow it down what you're building.

00:19:53.360 | - Time is limited.

00:19:54.400 | - Yeah.

00:19:55.120 | - Actually, can we go back to the you laying in a room

00:19:58.560 | feeling like a loser?

00:19:59.600 | - Yeah.

00:20:00.240 | - I still feel like a loser sometimes.

00:20:02.800 | What's, what can you, can you speak to that feeling,

00:20:06.880 | to that place of just like feeling like a loser?

00:20:11.280 | And 'cause I think a lot of people in this world

00:20:13.760 | are laying in a room right now listening to this

00:20:16.480 | and feeling like a loser.

00:20:18.480 | - Okay, so I think it's normal if you're young

00:20:19.920 | that you feel like a loser, first of all.

00:20:21.280 | - Especially when you're 27.

00:20:22.960 | - Yes, yeah, especially-

00:20:24.640 | - There's like a peak.

00:20:25.360 | - Yeah, yeah, I think 27 is the peak.

00:20:27.360 | And so I would not kill yourselves.

00:20:29.040 | It's very important to just get through it, you know?

00:20:31.920 | But because you have nothing, you have probably no money,

00:20:34.960 | you have no business, you have no job.

00:20:36.320 | Like Jeremy Peterson said this, I saw it somewhere.

00:20:40.240 | Like the reason people are depressed

00:20:41.360 | because they have nothing.

00:20:42.000 | They don't have a girlfriend, they don't have a boyfriend,

00:20:43.520 | they don't have, you need stuff.

00:20:45.280 | You need like, or a family, you need things around you.

00:20:47.520 | You need to build a life for yourself.

00:20:48.640 | If you don't build a life for yourself, you'll be depressed.

00:20:50.400 | So if you're alone in Asia, in a hostel,

00:20:53.520 | looking at the ceiling

00:20:54.560 | and you don't have any money coming in,

00:20:56.240 | you don't have a girlfriend, you don't,

00:20:57.920 | of course you're depressed, it's logic.

00:20:59.360 | But back then, if you're in the moment,

00:21:00.560 | you think there's not logic,

00:21:01.520 | there's something wrong with me, you know?

00:21:02.560 | And also I think I started going,

00:21:05.760 | I started getting like anxiety

00:21:07.040 | and I think I started going a little bit crazy

00:21:09.440 | where I think travel can make you insane.

00:21:12.480 | And I know this because I know

00:21:14.000 | that there's like digital nomads

00:21:15.360 | that they kill themselves.

00:21:16.640 | And I haven't checked like the comparison

00:21:18.640 | with like baseline people, like Suze Iray.

00:21:20.400 | But I have a hunch, especially in the beginning

00:21:23.920 | when it was a very new thing, like 10 years ago,

00:21:25.760 | that it can be very psychologically taxing

00:21:29.760 | and you're alone a lot.

00:21:32.400 | Back then when you travel alone,

00:21:33.760 | there was no other digital nomads back then a lot.

00:21:35.760 | So you're in a strange culture,

00:21:38.000 | you look different than everybody.

00:21:39.200 | Like you're in, I was in Asia,

00:21:40.400 | like everybody's really nice in Thailand,

00:21:42.080 | but you're not part of the culture,

00:21:44.400 | you're traveling around,

00:21:45.760 | you're hopping from city to city,

00:21:47.120 | you don't have a home anymore,

00:21:49.120 | you feel disrooted.

00:21:51.520 | - And you're constantly an outcast

00:21:54.000 | in that you're different from everybody else.

00:21:55.600 | - Yes, exactly.

00:21:56.320 | But people treat you like Thailand, people are so nice,

00:21:58.400 | but you still feel like an outcast.

00:21:59.680 | And then I think the digital nomads I met then

00:22:02.400 | were all kind of like, it was like shady business,

00:22:04.640 | but they were like vigilantes 'cause it was a new thing.

00:22:06.560 | And like one guy was selling illegal drugs,

00:22:08.960 | it was American guy was selling illegal drugs

00:22:10.560 | via UPS to Americans on his website.

00:22:13.200 | They were like a lot of drop shippers doing shady stuff.

00:22:15.520 | There's a lot of shady things going on there.

00:22:18.880 | And they didn't look like very balanced people.

00:22:20.720 | They didn't look like people I wanted to hang with.

00:22:22.720 | So I also felt outcast from other foreigners in Thailand,

00:22:26.320 | other digital nomads.

00:22:27.680 | And I was like, man, I made a big mistake.

00:22:29.440 | And then I went back to Holland

00:22:30.720 | and then I got even more depressed.

00:22:32.000 | - You said digital nomad, what is digital nomad?

00:22:34.480 | What is that way of life?

00:22:35.680 | What is the philosophy there?

00:22:36.800 | And the history of the movement?

00:22:38.560 | - I struck upon it on accident

00:22:40.480 | 'cause I was like, I'm gonna graduate university

00:22:42.240 | and then I need to get out of here.

00:22:43.840 | I'll fly to Asia 'cause I've been before in Asia.

00:22:45.600 | I studied in Korea in 2009, like study exchange.

00:22:48.160 | So I was like, Asia is easy, Thailand's easy.

00:22:50.400 | And I'll just go there and figure things out.

00:22:51.920 | And it's cheap, it's very cheap.

00:22:53.040 | Chiang Mai, I would live like for $150 per month rent

00:22:55.920 | for like a private room, pretty good.

00:22:57.280 | So I struck upon this on accident.

00:22:58.560 | I was like, okay, there's other people on laptops

00:23:00.640 | working on their startup or working remotely.

00:23:03.120 | Back then, nobody worked remotely,

00:23:04.160 | but they worked on their businesses, right?

00:23:06.160 | And they would live in like Colombia

00:23:10.480 | or Thailand or Vietnam or Bali.

00:23:13.440 | They would live kind of like in more cheap places.

00:23:15.280 | And it looked like a very adventurous life.

00:23:17.840 | Like you travel around, you build your business.

00:23:20.560 | There's no pressure from like your home society, right?

00:23:22.720 | Like you're American.

00:23:24.080 | So you get pressure from American society

00:23:25.760 | telling you kind of what to do.

00:23:26.640 | Like you need to buy a house or you need to do this stuff.

00:23:28.720 | I had this in Holland too.

00:23:29.680 | And you can get away from this pressure.

00:23:32.000 | You can kind of feel like you're free.

00:23:33.600 | There's nobody telling you what to do,

00:23:36.720 | but that's also why you start feeling like you go crazy

00:23:39.520 | 'cause you are free.

00:23:40.880 | You're disattached from anything and anybody.

00:23:43.760 | You're disattached from your culture.

00:23:46.080 | You're disattached from the culture you're probably in

00:23:47.760 | 'cause you're staying very short.

00:23:49.200 | - I think Franz Kafka said, "I'm free, therefore I'm lost."

00:23:53.200 | - Man, that's so true.

00:23:54.800 | Yeah, that's exactly the point.

00:23:56.480 | And yeah, freedom is like,

00:23:58.080 | it's the definition of no constraints, right?

00:23:59.920 | Like anything's possible.

00:24:01.120 | You can go anywhere.

00:24:01.920 | And everybody's like, "Oh, that must be super nice."

00:24:04.880 | You know, like freedom, you must be very happy.

00:24:06.960 | And it's the opposite.

00:24:07.760 | Like, I don't think that makes you happy.

00:24:09.200 | I think constraints probably make you happy.

00:24:11.040 | And that's a big lesson I learned then.

00:24:12.400 | - But what were they making for money?

00:24:15.600 | So you're saying they were doing shady stuff at that time?

00:24:18.160 | - For me, you know, 'cause I was more like a developer.

00:24:20.800 | I wanted to make startups kinda.

00:24:22.400 | And it was like drugs being shipped to America,

00:24:27.200 | like diet pills and stuff, like non-FDA proof stuff, you know?

00:24:31.200 | And they would like, there was no like effort.

00:24:33.120 | They were like, they would sit with beers

00:24:34.480 | and they would laugh about like all the dodgy shit

00:24:36.160 | kinda they're doing, you know?

00:24:37.040 | - Oh, that part of it, okay.

00:24:38.240 | - That kind of vibe, you know?

00:24:39.040 | Like kinda sleazy e-com vibe.

00:24:41.200 | I'm not saying all e-com is sleazy, you know?

00:24:42.720 | But you know, this vibe.

00:24:44.480 | - It could be a vibe.

00:24:45.600 | And your vibe was more build cool shit that's ethical.

00:24:49.600 | - You know the guys with sports cars in Dubai?

00:24:51.600 | These people, you know?

00:24:52.320 | - Yes.

00:24:52.960 | - E-com, like, oh, bro, you gotta drop shit.

00:24:55.120 | - Yeah.

00:24:55.440 | - And you'll make a hundred million a month.

00:24:57.600 | Those people, it was this shit.

00:24:59.120 | And I was like, this is not my people.

00:25:00.640 | - Yeah, I don't, I mean, there's nothing wrong

00:25:03.040 | with any of those individual components.

00:25:04.240 | - No, no judgment.

00:25:05.040 | - But there's a foundation that's not quite ethical.

00:25:10.080 | What is that?

00:25:10.640 | I don't know what that is.

00:25:11.440 | But yeah, I get you.

00:25:12.160 | - No, like, I don't wanna judge.

00:25:13.360 | It was more, I know that for me, it wasn't my world.

00:25:15.600 | It wasn't my subculture.

00:25:16.880 | I wanted to make cool shit, you know?

00:25:18.720 | But they also think their cool shit is cool.

00:25:20.400 | So, you know, but I wanted to make like real like startups.

00:25:24.080 | And that was my thing.

00:25:25.040 | I would read Hacker News, you know, like Y Combinator.

00:25:27.440 | And they were making cool stuff.

00:25:28.800 | So I wanted to make cool stuff.

00:25:29.920 | - I mean, that's a pretty cool way of life.

00:25:32.400 | Just if you romanticize it for a moment.

00:25:34.480 | - It's very romantic, man.

00:25:35.680 | It's very, it's colorful, you know?

00:25:37.600 | Like if I think about the memories.

00:25:38.720 | - I mean, what are some happy memories?

00:25:40.640 | Just like working, working cafes or working in,

00:25:45.280 | just the freedom that envelops you with that way of life.

00:25:51.600 | 'Cause anything is possible.

00:25:52.720 | You can just get up and go.

00:25:53.360 | - No, I think it was amazing.

00:25:54.320 | Like we would work, like you wouldn't,

00:25:56.320 | I would make friends and we would work until, you know,

00:25:58.720 | 6 a.m. in Bali, for example, with like,

00:26:02.560 | with Andre, my best friend, who is still my best friend.

00:26:06.960 | And we would, and other friends,

00:26:07.920 | and we would work until like the morning

00:26:09.440 | when the sun came up.

00:26:10.640 | Because at night, the coworking space was silent,

00:26:12.880 | you know, there was nobody else.

00:26:14.480 | And I would wake up like 6 p.m. or 5 p.m.

00:26:18.000 | I would drive to the coworking space on a motorbike.

00:26:20.400 | I would buy like 30 hot lattes from a cafe.

00:26:23.920 | - How many?

00:26:24.720 | - 30, 'cause there was like six people coming.

00:26:28.640 | Or we didn't know, sometimes people would come in.

00:26:30.240 | - Did you say three, zero, 30?

00:26:32.240 | - Yeah.

00:26:32.800 | - Nice.

00:26:33.600 | - And we would drink like four per person or something,

00:26:35.680 | you know?

00:26:35.920 | Man, it's Bali.

00:26:37.280 | I don't know if they were powerful lattes, you know,

00:26:38.880 | but they were lattes.

00:26:40.000 | And we would put it in a plastic bag

00:26:41.360 | and then we'd drive there.

00:26:42.320 | And all the coffee was like falling, you know, everywhere.

00:26:45.120 | And then we'd go to the coworking space

00:26:46.480 | and have these coffees here.

00:26:47.760 | And we'd work all night.

00:26:49.440 | We'd play like techno music

00:26:50.960 | and everybody would just work in there.

00:26:53.120 | Like this was literally like business people.

00:26:54.560 | They would work in their startup

00:26:55.440 | and we'd all try and make something.

00:26:56.720 | And then the sun would come up

00:26:58.880 | and the morning people, you know, the yoga girls

00:27:03.440 | and yoga guys would come in, you know,

00:27:04.800 | after the yoga class at six.

00:27:06.400 | And they'd say, "Hey, good morning."

00:27:07.840 | And we're like, we look like this, you know?

00:27:09.440 | And we're like, "What's up, how are you doing?"

00:27:11.200 | And we didn't know how bad we looked, you know,

00:27:13.120 | but it was very bad.

00:27:14.400 | And then we'd go home, sleep in like a hostel or a hotel

00:27:17.360 | and do the same thing.

00:27:18.640 | And again, and again, and again.

00:27:19.760 | And it was this lock-in mode, you know, like working.

00:27:23.280 | And that was very fun.

00:27:26.080 | - So it's just a bunch of you,

00:27:28.000 | techno music blasting all through the night, yeah.

00:27:31.120 | - Or more like (beatboxing)

00:27:32.880 | like industrially, not like this cheesy.

00:27:35.120 | - See, I got, for me, it's such an interesting thing

00:27:39.040 | because the speed of the beat affects

00:27:40.560 | how I feel about a thing.

00:27:41.760 | So the faster it is, the more anxiety I feel.

00:27:44.400 | But that anxiety is channeled into productivity.

00:27:46.960 | But if it's a little too fast,

00:27:48.400 | I start, the anxiety overpowers.

00:27:50.800 | - So you don't like drum and bass music?

00:27:52.000 | - Probably not.

00:27:53.040 | - No, it's too fast.

00:27:53.920 | - I mean, for working, I have to play with it.

00:27:57.200 | It's like, you can actually,

00:27:58.160 | like I can adjust my level of anxiety.

00:28:01.040 | There must be a better word than anxiety.

00:28:02.880 | It's like productive anxiety that I like, whatever that is.

00:28:07.440 | - It also depends what kind of work you do, right?

00:28:08.960 | Like if you're writing,

00:28:10.160 | you probably don't want drum and bass music.

00:28:11.680 | I think for codes, like industrial techno,

00:28:14.320 | this kind of stuff, kind of fast.

00:28:16.320 | It works well 'cause you really get like locked in

00:28:18.320 | and combined with caffeine, you go deep.

00:28:23.280 | And I think you balance on this edge of anxiety

00:28:25.920 | 'cause this caffeine is also hitting your anxiety.

00:28:27.600 | You wanna be on the edge of anxiety

00:28:29.360 | with this techno running.

00:28:30.320 | Sometimes it gets too much.

00:28:31.760 | It's like, stop the techno, stop the music.

00:28:33.120 | It's like, but those are good memories.

00:28:36.640 | And also like travel memories.

00:28:37.760 | Like you go from city to city and it feels like,

00:28:40.480 | it's kind of like jet set life.

00:28:42.240 | Like it feels very beautiful.

00:28:43.920 | Like you're seeing a lot of cool cities.

00:28:46.080 | - What was your favorite place that you remember you visited?

00:28:49.280 | - I think still like Bangkok is the best place.

00:28:54.400 | And back in Chiang Mai, I think Thailand is very special.

00:28:58.000 | Like I've been to the other place,

00:28:59.440 | like I've been to Vietnam

00:29:00.320 | and I've been to South America and stuff.

00:29:02.240 | I still think Thailand wins in how nice people are,

00:29:05.680 | how easy of a life people have there.

00:29:07.680 | - Everything's cheap.

00:29:08.960 | - Yeah. - And good.

00:29:10.320 | - Well, Bangkok is getting expensive now,

00:29:11.760 | but Chiang Mai is still cheap.

00:29:13.440 | I think when you're starting out, it's a great place.

00:29:15.440 | Man, the air quality sucks.

00:29:17.120 | It's a big problem.

00:29:17.840 | So, and it's quite hot, but that's a very cool place.

00:29:21.440 | - Pros and cons.

00:29:23.280 | - I love Brazil also.

00:29:25.040 | My girlfriend is Brazilian, but I do love,

00:29:26.720 | not just because of that, but I like Brazil.

00:29:28.240 | The problem still is the safety issue.

00:29:31.600 | You know, like it's like in America, like it's localized.

00:29:34.320 | It's hard for Europeans to understand like safety's localized

00:29:36.560 | to specific areas.

00:29:37.840 | So if you go to the right areas, it's amazing.

00:29:39.680 | Brazil is amazing.

00:29:40.480 | If you go to the wrong areas, like maybe you die, right?

00:29:43.520 | - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, that's true.

00:29:45.040 | - But it's not true in Europe.

00:29:46.880 | So in Europe it's much more-- - That's true.

00:29:48.160 | - More average. - You're right, you're right.

00:29:50.320 | It's more averaged out.

00:29:52.320 | - Yeah. - I like it when

00:29:53.600 | there's strong neighborhoods.

00:29:54.800 | When you like, you cross a certain street

00:29:57.520 | and you're in a dangerous part of town.

00:29:59.280 | - Man, yeah. - I like it.

00:30:02.000 | I like there's certain cities in the United States like that.

00:30:04.480 | - Yeah. - I like that.

00:30:05.360 | And you're saying Europe is-- - But you don't feel scared?

00:30:07.440 | - Well, I don't, I like danger. - BJJ.

00:30:10.160 | - No, not even just that.

00:30:12.320 | I think danger is interesting.

00:30:13.680 | So danger reveals something about yourself, about others.

00:30:17.920 | Also, I like the full range of humanity.

00:30:19.760 | - Yeah. - So I don't like

00:30:20.960 | the mellowed out aspects of humanity.

00:30:23.200 | - I have friends, like these are my friends

00:30:24.720 | that are exactly like this.

00:30:25.600 | Like they go to like the kind of broken areas, you know?

00:30:29.040 | Like they like this reality.

00:30:30.480 | They like this authenticity more.

00:30:32.000 | They don't like luxury.

00:30:32.960 | They don't like-- - Oh yeah, I hate luxury.

00:30:34.960 | - Yeah, that's very European of you.

00:30:36.480 | - Wait, what's that?

00:30:38.480 | That's a whole 'nother conversation.

00:30:40.800 | So you quoted Freya Stark, quote,

00:30:46.240 | "To awaken quite alone in a strange town

00:30:48.640 | is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world."

00:30:52.080 | - Yeah. - Do you remember a time

00:30:54.640 | you awoken in a strange town and felt like that?

00:30:58.080 | We're talking about small towns or big towns or?

00:31:00.080 | - Man, anywhere.

00:31:00.960 | I think I wrote it in some blog posts and like,

00:31:03.200 | it was a common thing when you would wake up.

00:31:06.640 | And this was like, 'cause I have this website.

00:31:08.720 | I started a website about this digital nomads

00:31:10.480 | called nomadlist.com and there was a community.

00:31:12.880 | So it was like 30,000 other digital nomads

00:31:15.040 | 'cause I was feeling lonely.

00:31:15.840 | So I built this website and I stopped feeling lonely.

00:31:18.240 | Like I started organizing meetups and making friends.

00:31:21.280 | And it was very common that people would say

00:31:23.520 | they would wake up and they would forget where they are.

00:31:26.080 | - Yeah. - Like for the first half minute

00:31:28.960 | and I had to look outside, like, where am I?

00:31:30.400 | Which country?

00:31:31.680 | Which sounds really like privilege,

00:31:32.720 | but it was more like funny.

00:31:33.600 | Like you literally don't know where you are

00:31:35.680 | because you're so disrooted.

00:31:36.960 | But there's something, man, it's like Anthony Bourdain.

00:31:41.040 | You know, there's something pure about this kind of

00:31:43.680 | vagabond travel thing, you know?

00:31:47.920 | Like it's behind me, I think.

00:31:49.040 | I don't like, now I travel with my girlfriend, right?

00:31:51.040 | It's very different, but it is a romantic like memories

00:31:53.920 | of this kind of like vagabond individualistic solo life.

00:31:58.080 | But the thing is, it didn't make me happy,

00:31:59.440 | but it was very cool, but it didn't make me happy, right?

00:32:01.440 | It made me anxious.

00:32:02.400 | - There's something about it that made you anxious.

00:32:05.440 | I don't know, I still feel like that.

00:32:06.560 | It's a cool feeling.

00:32:07.840 | It's scary at first, but then you realize where you are

00:32:10.240 | and you, I don't know, it's like you awaken

00:32:14.560 | to the possibilities of this place.

00:32:16.320 | - That's it. - When you feel like that.

00:32:17.360 | - That's it. - It's like, great.

00:32:18.560 | And it's even when you're doing some basic travel.

00:32:21.040 | - Yeah. - Like go to San Francisco

00:32:22.080 | or something else.

00:32:22.560 | - Yeah, you have like the novelty effect.

00:32:23.840 | Like you're in a new place, like here things are possible.

00:32:26.960 | You know, you don't get bored yet

00:32:28.800 | and that's why people get addicted to travel, you know?

00:32:33.200 | - Back to startups.

00:32:34.480 | You wrote a book on how to do this thing

00:32:37.840 | and gave a great talk on it, how to do startups.

00:32:40.720 | The book's called "Make Bootstrappers Handbook."

00:32:43.840 | - Yeah. - I was wondering

00:32:45.040 | if you could go through some of the steps.

00:32:46.720 | It's idea, build, launch, grow, monetize, automate, and exit.

00:32:50.400 | There's a lot of fascinating ideas in each one.

00:32:52.400 | So idea stage, how do you find a good idea?

00:32:56.320 | - Yeah, so I think you need to be able to spot problems.

00:32:58.560 | So for example, you can go in your daily life,

00:33:00.400 | like when you wake up and you're like,

00:33:01.920 | what is stuff that I'm really annoyed with?

00:33:03.920 | That's like in my daily life that doesn't function well.

00:33:08.160 | And that's a problem that you can see, okay,

00:33:10.400 | maybe that's something I can add, write code about,

00:33:13.680 | you know, code for, and it will make my life easier.

00:33:16.240 | So I would say make like a list of all these problems

00:33:18.400 | you have and like idea to solve it.

00:33:20.080 | And I see which one is like viable,

00:33:22.320 | you can actually do something and then start building it.

00:33:24.720 | - So that's a really good place to start.

00:33:26.880 | Become open to all the problems in your life.

00:33:31.520 | Like actually start noticing them.

00:33:33.040 | I think that's actually not a trivial thing to do,

00:33:35.040 | to realize that some aspects of your life

00:33:38.000 | could be done way, way better.

00:33:39.120 | - Yeah.

00:33:39.440 | - 'Cause we kind of very quickly get accustomed to discomforts.

00:33:43.920 | - Exactly.

00:33:44.400 | - Like, for example, like doorknobs.

00:33:47.120 | - Yeah.

00:33:47.760 | - Like design of certain things.

00:33:49.760 | - New Lex Prima doorknob.

00:33:52.800 | - Well, that one I know how much incredible design work

00:33:57.440 | has gone into.

00:33:58.240 | It's a really interesting doors and doorknobs.

00:34:00.800 | It's just the design of everyday things, forks and spoons.

00:34:04.800 | It's gonna be hard to come up with a fork

00:34:06.480 | that's better than the current fork designs.

00:34:08.400 | And the other aspect of it is you're saying like,

00:34:11.120 | in order to come up with interesting ideas,

00:34:12.640 | you gotta try to live a more interesting life.

00:34:15.200 | - Yeah, but that's where travel comes in.

00:34:17.440 | Because when I started traveling,

00:34:19.200 | I started seeing stuff in other countries

00:34:21.040 | that you didn't have in Europe, for example,

00:34:22.800 | or America even.

00:34:23.760 | Like if you go to Asia, like dude,

00:34:27.680 | especially 10 years ago, nobody knew about this.

00:34:29.200 | Like the WeChat, all these apps that they already had

00:34:31.840 | before we had them, these everything apps, right?

00:34:34.480 | Like now Elon's trying to make X this everything app,

00:34:36.480 | like WeChat, same thing.

00:34:37.600 | In Indonesia or Thailand, you have one app

00:34:40.480 | that you can order food with, you can order groceries,

00:34:43.040 | you can order massage, you can order car mechanic.

00:34:46.960 | Anything you can think of is in the app.

00:34:50.080 | And that stuff, for example, that's called like arbitrage.

00:34:53.760 | You can go back to your country and build that same app

00:34:56.480 | for your country, for example.

00:34:57.920 | So you start seeing problems.

00:35:01.440 | You start seeing solutions that other countries already,

00:35:03.360 | other people already did in the rest of the world.

00:35:05.360 | And also traveling in general just gives you more problems

00:35:08.800 | 'cause travel is uncomfortable.

00:35:10.640 | Airports are horrible.

00:35:13.280 | Airplanes are not comfortable either.

00:35:15.280 | There's a lot of problems you start seeing

00:35:17.440 | just getting out of your house.

00:35:18.480 | - But also you can, I mean, in the digital world,

00:35:21.360 | you can just go into different communities

00:35:23.600 | and see what can be improved by the others in that.

00:35:26.000 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:35:27.280 | - But what specifically is your process

00:35:29.680 | of generating ideas?

00:35:30.880 | Do you like do idea dumps?

00:35:32.960 | Like do you have a document

00:35:33.840 | where you just keep writing stuff?

00:35:34.640 | - Yeah, I used to have like a,

00:35:35.840 | 'cause when I wasn't making money,

00:35:37.280 | I was trying to like make this list of ideas

00:35:39.520 | to see like, so I need to build,

00:35:41.600 | I was thinking statistically already,

00:35:42.800 | like I need to build all these things

00:35:44.000 | and one of these will work out probably.

00:35:46.160 | So I need to have a lot of things to try.

00:35:48.240 | And I did that.

00:35:50.160 | Right now, I think like,

00:35:51.040 | because I already have money,

00:35:52.000 | I can do more things based on technology.

00:35:55.280 | So for example, AI, when I found out about,

00:35:57.840 | when stable diffusion came or chatGBT and stuff,

00:36:00.960 | all these things were like,

00:36:02.480 | I didn't start working with them because I had a problem.

00:36:06.400 | I had no problems,

00:36:07.760 | but I was very curious about technology

00:36:09.680 | and I was like playing with it

00:36:12.480 | and figuring out like first just playing with it

00:36:15.360 | and then you find something like,

00:36:16.640 | okay, this generates,

00:36:18.400 | stable diffusion generates houses very beautiful

00:36:20.320 | and interiors, you know?

00:36:21.280 | - So it's less about problem solving,

00:36:22.800 | it's more about the possibilities

00:36:24.000 | of new things you can create.

00:36:25.200 | - Yeah, but that's very risky

00:36:26.880 | because that's the famous like solution

00:36:28.400 | trying to find a problem.

00:36:29.120 | And usually it doesn't work.

00:36:31.280 | And that's very common with startup founders.

00:36:33.120 | I think they have tech,

00:36:34.880 | but actually people don't need the tech, right?

00:36:36.880 | - Can you actually explain,

00:36:38.880 | it'd be cool to talk about some of the stuff you've created.

00:36:41.760 | Can you explain the photoAI.com?

00:36:45.440 | - Yeah, so it's like fire your photographer.

00:36:47.840 | The idea is like,

00:36:48.560 | you don't need a photographer anymore.

00:36:49.680 | You can train yourself as an AI model

00:36:52.320 | and you can take as many photos as you want

00:36:54.000 | anywhere in any clothes,

00:36:55.120 | with facial expressions like happy or sad

00:36:59.280 | or poses, all this stuff.

00:37:01.920 | - So how does it work?

00:37:03.440 | This is a link to a gallery of ones done on me.

00:37:09.200 | - So on the left, you have the prompts, the box.

00:37:11.600 | Yeah, so you can write like,

00:37:12.640 | so model is your model, this Lex Friedman.

00:37:14.800 | So you can write like model as a blah, blah, blah,

00:37:17.680 | whatever you want.

00:37:18.720 | Then press the button and it will take photos.

00:37:20.240 | It will take like one minute.

00:37:21.760 | - What are you using for the hosting for the compute?

00:37:23.920 | - Replicate, replicate.com.

00:37:26.320 | They're very, very good.

00:37:27.280 | - Okay, it's cool.

00:37:28.480 | Like this interface wise,

00:37:30.000 | it's cool that you're showing how long it's going to take.

00:37:32.000 | This is amazing.

00:37:33.040 | So it's taking a,

00:37:33.920 | I'm presuming you just loaded in a few pictures

00:37:36.320 | from the internet.

00:37:36.960 | - Yeah, so I went to Google images,

00:37:38.800 | typed in Lex Friedman.

00:37:39.760 | I added like 10 or 20 images.

00:37:41.680 | You can open them in the gallery

00:37:43.680 | and you can use your cursors to, yeah.

00:37:46.080 | So some don't look like you.

00:37:48.320 | So the hit or miss rate is like,

00:37:49.840 | I don't know, let's say like 50, 50 or something.

00:37:53.440 | - But when I was watching your tweets,

00:37:54.800 | like it's been getting better and better and better.

00:37:56.560 | - It was very bad in the beginning.

00:37:57.920 | It was so bad, but still people signed up to it, you know?

00:38:00.240 | - There's two Lexes, it's great.

00:38:04.960 | It's getting more and more sexual

00:38:06.400 | and it's making me very uncomfortable.

00:38:07.760 | - Man, but that's the problem with these models

00:38:09.440 | 'cause, no, we need to talk about this

00:38:11.200 | 'cause the models in Fusion,

00:38:13.440 | so the photorealistic models that are like fine-tuned,

00:38:16.000 | they were all trained on porn in the beginning

00:38:18.320 | and it was a guy called Hassan.

00:38:19.600 | So I was trying to figure out

00:38:21.200 | how to do photorealistic AI photos

00:38:22.720 | and it was, Stable Diffusion by itself

00:38:24.480 | is not doing that well.

00:38:25.360 | Like the faces look all mangled

00:38:26.880 | and it doesn't have enough resolution

00:38:29.760 | or something to do that well.

00:38:31.040 | So, but I started seeing these base models,

00:38:34.480 | these fine-tuned models

00:38:35.280 | and people would train on porn

00:38:36.720 | and I would try them

00:38:37.520 | and they would be very photorealistic.

00:38:39.520 | They would have bodies that actually made sense,

00:38:41.600 | like body anatomy.

00:38:43.760 | But if you look at the photorealistic models

00:38:47.040 | that people use now still,

00:38:48.720 | there's still core of porn there,

00:38:50.320 | like of naked people.

00:38:51.280 | So I need to prompt out the naked

00:38:53.120 | and everyone needs to do this

00:38:53.840 | with AI startups, with imaging.

00:38:55.360 | You need to prompt out the naked stuff.

00:38:57.200 | You need to put a naked-

00:38:59.120 | - You have to keep reminding the model

00:39:01.360 | you need to put clothes on.

00:39:02.400 | - Yeah, don't put naked 'cause it's very risky.

00:39:04.160 | I have Google Vision that checks every photo

00:39:06.240 | before it's shown to the user

00:39:07.760 | to like check for NSFW. - Like a nipple detector?

00:39:09.520 | Oh, NSFW detector.

00:39:11.280 | - Because the journalists get very angry

00:39:13.280 | if they, you know.

00:39:14.160 | - If you sexualize.

00:39:15.120 | - There was a journalist, I think,

00:39:16.080 | that got angry that used this

00:39:17.200 | and was like, "Oh, it showed like a nipple."

00:39:19.600 | Because Google Vision didn't detect it.

00:39:21.040 | So there's like these kinds of problems

00:39:24.080 | you need to deal with, you know?

00:39:24.960 | That's what I'm talking about.

00:39:26.400 | This is with cats.

00:39:27.200 | But look at the cat face.

00:39:29.760 | It's also kind of mangled, you know?

00:39:31.920 | - I'm a little bit disturbed.

00:39:36.160 | - You can zoom in on the cat if you want.

00:39:37.520 | Yeah, this is a very sad cat.

00:39:40.960 | It doesn't have a nose.

00:39:42.560 | - It doesn't have a nose.

00:39:43.600 | - Man, but this is the problem with AI startups

00:39:46.240 | 'cause they all act like it's perfect,

00:39:48.000 | like this is groundbreaking.

00:39:49.600 | But it's not perfect.

00:39:50.320 | It's like really bad, you know, half the time.

00:39:52.640 | - So if I wanted to sort of update model as...

00:39:55.440 | - Yeah, so you remove this stuff

00:39:56.880 | and you write like whatever you want,

00:39:59.200 | like in Thailand or something or in Tokyo.

00:40:01.680 | - In Tokyo?

00:40:03.840 | - Yeah.

00:40:04.400 | - And then...

00:40:06.640 | - You can say like at night with neon lights,

00:40:09.040 | like you can add more detail.

00:40:10.560 | - I'll go in Austin.

00:40:12.400 | Do you think I'll know?

00:40:13.040 | - Yeah, Austin.

00:40:13.920 | - In Austin, Texas.

00:40:14.640 | - With cowboy hats.

00:40:15.520 | - In Texas, yeah.

00:40:16.880 | - As a cowboy.

00:40:17.920 | - As a cowboy.

00:40:22.080 | It's going to go so towards the porn direction.

00:40:24.560 | - Man, I hope not.

00:40:25.840 | This is the end of my career.

00:40:26.800 | - Or the beginning, it depends.

00:40:30.160 | We can send you a push notification

00:40:31.600 | when your photos are done.

00:40:32.480 | Yeah, all right, cool.

00:40:33.200 | - Yeah, let's see.

00:40:34.960 | - Oh, wow.

00:40:36.000 | So this whole interface you've built.

00:40:37.600 | - Yeah.

00:40:37.920 | - This is really well done.

00:40:39.040 | - It's called jQuery.

00:40:39.920 | Do I still use jQuery?

00:40:41.760 | - Yes.

00:40:42.000 | - I'm the only one?

00:40:42.560 | - Still.

00:40:43.040 | - After 10 years?

00:40:43.360 | - To this day, you're not the only one.

00:40:44.800 | The entire web is PHP.

00:40:47.360 | - It's PHP and jQuery.

00:40:48.480 | Yeah, and SQLite.

00:40:49.520 | - You're just like one of the top performers

00:40:52.720 | from a programming perspective

00:40:54.160 | that are still openly talking about it.

00:40:57.520 | But everyone's using PHP.

00:40:59.360 | If you look, most of the web

00:41:00.560 | is still probably PHP and jQuery.

00:41:02.240 | - I think 70%.

00:41:02.960 | It's because of WordPress, right?

00:41:04.000 | Because the blogs are...

00:41:04.720 | - Yeah, that's true.

00:41:05.120 | - Yeah.

00:41:05.360 | - That's true.

00:41:06.400 | - I'm seeing a revival now.

00:41:07.760 | People are getting sick of frameworks.

00:41:09.920 | Like all the JavaScript frameworks

00:41:11.840 | are so, what do you call it, wieldy.

00:41:13.920 | It takes so much work to just maintain this code.

00:41:16.720 | And then it updates to a new version.

00:41:19.280 | You need to change everything.

00:41:20.320 | PHP just stays the same and works.

00:41:23.520 | - Yeah.

00:41:23.920 | - And...

00:41:24.240 | - Can you actually just speak to that stack?

00:41:26.560 | You build all your websites, apps, startups, projects,

00:41:30.320 | all of that with mostly vanilla HTML.

00:41:33.040 | - Yeah.

00:41:33.680 | - JavaScript with jQuery, PHP, and SQLite.

00:41:39.040 | And so that's a really simple stack.

00:41:43.040 | And you get stuff done really fast with that.

00:41:44.800 | Can you just speak to the philosophy behind that?

00:41:46.720 | - I think it's accidental

00:41:48.080 | 'cause that's the thing I knew.

00:41:49.440 | Like I knew PHP, I knew HTML, CSS,

00:41:53.200 | 'cause you make websites.

00:41:54.160 | And when my startup started taking off,

00:41:57.760 | I didn't have time to...

00:41:59.280 | I remember putting on my to-do list,

00:42:00.480 | like learn Node.js,

00:42:01.840 | 'cause it's important to switch, you know?

00:42:03.680 | 'Cause this obviously is much better language than PHP.

00:42:06.480 | And I never learned it.

00:42:07.360 | I never did it.

00:42:08.560 | 'Cause I didn't have time.

00:42:09.280 | These things were growing like this,

00:42:11.840 | and I was launching more projects,

00:42:13.280 | and I never had time.

00:42:14.240 | It's like one day, I'll start coding properly,

00:42:17.920 | and I never got to it.

00:42:18.880 | - I sometimes wonder if I need to learn that stuff.

00:42:22.000 | It's still a to-do item for me

00:42:23.200 | to really learn Node.js, or Flask,

00:42:26.320 | or these kind of--

00:42:27.600 | - React, Vue.

00:42:28.480 | - Yeah, React.

00:42:29.520 | It feels like a responsible software engineer

00:42:35.360 | should know how to use these.

00:42:37.840 | But you can get stuff done so fast

00:42:42.480 | with vanilla versions of stuff.

00:42:44.080 | - Yeah, it's like software developers,

00:42:45.760 | if you want to get a job,

00:42:46.560 | and there's people making stuff, like startups.

00:42:50.080 | And if you want to be an entrepreneur,

00:42:51.280 | probably, maybe you shouldn't.

00:42:53.360 | - I wonder if there's...

00:42:54.400 | I really want to measure performance and speed.

00:42:57.920 | I think there's a deep wisdom in that.

00:43:00.080 | - Yeah.

00:43:00.400 | - I do think that frameworks,

00:43:02.320 | and just constantly wanting to learn the new thing,

00:43:05.120 | this complicated way of software engineering

00:43:07.840 | gets in the way.

00:43:08.720 | I'm not sure what to say about that,

00:43:09.920 | because definitely, you shouldn't build everything

00:43:12.320 | from just vanilla JavaScript,

00:43:14.480 | or vanilla C, for example.

00:43:16.000 | - Yeah.

00:43:16.240 | - C++, when you're building systems engineering,

00:43:19.280 | is like, there's a lot of benefits.

00:43:21.120 | For a pointer safety, all that kind of stuff.

00:43:23.840 | So I don't know, but it just feels like

00:43:26.160 | you can get so much more stuff done

00:43:29.920 | if you don't care about how you do it.

00:43:31.680 | - Man, this is my most controversial take, I think.

00:43:34.960 | And maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like

00:43:36.960 | there's frameworks now that raise money.

00:43:40.000 | They raise a lot of money.

00:43:41.040 | Like they raise 50 million, 100 million, $3 million.

00:43:43.840 | And the idea is that you need to make the developers,

00:43:47.040 | the new developers,

00:43:47.760 | like when you're 18 or 20 years old, right?

00:43:49.600 | Get them to use this framework,

00:43:52.720 | and add a platform to it,

00:43:54.720 | like where the framework can...

00:43:56.640 | It's open source,

00:43:58.320 | but you probably should use the platform,

00:44:00.480 | which is paid, to use it.

00:44:02.240 | And the cost of the platforms to host it

00:44:05.440 | are a thousand times higher

00:44:07.520 | than just hosting it on a simple AWS server

00:44:10.560 | or a VPS on DigitalOcean, right?

00:44:12.240 | So there's obviously like a monetary incentive here.

00:44:15.280 | Like we wanna get a lot of developers

00:44:16.880 | to use this technology,

00:44:17.600 | and then we need to charge them money

00:44:19.040 | 'cause they're gonna use it in startups.

00:44:20.880 | And then the startups can pay for the bills.

00:44:22.320 | But what that...

00:44:24.960 | It kind of destroys the information out there

00:44:29.600 | about learning to code

00:44:30.640 | because they pay YouTubers,

00:44:32.640 | they pay influencers,

00:44:34.560 | developer influencers,

00:44:35.520 | a big thing to like...

00:44:36.800 | And same thing what happens

00:44:38.240 | with like nutrition and fitness or something.

00:44:40.480 | Same thing happens in developing.

00:44:41.760 | They pay these influencers to promote the stuff,

00:44:43.600 | use it, make stuff with it,

00:44:45.520 | make demo products with it.

00:44:46.560 | And then a lot of people are like,

00:44:47.440 | "Wow, use this."

00:44:48.960 | And I started noticing this

00:44:50.080 | 'cause when I would ship my stuff,

00:44:51.520 | people would ask me, "What are you using?"

00:44:53.280 | I would say, "Oh, just PHP, jQuery, why does it matter?"

00:44:56.000 | And people would start kind of attacking me like,

00:44:57.600 | "Why are you not using this new technology?"

00:44:59.600 | "This new framework, this new thing."

00:45:01.360 | And I say, "I don't know 'cause this PHP thing works

00:45:03.520 | "and I don't really...

00:45:04.640 | "I'm optimizing for anything, it just works."

00:45:06.960 | And I never understood like why...

00:45:09.360 | I understand there's new technologies that are better

00:45:12.320 | and there should be improvement,

00:45:13.280 | but I'm very suspicious of money.

00:45:16.240 | Just like lobbying.

00:45:17.120 | There's money in this developer framework scene.

00:45:20.560 | There's hundreds of millions

00:45:21.680 | that goes to ads or influencers or whatever.

00:45:24.960 | It can't all go to developers.

00:45:26.400 | You don't need so many developers for a framework

00:45:28.000 | and it's open source.

00:45:29.760 | To make a lot of more money on these startups.

00:45:31.920 | - So that's a really good perspective.

00:45:33.200 | But in addition to that is like when you say better,

00:45:35.680 | it's like, can we get some data on the better?

00:45:41.440 | Because like I wanna know

00:45:43.120 | from the individual developer perspective

00:45:45.840 | and then from a team of five, team of 10,

00:45:47.760 | team of 20 developers,

00:45:49.040 | measure how productive they are in shipping features,

00:45:55.200 | how many bugs they create,

00:45:57.040 | how many security holes.

00:45:59.040 | - PHP was not good at security for a while,

00:46:02.160 | but now it's good.

00:46:02.720 | - In theory, is it though?

00:46:05.040 | - Now it's good.

00:46:05.840 | - No, now as you're saying it,

00:46:08.640 | I wanna know if that's true

00:46:11.280 | because PHP was just the majority of websites

00:46:14.800 | on the internet.

00:46:15.200 | - Could be true.

00:46:15.760 | - Is it just overrepresented?

00:46:17.920 | Same with WordPress.

00:46:18.960 | Yes, there's a reputation that WordPress

00:46:21.280 | has a gigantic number of security holes.

00:46:23.280 | I don't know if that's true.

00:46:25.120 | I know it gets attacked a lot

00:46:26.800 | because it's so popular.

00:46:28.720 | It definitely does have security holes,

00:46:30.480 | but maybe a lot of other systems

00:46:32.160 | have security holes as well.

00:46:33.440 | Anyway, I just sort of question the conventional wisdom

00:46:36.560 | that keeps wanting to push software engineers

00:46:39.280 | towards frameworks, towards complex,

00:46:41.360 | like super complicated

00:46:44.880 | sort of software engineering approaches

00:46:46.480 | that stretch out the time it takes

00:46:48.960 | to actually build the thing.

00:46:50.000 | - 100%, and it's the same thing with big corporations.

00:46:52.960 | 80% of the people don't do anything.

00:46:54.240 | It's like, it's not efficient.

00:46:55.920 | And if your benchmark is like people building stuff

00:47:02.080 | that actually gets done,

00:47:03.840 | and like for society, right?

00:47:04.960 | Like if we wanna save time,

00:47:06.240 | we should probably use technologies

00:47:07.440 | that's simple, that's pragmatic,

00:47:11.440 | that works, that's not overly complicated,

00:47:14.720 | doesn't make your life like a living hell.

00:47:17.280 | - And use a framework

00:47:19.520 | when it obviously solves a problem,

00:47:21.280 | a direct problem that you--

00:47:22.320 | - Of course, yeah, of course.

00:47:23.680 | I'm not saying you should code without a framework.

00:47:25.760 | You should use whatever you want,

00:47:26.800 | but yeah, I think it's suspicious, you know?

00:47:30.080 | And I think it's suspicious,

00:47:32.000 | when I talk about it on Twitter,

00:47:33.280 | like there's this army comes out, you know?

00:47:35.280 | There's these framework armies.

00:47:36.640 | Man, it's something my gut tells me.

00:47:38.960 | - I wanna ask the framework army

00:47:41.280 | what have they built this week?

00:47:42.960 | It's the Elon question.

00:47:44.160 | What did you do this week?

00:47:45.040 | - Yeah, and did you make money with it, you know?

00:47:46.320 | Did you charge users?

00:47:47.440 | Is it a real business?

00:47:48.800 | And yeah.

00:47:50.640 | - So going back to the cowboy, first of all--

00:47:54.720 | - Some don't look like you, right?

00:47:55.840 | But some do.

00:47:56.640 | - Every aspect of this is pretty incredible.

00:47:58.320 | I'm also just looking at the interface.

00:47:59.840 | It's really well done.

00:48:00.640 | So this is all just jQuery.

00:48:02.160 | And this is really well done.

00:48:04.240 | So take me through the journey of photo AI.

00:48:07.120 | Most of the world doesn't know much

00:48:11.360 | about stable diffusion or any of this,

00:48:13.920 | any of the generative AI stuff.

00:48:15.440 | And so you're thinking, okay,

00:48:16.800 | how can I build cool stuff with this?

00:48:18.880 | So what was the origin story of photo AI?

00:48:21.280 | - I think it started 'cause stable diffusion came out.

00:48:23.760 | So stable diffusion is the first generative image model,

00:48:27.040 | AI model.

00:48:27.600 | And I started playing with it.

00:48:29.840 | You could install it on your Mac.

00:48:31.200 | Somebody forked it and made it work for MacBooks.

00:48:33.840 | So I downloaded it and cloned the repo

00:48:36.320 | and started using it to generate images.

00:48:37.840 | And it was amazing.

00:48:41.680 | I found it on Twitter

00:48:43.840 | because you see things happen on Twitter

00:48:45.440 | and I would post what I was making on Twitter as well.

00:48:48.320 | And you could make any image.

00:48:50.320 | You could write a prompt.

00:48:51.520 | So essentially you write a prompt

00:48:52.720 | and then it generates a photo of that

00:48:54.720 | or image of that in any style.

00:48:57.040 | Like they would use like artist names

00:48:58.800 | to make like a Picasso kind of style and stuff.

00:49:00.720 | And I was trying to see, like, what is it good at?

00:49:06.240 | Is it good at people?

00:49:06.960 | No, it's really bad at people,

00:49:08.080 | but it was good at houses.

00:49:10.080 | So architecture, for example,

00:49:11.120 | I would generate like architecture houses.

00:49:13.280 | So I made a website called thishousedoesnotexist.org

00:49:18.480 | and it generated like,

00:49:20.080 | they called like house porn in that one.

00:49:22.800 | Like house porn is like a subreddit.

00:49:24.160 | So, and this was Stable Fusion, like the first version.

00:49:26.320 | So it looks really, you can click for another photo.

00:49:28.560 | So it generates like all these kind of non-existing houses.

00:49:33.840 | - It is house porn.

00:49:34.720 | - But it looked kind of good, you know?

00:49:36.080 | Like, especially back then.

00:49:37.280 | - It looks really good.

00:49:38.080 | - Now things look much better.

00:49:39.200 | - It's really, really well done.

00:49:43.920 | Wow.

00:49:46.480 | - And it also generates like a description.

00:49:48.080 | - And you can upvote.

00:49:51.280 | Is it nice?

00:49:52.000 | Upvote it.

00:49:52.800 | Man, there's so much to talk to you about.

00:49:54.320 | Like the choices here, it's really well done.

00:49:56.920 | - This is very scrappy.

00:49:57.920 | In the bottom, there's like a ranking

00:49:59.120 | of the most upvoted houses.

00:50:01.040 | So these are the top voted.

00:50:02.240 | If you go to old time, you see quite beautiful ones.

00:50:04.320 | Yeah, so this one is my favorite.

00:50:06.880 | The number one, it's like kind of like a...

00:50:08.240 | - How is this not more popular?

00:50:11.440 | - It was really popular for like a while,

00:50:13.840 | but then people got so bored of it.

00:50:16.000 | I think 'cause I was getting bored of it too.

00:50:18.160 | Like just continuous house porn,

00:50:20.640 | like everything starts looking the same.

00:50:22.400 | But then I saw it was really good at interior.

00:50:24.800 | So I pivoted to interiorai.com

00:50:27.920 | where I tried to like upload

00:50:31.360 | first generated interior designs.

00:50:32.720 | And then I tried to do,

00:50:34.000 | like there was a new technology called image to image

00:50:36.400 | where you can input an image, like a photo

00:50:38.800 | and it would kind of modify the thing.

00:50:40.800 | So you see, it looks almost the same as photo.

00:50:43.360 | It has the same code essentially.

00:50:45.200 | - Nice.

00:50:47.520 | - So I would upload a photo of my interior where I lived

00:50:50.080 | and I would ask like, change this into like,

00:50:52.160 | I don't know, like maximalist design, you know?

00:50:56.800 | And it worked and it worked really well.

00:50:58.960 | So I was like, okay, this is a startup

00:51:00.800 | 'cause obviously interior design, AI

00:51:02.640 | and nobody's doing that yet.

00:51:03.600 | So I launched this and it was successful

00:51:05.920 | and made like, within a week made 10K, 20K a month.

00:51:09.040 | And now it still makes like 40K, 50K a month.

00:51:12.000 | And it's been like two years.

00:51:14.400 | So then I was like,

00:51:15.600 | how can I improve this interior design?

00:51:17.040 | I need to start learning fine tuning.

00:51:18.400 | And fine tuning is where you have this existing AI model

00:51:21.120 | and you fine tune it on a specific goal you want it to do.

00:51:23.600 | So I would find really beautiful interior design,

00:51:26.480 | make a gallery and train a new model

00:51:30.000 | that was very good interior design.

00:51:31.280 | And it worked and I used that as well.

00:51:32.720 | And then for fun, I uploaded photos of myself

00:51:35.920 | and here's what happened.

00:51:38.080 | And to train myself, like, and this would never work

00:51:41.760 | obviously, and it worked.

00:51:42.720 | And actually it started understanding me as a concept.

00:51:46.320 | So my face worked and you could do like different styles

00:51:49.520 | like me as a, like very cheesy medieval warrior, all this stuff.

00:51:53.520 | So I was like, this is another startup.

00:51:55.520 | So now I did avatar.ai.me.

00:51:58.320 | I couldn't get to .com.

00:51:59.840 | And this was, yeah, avatar.ai.me.

00:52:04.160 | Well, now it's forwards to photo because it pivoted.

00:52:06.320 | Got it.

00:52:07.040 | But this was more like cheesy thing.

00:52:09.920 | So this is very interesting because this went so viral.

00:52:12.320 | It made like, I think like 150K in a week or something.

00:52:16.160 | So most money ever made.

00:52:17.200 | And then big, this is very interesting.

00:52:20.960 | The big VC companies like Lenza,

00:52:22.880 | which are much better at iOS and stuff than me.

00:52:26.000 | I didn't have iOS app.

00:52:27.360 | They quickly built an iOS app that does the same

00:52:29.360 | and they found technology and it's all open technology.

00:52:31.600 | So it's good.

00:52:32.480 | And I think they made like $30 million with it.

00:52:35.280 | Yeah.

00:52:35.760 | They became like the top grossing app after that.

00:52:38.960 | And it was-

00:52:40.640 | How do you feel about that?

00:52:41.840 | I think it's amazing, honestly.

00:52:43.200 | And it's not like-

00:52:44.000 | You didn't have like a feeling like, oh, fuck.

00:52:45.840 | No, I was a little bit like sad

00:52:48.000 | because all my products would work out

00:52:50.080 | and I never had like real fierce competition.

00:52:52.160 | And now I have like fierce competition

00:52:53.360 | from like a very skilled, high talent,

00:52:56.720 | like iOS developer studio or something that...

00:52:59.040 | And they already had an app.

00:53:00.640 | They had an app in App Store for like,

00:53:02.640 | I think retouching your face or something.

00:53:04.000 | So they were very smart.

00:53:04.800 | They add these avatars to there.

00:53:06.160 | It's a feature.

00:53:07.040 | They had the users.

00:53:07.840 | They do a push notification to everybody.

00:53:09.280 | We have this avatars.

00:53:10.320 | Yeah.

00:53:10.800 | Man, they made great.

00:53:11.760 | I think they made so much money.

00:53:13.840 | And I think they did a really great job.

00:53:16.720 | And I also made a lot of money with it,

00:53:19.120 | but I quickly realized it wasn't my thing

00:53:22.160 | because it was so cheesy.

00:53:23.040 | It was like kitsch, you know?

00:53:24.320 | It's kind of like me as a Barbie or me as a...

00:53:28.240 | You know, it was too cheesy.

00:53:29.280 | I wanted to go for like,

00:53:30.240 | what's a real problem we can solve?

00:53:31.680 | Because this is going to be a hype.

00:53:32.800 | This is going to be...

00:53:33.360 | And it was a hype, these avatars.

00:53:34.800 | It's like, let's do real photography.

00:53:38.800 | Like how can you make people look really photorealistic?

00:53:41.360 | And it was difficult.

00:53:42.000 | And that's why these avatars worked

00:53:43.120 | because they were all like in a cheesy,

00:53:44.800 | you know, Picasso style.

00:53:45.920 | And art is easy because you interpret the...

00:53:48.400 | All the problems that AI has with your face

00:53:52.000 | are like artistic, you know?

00:53:53.040 | If you call it Picasso.

00:53:54.480 | But if you make a real photo,

00:53:55.600 | all the problems with your face,

00:53:56.400 | like it just, you look wrong, you know?

00:53:58.160 | So I started making photo AI,

00:54:00.960 | which was like a pivot of it,

00:54:02.480 | where it was like a photo studio

00:54:03.760 | where you could take photos

00:54:07.520 | without actually needing a photographer,

00:54:09.680 | needing a studio.

00:54:10.320 | You don't just, you know, you just type it.

00:54:12.560 | And I've been working on it for like the last...

00:54:14.640 | Yeah, it's really incredible.

00:54:15.600 | That journey is really incredible.

00:54:17.200 | Let's go to the beginning of photo AI though,

00:54:20.080 | 'cause I remember seeing a lot of

00:54:21.360 | really hilarious photos.

00:54:24.800 | I think you were using yourself as a case study, right?

00:54:26.960 | Yeah.

00:54:27.460 | Yeah, so there's a tweet here,

00:54:30.640 | "Sold $100,000 in AI-generated avatars."

00:54:36.320 | Yeah, and it's a lot.

00:54:37.040 | Like it's a lot for anybody.

00:54:38.080 | It's a lot for me.

00:54:38.720 | Like making 10K a day on this, you know?

00:54:42.480 | That's amazing.

00:54:43.680 | That's amazing.

00:54:45.840 | And then the nested tweet, like that's a launch tweet.

00:54:49.120 | And then before that, it's like me hacking on it.

00:54:52.400 | Oh, I see.

00:54:54.240 | So that...

00:54:55.460 | Okay, so October 26th, 2022.

00:54:59.760 | Yeah.

00:55:00.160 | I train an ML model on my face.

00:55:02.640 | Because my eyes are quite far apart,

00:55:06.640 | I learned when I did YouTube,

00:55:08.080 | I would put like a photo of like my DJ photo, you know?

00:55:10.480 | My make sure...

00:55:11.760 | People would say I look like a hammerhead shark.

00:55:14.240 | It was like the top comment.

00:55:15.200 | So then I realized my eyes are far apart.

00:55:16.800 | Yeah, the internet helps you figure out what you look like.

00:55:20.160 | Yeah, helps you realize how you look, you know?

00:55:21.840 | Boy, do I love the internet.

00:55:23.360 | So first trap.

00:55:24.000 | Well, what is this?

00:55:27.040 | Wait.

00:55:27.680 | It's water from the waterfall.

00:55:29.520 | But the waterfall's in the back, you know?

00:55:31.120 | So what's going on?

00:55:31.920 | So this is...

00:55:34.240 | How much of this is real?

00:55:35.680 | It's all AI.

00:55:36.800 | It's all AI.

00:55:38.080 | Yeah.

00:55:38.880 | That's pretty good though for the early days.

00:55:40.720 | Exactly.

00:55:41.280 | But this was hit or miss.

00:55:42.080 | So you had to do a lot of curation

00:55:43.760 | because 99% of it was really bad.

00:55:45.360 | So these are the photos I uploaded.

00:55:47.600 | How many photos did you use?

00:55:49.040 | Only these.

00:55:49.840 | I will try more up to date pics later.

00:55:52.960 | These are the only photos you uploaded?

00:55:55.360 | Yeah.

00:55:55.920 | Wow.

00:55:56.420 | Wow.

00:55:59.360 | Okay, so like you were learning all this super quickly.

00:56:01.840 | What are some like interesting details

00:56:04.320 | you remember from that time

00:56:05.360 | for like what you had to figure out to make it work?

00:56:07.760 | And for people just listening,

00:56:09.200 | he uploaded just a handful of photos

00:56:12.240 | that don't really have a good capture of the face.

00:56:14.640 | And he's able to...

00:56:16.240 | I think it's cropped.

00:56:17.040 | It's like a crop, but the layout.

00:56:18.800 | But they're square photos.

00:56:20.400 | So they're 512 by 512.

00:56:21.680 | Because that's stability fusion.

00:56:23.360 | But nevertheless, not great capture of the face.

00:56:26.960 | It's not like a collection of several hundred photos

00:56:32.800 | that are like 360.

00:56:34.240 | Exactly.

00:56:35.120 | I would imagine that too.

00:56:35.920 | When I started, I was like,

00:56:36.640 | "Oh, this must be like some 3D scan technology, right?"

00:56:39.040 | So I think the cool thing with AI,

00:56:40.880 | it trains the concept of you.

00:56:42.240 | So it's literally like learning,

00:56:44.560 | just like any AI model learns,

00:56:45.920 | it learns how you look.

00:56:46.880 | So I did this and then I was getting so many...

00:56:49.920 | I was getting DMs, like telegram messages,

00:56:52.960 | like how can I do the same thing?

00:56:54.000 | I want these photos.

00:56:55.200 | My girlfriend wants these photos.

00:56:56.560 | So I was like, "Okay, this is obviously a business."

00:56:58.320 | But I didn't have time to code it,

00:57:00.800 | make a whole like app about it.

00:57:02.960 | So I made an HTML page.

00:57:05.680 | Registered a domain name.

00:57:06.640 | And this was not even...

00:57:08.800 | It was a Stripe payment link,

00:57:09.920 | which means you have literally a link to Stripe to pay,

00:57:13.440 | but there's no code in the back.

00:57:15.120 | So all you know is you have customers that paid money.

00:57:17.280 | Then I added like a type form link.

00:57:21.280 | So type form is a site where you can create

00:57:23.040 | like your own input form, like Google Forms.

00:57:25.920 | So they would get an email with a link to the type form,

00:57:29.360 | or actually just a link after the checkout.

00:57:31.040 | And they could upload their photos.

00:57:33.360 | So enter their email, upload the photos,

00:57:35.040 | and then I launched it.

00:57:37.280 | And I was like, "Here, first sale."

00:57:38.640 | So this is October, 2022.

00:57:40.000 | And I think within like the first 24 hours was like,

00:57:44.400 | I'm not sure, it was like a thousand customers or something.

00:57:46.400 | But the problem was I didn't have code to automate this.

00:57:50.320 | So I had to do manually.

00:57:51.600 | So the first few hundred,

00:57:52.800 | I just literally took their photos, trained them.

00:57:56.400 | And then I would generate the photos with the prompts

00:57:58.480 | and I had this text file with the prompts

00:57:59.760 | and I would do everything manually.

00:58:01.280 | And this quickly became way too much.

00:58:03.760 | So, but that's another constraint.

00:58:05.760 | Like I was forced to code something up that would do that.

00:58:10.080 | And that was essentially making it

00:58:11.680 | into a real website, right?

00:58:12.720 | - So at first it was the type form

00:58:13.920 | and they uploaded through the type form.

00:58:15.280 | - Stripe checkout type form, yeah.

00:58:16.800 | - And then you were like, that image is downloaded.

00:58:19.200 | Did you write a script to export?

00:58:20.640 | - No, I just downloaded the images myself.

00:58:22.480 | It was a zip file, unzipped the zip file.

00:58:24.240 | - And you unzipped it?

00:58:25.120 | - Yeah, unzipped it.

00:58:26.080 | Yes, and then, no, because, you know,

00:58:28.000 | do things, don't scale, Paul Graham says, right?

00:58:30.240 | So, and then I would trade and then I would email them

00:58:33.120 | the photos, I think from my personal email.

00:58:35.520 | So here's your avatars, you know, and they liked it.

00:58:38.000 | They were like, wow, it's amazing.

00:58:39.040 | - You emailed them with your personal email.

00:58:42.400 | - 'Cause I didn't have an email address on this domain.

00:58:44.880 | - And this was like a hundred people.

00:58:46.880 | - Yeah, and then you know who signed up?

00:58:48.640 | Like, man, I cannot say, but really famous people.

00:58:52.480 | Like really, really like billionaires.

00:58:54.160 | Famous tech billionaires did it.

00:58:55.520 | And I was like, wow, this is crazy.

00:58:56.960 | And I sent, I was like so scared to mess them.

00:58:59.120 | So I said, thanks so much for using my sites.

00:59:02.320 | You know, he's like, yeah, amazing app, great work.

00:59:04.320 | So it's like, this is different than normal reaction, you know?

00:59:07.040 | - It's Bill Gates, isn't it?

00:59:08.480 | - I cannot say anything.

00:59:10.720 | - Just like shirtless pics.

00:59:13.760 | - GDPR, you know, like privacy, European regulation.

00:59:16.480 | I cannot share anything, but I was very, I was like, wow.

00:59:19.280 | And, but this shows like, so you make something

00:59:22.880 | and then if it takes off very fast, you're like,

00:59:24.800 | it's validated, you know, you're like,

00:59:25.920 | here's something that people really want.

00:59:28.960 | But then also I thought this is hype.

00:59:30.320 | This is gonna die down very fast.

00:59:31.840 | And it did, 'cause it's too cheesy.

00:59:33.600 | - But you had to automate the whole thing.

00:59:35.920 | How'd you automate it?

00:59:37.120 | So like, what's the AI component?

00:59:38.800 | Like how hard was that to figure out?

00:59:40.480 | - Okay, so that's actually in many ways, the easiest thing.

00:59:44.000 | 'Cause there is all these platforms already back then.

00:59:45.760 | There was platforms for fine tune, still diffusion.

00:59:49.040 | Like now I use replicates.

00:59:51.600 | Back then I use different platforms, which was funny.

00:59:54.880 | 'Cause that platform, when this thing took off,

00:59:56.720 | I would tweet, 'cause I tweet always

00:59:58.320 | like how much money these websites make.

01:00:00.000 | And then sort of the, you call it vendor, right?

01:00:02.720 | The platform that did the GPUs.

01:00:05.040 | They increased the price for training from $3 to $20

01:00:07.840 | after they saw that I was making so much money.

01:00:10.880 | So immediately my profit is gone

01:00:12.160 | 'cause I was selling them for $30.

01:00:13.280 | And I was in a slack with them, like saying, what is this?

01:00:16.480 | Like, can you just put it back to $3?

01:00:18.880 | They say, yeah, maybe in the future.

01:00:20.240 | We're looking at it right now.

01:00:21.040 | I'm like, what are you talking about?

01:00:22.000 | Like, you just took all my money, you know?

01:00:23.760 | And they're smart.

01:00:24.320 | - Well, they're not that smart

01:00:25.520 | because like you're also have a large platform

01:00:29.520 | and a lot of people respect you.

01:00:31.280 | So you can literally come out and say that.

01:00:32.800 | - Yeah, but I think it's like kind of dirty

01:00:34.640 | to cancel a company or something.

01:00:36.400 | I prefer just bringing my business elsewhere.

01:00:38.640 | But there was no elsewhere back then.

01:00:40.240 | So I started talking to other AI model, ML platforms.

01:00:45.760 | So Replicate was on those platforms.

01:00:47.040 | And I started DMing the CEO, say, can you please create,

01:00:50.560 | like, it's called Dream Booth, this fine tuning of yourself.

01:00:53.600 | Can you add this to your site?

01:00:54.720 | 'Cause I need this 'cause I'm being price gouged.

01:00:57.040 | And he said, no, because it takes too long to run.

01:00:59.680 | It takes half an hour to run

01:01:00.640 | and we don't have the GPUs for it.

01:01:01.920 | I said, please, please, please.

01:01:02.960 | And then after a week, they said, we're doing it.

01:01:05.200 | We're launching this.

01:01:06.160 | And then this company became,

01:01:09.040 | it was like not very famous company.

01:01:10.400 | It became very famous with this stuff

01:01:12.000 | because suddenly everybody was like,

01:01:13.920 | oh, we can build similar apps, like avatar apps.

01:01:16.560 | And everybody started building avatar apps

01:01:18.000 | and everybody started using Replicate for it.

01:01:19.520 | And it was from these early DMs with like the CEO,

01:01:22.800 | like Ben Fursh, very nice guy.

01:01:24.960 | And he was like, they never price gouged me.

01:01:27.680 | They never treated me bad.

01:01:28.560 | They always been very nice.

01:01:29.600 | It's a very cool company.

01:01:31.600 | So you can run any ML model,

01:01:33.040 | any AI model, LLMs, you can run on here.

01:01:35.680 | - And you can scale.

01:01:36.800 | - Yes, they scale, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:38.960 | And I mean, you can do now.

01:01:40.080 | You can click on the model and just run it already.

01:01:42.000 | It's like super easy.

01:01:43.120 | You log in with GitHub.

01:01:44.160 | - That's great.

01:01:45.680 | - And by running it on the website,

01:01:47.120 | then you can automate with the API.

01:01:48.560 | You can make a website that runs the model.

01:01:50.160 | - Generate images, generate text, generate video,

01:01:52.480 | generate music, generate speech.

01:01:53.920 | - I know, like-- - Find two models.

01:01:55.360 | - They do anything, yeah.

01:01:56.720 | It's a very cool company.

01:01:57.680 | - Nice.

01:01:58.800 | And you're like growing with them essentially.

01:02:00.960 | They grew because of you,

01:02:02.080 | because it's like a big use case.

01:02:03.520 | - Yeah, like the website even looks weird now.

01:02:06.720 | It started as like a machine learning platform.

01:02:09.280 | That was like, I didn't even understand what it did.

01:02:11.280 | It was just too ML, you know?

01:02:14.080 | Like you would understand because you're in the ML world.

01:02:15.760 | I wouldn't understand. - Now it's noob friendly.

01:02:17.360 | - Yeah, exactly.

01:02:18.240 | And I didn't know how it worked.

01:02:20.000 | But I knew that they could probably do this.

01:02:22.960 | And they did it.

01:02:23.440 | They built the models and now I use them for everything.

01:02:25.920 | And we trained like, I think now like 36,000 models,

01:02:30.640 | 36,000 people already.

01:02:31.920 | - But is there some tricks to fine tuning

01:02:34.080 | to like the collection of photos that are provided?

01:02:36.480 | Like how do you like-- - Yes.

01:02:37.840 | Yes, man, there's so many hacks.

01:02:39.120 | - The hacks, yeah. - It's like 100 hacks

01:02:40.800 | to make it work.

01:02:41.440 | - What's, what is some-- - Give my secrets now.

01:02:44.320 | - Well, not the secrets, but the more like insights maybe

01:02:48.080 | about the human face and the human body.

01:02:49.680 | Like what kind of stuff gets messed up a lot?

01:02:53.040 | - I think people, well, man, it's a little thing.

01:02:54.720 | People don't know how they look.

01:02:56.080 | So they generate photos of themselves

01:02:59.200 | and then they say, "Ah, it doesn't look like me."

01:03:00.880 | - Yeah. - But then, you know,

01:03:04.160 | you can check the training for us.

01:03:05.040 | It does look like you, but you don't know how you look.

01:03:07.200 | So there's a face dysmorphia of yourself

01:03:10.640 | that you have no idea how you look.

01:03:12.160 | - Yeah, that's hilarious.

01:03:13.040 | I mean, I've got to, one of the least pleasant activities

01:03:15.520 | in my existence is having to listen to my voice

01:03:18.480 | and look at my face.

01:03:19.680 | And so I get to like really, really have to sort of come

01:03:25.760 | in to terms with the reality of how I look and how I sound.

01:03:29.120 | - And everybody, and-- - People often don't, right?

01:03:31.920 | - Really? - Like you have

01:03:33.120 | a distorted view, perspective.

01:03:35.120 | - I know that like, I would, if I would make a selfie,

01:03:38.560 | how I think I look, that's nice.

01:03:40.560 | Other people think that's not nice.

01:03:42.240 | But then they make a photo of me.

01:03:43.280 | I'm like, "That's super ugly."

01:03:44.240 | But then they're like, "No, that's how you look

01:03:45.440 | and you look nice."

01:03:46.320 | You know, so how other people see you is nice.

01:03:49.520 | So you need to ask other people to choose your photos.

01:03:52.960 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:03:53.440 | - You shouldn't choose them yourself

01:03:54.640 | because you don't know how you look.

01:03:55.600 | - Yeah, you don't know what makes you interesting,

01:03:57.920 | what makes you attractive, all this kind of stuff.

01:03:59.760 | And a lot of us, this is a dark aspect of psychology.

01:04:02.800 | We focus on some small flaws.

01:04:04.960 | - Yeah.

01:04:05.600 | - This is why I hate plastic surgery, for example.

01:04:08.480 | People try to remove the flaws when the flaws

01:04:10.480 | are the thing that makes you interesting and attractive.

01:04:12.320 | - I learned from the hammerhead shark eyes,

01:04:14.080 | this stuff about you that looks ugly to you.

01:04:16.960 | And it's probably that what makes you original

01:04:19.520 | makes you nice and people like it about you.

01:04:21.040 | - Yeah.

01:04:21.280 | - And it's not like, "Oh my God."

01:04:22.560 | And people notice it.

01:04:24.080 | People notice your hammerhead eyes, you know.

01:04:26.640 | But it's like, that's me, that's my face.

01:04:28.080 | So I love myself.

01:04:29.440 | And that's confidence and confidence is attractive.

01:04:31.040 | - Yes.

01:04:31.520 | - Right?

01:04:32.160 | - Confidence is attractive.

01:04:33.760 | But yes, understanding what makes you beautiful.

01:04:36.080 | It's the breaking of symmetry makes you beautiful.

01:04:38.240 | It's the breaking of the average face makes you beautiful.

01:04:42.000 | All of that.

01:04:42.480 | - Yeah.

01:04:42.960 | - And obviously different for men and women

01:04:45.360 | of different ages, all this kind of stuff.

01:04:46.800 | - Yeah, 100%.

01:04:47.200 | - But underneath it all, the personality,

01:04:49.760 | all of that, when the face comes alive,

01:04:54.080 | that also is the thing that makes you beautiful.

01:04:55.840 | - Yeah.

01:04:56.160 | - But anyway, you have to figure all that out with AI.

01:04:58.240 | - Yeah.

01:04:58.960 | One thing that worked was like,

01:05:00.000 | people would upload full body photos of themselves.

01:05:03.520 | So I would crop the face, right?

01:05:05.600 | 'Cause then the model knew better

01:05:06.880 | that we're training mostly the face here.

01:05:09.040 | But then I started losing a resemblance of the body

01:05:11.440 | 'cause some people are skinny,

01:05:12.880 | some people are muscular, whatever.

01:05:14.000 | So you want to have that too.

01:05:15.120 | So now I mix full body photos in the training

01:05:17.760 | with face photos, face crops.

01:05:19.520 | And it's all automatic.

01:05:21.040 | And I know that other people,

01:05:23.360 | they use, again, AI models to detect

01:05:26.320 | what are the best photos in this training set

01:05:28.480 | and then train on those.

01:05:29.760 | But it's all about training data

01:05:31.600 | and it's with everything in AI.

01:05:33.040 | How good your training data is,

01:05:35.120 | is in many ways more important

01:05:37.040 | than how many steps you train for,

01:05:39.120 | how many months or whatever with the GPUs,

01:05:41.120 | the goals.

01:05:43.280 | - Do you have any guidelines for people

01:05:44.800 | of like how to get good data,

01:05:46.480 | how to give good data to fine tune on?

01:05:48.080 | - Like the photos should be diverse.

01:05:49.840 | So for example,

01:05:51.360 | if I only upload photos with a brown shirt or green shirt,

01:05:54.640 | the model will think that I'm training the green shirt.

01:05:57.520 | So the things that are the same,

01:06:00.320 | every photo are the concepts that are trained.

01:06:03.120 | What you want is your face to be the concept of strength

01:06:06.320 | and everything else to be diverse, like different.

01:06:09.680 | - So diverse lighting as well, diverse everything.

01:06:11.760 | - Yeah, outside, inside.

01:06:12.960 | But there's no like, this is the problem.

01:06:15.280 | There's no like manual for this.

01:06:16.880 | And nobody knew, we were all just,

01:06:19.040 | especially two years ago, we were all hacking,

01:06:20.480 | trying to test anything, anything you can think of.

01:06:23.520 | And it's frustrating.

01:06:26.240 | It's one of the most frustrating

01:06:27.360 | and also fun and challenging things to do because with AI,

01:06:30.240 | 'cause it's a black box.

01:06:32.560 | And like Karpati, I think says this,

01:06:34.480 | like we didn't really know how this thing works,

01:06:37.120 | but it does something,

01:06:39.120 | but nobody really knows why, right?

01:06:40.960 | Like we cannot look into the model of an LLM,

01:06:44.160 | like what is actually in there?

01:06:45.280 | We just know it's like a 3D matrix of numbers, right?

01:06:48.000 | So it's very frustrating 'cause some things you,

01:06:53.360 | there would be, you think they're obvious

01:06:54.960 | that they will improve things, will make them worse.

01:06:57.760 | And there's so many parameters you can tweak.

01:06:59.680 | So you're testing everything to improve things.

01:07:03.280 | - I mean, there's a whole field now

01:07:05.200 | of mechanistic interpretability that like studies that,

01:07:08.320 | tries to figure out, tries to break things apart.

01:07:10.640 | And understand how it works.

01:07:11.600 | But there's also the data side

01:07:14.800 | and the actual like consumer facing product side

01:07:18.800 | of figuring out how you get it to generate a thing

01:07:20.800 | that's beautiful or interesting or naturalistic,

01:07:23.440 | all that kind of stuff.

01:07:24.480 | And you're like at the forefront of figuring that out

01:07:26.880 | about the human face.

01:07:28.000 | And humans really care about the human face.

01:07:30.320 | - They're very vain.

01:07:31.360 | Like me, like I wanna look good in your podcast,

01:07:34.320 | for example, yeah, for sure.

01:07:35.600 | - And then one of the things I actually would love

01:07:38.320 | to like rigorously use photo AI,

01:07:42.000 | because for the thumbnails, I take portraits of people.

01:07:45.760 | I didn't, I don't know shit about photography.

01:07:47.520 | I basically used your approach for photography.

01:07:50.400 | I like Google, how do you take photographs?

01:07:53.360 | - Yeah.

01:07:53.860 | - Camera, lighting.

01:07:56.800 | And also it's tough because,

01:07:58.480 | maybe you could speak to this also,

01:08:00.720 | but like with photography, no offense to any,

01:08:04.160 | they're true artists, great photographers.

01:08:07.440 | But like people like take themselves way too seriously,

01:08:10.800 | think you need a whole lot of equipment.

01:08:13.840 | You definitely don't want one light.

01:08:15.760 | You need like five lights.

01:08:17.360 | - I know this.

01:08:18.480 | - And like, and you have to have like the lenses.

01:08:22.640 | And I talked to a guy, an expert

01:08:25.520 | of shaping the sound in a room, okay?

01:08:30.720 | 'Cause I was thinking, I'm gonna do a podcast studio,

01:08:33.840 | whatever, I should probably like treat the,

01:08:37.280 | do a sound treatment on the room.

01:08:40.160 | And like, when he showed up and analyzed the room,

01:08:43.280 | he thought everything I was doing was horrible.

01:08:45.200 | And that's when I realized like, you know what?

01:08:48.560 | I don't need experts in my life.

01:08:49.840 | - Did he kick you out of the house?

01:08:51.440 | - No, I didn't kick him.

01:08:52.880 | I mean, I said, thank you.

01:08:53.840 | Thank you very much.

01:08:54.400 | - Thank you, great tips.

01:08:55.120 | - I just felt like there is, you know,

01:09:00.320 | focus on whatever the problems are,

01:09:02.080 | use your own judgment, use your own instincts.

01:09:04.480 | Don't listen to other people

01:09:06.000 | and only consult other people

01:09:07.440 | when there's a specific problem.

01:09:08.880 | And you consult them, not to offload the problem onto them,

01:09:12.160 | but to gain wisdom from their perspective.

01:09:14.320 | Even if their perspective is ultimately

01:09:16.480 | one you don't agree with,

01:09:17.600 | you're gonna gain wisdom from that.

01:09:19.280 | And just, I ultimately come up with like a PHP solution,

01:09:23.120 | PHP and jQuery solution.

01:09:25.200 | (laughing)

01:09:26.160 | The PHP studio.

01:09:27.120 | I have a little suitcase.

01:09:28.480 | I use like just the basic sort of consumer type of stuff.

01:09:34.640 | One light, it's great.

01:09:36.320 | - Yeah, and look at you.

01:09:37.440 | You're like one of the top podcasts in the world

01:09:39.120 | and you get millions of views and it works.

01:09:41.280 | And the people that spend so much money

01:09:42.880 | on optimizing for the best sound, for the best studio,

01:09:45.760 | they get like 300 views, you know?

01:09:47.440 | So what is this about?

01:09:48.320 | This is about that either you do really well

01:09:51.120 | or also that a lot of these things don't matter.

01:09:53.040 | Like what matters is probably the content of the podcast.

01:09:56.000 | Like you get interesting guests.

01:09:57.200 | - Focus on the stuff that matters.

01:09:58.560 | - Yeah, and I think this is very common.

01:10:00.480 | They call it gear acquisition syndrome, like gas.

01:10:03.200 | Like people in any industry do this.

01:10:05.440 | They just buy all the stuff.

01:10:06.560 | There was a meme recently.

01:10:07.440 | Like what's the name for the guy that buys all the stuff

01:10:10.000 | before he even started doing the hobby, right?

01:10:11.840 | Marketing, you know?

01:10:13.840 | Marketing does that to people.

01:10:14.960 | They wanna buy this stuff.

01:10:15.840 | - Yeah.

01:10:16.320 | - But like, man, you can make a Hollywood movie on an iPhone,

01:10:22.080 | you know, if the content is good enough.

01:10:24.160 | And it will probably be original

01:10:26.640 | because you would be using an iPhone for it, you know?

01:10:29.120 | - That said, so the reason I brought that up

01:10:32.160 | with photography, there is wisdom from people.

01:10:36.080 | And one of the things I realized,

01:10:38.320 | you probably also realized this,

01:10:40.640 | but how much power light has to convey emotion.

01:10:46.400 | Take one light and move it around.

01:10:49.600 | You're sitting in the darkness, move it around your face.

01:10:51.600 | The different positions

01:10:53.520 | are having a second light potentially.

01:10:55.440 | You can play with how a person feels

01:10:57.200 | just from a generic face.

01:10:59.120 | It's interesting.

01:10:59.760 | Like you can make people attractive.

01:11:01.360 | You can make them ugly.

01:11:02.320 | You can make them scary.

01:11:03.360 | You can make them lonely, all of this.

01:11:06.080 | And so you kind of start to realize this.

01:11:09.040 | And I would definitely love AI help

01:11:12.160 | in creating great portraits of people.

01:11:15.680 | - Guest photos, yeah.

01:11:16.960 | - Guest photos.

01:11:17.760 | For example, that's a small use case.

01:11:19.680 | But for me, I suppose it's an important use case

01:11:24.880 | because I want people to look good,

01:11:26.560 | but I also wanna capture who they are,

01:11:29.680 | maybe my conception of who they are,

01:11:32.320 | what makes them beautiful,

01:11:33.920 | what makes their appearance powerful in some ways.

01:11:36.480 | Sometimes it's the eyes.

01:11:37.520 | Oftentimes it's the eyes,

01:11:39.040 | but there's certain features of the face

01:11:40.480 | can sometimes be really powerful.

01:11:41.840 | And I can't, it's also kind of awkward for me

01:11:44.960 | to take photographs.

01:11:46.960 | So I'm not collecting enough photographs for myself

01:11:50.800 | to do it with just those photographs.

01:11:53.920 | If I can load that off onto AI

01:11:56.320 | and then start to play with lighting--

01:11:59.040 | - You should do this.

01:11:59.760 | And you should probably do it yourself.

01:12:01.040 | Like you can use photo,

01:12:01.920 | but it's even more fun if you do it yourself.

01:12:03.920 | So you train the models.

01:12:05.600 | You can learn about like control net.

01:12:07.120 | Control net is where, for example,

01:12:08.560 | your photos in your podcast

01:12:09.600 | are usually like from the angle, right?

01:12:11.440 | So you can create a control net face pose

01:12:14.320 | that's always like this.

01:12:15.440 | So every model, every photo you generate

01:12:17.440 | uses this control net pose, for example.

01:12:20.400 | I think it would be very fun for you to try out.

01:12:22.240 | - Do you play with lighting at all?

01:12:23.920 | Do you play with lighting pose with the--

01:12:25.680 | - Man, actually like this week or recently,

01:12:27.920 | there's a new model came out

01:12:29.040 | that can adjust the light of any photo,

01:12:32.240 | but also AI image with stable diffusion.

01:12:34.640 | I think it's called Relight.

01:12:36.320 | And it's amazing.

01:12:39.040 | Like you can upload kind of like a light map.

01:12:43.600 | So for example, red, purple, blue,

01:12:46.000 | and use that light map to change the light

01:12:48.720 | on the photo you input.

01:12:50.160 | It's amazing.

01:12:51.520 | So there's for sure a lot of stuff you can do.

01:12:53.040 | - What's your advice for people in general

01:12:56.160 | on how to learn all the state-of-the-art AI tools available?

01:13:00.400 | Like you mentioned the new models coming out all the time.

01:13:02.400 | - Yeah.

01:13:02.960 | - Like how do you pay attention?

01:13:05.200 | How do you stay on top of everything?

01:13:07.920 | - I think you need to join Twitter, X.

01:13:10.000 | You know, X is amazing now.

01:13:11.600 | And the whole AI industry is on X.

01:13:13.600 | And they're all like anime avatars.

01:13:16.080 | So it's funny 'cause my friends ask me this,

01:13:19.200 | like who should I follow to stay up-to-date?

01:13:21.520 | And I say, go to X and follow all the AI anime models

01:13:25.280 | that this person is following or follows.

01:13:27.920 | And I sent them some URL and they all start laughing.

01:13:29.840 | Like, what is this?

01:13:30.640 | But they're real, like people hacking around in AI.

01:13:32.880 | They get hired by big companies and they're on X.

01:13:35.600 | And most of them are anonymous.

01:13:38.000 | This is very funny.

01:13:38.640 | They use anime avatars.

01:13:40.800 | I don't.

01:13:42.080 | But those people hack around

01:13:44.720 | and they publish what they're discovering.

01:13:47.360 | They talk about papers, for example.

01:13:48.880 | So yeah, definitely X.

01:13:50.720 | - That's great.

01:13:51.840 | Almost exclusively, all the people I follow are AI people.

01:13:55.200 | - Yeah, it's a good time now.

01:13:56.880 | - Well, but also it just brings happiness to my soul

01:14:02.400 | 'cause there's so much turmoil on Twitter.

01:14:05.440 | - Yeah, like politics and stuff.

01:14:07.280 | - There's battles going on.

01:14:08.720 | It's like a war zone.

01:14:10.000 | And it's nice to just go into this happy place

01:14:12.880 | to where people are building stuff.

01:14:14.240 | - Yeah, 100%.

01:14:15.440 | I like Twitter for that most, like building stuff.

01:14:17.840 | 'Cause it inspires you to build.

01:14:20.400 | And it's just fun to see other people share

01:14:23.760 | what they're discovering.

01:14:24.720 | And then you're like, okay, I'm gonna make something too.

01:14:27.280 | It's just super fun.

01:14:28.080 | And so if you wanna start going X,

01:14:30.320 | and then I would go to Replicate

01:14:32.880 | and start trying to play with models.

01:14:34.800 | And when you have something that kind of,

01:14:36.480 | you manually enter stuff, you set the parameters.

01:14:39.280 | Something that works, you can make an app out of it

01:14:41.680 | or a website.

01:14:42.800 | - Can you speak a little bit more to the process

01:14:45.360 | of it becoming better and better and better?

01:14:47.120 | Photo, yeah.

01:14:47.840 | - So I had this photo guy and a lot of people using it.

01:14:49.680 | There was like a million or more photos a month

01:14:52.240 | being generated.

01:14:53.520 | And I discovered, I was testing parameters,

01:14:57.120 | like increase the step count of generating a photo

01:14:59.760 | or changing the sampler, like a scheduler.

01:15:02.000 | Like you have DPM, two colors,

01:15:03.920 | all these things I don't know anything about,

01:15:05.280 | but I know that you can choose them when you generate an image

01:15:07.520 | and they have different resulting images.

01:15:09.360 | But I didn't know which one were better.

01:15:11.200 | So I would do it myself, test it.

01:15:12.880 | But then I was like, why don't I test on these users?

01:15:15.360 | 'Cause I have a million photos generated anyway.

01:15:17.120 | So on like 10% of the users,

01:15:19.280 | I would randomly test parameters.

01:15:22.240 | And then I would see if they would,

01:15:24.080 | 'cause you can favor the photo or you can download it.

01:15:26.400 | I would measure if they favor it or like the photo.

01:15:28.720 | And then I would A/B test

01:15:31.440 | and you test for significance and stuff,

01:15:33.200 | which parameters were better and which were worse.

01:15:37.440 | - So you start starting to figure out

01:15:39.120 | which models are actually working.

01:15:40.560 | - Exactly, and then if it's significant enough data,

01:15:42.160 | you switch to that for the whole, all the users.

01:15:45.120 | And so that was like the breakthrough to make it better.

01:15:47.280 | Just use the users to improve it themselves.

01:15:49.840 | And I tell them when they sign up,

01:15:51.040 | we do sampling, we do testing

01:15:52.720 | on your photos with random parameters.

01:15:54.080 | And that worked really well.

01:15:55.440 | I don't do a lot of testing anymore

01:15:56.560 | because it's like, I kind of reached like a diminishing point

01:15:58.720 | where it's like, it's kind of good.

01:15:59.840 | But that was a breakthrough, yeah.

01:16:02.720 | - So it's really about the parameters and the models

01:16:04.880 | that choose and letting the users help

01:16:08.880 | do the search in the space of models

01:16:10.720 | and parameters for you.

01:16:11.920 | - Yeah, but actually, so like Stable Diffusion,

01:16:15.280 | I use 1.5, 2.0 came out as Stable Diffusion XL came out,

01:16:19.200 | all these new versions and they were all worse.

01:16:21.280 | And so the core scene of people are still using 1.5

01:16:24.800 | because it's like, it's also not like really called neutered.

01:16:27.520 | Like they neutered like to make it super

01:16:29.520 | like with safety features and stuff.

01:16:32.160 | So most of the people are still on Stable Diffusion 1.5

01:16:36.080 | and meanwhile, Stable Diffusion, the company went like,

01:16:39.360 | the CEO left, a lot of drama happened

01:16:43.520 | because they couldn't make money.

01:16:45.040 | And yeah, so they gave us, it's very interesting.

01:16:47.840 | They gave us this open source model that everybody uses.

01:16:51.680 | They raised like hundreds of millions of dollars.

01:16:53.760 | It all, they didn't make any money.

01:16:55.760 | There were not a lot and they did an amazing job.

01:16:57.760 | And now everybody uses open source model for free.

01:16:59.840 | And they did, you know, it's amazing.

01:17:03.040 | Like it's amazing.

01:17:04.080 | - You're not even using the latest one.

01:17:05.840 | - No, and the strange thing is that

01:17:07.200 | this company raised hundreds of millions,

01:17:08.400 | but the people that are benefiting from it are really small.

01:17:10.560 | Like people like me will make these small apps

01:17:13.120 | that are using the model.

01:17:14.480 | And now they're starting to charge money for the new models,

01:17:16.640 | but the new models are not so good for people.

01:17:19.360 | They're not so open source, right?

01:17:20.480 | - Yeah, it's interesting because open source

01:17:23.040 | is so impactful in the AI space,

01:17:26.240 | but you wonder like, what is the business model behind that?

01:17:28.560 | But it's enabling this whole ecosystem of companies

01:17:30.960 | that they're using the open source model.

01:17:33.600 | - So it's kind of like this frameworks,

01:17:34.720 | but then they didn't, you know,

01:17:36.400 | bribe enough influencers to use it.

01:17:38.480 | And they didn't charge money for the platform, you know?

01:17:41.440 | - Okay, so back to your book and the ideas.

01:17:43.600 | We didn't even get to the first step.

01:17:46.320 | Generating ideas.

01:17:49.680 | So you had notebook and you're filling it up.

01:17:51.840 | How do you know when an idea is a good one?

01:17:53.920 | Like you have this just flood of ideas.

01:17:58.400 | How do you pick the one that you actually try to build?

01:18:00.880 | - Man, mostly you don't know.

01:18:02.480 | Like mostly I choose the ones that are most viable

01:18:04.320 | for me to build.

01:18:05.280 | Like I cannot build a space company now, right?

01:18:07.360 | Would be quite challenging, but I can build something.

01:18:09.360 | - Did you actually write down like space company?

01:18:11.760 | - No, I think asteroid mining would be very cool.

01:18:14.240 | 'Cause like you go to an asteroid,

01:18:16.000 | you take some stuff from there,

01:18:17.360 | you bring it back, you sell it, you know?

01:18:19.360 | But then you need to do,

01:18:21.280 | and you can hire someone to launch the thing.

01:18:23.280 | So all you need is like the robot

01:18:24.480 | that goes to the asteroid, you know?

01:18:26.560 | And the robotics interesting.

01:18:27.840 | Like I wanna also learn robotics.

01:18:29.120 | So maybe that could be.

01:18:30.480 | - I think both the asteroid mining and the robotics.

01:18:33.280 | - Yeah, together.

01:18:34.320 | - I feel like.

01:18:39.520 | - No, exactly, this is it.

01:18:40.560 | We do this, not because it's easy,

01:18:44.160 | but because we thought it would be easy.

01:18:45.760 | Exactly, that's me with asteroid mining.

01:18:48.320 | Exactly, that's why I should do this.

01:18:51.360 | - It's not nomadlist.com, it's asteroid mining.

01:18:54.960 | You have to like build stuff.

01:18:56.720 | You have to, gravity is really hard to overcome.

01:18:58.960 | - Yeah, but it seems, man, I sound like idiot probably now,

01:19:02.160 | but it sounds quite approachable,

01:19:03.600 | like relatively approachable.

01:19:04.560 | You don't have to build the rockets.

01:19:05.840 | - Oh, you use something like SpaceX to get out to space.

01:19:07.960 | - Yeah, you hire SpaceX to send this dog robot or whatever.

01:19:11.920 | - So is there actually exist a notebook

01:19:13.680 | where you wrote down asteroid mining?

01:19:15.040 | - No, I used, back then I used Trello.

01:19:16.400 | - Trello.

01:19:17.200 | - Yeah, but now I don't really, I use Telegram.

01:19:19.600 | I write it on like saved messages

01:19:20.960 | and I have like idea I write it down.

01:19:22.560 | - You type to yourself on Telegram.

01:19:23.760 | - You know, 'cause you use WhatsApp, right, I think?

01:19:25.840 | So you have like message to yourself, I think also, yeah.

01:19:28.160 | - So you're talking to yourself on Telegram.

01:19:30.160 | - Yeah, you use like a notepad.

01:19:31.520 | You not forget stuff and then I pin it, you know.

01:19:33.440 | - I love how like you're not using

01:19:35.440 | super complicated systems or whatever.

01:19:37.520 | You know, people use Obsidian now.

01:19:38.960 | There's a lot of these, a notion

01:19:42.080 | where you have systems for note-taking.

01:19:44.000 | You're not, you're notepad, you're notepad.dx you guy,

01:19:47.680 | if you're a Windows user.

01:19:48.800 | - Man, I saw some YouTubers doing this like,

01:19:51.200 | there's a lot of these productivity gurus also

01:19:53.680 | and they do this whole like iPad with a pencil.

01:19:55.840 | And then I also had an iPad and I also got the pencil

01:19:58.480 | and I got this app where you can like draw on paper,

01:20:00.560 | like draw like a calendar, you know,

01:20:03.920 | like people, students use this

01:20:05.840 | and you can do coloring and stuff.

01:20:07.680 | And I'm like, dude, I did this for a week

01:20:09.280 | and I'm like, what am I doing with my life?

01:20:10.560 | Like I could just write it as a message to myself

01:20:12.800 | and it's good enough, you know?

01:20:13.840 | - Speaking of ideas, you shared a tweet explaining

01:20:17.040 | why the first idea sometimes might be a brilliant idea.

01:20:20.560 | The reason for this, you think, is the first idea

01:20:22.640 | submerges from your subconscious

01:20:24.800 | and was actually boiling in your brain for weeks, months,

01:20:26.880 | sometimes years in the background.

01:20:28.880 | The eight hours of thinking can never compete

01:20:31.440 | with the perpetual subconscious background job.

01:20:33.520 | So this is the idea that if you think about an idea

01:20:35.760 | for eight hours versus like the first idea

01:20:37.440 | that pops into your mind.

01:20:38.880 | And sometimes there is subconscious,

01:20:40.480 | like stuff that you've been thinking about for many years.

01:20:44.400 | - I mean like it emerges, I wrote it wrong

01:20:47.360 | 'cause I don't know, I'm not native English,

01:20:49.120 | but it emerges from your subconscious, right?

01:20:51.280 | It comes from the, like a water is your subconscious

01:20:54.720 | in here is boiling and then when it's ready,

01:20:56.720 | it's like ding, second microwave comes out

01:20:59.520 | and there you have your idea.

01:21:01.040 | - You think you have ideas like that?

01:21:02.480 | - Yeah, all the time, 100%.

01:21:03.920 | - It's just stuff that's been like there.

01:21:05.520 | - Yes. - Yeah.

01:21:06.640 | - And I also, it comes up and I bring it,

01:21:08.960 | I send it back, you know?

01:21:09.760 | Like send it back to the kitchen to boil more.

01:21:12.400 | - Yeah. - And it's like a soup

01:21:13.920 | of ideas that's cooking.

01:21:15.920 | It's 100%, this is how my brain works.

01:21:17.600 | And I think most people.

01:21:18.560 | - But it's also about the timing.

01:21:20.400 | Sometimes you have to send it back,

01:21:21.520 | not just because you're not ready,

01:21:22.800 | but the world is not ready.

01:21:24.560 | - Yes, so many times like startup founders

01:21:26.400 | are too early with their idea, yeah, 100%.

01:21:30.000 | - Robotics is an interesting one for that

01:21:31.680 | because like there's been a lot of robotics companies

01:21:34.240 | that failed. - Yeah.

01:21:35.600 | - Because it's been very difficult

01:21:37.040 | to build a robotics company and make money

01:21:38.560 | because there's the manufacturing,

01:21:39.680 | like the cost of everything,

01:21:41.040 | the intelligence of the robot is enough,

01:21:43.120 | is not sufficient to create a compelling enough product

01:21:46.560 | from which to make money.

01:21:48.080 | So all, so there's this long line of robotics companies

01:21:51.280 | that have tried, they had big dreams and they failed.

01:21:53.520 | - Yeah, like Boston Dynamics,

01:21:55.440 | I still don't know what they're doing,

01:21:56.400 | but they always upload YouTube videos and it's amazing.

01:21:59.120 | But I feel like a lot of these companies don't have,

01:22:01.840 | it's like a solution looking for a problem for now.

01:22:04.000 | Military obviously is useless,

01:22:05.600 | but like do I need like a robotic dog now for my house?

01:22:09.840 | I don't know, like it's fun,

01:22:10.800 | but it doesn't really solve anything yet.

01:22:12.480 | I feel the same kind of with VR,

01:22:14.720 | like it's really cool.

01:22:15.680 | Like Apple Vision Pro is very cool.

01:22:16.960 | It doesn't really solve something for me yet.

01:22:19.840 | And that's kind of the tech looking for a solution, right?

01:22:22.800 | But one day will.

01:22:23.600 | - When the personal computer, when the Mac came along,

01:22:26.320 | there's a big switch that happened.

01:22:29.840 | It somehow captivated everybody's imagination.

01:22:31.840 | You could like the application,

01:22:33.760 | the killer apps became apparent.

01:22:36.880 | You can type in a computer.

01:22:37.840 | - But they became apparent like immediately.

01:22:39.760 | Back then they also had like this thing

01:22:41.120 | where like, we don't need these computers.

01:22:43.040 | They're like a hype and it also went like,

01:22:47.040 | and kind of like, you know, waves.

01:22:49.360 | - Yes, yeah, but the hype is the thing

01:22:51.600 | that allowed the thing to proliferate sufficiently

01:22:53.760 | to where people's minds would start opening up

01:22:56.400 | to it a little bit, the possibility of it.

01:22:58.160 | Right now, for example, with the robotics,

01:22:59.840 | there's very few robots in the homes of people.

01:23:03.040 | - Exactly, yeah.

01:23:04.160 | - The robots that are there are Roombas,

01:23:06.320 | so the vacuum cleaners, or they're Amazon Alexa.

01:23:10.480 | - Yeah, or dishwasher.

01:23:12.000 | I mean, it's essentially a robot.

01:23:13.200 | - Yes, but the intelligence is very limited, I guess,

01:23:16.160 | is one way we can summarize all of them.

01:23:18.160 | Except Alexa, which is pretty intelligent,

01:23:20.640 | but is limited with the kind of ways

01:23:24.640 | it interacts with you.

01:23:25.520 | That's just one example.

01:23:28.560 | I sometimes think about that as like,

01:23:31.360 | if some people in this world were kind of born

01:23:34.400 | in the whole existence, it's like,

01:23:36.240 | they were meant to build the thing, you know?

01:23:41.360 | I think I sometimes wonder like what I was meant to do.

01:23:45.920 | 'Cause you have these plans for your life,

01:23:47.440 | you have these dreams.

01:23:48.720 | - I think you're meant to build robots.

01:23:51.040 | - Okay, me first.

01:23:52.320 | Maybe, maybe.

01:23:54.400 | That's a sense of habit.

01:23:58.400 | It could be other things.

01:23:59.280 | It could hilariously not be the thing I was meant to be,

01:24:02.960 | is to talk to people, which is weird,

01:24:06.720 | because I always was anxious about talking to people.

01:24:08.960 | It's like a-- - Really?

01:24:09.840 | - Yeah, I'm scared of this.

01:24:11.600 | I was scared, yeah, exactly.

01:24:14.080 | - I'm scared of you, so.

01:24:15.040 | - (laughs) It's just anxiety throughout,

01:24:17.040 | social interaction in general.

01:24:18.240 | I'm an introvert that hides from the world, so yeah.

01:24:20.320 | It's really strange.

01:24:22.880 | - Yeah, but that's also kind of life.

01:24:24.480 | Like life brings you to, it's very hard to

01:24:26.480 | super intently kind of choose

01:24:30.000 | what you're gonna do with your life.

01:24:31.520 | It's more like surfing.

01:24:32.800 | You're surfing the waves, you go in the ocean,

01:24:35.040 | you see where you end up, you know?

01:24:36.880 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:24:38.960 | And the universe has a kind of sense of humor.

01:24:41.440 | - Yeah.

01:24:41.940 | - I guess you have to just, yeah,

01:24:44.000 | allow yourself to be carried away by the waves, yeah.

01:24:46.240 | - Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:24:47.120 | - Have you felt that way in your life?

01:24:49.760 | - Yeah, all the time, like, yeah.

01:24:51.520 | That's like, I think that's the best way to live your life.

01:24:53.440 | - So allow whatever to happen.

01:24:55.280 | Like, do you know what you're doing in the next few years?

01:24:57.440 | Is it possible that it'll be completely, like, changed?

01:25:00.080 | - Possibly, I think relationships,

01:25:02.240 | like you wanna hold a relationship, right?

01:25:03.360 | You wanna hold your girlfriend,

01:25:04.240 | you wanna become wife and all this stuff.

01:25:06.240 | But you should, I think you should stay open to where,

01:25:10.720 | like, for example, where you wanna live.

01:25:11.920 | Like, I don't know, we don't know

01:25:12.880 | where we wanna live, for example.

01:25:14.000 | That's something that will figure itself out.

01:25:17.200 | It will crystallize where, you know,

01:25:18.720 | you will get sent by the waves to somewhere

01:25:22.000 | where you wanna live, for example.

01:25:22.880 | What are you gonna do?

01:25:23.520 | I think that's a really good way to live your life.

01:25:25.680 | I think most stress comes from trying to control,

01:25:28.400 | like, hold things, like, it's kind of Buddhist, you know?

01:25:32.320 | You need to, like, lose control, let it loose,

01:25:35.200 | and then things will happen.

01:25:36.400 | Like, when you do mushrooms, when you do drugs,

01:25:38.000 | like psychedelic drugs, the people that start,

01:25:40.720 | that are, like, control freaks, get bad trips.

01:25:42.800 | Right?

01:25:43.280 | 'Cause you need to let go.

01:25:44.480 | Like, I'm a pretty control freak, actually.

01:25:46.160 | And when I did mushrooms, when I was 17,

01:25:49.120 | I was very good, and then at the end,

01:25:51.280 | it wasn't so good 'cause I tried to control.

01:25:52.640 | I was like, ah, now it's going too much, you know?

01:25:54.240 | Now I need to, let's stop.

01:25:55.280 | Bro, you can't stop it.

01:25:56.880 | You need to go through with it, you know?

01:25:58.800 | And so I think it's a good metaphor for life.

01:26:01.840 | I think that's, you know, a very tranquil way

01:26:04.400 | to lead your life.

01:26:05.360 | - Yeah, actually, when I took ayahuasca,

01:26:09.280 | that lesson is deeply within me already

01:26:12.960 | that you can't control anything.

01:26:14.000 | - Yes.

01:26:14.480 | - I think I probably learned that the most in jiu-jitsu.

01:26:17.840 | So just let go and relax.

01:26:20.000 | - Yeah.

01:26:20.480 | - And that's why I had just an incredible experience.

01:26:22.320 | There's, like, literally no negative aspect

01:26:24.240 | of my ayahuasca experience

01:26:25.920 | or any psychedelics I've ever had.

01:26:27.360 | Some of that could be with my biology,

01:26:29.520 | my genetics, whatever,

01:26:30.560 | but some of it was just not trying to control.

01:26:32.960 | - Yeah.

01:26:33.600 | - Just sort of the way.

01:26:34.400 | - For sure.

01:26:35.040 | I think most stress in life comes from trying to control.

01:26:37.680 | - So once you have the idea, step two, build.

01:26:41.360 | How do you think about building the thing

01:26:43.360 | once you have the idea?

01:26:44.480 | - I think you should build with the technology that you know.

01:26:46.960 | So for example, Nomad List,

01:26:49.920 | which is, like, this website I made

01:26:51.280 | to figure out the best cities to live and work

01:26:53.680 | as digital nomads.

01:26:54.560 | It wasn't a website.

01:26:56.400 | It launched as a Google spreadsheet.

01:26:58.560 | So it was a public Google spreadsheet

01:27:00.560 | anybody could edit.

01:27:01.920 | And I was like, I'm collecting, like, cities

01:27:03.440 | where we can live as digital nomads

01:27:04.880 | with the internet speeds, the cost of living,

01:27:07.280 | you know, other stuff.

01:27:09.200 | And I tweeted it and I would,

01:27:11.120 | and back then I didn't have a lot of followers.

01:27:12.400 | I had, like, a few thousand followers or something.

01:27:14.800 | And it went, like, viral for my skill viral back then,

01:27:17.360 | you know, which was, like, five retweets.

01:27:18.720 | And a lot of people started editing it

01:27:21.440 | and there was, like, hundreds of cities in this list,

01:27:23.120 | like, from all over the world with all the data.

01:27:25.200 | It was very crowdsourced.

01:27:26.160 | And then I made that into a website.

01:27:28.560 | So figuring out, like, what technology you can use

01:27:32.000 | that you already know.

01:27:32.960 | So if you cannot code,

01:27:33.760 | you can use a spreadsheet.

01:27:34.720 | If you cannot use a spreadsheet,

01:27:37.360 | like, whatever, you can always use,

01:27:39.760 | for example, a website generator,

01:27:41.120 | like Wix or something, or Squarespace, right?

01:27:43.200 | Like, you don't need to code to build a startup.

01:27:45.600 | All you need is a idea for a product,

01:27:48.000 | build something like a landing page or something,

01:27:50.720 | put a Stripe button on there and then make it.

01:27:54.160 | And if you can't code,

01:27:55.840 | use the language that you already know

01:27:58.080 | and start coding with that and see how far you can get.

01:27:59.920 | You can always rewrite the code later.

01:28:02.240 | Like, the tech stack, it's not actually,

01:28:04.240 | it's not the most important of a business

01:28:05.920 | when you're starting out a business.

01:28:06.880 | The important thing is that you validate

01:28:08.560 | that there's a market,

01:28:09.280 | that there's a product that people want to pay for.

01:28:11.040 | So use whatever you can use.

01:28:13.840 | And if you cannot code, use, you know,

01:28:16.880 | spreadsheets, landing page generators, whatever.

01:28:19.440 | - Yeah, and the crowdsourcing element is fascinating.

01:28:21.840 | It's cool.

01:28:24.560 | It's cool when a lot of people start using it,

01:28:26.080 | you get to learn so fast.

01:28:27.920 | - Yeah.

01:28:29.280 | - Like I've actually did the spreadsheet thing.

01:28:32.800 | You share a spreadsheet publicly and I made it editable.

01:28:37.040 | - Yeah.

01:28:37.600 | - It's so cool.

01:28:38.400 | - Interesting things start happening.

01:28:39.520 | - Yeah.

01:28:40.320 | I did it for like a workout thing

01:28:41.920 | 'cause I was doing a large amount of pushups and pull-ups.

01:28:44.240 | - Yeah, I remember this, man, yeah.

01:28:45.360 | - And like, and well, also Google Sheets is pretty limited

01:28:50.080 | in that everything's allowed.

01:28:51.840 | So people could just write anything in any cell

01:28:54.160 | and they can create new sheets, new tabs.

01:28:58.000 | And it just exploded.

01:28:59.600 | And one of the things that I really enjoyed

01:29:02.960 | is there's very few trolls

01:29:04.480 | because actually other people would delete the trolls.

01:29:10.320 | There would be like this weird war.

01:29:11.840 | - Army.

01:29:11.840 | - Of like, they want like to protect the thing.

01:29:15.680 | It's an immune system that's inherent to the thing.

01:29:17.840 | - It becomes a society, you know, in a spreadsheet.

01:29:19.920 | - And then there's the outcasts who go to the bottom

01:29:22.160 | of the spreadsheet and they would try to hide messages.

01:29:24.800 | And they like, I don't wanna be with the cool kids

01:29:26.720 | up at the top of the spreadsheets.

01:29:27.920 | - Self-organizing.

01:29:29.440 | - Yeah, it's fast.

01:29:30.720 | I mean, but that kind of crowdsourcing element

01:29:33.440 | is really powerful.

01:29:34.720 | And if you can create a product that use that

01:29:37.920 | to its benefit, that's really nice.

01:29:41.360 | Like any kind of voting system, any kind of rating system

01:29:43.600 | for A and B testing is really, really, really fascinating.

01:29:46.560 | So anyway, so Nomad List is great.

01:29:48.640 | I would love for you to talk about that.

01:29:50.480 | But one sort of way to talk about it is

01:29:55.520 | through you building Hood Maps.

01:29:58.240 | - Yeah.

01:29:58.800 | - So you've, you did an awesome thing,

01:30:00.480 | which is document yourself building the thing

01:30:04.080 | and doing so in just a handful of days,

01:30:06.800 | like three, four, five days.

01:30:07.920 | So people should definitely check out the video

01:30:10.560 | in the blog post.

01:30:11.600 | Can you explain what Hood Maps is

01:30:14.480 | and what this whole like, this process was?

01:30:16.880 | - So I was traveling and I was still trying to find

01:30:18.720 | like problems, right?

01:30:20.000 | And I would go, I would discover that like

01:30:22.320 | everybody's experience of a city is different

01:30:23.920 | because they stay in different areas.

01:30:25.200 | - Yeah.

01:30:25.600 | - So I'm from Amsterdam and when I grew up in Amsterdam,

01:30:29.280 | or I didn't grow up, but I lived there in university,

01:30:31.360 | I knew that center is like, in Europe,

01:30:33.760 | the centers are always tourist areas.

01:30:35.600 | So they're super busy.

01:30:36.960 | They're not very authentic.

01:30:38.800 | The culture, they're not really Dutch culture.

01:30:40.400 | It's Amsterdam tourist culture, you know?

01:30:42.560 | So when people would travel to Amsterdam,

01:30:44.080 | I would say, don't go to the center,

01:30:45.360 | go to, you know, southeast of the center,

01:30:48.800 | the Jordaan or the Pijp or something,

01:30:50.800 | more hipster areas,

01:30:51.680 | like a little bit more authentic culture of Amsterdam.

01:30:54.720 | That's where I would live, you know,

01:30:55.840 | and where I would go.

01:30:56.640 | And I thought this could be like an app

01:30:59.600 | where you can have like a Google maps

01:31:01.520 | and you put colors over it.

01:31:02.800 | You have like areas that are like color coded,

01:31:04.720 | like red is tourist, green is rich,

01:31:06.720 | you know, green money, yellow is hipster.

01:31:09.440 | And you can figure out where you need to go

01:31:10.560 | in a city when you travel.

01:31:11.360 | 'Cause I was traveling a lot,

01:31:12.160 | I wanted to go to the cool spots.

01:31:13.280 | - So just use color.

01:31:14.800 | - Yeah, color, yeah, yeah.

01:31:16.480 | And I would use a canvas.

01:31:17.440 | So I thought, okay, what do I need?

01:31:18.880 | I need to--

01:31:19.280 | - Did you know that you would be using a canvas?

01:31:21.600 | - No, I didn't know it was possible

01:31:23.360 | 'cause I didn't know--

01:31:24.000 | - So I mean, this is the cool thing.

01:31:25.840 | People should really check it out.

01:31:26.880 | - 'Cause this is how it started.

01:31:27.680 | - Because like you're honestly capture

01:31:30.240 | so beautifully the humbling aspects,

01:31:33.680 | the embarrassing aspects of like not knowing what to do.

01:31:36.480 | It's like, how do I do this?

01:31:38.480 | And you like document yourself.

01:31:40.560 | Yeah, you're right.

01:31:41.760 | Dude, I feel embarrassed about myself.

01:31:43.600 | - Oh, really, yeah.

01:31:45.360 | - It's called being alive, nice.

01:31:47.600 | So you're like, you don't know anything about,

01:31:49.920 | so canvas is a way, HTML5 thing

01:31:56.240 | that allows you to draw shapes.

01:31:58.160 | - Yeah, draw images, just draw pixels essentially.

01:32:00.080 | And that was special back then

01:32:02.480 | because before you could only have like elements, right?

01:32:04.480 | So you wanna draw a pixel, use a canvas.

01:32:06.640 | And I knew I needed to draw pixels

01:32:08.640 | 'cause I need to draw these colors.

01:32:09.840 | And I felt like, okay, I'll get like a Google Maps,

01:32:12.800 | iframe embeds, and then I'll put a div on top of it

01:32:16.400 | with the colors and I'll do like opacity 50,

01:32:19.600 | so it kind of shows.

01:32:20.640 | So I did that with canvas and then I started drawing.

01:32:24.240 | And then I felt like,

01:32:26.560 | obviously other people need to edit this

01:32:28.000 | 'cause I cannot draw all these things myself.

01:32:29.760 | So I crowdsourced it again and you would draw on the map

01:32:33.840 | and then it would send the pixel data to the server,

01:32:35.840 | it would put it in a database.

01:32:36.960 | And then I would have a robot running like a cron job,

01:32:39.760 | which every week would calculate

01:32:41.520 | or every day would calculate like,

01:32:42.960 | okay, so Amsterdam center,

01:32:44.240 | there's like six people say it's tourists,

01:32:47.360 | this part of the center,

01:32:48.720 | but two people say it's like hipster.

01:32:50.960 | Okay, so the tourist part wins, right?

01:32:52.560 | It's just an array.

01:32:53.680 | So find the most common value

01:32:55.120 | in a little pixel area on a map.

01:32:57.440 | So most people say it's tourist, it's tourist

01:33:00.720 | and it becomes red.

01:33:01.440 | And I would do that for all the GPS corners in the world.

01:33:05.040 | - Can you just clarify,

01:33:06.640 | do you have to be as a human that's contributing to this,

01:33:09.840 | do you have to be in that location to make the label?

01:33:11.920 | - No, people just type in cities and go like,

01:33:14.720 | go berserk and start drawing everywhere.

01:33:16.400 | - Would they draw shapes or would they draw pixels?

01:33:18.320 | - Man, they drew like crazy stuff,

01:33:19.600 | like offensive symbols, I can't mention,

01:33:21.520 | they would draw penises.

01:33:23.200 | - I mean, that's obviously a guy thing.

01:33:25.760 | - I would do the same thing, draw penises.

01:33:27.200 | - That's the first thing,

01:33:28.240 | when I show up to Mars and there's no cameras,

01:33:30.400 | I'm drawing a penis on the sand.

01:33:31.680 | - Man, I did it in the snow, you know,

01:33:33.120 | but the penises did not become a problem

01:33:35.040 | 'cause I knew that not everybody would draw a penis

01:33:36.800 | and not in the same place.

01:33:37.760 | So most people would use it fairly.

01:33:40.240 | So just if I had enough crowdsourced data,

01:33:42.240 | so you have all these pixels on top of it,

01:33:44.480 | it's like a layer of pixels

01:33:45.920 | and then you choose the most common pixel.

01:33:47.520 | So yeah, it's just like a poll, but in visual format.

01:33:51.360 | And it worked and within a week, I had enough data.

01:33:54.480 | And it was like cities that did really well,

01:33:57.280 | like Los Angeles, a lot of people started using it.

01:33:59.840 | Like most data's in Los Angeles.

01:34:01.920 | - Because Los Angeles has defined neighborhoods.

01:34:05.680 | - Yeah, I understand.

01:34:06.480 | - And not just in terms of the official labels,

01:34:09.760 | but like what they're known for.

01:34:11.680 | - Yeah.

01:34:12.160 | - What are the, did you provide the categories

01:34:16.320 | that they were allowed to use as labels?

01:34:18.160 | - The colors, yeah.

01:34:19.440 | - As colors?

01:34:20.320 | - So it's just like, I think you can see there,

01:34:21.840 | there's like hipster, tourist, rich, business.

01:34:25.360 | So there's always a business area, right?

01:34:26.480 | And then there's a residential.

01:34:27.760 | Like residential's gray.

01:34:28.800 | So I thought those were the most common things

01:34:30.960 | in the city kind of.

01:34:31.760 | - And a little bit meme-y,

01:34:33.120 | like it's almost fun to label it.

01:34:34.800 | - Yeah, I mean, obviously it's simplified,

01:34:37.200 | but you need to simplify this stuff.

01:34:38.480 | You know, you don't wanna have too many categories.

01:34:40.320 | And it's essentially just like using a paintbrush

01:34:43.680 | where you select a color in the bottom,

01:34:45.200 | you select a category and you start drawing.

01:34:46.960 | There's no instruction, there's no manual.

01:34:49.120 | And then I also added tagging

01:34:51.440 | so people could like write something on a specific location.

01:34:55.200 | So don't go here or like, here's like nice cafes and stuff.

01:35:00.480 | And man, the memes that came from that.

01:35:02.160 | And I also added uploading so that the tags could be uploaded.

01:35:05.840 | So the memes that came from that is like amazing.

01:35:07.680 | Like people in Los Angeles would write crazy stuff.

01:35:10.240 | It would go viral in all these cities.

01:35:12.400 | You can allow, allow your location.

01:35:15.120 | And it will probably send you to Austin.

01:35:16.640 | - Okay, so we're looking, oh boy, drunk hipsters.

01:35:23.760 | - Air bro and bros.

01:35:29.680 | - Air bro and bros, hipster girls who do cocaine.

01:35:33.360 | - I saw a guy in a fish costume get beaten up here.

01:35:36.000 | - Yep, that seems also accurate.

01:35:38.240 | - Overpriced and underwhelming.

01:35:40.560 | (laughing)

01:35:43.360 | - Let me see, let me make sure this is accurate.

01:35:46.000 | Let's see.

01:35:46.480 | Dirty 6th, for people who know Austin

01:35:52.640 | know that that's important to label.

01:35:54.800 | 6th Street is famous in Austin.

01:35:56.800 | Dirty 6th drunk frat boys, accurate.

01:35:59.680 | Drunk frat bros continued on 6th, very well.

01:36:02.960 | - Drunk douche bros.

01:36:03.840 | - West 6th drunk douche bros.

01:36:06.000 | - They go from frat to douche.

01:36:07.200 | - Douche, I mean, it's very accurate.

01:36:09.280 | So far, they only let hot people live here.

01:36:13.760 | That's, I think that might be accurate.

01:36:17.600 | - It's like the district.

01:36:19.680 | - Exercise freaks on the river.

01:36:22.800 | Yeah, that's true.

01:36:23.520 | - Dog runners, accurate.

01:36:25.040 | I saw a guy in a fish costume get beat up here.

01:36:28.080 | - I wanna know this story.

01:36:29.120 | - So that's all user contributed.

01:36:32.160 | - Yeah, and that's like stuff I couldn't come up with

01:36:34.000 | 'cause I don't know Austin.

01:36:34.880 | I don't know the memes here, the subcultures.

01:36:37.280 | - And then me as a user can upvote or downvote this.

01:36:39.920 | - Yes.

01:36:40.560 | - So this is completely crowdsourced.

01:36:42.080 | - 'Cause of Reddit, you know, upvote, downvote.

01:36:43.840 | Took it from there.

01:36:44.480 | - And that's really, really, really powerful.

01:36:47.200 | Single people with dogs, accurate.

01:36:49.760 | At which point did it go from colors

01:36:51.200 | to the actually showing the text?

01:36:52.720 | - I think I added the text like a week after.

01:36:56.160 | And so here's like the pixels.

01:36:58.960 | - So that's really cool, the pixels.

01:37:00.640 | How do you go from there?

01:37:01.280 | That's a huge amount of data.

01:37:02.480 | So there's, we're now looking at an image

01:37:05.040 | where it's just a sea of pixels

01:37:08.400 | that call it different colors in a city.

01:37:10.640 | So how do you combine that to be a thing

01:37:12.480 | that actually makes some sense?

01:37:13.760 | - I think here the problem was that you have this data,

01:37:15.920 | but it's like, it's not locked to one location.

01:37:19.600 | - Yeah.

01:37:20.000 | - So I had to normalize it.

01:37:21.120 | So when you click, when you draw on the map,

01:37:23.200 | it will show you the specific pixel location

01:37:25.600 | and you can convert the pixel location

01:37:26.800 | to a GPS coordinate, right?

01:37:28.000 | Like latitude, longitude.

01:37:29.040 | But the number will have a lot of commas

01:37:31.040 | or a lot of decimals, right?

01:37:32.000 | 'Cause it's very specific.

01:37:32.960 | Like it's like this specific part of the table.

01:37:35.040 | So what you want to do is you want to take that pixel

01:37:37.200 | and you want to normalize it by removing like decimals,

01:37:39.600 | which I discovered.

01:37:41.760 | So that you're talking about this neighborhood

01:37:43.600 | or this street, right?

01:37:44.880 | And so that's what I did.

01:37:45.600 | I just took the decimals off

01:37:46.960 | and then I saved it like this.

01:37:48.480 | And then it starts going through like a grid

01:37:51.520 | and then you have like a grid of data.

01:37:54.400 | You get like a pixel map kind of.

01:37:55.920 | - And you said it looks kind of ugly.

01:37:58.080 | So then you smooth it.

01:37:59.280 | - Yeah, I started adding blurring and stuff.

01:38:01.920 | I think now it's not smooth again

01:38:04.000 | 'cause I liked it better.

01:38:05.120 | People like the pixel look kind of.

01:38:06.640 | Yeah, a lot of people use it and it keeps going viral.

01:38:09.360 | And every time my maps bill, like Mapbox,

01:38:13.200 | I had to stop using, I first used Google Maps.

01:38:15.120 | It went viral.

01:38:16.240 | And Google Maps, it was out of credits.

01:38:18.080 | So I, and I had to, it's so funny.

01:38:21.040 | During when I launched it, it went viral.

01:38:22.960 | Google Maps, the map didn't load anymore.

01:38:26.080 | It says over the limits.

01:38:27.360 | You need to contact Enterprise Sales.

01:38:29.040 | And I'm like, but I need now like a map.

01:38:32.240 | So, and I don't want to contact Enterprise Sales.

01:38:34.000 | I don't want to go on a call schedule with some calendar.

01:38:36.640 | So I switched to Mapbox and then had Mapbox for years.

01:38:39.760 | And then it went viral.

01:38:41.440 | And I had a bill of $20,000 was like last year.

01:38:44.240 | So they helped me with the bill.

01:38:46.400 | They said, you know, you can pay less.

01:38:48.320 | And then I now switch to like an open source

01:38:50.800 | kind of map platform.

01:38:52.640 | So it's a very expensive product

01:38:54.320 | and never made any dollar money, but it's very fun.

01:38:56.880 | But it's very expensive.

01:38:57.760 | - Where do you learn from that?

01:38:59.760 | So like from that experience,

01:39:02.480 | 'cause when you leverage somebody else's

01:39:04.800 | sort of through the API.

01:39:05.920 | - Yeah.

01:39:06.800 | I mean, I don't think a map hosting service

01:39:09.680 | should cost this much, you know,

01:39:11.200 | but I could host it myself,

01:39:13.680 | but that would be, I don't know how to do that,

01:39:15.600 | you know, but I could do that.

01:39:16.720 | - Yeah, it's super complicated.

01:39:18.480 | - I think that the thing is more about like,

01:39:20.480 | you can't make money with this project.

01:39:22.320 | I tried to do many things to make money with it.

01:39:24.320 | And it's, it hasn't worked.

01:39:26.080 | - You talked about like possibly doing advertisements

01:39:28.960 | on it or somehow, or people sponsoring it, yeah.

01:39:32.560 | But it's really surprising to me

01:39:33.760 | that people don't want to advertise on it.

01:39:36.720 | - I think map apps are very hard to like monetize.

01:39:39.440 | Like Google Maps also doesn't really make money.

01:39:40.960 | Like sometimes you see these ads,

01:39:42.160 | but I don't think there's a lot of money there.

01:39:44.000 | You could put like a banner ad, but it's kind of ugly.

01:39:47.760 | And the product is kind of like, it's kind of cool.

01:39:49.680 | So it's kind of fun to like subsidize it.

01:39:51.920 | And it's kind of a little bit part of Nomad List.

01:39:54.000 | Like I put it on Nomad List in the cities as well.

01:39:57.440 | But I also realized like,

01:39:58.640 | you don't need to monetize everything.

01:39:59.920 | Like some products are just cool.

01:40:01.840 | And you know, it's like, it's cool to have hood maps exist.

01:40:06.080 | I want this to exist, right?

01:40:08.240 | - Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff you've created

01:40:09.920 | that I'm just glad exists in this world.

01:40:11.600 | That's true.

01:40:12.560 | And it's a whole nother puzzle.

01:40:13.920 | And I'm surprised to figure out how to make money off of it.

01:40:17.600 | I'm surprised maps don't make money, but you're right.

01:40:20.320 | It's hard.

01:40:21.200 | It's hard to make money.

01:40:22.480 | 'Cause there's a lot of compute required

01:40:24.480 | to actually bring it to life.

01:40:25.840 | And also where do you put the ads, right?

01:40:27.360 | Like if you have a website, you can put like an ad box

01:40:30.320 | or you can do like a product placement or something.

01:40:32.400 | But you're talking about a map app

01:40:33.760 | that where 90% of the interface is a map.

01:40:35.840 | So what are you going to do?

01:40:37.200 | You're going to like, like it's hard to figure out

01:40:39.360 | where is this.

01:40:40.000 | - Yeah.

01:40:40.880 | And people don't want to pay for it.

01:40:42.080 | - No, exactly.

01:40:43.280 | Because if you make people pay for it,

01:40:45.040 | you lose 99% of the user base

01:40:46.960 | and you lose the crowdsource data.

01:40:48.480 | So it's not fun anymore.

01:40:49.360 | It stops being accurate, right?

01:40:51.120 | So you kind of, they pay for it by crowdsourcing the data.

01:40:55.440 | But then, yeah, it's fine.

01:40:57.040 | You know, it doesn't make money, but it's cool.

01:40:58.880 | - But that said, Nomad List makes money.

01:41:02.240 | - Yeah.

01:41:02.640 | - So what was the story behind Nomad List?

01:41:04.880 | - So Nomad List started because I was in Chiang Mai in Thailand,

01:41:08.800 | which is now like the second city here.

01:41:10.320 | And I was, you know, working on my laptop.

01:41:14.240 | I met like other nomads there.

01:41:16.880 | And I was like, okay, this seems like a cool thing to do.

01:41:18.800 | Like working on your laptop in a different country,

01:41:21.360 | kind of travel around.

01:41:22.240 | But back then the internet everywhere was very slow.

01:41:25.440 | So the internet was fast in, for example,

01:41:26.960 | Holland or United States.

01:41:28.240 | But in a lot of parts in, you know,

01:41:30.640 | South America or Asia was very slow, like 0.5 megabits.

01:41:33.840 | So you couldn't watch a YouTube video.

01:41:35.520 | Thailand weirdly had like quite fast internet.

01:41:38.960 | But I wanted to find like other cities where I could go

01:41:42.800 | to like work on my laptop or whatever and travel.

01:41:46.160 | But we needed like fast internet.

01:41:48.080 | So I was like, let's, you know,

01:41:50.320 | crowdsource this information with a spreadsheet.

01:41:52.880 | And I also needed to know the cost of living

01:41:54.160 | 'cause I didn't have a lot of money.

01:41:54.960 | I had $500 a month.

01:41:56.000 | So I had to find a place where like the rent was like,

01:41:58.480 | you know, $200 per month or something

01:41:59.760 | where I had, you know, some money

01:42:01.040 | that I could actually rent something.

01:42:02.960 | And there was NomadList and it still runs.

01:42:07.600 | I think it's now almost 10 years.

01:42:09.040 | - So just to describe how it works,

01:42:10.640 | like I'm looking at Chiang Mai here.

01:42:13.120 | There's a total score, it's ranked number two.

01:42:15.680 | - Yeah, that's like a nomad score.

01:42:17.040 | - 4.82, like by members.

01:42:19.840 | But it's looking at the internet.

01:42:23.040 | In this case, it's fast, fun, temperature,

01:42:26.400 | humidity, air quality, safety, food safety,

01:42:30.080 | crime, racism, or lack of crime, lack of racism,

01:42:35.760 | educational level, power grid, vulnerability

01:42:38.480 | to climate change, income level.

01:42:40.000 | - It's a little much, you know.

01:42:41.040 | - English speaking, it's awesome.

01:42:42.480 | It's awesome, walkability.

01:42:44.240 | - Yeah, keep adding stuff.

01:42:45.040 | - 'Cause for certain groups of people,

01:42:46.240 | certain things really matter.

01:42:47.200 | And this is really cool.

01:42:48.080 | Happiness, I'd love to ask about that.

01:42:50.800 | Nightlife, free Wi-Fi, AC, female friendly,

01:42:56.960 | freedom of speech.

01:42:57.840 | - Yeah, not so good in Thailand, you know.

01:42:59.760 | - Values derived from national statistics, right?

01:43:02.240 | - Yeah, I like how that one has--

01:43:04.480 | - I need to do that because the data sets

01:43:06.000 | are usually national, they're not on city level, right?

01:43:07.920 | So I don't know about the freedom of speech

01:43:09.200 | between Bangkok or Chiang Mai.

01:43:10.640 | I know it in Thailand.

01:43:11.680 | - I mean, this is really fascinating.

01:43:13.520 | So this is for city.

01:43:14.640 | - Yeah.

01:43:15.200 | - It's basically rating all the different things

01:43:17.280 | that matter to you, and internet.

01:43:18.800 | And this is all crowdsourced.

01:43:20.640 | - Well, so it started crowdsourced,

01:43:22.640 | but then I realized that you can download

01:43:27.280 | more accurate data sets from public source,

01:43:30.560 | like World Bank.

01:43:31.360 | They have a lot of public data sets, United Nations.

01:43:33.760 | And you can download a lot of data there,

01:43:36.160 | which you can freely use.

01:43:37.520 | I started getting problems with crowdsourced data,

01:43:39.840 | where, for example, people from India,

01:43:41.840 | they really love India.

01:43:43.440 | And they would submit the best scores

01:43:46.160 | for everything in India.

01:43:47.600 | And not just one person, but a lot of people,

01:43:50.000 | they would love to pump India.

01:43:51.760 | And I'm like, I love India too,

01:43:53.280 | but that's not valid data.

01:43:55.680 | So you started getting discrepancies in the data

01:43:57.280 | between where people were from and stuff.

01:43:59.520 | So I started switching to data sets.

01:44:02.320 | And now it's mostly data sets,

01:44:04.480 | but one thing that's still crowdsourced

01:44:05.840 | is so people add where they are,

01:44:07.920 | they add their travels to their profile.

01:44:10.320 | And I use that data to see which places are upcoming

01:44:13.280 | and which places are popular now.

01:44:15.200 | So about half of the ranking you see here

01:44:17.360 | is based on actual digital nomads who are there.

01:44:20.000 | You can click on a city, you can click on people,

01:44:21.760 | you can see the people, the users that are actually there.

01:44:23.840 | And it's like 30,000 or 40,000 members.

01:44:27.200 | So these people are in Austin now.

01:44:28.720 | - 1,800 remote workers in Austin now,

01:44:31.280 | of which eight plus members checked in.

01:44:33.360 | Members who will be here soon and go.

01:44:36.640 | - Yeah, so we have meetups.

01:44:37.680 | So people organize their own meetups.

01:44:39.680 | And we have about, I think like 30 per month.

01:44:42.720 | So it's like one meetup a day.

01:44:44.640 | And I don't do anything, they organize themselves.

01:44:46.640 | So I just, it's a whole black box.

01:44:49.600 | It just runs and I don't do a lot on it.

01:44:52.160 | It pulls data from everywhere and it just works.

01:44:54.240 | - Cons of Austin, it's too expensive,

01:44:57.920 | very sweaty and humid, now difficult to make friends.

01:45:00.000 | - Difficult to make friends, interesting, right?

01:45:01.280 | I didn't know that.

01:45:01.840 | - Difficult to make friends.

01:45:03.200 | - In Austin.

01:45:03.760 | - I mean, but it's all crowdsourced,

01:45:05.760 | but mostly it's pros.

01:45:06.960 | - Yeah, Austin's very--

01:45:08.240 | - Pretty safe, fast internet.

01:45:09.520 | - I don't understand why it says not safe for women

01:45:11.280 | to check the data set.

01:45:13.200 | It's still safe.

01:45:14.000 | The problem with a lot of places like United States

01:45:16.560 | is that it depends per area, right?

01:45:18.480 | So if you get like city level data or nation level data,

01:45:21.200 | it's like Brazil is the worst

01:45:23.280 | because the range in like safe and wealthy

01:45:26.960 | and not safe is like huge.

01:45:28.640 | So you can't say many things about Brazil.

01:45:30.880 | - So once you actually show up to the city,

01:45:32.880 | how do you figure out what area,

01:45:35.760 | like where to get fast internet?

01:45:37.200 | For example, like for me, it's consistently a struggle

01:45:40.080 | to figure out my hotels with fast wifi, for example,

01:45:44.320 | like a place, okay, okay.

01:45:45.840 | I show up to a city, there's a lot of fascinating puzzles

01:45:49.360 | and I haven't figured out a way

01:45:50.400 | to actually solve this puzzle.

01:45:51.520 | When I show up to a city,

01:45:53.280 | figuring out where I can get fast internet connection

01:45:57.200 | and for podcasting purposes,

01:46:01.200 | where I can find a place with a table that's quiet.

01:46:03.920 | - Right.

01:46:04.640 | - That's not easy.

01:46:05.760 | - Construction sounds?

01:46:06.720 | - All kinds of sounds.

01:46:08.480 | You have to learn about all the sources of sounds

01:46:10.480 | in the world and also like the quality of the room

01:46:14.000 | because the more, the emptier the room

01:46:18.320 | and like if it's just walls without any curtains

01:46:21.120 | or any of this kind of stuff,

01:46:22.080 | then there's echoes in the room anyway.

01:46:25.440 | But you figure out that a lot of hotels don't have tables.

01:46:28.720 | They don't have like normal--

01:46:29.680 | - And this weird desk, right?

01:46:30.720 | - Yeah, they have a desk.

01:46:31.440 | - It's not a center table.

01:46:32.800 | - Yep, and if you wanna get a nicer hotel

01:46:37.040 | where it's more spacious and so on,

01:46:38.720 | they usually have these like boutique,

01:46:40.240 | like fancy looking, like modernist tables that don't--

01:46:44.240 | - Yeah, it's too designy.

01:46:45.120 | - It's too designy.

01:46:46.080 | They're not really real tables.

01:46:47.360 | - What if you get Ikea?

01:46:48.480 | - Buy Ikea.

01:46:50.080 | - Yeah, before you arrive, you order an Ikea.

01:46:52.080 | - Yeah.

01:46:52.240 | - Like Nomads do this, they get desks.

01:46:54.000 | - I feel like you should be able to show up to a place

01:46:56.000 | and have the desk, like it's not,

01:46:57.920 | unless you stay in there for a long time,

01:46:59.440 | just the entire assembly, all that.

01:47:02.480 | Airbnb is so unreliable.

01:47:05.760 | The range in quality that you get is huge.

01:47:09.600 | Hotels have a lot of problems, pros and cons.

01:47:13.520 | Like hotels have the problem that the pictures

01:47:15.680 | somehow never have good representative pictures

01:47:18.000 | of what's actually going to be in the rooms.

01:47:19.360 | - And that's a problem, fake photos, man.

01:47:22.800 | - If I could have the kind of data you have

01:47:25.280 | on Nomad List for hotels.

01:47:26.720 | - Yeah, man.

01:47:27.360 | - And I feel like you can make a lot of money on that too.

01:47:29.760 | - Yeah, the booking fees, I feel it, right?

01:47:31.440 | I thought about this idea,

01:47:32.400 | 'cause we have the same problem.

01:47:33.760 | I go to hotels and there's specific ones

01:47:36.480 | that are very good and I know now the chains and stuff.

01:47:38.880 | But even if you go, some chains are very bad

01:47:42.240 | in a specific city and very good in other cities.

01:47:44.240 | - And each individual hotel has a lot of kinds of rooms.

01:47:47.120 | - Yeah.

01:47:47.920 | - Like some are more expensive, some are cheaper and so on,

01:47:51.360 | but you can get the details of what's in the room,

01:47:55.040 | like what's the actual layout of the room,

01:47:57.040 | what is the view of the room.

01:47:57.760 | - 3D scan it.

01:47:58.480 | - I feel like as a hotel, you can win a lot.

01:48:01.200 | So first you create a service that allows you

01:48:04.640 | to have like high resolution data about a hotel.

01:48:07.200 | Then one hotel signs up for that.

01:48:09.520 | I would 100% use that website to look for a hotel

01:48:12.720 | instead of the crappy alternatives

01:48:15.520 | that don't give any information.

01:48:16.720 | And I feel like there'll be this pressure

01:48:18.560 | for all the hotels to join that site.

01:48:20.480 | And you can make a shit ton of money

01:48:22.480 | 'cause hotels make a lot of money.

01:48:23.840 | - I think it's true.

01:48:24.480 | But the problem is with these hotels,

01:48:25.680 | like it's same with airline industry.

01:48:27.360 | Why does every airline website suck

01:48:29.120 | when you try book a flight?

01:48:30.480 | - Yeah.

01:48:30.720 | - It's like very strange.

01:48:31.440 | Like, why does it have to suck?

01:48:32.480 | Obviously there's competition here.

01:48:33.920 | Why doesn't the best website win?

01:48:35.280 | - What's the explanation for that?

01:48:36.320 | - Man, I thought about this for years.

01:48:37.760 | So I think it's like, I have to book the flight anyway.

01:48:41.120 | Like I know there's a route that they take

01:48:43.040 | and I need to book, for example, Qatar Airlines.

01:48:45.360 | And I need to get through this process.

01:48:47.760 | So, and with hotels similar, you need a hotel anyway.

01:48:52.560 | So do you have time to like figure out the best one?

01:48:55.920 | Not really, you kind of just need to get the place booked

01:48:58.560 | and you need to get the flight.

01:49:00.240 | And you'll go through the pain of this process.

01:49:03.040 | And that's why this process always sucks so much

01:49:04.800 | with hotels and airline websites and stuff

01:49:06.960 | because they don't have an incentive to improve it.

01:49:08.720 | Because generally only for like a super upper segment

01:49:12.480 | of the market, I think like super high luxury,

01:49:14.880 | it affects the actual booking, right?

01:49:16.880 | - I don't know.

01:49:17.840 | I think that's an interesting theory.

01:49:20.000 | I think that must be a different theory.

01:49:21.680 | My theory would be that great engineers,

01:49:25.280 | like great software engineers

01:49:26.400 | are not allowed to make changes.

01:49:27.600 | - Yeah.

01:49:28.240 | - Basically like there's some kind of bureaucracy.

01:49:30.880 | There's way too many managers.

01:49:32.400 | There's a lot of bureaucracy and great engineers show up

01:49:36.320 | to try to work there and they're not allowed

01:49:38.320 | to really make any contributions and then they leave.

01:49:40.480 | And so you have a lot of mediocre software engineers

01:49:43.040 | that are not really interested

01:49:44.000 | in improving any other thing.

01:49:45.360 | And like literally they would like to improve the stuff

01:49:48.000 | but the bureaucracy of the place,

01:49:51.440 | plus all the bosses, all the high up people

01:49:54.320 | are not technical people probably.

01:49:55.840 | - Yeah.

01:49:56.160 | - They don't know much about what web dev,

01:49:58.240 | they don't know much about programming.

01:49:59.920 | So they just don't give any respect.

01:50:02.240 | - Yeah.

01:50:02.800 | - Like you have to give the freedom and the respect

01:50:06.320 | to great engineers as they try to do great things.

01:50:09.520 | That feels like an explanation.

01:50:11.040 | Like if you were a great programmer,

01:50:12.960 | would you wanna work at America Airlines or?

01:50:16.160 | - No, no.

01:50:17.680 | - I'm torn on that 'cause I actually,

01:50:20.960 | as somebody who loves programming,

01:50:23.280 | would love to work at America Airlines

01:50:25.680 | so I can make the thing better.

01:50:27.600 | - Yeah, but I would work there

01:50:29.280 | just to fix it for myself, you know?

01:50:30.560 | - Yeah, for yourself.

01:50:31.840 | And then you just know how much suffering you alleviated.

01:50:35.360 | - Yeah, for the whole society.

01:50:35.920 | - How much frustration.

01:50:37.520 | Just imagine all the thousands,

01:50:39.840 | maybe millions of people that go to that website

01:50:42.400 | and have to click like a million times.

01:50:44.800 | It often doesn't work.

01:50:45.920 | It's clunky, all that kind of stuff.

01:50:47.360 | You're making their life just so much better.

01:50:50.640 | Yeah, but there must be an explanation

01:50:52.640 | that has to do with managers and bureaucracies.

01:50:54.320 | - I think it's money.

01:50:55.920 | Do you know booking.com?

01:50:57.120 | - Sure.

01:50:58.080 | - It's the biggest booking website in the world.

01:51:00.480 | It's Dutch, actually.

01:51:01.840 | And they have teams 'cause my friend worked there.

01:51:04.240 | They have teams for a specific part of the website,

01:51:06.640 | like a 10 by 10 pixels area

01:51:09.040 | where they run tests on this.

01:51:11.120 | So they run tests and they're famous for this stuff.

01:51:13.120 | Like, oh, there's only one room left, right?

01:51:14.720 | With this red letter.

01:51:15.600 | It's like one room left, book now.

01:51:17.280 | And they got a fine from the European Union about this.

01:51:20.160 | So they have all these teams

01:51:22.160 | and they run the test for 24 hours.

01:51:23.520 | They go to sleep, they wake up next day,

01:51:24.800 | they come to the office and they see,

01:51:25.840 | okay, this performed better.

01:51:27.680 | This website has become a monster,

01:51:29.440 | but it's the most revenue-generating

01:51:31.920 | hotel booking website in the world.

01:51:33.200 | It's number one.

01:51:33.760 | So that shows that it's not about user experience.

01:51:37.600 | It's about, I don't know, about making more money.

01:51:40.880 | And not every company, but if they're optimizing,

01:51:44.880 | it's a public company, if they're optimizing for money.

01:51:46.640 | - But you can optimize for money by disrupting,

01:51:49.040 | like making it way better.

01:51:50.160 | - Yeah, but it's always startups.

01:51:51.440 | They start with disrupting,

01:51:52.560 | like booking all started as a startup in 1997.

01:51:55.120 | And then they become like the old shit again.

01:51:57.680 | Like Uber now starts to become like a taxi again, right?

01:52:00.640 | It was very good in the beginning.

01:52:01.680 | Now it's kind of like taxis now in many places are better.

01:52:04.400 | They're nicer than Ubers, right?

01:52:05.760 | So it's like the circle.

01:52:07.760 | - I think some of it is also just,

01:52:09.680 | it's hard to have ultra-competent engineers.

01:52:13.840 | Stripe seems like a trivial thing,

01:52:17.200 | but it's hard to pull off.

01:52:19.760 | Why was it so hard for Amazon to have buy with one click?

01:52:23.200 | Which I think is a genius idea.

01:52:24.720 | - Yeah. - Make buying easier.

01:52:26.400 | Make it as frictionless as possible.

01:52:31.200 | Just click a button once and you bought the thing.

01:52:33.760 | - Yeah. - As opposed to most of the web

01:52:36.160 | was a lot of clicking and it often doesn't work.

01:52:38.800 | Like with the airlines.

01:52:39.680 | - Remember the forms would delete,

01:52:40.960 | you could click next, submit,

01:52:42.320 | and it would 404 or something,

01:52:44.080 | or your internet would go down, your modem.

01:52:46.080 | - Yeah. - Yeah, man.

01:52:47.200 | - And I would have an existential crisis.

01:52:49.200 | It's like the frustration would take over my whole body.

01:52:51.760 | - Yes. - And I would just wanted

01:52:52.960 | to quit life for a brief moment there.

01:52:55.120 | - Yeah. - Yeah.

01:52:55.840 | - I'm so happy to form stays in Google Chrome now

01:52:57.840 | when something goes wrong.

01:52:58.800 | But that's, so Google,

01:53:00.960 | somebody at Google improved society with that, right?

01:53:02.960 | - Yeah, and one of the challenges at Google

01:53:06.400 | is to have the freedom to do that.

01:53:07.760 | - They don't anymore.

01:53:08.800 | - There's a bunch of bureaucracy, yeah.

01:53:10.480 | - Yeah, at Google. - There's so many brilliant,

01:53:12.560 | brilliant people there.

01:53:13.840 | But it just moves slowly. - Yeah.

01:53:16.160 | - And I wonder why that is.

01:53:18.000 | Maybe that's the natural way of a company,

01:53:19.680 | but you have people like Elon who rolls in

01:53:22.480 | and just fires most of the folks and always operate,

01:53:25.600 | they push the company to operate as a startup,

01:53:27.600 | even when it's already big.

01:53:28.720 | - Yeah, but I mean, Apple does this.

01:53:30.560 | Like I started in business school,

01:53:31.760 | Apple does competing product teams

01:53:34.080 | that operate as startups.

01:53:35.440 | So it's three to five people.

01:53:36.800 | They make something, they have multiple teams

01:53:38.320 | to make the same thing.

01:53:39.520 | The best team wins.

01:53:40.480 | So you need to, I think you need to emulate

01:53:42.560 | like a free market inside a company

01:53:44.880 | to make it entrepreneurial, you know?

01:53:46.160 | - Yeah. - And you need

01:53:46.880 | entrepreneurial mentality in a company

01:53:49.280 | to come up with new ideas and do it better.

01:53:52.000 | - So one of the things you do really, really well

01:53:54.160 | is learn a new thing.

01:53:56.640 | Like you're trying to, you have an idea,

01:53:58.480 | you try to build it.

01:53:59.600 | And then you learn everything you need to

01:54:01.840 | in order to build it.

01:54:03.200 | You have your current skills,

01:54:04.160 | but you need to learn just a minimal amount of stuff.

01:54:06.560 | So you're a good person to ask like,

01:54:08.160 | how do you learn?

01:54:10.400 | How do you learn quickly and effectively

01:54:13.840 | and just the stuff you need?

01:54:15.200 | You did, just by way of example,

01:54:17.440 | you did a 30 days learning session on 3D.

01:54:20.240 | - Yeah. - Where you documented yourself,

01:54:22.320 | giving yourself only 30 days

01:54:23.680 | to learn everything you can about.

01:54:25.040 | - Yeah, I tried to learn virtual reality

01:54:26.560 | 'cause I was like, this was like same as AI.

01:54:28.320 | It came up suddenly, like 2016, 2017

01:54:31.040 | with I think HTC Vive,

01:54:32.560 | this big VR glasses before Apple Vision Pro.

01:54:35.200 | And so I was like, oh, this is gonna be big.

01:54:36.640 | So I need to learn this.

01:54:37.520 | So I know nothing about 3D.

01:54:39.680 | I installed like, I think Unity

01:54:42.320 | and like Blender and stuff.

01:54:43.920 | And I started learning all this stuff

01:54:45.440 | because I thought this was like a new,

01:54:49.200 | you know, nascent technology that was gonna be big.

01:54:51.120 | And if I had the skills for it,

01:54:52.720 | I could use this to build stuff.

01:54:55.440 | And so I think with learning for me,

01:54:57.040 | it's like, I think learning is so funny

01:54:59.360 | 'cause people always ask me like,

01:55:00.800 | how do you learn to code?

01:55:02.320 | Like, should I learn to code?

01:55:03.280 | And I'm like, I don't know.

01:55:04.800 | Like every day I'm learning, it's kind of cliche,

01:55:06.640 | but every day I'm learning new stuff.

01:55:08.320 | So every day I'm searching on Google

01:55:09.920 | or asking now chat GPT, how to do this thing,

01:55:12.240 | how to do this thing.

01:55:12.880 | Every day I'm getting better at my skill.

01:55:15.040 | So you never stop learning.

01:55:16.240 | So the whole concept of like, how do you learn?

01:55:18.880 | Well, you never end.

01:55:19.520 | So where do you wanna be?

01:55:20.320 | Do you wanna know a little bit?

01:55:22.000 | Do you wanna know a lot?

01:55:22.960 | Do you wanna do it for your whole life?

01:55:24.800 | So I think taking action is the best step to learn.

01:55:27.920 | So making things, like you know nothing,

01:55:31.440 | just start making things.

01:55:32.480 | Okay, so like how to make a website,

01:55:34.480 | search how to make a website.

01:55:35.440 | Or nowadays you ask chat GPT,

01:55:36.880 | how do I make a website?

01:55:37.680 | Where do I start?

01:55:38.560 | It generates codes for you, right?

01:55:39.920 | Copy the code, put it in a file, save it,

01:55:41.600 | open it in Google Chrome or whatever.

01:55:43.440 | You have a website.

01:55:44.560 | And then you start tweaking with it.

01:55:46.160 | And you start, okay, how do I add a button?

01:55:47.760 | How do I add AI features, right?

01:55:50.240 | Like nowadays.

01:55:50.880 | So it's like by taking action,

01:55:52.640 | you can learn stuff much faster than reading books

01:55:55.840 | or actually tutorials.

01:55:56.920 | - Actually I'm always curious.

01:55:58.560 | Let me ask perplexity.

01:56:00.080 | How do I make a website?

01:56:01.600 | I'm just curious what he would say.

01:56:04.000 | I hope it goes with like really basic vanilla solutions.

01:56:09.120 | Define your website's purpose.

01:56:11.040 | Choose a domain name.

01:56:12.080 | Select a web hosting provider.

01:56:13.920 | Choose a website, a builder, a CMS.

01:56:16.400 | Website, builder, platform, Wix.

01:56:17.680 | - It tells like Wix or Squarespace is what I said.

01:56:20.000 | - Yeah. - The landing page.

01:56:21.120 | - What do I, how do I say if I wanna program it myself?

01:56:27.200 | Design your website, create essential pages.

01:56:29.200 | - Yeah, even tells you to launch it, right?

01:56:30.960 | Like start promoting it. - Launch your website.

01:56:32.560 | Cool, well, I mean, you could do that.

01:56:33.680 | - Yeah, but this is literally it.

01:56:35.040 | Like it's, this is- - If you wanna make a website.

01:56:36.560 | - This is the basis, like Google Analytics.

01:56:38.080 | - But you can't make nomad lists with this way.

01:56:40.000 | - You can. - With Wix, like with-

01:56:42.000 | - Ah, no, you can get pretty far, I think.

01:56:44.480 | - You can get pretty far. - These website builders

01:56:46.080 | are pretty advanced.

01:56:46.880 | Like all you need is a grid of images, right?

01:56:48.800 | - Yeah. - That are clickable,

01:56:50.000 | that open like another page. - Yeah.

01:56:51.840 | - You can get quite far.

01:56:52.720 | - How do I learn to program?

01:56:56.000 | Choose a programming language to start with.

01:57:02.560 | - Your free CodeCamp is good.

01:57:04.640 | - Work through a resource systematically.

01:57:09.600 | Practice calling regularly for 30, 60 minutes a day.

01:57:13.520 | Consistency is key.

01:57:14.560 | Join programming communities like Reddits.

01:57:16.320 | Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good.

01:57:19.440 | - Yeah. - It's pretty good.

01:57:20.880 | - So I think it's a very good starting ground

01:57:23.040 | 'cause imagine you know nothing

01:57:24.560 | and you wanna make a website, you wanna make a startup.

01:57:26.960 | This is like, that's why, man,

01:57:29.920 | the power of AI for education is gonna be insane.

01:57:32.800 | Like people anywhere can ask this question

01:57:36.480 | and start building stuff.

01:57:37.360 | - Yeah, it clarifies it for sure.

01:57:39.120 | - And just start building, like keep, build, build,

01:57:41.760 | like actually apply the thing.

01:57:43.920 | Whether it's AI or any of the programming

01:57:46.560 | for web development. - Yeah.

01:57:48.320 | - Just have a project in mind.

01:57:50.480 | I love the idea of like 12 startups in 12 months

01:57:54.640 | or like build a project almost every day.

01:57:58.240 | Just build the thing. - Yeah.

01:58:00.560 | - And get it to work and finish it every single day.

01:58:03.680 | That's a cool experiment.

01:58:04.960 | - I think that was the inspiration.

01:58:06.000 | It was a girl who did 160 websites in 160 days

01:58:10.640 | or something, literally mini websites.

01:58:12.080 | - Yeah. - And she learned

01:58:14.320 | to code that way.

01:58:15.200 | So I think it's good to set yourself challenges, you know?

01:58:18.160 | Like don't, you can go to some coding bootcamp

01:58:20.960 | but I don't think they actually work.

01:58:22.480 | I think it's better to do like,

01:58:23.920 | for me, I'll do the dark like self learning

01:58:26.160 | and setting yourself like challenges

01:58:28.160 | and just getting in.

01:58:30.080 | But you need discipline, you know?

01:58:31.040 | You need discipline to keep doing it.

01:58:32.960 | And coding, you know, coding is very,

01:58:35.360 | it's a steep learning curve to get in.

01:58:37.600 | It's very annoying.

01:58:38.320 | Working with computers is very annoying.

01:58:39.760 | So it can be hard for people to keep doing it, you know?

01:58:44.800 | - Yeah, that thing of just keep doing it and don't quit.

01:58:49.200 | That urgency that's required to finish a thing.

01:58:52.000 | That's why it's really powerful when you documented this,

01:58:54.560 | the creation of hood maps or like a working prototype,

01:58:57.760 | that there's just a constant frustration, I guess.

01:59:01.600 | It's like, oh, okay, how do I do this?

01:59:04.080 | And then you look it up and you're like, okay,

01:59:06.560 | you have to interpret the different options you have.

01:59:08.720 | And then just try it.

01:59:11.040 | And then there's a dopamine rush of like,

01:59:14.640 | ooh, it works, cool.

01:59:16.240 | - Man, it's amazing.

01:59:17.040 | And I live streamed it.

01:59:18.560 | It's on YouTube and stuff.

01:59:20.240 | People can watch it.

01:59:20.880 | And it's amazing when things work.

01:59:23.120 | Look, it's just like amazing that you,

01:59:25.920 | I look very not, I don't look far ahead.

01:59:27.600 | So I only look, okay, what's the next problem to solve?

01:59:29.360 | And then the next problem.

01:59:30.800 | And at the end, you have a whole app

01:59:33.680 | or a website or a thing, you know?

01:59:35.120 | But I think most people look way too far ahead.

01:59:38.720 | You know, they look, it's like this poster again.

01:59:40.880 | Like you shouldn't, you don't know how hard it's going to be.

01:59:42.960 | So you should only look like for the next thing,

01:59:44.640 | the next little challenge, the next step,

01:59:47.120 | and then see where you end up.

01:59:48.640 | - And assume it's going to be easy.

01:59:50.400 | - Yeah, exactly.

01:59:52.720 | Be naive about it because it's,

01:59:54.480 | you're going to have very difficult problems.

01:59:56.240 | A lot of the big problems won't be even tech,

01:59:59.040 | will be like public, right?

02:00:00.000 | Like maybe people don't like your website.

02:00:01.280 | Like you will get canceled for a website, for example.

02:00:04.800 | Like a lot of things can happen.

02:00:05.840 | - What's it like building in public like you do?

02:00:08.560 | Like openly, where you're just iterating quickly

02:00:12.160 | and you're getting people's feedback.

02:00:13.440 | So there's the power of the crowdsourcing,

02:00:15.280 | but there's also the negative aspects

02:00:17.680 | of people being able to criticize.

02:00:19.120 | - So man, I think haters are actually good

02:00:22.080 | 'cause I think a lot of haters have good points.

02:00:24.160 | And it takes like stepping away from the emotion of like,

02:00:28.000 | ah, your website sucks because blah, blah, blah.

02:00:30.320 | And you're like, okay, just remove this,

02:00:31.520 | your website sucks 'cause it's personal, you know?

02:00:33.520 | What did he say?

02:00:34.160 | Why did he not like it?

02:00:35.280 | And then you figure out, okay, he didn't like it

02:00:36.720 | 'cause the signup was difficult or something,

02:00:39.200 | or it wasn't the data.

02:00:40.320 | They say, no, this data is not accurate or something, right?

02:00:42.320 | Okay, I need to improve the quality of the data.

02:00:43.680 | This hater has a point.

02:00:44.720 | I think it's dumb to completely ignore your haters, you know?

02:00:48.560 | And also, man, I think I've been there

02:00:51.600 | when I was like 10 years old or something.

02:00:52.960 | You're on the internet, you're just shouting crazy stuff.

02:00:55.280 | That's like most of Twitter, you know?

02:00:56.640 | Or half of Twitter.

02:00:58.080 | So you have to take it with a grain of salt.

02:00:59.760 | Yeah, man, you need to grow a very thick skin

02:01:04.160 | like on Twitter, on X.

02:01:05.840 | Like people say, but I mute a lot of people.

02:01:08.480 | Like I found out I muted already 15,000 people recently,

02:01:12.080 | I checked.

02:01:12.580 | So in 10 years, I muted 15,000 people.

02:01:15.680 | So that's like-

02:01:16.240 | - Like that's one by one manual?

02:01:17.600 | - 15, yeah.

02:01:18.160 | - Oh, wow.

02:01:19.040 | - So 1500 people per year.

02:01:20.640 | And I don't like to block

02:01:22.320 | 'cause then they get angry, they make a screenshot

02:01:23.760 | and they say, ah, you blocked me.

02:01:25.360 | So I just mute and they disappear.

02:01:27.360 | And it's amazing.

02:01:28.240 | - So you mentioned Reddit.

02:01:30.160 | So hoodmaps, that make it to the front page of Reddit?

02:01:34.080 | - Yeah, yeah, it did.

02:01:35.360 | Yeah, yeah, yeah, it did.

02:01:36.640 | It was amazing.

02:01:37.520 | And my server almost went down

02:01:39.760 | and I was checking like Google Analytics.

02:01:40.960 | It's like 5,000 people on the website or something crazy.

02:01:43.120 | And it was at night and it was amazing.

02:01:45.120 | Man, I think nowadays, honestly, TikTok,

02:01:49.040 | YouTube reels, Instagram reels,

02:01:52.000 | a lot of apps get very big from people

02:01:55.040 | making TikTok videos about it.

02:01:56.560 | So let's say you make your own app.

02:01:58.960 | You can make a video of yourself.

02:02:00.240 | Like, oh, I made this app.

02:02:01.280 | This is how it works, blah, blah, blah.

02:02:03.120 | And this is why I made it, for example.

02:02:05.840 | And this is why you should use it.

02:02:07.280 | And if it's a good video, it will take off

02:02:08.800 | and you will get, man, I got like $20,000 extra per month

02:02:13.680 | or something from a TikTok, from one TikTok video.

02:02:15.840 | Like it made a photo guy.

02:02:17.760 | - By you or somebody else?

02:02:19.120 | - By some random guy.

02:02:20.080 | So there's all these AI influencers

02:02:21.520 | that they write about, they show AI apps

02:02:23.760 | and then they ask money later.

02:02:25.440 | Like when a video goes viral, all I can do is do it again

02:02:27.680 | and send me $4,000 or something.

02:02:29.600 | I'm like, okay, I did that, for example.

02:02:31.600 | But it works, like TikTok is a very big platform

02:02:34.880 | for user acquisition, yeah.

02:02:38.480 | And organic, like the best user acquisition

02:02:40.640 | I think is organic.

02:02:41.840 | You don't need to buy ads.

02:02:42.720 | You probably don't have money when you start to buy ads.

02:02:44.480 | So use organic or write a banger tweet, right?

02:02:47.840 | That's can make an app take off as well.

02:02:50.160 | - Well, I mean, yeah, fundamentally create cool stuff.

02:02:52.960 | - And have just a little bit of a following,

02:02:55.200 | enough to like, for the cool thing to be noticed

02:02:59.200 | and then it becomes viral if it's cool enough.

02:03:00.720 | - Yeah, and you don't need a lot of followers anymore

02:03:02.480 | 'cause on X and a lot of platforms,

02:03:04.480 | 'cause TikTok X, I think Instant Reels

02:03:06.960 | also they have the same algorithm now.

02:03:08.560 | It's not about followers anymore.

02:03:09.760 | It's about, they test your content on a small subset,

02:03:12.720 | like 300 people.

02:03:14.000 | If they like it, it gets tested to a thousand people

02:03:16.720 | and on and on.

02:03:17.680 | So if the thing is good, it will rise anyway.

02:03:20.480 | It doesn't matter if you have half a million followers

02:03:22.400 | or a thousand followers or a hundred.

02:03:24.320 | - What's your philosophy of monetizing?

02:03:25.920 | How to make money from the thing you build?

02:03:27.360 | - Yeah, so a lot of starters, they do like free users.

02:03:30.320 | So you could sign up, you could use an app for free,

02:03:32.800 | which is, it never worked for me well

02:03:35.840 | because I think free users generally don't convert.

02:03:39.280 | And I think if you have VC funding,

02:03:41.200 | it makes sense to get free users

02:03:42.880 | because you can spend your funding on ads

02:03:44.400 | and you can get like millions of people come in,

02:03:46.160 | predictably how much they convert

02:03:48.400 | and give them like a free trial or whatever

02:03:50.640 | and then they sign up.

02:03:51.840 | But you need to have that flow worked out so well

02:03:53.920 | for you to make it work

02:03:55.120 | that you need like, it's very difficult.

02:03:57.040 | I think it's best to start

02:03:58.080 | and just start asking people for money in the beginning.

02:04:01.680 | So show your app,

02:04:03.200 | like what are you doing on your landing page?

02:04:04.400 | Like make a demo or whatever, a video.

02:04:06.000 | And then if you want to use it, pay me money.

02:04:08.080 | Pay $10, $20, $30.

02:04:09.600 | I would ask more than $10 per month.

02:04:12.560 | Like Netflix is like $10 per month,

02:04:14.000 | but Netflix is a giant company that can,

02:04:15.680 | you know, they can afford to make it so cheap,

02:04:18.560 | relatively cheap.

02:04:19.600 | If you're an individual, like an indie hacker,

02:04:21.200 | like you are making your own app,

02:04:22.480 | you need to make like at least $30 or more on a user

02:04:27.360 | to make it worthy for you.

02:04:29.920 | You need to make money, you know?

02:04:30.880 | - And it builds a community of people

02:04:32.960 | that actually really care about the product.

02:04:34.800 | - Also, yeah, making a community,

02:04:36.080 | like making a Discord is very normal now.

02:04:37.680 | Every AI app has a Discord

02:04:38.960 | and you have the developers and the users together

02:04:41.200 | in like a Discord and they talk about,

02:04:42.880 | they ask for features, they build together.

02:04:44.240 | It's very normal now.

02:04:45.440 | And you need to imagine, like if you're starting out

02:04:49.680 | getting 1,000 users is quite difficult.

02:04:52.400 | Getting 1,000 pages is quite difficult.

02:04:53.760 | And if you charge them like $30, you have 30K a month.

02:04:57.680 | That's a lot of money.

02:04:58.480 | - That's enough to like...

02:05:00.000 | - Live a good life.

02:05:01.040 | - Yeah, live a pretty good life.

02:05:02.480 | I mean, that could be a lot of costs associated with hosting.

02:05:04.640 | - Yeah, so that's another thing.

02:05:06.000 | I make sure my profit margins are very high.

02:05:07.760 | So I try to keep the costs very low.

02:05:09.200 | I don't hire people.

02:05:10.080 | I try to negotiate with like AI vendors now.

02:05:15.280 | Like, can you make it cheaper, you know?

02:05:17.280 | Which is, I discovered this.

02:05:18.320 | You can just email companies and say,

02:05:20.320 | "Can you give me a discount 'cause it's too expensive?"

02:05:23.360 | And they say, "Sure, 50%."

02:05:25.120 | I'm like, "Wow, very good."

02:05:26.320 | And I didn't know this.

02:05:28.320 | You can just ask.

02:05:29.120 | And especially in like, now it's kind of recession.

02:05:32.000 | You can ask companies like, "I need a discount

02:05:34.640 | "or I kind of need to like..."

02:05:35.760 | You don't need to be asshole about it.

02:05:37.120 | Say, "I kind of need a discount

02:05:38.880 | "or I need to go maybe to another company.

02:05:40.720 | "Maybe like a discount here and there."

02:05:42.960 | And they say, "Sure."

02:05:43.920 | A lot of them will say, "Yes."

02:05:44.960 | Like 25% discount, 50% discounts.

02:05:47.120 | 'Cause you think the price on the website

02:05:49.920 | is the price of the API or something.

02:05:51.520 | It's not, like, you know?

02:05:53.200 | - And also you're a public facing person.

02:05:55.680 | - Oh, that helps also.

02:05:57.040 | - And there's love and good vibes

02:05:58.640 | that you put out into the world.

02:05:59.520 | Like you're actually legitimately trying to build cool stuff.

02:06:02.560 | So a lot of companies probably wanna associate with you

02:06:05.360 | because you're trying to do-

02:06:06.240 | - Yeah, it's like a secret hack.

02:06:07.600 | But I think even without-

02:06:08.640 | - Secret hack, be a good person.

02:06:10.080 | - It depends how much discount they will give, you know?

02:06:11.840 | They'll maybe give more.

02:06:12.720 | But you know, that's why you should shitpost on Twitter.

02:06:15.200 | So you get, you know, discounts, maybe.

02:06:17.200 | (both laugh)

02:06:19.440 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:06:20.320 | But, and also the, when it's crowdsourced,

02:06:24.000 | I mean, paying does prevent spam or help prevent spam.

02:06:29.280 | - Also, yeah.

02:06:30.000 | It gives you high quality users.

02:06:31.360 | - High quality users.

02:06:32.000 | - And free users are, sorry, but they're horrible.

02:06:34.880 | Like, it's just like millions of people,

02:06:36.800 | especially with AI startups, you get a lot of abuse.

02:06:38.560 | So you get millions of people from anywhere

02:06:40.560 | just abusing your app, just hacking it and whatever.

02:06:43.920 | - There's something on the internet.

02:06:45.920 | You mentioned like 4chan discovered hood maps.

02:06:48.960 | - Yeah, but I love 4chan.

02:06:50.640 | I don't love 4chan, but you know what I mean?

02:06:51.760 | Like, they're so crazy, especially back then.

02:06:53.680 | Like, that's, it's kind of funny what they do, you know?

02:06:57.120 | - I actually, what is it?

02:07:00.000 | There's a new documentary on Netflix,

02:07:01.680 | Anti-Social Network or something like that.

02:07:03.360 | That was really, was fascinating.

02:07:04.880 | Just 4chan, just the, you know, the spirit of the thing,

02:07:08.720 | 4chan and-

02:07:09.200 | - People misunderstand 4chan.

02:07:10.560 | - It's so much about freedom and also like the humor

02:07:14.320 | involved in fucking with the system and fucking with man.

02:07:18.560 | - That's it, it's just anti-system for fun.

02:07:20.800 | - But the dark aspect of it is you're having fun,

02:07:24.800 | you're doing anti-system stuff,

02:07:27.280 | but like the Nazis always show up.

02:07:30.240 | And it's somehow-

02:07:30.880 | - And the bad shit started happening.

02:07:31.920 | - It's drifting somehow, yeah.

02:07:33.680 | - Like school shootings and stuff.

02:07:34.880 | So it's a very difficult topic, but I do know it's,

02:07:39.360 | especially early on, I think 2010,

02:07:40.960 | I would go to 4chan for fun

02:07:42.320 | and they would post like crazy offensive stuff.

02:07:44.480 | And this was just to scare off people.

02:07:46.240 | So we showed to other people, say,

02:07:47.280 | "Hey, do you know this internet website, 4chan?

02:07:48.960 | Just check it out."

02:07:49.600 | - Yeah.

02:07:50.160 | - And they'd be, "But dude, what the fuck is that?"

02:07:51.600 | I'm like, "No, no, you don't understand."

02:07:52.800 | - Yeah.

02:07:53.120 | - That's to scare you away.

02:07:54.160 | But actually when you go through a scroll,

02:07:55.520 | there's like deep conversations.

02:07:56.640 | - Yes.

02:07:57.280 | - And they would already be,

02:07:58.720 | this was like a normie filter, like to stop.

02:08:00.560 | - Yeah.

02:08:00.880 | - So kind of cool, but yeah.

02:08:02.880 | - It goes dark.

02:08:03.840 | - It goes dark, yeah.

02:08:05.120 | - And if you have those people show up,

02:08:06.880 | they'll, for the fun of it,

02:08:08.720 | do a bunch of racist things

02:08:09.840 | and all that kind of stuff you were saying.

02:08:10.960 | - But everything's, I think it was never,

02:08:12.880 | man, I'm not a fortune,

02:08:13.760 | but like it was always about provoking.

02:08:15.760 | It's just provocateurs, you know?

02:08:17.200 | - But the provoking in the case of hood maps

02:08:19.760 | or something like this can damage the good thing.

02:08:25.280 | Like, you know, a little poison in a town is always good.

02:08:29.520 | It's like the Tom Waits thing,

02:08:30.960 | but you don't want too much.

02:08:32.240 | Otherwise it destroys the town.

02:08:34.080 | It destroys the thing.

02:08:34.800 | - They're kind of like pen testers, you know,

02:08:36.240 | like penetration testers, hackers.

02:08:37.680 | - Yeah.

02:08:38.000 | - They just test your app for you

02:08:39.760 | and then you add some stuff.

02:08:40.800 | Like I add like a NSFW word list.

02:08:44.960 | They would say like bad words.

02:08:46.080 | So when they would write like a bad words,

02:08:48.720 | they would get forwarded to YouTube,

02:08:50.400 | which was like a video.

02:08:51.360 | It was like a very relaxing video

02:08:54.400 | that's like kind of ASMR with like glowing jelly,

02:08:57.600 | streaming like this to relax them, you know?

02:08:59.600 | Or cheese melting on the toast.

02:09:01.360 | - Cheese melting, nice.

02:09:01.840 | - To chill them out.

02:09:02.880 | - Yeah, I like it.

02:09:03.760 | - And like, yeah.

02:09:05.040 | But actually a lot of stuff,

02:09:06.400 | I didn't realize how much originated in 4chan

02:09:08.800 | in terms of memes.

02:09:09.600 | Rickroll, I didn't understand.

02:09:12.000 | I didn't know that Rickroll originated in 4chan.

02:09:14.400 | Like there's so many memes.

02:09:15.600 | Like most of the memes that you think-

02:09:17.120 | - The word roll, I think, comes from 4chan.

02:09:18.960 | Like not the word roll,

02:09:19.680 | but like in this case, in the meme use,

02:09:21.600 | like you would get like roll doubles

02:09:24.080 | 'cause every, there was like post IDs on 4chan.

02:09:26.960 | So they were kind of like random.

02:09:29.040 | So if I get doubles, like this happens or something.

02:09:31.760 | So you'd get like two, two.

02:09:33.760 | Anyway, it's like a betting market

02:09:35.120 | kind of on these doubles, on these post IDs.

02:09:37.120 | It's so much funny stuff.

02:09:38.240 | - Yeah, I mean, that's the internet that's purest.

02:09:41.360 | But yeah, again, the dark stuff kind of seeps in.

02:09:44.000 | - Yeah.

02:09:44.240 | - And it's nice to keep the dark stuff

02:09:47.040 | to like some low amount.

02:09:49.040 | It's nice to have a bit of noise in the darkness,

02:09:51.120 | but not too much.

02:09:51.920 | - Yeah.

02:09:52.480 | - And, but again, like you have to pay attention

02:09:55.040 | to that with, I mean, I guess spam in general.

02:09:58.080 | You have to fight that with Nomad List.

02:09:59.920 | How do you fight spam?

02:10:00.880 | - Man, I use GPT-4 now.

02:10:02.640 | It's amazing.

02:10:03.200 | So I have like user input.

02:10:07.200 | I have reviews.

02:10:08.160 | People can review cities

02:10:09.280 | and they don't need to actually sign up.

02:10:10.560 | It's anonymous reviews.

02:10:12.080 | And they write like whole books about like seas

02:10:14.080 | and what's good and bad.

02:10:14.960 | So I run it through GPT-4 now.

02:10:18.320 | And I asked like, is this a, you know,

02:10:20.240 | is this a good review?

02:10:21.120 | Like, is it offensive?

02:10:22.240 | Is it racist or some stuff?

02:10:23.760 | And then it sends me a message on Telegram

02:10:25.760 | when it rejects reviews and I check it.

02:10:28.240 | And it's, man, it's so on point.

02:10:31.040 | - Automated.

02:10:31.680 | - Yes, and it's so accurate.

02:10:33.360 | It understands double meanings.

02:10:34.720 | I have GPT-4 running on the chat community.

02:10:39.120 | It's a chat community of 10,000 people

02:10:41.120 | and they're chatting

02:10:41.760 | and they start fighting with each other.

02:10:43.120 | And I used to have, human moderators was very good

02:10:47.440 | but they would start fighting the human moderator.

02:10:49.280 | Like this guy is biased or something.

02:10:51.120 | Now I have GPT-4 and it's really, really, really, really good.

02:10:55.520 | It understands humor.

02:10:56.480 | It understands like, like you could say something bad

02:10:59.600 | but it's kind of like a joke

02:11:00.560 | and it's kind of not like offensive so much.

02:11:02.880 | So it shouldn't be deleted, right?

02:11:04.640 | It understands that, you know?

02:11:06.240 | - I would love to have a GPT-4 based filter

02:11:10.800 | of different kinds of, for like X.

02:11:15.040 | - Yeah, I thought this week, I tweeted like a fact check.

02:11:18.080 | Like you can click fact check and then GPT-4.

02:11:20.560 | Look, GPT-4 is not always right about stuff, right?

02:11:22.880 | But it can give you a general fact check on a tweet.

02:11:26.000 | Like usually what I do now,

02:11:27.680 | when I write something like difficult about economics

02:11:29.840 | or something like AI, I put in GPT-4, I say,

02:11:31.920 | "Can you fact check it?"

02:11:32.720 | 'Cause I might've said something stupid

02:11:34.880 | and the stupid stuff always gets taken out by the replies.

02:11:37.600 | Like, "Oh, you said this wrong."

02:11:38.960 | And then the whole tweet kind of doesn't make sense anymore.

02:11:41.200 | So I asked GPT-4 to fact check a lot of stuff.

02:11:44.800 | - So fact check is a tough one.

02:11:46.320 | - Yeah. - But it would be interesting

02:11:47.760 | to sort of rate a thing based on how well thought out it is

02:11:53.760 | and how well argued it is.

02:11:55.520 | - Yeah. - That seems more doable.

02:11:57.920 | That seems like more doable.

02:11:59.120 | Like it seems like a GPT thing

02:12:00.480 | because it's less about the truth

02:12:02.160 | and it's more about the rigor of the thing.

02:12:03.840 | - Exactly.

02:12:04.400 | And you can ask that.

02:12:05.280 | You can ask in the prompt, like, I don't know.

02:12:07.760 | Like, for example, do you think,

02:12:08.640 | create like a ranking score of X Twitter replies

02:12:12.640 | where should this post be?

02:12:13.920 | If we rank on like, I don't know, integrity, reality,

02:12:17.920 | like fundamental deepness or something, interestness.

02:12:21.040 | And it will give you that pretty good score probably.

02:12:24.640 | I mean, Elon can do this with Grok, right?

02:12:26.800 | He can start doing, using that to check replies

02:12:30.560 | 'cause the reply section is like chaos.

02:12:32.080 | - Yeah. - You know?

02:12:33.120 | - And actually the ranking of the replies

02:12:34.720 | - Doesn't make any sense. - Doesn't make sense.

02:12:36.320 | - No. - And I would like to sort

02:12:38.560 | in different kinds of ways.

02:12:39.600 | - Yeah, and you get too many replies now.

02:12:41.280 | If you have a lot of followers, I get too many replies.

02:12:42.800 | I don't see everything.

02:12:43.520 | And I, a lot of stuff I just miss

02:12:46.880 | and I don't, I wanna see the good stuff.

02:12:48.400 | - And also the notifications or whatever

02:12:51.360 | is just complete chaos.

02:12:52.640 | - Yeah. - It'd be nice to be able

02:12:53.920 | to filter that in interesting ways,

02:12:55.760 | sort it in interesting ways.

02:12:56.960 | 'Cause like, I feel like I miss a lot.

02:13:00.640 | And I, what's surfaced for me,

02:13:03.440 | I was just like a random comment

02:13:04.800 | by a person with no followers.

02:13:06.960 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's positive or negative.

02:13:08.560 | It's like, okay.

02:13:09.200 | - If it's a very good comment, it should happen,

02:13:11.040 | but it should probably look a little bit more like,

02:13:13.680 | do these people have followers?

02:13:14.640 | 'Cause they're probably more engaged in the platform, right?

02:13:17.040 | - Oh no, if it's, I don't even care about having followers.

02:13:19.840 | If you're ranking by the quality of the comment, great.

02:13:22.320 | - Yeah. - But not just like randomly,

02:13:24.800 | like chronological, just a sea of comments.

02:13:27.680 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:13:28.640 | It doesn't make sense. - Yeah.

02:13:30.080 | - Yeah, X could be very improved with that, I think.

02:13:32.720 | - One thing you espouse a lot, which I love,

02:13:36.320 | is the automation step.

02:13:37.840 | So like once you have a thing,

02:13:40.000 | once you have an idea and you build it,

02:13:42.720 | and it actually starts making money

02:13:44.720 | and it's making people happy,

02:13:46.320 | there's a community of people using it,

02:13:47.920 | you want to take the automation step

02:13:51.600 | of automating the things.

02:13:52.800 | You have to do as little work as possible

02:13:54.480 | for it to keep running indefinitely.

02:13:56.240 | Can you explain your philosophy there?

02:13:59.440 | What do you mean by automate?

02:14:00.480 | - Yeah, so the general theory of starters would be

02:14:03.040 | that when it starts, you start making money,

02:14:05.440 | you start hiring people to do stuff, right?

02:14:07.200 | Do stuff that you, like marketing, for example,

02:14:09.040 | stuff that you would do in the beginning yourself.

02:14:10.560 | And whatever, community management

02:14:14.160 | and organizing meetups for Nomad List, for example,

02:14:16.400 | that would be a job, for example.

02:14:18.560 | And I felt like I don't have the money for that

02:14:21.760 | and I don't really want to run like a big company

02:14:24.640 | with a lot of people

02:14:25.280 | 'cause it's a lot of work managing these people.

02:14:27.040 | So I've always tried to like automate these things

02:14:29.600 | as much as possible.

02:14:30.640 | And this can literally be like for Nomad List,

02:14:35.200 | it's literally like a,

02:14:36.240 | it's not a different other starters,

02:14:37.280 | but it's like a webpage

02:14:38.080 | where you can organize your own meetup,

02:14:39.280 | set a schedule, a date, whatever.

02:14:41.920 | You can see how many Nomads will be there at that date.

02:14:44.160 | So you know, there will be actually

02:14:45.520 | enough Nomads to meet up, right?

02:14:46.960 | And then when it's done,

02:14:49.440 | it sends a tweet out on the Nomad List account.

02:14:51.440 | There's a meetup here.

02:14:52.800 | It sends a direct message to everybody in the city

02:14:54.800 | who are there, who are going to be there.

02:14:57.120 | And then people show up on a bar and there's a meetup

02:14:59.280 | and that's fully automated.

02:15:00.320 | And for me, it's like, it's not,

02:15:02.720 | it's so obvious to make this automatic.

02:15:04.640 | Why would you, why would you have somebody organize this?

02:15:07.360 | Like it makes more sense to automate it.

02:15:10.080 | And this with most of my things,

02:15:11.200 | like I figure out like how to do it with code.

02:15:13.600 | And I think, especially now with AI,

02:15:15.920 | like you can automate so much more stuff than before.

02:15:18.400 | 'Cause AI understands things so well.

02:15:20.880 | Like before I would use if statements, right?

02:15:22.800 | Now you ask GPT, you put something in GPT for an API

02:15:26.080 | and it sends back like, this is good, this is bad.

02:15:28.560 | - Yeah, so you basically can now even automate

02:15:32.400 | sort of subjective type of things.

02:15:35.040 | - This is the difference now.

02:15:36.000 | - Yeah.

02:15:36.320 | - And that's very recent, right?

02:15:37.520 | - But it's still difficult though.

02:15:39.680 | I mean, that step of automation is difficult

02:15:42.000 | to figure out how to,

02:15:44.400 | is you're basically delegating everything to code.

02:15:47.840 | And it's not trivial to take that step

02:15:50.080 | for a lot of people.

02:15:50.880 | So when you say automate,

02:15:52.880 | are you talking about like Cron jobs?

02:15:55.920 | - Yes, man, a lot of Cron jobs.

02:15:57.360 | - A lot of Cron jobs.

02:15:58.560 | - It's like, I literally, I log into the server

02:16:02.240 | and I do like pseudo Cron tab dash E.

02:16:05.040 | And then I go into the editor and I write like hourly

02:16:07.760 | and then I write PHP, you know, do this thing dot PHP.

02:16:12.800 | And that's a script and that script does a thing

02:16:15.040 | and it does it then hourly, that's it.

02:16:17.520 | And that's how all my websites work.

02:16:18.880 | - Do you have a thing where it like emails you

02:16:21.120 | or something like this,

02:16:21.920 | or email somebody managing the thing

02:16:23.520 | if something goes wrong?

02:16:24.400 | - I have these webpages I make,

02:16:26.400 | they're called like health checks.

02:16:27.920 | So it's like healthcheck.php.

02:16:29.840 | And then it has like emojis,

02:16:31.200 | like it has like a green check mark if it's good

02:16:33.840 | and a red one if it's bad.

02:16:34.960 | And then it does like database queries, for example,

02:16:37.680 | like what's the internet speed in, for example, Amsterdam.

02:16:40.560 | Okay, it's a number, it's like 27 point megabits.

02:16:43.760 | So it's an accurate number.

02:16:45.120 | Okay, check, good.

02:16:46.080 | And then it goes to the next

02:16:46.800 | and it goes on all the data points.

02:16:49.120 | Did people sign up in the last 24 hours?

02:16:51.120 | It's important 'cause maybe the signup broke.

02:16:53.040 | Okay, check, somebody sign up.

02:16:54.400 | Then I have uptimerobot.com, which is like for uptime,

02:16:57.680 | but it can also check keywords.

02:16:59.040 | It checks for an emoji, which is like the red X,

02:17:02.720 | which is if something is bad.

02:17:04.000 | And so it opens that health check page every minute

02:17:07.200 | to check if something's bad.

02:17:08.480 | Then if it's bad, it sends a message to me on Telegram

02:17:10.960 | saying, "Hey, what's up?"

02:17:12.960 | Or it doesn't say, "Hey, what's up?"

02:17:13.840 | It sends me like an alert.

02:17:15.120 | - Hey, hey sweetie.

02:17:16.400 | - This thing is down.

02:17:17.200 | And then I check.

02:17:17.680 | So within a minute of something breaking,

02:17:19.680 | I know it and then I can open my laptop and fix it.

02:17:22.720 | - Yeah.

02:17:23.040 | - But the good thing is like the last few years,

02:17:25.280 | things don't break anymore.

02:17:26.720 | And like definitely 10 years ago when I started,

02:17:29.360 | everything was breaking all the time.

02:17:30.720 | And now it's like almost,

02:17:32.320 | last week was like 100.000% uptime.

02:17:36.240 | And these health checks are part of the uptime percentage.

02:17:39.360 | So it's like everything works.

02:17:41.200 | - You're actually making me realize

02:17:42.640 | I should have a page for myself,

02:17:46.080 | like one page that has all the health checks,

02:17:49.760 | just so I can go to it and see all the green check marks.

02:17:52.160 | - Yeah, it feels good to look at, you know.

02:17:53.520 | - It's just be like, "Okay."

02:17:54.720 | - Yeah, all right.

02:17:55.360 | - Like, "We're okay. Everything's okay."

02:17:57.680 | - Yeah.

02:17:58.320 | - And like you can see like when was the last time

02:18:00.800 | something wasn't okay and it'll say like, "Never."

02:18:04.400 | Or like meaning like you've checked.

02:18:06.720 | Since you've last cared to check,

02:18:09.600 | it has all been okay.

02:18:10.720 | - For sure.

02:18:11.520 | It used to send me the good health checks.

02:18:13.440 | Like, you know, it all works.

02:18:15.360 | - But it's been so often.

02:18:18.080 | - And I'm like, "This feels so good."

02:18:19.280 | But then I'm like, "Okay, obviously it's not gonna,

02:18:21.280 | "you need to hide the good ones and show only the bad ones."

02:18:23.440 | And now that's the case.

02:18:24.320 | - I need to integrate everything into one place.

02:18:26.880 | Automate like everything.

02:18:28.000 | - Yeah.

02:18:28.320 | - To have also just a large set of cron jobs.

02:18:32.800 | A lot of the publication of this podcast

02:18:34.560 | is done all, everything is just on automatically.

02:18:37.840 | It's all clipped up, all this kind of stuff.

02:18:40.000 | - Yeah.

02:18:41.120 | - But it'd be nice to automate even more.

02:18:42.800 | - Yeah.

02:18:43.760 | - Like a translation, all this kind of stuff

02:18:45.440 | would be nice to automate.

02:18:46.320 | - Yeah.

02:18:46.880 | Every JavaScript, every PHP error

02:18:48.480 | gets sent to my Telegram as well.

02:18:50.080 | So every user, whatever user it is,

02:18:52.320 | doesn't have to be page user.

02:18:53.840 | If they run into an error,

02:18:54.960 | the JavaScript sends the JavaScript error to the server

02:18:59.680 | and then it sends to my Telegram.

02:19:01.200 | From all my websites.

02:19:03.280 | - So you get like a message.

02:19:05.120 | - So I get like a uncaught variable error,

02:19:08.240 | whatever, blah, blah, blah.

02:19:09.280 | And then I'm like, "Okay, interesting."

02:19:10.400 | And then I go check it out.

02:19:11.920 | And that's like a way to get to zero errors

02:19:13.600 | 'cause you get flooded with errors in the beginning.

02:19:15.520 | And now it's like nothing almost.

02:19:17.760 | - Oh, that's really cool.

02:19:20.080 | - But Matt--

02:19:20.560 | - That's really cool.

02:19:21.440 | - But this is the same stuff people,

02:19:22.960 | they pay like very big SaaS companies,

02:19:26.880 | like New Relic for, right?

02:19:28.240 | Like to manage the stuff.

02:19:29.760 | So you can do that too.

02:19:31.360 | You can use off the shelf.

02:19:32.320 | I like to build myself, it's easier.

02:19:33.840 | - Yeah, it's nice.

02:19:34.800 | It's nice to do that kind of automation.

02:19:36.240 | I'm starting to think of like,

02:19:38.320 | what are the things in my life I'm doing myself

02:19:40.160 | that could be automated?

02:19:42.080 | - You can ask your GPT, you know?

02:19:43.920 | Like give your daily, your day

02:19:45.680 | and then ask what parts you'd automate.

02:19:47.360 | - Well, one of the things I would love to automate more

02:19:50.240 | is my consumption on social media.

02:19:51.840 | - Yeah.

02:19:52.400 | - Both the output and the input.

02:19:55.040 | - Man, that's very interesting.

02:19:56.320 | I think there's some startups that do that.

02:19:57.680 | Like they summarize the cool shit happening on Twitter,

02:20:01.440 | you know, like with AI.

02:20:02.240 | I think the guy called SWYX or something,

02:20:06.080 | he does like a newsletter that's completely AI generated

02:20:08.880 | with the cool new stuff in AI.

02:20:10.800 | - Yeah, I mean, I would love to do that.

02:20:12.960 | But also like across Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn,

02:20:16.000 | all this kind of stuff.

02:20:17.760 | Just like, okay, can I,

02:20:19.360 | can you summarize the internet for me for today?

02:20:21.920 | - Summarizeinternet.com.

02:20:23.040 | - Yeah, .com.

02:20:24.320 | 'Cause I feel like it pulls in way too much time,

02:20:29.360 | but also like, I don't like the effect

02:20:31.120 | it has some days on my psyche.

02:20:33.520 | - 'Cause of like haters or just general content?

02:20:36.080 | - Just general.

02:20:36.880 | Like, no, no, just general.

02:20:38.480 | Like for example, like TikTok is a good example

02:20:40.720 | of that for me.

02:20:41.760 | I sometimes just feel dumber after I use TikTok.

02:20:44.640 | I just feel like--

02:20:45.280 | - Yeah, I don't use it anymore.

02:20:46.240 | - Empty somehow.

02:20:47.680 | And I'm like uninspired.

02:20:49.680 | - Yeah.

02:20:50.400 | - It's funny in the moment I'm like,

02:20:52.320 | "Ha, look at that cat doing a funny thing."

02:20:54.240 | And then you're like,

02:20:55.680 | "Oh, look at that person dancing in a funny way

02:20:58.000 | "to that music."

02:20:58.800 | And then you're like, 10 minutes later,

02:21:01.840 | you're like, "I feel way dumber

02:21:03.840 | "and I don't really wanna do much for the rest of the day."

02:21:06.560 | - My girlfriend said, she saw me like watching

02:21:08.720 | some dumb video.

02:21:09.920 | She's like, "Dude, your face looks so dumb as well."

02:21:12.480 | Your whole face starts going like, "Oh, interesting."

02:21:14.640 | You know, so--

02:21:15.680 | - I mean, with social media, with X sometimes for me too,

02:21:20.640 | I think I'm probably naturally gravitating

02:21:23.920 | towards the drama.

02:21:24.880 | - Yeah, art wheel.

02:21:26.560 | - Yeah, and so following ad people,

02:21:29.520 | especially ad people that only post technical content

02:21:31.840 | has been really good.

02:21:32.480 | 'Cause then I just look at them

02:21:34.240 | and then I go down rabbit holes

02:21:36.320 | of like learning new papers that have been published

02:21:38.160 | or good repos or just any kind of cool demonstration of stuff

02:21:44.160 | and the kind of things that they retweet.

02:21:46.080 | And that's the rabbit hole I go and I'm learning

02:21:47.920 | and I'm inspired, all that kind of stuff.

02:21:49.760 | But it's been tough.

02:21:51.840 | It's been tough to control.

02:21:52.640 | - It's difficult.

02:21:53.200 | You need to like manage your platforms, you know?

02:21:56.000 | I have a mute board list as well.

02:21:57.440 | So I mute like politics stuff

02:21:59.200 | 'cause I don't really want it on my feet.

02:22:01.520 | And I think I've muted so much that now my feet is good.

02:22:04.960 | You know, I see like interesting stuff.

02:22:06.720 | But the fact that you need to modify,

02:22:09.760 | you need to like mod your app,

02:22:11.520 | your social media platform just to function

02:22:13.600 | and not be toxic for you, for your mental health, right?

02:22:16.240 | That's like a problem.

02:22:16.880 | Like it should be doing that for you.

02:22:18.400 | - It's some level of automation.

02:22:20.480 | That'd be interesting.

02:22:22.640 | I wish I could access X and Instagram through API easier.

02:22:27.600 | - You need to spend $42,000 a month, which my friends do.

02:22:31.520 | - No, but still, even if you do that,

02:22:33.520 | that you're not getting, I mean,

02:22:35.600 | there's limitations that don't make it easy

02:22:37.360 | to do like automate.

02:22:39.200 | 'Cause the thing that they're trying to limit like abuse

02:22:42.320 | or for you to steal all the data from the app

02:22:44.560 | to then train an LLM or something like this.

02:22:47.040 | But if I just want to like figure out ways

02:22:49.440 | to automate my interaction with the X system

02:22:52.560 | or with Instagram, they don't make that easy.

02:22:55.520 | But I would love to sort of automate that

02:22:57.120 | and explore different ways to how to leverage LLMs

02:22:59.840 | to control the content I consume.

02:23:01.920 | And maybe publish that.

02:23:04.480 | Maybe they themselves can see how that could be used

02:23:06.880 | to improve their system.

02:23:07.920 | So, but there's not enough access.

02:23:11.200 | - Yes, you could screen cap your phone, right?

02:23:13.680 | It could be an app that watches your screen with you.

02:23:16.080 | - You could, yeah.

02:23:16.880 | - But I don't really know like what it would do.

02:23:18.800 | Like maybe it can hide stuff before you see it.

02:23:20.720 | You know, like you scroll down.

02:23:22.160 | - I have Chrome extensions.

02:23:23.760 | I write a lot of Chrome extensions

02:23:25.600 | that hide parts of different pages and so on.

02:23:28.400 | Like for example, for my own, on my main computer,

02:23:31.040 | I hide all views and likes and all that

02:23:33.040 | on YouTube content that I create.

02:23:36.800 | So that I don't-- - Smart doesn't affect you.

02:23:38.560 | - It doesn't, yeah.

02:23:39.200 | So you don't pay attention to it.

02:23:40.320 | I also hide parts.

02:23:42.640 | I have a mode for X where I hide most of everything.

02:23:46.240 | So like there's no, it's same with YouTube.

02:23:48.640 | - I have the same, I have this extension.

02:23:49.840 | - Like, well, I wrote my own 'cause it's easier.

02:23:51.840 | 'Cause it keeps changing.

02:23:52.880 | It's like, it's not easy to keep it dynamically changing.

02:23:56.320 | But they're really good at like getting you to be distracted

02:23:59.760 | and like starting to-- - Related accounts.

02:24:01.520 | - Related stuff. - I don't want related.

02:24:03.440 | - And like 10 minutes later, you're like,

02:24:05.920 | or something that's trending.

02:24:07.120 | - I have a weird amount of friends addicted to YouTube

02:24:09.600 | and I'm not addicted.

02:24:10.480 | I think 'cause my attention span is too short for YouTube.

02:24:12.640 | But I have this extension to like YouTube on hook,

02:24:17.200 | which like it hides all the related stuff.

02:24:19.280 | I can just see the video and it's amazing.

02:24:21.760 | But sometimes I need to like,

02:24:24.640 | like I need to search a video how to do something.

02:24:27.280 | And then I go to YouTube and then I had these YouTube shorts.

02:24:30.560 | These YouTube shorts are like,

02:24:31.920 | they're like algorithmically designed

02:24:33.520 | to just make you tap them.

02:24:35.360 | And like I tap and then I'm like five minutes later

02:24:37.920 | with this face like, and you're just stuck.

02:24:40.800 | And it's like, what happened?

02:24:41.760 | I was gonna open, I was gonna play like the coffee mix,

02:24:45.120 | you know, like the music mix for drinking coffee together,

02:24:47.360 | like in the morning, like jazz.

02:24:49.200 | I didn't wanna go to shorts.

02:24:50.880 | So it's very difficult.

02:24:52.800 | - I love how we're actually highlighting

02:24:55.520 | all kinds of interesting problems

02:24:56.960 | that all could be solved at a startup.

02:24:58.560 | Okay, so what about the exit?

02:25:01.120 | When and how to exit?

02:25:02.960 | - Man, you shouldn't ask me

02:25:04.640 | 'cause I never sold my company.

02:25:05.920 | - You've never, all the successful stuff you've done,

02:25:08.800 | you've never sold it.

02:25:09.600 | - Yeah, it's kind of sad, right?

02:25:11.120 | Like I've been in, so I've been in a lot of acquisition,

02:25:14.320 | like deals and stuff.

02:25:15.360 | And I learned a lot about finance people as well there,

02:25:18.240 | like manipulation and due diligence

02:25:20.880 | and then changing the valuation,

02:25:22.400 | like people change the valuation after.

02:25:24.160 | So a lot of people string you on to acquire you.

02:25:28.640 | And then it takes like six months.

02:25:30.400 | It's a classic, it takes six to 12 months.

02:25:32.320 | They wanna see everything.

02:25:33.280 | They wanna see your stripe and your code and whatever.

02:25:36.240 | And then in the end, they'll change the price to lower

02:25:41.120 | 'cause you're already so invested.

02:25:42.960 | So it's like a negotiation tactic, right?

02:25:45.040 | I'm like, no, I don't wanna sell, right?

02:25:47.280 | And the problem with my companies is like,

02:25:48.640 | they make 90% profit margin.

02:25:51.360 | So the multiple, the companies get sold with multiples,

02:25:55.280 | kind of multiples of profit or revenue.

02:25:57.280 | And often the multiple is like three times,

02:25:59.760 | three times or four times or five times revenue or profit.

02:26:03.120 | So in my case, they're all automated.

02:26:05.840 | So I might as well wait three years

02:26:07.680 | and I get the same money as when I sell.

02:26:10.000 | And then I can still sell the same company.

02:26:12.000 | You know what I mean?

02:26:12.560 | I can still sell for three, five times.

02:26:14.240 | So financially, it doesn't really make sense to sell.

02:26:17.360 | - Yeah. - Unless the price high enough.

02:26:19.680 | Like if the price gets to like six or seven or eight,

02:26:22.080 | I don't wanna wait six years for the money, you know?

02:26:24.240 | But if you give me three, like three years, nothing,

02:26:26.240 | like I can wait.

02:26:27.280 | - So that means they're really valuable stuff

02:26:30.960 | about the companies you create is not just the interface

02:26:33.760 | and the crowdsource content,

02:26:36.160 | but the people themselves, like the user base.

02:26:38.640 | - Yeah, well, NomadList, it's a community, yeah.

02:26:41.200 | - So I could see that being extremely valuable.

02:26:43.440 | I'm surprised it has not. - But NomadList is like,

02:26:45.040 | it's like my baby.

02:26:45.680 | It's like my first product I took off

02:26:47.120 | and I don't really know if I wanna sell it.

02:26:48.960 | It's like something you will be nice when you're old

02:26:51.520 | 'cause you're still working on this.

02:26:52.640 | It has like a mission, which is like,

02:26:55.840 | people should travel anywhere

02:26:58.080 | and they can work from anywhere

02:26:59.200 | and they can meet different cultures.

02:27:00.960 | And that's a good way to make the world get better.

02:27:03.040 | If you go to China, live in China,

02:27:05.280 | you'll learn that there are nice people.

02:27:07.040 | And a lot of stuff you hear about China's propaganda,

02:27:09.120 | a lot of stuff is true as well.

02:27:10.160 | But it's more, you learn a lot from traveling.

02:27:12.960 | And I think that's why it's like a cool product

02:27:15.600 | to like not sell.

02:27:16.480 | AI products, I have less emotional feeling

02:27:19.200 | with AI products, like PhotEye, which I could sell, yeah.

02:27:22.400 | - Yeah, the thing you also mentioned is

02:27:25.120 | you have to price in the fact that you're going to miss

02:27:28.320 | the company you created. - And the meaning it gives you.

02:27:31.760 | There's a very famous like depression

02:27:34.160 | after a startup wanna sell their company.

02:27:35.840 | Like they're like, this was me, who am I?

02:27:39.040 | And they immediately start building another one.

02:27:40.880 | You know, they never can stop.

02:27:42.400 | So I think it's good to keep working.

02:27:45.360 | You know, until you die, just keep working on cool stuff.

02:27:47.600 | And you shouldn't retire.

02:27:49.920 | You know, I think retirement's bad, probably.

02:27:52.000 | - So you usually build this stuff solo

02:27:54.080 | and mostly work solo.

02:27:55.280 | What's the thinking behind that?

02:27:58.080 | - I think I'm not so good working with other people.

02:28:00.400 | Not like I'm crazy, but like I don't trust other people.

02:28:03.360 | - To clarify, you don't trust other people

02:28:05.440 | to do a great job.

02:28:06.320 | - Yeah, and I don't wanna have like this consensus meeting

02:28:10.800 | where we all like, you know, you have like a meeting

02:28:13.200 | with three people and then you kind of get

02:28:14.720 | this compromise results, which is very European.

02:28:18.160 | Like it's very, in Holland we call it polder model

02:28:20.240 | where you put people in a room and you only let them out

02:28:22.720 | when they agree on the compromise, right, in politics.

02:28:25.120 | And I don't think, I think it breeds like averageness.

02:28:28.640 | You know, you get an average idea, average company,

02:28:30.320 | average culture.

02:28:31.120 | You need to have like a leader or you need to be solo

02:28:36.800 | and just do it, you know, do it yourself, I think.

02:28:39.680 | And I trust some people.

02:28:40.960 | Like now I, like with my best friend, Andre,

02:28:42.720 | I'm making a new AI startup.

02:28:44.160 | But it's because we know each other very long

02:28:46.960 | and he's one of the few people I would build something with.

02:28:49.920 | And, but almost never, yeah.

02:28:51.840 | - So what does it take to be successful

02:28:53.680 | when you have more than one?

02:28:55.840 | Like how do you build together with Andre?

02:28:58.240 | How do you build together with other people?

02:28:59.360 | - So he codes, I shitpost on Twitter.

02:29:02.320 | Literally, like I promote it on Twitter.

02:29:03.760 | We set like product strategy.

02:29:06.320 | Like I said, this should be better, this should be better.

02:29:08.320 | But I think you need to have one person coding it.

02:29:10.720 | He codes in Ruby.

02:29:11.600 | So I was like, can I do Ruby?

02:29:12.960 | I'm in PHP.

02:29:13.680 | - So you literally, so you've, have you ever coded

02:29:16.400 | with another person for prolonged periods of time?

02:29:18.640 | - Never in my life.

02:29:19.840 | - What do you think is behind that?

02:29:25.680 | - I don't know, it was always just me sitting on my laptop.

02:29:28.720 | Like I said, like just coding.

02:29:29.840 | - No, like you've never had another developer

02:29:32.000 | who like rolls in and like.

02:29:33.200 | - I've had it once where we photoride,

02:29:34.880 | like there's an AI developer, Phillip.

02:29:36.320 | I hired him to do the, 'cause I can't write Python.

02:29:38.800 | - Yeah.

02:29:39.120 | - And AI stuff is Python.

02:29:40.560 | And I needed to get models to work and replicate and stuff.

02:29:43.280 | And it needs to improve photoride.

02:29:45.520 | And he helped me a lot for like 10 months.

02:29:47.520 | He worked and man, I was trying Python,

02:29:49.920 | working with NumPy and package manager.

02:29:51.440 | And it was too difficult for me to figure this shit out.

02:29:53.360 | And I didn't have time.

02:29:54.160 | Like I think 10 years ago, I would have time to like sit,

02:29:57.280 | you know, go do all nighters to figure this stuff out

02:30:00.640 | with Python.

02:30:01.600 | I don't have the, and I don't have the, it's not my thing.

02:30:04.560 | - It's not your thing.

02:30:05.520 | It's another programming language.

02:30:06.640 | I get it.

02:30:07.120 | AI, new thing, got it.

02:30:09.120 | But like, you never had a developer roll in,

02:30:11.200 | look at your PHP jQuery code and be, and yes.

02:30:14.880 | Like, you know, like in conversation or improv,

02:30:16.960 | they talk about yes and, like basically, all right.

02:30:20.000 | - I had for one week.

02:30:21.040 | - Understand.

02:30:21.760 | - And then it ended.

02:30:22.720 | - What happened?

02:30:23.680 | - Because he wanted to rewrite everything in the.

02:30:25.520 | - No, that's the wrong guy.

02:30:26.720 | - I know.

02:30:27.280 | - He wanted to rewrite in what?

02:30:28.560 | - He wanted to rewrite the, he said this jQuery,

02:30:30.800 | we can't do this.

02:30:31.760 | I'm like, okay.

02:30:32.640 | He's like, we need to rewrite everything in Vue, Vue.js.

02:30:35.040 | I'm like, are you sure?

02:30:36.160 | Can we just like, you know, like keep jQuery.

02:30:38.320 | He's like, no, man.

02:30:39.360 | Like, and we need to change a lot of stuff.

02:30:41.760 | And I'm like, okay.

02:30:43.040 | And I was kind of like feeling it like this, you know,

02:30:45.120 | we're going to clean up shit.

02:30:46.560 | But then after a week, it's not going to,

02:30:48.560 | it's going to take way too much time.

02:30:49.680 | - I think I like working with people where like,

02:30:51.920 | when I approach them, I pretend in my head

02:30:56.800 | that they're the smartest person who has ever existed.

02:30:58.960 | - Wow.

02:30:59.520 | - So I look at their code or I look at the stuff

02:31:02.320 | they've created and try to see the genius of their way.

02:31:05.200 | Like you really have to understand people.

02:31:07.600 | Like really notice them.

02:31:09.680 | Like, and then from that place, have a conversation

02:31:13.600 | about what is the better approach.

02:31:14.960 | - Yeah, but those are the top tier developers.

02:31:17.200 | - Yeah.

02:31:17.520 | - And those are the ones that are tech ambiguous.

02:31:20.640 | So they can work with, they can learn any tech stack

02:31:23.360 | and they can, and that's like really few.

02:31:25.280 | Like it's like top 5%.

02:31:26.560 | - Really? Damn.

02:31:27.280 | - 'Cause if you try higher devs, like no offense to devs,

02:31:29.280 | but most devs are not, man, most people in general jobs

02:31:32.160 | are not so good at their job.

02:31:33.520 | Like even doctors and stuff.

02:31:34.800 | - That's too sad.

02:31:35.200 | - When you realize this, people are very average.

02:31:37.440 | - Yeah.

02:31:38.400 | - Especially with dev, with coding, I think.

02:31:41.040 | So sorry.

02:31:41.520 | - I think that's a really important skill for a developer

02:31:43.920 | to roll in and like understand the musicality,

02:31:47.280 | the style of the-

02:31:48.320 | - That's it, man.

02:31:48.880 | - And like-

02:31:49.360 | - Empathy, it's like code empathy, right?

02:31:50.880 | - It's code empathy.

02:31:51.520 | - Yeah, it's a new word, but that's it.

02:31:53.360 | You need to understand like, go over the code,

02:31:55.920 | get a holistic view of it.

02:31:56.960 | And man, you can suggest we change stuff for sure.

02:32:00.640 | But, and look, jQuery is crazy.

02:32:03.360 | It's crazy I'm using jQuery.

02:32:04.720 | We can change that.

02:32:05.280 | - It's not crazy at all.

02:32:06.720 | jQuery is also beautiful and powerful.

02:32:08.960 | And PHP is beautiful and powerful,

02:32:10.800 | especially as you said recently,

02:32:12.080 | as the versions evolved,

02:32:17.120 | it's much more serious programming language now.

02:32:19.120 | It's super fast.

02:32:20.240 | Like PHP is really fast now.

02:32:22.560 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:32:23.040 | - It's crazy.

02:32:23.760 | JavaScript-

02:32:24.240 | - Much faster than Ruby, yeah.

02:32:25.200 | - Really fast now.

02:32:26.800 | So if speed is something you care about, it's super fast.

02:32:29.280 | And like there's gigantic communities of people

02:32:32.320 | using those programming languages.

02:32:33.680 | And there's frameworks, if you like the framework.

02:32:35.440 | So whatever, it doesn't really matter what you use.

02:32:37.680 | But like, also you,

02:32:40.400 | if I was like a developer working with you,

02:32:42.800 | like you are extremely successful.

02:32:44.560 | You've shipped a lot.

02:32:46.000 | So like, if I roll in, I'm gonna be like,

02:32:50.560 | I don't assume you know nothing.

02:32:52.560 | I assume Peter's a genius.

02:32:54.080 | Like the smartest developer ever.

02:32:55.760 | And like, learn, learn from it.

02:32:57.360 | And yes, and like notice parts in the code

02:33:01.040 | where like, okay, okay, I got it.

02:33:03.360 | Here's how he's thinking.

02:33:04.720 | And now if I wanna add another, like a little feature,

02:33:10.320 | definitely needs to have emoji in front of it.

02:33:13.760 | And then like, just follow the same style and add it.

02:33:16.960 | And my goal is to make you happy, to make you smile.

02:33:20.400 | Like to make you like, ha ha, fuck, I get it.

02:33:23.200 | And now you're going to start respecting me

02:33:25.600 | and like trusting me.

02:33:27.200 | And like, you start working together in this way.

02:33:29.440 | I don't know.

02:33:30.080 | I don't know how hard it is to find developers.

02:33:32.720 | - No, I think they exist.

02:33:33.440 | I think you need to, I need to hire more people,

02:33:35.120 | need to try more people.

02:33:36.400 | But that costs a lot of my energy and time.

02:33:38.400 | But it's 100% possible.

02:33:40.240 | But do I want it?

02:33:41.280 | I don't know.

02:33:41.920 | Things kind of run fine for now.

02:33:43.440 | And I mean, like, okay, you could say like, okay,

02:33:45.920 | normally this looks kind of clunky.

02:33:47.360 | Like people say the design is kind of clunky.

02:33:48.560 | Okay, I'll improve the design.

02:33:49.520 | It's like next to my to-do list, for example, you know?

02:33:52.160 | Like I can, I'll get there eventually.

02:33:53.760 | - But it's true.

02:33:54.400 | I mean, you're also extremely good at what you do.

02:33:57.040 | Like, I'm just looking at the interfaces of like photo AI.

02:34:00.320 | Like you would Jake, like Jake, right?

02:34:02.880 | Like how amazing is Jake, right?

02:34:04.240 | But like you can, these cowboys are getting,

02:34:06.400 | these are, there's these cowboys.

02:34:09.920 | This is a lot.

02:34:11.600 | It's a lot.

02:34:13.040 | But I'm glad they're all wearing shirts.

02:34:15.120 | Anyway, the interface here is just really, really nice.

02:34:17.680 | Like I could tell, you know what you're doing.

02:34:21.120 | And with Nomad List, extremely nice, the interface.

02:34:25.040 | - Thank you, man.

02:34:25.680 | - And that's all you.

02:34:26.560 | - Yeah, that's everything is me.

02:34:28.320 | - So all of this and every little feature.

02:34:31.040 | - People say it looks kind of ADHD or ADD, you know?

02:34:33.760 | Like it's so much because it has so many things.

02:34:38.000 | And design these days is minimalist, right?

02:34:40.320 | - Right, right, I hear you.

02:34:41.600 | But this is a lot of information and it's useful information

02:34:45.840 | and it's delivered in a clean way

02:34:47.680 | while still stylish and fun to look at.

02:34:49.840 | So like minimalist design is about like

02:34:51.920 | when you want to convey no information whatsoever

02:34:54.880 | and look cool.

02:34:55.520 | - Yeah, it's very cool.

02:34:56.880 | It's pretentious, right?

02:34:57.680 | - Pretentious or not, the function is useless.

02:35:00.880 | This is about a lot of information delivered to you

02:35:03.600 | in a clean, and when it's clean, you can't be too sexy.

02:35:07.200 | So it's sexy enough.

02:35:08.080 | - Yeah, this is, I think, how my brain looks, you know?

02:35:10.480 | Like there's a lot of shit going on.

02:35:12.160 | It's like drawing bass music.

02:35:13.360 | It's like very...

02:35:13.920 | - Yeah, but it's still pretty.

02:35:17.120 | The spacing of everything is nice.

02:35:18.640 | The fonts are really nice, like very readable.

02:35:22.480 | - Yeah, I like it, you know, but I made it

02:35:25.040 | so I don't trust my own judgment.

02:35:26.480 | - No, this is really nice.

02:35:27.920 | - Thank you.

02:35:28.560 | - The emojis are somehow, like it's a style.

02:35:31.840 | It's a thing.

02:35:32.480 | - I need to pick the emoji.

02:35:33.760 | It takes a while to pick them, you know?

02:35:35.520 | - Like there's something about the emoji

02:35:37.440 | is a really nice, memorable, like placeholder for the idea.

02:35:41.920 | - Yeah.

02:35:42.480 | - Like if it was just text, it would actually be overwhelming

02:35:44.880 | if it was just text.

02:35:45.600 | The emoji really helps.

02:35:46.720 | It's a brilliant addition.

02:35:48.560 | Like some people might look at it,

02:35:50.400 | why do you have emojis everywhere?

02:35:51.520 | It's actually really, for me, it's really nice.

02:35:52.960 | - People tell me to remove the emojis.

02:35:54.400 | - Yeah, well, people don't know what they're talking about.

02:35:56.080 | - I'm sure.

02:35:56.640 | - And then the, I'm sure people will tell you a lot of things.

02:36:00.240 | This is really nice.

02:36:01.360 | And then using color is nice.

02:36:03.760 | Small font, but not too small.

02:36:05.920 | And obviously you have to show maps, which is really tricky.

02:36:08.880 | - Yeah.

02:36:09.380 | - Yeah, this is, no, this is really, really, really nice.

02:36:14.800 | And all of, I mean like, okay, like how this looks

02:36:17.280 | when you hover over it.

02:36:19.360 | - Yeah, it's easier transitions.

02:36:21.280 | - No, I understand that, but like, I'm sure there's,

02:36:24.480 | like, how long does it take you to figure out

02:36:25.920 | how you want it to look?

02:36:26.960 | Do you ever go down a rabbit hole

02:36:28.240 | where you spent like two weeks?

02:36:29.360 | - No, it's all iterative.

02:36:30.560 | It's like 10 years of, you know,

02:36:32.480 | add a CSS transition here or do this or.

02:36:34.800 | - Well, let's say like, see, these are all,

02:36:37.200 | these are rounded now.

02:36:38.240 | - Yeah.

02:36:38.740 | - If you wanted to like, round is probably the better way.

02:36:41.040 | But if you want it to be rectangular, like sharp corners,

02:36:44.000 | what would you do?

02:36:44.560 | - So I go to the index.css.

02:36:47.040 | - Yeah.

02:36:47.440 | - And I do command F and I search border radius 12px.

02:36:51.280 | - Yeah.

02:36:51.680 | - And then I replace with border radius zero.

02:36:53.600 | And then I do command enter and it's git deploys.

02:36:57.680 | It pushes to the git hub and then sends a web book

02:37:00.560 | and then deploys to my server and it's live in five seconds.

02:37:04.400 | - Are you often deployed to production?

02:37:06.400 | You don't have like a testing ground?

02:37:08.240 | - No, so I'm like famous for this

02:37:13.200 | 'cause I'm too lazy to set up like a staging server

02:37:16.480 | on my laptop every time.

02:37:17.360 | So nowadays I just deploy to production.

02:37:19.600 | - Yeah.

02:37:20.240 | - And it's, man, I'm gonna get canceled for this, you know,

02:37:22.800 | but it works very well for me

02:37:24.560 | 'cause I have a lot of, I have like PHP lint and JS lint.

02:37:26.800 | So it tells me when there's error, so I don't deploy.

02:37:29.040 | But my, literally, I have like 37,000 git commits

02:37:33.760 | in the last 12 months or something.

02:37:34.800 | So I make like small fix and then command enter

02:37:37.200 | and sends to git hub.

02:37:39.360 | Git hub sends a web book to my server.

02:37:40.960 | Web server pulls it, deploys to production and is there.

02:37:44.480 | - What's the latency of that from you pressing command?

02:37:47.200 | - One second, can be one to two seconds.

02:37:49.280 | - So you just make a change

02:37:50.560 | and then you're getting really good

02:37:51.920 | at like not making mistakes basically.

02:37:53.280 | - Man, you're a hundred percent, you're right.

02:37:54.240 | Like people are like, how can you do this?

02:37:55.280 | Well, you get good at not taking the server down, you know?

02:37:57.120 | - Yeah.

02:37:57.520 | - 'Cause you need to code more carefully.

02:37:59.360 | But it's, look, it's idiotic in any big company,

02:38:02.720 | but for me it works 'cause it makes me so fast.

02:38:05.120 | Like somebody will report a bug on Twitter

02:38:08.080 | and I kinda did do like a stopwatch,

02:38:11.120 | like how fast can I fix this bug?

02:38:12.480 | And then two minutes later, for example, it's fixed.

02:38:14.880 | - Yeah.

02:38:15.280 | - And it's fun 'cause it's annoying for me

02:38:18.240 | to work with companies where you report a bug

02:38:20.000 | and it takes like six months.

02:38:21.200 | - Yeah.

02:38:21.760 | - It's like horrible and it makes people really happy

02:38:23.920 | when you can really quickly solve their problems.

02:38:27.760 | So, but it's crazy.

02:38:29.200 | - I don't think it's crazy.

02:38:30.560 | I mean, there's, I'm sure there's a middle ground,

02:38:32.880 | but I think that whole thing

02:38:35.120 | where there's a phase of like testing

02:38:37.520 | and there's the staging and there's the development.

02:38:40.080 | And then there's like multiple tables and databases

02:38:43.200 | that you use for the state, like it's-

02:38:44.640 | - Filing.

02:38:45.280 | - It's a mess.

02:38:46.320 | - Yeah.

02:38:46.800 | - And there's different teams involved, it's not good.

02:38:49.360 | - I'm like a good funny extreme on the other side, you know?

02:38:51.600 | - But just a little bit safer, but not too much.

02:38:54.400 | It would be great.

02:38:55.040 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:38:56.240 | - And I'm sure that's actually like how X,

02:38:58.080 | now how they're doing rapid improvement.

02:39:00.240 | - No, they do 'cause there's more bugs.

02:39:02.000 | - Yeah.

02:39:02.240 | - And people complain about like,

02:39:03.120 | oh, look, he bought this Twitter and now it's full of bugs.

02:39:05.840 | Dude, the shipping stuff, like things are happening now

02:39:08.240 | and it's a dynamic app now.

02:39:10.320 | - Yeah, the bug is actually a sign of a good thing happening.

02:39:12.800 | - Yes.

02:39:12.960 | - Bugs are the future

02:39:13.840 | because it shows that the team is actually building shit.

02:39:16.000 | - A hundred percent.

02:39:16.720 | - Well, one of the problems is like I see with YouTube,

02:39:19.360 | there's so much potential to build features,

02:39:22.160 | but I just see how long it takes.

02:39:26.000 | So I've gotten a chance to interact

02:39:28.960 | with many other teams,

02:39:30.080 | but one of the teams is MLA, multi-language audio.

02:39:34.880 | I don't know if you know this,

02:39:35.600 | but in YouTube you can have audio tracks

02:39:38.160 | in different languages for overdubbing.

02:39:39.920 | And there's a team and not many people are using it,

02:39:43.520 | but like every single feature they have to meet and agree.

02:39:47.040 | And like there's allocate resources,

02:39:49.120 | like engineers have to work on it,

02:39:51.040 | but I'm sure it's a pain in the ass

02:39:52.240 | for the engineers to get approval to like,

02:39:54.000 | 'cause it has to not break the rest of the site,

02:39:57.200 | whatever they do.

02:39:58.000 | But like, if you don't have enough dictatorial,

02:40:01.520 | like top down, like we need this now,

02:40:04.720 | it's gonna take forever to do anything multi-language audio.

02:40:07.360 | But multi-language audio is a good example

02:40:09.360 | of a thing that seems niche right now,

02:40:12.960 | but it quite possibly could change the entire world.

02:40:15.840 | When you have, when I upload this conversation right here,

02:40:19.440 | if instantaneously it dubs it into 40 languages,

02:40:24.880 | and everybody can assume every single video

02:40:28.320 | can be watched and listened to in those different,

02:40:31.440 | it changes everything.

02:40:32.560 | And YouTube is extremely well-positioned

02:40:34.880 | to be the leader in this.

02:40:36.320 | They got the compute, they got the user base,

02:40:40.480 | they have the experience of how to do this.

02:40:43.520 | So like multi-language audio should be--

02:40:45.600 | - A high priority feature, right?

02:40:47.200 | - Yeah, that's high priority.

02:40:48.800 | Like that's, and it's a way,

02:40:50.560 | Google is obsessed with AI right now.

02:40:52.000 | They wanna show off that they could be dominant in AI.

02:40:54.720 | That's a way for Google to say like,

02:40:56.160 | we use the AI, like this is a way

02:40:58.320 | to break down the walls that language creates.

02:41:01.360 | - The preferred outcome for them is probably their career,

02:41:03.840 | not the overall result of the cool product, you know?

02:41:07.280 | - I think they're not like selfish or whatever.

02:41:09.600 | They wanna do good.

02:41:10.800 | There's something about the machine--

02:41:12.000 | - Organization, yeah.

02:41:12.720 | - Organizational stuff that's just--

02:41:13.840 | - I have this when I do report bugs

02:41:15.360 | on like big companies I work with.

02:41:17.840 | I get, I talk to a lot of different people on DM,

02:41:19.680 | and they're all really trying hard to do something.

02:41:22.160 | They're all really nice.

02:41:23.040 | And I'm the one being kind of asshole,

02:41:25.440 | 'cause I'm like, guys, I'm talking to 20 people about this

02:41:28.080 | for six months and nothing's happening.

02:41:29.360 | They say, man, I know, but I'm trying my best.

02:41:31.920 | And yeah, so it's systemic.

02:41:33.840 | - Yeah, it requires, again,

02:41:36.720 | I don't know if there must be a nicer word,

02:41:38.160 | but like a dictatorial type of top-down,

02:41:40.160 | the CEO rolls in and just says like,

02:41:43.600 | for you to, it's like, MLA, get this done now.

02:41:46.720 | This is the highest priority.

02:41:47.920 | - I think big companies, especially in America,

02:41:50.400 | a lot of it is legal, right?

02:41:51.440 | You need to pass everything through legal.

02:41:52.960 | - Yeah.

02:41:53.440 | - And you can't, like, man, the things I do,

02:41:55.280 | I could never do that in a big corporation,

02:41:57.040 | 'cause everything has to be,

02:41:58.080 | probably Git deploy has to go through legal.

02:42:00.880 | - Well, again, dictatorial.

02:42:03.120 | You basically say, Steve Jobs did this quite a lot.

02:42:06.400 | I've seen a lot of leaders do this.

02:42:08.640 | Ignore the lawyers, ignore comms, ignore PR,

02:42:11.840 | ignore everybody, give power to the engineers.

02:42:14.480 | Like, listen to the people on the ground,

02:42:16.240 | get this shit done and get it done by Friday.

02:42:18.400 | - Yeah.

02:42:18.880 | - That's it.

02:42:19.600 | - And the law can change.

02:42:20.800 | Like, for example, let's say you launch this AI dubbing

02:42:22.960 | and there's some legal problems with lawsuits.

02:42:25.440 | Okay, so the law changes.

02:42:26.720 | There will be appeals.

02:42:27.600 | There will be some Supreme Court thing, whatever.

02:42:29.680 | And the law changes.

02:42:30.560 | So just by shipping it, you change society.

02:42:32.800 | You change the legal framework.

02:42:34.640 | And by not shipping, being scared

02:42:35.920 | of the legal framework all the time,

02:42:37.040 | like you're not changing things.

02:42:38.080 | - Just out of curiosity, what IDE do you use?

02:42:42.000 | Let's talk about like your whole setup.

02:42:44.080 | Given how ultra productive you are,

02:42:47.120 | I mean, you often program in your underwear,

02:42:50.160 | slouching on the couch.

02:42:51.120 | Is there, does it matter to you in general?

02:42:55.200 | Is there like a specific IDE you use?

02:42:56.640 | Do you use VS Code?

02:42:57.520 | - Yeah, VS Code.

02:42:58.560 | Before I used Sublime Text,

02:43:00.240 | I don't think it matters a lot.

02:43:01.680 | I think I'm very skeptical of like tools

02:43:03.680 | when people think it, they say it matters, right?

02:43:06.720 | I don't think it matters.

02:43:07.520 | I think whatever tool you know very well,

02:43:10.720 | you can go very fast in.

02:43:12.080 | Like, you know, the shortcuts, for example, IDE,

02:43:13.840 | you know, like I love Sublime Text

02:43:16.480 | 'cause I could use like multi-cursor.

02:43:18.160 | You know, you search something

02:43:19.520 | and I could like make mass replaces

02:43:22.800 | in a file with the cursor thing.

02:43:24.720 | And VS Code doesn't really have that as well.

02:43:26.640 | - It's actually interesting.

02:43:27.520 | Sublime is the first editor where I've learned that.

02:43:30.400 | And I think they just make that super easy.

02:43:33.200 | So like, what would that be called?

02:43:34.400 | Multi-edit, multi-cursor edit thing, whatever.

02:43:37.760 | I'm sure like almost every editor can do that.

02:43:41.840 | It's just probably hard to set up.

02:43:43.600 | - Yeah, VS Code's not so good at it, I think.

02:43:46.800 | Or at least I tried.

02:43:48.240 | But I would use that to like process data,

02:43:50.720 | like data sets, for example, from World Bank.

02:43:52.400 | I would just multi-cursor mass change everything.

02:43:55.200 | But yeah, VS Code, man, I was bullied into using VS Code

02:44:00.000 | 'cause Twitter would always see my screenshots

02:44:02.000 | of Sublime Text and say, "Why are you still using Sublime Text?"

02:44:04.160 | Like, "Boomer, you need to use VS Code."

02:44:07.280 | And I'm like, "Okay, I'll try it."

02:44:08.240 | I got a new MacBook and then I never install,

02:44:10.800 | like, I never copy the old MacBook.

02:44:12.720 | I just make it fresh, you know, like a clean,

02:44:14.720 | like Format C, you know, Windows, like clean start.

02:44:17.680 | And I'm like, "Okay, I'll try VS Code."

02:44:19.040 | And it's stuck, you know, but I don't really care.

02:44:21.040 | Like, it's not so important for me.

02:44:22.560 | - Wow, you know the Format C reference, huh?

02:44:24.800 | - Dude, it was so good.

02:44:25.840 | You would install Windows

02:44:27.280 | and then after three or six months,

02:44:28.800 | it would start breaking and everything was like,

02:44:31.040 | it gets slow and you would restart,

02:44:33.840 | go to DOS, Format C, you would delete your hard drive

02:44:37.440 | and then install the Windows 95 again.

02:44:40.160 | It was so good times.

02:44:41.840 | And you would design everything like,

02:44:43.360 | now I'm gonna install it properly.

02:44:44.720 | Now I'm gonna design my desktop properly, you know, like.

02:44:46.800 | - Yeah, I don't know if it's peer pressure,

02:44:48.240 | but like I used Emacs for many, many years

02:44:50.240 | and I know, you know, I love Lisp.

02:44:52.800 | So a lot of the customization is done in Lisp.

02:44:55.920 | It's a programming language.

02:44:57.360 | Partially it was peer pressure,

02:44:58.320 | but part of it was realizing like,

02:45:00.240 | you need to keep learning stuff.

02:45:01.520 | Like the same issue with jQuery,

02:45:04.240 | like I still think I need to learn Node.js for example.

02:45:07.600 | Even though that's not my main thing

02:45:10.240 | or even close to the main thing,

02:45:11.520 | but I feel like you need to keep learning this stuff.

02:45:14.240 | And even if you don't choose to use it long-term,

02:45:19.200 | you need to give it a chance.

02:45:20.480 | So your understanding of the world expands.

02:45:23.600 | - Yeah, you wanna understand the new technological concepts

02:45:25.920 | and see if they can benefit you.

02:45:28.000 | You know, it would be stupid not to even try.

02:45:29.520 | - It's more about the concepts, I would say,

02:45:31.440 | than the actual tools, like expanding.

02:45:34.480 | And that can be a challenging thing.

02:45:35.840 | So going to VS Code and like really learning it,

02:45:38.000 | like all the shortcuts, all the extensions

02:45:39.600 | and actually installing different stuff

02:45:41.120 | and playing with it, that was a interesting challenge.

02:45:44.320 | It was uncomfortable at first.

02:45:45.840 | - Yeah, for me too, yeah.

02:45:46.800 | - Yeah, but you just dive in.

02:45:48.160 | - It's like neuroflex, like you keep your brain fresh,

02:45:50.400 | you know, like this kind of stuff.

02:45:51.840 | - I gotta do that more.

02:45:52.880 | Like, have you given React a chance?

02:45:54.880 | - No, but I wanna learn it.

02:45:57.520 | I understand the basics, right?

02:45:59.520 | I don't really know where to start.

02:46:02.800 | - But would you like, I guess you gotta use your own model,

02:46:06.320 | which is like build the thing using it.

02:46:08.960 | - No, man, so I kind of did that.

02:46:11.040 | Like the stuff I do in jQuery is essentially,

02:46:14.480 | a lot of it is like I start rebuilding

02:46:17.920 | whatever tech is already out there,

02:46:19.840 | not based on that, but just an accident.

02:46:21.600 | Like I keep coding long enough that I build the same,

02:46:23.360 | I start getting the same problems everybody else has

02:46:25.840 | and you start building the same frameworks kind of.

02:46:27.360 | So essentially I use my own kind of framework of--

02:46:29.680 | - So you basically build a framework from scratch

02:46:31.280 | that's your own, that you understand it.

02:46:32.720 | - Kind of, yeah, with AJAX calls.

02:46:34.240 | Essentially it's the same thing.

02:46:35.840 | Look, I don't have the time.

02:46:36.720 | I think saying you don't have the time is like always a lie

02:46:40.800 | 'cause you just don't prioritize it enough.

02:46:42.400 | My priority is still like running the businesses

02:46:45.920 | and improving that and AI.

02:46:47.280 | I think learning AI is much more valuable now

02:46:49.040 | than learning a front-end framework.

02:46:51.520 | - Yeah.

02:46:52.000 | - Like it's just more impact.

02:46:53.520 | - I guess you should be just learning

02:46:55.120 | every single day a thing.

02:46:57.840 | - Yeah, you can learn a little bit every day,

02:46:59.760 | like a little bit of React

02:47:01.200 | or I think now like Next is very big.

02:47:03.280 | So learn a little bit of Next, you know.

02:47:05.600 | But I call them the military industrial complex.

02:47:07.520 | So if I, you need to know it anyway, so.

02:47:10.800 | - You gotta learn how to use the weapons of war

02:47:13.840 | and then you can be a peace maker.

02:47:15.520 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:47:16.160 | - Yeah, I mean, but you gotta learn it

02:47:18.880 | in the same exact ways we were talking about,

02:47:21.440 | which is learn it by trying to build something with it

02:47:24.160 | and actually deploy it.

02:47:25.200 | - The frameworks are so complicated

02:47:26.720 | and it changes so fast.

02:47:28.160 | So it's like, where do I start, you know?

02:47:30.640 | And I guess it's the same thing

02:47:31.440 | when you're starting out making websites,

02:47:32.640 | like where do you start?

02:47:33.760 | Yeah, it's GPT-4, I guess.

02:47:35.680 | But it, yeah, it's just so dynamic.

02:47:38.880 | It changes so fast that I don't know

02:47:40.080 | if it would be a good idea for me to learn it, you know.

02:47:42.400 | Maybe some combination of like Vue, Next

02:47:46.320 | with PHP Laravel.

02:47:48.160 | Laravel is like a framework for PHP.

02:47:50.400 | I think that would be, it could benefit me, you know.

02:47:53.760 | Maybe Tailwind for CSS, like a styling engine.

02:47:56.000 | That stuff could probably save me time.

02:47:58.240 | - Yeah, but like you won't know

02:48:00.320 | until you really give it a try

02:48:01.520 | and it feels like you have to build,

02:48:03.280 | like if maybe I'm talking to myself,

02:48:05.360 | but like I should probably recode

02:48:09.040 | like my personal one page in Laravel or...

02:48:12.800 | - Yeah.

02:48:13.440 | - And even though it might not have

02:48:15.440 | almost any dynamic elements,

02:48:17.040 | maybe have one dynamic element,

02:48:18.480 | but it has to go end-to-end in that framework.

02:48:21.440 | - Yeah.

02:48:21.920 | - Or like end-to-end build in Node.js.

02:48:23.920 | Some of it is, I don't,

02:48:25.280 | figuring out how to even deploy the thing.

02:48:28.000 | - I have no idea.

02:48:29.200 | All I know is right now I would send it to GitHub

02:48:31.440 | and it sends it to my server.

02:48:32.480 | I don't know how to get JavaScript running.

02:48:34.560 | I have no clue.

02:48:35.520 | - Yeah.

02:48:36.000 | - So I guess I need like a pass,

02:48:39.280 | like a, like Versal, right?

02:48:40.800 | Or, you know, Heroku, kind of those kind of platforms.

02:48:44.400 | - I actually kind of just gave myself the idea

02:48:47.520 | of like, I kind of just want to build a single webpage,

02:48:50.480 | like one webpage that has like one dynamic element

02:48:55.120 | and just do it in every single,

02:48:57.360 | like in a lot of frameworks.

02:48:59.120 | Like just...

02:48:59.520 | - Ah, on the same page.

02:49:00.560 | - Same exact kind of page.

02:49:03.360 | - That's smart. That's a cool project.

02:49:04.080 | - Like...

02:49:04.240 | - In all these frameworks.

02:49:05.680 | - Yeah.

02:49:05.920 | - And you can see the differences.

02:49:07.120 | - Yeah.

02:49:07.600 | - That's interesting.

02:49:08.560 | - All it takes to do it.

02:49:09.440 | - Yeah, stopwatch.

02:49:10.240 | - I have to figure out actually

02:49:12.320 | something sufficiently complicated

02:49:14.560 | 'cause it should probably do,

02:49:16.640 | it should probably do some kind of thing

02:49:19.680 | where it accesses the database

02:49:21.520 | and dynamically is changing stuff.

02:49:23.040 | - Some AI stuff, some LLM stuff.

02:49:24.960 | - Yeah, maybe some, it doesn't have to be AI alone,

02:49:27.280 | but maybe API call to something.

02:49:29.840 | - To replicate, for example, and then you have,

02:49:32.240 | yeah, that would be a very cool project.

02:49:33.440 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:49:34.720 | And like time it and also report on my happiness.

02:49:38.480 | - Yeah.

02:49:38.960 | - I'm going to totally do this.

02:49:40.800 | - 'Cause nobody benchmarks this.

02:49:42.320 | Nobody's benchmarked developer happiness with frameworks.

02:49:44.720 | - Yeah.

02:49:44.960 | - Nobody's benchmarked the shipping time.

02:49:46.640 | - I like to just take like a month and do this.

02:49:49.280 | How many frameworks are there?

02:49:50.480 | There's how many, how many,

02:49:52.880 | there's like five main ways of doing it.

02:49:55.200 | So there's like, there's backend, frontend.

02:49:58.160 | - And this stuff confused me too.

02:49:59.600 | Like React now apparently has become backend.

02:50:01.760 | - Yeah.

02:50:02.160 | - Or something that used to be only frontend

02:50:04.080 | and you're forced to do now backend also, I don't know.

02:50:06.320 | - And then, but there's not really,

02:50:07.760 | you're not really forced to do anything.

02:50:09.280 | So like, according to the internet.

02:50:12.400 | So like, there's no, it's actually not trivial

02:50:15.280 | to find the canonical way of doing things.

02:50:17.520 | So like the standard vanilla, like you should,

02:50:19.840 | you go to the ice cream shop,

02:50:21.120 | there's like a million flavors.

02:50:22.880 | I want vanilla.

02:50:24.080 | If I've never had ice cream in my life,

02:50:26.240 | can we just like learn about ice cream?

02:50:30.080 | - Yeah.

02:50:30.720 | - I want vanilla.

02:50:32.160 | Nobody actually, sometimes they'll literally name it vanilla.

02:50:35.360 | But like, I want to know what's the basic way,

02:50:38.080 | but not like dumb, but like the standard canonical.

02:50:42.320 | - Yeah, I want to know the dominant way.

02:50:43.760 | Like 60% of developers do it like this.

02:50:46.080 | - Yeah.

02:50:46.560 | - It's hard to figure that out.

02:50:47.840 | You know, that's the problem.

02:50:48.800 | - Yeah, maybe LLMs can help.

02:50:51.760 | Maybe you should explicitly ask, what is the dominant?

02:50:54.560 | - 'Cause they usually know like the dominant.

02:50:55.920 | You know, they give answers

02:50:57.520 | that are like the most probable kind of.

02:50:59.120 | - Yeah.

02:50:59.520 | - So that makes sense to ask LLM.

02:51:01.360 | And I think honestly, maybe what would help

02:51:04.720 | is if you want to learn,

02:51:06.000 | or I would want to learn like a framework,

02:51:07.840 | hire somebody that already does it

02:51:09.920 | and just sit with them and make something together.

02:51:12.960 | Like I've never done that, but I've thought about it.

02:51:14.960 | So it would be a very fast way to, you know,

02:51:16.960 | take their knowledge, put it in my brain.

02:51:19.600 | - I've tried these kinds of things.

02:51:21.040 | What happens is, it depends what kind of,

02:51:23.200 | if they're like a world-class developer, yes.

02:51:24.960 | Oftentimes they themselves are used to that thing

02:51:29.040 | and they have not themselves explored in other options.

02:51:32.240 | So they have this dogmatic, like talking down to you.

02:51:35.040 | - Yeah.

02:51:36.320 | - Like this is the right way to do it.

02:51:38.000 | - Yeah.

02:51:38.320 | - It's like, no, no, no.

02:51:39.280 | We're just like exploring together.

02:51:40.640 | Okay, show me the cool thing you've tried.

02:51:42.720 | Which is like, it has to have open-mindedness to like,

02:51:47.920 | you know, Node.js is not the right way to do web development.

02:51:53.440 | It's like one way.

02:51:54.960 | And there's nothing wrong with the old LAMP,

02:51:58.960 | PHP, jQuery, vanilla JavaScript way.

02:52:02.960 | It just has its pros and cons.

02:52:04.480 | And like, you need to know what the pros and cons are.

02:52:06.080 | - Yeah, but those people exist.

02:52:06.720 | You could find those people probably.

02:52:07.920 | - Yeah.

02:52:08.800 | - Like if you want to learn AI,

02:52:10.480 | imagine you have Karpathy sitting next to you.

02:52:12.240 | - Yeah.

02:52:12.480 | - Teach you LLM, like he does his YouTube videos.

02:52:14.400 | It's amazing.

02:52:14.960 | He can teach it to like a five-year-old about how to make LLM.

02:52:18.880 | It's amazing.

02:52:19.760 | Like imagine this guy sitting next to you

02:52:21.440 | and just teaching you like, let's make LLM together.

02:52:23.360 | Like, holy shit, it would be amazing.

02:52:25.600 | - Yeah, I mean, well, Karpathy has its own style.

02:52:30.000 | And it's like, I'm not sure he's for everybody.

02:52:32.800 | But for example, five-year-old,

02:52:34.000 | it depends on the five-year-old.

02:52:35.120 | - Yeah.

02:52:35.440 | - But he's like super technical.

02:52:37.520 | - But he's amazing 'cause he's super technical.

02:52:39.040 | And he's the only one who can explain stuff in a simple way,

02:52:42.400 | which shows his complete genius.

02:52:44.240 | - Yes.

02:52:44.640 | - 'Cause if you can explain without jargon, you're like, wow.

02:52:48.480 | - And build it from scratch.

02:52:49.920 | - Yeah, it's like top tier, you know, like what a guy.

02:52:52.800 | - But he might be anti-framework 'cause he builds from scratch.

02:52:56.800 | - Exactly, yeah, actually probably is, yeah.

02:52:58.720 | - He's like Yubo for AI.

02:53:01.280 | - Yeah, so maybe learning a framework

02:53:03.120 | is a very bad idea for us, you know?

02:53:04.400 | Maybe we should stay in PHP and like Script Kitty.

02:53:07.520 | - But you have to, maybe by learning the framework,

02:53:10.560 | you learn what you want to yourself build from scratch.

02:53:14.320 | - Yeah, maybe you learn concepts,

02:53:15.520 | but you don't actually have to start using it

02:53:16.800 | for your life, right?

02:53:17.440 | Yeah, yeah.

02:53:18.400 | - And you're still a Mac guy, always a Mac guy.

02:53:21.280 | - Yeah, yeah, I switched to Mac in 2014

02:53:24.160 | 'cause it was 'cause when I wanted to start traveling

02:53:26.320 | and my brother was like, dude, get a MacBook.

02:53:28.080 | It's like the standard now.

02:53:29.280 | I'm like, wow, I need to switch from Windows.

02:53:31.040 | And I had like three screens, you know, like Windows.

02:53:33.600 | I had this whole setup for music production.

02:53:35.520 | I had to sell everything and then I had a MacBook.

02:53:39.200 | And I remember opening up this MacBook box,

02:53:41.280 | like, ah, and it was so beautiful.

02:53:44.240 | It was like this aluminum.

02:53:45.600 | And then I opened it, I removed the screen protector thing.

02:53:48.160 | It's so beautiful.

02:53:49.680 | And I didn't touch it for three days.

02:53:51.440 | I was just like looking at it, really.

02:53:52.960 | And I was still on the Windows computer

02:53:54.080 | and then I went traveling with that.

02:53:56.320 | And all my great things started when I switched to Mac,

02:53:59.200 | which sounds very dogmatic, right?

02:54:00.640 | But-- - What great things

02:54:01.760 | are you talking about?

02:54:02.480 | - All the business started working out.

02:54:04.240 | Like I started traveling, I started building startups,

02:54:06.880 | I started making money.

02:54:08.240 | It all started when I switched to Mac.

02:54:09.680 | - Listen, I kinda, you're making me wanna switch to Mac.

02:54:15.200 | So I either use Linux inside Windows with WSL

02:54:18.880 | or just Ubuntu Linux.

02:54:21.120 | But Windows for most stuff like editing

02:54:24.640 | or any like Adobe products. - Yeah, like Adobe stuff, right?

02:54:27.440 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:54:28.160 | Well, you could use, I guess you could do Mac stuff there.

02:54:30.400 | I wonder if I should switch.

02:54:32.080 | What do you miss about Windows?

02:54:33.200 | What was the pros and cons?

02:54:34.320 | - I think the Finder is horrible on Mac.

02:54:36.720 | Like it's like, it's-- - The what is horrible?

02:54:38.560 | - The Finder.

02:54:39.200 | Oh, you don't know the Finder?

02:54:40.000 | So there's the Windows Explorer?

02:54:41.040 | - Yeah.

02:54:41.520 | - Windows Explorer is amazing. - Thank you for talking about it.

02:54:43.840 | - Finder is strange, man.

02:54:44.800 | There's like strange things.

02:54:45.680 | This is bug where if you send,

02:54:48.000 | like attach a photo on WhatsApp or Telegram,

02:54:50.000 | it just selects the whole folder

02:54:52.080 | and you almost accidentally can click enter.

02:54:54.160 | And you send all your photos,

02:54:55.280 | all your files to this chat group.

02:54:57.680 | Happened to my girlfriend.

02:54:58.880 | She starts sending me photo, photo, photo, photo, photo.

02:55:01.440 | So Finder is very unusual, but it has Linux.

02:55:04.800 | Like the whole thing is like, it's Unix based, right?

02:55:06.720 | - So you use the command?

02:55:07.680 | - Yeah, all the time.

02:55:09.200 | Like all the time.

02:55:10.320 | And the cool thing is you can run,

02:55:11.680 | I think it's like Unix, like Debian or whatever.

02:55:14.560 | You can run most Linux stuff on macOS,

02:55:17.680 | which makes us very good for development.

02:55:19.680 | Like I have my Nginx server.

02:55:21.840 | You know, if I said,

02:55:23.040 | if I'm not lazy and set up my staging on my laptop,

02:55:25.200 | it's just the Nginx server,

02:55:26.400 | the same as I have on my cloud server, right?

02:55:29.440 | The same way the websites run.

02:55:31.040 | And I can use almost everything,

02:55:32.800 | the same config files, configuration files.

02:55:34.800 | And it just works.

02:55:36.320 | And that makes Mac a very good platform

02:55:38.320 | for Linux stuff, I think.

02:55:39.840 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:55:42.320 | - Of course, real Ubuntu is like better, of course, but.

02:55:44.880 | - Yeah, I'm in this weird situation

02:55:48.160 | where I'm somewhat of a power user in Windows

02:55:53.120 | and let's say Android,

02:55:54.960 | and all the much smarter friends I have,

02:55:59.360 | all using Mac and iPhone.

02:56:02.400 | And it's like.

02:56:02.880 | - But you don't want to go through the peer pressure.

02:56:05.600 | - It's not peer pressure.

02:56:06.960 | It's like, like one of the reasons I want to have kids

02:56:10.800 | is that there's a lot of,

02:56:12.160 | like I would love to have kids as a baseline,

02:56:15.600 | but you know, there's like a concern,

02:56:16.960 | maybe there's going to be a trade-off

02:56:18.320 | or all this kind of stuff.

02:56:19.040 | But you see like these extremely successful,

02:56:21.200 | smart people who are friends of mine,

02:56:23.200 | who have kids and are really happy they have kids.

02:56:25.440 | So that's not peer pressure.

02:56:26.880 | That's just like a strong signal.

02:56:28.320 | - Yeah, that works for people.

02:56:29.600 | - That works for people.

02:56:30.320 | - Yeah.

02:56:30.640 | - And the same thing with Mac.

02:56:31.760 | It's like, I don't see fundamentally,

02:56:36.800 | I don't like closed systems.

02:56:38.640 | So like fundamentally, I like Windows more

02:56:41.760 | because there's much more freedom.

02:56:43.200 | Same with Android.

02:56:44.000 | There's much more freedom.

02:56:45.280 | It's much more customizable.

02:56:46.800 | But like all the cool kids,

02:56:51.200 | the smart kids are using Mac and iPhone.

02:56:53.760 | It's like, all right, I need to really,

02:56:55.840 | I need to give it a real chance,

02:56:57.440 | especially for development

02:56:58.800 | since more and more stuff is done in the cloud anyway.

02:57:00.880 | - Yeah.

02:57:01.280 | - Well, anyway, but it's funny to hear you say

02:57:04.080 | all the good stuff started happening.

02:57:05.280 | Maybe I'll be like that guy too.

02:57:06.800 | When I switched to Mac,

02:57:08.560 | all the good stuff started happening.

02:57:09.760 | - I think it's just about the hardware.

02:57:11.040 | It's not so much about the software.

02:57:12.080 | The hardware is so well built, right?

02:57:13.920 | The keyboard and--

02:57:14.720 | - Yeah, but look at the keyboard I use.

02:57:16.400 | - Yeah, it's pretty cool.

02:57:17.600 | - That's one word for it.

02:57:20.000 | What's your favorite place to work?

02:57:22.160 | - On the couch.

02:57:23.840 | - Does the couch matter?

02:57:25.760 | Is the couch your home or is it any couch?

02:57:27.680 | - No, like hotel couch also, like in the room, right?

02:57:30.720 | - In the room.

02:57:31.280 | - But I used to work like very ergonomically

02:57:33.120 | with like a standing desk.

02:57:34.320 | - Yeah.

02:57:34.800 | - And everything like perfect,

02:57:36.080 | like eye height, screen, blah, blah, blah.

02:57:38.560 | And I felt like, man, this has to do with lifting too.

02:57:41.600 | I started getting RSI,

02:57:42.640 | like repetitive strain injury, like tingling stuff.

02:57:45.120 | And it would go all the way on my back.

02:57:46.800 | And I was sitting in a coworking space,

02:57:48.080 | like 6 a.m., sun comes up and I'm working and I'm coding.

02:57:52.320 | And I hear like a sound or something.

02:57:54.240 | So I do like, I look left and my neck gets stuck.

02:57:57.200 | Like, and I'm like, wow, fuck.

02:57:59.920 | And I'm like, what's, am I dying?

02:58:03.360 | You know, and I thought I'm probably dying.

02:58:04.960 | - Yeah, probably dying.

02:58:05.520 | - So I don't wanna die in a coworking space.

02:58:07.040 | I'm gonna go home and die in like peace and honor.

02:58:10.240 | - Yeah.

02:58:10.560 | - So I closed my laptop and I put it in my backpack.

02:58:13.920 | - Yeah.

02:58:14.320 | - And I walked to the street, I got on my motorbike, went home.

02:58:17.120 | And I lied down on like a pillow, like with my legs up and stuff,

02:58:22.000 | to get rid of this, like, 'cause it was my whole back.

02:58:25.760 | And it was because I was working like this all the time.

02:58:27.920 | - Yeah.

02:58:28.160 | - So I started getting like a laptop stand,

02:58:31.280 | everything ergonomically correct.

02:58:33.040 | But then I started lifting.

02:58:35.600 | And since then, like, it seems like everything gets straightened out.

02:58:39.360 | Your posture kind of, you're more straight.

02:58:41.680 | And I never have RSI anymore, repetitive injury.

02:58:45.120 | I never have tingling anymore, no pains and stuff.

02:58:49.200 | So then I started working on the sofa and it's great.

02:58:52.320 | Like, it feels, you're close to the, I sit like this.

02:58:58.080 | - Yeah.

02:58:58.640 | - Legs together and then a pillow and then a laptop.

02:59:00.960 | And then I work.

02:59:02.160 | - Are you like leaning back?

02:59:03.520 | - I'm kind of like together, like legs and then--

02:59:07.440 | - Where's the mouse, you're using--

02:59:09.040 | - No, so everything's trackpad on the Mac OS, on the MacBook.

02:59:12.000 | I used to have the Logitech MX mouse, the perfect ergonomic mouse.

02:59:16.400 | - And you're just doing like this little thing with the thing.

02:59:18.800 | - Yes.

02:59:19.120 | - One screen.

02:59:20.080 | - One screen.

02:59:21.200 | And I used to have three screens.

02:59:22.240 | So I come from the, I know where people come from.

02:59:24.000 | I had all the stuff.

02:59:25.360 | But then I realized that having it all condensed in one laptop,

02:59:29.600 | it's a 16-inch MacBook, so it's quite big.

02:59:31.200 | But having it all in there is amazing

02:59:33.120 | 'cause you're so close to the tools.

02:59:35.440 | You're so close to what's happening, you know?

02:59:37.680 | It's like working on a car or something.

02:59:39.200 | It's like, so like, man, if you have three screens,

02:59:43.280 | you look here, look there, you get also neck injury actually.

02:59:46.000 | So it's--

02:59:47.120 | - Well, I don't know, this sounds like you're part of a cult

02:59:49.520 | and you're just trying to convince me.

02:59:51.280 | But I mean, but it's good to hear

02:59:53.840 | that you can be ultra productive on a single screen.

02:59:56.400 | That's, I mean, that's crazy.

02:59:57.360 | - Command-Tab, you Alt-Tab, like Windows Alt-Tab,

03:00:00.160 | Mac OS Command-Tab, you can switch very fast.

03:00:01.840 | - So you have like one, the entire screen is taken up by VS Code,

03:00:05.360 | say you're looking at the code and then--

03:00:06.720 | - Yeah. - And then like,

03:00:08.080 | if you deploy like a website, you what, switch screens.

03:00:10.480 | - Command-Tab to Chrome.

03:00:11.840 | I used to have this swipe screen, you know,

03:00:13.200 | you could do like different screen spaces.

03:00:16.400 | - Yeah. - I was like,

03:00:17.760 | ah, it's too difficult.

03:00:18.800 | Let's just put it on one screen on the MacBook and then--

03:00:21.760 | - And you can be productive that way.

03:00:23.200 | - Yeah, very productive, yeah.

03:00:25.520 | More productive than before.

03:00:26.800 | - Interesting, because I have three screens

03:00:29.280 | and two of them are vertical.

03:00:30.400 | - Yeah, the code, right, yeah. - For the code, you can see a lot.

03:00:33.840 | - Yeah, no, man, I love it.

03:00:35.200 | Like I love seeing it with friends.

03:00:36.800 | Like they have amazing like battle stations, right, it's called.

03:00:39.120 | It's amazing.

03:00:39.760 | I want it, but I don't want it, right?

03:00:41.680 | Like-- - You like the constraints.

03:00:42.960 | - There's-- - That's it.

03:00:44.320 | - There's some aspect of the constraints,

03:00:46.400 | which like once you get good at it,

03:00:48.480 | you can focus your mind and you can--

03:00:49.920 | - Man, I'm suspicious of like more, you know?

03:00:51.920 | - Yeah. - Do we really need

03:00:53.120 | all this stuff?

03:00:53.600 | Like it might slow me down, actually.

03:00:55.120 | - It's a good way to put it.

03:00:56.160 | I'm suspicious of more.

03:00:57.840 | Me too, I'm suspicious of more in all ways.

03:01:01.600 | - Because you can defend more, right?

03:01:03.040 | You can defend, yeah, I'm a developer.

03:01:04.880 | I make money.

03:01:05.360 | I need to get more screens, right?

03:01:06.880 | I need to be more efficient.

03:01:07.920 | And then you read stuff about like Mythical Man Month,

03:01:11.120 | where like hiring more people

03:01:12.880 | slows down a software project that's famous.

03:01:15.840 | I think you can use that metaphor maybe for, you know, tools as well.

03:01:18.960 | And I see friends just with gear acquisition syndrome

03:01:21.360 | that buying so much stuff, but they're not that productive.

03:01:24.560 | They have the best, most beautiful battle stations,

03:01:27.600 | desktops, everything.

03:01:28.960 | They're not that productive.

03:01:30.160 | And it's also like kind of fun.

03:01:31.200 | Like it's all from my laptop in a backpack, right?

03:01:33.360 | It's kind of nomad, minimalist.

03:01:34.560 | - Take me through like the perfect ultra-productive day in your life.

03:01:38.160 | Like say like where you get a lot of shit done.

03:01:43.120 | - Yeah.

03:01:43.600 | - Are you, and it's all focused on getting shit done.

03:01:47.200 | When are you waking up?

03:01:49.520 | Is it a regular time?

03:01:50.480 | Super early, super late?

03:01:52.160 | - Yes, so I go to sleep like 2 a.m. usually, something like that.

03:01:54.960 | And before 4 a.m., but my girlfriend would go sleep midnight.

03:02:00.000 | So we did a compromise like 2 a.m., you know?

03:02:02.400 | So I wake up around 10, 11, more like 10.

03:02:04.880 | Shower, make coffee.

03:02:08.480 | I make coffee, like drip coffee, like the V60, you know, the filter.

03:02:12.240 | And I boil water and then put the coffee in.

03:02:14.240 | And then chill a little bit with my girlfriend

03:02:18.080 | and then open laptop, start coding.

03:02:20.320 | Check what's going on, like bugs or whatever.

03:02:22.400 | - How long are you, like how stretches of time

03:02:25.840 | are you able to just sit behind the computer coding?

03:02:28.000 | - So I used to need like really long stretches

03:02:30.240 | where I would do like all nighters and stuff to get shit done.

03:02:32.480 | But I've gotten trained to like have more interruptions

03:02:36.320 | where I can like-- - 'Cause you have to.

03:02:37.920 | - This is life, like there's a lot of distractions.

03:02:40.320 | Like your girlfriend asks stuff, people come over, whatever.

03:02:43.440 | So I'm very fast now.

03:02:45.440 | I can lock in and lock out quite fast.

03:02:47.520 | And I heard people, developers or entrepreneurs

03:02:49.600 | with kids have the same thing.

03:02:50.720 | Like before they're like, "Ah, I cannot work."

03:02:52.400 | But they get used to it and they get really productive

03:02:55.200 | in like short time because they only have like 20 minutes

03:02:58.160 | and then shit goes crazy again.

03:03:00.080 | So I'm not a constraint, right?

03:03:01.680 | - Yeah, that's funny.

03:03:02.880 | - So I think that works for me.

03:03:05.520 | But yeah, and then cook food and stuff,

03:03:08.240 | like have lunch, steak and chicken.

03:03:10.640 | - You eat a bunch of times a day.

03:03:12.400 | So you say coffee, what are you doing?

03:03:14.480 | - Yeah, so a few hours later, cook foods.

03:03:16.800 | We get like locally sourced, like meat and stuff

03:03:18.880 | and vegetables and cook that.

03:03:20.720 | And then second coffee and then go some more.

03:03:24.320 | Maybe go outside for lunch.

03:03:25.360 | Like you can mix fun stuff, you know?

03:03:27.200 | - How many hours are you saying

03:03:28.720 | a perfectly productive day are you doing programming?

03:03:31.280 | Like if you were like to kill it,

03:03:32.640 | are you doing like all day basically?

03:03:34.800 | - You mean like the special days

03:03:36.080 | where like girlfriend leaves to like Paris or something

03:03:38.960 | and you're alone for a week at home, which is amazing.

03:03:41.920 | You can just go, it's like,

03:03:43.360 | and you stay up all night and eat chocolate.

03:03:45.120 | - Yeah, eat chocolate.

03:03:46.640 | Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

03:03:48.160 | Let's remove girlfriend from picture,

03:03:49.760 | social life from picture.

03:03:51.440 | It's just you.

03:03:52.160 | - Man, then shit goes crazy.

03:03:54.160 | - Okay, yeah, 'cause when shit goes crazy.

03:03:55.920 | - Now shit goes crazy.

03:03:56.880 | - Okay, so let's rewind.

03:04:00.160 | Are you still waking up?

03:04:01.440 | There's coffee.

03:04:02.080 | There's no girlfriend to talk to.

03:04:03.360 | - And now we wake up like 1 p.m to 2 p.m.

03:04:09.280 | - 'Cause you went to bed at 6 a.m.

03:04:13.280 | - Yeah, 'cause I was coding.

03:04:14.400 | I was finding some new AI shit and I was studying it

03:04:17.680 | and it was amazing.

03:04:18.560 | And I cannot sleep 'cause it's too important.

03:04:20.160 | We need to stay awake.

03:04:20.880 | We need to see all of this.

03:04:21.920 | We need to make something now.

03:04:24.080 | But that's the times I do make like new stuff more.

03:04:27.360 | So I think, I have a friend, he actually books a hotel

03:04:31.120 | for like a week to like leave his, and he has a kid too.

03:04:33.920 | And his girlfriend and his kid stay in the house

03:04:35.440 | and he goes to another hotel.

03:04:36.720 | Sounds a little suspicious, right?

03:04:38.480 | Going to a hotel.

03:04:38.960 | But all he does is like writing or coding.

03:04:41.760 | He's a writer and he needs like this alone time,

03:04:44.320 | this silence.

03:04:45.040 | And I think for this flow state, it's true.

03:04:47.760 | I'm better maintaining stuff when there's a lot

03:04:51.440 | of disruptions than like creating new stuff.

03:04:53.120 | I need this, and it's common, it's flow state.

03:04:55.280 | It's this uninterrupted period of time.

03:04:57.520 | So yeah, I wake up like one, 2 p.m.

03:05:00.480 | Still coffee, shower, we still shower.

03:05:03.680 | And then just code like nonstop.

03:05:07.520 | Maybe my friend comes over.

03:05:08.480 | - Just some distraction.

03:05:10.720 | - Yeah, he also, Andre, he codes too.

03:05:12.800 | So he comes over, we code together.

03:05:14.400 | We listen, it starts going back to like the Bali days,

03:05:17.360 | you know, like coworking days.

03:05:18.800 | - So you're not really working with him,

03:05:20.480 | but you're just both working.

03:05:21.680 | - Because it's nice to have like a vibe

03:05:23.360 | where you both sit together on the couch

03:05:25.440 | and coding or something.

03:05:26.720 | And you actually, it's mostly silent or there's music,

03:05:29.120 | you know, and sometimes you ask something

03:05:31.040 | and, but generally like you're really locked in.

03:05:33.600 | - And what music are you listening to?

03:05:35.840 | - I think like techno, like YouTube techno.

03:05:40.560 | There's a channel called HOR with a umlaut,

03:05:44.480 | like H-O, like double dot.

03:05:46.480 | It's Berlin techno, whatever.

03:05:48.640 | It looks like they film it in like a toilet

03:05:51.360 | with like white tiles and stuff.

03:05:52.800 | And it's very cool.

03:05:53.600 | And they always have like very good,

03:05:55.840 | like kind of industrial, like.

03:05:57.280 | - Industrial, so fast paced, heavy.

03:05:59.040 | - Kind of aggressive, you know, like.

03:06:00.560 | - Yeah, that's not distracting to your brain?

03:06:02.640 | - No, it's amazing.

03:06:04.000 | Like I think distracting, man, jazz.

03:06:06.320 | Like I listen to coffee jazz with my girlfriend

03:06:08.000 | when I wake up and it's kind of like,

03:06:09.200 | this piano starts getting annoying.

03:06:10.560 | It's like, it's too many tones.

03:06:14.080 | It's like too many things going on.

03:06:15.680 | This industrial techno is like, you know,

03:06:17.360 | these African like rain dances,

03:06:18.800 | like it's this transcendental trance.

03:06:22.800 | - That's interesting.

03:06:23.920 | 'Cause I actually mostly now listen to brown noise, noise.

03:06:29.600 | - Yeah, wow.

03:06:30.400 | - Like pretty loud.

03:06:31.680 | - Wow.

03:06:32.160 | - And one of the things you learn

03:06:34.000 | is your brain gets used to whatever.

03:06:35.840 | So I'm sure to techno,

03:06:36.800 | if I actually give it a real chance,

03:06:38.400 | my brain would get used to it.

03:06:40.720 | But like with noise, what happens?

03:06:43.200 | If something happens to your brain,

03:06:44.320 | I think there's a science to it,

03:06:45.280 | but I don't really care.

03:06:46.720 | You just have to be a scientist of one,

03:06:48.880 | like study yourself, your own brain.

03:06:50.720 | For me, it like, it does something.

03:06:53.040 | I discovered it right away

03:06:55.200 | when I tried it for the first time.

03:06:56.480 | After about like a couple of minutes,

03:06:59.440 | everything, every distraction just like disappears

03:07:06.000 | and it goes like, you can like hold focus on things

03:07:12.080 | like really well, it's weird.

03:07:13.600 | Like you can like really focus on a thing.

03:07:17.120 | It doesn't really matter what that is.

03:07:18.640 | I think that's what people achieve with like meditation.

03:07:21.040 | You can like focus on your breath, for example.

03:07:23.760 | - And it's just normal brown, it's not like binaural.

03:07:25.840 | - No.

03:07:26.880 | - It's just normal brown.

03:07:27.760 | - It's just like, shh.

03:07:28.560 | - Yeah.

03:07:29.680 | - White noise, I think it's the same.

03:07:31.520 | It's like fake noise, white noise.

03:07:33.040 | Brown noise, I think is when it's like bassier.

03:07:36.720 | - Yeah, it's more diffused, more dampened.

03:07:38.720 | - Dampened.

03:07:39.520 | - Yeah, I can see that.

03:07:40.560 | - No sharpness.

03:07:41.440 | - Yeah, sharp brightness.

03:07:42.640 | - Yeah, I can see that.

03:07:44.240 | And you use a headphone, right?

03:07:45.360 | - Yeah, headphones.

03:07:46.320 | - Yeah.

03:07:47.120 | - I actually like walk around in life often with brown noise.

03:07:50.880 | - Dude, that's like psychopath shit, but it's cool, you know?

03:07:53.360 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:07:54.720 | When I murder people, it helps.

03:07:56.000 | - They're like, grrrr.

03:07:57.400 | - Yeah, it drowns out their screams.

03:07:59.840 | - Jesus Christ, yeah.

03:08:01.280 | - I said too much.

03:08:03.200 | - Man, I'm gonna try brown noise.

03:08:04.800 | - With a murder or for the coding, yeah?

03:08:06.640 | - For the coding, yeah.

03:08:07.360 | - Okay, good.

03:08:07.920 | Try it, try it.

03:08:09.680 | But you have to like with everything else,

03:08:11.040 | you give it a real chance.

03:08:12.320 | - Yeah, I find, I also, like I said, do techno-y type stuff,

03:08:17.920 | electronic music on top of the brown noise.

03:08:20.560 | But then control the speed

03:08:23.840 | because the faster it goes, the more anxiety.

03:08:26.880 | So if I really need to get shit done,

03:08:28.560 | especially with programming, I'll have a beat.

03:08:31.040 | - Yeah.

03:08:31.520 | - And it's great.

03:08:32.480 | It's cool.

03:08:32.960 | I say it's cool to play those little tricks with your mind

03:08:35.120 | to study yourself.

03:08:35.920 | - Yeah.

03:08:36.560 | - I usually don't like to have people around

03:08:38.640 | because when people, even if they're working,

03:08:42.080 | I don't know, I like people too much.

03:08:43.600 | They're like interesting.

03:08:44.640 | - Yeah, in coworking space,

03:08:46.640 | I would just start talking too much.

03:08:47.840 | - Yeah.

03:08:48.080 | - Yeah.

03:08:48.560 | - So there's a source of distraction.

03:08:50.320 | - Yeah, we would do, in the coworking space,

03:08:52.320 | we would do like a money pot, like a mug.

03:08:55.840 | So if you would work for 45 minutes

03:08:57.840 | and then if you would say one, like per word,

03:09:00.000 | you would get a fine, which is like $1.

03:09:01.920 | So you'd put $1 to say, "Hey, what's up?"

03:09:04.160 | So $3, you put in the mug.

03:09:06.480 | And then 15 minutes free time,

03:09:09.520 | like we can like party with everyone

03:09:10.800 | and 45 minutes again, I'm working and that worked.

03:09:13.600 | But you need to shut people up or they, you know.

03:09:15.520 | - I think there's an intimacy in being silent together.

03:09:21.760 | - Yeah.

03:09:22.480 | - That maybe I'm uncomfortable with,

03:09:24.800 | like, but you need to make yourself vulnerable

03:09:30.000 | and actually do it.

03:09:30.880 | Like with close friends to just sit there in silence

03:09:33.680 | for long periods of time and like doing a thing.

03:09:35.920 | - Dude, I watched this video of this podcast.

03:09:39.040 | It was like this Buddhism podcast with people meditating

03:09:42.000 | and they were interviewing each other or whatever

03:09:43.680 | and like a podcast.

03:09:44.480 | And suddenly after a question, it's like, "Yeah, yeah."

03:09:48.240 | And they were just silent for like three minutes.

03:09:52.240 | And then they said, "That was amazing.

03:09:54.960 | Yeah, that was amazing."

03:09:56.000 | I was like, "Wow, pretty cool, you know."

03:09:57.600 | - Elon's like that.

03:09:59.120 | And I really like that.

03:10:01.760 | When you'll ask a question, like, I don't know.

03:10:05.520 | "What's a perfectly productive day for you?"

03:10:08.000 | Like I just asked.

03:10:09.280 | And you just sit there for like 30 seconds thinking.

03:10:11.680 | - Yeah, he thinks.

03:10:12.880 | - Yeah, I don't know.

03:10:16.160 | - That's so cool.

03:10:16.720 | I wish I could think more about,

03:10:20.480 | but I wanna show you my heart, you know?

03:10:23.680 | I wanna go straight from my heart to my mouth

03:10:25.920 | to like saying the real thing.

03:10:27.360 | And the more I think,

03:10:28.640 | the more I start like filtering myself, right?

03:10:31.680 | And I wanna just throw it out there immediately.

03:10:33.440 | - I do that more with Tim.

03:10:35.360 | I think he has a lot of practice in that.

03:10:36.880 | I do that as well in a team setting

03:10:38.800 | when you're thinking, brainstorming.

03:10:40.560 | And you allow yourself to just like think in silence.

03:10:43.360 | 'Cause even in meetings, people wanna talk.

03:10:46.960 | It's like, no, you think before you speak

03:10:51.200 | and just like, it's okay to be silent together.

03:10:53.040 | If you allow yourself the room to do that,

03:10:55.600 | you can actually come up with really good ideas.

03:10:57.280 | It's okay, this perfect day.

03:10:59.520 | How much caffeine are you consuming in this day?

03:11:02.800 | - Man, too much, right?

03:11:03.600 | 'Cause normally like two cups of coffee,

03:11:07.120 | but on this perfect day, like we go to like four maybe.

03:11:09.920 | So we're starting to hit like the anxiety levels.

03:11:12.240 | - So four cups is a lot for you.

03:11:14.800 | - Well, I think my coffees are quite strong

03:11:16.320 | when I make them.

03:11:16.880 | It's like 20 grams of coffee powder in the V60.

03:11:19.920 | So like my friends call them like nuclear coffee

03:11:23.840 | 'cause it's quite heavy.

03:11:24.720 | - Yeah, super strong.

03:11:25.360 | - It's quite strong.

03:11:26.000 | But it's nice to hit that anxiety level

03:11:29.600 | where you're like almost panic attack,

03:11:31.600 | but you're not there yet.

03:11:32.640 | So, but that's like, man, it's like super locked in

03:11:36.640 | just like, it's amazing.

03:11:40.000 | But I mean, there's a space for that in my life,

03:11:42.960 | but I think it's great for making new stuff.

03:11:46.160 | It's amazing.

03:11:46.640 | - Starting from scratch, creating a new thing.

03:11:48.480 | - Yes, I think girlfriends should let their guys

03:11:51.120 | go away for like two weeks every few,

03:11:54.880 | no, every year at least, maybe every quarter, I don't know.

03:11:58.080 | And just sit and make some shits without,

03:12:02.400 | they're amazing, but like no disturbances,

03:12:04.480 | just be alone.

03:12:05.600 | And then people can make something very, very amazing.

03:12:09.360 | - Just wearing cowboy hats in the mountains

03:12:11.200 | like we showed before.

03:12:11.760 | - Exactly, we can do that.

03:12:12.560 | - There's a movie about that.

03:12:13.520 | - With the laptops.

03:12:14.240 | - They didn't do much programming though.

03:12:15.600 | - Yeah, you can do a little bit of that.

03:12:17.040 | - Okay.

03:12:17.520 | - And then a little bit of shipping, you know, do both.

03:12:20.320 | - It's a different--

03:12:22.320 | - But they need to allow us to go, you know,

03:12:23.840 | you need like a man cave, right?

03:12:25.120 | - Yeah, to ship.

03:12:26.080 | - Yeah, to ship.

03:12:26.960 | - Get shit done.

03:12:27.680 | Yeah, it's a balance.

03:12:29.600 | Okay, cool.

03:12:31.040 | What about sleep, naps and all that?

03:12:32.960 | You're not sleeping much?

03:12:33.920 | - I don't do naps in a day.

03:12:35.680 | I think power naps are good, but I don't really,

03:12:37.120 | I'm never tired anymore in the day.

03:12:38.640 | And also because of gym, I'm not tired.

03:12:42.480 | I'm tired when I want to, you know, when it's night,

03:12:44.720 | I need to sleep.

03:12:45.280 | - Yeah, me, I love naps.

03:12:46.720 | I love naps, I don't care.

03:12:48.160 | I don't know, I don't know why.

03:12:50.080 | Brain shuts off, turns on.

03:12:51.760 | I don't know if it's healthy or not, it just works.

03:12:53.520 | - Yeah.

03:12:54.000 | - I think with anything, mental, physical,

03:12:56.560 | you have to be a student of your own body

03:12:58.240 | and like know what the limits are.

03:13:00.560 | Like you have to be skeptical taking advice

03:13:02.480 | from the internet in general,

03:13:04.400 | 'cause a lot of the advice is just like a good baseline

03:13:07.520 | for the general population.

03:13:09.520 | - It's not personalized, yeah.

03:13:10.720 | - You have to become a student of your own,

03:13:12.960 | like of your own body, of your own self, of how you work.

03:13:15.680 | That's, I've done a lot of, like for me,

03:13:19.600 | fasting was an interesting one.

03:13:21.440 | 'Cause I used to, you know, eat a bunch of meals a day,

03:13:24.000 | especially when I was lifting heavy.

03:13:25.280 | Like, 'cause everybody says that you have to eat

03:13:27.040 | kind of a lot, you know.

03:13:30.400 | Multiple meals a day.

03:13:31.840 | But I realized I can get much stronger,

03:13:34.800 | feel much better if I eat once or twice a day.

03:13:38.000 | - Yeah, me too, yeah.

03:13:38.880 | - It's crazy.

03:13:39.440 | - I never understood this small meal thing, yeah.

03:13:41.200 | Didn't work for me.

03:13:41.920 | - Well, let me just ask you, it'd be interesting

03:13:44.480 | if you can comment on some of the other products

03:13:46.480 | you've created.

03:13:47.520 | We talked about Nomad List, Interior AI,

03:13:49.520 | Photo AI, Therapist AI.

03:13:51.200 | What's Remote OK?

03:13:52.080 | - It's a job board for remote jobs.

03:13:54.560 | Because back then, like 10 years ago,

03:13:57.040 | there was job boards,

03:13:58.640 | but it was not really specifically remote job, job boards.

03:14:01.600 | So I made one, I made, like first on Nomad List,

03:14:04.000 | I made like Nomad Jobs, like a page.

03:14:05.920 | And a lot of companies started hiring

03:14:07.520 | and they pay for job posts.

03:14:08.640 | So I spin it off to Remote OK.

03:14:10.640 | And now it's like the number one or number two

03:14:13.360 | biggest remote job boards.

03:14:14.640 | And it's also fully automated.

03:14:17.440 | People just post a job and people apply.

03:14:19.040 | It has like profiles as well.

03:14:20.320 | Like, it's kind of like LinkedIn for remote work.

03:14:23.120 | - It's just focused on remote only.

03:14:25.040 | - Yeah, it's essentially like a simple job board.

03:14:28.080 | I discovered job boards are way more complicated

03:14:29.840 | than you think, but yeah, it's a job board for remote jobs.

03:14:34.240 | But the nice thing is you can charge a lot of money

03:14:37.440 | for job posts.

03:14:38.240 | Man, it's good money.

03:14:39.120 | B2B, you can charge, like you start with 299,

03:14:41.760 | but at the peak during when the Fed started printing money,

03:14:45.680 | like 2021, I was making like 140K a month

03:14:48.720 | with Remote OK with just job posts.

03:14:50.640 | And I started like adding crazy upsells,

03:14:53.040 | like rainbow colored job posts.

03:14:55.280 | You can add your background image, just upsells, man.

03:14:57.760 | And you charge $1,000 for an upsell.

03:14:59.680 | It was crazy.

03:15:00.560 | And all these companies just upsell, upsell.

03:15:03.440 | Yeah, we want everything.

03:15:04.320 | Job posts would cost $3,000, $4,000.

03:15:07.840 | And I was like, this is good business.

03:15:11.360 | And then the Fed stopped printing money

03:15:13.200 | and it all went down.

03:15:14.640 | And it went down to like 10K a month from 140.

03:15:17.600 | Now it's back.

03:15:19.040 | I think it's like 40.

03:15:20.400 | It was good times, you know?

03:15:21.280 | - I got to ask you about back to the digital nomad life.

03:15:24.960 | - Yeah.

03:15:25.680 | - You wrote a blog post on the reset.

03:15:28.400 | And in general, like just giving away everything,

03:15:31.680 | living a minimalist life.

03:15:32.800 | - Yeah.

03:15:33.440 | - What did it take to do that?

03:15:35.120 | Like to get rid of everything?

03:15:37.440 | - 10 years ago, it was like this trend in the blog.

03:15:39.920 | Back then blogs were so popular.

03:15:41.040 | It was like a blogosphere.

03:15:42.080 | And it was like the 100 things challenge.

03:15:43.520 | - What is that, the 100 things challenge?

03:15:44.800 | - I mean, it's ridiculous.

03:15:45.600 | But like you write down every object you have in your house

03:15:48.320 | and you count it, you make like a spreadsheet

03:15:50.320 | and you're like, okay, I have 500 things.

03:15:52.480 | You need to get it down to 100.

03:15:54.080 | Why, you know, this was just a trend.

03:15:55.840 | So I did it.

03:15:56.400 | I started like selling stuff, started throwing away stuff.

03:15:59.120 | And I did like MDMA and ecstasy like 2012 kind of.

03:16:04.080 | And after that trip, I felt so different.

03:16:07.680 | And I felt like I had to start throwing shit away.

03:16:10.080 | Like, I swear.

03:16:11.520 | And I started throwing shit away.

03:16:13.600 | And I felt that was like, it was almost like the drug

03:16:16.400 | sending me to a path of like, you need to throw your shit away.

03:16:19.040 | You need to start, you know, go on a journey.

03:16:21.120 | You need to get out of here.

03:16:22.720 | And that's what the MDMA did, I think, yeah.

03:16:26.400 | - How hard is it to get down to 100 items?

03:16:28.720 | - Well, you need to like sell your PC and stuff.

03:16:31.600 | You need to go on eBay.

03:16:32.560 | And then, man, going eBay selling all your stuff

03:16:34.640 | is very interesting 'cause you discover society.

03:16:36.800 | You meet the craziest people.

03:16:38.640 | You meet every range from rich to poor.

03:16:41.920 | Everybody comes to your house to buy stuff.

03:16:43.760 | It's so funny, so interesting.

03:16:44.800 | I recommend everybody do this.

03:16:45.840 | - Just to meet people that want your shit.

03:16:47.760 | - Yeah, it was so, like, I didn't know.

03:16:50.640 | I was living in Amsterdam and I didn't know.

03:16:52.560 | I have my own, you know, subculture or whatever.

03:16:54.320 | And I discovered the Dutch people,

03:16:56.160 | like as they are from eBay, you know?

03:16:57.840 | So I sold everything.

03:16:58.720 | - What's like the weirdest thing you had to sell

03:17:01.120 | and you had to find a buyer for?

03:17:03.280 | Not the weirdest, but like what's memorable?

03:17:05.120 | - So back then I was making music

03:17:07.600 | and we would make music videos with like a Canon 5D camera.

03:17:10.560 | Back then everybody was making films and music videos.

03:17:12.800 | And we bought it with my friends and stuff.

03:17:15.840 | And it was kind of like, I had to sell this thing too

03:17:20.320 | 'cause it was like, it was very expensive,

03:17:21.600 | like 6K or something.

03:17:22.880 | And, but it meant that selling this meant

03:17:25.680 | that we wouldn't make music videos together anymore.

03:17:27.360 | I would leave Holland.

03:17:28.640 | This kind of like stuff we were working on would end.

03:17:30.960 | And I was kind of saying this music video stuff,

03:17:33.120 | we're not getting big.

03:17:33.840 | We're not getting famous in this or successful.

03:17:35.440 | We need to stop doing this.

03:17:36.480 | This music production also, it's not really working.

03:17:38.720 | And it was kind of like, felt very bad, you know,

03:17:42.080 | for my friends 'cause we would work together on this.

03:17:44.480 | And to sell this like camera that we'd make stuff with.

03:17:48.480 | - It was a hard goodbye.

03:17:49.680 | - It was just a camera, but it was like,

03:17:51.360 | it felt like, sorry guys, it doesn't work

03:17:54.640 | and I need to go, you know.

03:17:55.600 | - Who bought it?

03:17:57.120 | Do you remember?

03:17:57.680 | It was some guy who couldn't possibly understand the journey.

03:18:03.120 | - The motion of it.

03:18:03.920 | - Yeah, he just showed up, here's the money, thanks.

03:18:07.120 | - Yeah, but it was like, it was like cutting your life.

03:18:09.360 | Like this shit ends now.

03:18:10.400 | And now we kind of do new stuff.

03:18:11.840 | - I think it's beautiful.

03:18:13.120 | I did that twice in my life.

03:18:14.720 | I gave away everything, everything, everything.

03:18:16.320 | Like down to just pants, underwear.

03:18:19.520 | - Yeah. - Backpack.

03:18:20.320 | I think it's important to do.

03:18:24.000 | It shows you what's important.

03:18:26.000 | - Yeah, I think that's what I learned from it.

03:18:28.000 | Like you learn that you can live with very little objects

03:18:31.360 | for a little stuff.

03:18:32.080 | But there's a counter to it.

03:18:34.800 | Like you lean more on the stuff, on the services, right?

03:18:37.920 | Like for example, you don't need a car, you use Uber, right?

03:18:40.240 | Or you don't need kitchen stuff

03:18:42.400 | because you go to restaurants, you know, when you're traveling.

03:18:44.720 | So you lean more on other people's services,

03:18:46.720 | but you spend money on that as well, so that's good.

03:18:48.480 | - Yeah, but just letting go of material possessions,

03:18:51.040 | which it gives a kind of freedom

03:18:53.200 | to how you move about the world.

03:18:54.640 | - Yeah.

03:18:55.120 | - It gives you complete freedom to go into another city, to-

03:18:57.440 | - Yeah, with your backpack.

03:18:58.480 | - With a backpack.

03:18:59.360 | There's a kind of freedom to it.

03:19:01.440 | There's something about material possessions

03:19:03.360 | and having a place and all that,

03:19:04.640 | that ties you down a little bit.

03:19:05.920 | - Yeah. - I think spiritually.

03:19:07.760 | - Yeah. - It's good to take a leap

03:19:09.520 | out into the world, especially when you're younger to like-

03:19:11.680 | - Man, I recommend if you're 18, you get out of high school,

03:19:14.240 | do this, go travel and, you know,

03:19:17.280 | build some internet stuff, whatever.

03:19:18.560 | If you bring your laptop and it's an amazing experience.

03:19:21.760 | Five years ago, I would still go to university,

03:19:24.160 | but now I'm thinking like, no, maybe skip university.

03:19:26.960 | Just go first, like travel around a little bit,

03:19:28.960 | figure some stuff out.

03:19:30.320 | You can go back to university when you're 25.

03:19:32.320 | You can like, okay, now I learned,

03:19:34.400 | I've been successful in business.

03:19:36.080 | You have money at least.

03:19:36.880 | Now you can choose what you really wanna study, you know?

03:19:38.640 | Because people at 18, they go study

03:19:41.120 | what's probably good for the job market, right?

03:19:42.960 | So it probably makes more sense.

03:19:44.880 | Like, if you want that, go travel,

03:19:46.640 | build some businesses and go back to university if you want.

03:19:49.360 | - So one of the biggest uses of a university

03:19:51.680 | is the networking.

03:19:52.480 | You gain friends, you gain like, you meet people.

03:19:56.400 | It's a forcing function to meet people.

03:19:58.080 | But if you can meet people out into the world by traveling-

03:20:00.720 | - And you meet so many different cultures.

03:20:02.240 | - I mean, the problem for me is like,

03:20:04.560 | if I traveled at that young age,

03:20:06.400 | I'm attracted to people at the outskirts of the world.

03:20:09.280 | Like for me-

03:20:10.000 | - Like where?

03:20:11.040 | - No, not geographically.

03:20:12.640 | - Oh, like the subcultures.

03:20:13.920 | - The sub, yeah, like the weirdos, the darkness.

03:20:17.520 | - Yeah, me too.

03:20:18.240 | - But that might not be the best networking at 18 years old.

03:20:21.440 | - No, but man, if you're smart about it, you can stay safe.

03:20:25.920 | And I met so many weirdos from traveling.

03:20:28.240 | You meet, that's how travel works.

03:20:29.760 | If you really let loose, you meet the craziest people.

03:20:31.680 | And it's the most interesting people.

03:20:34.000 | And it's just, I cannot recommend it enough.

03:20:38.720 | - Well, see, the thing is, when you're 18,

03:20:41.600 | I feel like, depending on your personality,

03:20:44.720 | you have to learn both how to be a weirdo

03:20:47.680 | and how to be a normie.

03:20:48.880 | Like you still have to learn how to fit into society.

03:20:52.800 | Like for a person like me, for example,

03:20:54.480 | who's always an outcast,

03:20:55.520 | like there's always a danger for going full outcast.

03:20:59.120 | - Yeah.

03:20:59.600 | - And that's a harder life.

03:21:00.880 | If you go to like go full artist and full like darkness,

03:21:06.240 | it's just a harder life.

03:21:07.200 | - You can come back, you can come back to normie.

03:21:09.040 | - That's a skill.

03:21:09.840 | That's like, I think you have to learn how to fit

03:21:12.960 | into like polite society.

03:21:16.320 | - But I was very strange outcast as well.

03:21:18.560 | And I'm more adaptable to normie now.

03:21:21.360 | - You learned it, yeah.

03:21:22.320 | - After 30s, you know, you're like, yeah.

03:21:24.640 | - But I mean, it's a skill you have to learn.

03:21:26.960 | - Yeah.

03:21:27.440 | I feel, man, I feel also that you start as an outcast,

03:21:31.520 | but the more you work on yourself,

03:21:33.200 | the less like shit you have,

03:21:34.960 | you kind of start becoming more normie

03:21:36.560 | because you become more chill with yourself,

03:21:38.960 | more happy and it kind of makes you uninteresting, right?

03:21:42.320 | - Yes, yes.

03:21:43.680 | - Like the most, the crazy people

03:21:45.760 | are always the most interesting.

03:21:47.280 | If you've solved your internal struggles

03:21:49.280 | and your therapy and stuff,

03:21:50.560 | and you kind of become kind of, you know,

03:21:53.440 | it's not so interesting anymore, maybe.

03:21:56.000 | - You don't have to be broken to be interesting,

03:21:58.320 | I guess is what I'm saying.

03:21:59.200 | - Yeah.

03:21:59.520 | - What kind of things were left when you minimalized?

03:22:03.120 | - So the backpack.

03:22:04.480 | - Yeah.

03:22:05.680 | - MacBook, toothbrush, some clothes, underwear, socks.

03:22:09.920 | You don't need a lot of clothes in Asia 'cause it's hot.

03:22:13.280 | So you just wear swim pants, swim shorts.

03:22:16.160 | You walk around flip-flops.

03:22:17.360 | So very basic, T-shirt.

03:22:20.160 | And I would go to the laundromat and wash my stuff.

03:22:23.600 | And I think it was like 50 things or something, yeah.

03:22:26.720 | - Yeah, it's nice.

03:22:28.160 | There's, as I mentioned to you, there's the show Alone.

03:22:31.520 | - Yeah.

03:22:32.480 | - They really test you 'cause you only get 10 items

03:22:35.360 | and you have to survive out in the wilderness.

03:22:37.680 | And an ax, like everybody brings an ax.

03:22:39.840 | Some people also have a saw.

03:22:44.320 | - Wow.

03:22:45.680 | - But usually ax does the job.

03:22:47.760 | You basically have to, in order to build a shelter,

03:22:49.680 | you have to cut down and cut the trees and make, and like--

03:22:52.480 | - Learn in Minecraft.

03:22:53.360 | - Everything I learned about life, I learned in Minecraft, bro.

03:22:58.880 | Yeah, yeah, you could, it's nice to create those constraints

03:23:03.520 | for yourself to understand what matters to you

03:23:05.600 | and also how to be in this world.

03:23:07.840 | And one of the ways to do that is to live a minimalist life.

03:23:11.840 | But like some people, like I've met people

03:23:14.160 | that really enjoy material possessions

03:23:16.240 | and that brings them happiness.

03:23:17.360 | And that's a beautiful thing.

03:23:18.880 | Like for me, it doesn't, but people are different.

03:23:22.720 | - It gives me happiness for like two weeks.

03:23:24.320 | - Yeah.

03:23:25.040 | - I'm very quickly adapting to like a baseline.

03:23:27.840 | Hedonistic adaptation, very fast.

03:23:30.880 | - Yeah.

03:23:31.440 | - But man, if you look at the studies, most people,

03:23:33.760 | like get a new car, six months, get a new house, six months.

03:23:38.160 | You just feel the same.

03:23:39.440 | You're like, wow, should I buy all this stuff?

03:23:41.040 | Studying hedonistic adaptation

03:23:44.000 | made me think a lot about minimalism.

03:23:45.360 | - And so you don't even need to go

03:23:47.440 | through the whole journey of getting it.

03:23:48.800 | Just focus on the thing that's more permanent.

03:23:53.360 | - Yeah.

03:23:54.480 | - Like building shit.

03:23:56.080 | - Yeah, like people around you, like people you love,

03:23:58.160 | nice food, nice experiences, meaningful work.

03:24:01.280 | Those things, exercise, you know,

03:24:03.760 | those things make you happy, I think.

03:24:05.280 | Make me happy for sure.

03:24:06.480 | - You wrote a blog post, "Why I'm Unreachable

03:24:09.920 | and Maybe You Should Be Too."

03:24:11.280 | What's your strategy in communicating with people?

03:24:13.680 | - Yeah, so when I wrote that, I was getting so many DMs

03:24:16.640 | as you probably have, you have a million times more.

03:24:19.840 | But, and people were getting angry that I wasn't responding.

03:24:23.280 | And I was like, okay, I'll just close down

03:24:24.640 | these DMs completely.

03:24:25.600 | Then people got angry that I closed my DMs down,

03:24:28.160 | that I'm not like man of the people, you know.

03:24:30.640 | - Yeah, you've changed, man.

03:24:31.760 | - Yeah, you've changed.

03:24:32.480 | You got, you know, like this.

03:24:33.600 | And I'm like, I'll explain why.

03:24:36.240 | I just don't have the time in a day to, you know,

03:24:39.600 | answer every question.

03:24:41.520 | And also people send you like crazy shit, man.

03:24:44.240 | Like stalkers and like people write

03:24:46.320 | like their whole life story for you.

03:24:48.000 | And then ask you advice.

03:24:48.880 | Like, man, I have no idea.

03:24:49.840 | I'm not a therapist.

03:24:50.560 | I don't know.

03:24:51.200 | I don't know this stuff.

03:24:51.920 | - But also beautiful stuff.

03:24:53.520 | - No, absolutely, sure.

03:24:55.040 | - Like life story, I've posted a coffee form.

03:24:58.240 | Like if you wanted to have a coffee with me.

03:24:59.680 | - Nice.

03:25:00.240 | - And I've gotten an extremely large number of submissions.

03:25:03.440 | And when I look at them,

03:25:04.720 | there's just like beautiful people in there.

03:25:06.880 | Like beautiful human beings, really powerful stories.

03:25:10.160 | And like breaks my heart

03:25:11.200 | that I won't get to meet those people, you know, like.

03:25:13.600 | And so this part of it is just like,

03:25:16.320 | there's only so much bandwidth to truly see other humans

03:25:19.920 | and help them or like understand them

03:25:22.080 | or hear them or yeah, see them.

03:25:24.240 | - Yeah.

03:25:25.360 | I have this problem that I try,

03:25:27.040 | I wanna try help people and like also like,

03:25:29.040 | oh, let's make startups and whatever.

03:25:30.960 | And it's, I've learned over the years

03:25:33.840 | that generally for me, and it sounds maybe bad, right?

03:25:37.440 | But like I helped my friend Andre, for example,

03:25:38.960 | he was, he came up to me in the coworking space.

03:25:40.640 | That's how I met him.

03:25:41.200 | And he said, I wanna learn to code.

03:25:42.080 | I wanna do startups.

03:25:42.800 | How do I do it?

03:25:43.600 | And I said, okay, let's go install NGINX.

03:25:46.160 | Let's start coding.

03:25:47.360 | And he has this self energy that he actually,

03:25:50.800 | he doesn't need to be pushed.

03:25:54.480 | He just goes and he just goes and he asks questions.

03:25:56.320 | And he doesn't ask too many questions.

03:25:57.840 | He just goes, goes and learns it.

03:25:59.200 | And now he has a company and makes a lot of money,

03:26:00.800 | has his own startups.

03:26:02.720 | So, and the people that I had to kind of like,

03:26:05.600 | that asked me for help, but then I gave help.

03:26:08.160 | And then they started debating it, you know?

03:26:10.320 | - Yeah.

03:26:10.880 | - Do you have that?

03:26:11.520 | Like people ask you advice and they go against,

03:26:13.040 | you say, no, you're wrong.

03:26:14.160 | Because I'm like, okay, bro, I don't wanna debate.

03:26:16.560 | You asked me for advice, right?

03:26:18.160 | And the people need to push generally, it doesn't happen.

03:26:22.960 | You need to have this energy for yourself.

03:26:24.480 | - Well, they're searching, they're searching.

03:26:26.320 | They're trying to figure it out.

03:26:27.360 | But oftentimes their search,

03:26:29.040 | if they successfully find what they're looking for,

03:26:32.880 | it'll be within.

03:26:33.920 | It sounds very like spiritual, Sonny.

03:26:35.840 | But it's really like figuring that shit out on your own.

03:26:38.800 | But they're reaching, they're trying to ask the world

03:26:41.760 | around them, like, how do I live this life?

03:26:44.880 | How do I figure this out?

03:26:45.920 | But ultimately the answer is gonna be

03:26:47.520 | from them working on themselves.

03:26:49.360 | And like, literally, it's the stupid thing,

03:26:51.920 | but like Googling and doing like--

03:26:53.840 | - Yeah, so I think it's procrastination.

03:26:55.520 | I think sending messages to people

03:26:56.960 | is a lot of procrastination.

03:26:58.160 | Like, Lex, how do I become a successful podcaster?

03:27:00.480 | Bro, just, you know, start, like just go.

03:27:03.840 | - Yeah.

03:27:04.400 | - And--

03:27:05.280 | - Just go.

03:27:06.560 | - I would never ask you how to be a successful podcaster.

03:27:09.840 | Like I would just start it.

03:27:11.280 | And then I would copy your methods, you know?

03:27:12.960 | I would say, ah, this guy has a black background.

03:27:14.560 | We probably need this as well.

03:27:15.680 | - Yeah, try it, yeah, try it.

03:27:17.440 | And then you realize it's not about the black background.

03:27:20.000 | It's about something else.

03:27:20.800 | So you find your own voice, like keep trying stuff.

03:27:22.800 | - Exactly.

03:27:23.120 | - Imitation is a difficult thing.

03:27:24.560 | Like a lot of people copy and they don't move past it.

03:27:27.680 | - Yeah.

03:27:28.160 | - You should understand their methods

03:27:30.000 | and then move past it.

03:27:30.800 | Like find yourself, find your own voice.

03:27:32.240 | - Yeah, you imitate and then you put your own spin to it,

03:27:34.720 | you know, and that's like creative process.

03:27:36.320 | That's like, literally the whole,

03:27:37.920 | everybody always builds on the previous work.

03:27:39.520 | - Yeah.

03:27:40.000 | - You shouldn't get stuck.

03:27:41.040 | - 24 hours in a day, eight hours of sleep.

03:27:43.840 | You like break it down to a math equation.

03:27:45.520 | 90 minutes of showering, clean up coffee.

03:27:48.720 | It just keeps whittling down to zero.

03:27:51.840 | - Man, it's not this specific,

03:27:52.880 | but I had to make like a, you know, an average or something.

03:27:55.600 | - Yeah, firefighting, I don't like that.

03:27:58.080 | One hours of groceries and errands.

03:27:59.680 | I've tried breaking down minute by minute

03:28:02.480 | what I do in a day.

03:28:03.360 | - Yeah.

03:28:03.920 | - Especially when my life was simpler.

03:28:06.080 | It's really refreshing to understand

03:28:07.680 | where you waste a lot of time.

03:28:08.800 | - Yeah.

03:28:09.280 | - And what you enjoy doing.

03:28:12.320 | Like how many minutes it takes to be happy

03:28:15.520 | doing the thing that makes you happy

03:28:18.000 | and how many minutes it takes to be productive.

03:28:19.680 | And you realize there's a lot of hours in the day

03:28:21.600 | if you spend it right.

03:28:22.640 | - Yeah, a lot of it is wasted, yeah.

03:28:24.320 | - For me, it's been the biggest battle for the longest time

03:28:28.720 | is finding stretches of time

03:28:30.160 | where I can deeply focus and do really, really deep work.

03:28:32.960 | Just like zoom in and completely focus,

03:28:36.880 | cutting away all the distractions.

03:28:38.480 | - Yeah, me too.

03:28:39.440 | - That's the battle.

03:28:40.560 | - Yeah.

03:28:41.200 | - It's unpleasant, it's extremely unpleasant.

03:28:43.120 | - We need to fly to an island, you know,

03:28:45.120 | make a man cave island where we can just,

03:28:47.520 | where we can just go out for a week, you know,

03:28:49.920 | and just get shit done, make new projects.

03:28:52.480 | - Yeah, yeah.

03:28:54.400 | - But man, they called me psychopath for this

03:28:56.080 | 'cause it says like one hours of sex, hugs, love, you know?

03:28:58.320 | Man, I had to write something, you know?

03:29:00.560 | And they were like, oh, this guy's a psychopath.

03:29:02.720 | He plans his sex in a specific hour.

03:29:04.960 | - Hugs.

03:29:05.440 | - Bro, I don't.

03:29:06.160 | - You have a counter for hugs?

03:29:07.840 | - Yeah, exactly, like, yeah, like click, click, click.

03:29:10.960 | - It's just a numerical representation of what life is.

03:29:15.120 | - Yeah.

03:29:15.760 | - It's like one of those, like,

03:29:17.760 | when you draw out how many weeks you have in a life.

03:29:21.120 | - Oh, dude, this is like dark, yeah, man.

03:29:23.440 | Don't wanna look at that too much.

03:29:24.640 | - Holy shit.

03:29:24.800 | - Yeah, man.

03:29:25.440 | How many times you see your parents?

03:29:27.280 | Jesus, like, man.

03:29:28.080 | - Yeah.

03:29:28.400 | - It's scary, man.

03:29:29.280 | - That's right.

03:29:30.400 | It might be only, you know, a handful more times.

03:29:32.640 | - Yeah, man.

03:29:33.040 | - You just look at the math of it.

03:29:34.480 | If you see him once a year or twice a year.

03:29:36.320 | - Yeah, FaceTime today.

03:29:37.360 | - Yeah.

03:29:38.080 | - Yeah.

03:29:38.640 | I mean, that's like dark when you see somebody you like seeing,

03:29:44.480 | like a friend that's on the outskirts of your friend group.

03:29:47.600 | And then you realize like, well,

03:29:49.600 | wait, I haven't really seen him for like three years.

03:29:53.040 | So like, how many more times do we have that we see each other?

03:29:57.280 | Yeah.

03:29:57.520 | - Do you believe that like friends just slowly disappear

03:30:00.480 | from your life?

03:30:01.040 | Like they kind of, your friend group evolves, right?

03:30:04.320 | - It does, it does.

03:30:05.360 | - Like you don't want to, there's a problem with Facebook.

03:30:07.360 | You get all these old friends from school,

03:30:09.120 | like when you were 10 years old, back when Facebook started,

03:30:12.240 | like you don't really, you would add friend them.

03:30:14.400 | And then you're like, why are we in touch again?

03:30:16.240 | Just keep the memories there.

03:30:17.200 | You know, like it's a different life now.

03:30:19.280 | - Yeah, I have, you know, I don't know.

03:30:21.520 | That might be a guy thing or I don't know.

03:30:23.760 | There's certain friends I have that like we don't interact

03:30:26.960 | often, but we're still friends.

03:30:28.480 | - Yeah.

03:30:29.040 | - Like every time I see him,

03:30:34.080 | I think it's because we have a foundation

03:30:35.920 | of many shared experiences and many memories.

03:30:38.960 | I guess it's like, nothing has changed.

03:30:40.960 | Like we've been, almost like we've been talking every day,

03:30:43.200 | even if we haven't talked for a year.

03:30:44.560 | - Yeah, that's like, yeah, that's deep.

03:30:46.880 | - Yeah, so that, so I don't have to be interacting with them

03:30:50.720 | for them to be in a friend group.

03:30:52.000 | And then there's some people I interact with a lot.

03:30:54.400 | So it depends, but there's just this network

03:30:58.080 | of good human beings that can,

03:31:02.240 | I have like a real love for them.

03:31:03.760 | And I can always count on them.

03:31:06.480 | It's like, if any of them called me

03:31:07.920 | in the middle of the night, I'll get rid of a body.

03:31:11.280 | You know, I'm there.

03:31:12.880 | I like how that's a different definition of friendship,

03:31:16.800 | but it's true, it's true.

03:31:18.560 | - True friend.

03:31:19.280 | - You've become more and more famous recently.

03:31:22.400 | How's that affect you?

03:31:23.920 | - It's not recently, I think it's this gradual thing, right?

03:31:26.400 | Like it keeps going.

03:31:28.880 | And I also don't know why it keeps going.

03:31:32.240 | - Does that put pressure on you to,

03:31:35.040 | 'cause you're pretty open on Twitter

03:31:36.720 | and you're just like basically building shit in the open.

03:31:39.680 | - Yeah.

03:31:40.240 | - And just not really caring if it's too technical,

03:31:44.400 | if there's any of this, just being out there.

03:31:46.720 | Does it put pressure on you as you become more popular

03:31:48.480 | to be a little bit more like collected and?

03:31:53.040 | - Man, I think the opposite, right?

03:31:55.200 | Like, 'cause the people I follow are interesting

03:31:59.360 | 'cause they say whatever they think

03:32:00.640 | and they ship or whatever.

03:32:02.080 | It's so boring that people start tweeting

03:32:04.880 | only about one topic.

03:32:06.000 | - Yeah.

03:32:06.560 | - I don't know anything about their personal life.

03:32:07.920 | I wanna know about their personal life.

03:32:08.880 | Like you do podcasts, you ask about life stuff,

03:32:10.640 | of personality.

03:32:11.440 | That's the most interesting part of like business or sports.

03:32:14.400 | Like what's behind the sport, the athlete, right?

03:32:16.560 | Behind the entrepreneur.

03:32:17.680 | That's interesting stuff.

03:32:18.480 | - To be human.

03:32:19.280 | - Yeah, like you share that, you know,

03:32:21.280 | like I shared a tweet that went too far,

03:32:23.600 | but like we were cleaning the toilet

03:32:25.360 | 'cause the toilet was clogged, you know?

03:32:26.880 | But like, it's just real stuff

03:32:28.320 | 'cause Jensen Huang, the NVIDIA guy,

03:32:29.920 | he says he started cleaning toilets, you know?

03:32:32.080 | - That was cool.

03:32:32.560 | You tweeted something about the Denny's thing, I forget.

03:32:36.240 | - Yeah, it was recent.

03:32:37.840 | NVIDIA was started in a Denny diner table.

03:32:40.720 | - And you made it somehow profound.

03:32:42.720 | - You almost, yeah, this one, this one.

03:32:44.160 | - "NVIDIA, a $3 trillion company

03:32:47.120 | "was started in a Denny's, an American diner.

03:32:50.000 | "People need a third space to work on their laptops

03:32:52.480 | "to build the next billion or trillion dollar company."

03:32:54.880 | What's the first and second space?

03:32:56.240 | - The home, office.

03:32:57.920 | - And then the in-between, the island.

03:32:59.440 | - Yeah, I guess, yeah.

03:33:00.160 | - The island.

03:33:00.880 | - Yeah, you need a space to like congregate.

03:33:03.280 | Man, and I found history on this.

03:33:04.720 | So 400 years ago in the coffee houses of Europe,

03:33:07.520 | like the scientific revolution, the enlightenment happened

03:33:12.640 | because they would go to coffee houses,

03:33:14.000 | they would sit there, they would drink coffee

03:33:16.000 | and they would work.

03:33:16.800 | They would work, they would write

03:33:18.320 | or they would, and they would do debates

03:33:20.000 | and they would organize marine routes, right?

03:33:23.440 | They would do all this stuff in coffee houses in Europe,

03:33:25.760 | in France, in Austria, in UK, in Holland.

03:33:28.160 | So we would always be going to,

03:33:30.640 | we were always going to cafes to work

03:33:32.720 | and to have serendipitous conversations with other people

03:33:36.000 | and start businesses and stuff.

03:33:37.840 | And when I, like you asked me to come on here

03:33:41.520 | and we flew to America.

03:33:42.480 | And the first thing I realized was that,

03:33:44.400 | I've been to America before, but we were in this cafe

03:33:47.440 | and like, there's a lot of laptops.

03:33:49.280 | Everybody's working on something.

03:33:50.400 | And I made, I took this photo.

03:33:51.680 | And then when you're in Europe,

03:33:54.560 | like large parts of Europe now,

03:33:56.000 | you cannot use a laptop anymore.

03:33:58.240 | It's like no laptop, which I understand.

03:34:01.040 | - But that is to you a fundamental place to create shit,

03:34:05.280 | isn't it?

03:34:06.240 | Natural, organic co-working space of a coffee shop.

03:34:09.680 | - Well, for a lot of people.

03:34:10.480 | A lot of people have very small homes

03:34:12.400 | and co-working spaces are kind of boring.

03:34:14.720 | They're not very, they're private.

03:34:17.040 | They're not serendipitous, kind of boring.

03:34:19.920 | Cafes are amazing 'cause they,

03:34:22.560 | random people can come in and ask you,

03:34:24.000 | what are you working on?

03:34:24.640 | And not just laptops.

03:34:26.880 | People are also having conversations

03:34:28.640 | like they did 400 years ago, debates or whatever.

03:34:30.560 | Things are happening.

03:34:31.200 | And man, I understand the aesthetics of it.

03:34:34.320 | Like, it's like, oh, start a brawl.

03:34:36.560 | Shipping is a bullshit startup, you know?

03:34:38.400 | But there's something more there.

03:34:41.120 | Like there's people actually making stuff,

03:34:43.040 | making new companies that the society benefits from.

03:34:46.160 | Like we're benefiting from NVIDIA, I think.

03:34:48.320 | The US GDP for sure is benefiting from NVIDIA.

03:34:51.280 | European GDP could benefit if we build more companies.

03:34:54.400 | And I feel in Europe, there's this vibe.

03:34:57.040 | And this, you have to connect things,

03:34:59.360 | but not allowing laptops in cafes

03:35:01.440 | is kind of like part of the vibe, which is like,

03:35:03.200 | yeah, we're not really here to work.

03:35:05.040 | We're here to like enjoy life.

03:35:06.320 | I agree with this.

03:35:06.960 | Anthony Bourdain, like this tweet was quote

03:35:09.040 | to Anthony Bourdain photo with him

03:35:10.880 | with cigarettes and a coffee in France.

03:35:13.360 | And he said, this is what cafes are for.

03:35:15.120 | I agree.

03:35:15.760 | But there is some element of like entrepreneurship.

03:35:18.000 | Like you have to allow people to dream big

03:35:22.080 | and work their ass off towards that dream

03:35:24.320 | and then feel each other's energy as they interact with it.

03:35:26.960 | That's one of the things I liked in Silicon Valley

03:35:28.960 | when I was working there is like the cafes.

03:35:31.760 | There's a bunch of dreamers that you can make fun of them

03:35:35.040 | for like everybody thinks they're gonna build

03:35:36.720 | a trillion dollar company, but like-

03:35:38.320 | - Yeah, and it's awesome.

03:35:39.040 | Not everybody wins.

03:35:39.680 | 90% of people will be bullshit.

03:35:41.200 | - But they're working their ass off.

03:35:42.640 | - Yeah, and they're doing something.

03:35:43.920 | And you need to pass this startup bro.

03:35:46.800 | Like, oh, it's startup on level.

03:35:47.840 | No, it's not.

03:35:48.320 | It's people making cool shit.

03:35:49.680 | And this will benefit you

03:35:51.280 | because this will create jobs for your country

03:35:53.680 | and your region.

03:35:54.480 | And I think in Europe, that's a big problem.

03:35:58.320 | Like we have a very anti-entrepreneurial mindset.

03:36:02.720 | - Dream big and build shit.

03:36:04.080 | - Yeah.

03:36:04.560 | - And this is really inspiring.

03:36:05.680 | This is pinned tweet of yours.

03:36:07.280 | All the projects that you've tried

03:36:09.600 | and the ones that succeeded.

03:36:11.760 | - That's very few.

03:36:13.520 | - Mute life.

03:36:14.480 | - It was for Twitter to mute, to share the mute list.

03:36:18.640 | - Yeah.

03:36:19.120 | - Your mute words.

03:36:21.360 | - Fire calculator, no more Google, maker rank.

03:36:25.200 | How much is my site project worth?

03:36:27.040 | Climate finder, ideas AI.

03:36:29.440 | - Airline list still runs, but it doesn't make money.

03:36:32.160 | Airline list like compares the safety of airlines

03:36:34.800 | 'cause I was nervous to fly.

03:36:36.400 | So I was like, let's collect all the data

03:36:38.080 | on crashes for all the airplanes.

03:36:40.000 | - Bali sea cable, nice.

03:36:43.520 | That's awesome.

03:36:44.160 | Make village, Nomad gear, 3D and virtual reality dev.

03:36:50.000 | Play my inbox, like you mentioned.

03:36:52.960 | There's a lot of stuff.

03:36:54.160 | - Yeah, man.

03:36:54.480 | - I'm trying to find some embarrassing tweets of yours.

03:36:56.560 | - You can go to the highlights tab.

03:36:58.160 | It has all the like the good shit kind.

03:36:59.520 | - There you go.

03:37:00.880 | - This was Dubai.

03:37:02.080 | - POV, building an AI startup.

03:37:04.640 | Wow, you're a real influencer.

03:37:07.760 | - And if people copy this photo now

03:37:10.880 | and they change the screenshot, it becomes like a meme.

03:37:13.280 | Of course, you know.

03:37:15.040 | - This is good.

03:37:16.960 | - That's how Dubai looks, it's insane.

03:37:19.360 | - That's beautiful, architecture wise, it's crazy.

03:37:22.080 | The story behind these cities.

03:37:23.200 | - Yeah, the story behind, for sure.

03:37:24.480 | So this is about the European economy where like.

03:37:26.800 | - European economy landscape is ran by dinosaurs

03:37:29.280 | and today I studied it so I can produce you with my evidence.

03:37:33.920 | 80% of top EU companies were founded before 1950.

03:37:37.520 | Only 36% of top US companies were founded before 1950.

03:37:42.400 | - Yeah, so the median founding of companies in US

03:37:45.040 | is something like 1960 and the median,

03:37:48.000 | the top companies, right?

03:37:49.360 | And the median in Europe is like 1900 or something.

03:37:52.640 | - Yeah.

03:37:53.200 | - So it's here, 1914 and 1963.

03:37:56.400 | So there's a 50 year difference.

03:37:57.520 | - It's a good representation of the very thing

03:38:01.440 | you were talking about, the difference in the cultures,

03:38:03.840 | entrepreneurial spirit of the peoples.

03:38:05.600 | - But Europe used to be entrepreneurial.

03:38:07.120 | Like there was companies founded in 1800, 1850, 1900.

03:38:10.400 | It flipped like around 1950 where America took the lead

03:38:14.240 | and I guess my point is like I hope that Europe gets back to,

03:38:18.000 | 'cause I'm European, I hope that Europe gets back

03:38:19.600 | to being an entrepreneurial culture

03:38:21.520 | where they build big companies again.

03:38:23.360 | 'Cause right now all the old dinosaur companies

03:38:27.040 | control the economies, they're lobbying with the government.

03:38:29.520 | Europe is also, they're infiltrated with the government

03:38:32.800 | where they create so much regulation.

03:38:35.680 | I think it's called regulatory capture, right?

03:38:37.200 | Where it's very hard for a newcomer to join

03:38:40.400 | and to enter an industry because there's too much regulation.

03:38:42.720 | So actually regulation is very good for big companies

03:38:44.640 | 'cause they can follow it, I can't follow it, right?

03:38:47.200 | If I wanna start an AI startup in Europe now,

03:38:49.040 | I cannot because there's an AI regulation

03:38:51.840 | that makes it very complicated for me.

03:38:54.000 | I probably need to get like notaries involved,

03:38:55.840 | I need to get certificates, licenses.

03:38:57.520 | Whereas in America, I can just open my laptop,

03:39:00.960 | I can start an AI startup right now, mostly.

03:39:06.000 | - What do you think about EAC,

03:39:07.440 | Effective Accelerationist Movement?

03:39:09.440 | - Man, you had Beth Jaysus on, I love Beth Jaysus

03:39:12.160 | and he's amazing.

03:39:13.760 | And I think EAC is very needed

03:39:16.240 | to similarly create a more positive outlook on the future.

03:39:20.720 | Because people have been very pessimistic about society,

03:39:25.840 | about the future of society, climate change, all this stuff.

03:39:29.920 | EAC is a positive outlook on the future.

03:39:34.560 | It's like technology can make us,

03:39:36.560 | we need to spend more energy,

03:39:37.680 | we should find ways to of course get like clean energy,

03:39:40.240 | but we need to spend more energy to make cooler stuff

03:39:43.600 | and go into space and build more technology

03:39:46.400 | that can improve society.

03:39:48.320 | And we shouldn't shy away from technology.

03:39:50.400 | Technology can be the answer for many things.

03:39:52.720 | - Yeah, build more, don't spend so much time

03:39:56.000 | on fear mongering and cautiousness

03:39:58.800 | and all this kind of stuff.

03:40:00.240 | Some is okay, some is good,

03:40:02.000 | but most of the time should be spent on building

03:40:04.720 | and creating and doing so unapologetically.

03:40:07.440 | It's a refreshing reminder of what made United States great

03:40:12.400 | is all the builders, like you said, the entrepreneurs.

03:40:14.960 | We can't forget that in all the sort of discussions

03:40:17.440 | of how things could go wrong with technology

03:40:19.200 | and all this kind of stuff.

03:40:20.160 | - Yeah, it goes together.

03:40:20.880 | Look at China.

03:40:21.440 | China is now at the stage of like America,

03:40:23.120 | what, like 1900 or something?

03:40:24.720 | They're building rapidly, like insane.

03:40:27.280 | And obviously China has massive problems,

03:40:29.760 | but that comes with the whole thing.

03:40:31.200 | That comes with America in this beginning

03:40:32.640 | all the massive problems, right?

03:40:33.760 | But I think it's very dangerous for a country

03:40:39.680 | or a region like Europe to,

03:40:40.880 | you get to this point where you're kind of complacent,

03:40:44.640 | you're kind of comfortable.

03:40:45.440 | And then you can either go this

03:40:48.560 | or you can go this way, right?

03:40:49.680 | You're from here, you go like this,

03:40:51.280 | and then you can go this or this.

03:40:52.720 | I think you should go this way.

03:40:54.000 | - Go up.

03:40:56.320 | - Yeah, go up.

03:40:57.040 | And I think the problem is the mind culture.

03:41:02.000 | So EOC, I made EUOC,

03:41:03.840 | which is like the European kind of version.

03:41:05.200 | I made like hoodies and stuff.

03:41:07.520 | So a lot of people wear like this,

03:41:08.880 | this make Europe great again hat.

03:41:10.320 | I made it red first, but it became too like Trump.

03:41:14.000 | So now it's more like European blue, you know?

03:41:16.400 | Make Europe great again.

03:41:17.440 | - All right.

03:41:20.000 | Okay, so you had a incredible life.

03:41:26.560 | Very successful, built a lot of cool stuff.

03:41:28.320 | So what advice would you give to young people

03:41:29.920 | about how to do the same?

03:41:30.960 | - Man, I would listen to like,

03:41:33.120 | nobody just do what you think is good

03:41:35.280 | and follow your heart, right?

03:41:36.800 | Like everybody peer presses you

03:41:39.200 | into doing stuff you don't want to do.

03:41:40.640 | And like, they tell you like parents

03:41:43.200 | or family or society and tell you,

03:41:45.360 | but like, try your own thing, you know?

03:41:47.600 | 'Cause it probably, it might work out.

03:41:49.680 | You can steer the ship, you know?

03:41:51.280 | It probably doesn't work out immediately.

03:41:52.880 | You probably go into very bad times like I did as well,

03:41:56.080 | relatively, right?

03:41:57.200 | But in the end, if you're smart about it,

03:41:58.560 | you can make things work

03:41:59.920 | and you can create your own little life of things

03:42:02.320 | as you did, as I did.

03:42:03.600 | And I think that should be more promoted,

03:42:06.400 | like do your own thing.

03:42:07.440 | There's space in economy and in society

03:42:09.200 | for do your own thing, you know?

03:42:11.440 | It's like little villages.

03:42:13.440 | Everybody would sell, I would sell bread.

03:42:15.120 | You would sell meat.

03:42:16.080 | Everybody can do their own little thing.

03:42:17.200 | You don't need to be a normie, as you say.

03:42:20.640 | You can be what you really want to be, you know?

03:42:24.960 | - And like, go all out doing that thing.

03:42:28.160 | - Yeah, you gotta go all out.

03:42:29.200 | 'Cause if you do, if you're half-ass it,

03:42:31.520 | you cannot succeed.

03:42:32.960 | You need to go lean into the outcast stuff,

03:42:36.560 | lean into the being different

03:42:39.120 | and just doing whatever it is that you wanna do, right?

03:42:42.320 | - You gotta whole-ass it.

03:42:44.480 | - Yeah, whole-ass it, yeah.

03:42:46.080 | - This was an incredible conversation.

03:42:47.680 | It was an honor to finally meet you.

03:42:49.280 | - It was an honor to meet you, Lex.

03:42:50.640 | - To talk to you and keep doing your thing.

03:42:52.880 | Keep inspiring me and the world

03:42:56.000 | with all the cool stuff you're building.

03:42:57.520 | - Thank you, man.

03:42:58.240 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:43:00.720 | with Peter Levels.

03:43:01.920 | To support this podcast,

03:43:03.200 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:43:05.600 | And now, let me leave you with some words

03:43:08.000 | from Drew Houston, Dropbox co-founder.

03:43:10.960 | By the way, I love Dropbox.

03:43:13.520 | Anyway, Drew said, "Don't worry about failure.

03:43:18.320 | "You only have to be right once."

03:43:22.080 | Thank you for listening.

03:43:23.200 | I hope to see you next time.

03:43:25.200 | (upbeat music)

03:43:27.780 | (upbeat music)

03:43:30.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440

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