Meta Orion Headset, MKBHD's Panels Disaster, Volta Energy
Welcome to Technology Brothers, the most profitable podcast in the world.
Speaker 2:For those that don't know, John Feo, world class, ideas guy, and entrepreneur. Usually they go hand in hand and, he's very humble about it. I don't know if even you know this, but the guys climbed, like, 6 out of the tallest 10 peaks in the world. Never once posted a picture about it. It's a material 14ers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The 14ers. Right? Never once posted a picture about it, hardly has told anyone, and Volta, and he did it all without oxygen. Right?
Speaker 2:Which is like they say that can't be done. So the guy's a physical specimen, but, yeah, there's gotta be some edge. Right? Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2:Volta is that edge. So Volta's a new concept. We were able to get some, because we're also ideas guys. Of course. And, you you know, wanted to be able to provide some feedback.
Speaker 2:So Volta is a new concept. They're making fresh energy drinks.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I think you've probably had a Red Bull or a Monster Yeah. Or Celsius in your day. That stuff got made, you know, months, if not potentially years ago. Right? Sometimes you crack open a Red Bull and you're like, this is a vintage bowl.
Speaker 2:Vintage. Vintage bowl. Actually, at Senra's event this weekend, I I figured out a pretty interesting arb that I'll be taking advantage of Sure. Next year. Red Bulls in this retreat center that he was hosting it at were $2.
Speaker 2:But if I walk down the street in the gas station, they're $6. Right? So they call that the Senra arb. Interesting. So Did did he just
Speaker 1:try one of David Senra's, Jocko Go and the cherry vanilla flavor that he loves so much?
Speaker 2:I think he was just randomly drinking those.
Speaker 1:But he hit not random.
Speaker 2:No. Not random.
Speaker 1:He is obsessed with that.
Speaker 2:No. I know. But he was, like, the only one that had
Speaker 1:He loved no. He has a at his events, he has a dedicated fridge with just Jocko guy.
Speaker 2:Jocko guy.
Speaker 1:He just the man loves Jocko. That's incredible. I Okay. Yeah. Whenever I'm hanging out with him, I drink 1 in, in solidarity.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But I feel like Jocko is forward
Speaker 1:might be Volta.
Speaker 2:Some competition. So Some competition. Idea with Volta is to make, fresh energy drinks. Right? Fresh is almost always better.
Speaker 2:So in this case, I'm taking some sparkling yuzu, one of my favorite little cute little beverages straight from Japan, and we're gonna mix the, the Volta right in there. It's got, I won't give you the laundry list of ingredients, but caffeine, l theanine, and magnesium
Speaker 1:k.
Speaker 2:As well as, liposomal nanomolecules, which effectively delivers, what Theo will say is all day dynamic energy. Right? So, like, energy that's shifting based on what you're sort of embarking on, whether you're climbing a mountain or you're, you know, battling with a spreadsheet. Right? So let's give this a cool shot.
Speaker 2:I have no idea how to dose this, so I'm gonna guess that, you know, I it's almost impossible to say was that 15 milliliters.
Speaker 1:32 per bottle?
Speaker 2:So I don't know if this is,
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. Look at that. There we go.
Speaker 2:I don't know if this is 200 milligrams of caffeine or, like, 5 milligrams. But either way, we'll find out. Cheers. Cheers. Pretty good.
Speaker 2:Pretty good. It's tasty. I think the Yuzi is doing a little heavy lifting to kind of mask the Yeah. But,
Speaker 1:the Nutrient cocktail.
Speaker 2:The Nutrient cocktail.
Speaker 1:The scientific formula.
Speaker 2:It definitely it definitely has a flavor that you won't forget, you know? Sure. Like you could be on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in, like, 12 years, and you're on your last breath. And somebody squirts a little bit of this in your mouth, and you sort of, like, use your, like, jolt up. People are alive, and make it back to tell the tale.
Speaker 2:But, anyways, I'm sure Excel and Volta will be doing, you know, numerous
Speaker 1:Many collaborations and features in the future.
Speaker 2:Of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We need a we need a good energy drink sponsor for the pod.
Speaker 2:This was unsponsored, by the way. Just purely an idea guy supporting another idea guy. Of course. Let's get into the news. Is there anything you wanna cover from the journal, or should we just go straight into the straight into the timeline?
Speaker 1:Yeah. We can go into the the top story. I think we gotta talk about meta's Orion glasses.
Speaker 2:Sorry. I'm just reading this. The, stolen.
Speaker 1:Stolen. Well, I mean, that that honestly relates to what we're we're talking about. Like, I've been sick this week and
Speaker 2:Same.
Speaker 1:I was thinking, you know, there's a lot that you can throw at it, Caffeine, nicotine, but there's kind of a new theory that if you're sick maybe cocaine is the thing that will get you back on your
Speaker 2:game. Right. Right.
Speaker 1:And so I've heard that. I don't have easy access to it. I'm not demoing it today, but I was I was wondering if that would make me feel better. If I had a really important podcast, should I be doing Coke? I I tend to think I would feel terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I was on Coke while I
Speaker 2:was trying to podcast podcast. I'm sure people have done that. Yeah. I'm sure even people have called into CNBC at different points for, like, you know, post earnings to just kind of, you know, chit chat and been on it. But, given that you are on track to be a public company CEO Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, sometime within the next few years, handful of years, it's hard to say. You have to be more market dependent. You don't want that track record with the SEC. Right? Like, you don't want Yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't want, you don't want that attached to your good name. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is interesting. I have a friend who is a product manager at a big tech company and kind of lost in making, you know, couple $100,000 every month just doing kind of usually nothing. But Yeah. A little bit lost and was just thinking about how to kinda get back in tune.
Speaker 1:A lot of people were doing the Ayahuasca retreats. These are really popular.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But he was kinda worried about like, you know, you go to this country and you know maybe you get your brain rearranged and you come back as a different person.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so he actually went on a different type of retreat. He went on a cocaine retreat.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Same concept like you're still traveling to a foreign country, There's a shaman there but instead of administering Ayahuasca in heroic doses, you're taking cocaine. Right. And so and instead of like sitting there, you know, all strung out, all, like, messed up, you know, kind of Getting turbo fried. Exactly. You're locked in.
Speaker 1:You're locked in. And so they you know, there's, like, cubicles with monitors and Amazing. Bloomberg terminals.
Speaker 2:Is there, like, do they put like a there's no beds. Right? It's just like a pillow under the desk.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's a simulacrum of, like, an average Wall Street, like, office essentially.
Speaker 2:And that's in Peru? Chile?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you fly down there to go on the cocaine retreat and and just kind of walk in and then you come back refreshed and ready to Right. Kick ass.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. I can see that We we've entered back into the age of, stimulants, like, the the the 20 tens, like, things were so good. It was about how do I dumb down like, this life is so good. Yeah.
Speaker 2:How do I we're coming out of the great recession. How do you know, everybody's, you know, becoming a software engineer, making 6 figures overnight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:People were trying to sort of, like, dumb that down. Whereas now people are realizing that great, you know, men and great women, great people need to be on. It's sort of your duty to be on some selection of stimulants, whether it's Volta, Excel, you know, a nice cup of coffee, and some of the harder stuff, if you're in system. If you're in, you know, parts of the world that allow it. Right?
Speaker 2:It's sort of it's almost like your civic duty. Like, if all of Peru was on cocaine, you know, daily or a few times weekly, it's hard to see how that wouldn't have a positive effect on the economy. Yeah. Which ultimately has a trickle down effect.
Speaker 1:The fans really do want people to be on coke. I feel like the memes on on Twitter are people are projecting, like, a lot. Yeah. And they're starting to search for cocaine where there's maybe just somebody who had a Celsius realistically.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But, it is it is funny. I don't know. I don't know if there's I don't know how much it would be performance enhancing. I I isn't it hard to stay jacked if you're on coke all day? I feel like cocaine makes you skinny.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I'm sure it kills appetite. A lot of stimulants do because you just have better things to do than eat. Yeah. Right? You're locked in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How are you gonna
Speaker 2:do that? Like, lock like, I've gotta be fasted for 48 to 72 hours to lock in eating a meal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't lock in when you're eating a meal. Even eating a nice meal in my opinion, you're sort of just like, you know, good chitchat. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The the weight loss thing was funny. I think I texted you this the other day. I hadn't at Sunra's event, I hadn't been on, I don't have a scale at home. I hadn't been on a scale in, like, 3 months Yeah. And I step on a scale.
Speaker 2:And I was like, I honestly laughed because I in 3 months since since having, my daughter, my wife had stopped. She stopped cooking. She's taking care of the baby. She's breastfeeding. Like, it's literally almost a 247 thing.
Speaker 2:So stop cooking. And so that period of time, I also was extremely locked in. And the combination of being locked in and Sarah not coming in being like, hey. Like, you haven't eaten in 6 hours, like, 8 hours, like, here's some food. So just every single day, 24 hour fast and drop £12 in 3 months, like, completely unintentionally.
Speaker 2:Not even like this.
Speaker 1:Pound a week.
Speaker 2:Not even less body fat, just less muscle. There's less everything. And somebody said go
Speaker 1:into the winter bulk.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1:It's bulk.
Speaker 2:Somebody said to me, like, dude, what happened to you? Like, you you look super skinny, and I I just hadn't I hadn't seen a scale, so I didn't Yeah. Know. And I was just kind of offended, and then the truth was presented right Yeah. Right before my eyes.
Speaker 2:Anyways, we gotta talk about we gotta talk about Zuck, and I feel like you should probably launch into it to at least a 10 minute monologue on, launching products.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. There's so many things here. Yeah. It's it's such a it's such an interesting story. I mean, people are so, yeah, Meta launched these Orion augmented reality glasses.
Speaker 1:They're look just like normal sunglasses or or normal glasses but, they project holograms over on top of the lenses. So, instead of doing the pass through like what the Apple Vision Pro does where you're using cameras and then reprojecting that onto a screen, you can just see the real world so that in the resolution's essentially infinite. So same thing that the, the the Microsoft HoloLens did and that one company that didn't do very well, Meta
Speaker 2:or what I mean, there's been
Speaker 1:so many tracks with this. Was really struggling.
Speaker 2:Google Glass too.
Speaker 1:Google Glass was a little bit of that. It was kind of just that screen in the corner but yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But, it there's just like a 1000000 different weird things going on with this where the the reaction from everyone that Meta invited to their, like, developer day to experience this, everyone was, like, so excited. It was, like, this is amazing. This is incredible. But if you look back at what happened when all of the same influencers got tours of the Apple Vision Pro, it was the same thing. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They were all, like, this is incredible. This is finally the breakthrough. I'm definitely gonna daily drive this. And I always think back to you you you know the Pepsi challenge? You remember this?
Speaker 1:Like Pepsi versus Coke. This whole thing. This whole ad campaign they did where they would just go on the street and have people try Pepsi and try Coke, and people would overwhelmingly select Pepsi. And the trick was that Pepsi was sweeter. And so they give you a 1 ounce shot.
Speaker 1:And over 1 ounce, people would prefer Pepsi. But over 16 ounces, people would prefer Coke because the sweetness would actually get to them. And so, of course, like the market is actually roughly 5050 between Coke and Pepsi. But over 1 ounce, people overwhelmingly prefer Pepsi. And so I'm just always worried with these VR demos that they they set you up for an amazing 20 minute experience and they don't let anyone try one for a month straight because, I mean, Ben Thompson was I mean,
Speaker 2:it would kill the product before it actually got released. If Ben Thompson wore it for a month and was like
Speaker 1:And was like, actually I churned.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right?
Speaker 1:But but you give it to him for 30 minutes and he's like, this is incredible. Right? And so I'm always I'm always hesitant about that until like, at this point, if they want me to be stoked, I need to see them give the product to someone for a month straight, and then I need to know were they still using it? Were they still daily driving it after a
Speaker 2:month? Yeah. Because I had the I got the meta.
Speaker 1:I I got some right here.
Speaker 2:Oh, nice. Yeah. I ordered So I got these bunch
Speaker 1:of thoughts on this one.
Speaker 2:And I got these. And I was like, these are cool, mostly for the video capture Yeah. Stuff. And I took them out of the box, put them on, set them up, went and drove my Ferrari, posted a video on social media. And within, like, 30 minutes, local mom was commenting, like, very angrily saying, like, don't ever drive like this around our house and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And it ended up starting a bunch of drama. That was the last time I used my meta ray band, so I had sort of a bad
Speaker 1:Wait. Wait. Wait. Did she see the video?
Speaker 2:She saw the video Did you put that on? Odometer speedometer was Oh, wow. I thought it was I thought I thought it was fairly controlled. Everybody has their own everybody has their own perception of speed. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I you you told me
Speaker 2:I haven't I haven't used them since then.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. You told me that you use them for a drive. So I actually I kind of, like, unboxed these while I was driving and just threw them on and was hoping that I could just, like, put them on, press a button, and just start recording, but you can't. You have to set them up.
Speaker 1:And this is something that always frustrates me about these meta products is that they just assume that you're, like, the biggest Facebook fanboy and that you have, like, oh, yeah. I'd love to log in.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I know what my Facebook yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's like, let's be realistic. Not everyone wants to log in with these things. They should let you just turn them on, take a picture, and then say, hey, don't you want to log in to get your photos?
Speaker 2:Like Yeah.
Speaker 1:Push it down the down the road a little bit.
Speaker 2:I don't know who these I don't know who that that recording functionality is for other other than, like, the guys on Instagram that are like, hey, what do you do for a living?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. They're like Me, dude. Yeah. I mean, I I I'm gonna try and use these around the kids and and the dogs and
Speaker 2:stuff and
Speaker 1:see if that's cool and see if that works. I I I think there could be something there where it's like they are they really are like as light as just normal wayfarers. So if if, you know, if you're if you're going to the beach, why not just have this on there? And I do think there is something legitimate about the the sunglass and the glasses being, like, the next computing platform, the next, major consumer hardware category. Because if you look at the the the evolution, a lot of times the devices that have gotten really popular have been just like iterations of things that we've already come to expect and love.
Speaker 1:Like Oura Ring is I think doing $500,000,000 a year. And it's like why is that doing so well and the pendant companies aren't doing that well, at least not yet. I think it's because people just wear rings. So they just understand it. Apple Watch.
Speaker 1:It's like I already wear a watch. So, like, I'll just throw on a watch. I get it. And then, like, a lot of the
Speaker 2:The question is Yeah. That it'll be interesting to see what the glasses market because I I am convinced I think we're both convinced that it is the next or at least a complementary computing platform to your other devices. Yeah. The question is, does it become like the smartwatch market where there's just sort of like the dominant FAANG players Yep. And then kind of no one else?
Speaker 2:Like, you still, like, you know, wear you know, it's not like an actual replacement for what a lot of people use, like, watches for.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It'll be interesting to see if, companies like Meta continue to integrate with, like, existing silhouettes, like, you know, Ray Bans Yep. Or if they go into the Orion route and it's just like, no. We're we're the platform. We're the device. We're the brand.
Speaker 2:This is the only thing that matters because, like, I can't see myself wearing that frame, you know, the Orion frame, like, ever. But if you went to I would start to get a lot
Speaker 1:pronouncing it that way. It's Orion.
Speaker 2:Orion. Orion. Orion? Oh, Orion. Orion.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't I don't know. Orion Orion's belt. Yeah. Orion's Belt.
Speaker 2:Sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 1:Well, the the I mean, the frames were like kind of like built up to be like a dev kit basically. Like, they're not shipping that yet. Yeah. And they will wind up shipping in like a Ray Bans frame. I mean, they have a pretty significant
Speaker 2:partnership with Sonica,
Speaker 1:the company behind Ray Bans
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is like this incredible monopoly. It's like a $100,000,000,000 Great company.
Speaker 2:Wait. So imagine the feeling of Yeah. Ripping a Volta, putting in an excel, and then putting on aviator versions of the Orion glasses and just locking into a day at work like this. Like, and you're just at work. You're just firing on all cylinders, typing on a holographic keyboard, just firing off emails.
Speaker 1:3 years away.
Speaker 2:3 years out.
Speaker 1:Basically. Yeah. I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If we got invited to demo day, it could have been last week or 2 weeks ago.
Speaker 1:It is. Yeah. There there's there's so many. The the Luxottica CEO like reached out to Zuck apparently to be like hey we should do a deal and Zuck This was kind
Speaker 2:of like
Speaker 1:years ago. It was kind of like oh like you have somebody on my team to take this and like somebody on his team was like no like you need to talk to this guy. Yeah. That's how they do the deal. So they just re upped.
Speaker 1:I think they have a 10 year deal. It's exclusive and Luxottica is the like the Sole hardware like Well, so they're completely vertically integrated. So they they own Ray Ban. They bought I think they bought Ray Ban in the nineties and then they jacked with the price and stopped selling it in gas stations and became this, like, luxury brand. They they bought a whole bunch of other I think they own Persol and a few other, brands.
Speaker 1:But then they own everything from the manufacturing to, like, how they grind the lenses, all that. But then they also own the retail distribution. They own LensCrafters. And so they have more I think there's more LensCrafter stores than there are Apple Stores. And so the and Meta, I think they bought 5% of Luxottica.
Speaker 1:And so you could see a world where Meta winds up buying Luxottica. Luxottica also owns Supreme. And so there's this theory that, like, oh, Zuck loves hype these the song. Does love fashion and so there is something Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's working. I didn't realize he's working on his his new, like, kind of cringe clothing is with Mike Amiri.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't think that's that.
Speaker 2:Very, like, sort of hype beast y, like, you'll if you listen to a rap song, every 10th song, we'll talk about, like, a Mary Jeans or whatever. Sure. But I think so the the interesting thing, meta versus Apple Yeah. With the next gen computing platform, and let's just ignore Snap because, they're gonna continue to drive returns for, their employees
Speaker 1:Yep. And no one else.
Speaker 2:But, which is kind of antithetical to everything that we believe in.
Speaker 1:Yes. Exactly.
Speaker 2:But, so this is the ultimate matchup of founder mode versus manager mode. Mhmm. Right? Which is like Tim Apple Yeah. You know, building, you know, Apple headsets, like trying to just sort of, like, iterate towards something great.
Speaker 2:Like, who knows would Steve would Steve Jobs have put out that, that product, or would that have been an internal product for another 3 years before you could get to this platform? Yeah. Right? And Zuck, who's basically been his probably only insecurity besides, that he's just deep down always gonna be a nerd, is that he doesn't own the platform. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, that's what what keeps him up at night. So that's like a, you know, basically like multi decade effort to own the next computing platform and own the hardware. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think glasses are a reasonable He's
Speaker 2:like yeah. He's like
Speaker 1:The problem is is that the there's just this weird like kind of, I don't know, user hostility when you set up one of these products. It just doesn't feel like I'm in it feels like I'm in conflict. It feels like I'm sparring with Yeah. Meta when I set something up like this.
Speaker 2:He just wants to make it It
Speaker 1:asked me to allow notifications on my phone for this thing twice just before I could take a picture. It's like I I remember I I was testing the, the meta quest. I think it was the second one, the meta quest 2. And I was like, I just wanna go back to the time when you could take an n 64, put in a cartridge, turn it on, and it would go blink, and then you just be playing Mario.
Speaker 2:Fully basically, analog.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Basically, immediately. Yeah. The with with with the quest onboarding, even after you've all set it up, you have to log in. There's 6 different logins now because I have a Facebook password, a meta password
Speaker 2:Yeah. An
Speaker 1:Instagram password, an Oculus password. Wait. What
Speaker 2:if what if the what if the the, the meta Ray Bans is just his way of trying to get to convince Wall Street that people still use Facebook because, like, I
Speaker 1:had to, like, I had
Speaker 2:to remember what my Facebook password is or whatever just to, like, get get everything.
Speaker 1:If he can sell every Facebook user
Speaker 2:1 of these.
Speaker 1:A $300 pair of glasses, I think he's gonna do it very well. But, yeah. But, there was just this, like it was, like, the the the demand for, like, it has to be social features. There you have to be logged in. You have to be in their store.
Speaker 1:You have to be doing all this stuff. It just, like, took the surprise and delight completely out of it. Yeah. And and I feel like with with with this, I mean it wasn't as bad but it was still like like you could just tell. It it it was almost like I'm I'm interacting with 2 devices that are like a divorced mom and dad.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Right? Because it's like the the the Apple phone is like trying to kill this as hard as possible. So it's like, hey, just so you know, they're gonna track you.
Speaker 1:So do you want to track or no? Do you want to track? Oh, they're gonna want your contacts. So, like, do do you want contacts or not? Like, be careful, like, this company is trying to fuck you.
Speaker 1:So I
Speaker 2:mean, well
Speaker 1:be very careful. And these guys are, like, well, we don't want you to use the phone at all but, like, also you have to install this app to use our thing. So we wanna like get our hooks in there, but then it's just so adversarial and like I just feel like I'm like torn between
Speaker 2:Well, the core the core issue is that the meta PM who is making 200 k a month Yeah. The day the day before one of their most important sprints, he got, like, a 50% sleep score. So he was all thrown off.
Speaker 1:Probably. When he
Speaker 2:comes into work, he's pissed off. Right? He's only had 7 hours of sleep. He starts chewing out the whole engineering team, chewing out legal. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And everybody's just kinda like, oh, like, you know, let's just ship it. Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, you know, with with an Apple product, like, the designer is just, like, meditating for, like, 12 hours. And it's just like, let's just, donate just remove that part of the flow, and then let's remove that part
Speaker 1:of the flow.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Let's just keep let's just keep removing until you could just swim through at the user.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's just there's just so much, like, I I maybe my expectations are too high for these companies, but it's like, you're a $1,000,000,000,000 company. Why do I have to do a day 1 update? Yeah. Like, I had to install a software update just to use it the first time. It's like, just ship it with something that works basic and then let me upgrade later, like, once you've converted me.
Speaker 1:And it's not even that it's not even that, like, an extended setup process of, like, 2 hours is gonna be bad for for immediate conversion because, like, I'm gonna get over that, but it's just gonna leave a bad taste in my mouth. Like, this product doesn't care about me. I remember one of the most magical things was when the iPhone started shipping and they were fully charged.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:now you go and you buy an iPhone and it's fully charged. And so you leave the Apple store and you're, like, wow, This is awesome. Yeah. It just feels like they went a little bit farther. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's gotta be a little bit cheaper.
Speaker 2:Improved over time. Like, don't you remember when it was like you were like, oh, I'm switching phones. Like, it's gonna be such a huge hassle. And now it's like, you know, they basically do it in the store.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The one thing that'll be interesting with with glasses is glasses are always gonna be a fashion statement of sorts. It's literally sitting on your it's like Yeah. It's it's the window to the eyes. Right? And not that that doesn't look fantastic, but you probably, if we're wearing glasses all the time, are gonna want to have This is recording.
Speaker 2:It looks like yeah. You are recording right now. No. So I think that it's possible people might have 4 or 5 different pairs of glasses. They might have sunglasses.
Speaker 2:They might have, you know, like
Speaker 1:Yeah. But if I mean, if Meta owns Luxottica
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1:You're gonna own all of the good brands, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think Apple would be able to come in. And I mean that that's the big question that a lot of people have is like, okay. So Meta announced this Orion prototype. It costs 10 k to produce right now per unit and it has like a like maybe a 2 hour battery life. Like, there's a lot of problems that they need to iron out.
Speaker 1:And so when Ben Thompson pushed, BOS, it sounded like 2027, maybe. It's a consumer product. And so the question is, like, does Apple have something that's adjacent? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So here's here's my big issue with headsets, and I, I already have tinfoil on the inside of my hat, so I'm all good. But, basically, last time I checked deep in the Apple iPhone terms of service Yeah. There's stuff that literally says, like, don't hold this device, like, up to your head, like, hold it here. Really? It's really for health reasons.
Speaker 2:There is proof that, like, the radiation, even though it's non ionizing or whatever, that that your phone emits is not something that you want that close to your body. Right? It's why, you know, it's why there's a bunch of brands popping up that are like, we're like EMS proof underwear because if you're putting your big big possibility that having your phone next to your, reproductive organs could be contributing to the fertility crisis like other downrange issues. So for me, I'm looking at it as as what I don't know if there's anything that will ever be able to mitigate that. Right?
Speaker 2:And so if I'm not comfortable, I never I haven't taken a phone call with my phone up to my ear. I'm like, you know, the the asshole with,
Speaker 1:wired headphones.
Speaker 2:Wired headphones or if I'm in a public space I'll put it on speaker and just keep it quiet, because I just don't. There's seemingly like unnecessary risk to have your phone like slapped here. So that's my big thing is, like, okay, if this is the next computing platform, like, how do we ensure that we all don't get, like, turbo brain cancer? Then, you know, and that that feels like a very unanswered question that historically both the cellular networks and consumer product, consumer electronics companies have completely ignored, except they tend to bury stuff in their terms that say, like, don't use this for 3 hours straight or whatever because it, like, it will literally, like, heat up the inside of your of your brain, like, deep into your brain if you just hold it up there. And so that again, it's like a big question that I have and, I think it's worth somebody funding, like, an entire documentary on cell phones because there's so much emphasis on how cellular device like, the things that we do on our devices are bad for us, doom scrolling, you know, the dating apps and things like that.
Speaker 2:But there's actual, like, the physical, like, physical potentially, risk of the device and constantly being attached to it because we're sort of electrical beings that are absorbing a lot of different types of radiation at all times, but, you know, basically absorbing really concentrated doses of it can, you know, is a risk factor.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think there's there's definitely something to be said for, like, there's just, like, this generational change of, like, some sort of pollutant that we find out later, like, in the seventies, it was, like, lead.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then it's best dose.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. And, like, lead made everyone I mean, there's this theory that, like, lead made everyone insane and, like, aggressive, and that's why there's, like, a crime wave and a murder spike. And then it's, like, maybe we cut out the lead and we increase the plastics and then everyone gets really docile and
Speaker 2:just, like,
Speaker 1:kids and fiddle. And so it's like balancing these toxins over time.
Speaker 2:Thing with lead is that lead, actually stops a lot of electromagnetic radiation. So if you had lead paint if you had lead paint in your house, you probably wouldn't get cell service.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:And so I think we're actually gonna see a trend back towards using lead paint in bedrooms because if you want to create an environment in your room that is, you know, doesn't have any
Speaker 1:I think there's other ways to build a Faraday cage if you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But it's actually pretty efficient to be like let's
Speaker 1:just paint all the walls. Yeah then it's lead poisoning.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I don't know if it's actually been proven that the lead from that paint. It's like gets into you. The whole like kids are gonna eat the paint chips or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You could
Speaker 2:maybe And there's other ways to do it. You could paint one layer of lead and then paint over it. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So
Speaker 2:anyways, I'm gonna get into the lead painting business. We're bringing back lead.
Speaker 1:You're gonna get some leaded gasoline.
Speaker 2:Oh, consumer electronics are out of lead gasoline.
Speaker 1:Lead gasoline. For some reason, I don't think lead is coming back. I think I think that the answer may
Speaker 2:be low lead, no plastic. Isn't it still used in in x-ray?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like lead to stop you.
Speaker 2:Never left. It doesn't need to come back. It's always been been with us.
Speaker 1:And it is it is insulated in It's the anti hero.
Speaker 2:You know? It's it's it's sort of,
Speaker 1:Yeah. We used to chew like pencil lead. Like, kids used to be, like, you know, nervously chewing a pencil and
Speaker 2:The original Excel. It just gets you more gets you more, like, more angry.
Speaker 1:And, like, you become a murderer or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Should we talk about that MKBHD app?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought it was too cheap.
Speaker 2:Too cheap? Too cheap.
Speaker 1:$50 a year.
Speaker 2:It's like For that quality of wallpaper? You gotta go higher. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You gotta go higher. No. It's funny. Like, my I I was seriously thinking, like, why is everyone complaining? Just don't buy this.
Speaker 1:You know? Like, yeah, it's $50.
Speaker 2:Well, no. This is the thing.
Speaker 1:But it's because he is a critic, and so there's this, like, people, like, criticizing the critic, and
Speaker 2:that's why
Speaker 1:they're so excited about it. But did you have a did you have a hot take about it? It was it was kinda interesting. I mean the
Speaker 2:Yeah. Here's my thing. Yeah. Anybody whose job is to criticize is the number one target for all criticism. Right?
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if you are, like, a poster who is posting. Right? Yeah. And you just, like, have hot takes all the time. Yep.
Speaker 2:Even hot takes, but I think he's just build up such a reputation of doing takedowns, and usually they're I think they're very fair for the most part.
Speaker 1:A 100%. Like, the the the Fisker Ocean I think the bigger. Literally doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 2:I think the I think the only criticism is just that it seemed like to be a pretty poorly made app. Like, I don't have any issue with him coming out and I don't have any issue with him coming out and trying to sell usernames for $50 a month. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or
Speaker 2:sorry, not usernames. Wallpapers. Wallpapers. No issue with that at all. It's just, like, I don't know, like, have some good taste in, you know, dev shops or partners.
Speaker 2:Right? Like
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's sort of this aesthetic issue with it that I have, which is, like, you review technology and you put out a shitty app. Yep. It doesn't matter that I think the product's also pretty shit, like Yeah. To me, the product's shitty. I'm never gonna do that.
Speaker 2:You know, family men, we have there's only one thing that should be on your wallpaper, your wife and children. Right?
Speaker 1:Or The Office and Or
Speaker 2:The Office. Yeah. Or or your your super evil mega corp logo.
Speaker 1:Just remind yourself that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. During the daytime, you know, and then when you get home, swap it back. Yeah. No.
Speaker 2:So I just think that I have, like, sort of a general issue with the aesthetics of being the tech reviewer that puts out a poorly made app, which it was. Like, it got completely torn apart. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's reverse engineered. I won't spoil anything. And then also just, like, the the the the implementation of the ad flow was Yeah. Just that has always clunky. It had to add?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So basically, you would you you install the app and then you browse for wallpapers. And there are some that look nice, like, they look fine. You can actually just screenshot them and zoom in. It's very weird because, like, they're they have to show them to you so you can just screenshot them.
Speaker 1:You don't get the full thing. It only shows you, like, 3 quarters so then you have to zoom in a
Speaker 2:little bit.
Speaker 1:But it's fine. It's weird. But the but the weird thing is that if you want standard definition, which is like low res, which I think is actually HD, so people are weirded out about that because this whole brand is MKBHDHD, like high definition and he's selling a standard definition product instead of giving you the high definition then having you upgrade to the 4 k version. But if you want the standard definition, you click and you have to watch 2 ads and the and that's why they were asking for location targeting because if you don't have someone's location, the ad rates will plummet. And so you need to know where people are roughly.
Speaker 1:Just the course locations, what's important, but they asked for fine grained. So they it was kind of like a sloppy implementation. But just if you're in an app and an ad pops up, it it feels like there's this iOS, like, widget basically
Speaker 2:that a
Speaker 1:lot of mobile games use and a lot of just kind of like cheap apps that you download to do like one thing. Like, oh, like like there's the difference between like some app that just like puts subtitles at the bottom and like the captions app. The captions app is like venture funded. It has a subscription. It's expensive, but it's the highest quality and it's like crafts.
Speaker 1:It's like it's a beautiful app that works really really well. I use it all the time. And and the reason is, if if they just like popped up an ad, I would be like, this is like so annoying and it's like this unskippable thing and like the x is in the corner and you gotta go find it and it's all blended in and stuff. And so that that was just kind of like a like a mediocre experience. And then and then I think once people, like, started digging in, they started digging into every little thing.
Speaker 1:And they found that, like, one of the artists on the app had put up a wallpaper that was just the color orange. And it's like you don't need to pay for that at all because you can just make that in 2 seconds in any thing.
Speaker 2:Take a picture of it orange and just zoom in.
Speaker 1:Exactly. There's a there's a 1,000,000 different ways to just make your background orange if you want. But yeah.
Speaker 2:I think something that's funny is it feels like a very, like, vintage app. Like, this is the kind of, like, quality and idea that should have dropped the year that the App Store opened. Yeah. Exactly. Definitely yeah.
Speaker 2:Flashlight app. It feels kind of like that. I think the better MKBHD has done some smart partnerships. I
Speaker 1:Yeah. Ridge Wallet.
Speaker 2:Ridge Wallet.
Speaker 1:Fantastic.
Speaker 2:Close friends with Sean and and Connor, the CMO. I think that was, like, a very smart partnership from both sides for them to come together and
Speaker 1:He's a big 8 Sleeps
Speaker 2:advertiser. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He does a great job with those.
Speaker 2:Yeah. How can you not? Right?
Speaker 1:It's fantastic.
Speaker 2:8 Sleep. If you're listening, sleep on a regular organic cotton mattress. So, we're always open to our sleep partners. Yeah. The world's most profitable podcast.
Speaker 1:But but I I think what I think what happened with like, it it's weird because there there is a there is a correct way to introduce a $50 a year subscription wallpaper app, but I think it's the Call of Duty method. Have you ever played any of those games?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Of course.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, like, Call of Duty
Speaker 2:Core mem that I basically spawned into Rust.
Speaker 1:Thanks. I'm like I
Speaker 2:just, like, have no memories and then I need 360 no scoping off of the off of the tower. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So so Call of Duty, the monetization, like, has ramped up a ton. Yeah. But they reset the the, like, the shittiness of the monetization every single cycle. So they're on annual cycle essentially. Every year they come out with a new game and every year you buy the game and it's $60 and there's no pay to win mechanics, there's no battle pass, there's nothing you can pay for.
Speaker 1:And everyone's like, oh, thank God, like, this one isn't pay to win. And everyone's like, good, like, I just got all the content that I wanted and I get to and I get to, you know, make the decision of, like, what do I get and what's the price and is it good or bad? And everyone's like, it's
Speaker 2:a
Speaker 1:7 out of 10 every time Yeah. And people play it. But over time what happens is that, like, the normie Call of Duty person comes on, they play the campaign and they play a little bit of multiplayer. Maybe they, like, get to the prestige level 1, they unlock all the guns and then they're kinda done after, like, a month. They get, like, burned out.
Speaker 1:Those people kinda fade off, but the really hardcore fans will play the full year until the next one comes out. And the really really hardcore ones will stay on for an extra year on the game that they love. And so the monetization just keeps ramping up during that time and they sell more and more skins and more and more stuff. And so if you if you go and look at, like, the like a review, a day one review of a of a comedy that came out in 2020 or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like the new Modern Warfare. The the reviews from the day it launched will be like, this is this is this is a reasonable monetization program.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But if you talk to the influencers that, like, stuck with it, they'll be, like, it's the worst thing ever. It's pay to win and there's a you know, you can sing. There's loot boxes and gambling now, and they've added all this stuff on. And and but they do that very deliberately because they only introduce it to people that are already in the ecosystem Sucked in. Sucked in.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I've spent $3 on this game. I'm I'm gonna spend the next $200.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's funny. I used to worry as a kid. I was I was, like, are we running out of wars? We're gonna make games about it. Right?
Speaker 2:Right? Because it felt like they went from, like, they did World War 1 Yep. And they did World War 2 Yep. And then Black Ops Vietnam. Was Vietnam.
Speaker 2:Yep. Right? And then when do they introduce
Speaker 1:Well, they did the future wars.
Speaker 2:They did the future ones, but eventually, it seems like here's a here's a here's a take.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do they do Operation Iraqi Freedom, like, in the next 10 years? Like, or
Speaker 1:In Call of Duty.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That would
Speaker 1:be crazy. I don't think they've ever done that. Right? They've done modern warfare, and it's, like,
Speaker 2:in the general area, that's abstract. Too offensive.
Speaker 1:But it's abstract.
Speaker 2:Like, it's too like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you did a war from within the last 20 years, it would it would be but, ultimately, that would probably be the best selling version of Call of Duty.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is crazy because they'll do ones where it's like, oh, you're fighting terrorists in the Middle East, but it's not just like
Speaker 2:straight kill of somebody. To enjoy the missions, you know, in the context of my great grandpa was, like, a fighter pilot and got shot down, like, multiple times, and I used to be times. Yeah. Yeah. He was he was How do you So he started so this this guy is a legend.
Speaker 2:He Insane. Pearl Harbor happens. He enlists, lies about his age to get in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Small dude becomes a, the rear gunner in, like, B 52 bombers. Cool. Does 2 tours, gets shot down twice. Wow. Makes it out, and then is trains to be the p 51.
Speaker 2:What's, like what was the best fighter to do?
Speaker 1:The Mustang.
Speaker 2:The Mustang. Yep. Trains to be a Mustang pilot and is en route to the Pacific theater when the war ended finally. Wow. Anyways, tough, tough, tough bastard.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So so to bring it back to MKHD, I think what he should have done is he should have just launched with something just just go for just the installs. Just free, no ads, no tracking. Just get everyone to install this thing Yeah. And then see where you're at.
Speaker 1:And then and then and then once you have everyone's email and you've captured everyone and and you know who actually likes it, then you you you no longer have to message to your whole YouTube community. Because he put this out on he he did a he did basically, like, sponsored read on his own YouTube channel introducing the app. That goes out to 12,000,000 people or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And
Speaker 1:But but there's probably a subset of, like, a 100,000 people that are actually down for this. And I can I mean, Nikita here was saying that he was gonna make, like, 3,000,000 a year off this?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. And the funny thing is, I mean, the good thing is when you have a really big audience like that and people generally like you Yeah. You get multiple chances. Yeah. But 3,000,000 a year for somebody who makes probably 15 mil I I have no idea how much money he makes, but I I
Speaker 1:mean, it's a large organization at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I'm sure that Dell would be like, we'll give you $5,000,000 a year to cover us a few times or whatever.
Speaker 1:That might have erode trust more than this, honestly.
Speaker 2:At least this is a trend. But regardless, yeah, he could have gotten those
Speaker 1:power units. Jesus. Like, the guy reviews iPhones and Android phones, like,
Speaker 2:going to Tel is like That's the thing where they're being creators. Right? If you get big enough, you have to sell out to keep, to keep the to keep growing. Right?
Speaker 1:I mean, there is something to to for
Speaker 2:like Unless you have your own product.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You wanna own your own product.
Speaker 2:And and
Speaker 1:that's clearly where he's going with this. And he did say that he wants to, like, add some other stuff to it. Maybe it won't be just like a wallpaper out forever.
Speaker 2:But What if you could AI generate a family? So if you're an Intel, you could
Speaker 1:On on the panels app? That's what this goes?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because it's just that's just what I associate with wallpapers. I'm like
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Because it's always yeah. It's supposed to be your family. Yeah. This is very, very
Speaker 2:odd. Wait. What? This is great. I just want you to you're just gonna see this email email on last.
Speaker 2:Look at the subject.
Speaker 1:Well, should we talk about another, kind of iffy launch, Pear AI?
Speaker 2:Dude, these guys' response was honestly really good, I thought. Like, they kind of did what they needed to do. They just posted through it and sort of, like, reclaimed their honor, which was, like, they had posted I think it was sort of disingenuous the way they said we, you know, we forked this and didn't mention that we also had forked this other thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But they had put out a video 3 months prior to this launch Oh, really? Saying that saying exactly what it is. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like there was a history of, misleading people about what their product was.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I mean, in in AI, there have been a number of those where Yeah. There where later, there's been a question about, like, who owns, like, stability AI. I went through a whole thing with this with, like, who owns the IP and what where does this sit and what's the relationship? Like, this seems pretty simple.
Speaker 1:It is kinda silly because it's like, we just forked this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I mean, I don't know. I don't like, I mean, I I guess there is a question about like, you know, literally the licenses. Like certain licenses, you can fork them but then you can't sell what you're forking and
Speaker 2:that's
Speaker 1:the problem. But I mean there are big businesses that like Red Hat is a huge huge multibillion dollar company and it's a fork of Linux. Like, it's it's
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That that's the Red Hat strategy. And then there's a few of those. And I can see I can see a company winning in open source AI in that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 1:don't think that that's that crazy. I don't know about this specific
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm I'm kind of I'm it's funny. I'm I'm sort of generally bearish on the company purely because of the the space that they're in and how competitive it is and how it it's hard to imagine that that, you know, I I think there like, there's a huge willingness to try new tools right now because everybody's everything's changing so quickly, but, is the YC company with 500 k and, like Yeah. A bunch of haters gonna actually win now? Because, like, I think having the part of why punch part of why developers love Stripe is because they have a lot of respect and admiration for the Colson Brothers.
Speaker 2:And so is the average developer like, I kinda wanna back pair just to spite the haters.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I'm not like but I think it's like these founders are probably gonna be very successful. Yep. Will pair AI be successful?
Speaker 1:Yeah. There is an interesting question. Very unclear. Like, what type of organization does need an open source AI code editor? Like, there are lots of places where it's like, okay.
Speaker 1:Why why would you want open source in that particular part of your tech stack? Like, well, you know, it's flexibility around a specific thing Yeah. Avoiding lock in to a specific thing. Like, what what why why go with, you know, postgrass as opposed to Oracle database? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, like, there's a lot more flexibility that comes with that. But in the in the code editor space, it's like that's usually more on the on the developer side, like individual Yeah. Like developer decision. I think Kinda unclear but.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think one factor is it's not like everybody like, this next one. I guess we do in turbo I guess we do in turbo retarded Gen z founders now. It's like, this is not new. YC has always backed I won't use that same light.
Speaker 2:Always backed young technical founders that were just, like, very ambitious that we're gonna do whatever it took to win.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the model is, like, proven beyond a doubt. Right? There's been a lot of, like, FUD lately on people being like, oh, y c's last 6 batches. There's not that many unicorns. It's like, okay.
Speaker 2:Like, I don't think there ever was like that. You know, sometimes you get breakout companies or whatever. But I think the difference now is tech is so mainstream that these guys are coming in. They already have a YouTube channel that's super active.
Speaker 1:I think I printed out that Delian tweet below which is which is really really really interesting which is like yeah. Like, when when when the for you page and the algorithm like, these guys know how to go viral. That's clear from the way they wrote this tweet. I just quit my $270,000 job at Coinbase. Like, this is clickbait and they got a ton of attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But even if you wrote this tweet, you know, 10 years ago, you would not be the front page of the Internet necessarily for your starter. It was it'd be much harder to break through.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to see if this guy has a Cartier crash on, which would be like a crazy piece to just have on because it's it's basically like you'd I don't know. You'd have to spend, like, the entire
Speaker 1:The license tag on your watch.
Speaker 2:But,
Speaker 1:yeah. They definitely seem like you know, they they definitely understand going viral.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm bullish on these guys, bearish on pair.ai.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we'll But
Speaker 1:who knows where the where where they will wind up? Like
Speaker 2:Yeah. If they're it's a if it's a real YC company, they'll pivot twice more. Exactly. They'll be a closed source code editor. Hey.
Speaker 2:Actually, we didn't like being so open about what we're working on. Like, we're just gonna build we're just gonna build software.
Speaker 1:I mean, all bets are off. You can be nonprofit and then be worth a 157,000,000,000. You know? You don't need to
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. People people flooding, Y Combinator as if OpenAI is not a YC company. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1:Came directly out of YC.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You gotta include that in the recent in the recent history. Yeah. It's like the most important technology ever. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, like, you can say whatever you want about the about the financial ownership or whatever but, like Yeah. It's clearly like like they made something cool that everyone uses and is awesome And, like, a lot of people have built other things because of that.
Speaker 2:We love the economy, so we love a for profit organization. Right?
Speaker 1:I am I am so much happier.
Speaker 2:Every convert every single nonprofit nonprofit that is doing homeless related work in LA into a for profit, and I I guarantee you it it
Speaker 1:Solves the it
Speaker 2:solves the homeless issue in 2 weeks.
Speaker 1:Seems reasonable.
Speaker 2:What
Speaker 1:else should we do?
Speaker 2:Should we do this, the longshoremen?
Speaker 1:Yeah. We can talk about that. Why not? I don't really know
Speaker 2:that much about it.
Speaker 1:I know that I've got stuff stuck in the middle of the ocean.
Speaker 2:Yeah. This is not about being informed. This is about this is about, sharing opinions, and you don't need to be informed to have an opinion.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:Put that on the record. Yeah. I mean, this guy just had I mean, he he looks like he's a character out of out of he's, like, the the the villain out of a movie, you know, where, like, the next stage of this mutiny is, like, they just rebel Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like, like, secede from the union and, like, the ports the ports become, you know, the beginning of of of, like, the new, you know, America rifts, but not in, like, you know. But anyways, I think this is, like, a pretty somebody compared it to, to the organized crime, and I think that's, like, pretty on point where it's effectively just I mean, who who knows. Right? I think from his point of view, he's doing his job. He gets paid, like, about a1000000 a year to represent his people.
Speaker 1:I think it I I mean I think it will. People quote tweeted and were like, this guy makes 780 k, but it's like, that's not that much. That's less than, like, a thing, like, level 1 new grad these days. So it's like, is this guy really this I I don't know. I don't I'm not really buying the whole villain.
Speaker 2:I think it I think it ultimately backfires in a big way. Right? Because everybody's like, oh, yeah. We actually really do need automation. We shouldn't be dependent on, like,
Speaker 1:a bunch of mess.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We don't we shouldn't be dependent on a bunch of angry, you know, value extractors, that basically have a monopoly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I I do wonder how it how it fits in with the election. Like, the strike began October 1st. Election is in November. There's some sort of Taft Hartley thing that the that the president can do to kind of force them to go back to work, which would, like, relieve you weeks or so.
Speaker 1:For 4 weeks, which could time up, like, perfectly so that you're not feeling it when you're voting, essentially. Yeah. And then you start feeling it right when it's done. So it's just, like, it's, like, odd timing.
Speaker 2:But yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, Ryan Stevenson seems like he is like pretty pretty bullish right now on it ending soon or like, you know, optimistic Yeah. That that will it will resolve. But
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think Ryan Peterson has, needs to verticalize and own the ports. You know? Otherwise, he's just gonna take, like, 20 years off his life, all the stress. You know?
Speaker 2:Like, he needs to own he needs to own all the land within a 100 miles of of the water in Yemen. Right? Like, he needs to own the boats. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He
Speaker 2:needs to own
Speaker 1:You definitely need some of the the navy.
Speaker 2:He needs to privatize the ports Yeah. Just so he can get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Let's get flex port and navy.
Speaker 2:For sure. I think we can probably skip this one. I I I don't feel the need to, like, throw this kid under the bus. I did think, like Yeah. This is my least favorite form of of ad right now is, like, AI generated slop.
Speaker 1:It's not AI generated though.
Speaker 2:It's not? No.
Speaker 1:It's literally just normal editing.
Speaker 2:Really?
Speaker 1:Just the booby clips and stuff, pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But for some reason it for some reason it felt so wet. It felt so whack compared to the Excel was doing, like, handcrafted editing.
Speaker 1:Did you see the other one that launched yesterday? The one that was, like, developers, developers, developers, developers. Did you see that one? No. It was Resolve AI.
Speaker 1:Did you see this? This one was this one's crazy.
Speaker 2:See, this is good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This is good. Right?
Speaker 2:This is the same format. It's just for real. See, this is the same format though as the original founders fund hype reel which we copied Yeah. At Capital Yeah. And then a bunch of other people.
Speaker 2:And now it's in the zeitgeist, and now the format's dead.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:So sorry to whoever did you edit that video for Founders Fund? No.
Speaker 1:It was Mike Petriano.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Mike Mike did a great thing. He did. We remixed it. He created a yeah.
Speaker 2:He created He created a monster.
Speaker 1:And then it just, like, yeah, it's done. I mean,
Speaker 2:it's it's a very fun format. I just wouldn't do it as a company today.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I guess the question is, like, how do you break through? Because, like, the I mean, this launch for this, like, re what what's it called? Rewind? You know, Resolve AI?
Speaker 1:It it's I mean, it's like it'd be pretty hard to get a 1,000,000 views on your launch video otherwise or, like, your launch something. So, like, what do you do other than just, like, a Vibreel that can go viral on DAX? It's hard.
Speaker 2:Build something great.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Takes time.
Speaker 2:Copy an open source power. God.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Create a controversy.
Speaker 2:Honestly, no video needed.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yeah. Be the villain.
Speaker 2:Be yeah. The heel.
Speaker 1:Be the heel or not the face? That's funny. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Okay. Do we wanna
Speaker 1:Wanna talk about the David Center event?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Where was it? So funny. So Austin, Texas
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing space that was basically it's basically like a hotel that is kind of like I mean, it it has sort of, like, some some continuous use, for some, I think, foundation out there. But, Founders Podcast and Business Breakdown hosted an event. There was, like, a 120 ish people there. No other people on the property, which was cool. So you'd just be, like, you know, doing something random at the gym, you'd try to have a conversation, etcetera.
Speaker 2:Amazing, amazing group of people. I would say felt like at least 10% of the people there had a net worth of over $1,000,000,000, which is, like, hard to get in the same sort of, like, you know, acre that often unless you're in Dallas.
Speaker 1:Doing that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I think, and the funny thing, this story came up a few times, but I I at Capital, we are one of the first advertisers of Founders Podcast.
Speaker 1:Really?
Speaker 2:And at the time, it's so funny what what, like, 2 years does. I think we paid him, like, 5,000 for the quarter. Wow. And now it it's it's like you need to be doing, like, a 7 figure multiyear deal to even Yeah. Enter the conversation, and he's probably gonna be like, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not a fit. But, anyways, David's amazing. Matt, the other host, is awesome too. It it was an interesting situation because it was clear, like like, there were some really great panels, but it was almost like the panels were just, like, dead time because the second you'd leave a panel and just start talking, there were so many great people. And David kept saying, like, I I wanna do a conference with no panels.
Speaker 2:Yep. It's just like the space, which I think is is great.
Speaker 1:I've done that. Works well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, yeah, ultimately, I think David left the weekend being like, I'm not I don't even I don't think he's ever gonna do one again, but it was funny because because he just would rather host a group of people.
Speaker 1:I think I think the retreat with no content is fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. But it was almost I I told him you should have a retreat for your audience Yep. And don't even go Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it's there's so much value in just connecting with other people that are like minded and so you you phone in and do your panel, hey everyone I'm so happy that you guys are all together, he's on the he's on the Venetian Islands because the challenge is it's really enjoyable for everyone except for him who's, you know, basically like 48 hour 48 hour period where people are grabbing him and all this stuff, but anyways people were generally respectful and it was good. It was pretty funny, like, almost, you know, people that I was hanging out with, Jackson Doll, Bryce from NDBC, Justin Mears, Jeremy Goffon, David Perrell, like, Jorgensen, people like that. I don't think any one of those people, like, had more than, like, a single one or two drinks the entire weekend even though there's an open bar, like, the entire time. Mhmm. So it's interesting to to really see, like, the death of alcohol
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, pretty, you know, pretty pretty plainly. The only people that were getting absolutely hammered was, with some of the old guard, which was fun. I was I was asking them, you know, this this guy's, like, borderline, like, blacked out. Only person that I think was truly, like, drunk in the whole event on on Friday night, and I was like, how does it feel to just be old and just loaded? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's just, like, laughing. And he's like, yeah. Like, dude, you you, like, busted your ass for 4 decades. You deserve to be the only person that's blacked out here, and I actually appreciate it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Everybody else is just going to hunt.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Nobody's got time to be hungover tomorrow. That's fine. But, yeah, fantastic event.
Speaker 2:And, David, when you listen to this, host a retreat where you you're not there.
Speaker 1:You're not there. Call in
Speaker 2:call in from the Venetian Isles. I think I think this community would appreciate it. I know a lot of people came out of it. I mean, I was in the it's funny. At the very end, I was staying an extra night in Austin to see a portfolio founder the next day, and this guy's like, hey.
Speaker 2:Does anybody wanna split an Uber? And I'm going downtown. I was like, sure. Let's do it. And we get in the car.
Speaker 2:It wasn't really, like you know, we I'd never met the guy that weekend. We were talking about what we what, what what each of us do, and he's like, oh, yeah. I run, like, a $6,000,000,000 hedge fund, you know, in London. You know?
Speaker 1:It's just
Speaker 2:like so it's like that that quality of people. Yeah. But anyways, would would, if it happens again, I'll I'll be back. Yeah. There needed to be everybody there was very Excel curious for already, already an active user Customer.
Speaker 2:A DAU. Yeah. We should we measure our customer base in DAUs, not a not traditional sales volume. Yeah. But, but, yeah, that was great.
Speaker 2:The other thing over the weekend, I feel like I I kept opening my phone and people would be talking about Excel in my mentions. Do you wanna talk about that Yeah. Sure. Screenshot I sent you? Yeah.
Speaker 2:We should do that. So so, anyways, we got our first, honest review of XL nicotine pouches from Capital Cowboy on x. He says, for anyone curious, here's my honest review of XL. Better smoother flavor than any ZYN I've had. Last significantly longer too.
Speaker 2:Had my cousin that can't handle Nick upset stomach at 3 milligrams try these, and he said that you got all the buzz without the stomach issues. So that is, the power of Excel. Obviously, I asked him, have you noticed anything different with your returns? Most users report, improvements after using Excel, and, Cowboy said, I actually got a promotion after using Excel. No joke.
Speaker 2:And, he said his buddy, Mark, got a promotion as well. And Mark said, using it and got a promotion a week after switching to the branch. Shit works. And I said, all it did all it did was make you more you. Right?
Speaker 2:Because you on nicotine is you on your best day. Right? It's you on 100% sleep score, you know, fully locked in. So, anyways, the reactions have been, reactions have been great. If you're a user and, you have any comments, feedbacks, product suggestions, or if you're interested in debt financing, through the Excel brand, reach out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sounds good. Should we do this, viral chain letter? I think this thing is so funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I have to start by saying I I I don't actually don't know if I have a copy of this one.
Speaker 1:So a bunch of celebrities have been sharing a, a copypasta text meme on their Instagrams and it says goodbye, Meta AI. Please note an attorney has advised us to put this on. Failure to do so may result in legal consequences. As Meta is now a public entity, all space space, all members must post a similar statement. If you do not post at least once it will be assumed you are okay with them using your information and photos.
Speaker 1:I do not give Meta or anyone else permission to use any of my personal data, profile information, or photos. And then and then the amazing thing is that is that, Meta has has appended, see why fact checkers say this is false. Checkers. Yeah. They added the fact check, like, like, modal, like, over it to just be, like and just so you know, this is misinformation.
Speaker 1:And it's just so funny. Tom Brady posted it.
Speaker 2:Really?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Julianne Moore and a bunch of other people. And it's just so funny. It's so boomer. I remember this happening, like, like, at the dawn of Facebook, like, maybe 10 years ago, and it's still happening.
Speaker 2:It would be like they change the terms of service. One skitzo person posts just, like, ramble. So many posts just like an absolute ramble. Yeah. And then it somehow picks up, And I only saw it on honestly, shout out to the people that I follow Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I only saw one person post it.
Speaker 1:Oh, unironically? Unironically.
Speaker 2:And that guy formally ran a public company.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So that was a bit concerning to me because I because I, yeah, I honestly yeah. I
Speaker 1:I mean, it's just like like, I get being a boomer and not understanding how the Internet works and being confused and stuff.
Speaker 2:I would just rewrite it.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. A a rewrite it, but b, like like, is there any is there any scenario as a public company where, you know, it's like, this is like the equivalent of, I don't know, like like holding up a sign outside of the outside of the White House and just being like, I want you to, you know Yeah. Yeah. It just it just makes no sense how this would be, like, legally binding or any sort of,
Speaker 2:like, way of getting an ephemeral story.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. On an ephemeral story. Is it all the way that you interact with a company. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like it's like leaving a review on a restaurant next and I I expect that to be, like, legally
Speaker 2:binding somehow. Because if if people are scraping your profile for data, which they are Yeah. To train models Yeah. The AI, like, the scraper, like, shows up on John at John Coogan Yeah. And they just start, like, sniffing around.
Speaker 2:And they're like and then they see, like, oh, you you added a story highlight and 3 months ago he posted this and the scraper goes, okay. Let's get out of here.
Speaker 1:Let's get out of here. This person's this person's really stupid.
Speaker 2:Or meta is just like Yeah. Scores the data.
Speaker 1:What if it actually winds up working? Because the AI is like, oh, yeah. We we we don't wanna train on people that under that, you know, are
Speaker 2:That could really open up to liability.
Speaker 1:Are just gullible.
Speaker 2:We don't wanna train on this people. Meta who already hosts all your data Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And tracks every single thing that you do on the app to use to do Yeah. And they're they're like, yeah. Yeah. This guy's big big no no on this guy.
Speaker 1:At the same time, like, the fact that this keeps happening does
Speaker 2:Say something about humanity.
Speaker 1:Say something about humanity, but also it's like it should be somewhat of a wake up call to Meta and, like, the actual employees there. But, like, your consumers don't understand you at all. Yeah. You need to probably do better to educate them about how things work.
Speaker 2:Which is which is why I'm long on Zuck's personal conquest Yeah. And value creation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm a fan of him. Yeah. I'm short on his public image because I think him getting cocky again and and and wearing shirts that say Zuck is inevitable Yeah. And Meta still being, like, basically at gonna be at the epicenter of all this drama around AI and, you know, generated content and all this stuff is, like, very short his public image. I think he enjoyed, like, a sort of temporary sort of, you know Yeah.
Speaker 2:Basically 2 year period where
Speaker 1:I do want him to mix it up because it's like so he's this, like, fashion god now and he's wearing, like, street wear and, like, baggy t shirts.
Speaker 2:And valor.
Speaker 1:But yeah. But, like, there is a way for him to wear like an impeccable suit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and and apply the same the same thought process Yeah. You have to have
Speaker 2:themes of
Speaker 1:to looking fantastic, but it's just in a suit. Yeah. And just do
Speaker 2:I mean, we just say that because it'd be good for
Speaker 1:business. Of course. But like like like it it it is interesting that, like, he's he's applied, like, I I now take fashion seriously, but I only apply it in this one very narrow, like
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like section of fashion. Like, I wanna see him look as fashionable, but also in a suit or also in a variety of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just like dress your age.
Speaker 1:Just like have yeah. Yeah. Have some more, like, reach and some and I think if he broadens out a little bit, he can class it up or or dress it down and he'll have more flexibility there. Yeah. He clearly found, like, a wheel a whole wheelhouse and he's just, like, doubling down on that and he's gotten rid of
Speaker 2:his algorithm. Yeah. You know, he's literally like an algorithm. He's like, wow. They liked when I wake so they didn't like when I wake boarded with all the sunscreen, but when I wakeboard and I hold a flag Yeah.
Speaker 2:People like that.
Speaker 1:He's a little bit of a filter.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna I'm okay. Then if if people like flags and wakeboarding, they probably like beef. I'm gonna show them my cattle ranch.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right? And then and then they're like, oh, I wore a watch and they like that, so I'm gonna get a more expensive watch. Yeah. Like an even even bigger hitter of a piece. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But that only that goes so like, that that you eventually get a negative reaction to that sort of doubling doubling down on everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I wonder where that will come from. I mean, is that a fantastic comment that would be To me apolitical.
Speaker 2:To me to me, the, the shirt the the Amiri shirt that says Zuck is inevitable is it's like, dude, you're obviously inevitable. You're a force. Yeah. You don't need to if you telling people you're inevitable is cringe. Right?
Speaker 2:People will already say that behind your back. Yeah. It's like a victory lap. Like, for what reason? Just just deliver
Speaker 1:I can't use your losses without logging into your Deliver returns
Speaker 2:to shareholders.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the only thing that matters. When when the stock eventually drops, people will be they'll they'll take pictures of that shirt and make it say, like, you know, $500,000,000,000 market cap cap is inevitable, you know, downturn.
Speaker 1:Do you think it was, like, just a funny joke? Do you think there's something to that?
Speaker 2:Is it funny?
Speaker 1:It might be funny. The
Speaker 2:If you gotta ask yourself, is it funny? Because it's
Speaker 1:probably not.
Speaker 2:So Every every time I say I take something too far
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I I break character.
Speaker 1:So so what I think that there's always this layer of humor that is different when it's coming from, like, somewhat as powerful as Zuck or Elon. Yeah. Like, I keep thinking about for for years, I was like, I love Elon, but man, these childlike hue the child the childlike humor is just not hitting with me. Yeah. The 69, 420 is just not finding me until he was in this interview with the BBC reporter and he says, do you like BBC?
Speaker 1:And and and it was so stupid. It's such a stupid joke, but he was laughing super hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was like, this is actually hilarious. Not because do you like asking a BBC reporter, do you like BBC? Is that funny?
Speaker 2:So it's
Speaker 1:funny because it's the world's richest man who's super powerful asking a reporter that. Yeah. Yeah. The context matters. And so, yeah, I this one, I'm not sure if that's funny.
Speaker 2:Here's what would be funny to me. If Zuck was on his hydrofoil wakeboard, you know, doing his thing in his meta glasses, and then in the scenery and he's in Kauai or whatever.
Speaker 1:He's in
Speaker 2:his retreat. And on the hillside behind him, it's literally like using a lawnmower, like, carved into the grass. It says, like, Zuck is inevitable, and it's not, like, so front and center. That would be funny because seeing that image of him just, like, riding his little, like, hydrofoil thing, and then you're, like, wait. Did he he carved in, like, a football field of grass?
Speaker 2:Like, Zuck is inevitable? Like, that's that's cool. That's ridiculous. Make a monument. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Or yeah. So Yeah. Zuck, when you listen to this, make monuments.
Speaker 1:He he I mean, he made a monument in his backyard of his wife.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. That was a piece. Yeah. So he he he's
Speaker 1:gonna do some stuff. I don't know. I think I
Speaker 2:respect Zach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I I don't know where
Speaker 2:there's there's just a difference though and like what I'm talking about is like respect versus likability and I'll always respect him. Yeah. I've gone through periods where I sort of like him Yeah. And I don't like him.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And Are you worried that he's like
Speaker 2:Not that it matters, but for him, he clearly cares about what people think about him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So my advice would be, you know, dial it back. And and I just think people, you know, he has, like, a PR team around him Yeah. And, like, image consultants and stylists and stuff like that. It's, like, just be more be more creative.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Definitely needs more breath to the to the stunts and whatnot. More and more more humor and more fun.
Speaker 2:More fun.